Make It Up to Ya........

This week was super sweet! There were some cool miracles that happened this week! The first being that I was able to go to the Family History Center with Jamie on tuesday! Basically she just showed me a bunch of pictures of our family. She showed me my Grandfathers wedding photo, which was crazy! He had hair, and was rollin with the super skinny tie! It was so cool that we were able to see all these pictures and information! The next part of the week was completely full! We are moving into an apartment instead of the house so we had to DEEP CLEAN the house. Missionaries have lived there for years and so it was a really hard task but we eventually got it done! We moved everything over to our new apartment with is actually right next to the one I had in Fairview! Pretty cool haha. Elder Linford also had to pack for Brazil. We had a super huge ward christmas party, and they asked all the missionaries to sing. So ya we performed in front of the whole ward, the more I have to sing, the less I like it! 

The biggest miracle this week was the baptism of Theodore and Princess! It was such a spiritual meeting and I was so blessed to be able to confirm Princess a member of the Church! It was my highlight of the week! I loved it! 

So transfers are here and I am staying! Elder Linford left for Brazil this morning so I will be getting a new companion. Literally, he will be brand new haha they asked me to train again. The Assistants called me on Sunday night and asked me to be a trainer again. They said "We were really sad to see Elder Linford go and also sad you didn't get to finish training, so President decided to make it up to you." I was like ok cool I would love to train, and then they said "going along with President making it up to you, we would like to extent a call for you to be the District leader in the Panama district." So I guess Presidents idea of "making it up to you" is more responsibility haha. I am actually excited even though I would never have wanted to admit it earlier in my mission. I am really nervous because I want to help the missionaries here as best I can, but I have never been a district leader before...so ya we will have to see how this goes down! I hope each and every one of you have a wonderful week and an amazing Christmas! 

 

Elder Carper

Surprises in South Bakersfield

 

 

This week has been absolutely crazy! We got like no work done in our area but we were busy every second of the day! Tuesday we were on exchanges with our District Leader. We had to do it week 3 so that our District Leader could make sure I was actually training Elder Linford right. I went with his companion Elder Thomas. He was super interesting, I asked him if he liked sports and he said "I only like sports that are thousands of years old." Ya he jousts....Im not kidding. At that moment I knew we had nothing in common haha. On wednesday we figured out that the South Sisters went home, for reasons unknown, and we are taking over their area. This is the second time I have had to take over someones area while keeping my own. Its in no way fun, and its frusterating. The good news is that the sisters were pretty good missionaries and they had planned for us and had stuff for us to do. We inherited their car, its a pretty sick Ford Fusion! Also on wednesday we got a new phone, and the transition took like 2 hours! It was pretty lame we didnt get to work nearly as much as I would have liked. Thursday was a good day, we had dinner with Elder Moyes, the mission medical dude. It was sick cause his daughter married a spanish guy and so we had a ton of mexican food on top of normal stuff! Then we had another dinner with a less active family, by the time we were done I was in some serious pain! Not really but it was hard to go work, all the doors we knocked on were really rude. I dont blame them honestly but whatevs! 

The Highlight of my week happened on Friday! I got a refferal last monday from my Grandma to go see my cousin who just moved to Bakersfield. She gave me the address and she just so happens to live in my tiny area! That is for sure a testimony that the Lord knows where his children are at all times! We finally found time to go over there on friday and I was able to talk to Jamie (my cousin) for a long time about her history with the church as well as some funny stories about my relatives! It was so awesome to be able to meet her. She said that for Christmas her Mom and brother and Sister are coming. So hopefully i get to see them again as well! 

The other cool news is that Elder Linford got his visa. He will be leaving on December 15th. Im super sad that I dont get to finish training him! It has been a really good experience for me! Ill miss that little kid...who is actually older than me. Anyways I love you all! Keep the missionaries in your prayers and always remember that Christ is the center of everything!

 

Elder Carper

 

This is the rough draft of our christmas card!

Cali lifestyle...kinda

This has been a week full of super awesome and scary surprises! Most of our time has been dedicated to finding. It has been tiring for sure but I like talking to people and testifying, even if they arent interested I can still feel the spirit. Elder Linford is getting more and more used to doing door contacts by himself and teaching. He also admitted that even though role playing isnt fun in any way, it is totally worth it. One of the things that I found that really helped out was teaching the restoration in front of a mirror. That way you can see your facial expressions as you teach and you can change things so that you dont look like a robot. We gave the training in district meeting last friday. It was on the importance of listening, it was a good thing we actually planned it out because Sister Wilson(President's wife) came to our meeting. Everything went really well she thanked us afterward for doing a good job, so either she actually liked it or she felt bad. That day we found a sweet new investigator named Jon, he is way awesome and super prepared. We are meeting with him next friday after thanksgiving to set him with a baptismal date. I am super excited for him! Saturday was also super cool cause we taught the restoration at a baptism. Guess who showed up? President and Sister Wilson...for real I was so happy we have been doing 12 week and really practicing. Cause I would have been in more trouble than Elder Linford cause I am supposed to teach him this stuff. It went really well though, there were a few non members that I could pick out that I hope with all my heart felt the spirit as we testified of the Restoration. Since we are on bike, we had to ask a member to give us a ride home. We asked Elder Moyes who is the 1st counselor in the bishopric and also the Medical Advisor for the mission, for a ride home. He took us home in his convertible Chevy Camaro SS. It was flippin sweet! He put the top down, blasted some Motab, and showed us what that car could do. It honestly was a super cool highlight! I felt like I belonged in Cali, apart from the Motab of course. 

