Baptism!

Well Hi!!

Everything's great here. Super cool! Well, not really super "cool", but you know what I mean. I'm realizing a little bit what I'm doing here. I have a couple things I want to show people when I get home. A movie called "Healing Waters" is absolutely amazing. The Joseph Smith Movie (the most recent one) is my absolute favorite along with "The Testaments" lol, soooo cheesy... :D So I'll go through all of the things that helped me keep growing when I get home. It should be fun!

Singing at Zone Conference

Two Tuesdays ago, I was asked to perform in Zone Conference. I sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing for 5 zones worth of missionaries and for President Hoer and wife. The last time I got to see him!!! He leaves Wed or Thurs!!! :( But Pres Bishop gets here tomorrow. So it'll be exciting to meet him.

There was a farewell party last Sunday-not yesterday, last Sunday (June 20), for a member going to serve in the Chinese Army. It's a requirement to go for a year. Every young man has to. So that's why missions are hard to serve for a Taiwanese Elder. But this young man was leaving, and the wards threw a farewell party. Elder Krantz and I were invited. Our most recent Baptism, Zhang Shu Wei, was there, along with Huang Dixiong. It was fun. Got to eat curry, and some weird dessert thing. But they asked me to sing again, and I sang the "We Have Been Born" song. Solo. Along with As I Have Loved You. Buy my rendition does not match up with the Japanese woman who sang it (in Japanese) right before me. So cool! That's another point where it was testified to me that the church is true. An Asian woman, from Japan, singing As I Have Loved You, in Japanese...Considering that's where Dad went, I was stoked to hear it, and the Spirit was SO there. Then I sang and ruined the atmosphere...:P But they said I was good. It felt good to use my talents out here on my mission. In my second year, I'm allowed to start playing musical instruments on Preparation Day. So we'll see what happens.

Well, It's been a good week. President Hoer leaves soon, but I get the feeling that not a lot is going to change. I have never set so many goals in my life, and actually figure out how to accomplish them. I can't live without a planner now. And I have set high goals, for my mission, and I will tell you some as I accomplish them I think. There's too many to list.

But here's a few.

Read the BoM every six weeks. Get to 180 pounds. Run a 5:30 mile. Run a 2:07 800m (Lindsey! Help! I don't know how to do that. Or how to train right to get there by the end of my mission. I only have three days a week to run. And a half hour to do it. A track to run on, but not certain. What do I do? Especially in this humid weather? I just ran a 6:51 mile on an ingrown toenail and pushing my lungs out of my eyeballs... so hard! How do I improve? That is 20 seconds better than the first time I timed my mile, though...), Pass off Phase 1 this move call, Phase 2 in two more move calls, and Phase 3 in another 2 move calls. Then review. Have all the mission materials studied through by the year mark. Then start studying dictionaries, other words, and characters. Then the last 6 months of my mission start writing all of them, and read the BoM in characters twice. My Personal Study is planned out to the minute. No joke. I have times of the day where I don't allow myself to eat. I, obviously, have things I want to buy, but those will all come later. I have a lot of continue on after my mission goals already. But I've never had so many written down! Four pages! Four categories with 8 or 9 subcategories in each! I'm growing so fast!

I still feel like my language is poop. Like I couldn't understand a thing yesterday. Or speak for that matter. But I've passed off lessons one and two lately, and working on three this week, four next week, and five after that. Hopefully done by the end of the move call. Ah! But it feels good to have the goals, because when you achieve goals you didn't think you could, it's amazing! Then you reevaluate if you can't make it, and don't beat yourself up over it. I'm doing surprisingly well at that. So far.

Contacting. (We asked Elder Carter to tell us more about contacting people in the middle of the street.)They don't really get mad. They're all just impatient usually. We come up to a red light and immediately pull up to any man around and say things like, "have you heard of this church?" "Have you been before?" "Did you like it?" "What do you believe?" "We're very similar" "Why do you think there are so many churches today?" "Too many churches, right?" "So which one is true?" "I know, right now, that you don't believe our church, and every church will always say 'our church is the true church!' right? So why should you come to ours?" "Because our church has been restored. It was restored in 1820...." Stuff like that. Then we get them to meet with us, or come to church, and then we give the baptismal commitment. "I know, right now, you don't know if our church is true, right? Well, on this date, we have a baptismal service. At that time, if you know this church is true and that it will help your family and your life be better, will you receive baptism?" They usually say yes, because, of course, if you knew any church was true and knew that it would help you, you would want to join, right? But this is a little different, because our church will help you have an "eternal" family, and eternal blessings. Everyone says yes, when we say that. "This is a goal. It's ok, if you don't believe, right now. No one does when they first hear. I was baptized when I was eight. Do you think I knew what I was doing? Not really. But I did it anyway, and NOW I understand and believe in my church. Then? I didn't have a lot of knowledge or care. But I was able to prepare and receive baptism.... Anyway. That's what we do on the streets.

We teach 30 lessons a week. We add 60 investigators a week. 40 plus have a baptismal date. 5 or so come through to the next week as still progressing. And so on, until we get a baptism.

More about Pres Bishop, Elder Krantz, and my area (including some of the Less Actives and Recent Converts) next email. Sorry! Never have any time... :( And remind me to tell you about Zone Leader Exchanges. So good. :D Oh, and a couple stories of people we met on the street in a park and by the family mart.

Love you!!!

-Elder Carter