Welcome Home Elder Carpenter

Hey Mom and Dad,
I'm sorry...no audio. I didn't have enough time to make any this week I'm sorry but I figured I'll just let you know face to face on Wednesday. Things are going well here. I'm getting ready to head home. I'll take the plane at 9:29 Wednesday morning from St.George to Salt Lake City, then to Detroit and plan to be in Montreal Wednesday night at 7:46. I'll see you there! I have to get running because Elder Hayden and I are going to go play some tennis. He's really good so I love playing with him. I'll tell you all about all the on Wednesday night. I love you sooooooo much!

Back to missionary work!!!

Hey Mom & Dad!!!! The picture was taken at President and Sister Myers home on Christmas Eve. I'm leaving tomorrow morning to go with Elder Hayden so I have to go home and pack up. I am going to try to send some stuff home so I don't have to bring it on the plane. We had a good p-day today and still plugging away even though many of our investigators are away from school right now. Tomorrow the 28th one of our investigators is getting baptized in Roy (Jonathan's old area). She wanted to get baptized up north with all her family and friends. So now I get to plug away in Spanish and train the missionaries in the zone and get them going again before I leave. I don't want to let the mission president down because there are a lot of missionaries who let him down and it is sad. Other than that I don't know what awaits this week in my new zone so we'll see how that goes. Well that's about it. I love you as always and appreciate everything you do for me!!!

It's Christmas already!!!

Hey Mom & Dad!!! I’m not sending you a long e-mail because we will be talking on Saturday. I am not in my other area yet, I am still here in a threesome with Elders Lowther and Jensen till next Tuesday when I move in with Elder Hayden. Then we will be back to weekly e-mails. We will be with the Adams family at one o’clock on Christmas day. We will probably be having several dinners that day and go around showing Luke 2 to everyone.
I wanted to say how I have really learned a lot about how the Church works and everything since we work with so many bishoprics. My p-day is still Monday. I am happy to finish in Spanish just as I started. I just love Spanish and I want to continue to master it and use when I get home. Things are going well here in our area. Three baptisms last week including Stephanie Nelson on Saturday and Byanna from Taiwan on Sunday. The Spirit was there and they got to bear their testimonies afterwards which is always awesome to hear new converts bear their testimonies. Things are slowing a little though as students are leaving for Christmas break and we only taught 37 lessons last week. So we’ve been out and about getting new investigators to teach and we have a new one to teach tomorrow. We are happy to teach people about the true meaning of Christmas and I know there are people whose minds and thoughts are turned towards the Savior and we need to bring the restored gospel into their lives. We are getting ready for the new missionaries coming in on Tuesday and get the transfer calls done and the transfer van schedule all done. What a wonderful time of the year. We have been having really bad weather here in St.George. It’s been raining for a week straight. I have never seen weather like this in St.George, but we are still going to play soccer tomorrow morning. I am really looking forward to hearing your voices on Saturday. Love you for all you do!!

I'm Coming Home Feb. 2!!!!