Although things have been going really well, the ward has put a lot of pressure on us to get their sons out on missions. There are 4 young men who are ready to go but have no desire to do so, and since we are the only Elders in the ward, the Moms as well as the Bishop have asked us to basically work miracles. So we have some work to do! So far we started just befriending them and making sure they know we are real people. We are gonna be playing sports with them and their non member friends sometime this week, I am pretty excited. All but 1 of them plays soccer so I am stoked!

This week has been great and this next week will be even better! I am super excited to be here, oh and I just got a refferal to go see a relative of mine that just happens to live in my area! Coincidence? No such thing! I hope yall have the best week ever!

 

Elder Carper

PANAMA!!!!

So I am out of the Lone Pine and back in South Bakersfield. Actually I am right next to Fairview ward and in the Panama ward. I see people I knew all the time, its pretty sweet! As I said last week I am training and its going pretty well actually. Oddly enough I am really enjoying training. Its pretty fun and it really isnt that hard. My greenie is Elder Linford, he is from Nampa Idaho. He is way sick, he wasnt the annoying Greenie that I was afraid of getting. He is very humble and teachable but is also very eager to learn. Elder Linford is waiting for his Visa to go to Brazil, and so he has to do an hour of language study every day. So in total with the 12 week program we do 4 hours of study every single day! Basically while he is doing language study I stare at the wall and wish the time would go by fast so we can go work. We are on bikes and its pretty fun, people recognize us better this way. Mostly this week we visited all the members in our area and introduced ourselves. We are working with them pretty closely actually. We have a big list of missionary work ideas that we commit them to do and then follow up the next time they see us. There are three sets of missionaries in our ward, us on bike, and then 2 sets of Sisters, one on car and one on bike. Its pretty fun, it means that the Elders quorum is all ours to use. I have been pretty annoying to them, being all like "Hey when can you come with us this week?" To every single Elder and High Priest. Its ok though cause Im used to getting what I want. We did have a lesson this week from the only investigator the other Elders left us with. Her name is Tessa, she professes to be an Athiest but I dont believe her. I told her that I didnt and she just changed the subject. So this week we are going to be meeting with her again and if she keeps at it than we are going to have to drop her. We cant waste time with people who arent prepared by the Lord when we could be finding the people who are. Its sad to say it but its true, we dont have enough hours in the day! This week we will be finding all the time, Elder Linford isnt a fan of knocking doors, so I said he better learn to like it cause thats what needs to be done. Of course I said it in a way that teased him but I dont remember what I said. So ya I am super happy to be here in Panama and I am really excited to be in a ward that supports missionary work and does missionary work. It will be grand! Here are some pictures of my last night in Lone Pine! First picture is of us and the Rodriguez family, its not a good picture but the others are super blurry. The second is a picture of us with Eddy Ivey who will someday join the church and serve a mission hopefully! Love you all, the church is true!!

Elder Carper

We Started a Revolution

So....they are shutting Lone Pine down for missionaries. Pretty sad but we knew it was going to happen. President Wilson kept threatening the Branch President that he would take us out if he kept resisting us. So now there is no longer a Lone Pine area in the mission. I hope they will reopen it soon but I dont know for sure of course! Its been a sad few days, normally we get our transfer calls Sunday Night and leave 2 days later but President called us Saturday morning and told us the news. So we have been cleaning the apartment hardcore because they are going to sell it. Packing doesnt take nearly as long to do but it still takes time. I am insanely excited to go knock doors and teach people though! For real I cant wait, I miss it! The unfortunate news of the week is that I will be training a new missionary. The assistants called me yesterday and asked me to be a trainer, now I know they hate me. Cause not only am I white washing an area, I am also training. So whoopee for me :( Sorry, I shouldnt sound so excited! We have to leave lone pine at 6am tomorrow in order to be at the trainers meeting at 9am before transfer meeting at 1030. No doubt they are going to lecture us on obedience. I am totally cool with obedience, It is absolutely essential and I am not arguing its importance. But when you serve in a mission that prints and official document stating that we are not allowed to give high fives, it gets annoying. A few times I found myself worrying more about not breaking the rules than actually doing missionary work, so that should tell you something. Anyways even though I am a bit excited I am still nervous, it didnt help that they kept telling me that training is the most important job in the mission and that our whole mission standard is set by our first few months. No pressure right? Lets hope I dont screw this kid up haha nah I am excited to have some greenie fire around all the time. 

 

In other news, the people of Independence and Lone Pine are planning on writing President Wilson an angry letter signed by everyone as to why they need missionaries. We had dinner at the Ivey's home who arent members, and the whole time the Dad was thanking us and talking about how much we are apart of the society and that he honestly thinks it will struggle for a little while once we are gone. I was sad to hear that they are closing the area because I felt like we failed. I have always been able to leave my areas better than when I found them, the wards begin to do good things and then I get transferred. So hearing Steve Ivey thank us and tell Elder Ditty and I how influential we are to the town and how much the town relies on us really brought a lot of peace to my heart, especially when he thanked us for being good examples to his son. So even if the Branch here doesnt do well I can at least say I helped out the town, and that makes it worth it! I find out where I am going and who my new companion is tomorrow morning so I will be in touch! I hope yall have a good week and I hope yall stay safe!

 

Elder Carper

We Do This Forever

Random event of the week....we found a lady walking down the street with her kids, and she asked us to explain what we do as missionaries to them. In the middle of our explanation she told them that we dedicate our entire lives to this. That we dont have families and the church pays us. I was like uh....not true haha. Needless to say she got us mixed up with Nuns. Could be worse I guess but it took us a long time to convince her otherwise, she was from Canada (too bad) and was pretty nice.

The other cool stuff that happened this week included exchanges with the Bishop Elders and some breakthroughs with some Less Actives! Wednesday was our exchange day and we went and did some service for a Less Active family who lives on the Native Rez. I almost got my ankle smashed between a rock and a tractor shovel. The guy had stopped moving so I went in the load it up and then he decided to move forward even more. The guy across from me started screaming for him to stop but luckily I pulled my foot out, now all I have to show for it is a gnarly bruise on my ankle! After our fun at service we got a call from a lady in Fresno asking us to give her son a blessing in Lone Pine. We went over there and her son was just chillin and watching the world series. I guess somehow he hit his hand against a nail and it went all the way to the bone. He didnt want a blessing but he was willing to talk to us for a while. He is an avid skier and downhill mountain biker so in short...we had a lot to talk about! He let us share a message at the end and I shared one of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon. Its Moroni 7:46-48. It says: 46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

It was a cool feeling in the room that I am sure he enjoyed. We talked a bit about what Charity is and I explained how paul describes Charity as the "bond of perfectness." It was a good discussion that I was happy to have! We have been able to meet with more and more less actives than we have in the previous weeks. The Branch President announced in Sacrament meeting that unless the ward begins to help with missionary work, President Wilson is going to pull missionaries out. It wouldnt happen for another few months but I am hoping the branch does something! All of the members are very well known throughout the town and could be an incredible influence! I hope they get it together soon! I was really happy about being able to teach this week, I was surprised to see that I can still teach even though we havent been able to for a long time. Studying every day pays off for sure! I hope yall have a wonderful week!

Elder Carper

Service

These past couple weeks have been flying by for sure! Again we have been doing service service service! We volunteer a lot for the Lone Pine Chamber of Commerce, they ask us to do a bunch of stuff from taking signs down to cleaning up the park. We have been helping the members out a lot as well. We do farm work with some Less Active members and we do a lot of service up at the Fish Hatchery. It is all pretty fun! I have been sick for the past week though, some kind of head cold. Its been miserable but it hasnt stopped me. Definitely slowed down the labor part of the work though haha. I now sound like a zombie even though I feel completely fine! The Branch is doing good, they dont help with missionary work at all but they are nice people. President Wilson has all but decided to take missionaries out of Lone Pine all together given the fact that we dont teach. Today I actually asked him to transfer me out, as much as I love Lone Pine and the people here, I am losing my mind. I was called to teach and I dont get to do that. As weird as it sounds I enjoy knocking doors and talking about the gospel all the time. It is great! The one thing that I am grateful for being here is that I was afraid my spiritual side would weaken from being here and not teaching all the time when I got here. So my studies have been a lot more meaningful and my prayers have as well. One of the cool things that I have been really studying is a talk by Elder Oaks titled "The Challenge to Become." it is a fantastic talk with a lot to learn. One of the many things I have come to find is that we should base our worship on experiences. The spirit will never let you forget very spiritual experiences if you stay close to the gospel, and I have found that whenever I begin to have doubts or whenever I dont want to do something. My mind goes back to memories of spiritual experiences. So no matter what happens to me personally or those around me, I can look back and say "because of those experiences, I know God lives and loves me." I am surprised at how often I need to remind myself but the answer is always the same, when I am reminded of the things I know to be true I always feel the sweet confirmation of the spirit. I hope there is no question in anyones mind of whether or not I know the Book of Mormon is truth. That God lives and is aware of everything we are going through, and that He knows our pains and sorrows, and is there waiting with open arms for us to come to him in comfort. I know that if we do the things he asks, we will be blessed and comforted. The gospel is the only way to be truly happy in this life and especially the next. I hope you all have a good week!

Elder Carper

I Live in Non-Mormon Utah

This week has been boring in comparison to most. Last monday we went up to bishop and went hiking and screwed around in the mountains. It was fun, I love being up here it is just like Utah! My camera died so I dont have pictures and Elder Walker forgot his camera so I will send pictures right when I can! The Lake we went to was Sabrina (Sub-rye-na) Lake. It was up in the mountains in Bishop, and it was raining so we were all wet. It was way fun! There was a super sick looking stream that we tried to get some cool shots of waterfalls, we were successful but it made my shoes all wet. Today we are going to the Manzanar memorial prison. It was a WW2 Japanese American Prison camp and so we are gonna go check it out, and then we are gonna go screw around in the alabama hills. I am pretty pumped about it it will be fun. The Bishop Elders and the Sisters are gonna come to so it will be fun. 

 

This week has been all service all the time. I have been out of Pros more than in it. We are doing everything from helping old couples move furniture to landscaping work at an old fish hatchery. It is for sure fun but it is physically exhausting! Things are getting a lot better though, as in with the work. The people here know us by name and will call us for stuff. Just about all of them are not interested in the church but they love the Elders. We get fed more by non members than we do by the members. Which isnt saying much because on a good week we will get fed like 3 times. The members here are super awesome though I love them! 

 

We had to give talks yesterday, my talk was on "The Witness" by president packer. It went pretty well, I basically just bore my testimony for 15 minutes of the truths that I have come to know and love. I was way nervous, I dont like speaking in church. Whether its at home with over 500 people or here with 20 people. Everybody liked it though so that was good. It wasnt a total flop haha. It was a solid week though! 

Elder Carper

Mammoth, Blood, Guts, Moccasins

This past week has been SICK! Last Monday Elder Walker and I went up Whitney Portal and did some solid trail sessions below Mt. Whitney. We did that for a while and then got a call from the Bishop Elders asking if we wanted to go up to Mammoth and see if they have some cool Labor Day sales. I didnt really want to but Elder Walker did. I soon changed my mind once I got up to Mammoth! I was tired so I had Elder Walker drive up there, and when I woke up I thought I was in Park City! No joke I was in heaven!!!! Ski shops everywhere, snow capped mountains, weird German tourists that kept asking us for directions. All of it was so sick! Honestly this area is the best area EVER! Im so happy up here its awesome! The other sick thing that happened was I bought some sick moose leather Moccasins! They are so comfortable its unreal :) So last monday was great!