Hello from the Mission Office!!! This week we are working on the transfer board. This week we are going to sit down with President Leonard and go over all the transfers. We didn't have much of a p-day today as Pres.Leonard was in he office and he kept us here. He did order a pizza for us and then we helped with a baptismal interview of a ninety-year old woman. We didn't get to play any sports but we did some shopping and took an hour nap because we are pretty tired. We had a wonderful baptism on Saturday for Drew Thomas the football player from Dixie College. Very spiritual baptism and I confirmed him on Sunday. Last week we went up to Price to train ZL's. Got to see good old Price and Wellington and taught 4 lessons with Elder Richardson and we even found a new investigator. He has been out 5 months now and hasn't had a baptism yet so I gave him some support. It was good to travel again with Elders Laurie and Goodman even though we only took them to Richfield. It really is something to go out and tour the mission and see old friends. The departing missionaries leave next week and the incoming ones come the week before. We hope to have 4 or 5 baptisms in the next few weeks. We are trying to teach everyone before they go home for the holidays. We taught 39 lessons last week and 7 today. We are wondering what we will do during the Christmas break. I wanted to let you know I have my flight plans for 8 weeks from now. I'll be in Montreal Feb.2 at 7:46PM. I leave St.George at 9:29AM and go to SLC and then Detroit without any long layovers. I get to travel with Elders Esquy and Olson till Detroit. Things are really going well here. We always have so much to do with the mission and teaching all these lessons. We are teaching a guy named Sean Barry who is a friend of Elder Wilkinson an Area Authority Seventy who called President Leonard to ask him to send his best missionaries to teach Sean and President Leonard gave him our number. That was really cool teaching with a General Authority Seventy. Sean is really looking to know God and follow God and have faith. He just wants to know how everyone is able to have this great faith and knowledge. I have to go , but I love you guys and have a great week!!!!

The Lord is pouring out more blessings upon us!!!!

Hey Mom & Dad,
Please thank the Blakemore’s for me, I really appreciate all their news and updates. Please let them know that I tried looking for that person that Brother Blakemore asked me about and I cannot find him. We looked in the phonebook and a few other places but couldn’t find anything.
I bought a new pair of shoes today for $33 at Ross. We still walk a lot even with a car. Taught 41 lessons last week and I had the privilege of baptizing Jonathan Lawson and the baptism was so great and the spirit was so strong and we had a couple of investigators there including Jonathan’s grandfather who is not a member. Well he must have felt the spirit because he talked to one of his member friends about some questions he had about the baptism and now he is going to start seeing the missionaries!!!! He will taught by other missionaries because we teach only young single adults. Just goes to show what can happen if you get people out to baptisms where the Spirit is felt just like it says in the D&C 84:20. Our next baptism will be Drew the big football player from Dixie College. He does everything we ask him, he goes to church every week, reads everything we give him, doesn’t have a problem with tithing or the word of wisdom. He is just a great guy and will be baptized on Dec.4. Heavenly Father just keeps pouring out blessings upon us. We are finding people and we are getting referrals. We are seeing the fruits of our labors and the fruits of the Holy Ghost who carries everything to the hearts of the hearer. It is so incredible to see on my mission what happens when the heart changes – their countenance changes, everything they do changes. I just love being here and so happy I came out on my mission. I am so excited for the next two months. Thank you for always teaching me to serve a mission!!!
For thanksgiving we going to play football in the morning and then eat with the Adams family and the Stoker family who I haven’t even met yet. Tomorrow I am going to Cedar City on an exchange and teach in Spanish again. I can’t wait to get home and speak Spanish with everyone. Alex Armstrong is also getting ready to be baptized. I enjoy working with the young adults. I jnow I don’t have much time left and so I am enjoying it more. I am a ten time better missionary than when I started and my testimony is so much stronger. Thank you again for all you do for me, and just in case you are wondering he Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith was a prophet and don’t you ever forget it because I would have been home long ago if it wasn’t. I am going to finish my mission strong. I have heard every doubt and concern about the church here in Utah and nothing can shake me now. Have a great week and say hi to everyone for me especially Jonathan and Chris. Bye for now!!!

It's Crazy and Incredible Here in the Mission!!!