 

The rest of the week was super service oriented. I think we have done about 30 or 35 hours of service. The limit is 10 but President told us not to worry about it. A pretty cool thing happened to us on wednesday though! We were walking along the street and a guy pulled up, got out and said that he stopped just to talk to us. He had seen the book of mormon play. I was pretty worried but he went on and said that his "friend" was really sad that the hotel he was staying at had a bible but not a book of mormon, so he asked if he could have one to give to his friend. Whether there is a friend or not I dont know but it was actually nice to have been approached first!

 

Saturday was probably the most exciting day. We got to go dove hunting with our investigator and since we werent allowed to shoot, we just fetched the dead birds. It was way fun, I almost killed our investigator when he ripped the head off of one of the doves and got blood on my shirt and on my tie. Dude I almost lost it I was so mad! That seriously was a fun day though. It was pretty funny because there were 3 hunters there all stacked out with gear. Then there was Elder Walker and I with our white shirts and ties, I felt a bit out of place but whatever! It was for sure a sick week! I was pretty stoked last week that I hit my year mark! I would say the time went by super fast, but it does feel like a year. I just think it seems fast because you realize that a year is not a very long time at all. It has been a lot of fun though, its been for sure hard. Definitely the hardest thing I have done but its also very fulfilling! 

 

Love you guys! Have a fantastic week!

 

Elder Carper

 

this is a sick background showing the ugly side of the Sierra Nevadas. I say Ugly because in comparison to the view from our apartment its not very impressive!

 

LONE PINE

So I am pretty sure I am not a normal missionary anymore. In all of our emails President Wilson keeps telling me that the work here is not like anywhere else. I am starting to see what he means. Elder Walker and I don't really proselyte, the only proselyting we do is walk along the main street and talk to drunk Indians and tourists from Europe. I met a Japanese guy on Thursday though, that was pretty cool. As I said though, we don't do normal proselyting. We give service most of the day, hard labor and yard work stuff, and then we play basketball with investigators the rest of the night. It is really weird and at first I thought I was a horrible person for having fun outside of P-day but so far it is working. The town people know who we are and they have begun asking questions. It is hard to give a short and simple answer without leading into anything else but slowly and surely the work is moving forward! 

 

On the downside of things, our truck Bathsheba was taken from us. We had to drive 3 hours down to Palmdale and pick up our "new car" with is a crappy corolla that already has 50000 miles on it. So we will probably have to do the drive again, hopefully soon the mission gets the Jeeps that President Wilson keeps talking about. That would be really nice to have 4 wheel drive again. The corolla just can't do off road and so that greatly limits the things we can do. 

 

Other cool things that have happened was we went rabbit hunting with Eddy our investigator and Emma who is a member of the branch. They are both like 17 I think...I cant remember but anyways Emma shot a rabbit with a bow and Eddy skinned it. It was really cool looking, Emma almost cried while Eddy ripped all the insides out. I felt super out of place cause everybody was talking about hunting. All I could really say was "I shot a bird with an airsoft gun once.." either way it was a good day! 

Right now we are waiting for the Elders up in Bishop to come down so we can go hiking, they are taking forever. After our hike we are gonna go up to Mammoth because Elder Walker wants to see if the outlets up there have any good deals for labor day. It will be pretty crazy crowded! Love you all! Hope you have a wonderful week! 

 

Elder Carper

 

PS My hump day is Thursday and is the same day as my Dads super huge hump day! SUPER BIG shout out to him for turning 50 on Thursday! Happy Birthday Dad!

New Area- Lone Pine

Dude I don't like white washing. This is a lot better than white washing into Palmdale though, the Elders did some stuff! We have no progressing investigators but apparently have one with a date. We havent found him yet, so thats kinda lame. I was talking to President at transfer meeting and he said that this is a really hard area, and the key to getting things done is to get high up in the town. So we are going to be doing a lot of service. Our new area consists of Lone Pine, Independence, Olancha, Keeler, and Darwin, with a bunch of Indian Reservations in between. Darwin sounds super exciting! Have you ever seen "The hills have eyes?" well if you have, that was filmed down in Ridgecrest but that is how everyone here describes Darwin. It is in the middle of absolutely nowhere and you dont see anyone, but you know they are watching you. So I am pretty pumped, it will be a cool photo sight. 

 

In other news, Lone Pine is SO SICK! I have the highest point in the US, and the lowest point in my area! Mt Whitney is like 14000 feet, and a place called Bad Water, Death Valley is about 250 below sea level. We have no reason to go to Bad Water though, there isnt anyone who lives there. Its for sure a P-day activity. There are tons and tons of cool hikes we can to up in the Sierra's. We are doing what is called the Whitney Portal today, it leads up to a really cool waterfall with an awesome view of Mt Whitney! Seriously I love it here in Lone Pine, it is so much fun! 

My new companion is Elder Walker. He is actually my first companion thats from Utah. This is his last transfer so I will be killing him in the mission, I know Elder Walker from past areas so I am pumped. I was a little worried that he was gonna be trunky and not want to work but he is still going hard! My streak is still kept up, I am still technically Jr companion but I am the designated driver and I get to drive the truck :) Its a 2012 Chevy Colorado, we are losing it soon though. We are getting a car for a little while and then we will get Jeep Compass' soon! So I am pumped, hopefully I will be here.

So tuesday was boring, it was a 3.5 hour drive from Bakersfield to get up here and since both Elders were leaving we had to drive the truck all the way back. It was long but fun, Wednesday and thursday were all just us trying to get our feet planted. We visited some less actives and former investigators as well as the people they indicated we were teaching. 

Thursday was fun, we did service at an old fish hatchery up in Independence. It was fun! They invited us to a big fundraising dinner that night. It was cool it was a bunch of old men in their cowboy gear! It was there that we met Eddy Ivey, he is a stud! HIs parents run the fish hatchery and we talked with him the entire time. He then invited us to a quick game of basketball! It was Elder Walker and I, in our Pros, vs Eddy and his friend Ryan. We totally stomped em it was sick! I have played a lot of basketball over the past year but I still play the way I play soccer. I can take it up all the way and then I mess up right at the end and fail. Its frusterating but its funny! We have played Basketball with Eddy and his friends every day so far except sunday. He invites more people and we talk to them about the gospel while we are playing so that is pretty flippin sweet! 

So we arent in a ward, its a very small and close knit branch. The members are really cool here, some of them are from Utah...surprise... We have met tons of people from Europe, lots of Germany but some France! It is so much fun! We are about an hour away from anything so we are pretty isolated, Im told to get used to very long drives! Elder Walker isnt allowed to drive so its not like we can switch off, so ya I have to do it. Im pretty pumped because today the Elders and Sisters from Bishop are coming down and we are gonna go see some pretty sweet stuff! Love you Mom! Thanks for the letter I got today, I will write my address in the letter you keep reminding me I owe you. Have a good week, hope to hear from you soon!


Elder Carper

Catching Up & Cutting My Own Hair

Hey Mom! So I for sure have been slackin on the whole email thing but the computers in the Family History Center are down and so we have been emailing at a Library that only allows like 25 minutes on the computers. So ya I havent sent any solid emails to people! Now that its all fixed I can do it! 

 

These past few weeks have been like they always are, knocking doors, getting yelled at. People not progressing, gang fights, house fires, desert, the usual fun stuff! It has been really frustrating to be honest. It kind of seemed like the the Ward's side of the missionary work was really getting going and our side stopped. We haven't been able to contact any of our investigators and its sucked a lot! So ya it has been frustrating to say the least. All that however has totally been made up for by this past week! 

It started out slow, just knocking doors, and stuff but Thursday came around and it completely blew us away. We taught this part member family the plan of salvation. We originally went over there because the 2 sons of the family were recent converts and we go over and read with them. Their Dad Pete sat in on the lesson. Instead of reading I felt it best if we taught the plan of salvation. Luckily Elder P and I are really good companions so we pretty much know what the other was thinking! So we began teaching and it was amazing how well Pete understood everything. We peppered in Baptism the whole lesson and he kept blowing it off. We talked about Temples and sealings and how he can be united with his family forever. Pete then kinda talked about how he wanted a fresh start and how he wanted to forgive people who wronged him and all this fun stuff. Right after that, out of nowhere, Elder P looked him in the face and said "Pete, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ, and be Baptized by someone holding the Priesthood Authority from God?" Pete looked at him, nodded his head and began to cry. He couldn't even speak he was just so emotional. The whole family was crying and so excited. We set a date with Pete and told him that his 17 year old son has the authority to baptize, and that he could be baptized by his son. I have never seen the spirit work on anyone the way it working on Pete. The spirit was so thick in the room it almost felt like you could grab it. Pete grew up on the streets, he is this huge, buff, tatted, rock. Seriously he is a really tough guy, and he began to weep like a little child. It was amazing to see and honestly that day made the past 3 months of disappointments worth it! It was absolutely incredible!

 

So in other news, I am getting shipped out to Lone Pine! The mission messed up again and our new areas and companions showed up on our key indicator page. So ya I am going to Lone Pine with Elder W. I know elder walker he is a boss. So I am excited, it is one of the four areas in the mission that people consider to be a "nice" place. So that will be a change from serving in a place where everyone feels bad for you haha. I am pumped for sure! that also means I will be getting a new address so dont send anything to mine! I will let yall know for sure! Love you Mom, stay fly!

 

Elder Carper

 

PS- PICTURES!!!!

this is my district! On my right is Elder O, he is the only black kid in the mission. He talks black and acts black but is the most uncoordinated person on the planet! So he is hilarious!

 

Also, first time ever cutting my own hair! It actually worked haha

 

19- I'm A Big Kid Now

Hey everybody! So this week has been both really awesome and a little bit annoying. So it started out awesome because we finally got in with this guy we have been trying for weeks! His name is Spencer, he is super sick! We got in with him and taught him about the Book of Mormon, probably one of my favorite things ever is when people have questions that seemingly nobody can answer, and then we answer them! It makes me feel pretty cool. We talked to spencer a lot about the Book of Mormon and a lot about why it is important. Hopefully he keeps reading, he was a little iffy about baptism because he doesnt want to be pressured into anything but he was at least willing to think about it!

 

Wednesday was SICK! We got to go to the temple on Wednesday and it was beyond dope! The LA temple is so big! We went with the Bishop of our ward, he was super cool. I HATE LA traffic, it is truly a nightmare. For real it was scary, we passed through these mountains that straight up looked exactly like Utah. It was super sweet, and then we saw a few ferraris and you dont see that in Utah. We went to the 9:15 session so we had to leave here by 6:30am. We were at the temple until about Noon and then headed back. We stopped in a city called Van Nuys (which is insanely nice) and ate at Five Guys. I havent had Five Guys since I was home, that for sure a treat! When we got home we were so tired, it was so hard to go out and work, but we did and it was hot. It made it so I knocked out right on time that night though!