Elder Jensen is with us now. He will be my new companion having been newly called as an assistant and arriving last Wednesday. We’ve been having a blast, maybe too much but we still get the work done. Incredibly, we taught 59 lessons last week even though it was transfer week and we were looking at the board checking the options. We split up every evening from 6 to 9 o’clock. We had 5 baptisms last week: Brittany Craig, Kara Anderson, Heather Suzuki, Kaylee & Kaylee-Anne Peterson all got baptized. It was a great week and a lot of investigators came to church. Our area is just exploding and going crazy right now, that’s why our area is getting split, because we cover two single adult stakes, the St-George YSA first Stake and the St-George YSA second Stake, but Elder Jensen has just come in and he’ll be my new companion we’ll cover the first Stake and Elder Laurie is being released for his final two transfers he’ll be a zone leader and train a new zone leader Elder Goodman, who is one of my close friends in the mission and they will work together serving the second stake and they will also serve as traveling elders going around the mission and visit different companionships that might be struggling and that need some extra training and help them out sharing their experiences with them. President Leonard really wants to use Elder Laurie and Elder Goodman to help the mission out, and I think it’s a good idea. There is so much work being done we had to split our area. I think it will be good for the investigators because we will be able to focus on the first Stake now and build that up even more, find even more people to be taught and do our best to baptize the people that we have. We already have a couple of baptisms coming up in the first Stake. A young man named John on November 20th and a few others as well. There should be no reason to teach under thirty lessons a week in the first stake maybe even more than that, maybe even forty. Elder Jensen and I should do great. Things are going great missionary wise. We just found another new investigator today. On Sunday being fast and testimony we had to go from Sacrament meeting to sacrament meeting to attend all the different confirmations and in each sacrament meeting we got to bear our testimonies, and in the Green Valley YSA ward we bore our testimonies. Later that same day we got a call from a girl who was at the service who had a friend there at the meeting and he asked her if he could meet with us, so we set up a time for tonight and we went by and taught him, his name is Drew and he was on the Dixie State football team but he no longer is playing. He is just a very humble guy who is curious and wants to learn about the church and wants to come and investigate, so Elder Jensen and I are really excited to be able to teach him. Things are going well in that respect. Elder Jensen and I get along great; we are going to have a lot of fun. We also teach well together. I will miss Elder Laurie of course and his wisdom, but it will be a good stretch for me, a good stretch of my capacities. I will get to learn and grow a lot and these next three month are going to be incredible. I will have to be on my toes for the rest of my mission. There is no way I can get trunky because there is sooo much work to be done, I cannot be on cruise control with so much going on.
The mission itself is really doing well. The numbers are steadily rising week by week. Last week in the mission we had 42 baptisms. It is the highest number of baptisms we’ve had since the formation of the St-George mission. Just a lot of work going on, and Elder Jensen and I will try to be the best assistants we can be and help raise the mission and train the zone leaders to in turn train the district leaders so they can train the missionaries.
I have to get going to train the trainers, but I love you guys very much, so have a good week!!!!

Our Area is Exploding!!!!

Hey Mom & Dad!! There's lots going on down here. I had to go for my blood test on Friday and while I was there this girl named Whitney was taking my blood so I asked her if she knew anything about the Church and she gave us her phone number and address and although she cancelled our first meeting, we went out to Hurricane to visit her tonight. Her Dad who is a Lutheran answered the door said they were having supper so we agreed to come back Wednesday. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Our area is absolutely exploding. We'll be looking at the transfer board this week with Pres.Leonard. We also have 6 baptisms this week, 2 on Friday and 4 on Saturday. We taught 55 lessons last week. Tonight we did splits and taught 7 lessons. We plan to have 19 people at Sacrament this week. It's just crazy. We're getting referrals and we're meeting people all the time. We met a girl named Kelsey the other day and we went with Elder Goodman to see her and she has just lost her best friend and wanted to know if we had anything that could comfort her and we showed her lots of scriptures and told her about modern prophets and asked her to get baptized and she said yes. We're just meeting people like that all the time. We're looking at having 13 baptisms for November!! We couldn't even go out Halloween night so we stayed in the office and worked. We are even teaching with our recent converts and that is incredible to hear them bear their testimonies. Oh you asked if we need winter tires in St.George - Are you kidding?? There is no winter here. Speaking of cars, we just got a brand new Malibu today. Gotta go now, certainly appreciate all your prayers and everything you do for me. Love you - Bye!!!