Friday was my birthday and it was AWESOME! Shoot I felt super popular, I was getting cards from people I know...which was crazy because I didnt know I knew that many people. It was fun, everyone was nice! I tried to use my birthday to guilt people into talking to us but it didnt work. they would just give us water and wish me a happy birthday. It was a bit of a bummer but we tried. There was a cool thing though, while I was in the temple I was praying and praying that I could know where we needed to go to find a family that is prepared because we have been working really hard and are just getting doors slammed in our face and unmotivated members to not help us. So I prayed and prayed and finally got an answer that we needed to be on a certain street and 3pm on friday. So we were there knocking and we ran into a guy who was a Southern Baptist. He was dog sitting for his brother, who he said was a Mormon. He said he would talk about the church all the time and he loved being a member. So we left our names and phone numbers and were going to try and contact the member so we can get his records. Well the next day we got a text saying "who is this?" I just said "We are the missionaries of the chuch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, is there anything we can help you with?" and the persons reply was "More like Mission sluts? I found your card in my house!" So ya that was fun. I was really not excited about that...but I didnt let it phase me, and I am glad I didnt! We found a really prepared person that our ward can really help with on Sunday! His name is brian and he committed to be baptized on August 23rd. We are super stoked for it!!! We also got a refferal from the Hermanas for a guy who apparently is also Golden so we are super excited! Our week turned lame but it quickly got better and once again the good times were more than worth it! 

We have a new Ward Mission Leader who is AWESOME. He has been inactive most of his life but just reactivated and was married in the temple, so he has that Greenie fire that the ward needs! We now have members who are getting involved with our investigators, and the ward is doing better. It has been extremely exciting over the past week! Im super pumped to see what goes on this week! Here are some pictures of Elder Patterson and I at the Temple on Wednesday! Love you all, your the best!

Elder Carper

Much Better Week!

So as you know, these past couple weeks have sucked really really bad. I have been really discouraged from the lack of work and I have pretty much hated my district. Basically this week I came to realize that I was just being dumb. I had no real reason to not like my district and was annoyed at all the things going on because I didnt want to change. After thinking about it I realized that I wanted to change. I want to let everything go behind and not hold anything back from the Lord. I actually got called into president wilsons office last friday because I sayed "pissed" in district meeting and he was really worried that something was going on with me. So he called me in his office and we talked. I told him everything that was going on, I told him all of my feelings on everything and we just talked. We ended up talking for about an hour, which is really long for an interview. It helped me a lot, because 1. I didnt know President Wilson even knew who I was let alone cared and 2. He fortified what I already knew needed to happen. I just needed to change my attitude and chill. So I really enjoyed it and I appreciated the help. Im doing great now :) 

This week I went on exchanges with Elder Johnson my District Leader. He is crazy awesome, we have served around eachother before and it has been a lot of fun. We just went out and tracted but we ran into a couple awesome and scary people. The scary one, was this demon/old man looking thing. You remember Beauty and the Beast? The scary old man? HE LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE HIM!!!!!!!!!! He was behind a security door that doesnt allow you to see inside, but all I could see was these crazy bright blue eyes, and these crazy yellow teeth that looked like fangs. He was this insane catholic guy! 

 

The cool people was this girl named Olivia, she really wanted a book of Mormon but her Mom wouldnt let her. After we left she came running out of her house over to us and said that her Mom finally said she could read it and asked for one. It was really cool to finally find someone who was very excited to read the Book of Mormon. It was great! Anyways I have to go right now, but I hope you have a wonderful week! Im excited to tell you all about my temple trip!

Taylor

The week of a Baptism is always a Hard Week

So this week was pretty hectic. On tuesday we had zone conference and President pretty much just went on and on about what happened in my with all the missionaries doing dumb stuff. He then put in a ton of new rules that are really annoying. We have a standard of excellence now, which some of it is easy but some of it is going to be insanely difficult. The easy ones are like, dont miss church, proselyte for 40 hours a week, service for 10 hours, and stuff like that. The hard stuff with be finding 7 new investigators per week, and having ALL member present lessons.  We have averaged finding 2 per week. Its not very awesome! So after zone conference we all had interviews with president wilson. For me it was terrible, he basically just chewed me out about being too casual.  Later in the week on thursday, I got a stomach virus, I was up all night throwing up. I would rather break my collar bone again than throw up, it is the most painful and uncomfortable thing I have ever experienced. So that was my night on thursday, and then all day friday and saturday morning my whole body just hurt. I was too weak to get out of bed. It was honestly terrible I didnt enjoy it very much. I had to get better though, because I had to baptize someone later that day. 

That was the good part of the week was I got to baptize B.A.!. 

He is a total boss! We have been teaching him for about 5 weeks now. He was definitely prepared by the Lord, I dont honestly feel like I did a whole lot for him. He read the book of Mormon constantly and was always watching bible videos and mormon messages on his tablet. It was just really good to find someone who was ready to hear the gospel. It was super hilarious, the day of his baptism he called me, and his was freaking out. I asked him what was up and he is just screaming "I think I broke the law of chastity!!!" Im just like shoot bobby what did you do? Apparently his fiance gave him a hicky while they were making out. I just laughed, it hurt a lot but I laughed. He swore to me that he didnt touch her inappropriately and I reassured him that he was ok. Then I made fun of him because the hicky was TOTALLY visible while at the baptism. It was really funny! Baptizing him was harder than baptizing Billie, she was very heavy, but I was so physically weak from being sick that I didnt feel like I could do it. Miracles happen though, I was able to do it, I didnt feel like i was struggling at all during it. Afterwards I thought I was going to pass out but i did it without any problems! I was really happy and grateful that he trusted me to be worthy and hold the priesthood. Im also grateful that I was worthy and held the priesthood haha Im sure it would have been a horrible discussion if I had to tell him no.

After the baptism we went home and slept cause we were so tired. Its been 4 and a half days and Im not better. I feel fine, but my whole body is just so weak its unreal. I ate for the first time this morning, saltines. It was pretty much heaven, but also felt like disarming a bomb at the same time cause I didnt know how I would react. Im sure by like wednesday I will be back to normal. For some reason it didnt hit Elder Patterson until Friday night, so he is still really sick, Im not sure what we will be able to do this week but I will keep you posted. 

Transfer Calls are this saturday! I find out if I am staying or leaving. I will let you know next week what is happening with that, mail usually takes 2 days to get here. So just be sure to send any mail before Friday and I will for sure get it. Love you Mom, I hope your week was better than most of mine but Saturday made it all worth it! I hope you stay safe, your the best!

Elder Carper 

Update On Monday, June 16th, 2014

This week was ROUGH! On Tuesday, it hit 107 degrees. We were on bike this week! It was so hard! I'm pretty sure we both got heatstroke haha. I filled up my water bottle at least 7 times and I didn't pee at all that day. It was super terrible, I just remember screaming while I was on my bike and Elder Patterson had a hard time staying on his because he was laughing so hard! We got to a potentials house and knocked on the door and then we both just started laughing! I choked on my gatorade and it shot up my nose and it was gross and it burned, and Patterson was on the ground dying and it was terrible. We had only been working for like 4 hours! So we decided that we needed to go back to the apartment and rest. Wednesday wasn't as bad but it still sucked pretty good haha. Just a ton of tracting and no success. Thursday was also pretty dumb, weekly planning is never fun! Especially when your in an area where you don't know where you are going haha, poor Elder Patterson had to show me!

Friday was sweet, Friday we got two new investigators and set them with baptisimal dates on the first lesson because we are Bosses! It was pretty sick, not gonna lie! Their names are S. and R. It was fun! I enjoyed it, and the fact that it was night time and therefore not as hot was a prety solid bonus! That is one of the things we have been really trying hard with is to invite people to make that covanent on the first lesson. So it was a cool miracle to be able to do that! Saturday was also pretty good, we just picked a street and knocked every single door on it, we found 5 potentials that sounded really interested, unfortunatley nobody could talk to us at that moment because they were watching the world cup! I was so jealous!!!!!!!! Its ok, with our investigator B. we are going to teach him today, and he just so happens to have lost his remote so its stuck on the sports channel and the US happens to be playing at the same time we are teaching.....hahaha people love me, I dont know why but they do.

Saturday and Sunday were basically the same day, just tracting and trying to find potentials, we had a bit of luck when B. came to church. He is still on track to be baptized next saturday, we are a little worried about his girlfriend J. On tuesday she told us that she doesnt want to know if the Book of Mormon is true anymore, her parents have been giving her a lot anti mormon stuff and it worked. She is now extremely against B. getting baptized but he is doing it anyway. B. has been investigating for a year and a half and the only reason he isnt baptized yet is because he was on parole. So he is ready, he just needs to keep the law of chastity! Which we had J.'s help with that, but now we are worried that she will stop helping us because she wants to keep him from being baptized. So ya we are praying for miracles!!

Other than heatstroke, and crazy people, and me only knowing how to door contact in Spanish this week was great! It was weird I got like 3 letters....I think that is a record for the week!

APOSTLES!

June 9, 2014

So this week has been crazy fun! Tuesday we were supposed to go on exchanges with our district leader but we had a lesson with B. that I didnt want to miss. So it got rescheduled to this next week! That lesson with B. went fantastic! We taught him the law of Chastity, and literally right after we left he proposed to his girlfriend. He wants to be married so that he can get baptized. Little does he realize that as long as he is living it, he can be baptized at any time. either way we are happy for them! They are doing well, they are both progressing solidly!

Wednesday was my 9 month mark! Freak ya! Its taking forever hahaha I dont know how to describe it, it feels like I have been out for 9 months but its not even bad, its just like whatever. It was still a good day though. It was really hard and hot but we were happy to have to car with us! Its a 2014 Malibu cause our cruze got recalled cause Chevy sucks. So we have a sick car! Unfortunately all of our plans fell through and so we knocked on doors all day. Its cool because nobody can say no to us! 

Thursday we wanted to die because weekly planning took forever! I hate planning more than anything, but I understand why it helps for sure! We had another lesson with Bobby and Jocelyn and it went really well, we talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon. We also had to resolve a lot of concerns because some JW's knocked into them, figured out that they were being taught by us and told them a bunch of anti mormon crap. So it took a while but we solved everything!

Friday we had a zone training meeting, and it sucked. There are a ridiculous amount of new rules in the mission and it sucks majorly! We were all really confused about why this was happening but then we were made aware of some really poor choices of missionaries. Needless to say I didnt enjoy friday, I think it hit 106 degrees. It was HOT!

Saturday was incredible! We had a mission conference, and drove down to Lancaster to hear from Elder Russell M Nelson of the Twelve. With him we got to hear from 3 members of the Seventy. They all spoke about marriage for some odd reason...but it was pretty cool! One spoke of why we wear the nametag, another spoke about conversion, one was about straight up marriages and Elder Nelson touched on all of them. He got into some deep deep doctoring regarding the Abrahamic Covenant. It was absolutely incredible to hear what he had to say! Seriously it was crazy awesome to hear it! 

On Sunday I had to speak in church and it was horrible, I talked about feasting upon the words of christ and the importance of being converted. I was really nervous but I got through it, you would think that coming from Sand Springs with 550+ members to Fairview with only 90 would make speaking easy.....nope! It was long but  I did it! Yay me! So this week was good, Elder Patterson and I get along great we have a lot of fun! I hope to hear from yall soon, have a good week! 

Elder Carper

Tender Mercies

This is a post by Elder Carper's Mom






Saturday, April 12th I had a missed call from Palmdale, CA.  My first thought was, oh no, what's wrong with Taylor.  (Is that a bad first thought or is a mom thing?)  I called the number back to find out is was a kind lady, Sister Rowe, who was in the same ward in which Elder Carper is serving.  She was visiting her mother in Davis County and was willing to take back a package.  I was so exciting.  I felt so close to Taylor.  I had to go do my duty at the Davis County Delegate Convention that day (7 hours), but I put something together and sent it with her.   On Wednesday, April 16th just a couple of hours AFTER Lucas Carper Zarate was born, I received a text from Sister Rowe.    It showed Taylor enjoying the package I sent.  My heart SOARED.  I knew Taylor had to be there at that moment.  I texted Sister Rowe back with a picture of Lucas and the baby stats.  Sure enough, five minutes later I was rewarded with a text saying that "Elder Carper is jumping around!!"  What a tender mercy that Taylor was able to get the news of his little nephew's birth so quickly.  If not, he would be finding out about it today.  Would he have survived without hearing word so quickly?  Of course, but what a tender mercy it is when our Heavenly Father reminds us that He is cognizant of us.  It meant a lot to me, Aleesa and certainly Elder Carper.

DON'T BIBLE BASH!

This week has been so unbelievable hard! Tuesday was just a normal day in the neighborhood, al anyone can talk about is the supermassive earthquake that will hit us soon. I can think of at least 3 signs for sure that point to the earthquake. 1. A member told us she was reading on the news and scientists were saying that the 4.5 in LA was just a precursor to what will hit. 2. We are WAY overdue for a giant earthquake 3. We have been having a lot of severe weather changes which is also a sign for earthquakes. 4. There is an Elder in the Bakersfield mission whose Patriarchal blessing says that he will survive a giant Natural Disaster on his mission. So therefore, earthquake here really soon, I am really excited!

 

Wednesday was the cause of my bad week. It was a really long day and I was feeling really discouraged and very irritated because of the lack of help from our ward. Every appointment we had on Wednesday fell through and we decided to go see a HQ referral. His name was L L, he invited us in, offered water and snacks and then started talking to us. Turns out that he is a preacher at the local Church of God, and thinks he is a prophet. He began immediately Bible bashing with us and trying to prove the Book of Mormon wrong. Of course we defended everything and shut down all of his accusations (like how Ammon smote the arms off the bandits) but he just kept bringing it out. It got to the point where he knew he couldn't prove our religion wrong, and so he started preaching at us and telling us that we don't know anything about religion.

 

(here is the part where I gave into temptation)

 

He tried to show us the name of Heavenly Mother, and the name of the Holy Spirit....I have only wanted  to strangle someone twice on my mission, once when Baptist Bob said we believe God has physical sex with Mary and then with L. My decision was either snap him in half, or destroy his religion. So I decided to destroy him. I pulled out my Bible and I went to work, he had told us everything his religion taught and I proved it all false. I didn't even tie it to the Book of Mormon I just disproved everything with the Bible. After about 10 minutes of me hammering this guy, Elder Lewis (bless his little heart) said that we need to leave and so we did. Of course afterwards I felt absolutely horrible, Elder Lewis was really cool about it and he was about to pull his scriptures out and do the same thing but I beat him to it. It was not a good spiritual experience for me or for Lamar. I still feel really bad and we are going over this week to apologize because he didn't deserve that, even if he thought he knew something like Her name. Which, he thought was Jerusalem, he got confused in Isaiah where it mentions Beulah. It is Hebrew for Married to God. The context it is used in only means that when Zion is in line with gods will, it is Beulah. So he got it confused, and he thought the second coming happened in 1948 when Israel became a country again.

 

Im going to teach you a well known "missionary doctorine." When you bible bash, the spirit will leave you for a certain amount of time just like it did Joseph Smith. For me it usually lasts for a week and that week is absolutely miserable. So that is why this week wasn't very good, my own fault but still. The only good things that happened was I was able to give a lot of service to a non member family that NEEDS to be members. Seriously these guys are awesome! They are the M's and they love us missionaries! It is so great, we did yard work for them for like 3 hours Wednesday and 4 on Saturday. My entire body is super sore and I am loving it! I have a lot of high hopes for that family!

 

Anyways I hope you all have a solid week, I am really hoping this week looks up, I could use a good week! Love you guys!

 

Elder Carper

GC, Mean Feet, Monster Melon

Sorry that I didn't send a big email last week, we only had 15 minutes to email because a member was going to take us jeeping up a mountain. It ended really bad because his ignition broke and so we couldnt go. So that was super lame but we went and played soccer with all the Spanish Elders. I miss soccer it was really fun! Last week was a good week, general conference was absolutely fantastic! I think my favorite speaker over all was president Uchtdorfs in Sunday morning, with President Eyrings on saturday afternoon was a close second. I love his words when he says "if the blessings came right away it would not strengthen our faith" That really hit me, especially the way I look at missionary work. I get really frustrated sometimes when I know I am being obedient and working as hard as I can and nothing seems to be going our way. We are told to expect miracles but not to be discouraged if they dont come. That is really hard to do, so when President Eyring said this, it was like getting slapped in the face by the spirit and hearing God say, "you already knew that." So that was a very humbling experience for me, If there is one thing that I need to drill into my head it is that acts of faith is a process and not an immediate deal. We become better missionaries by striving every day to strengthen our weaknesses and making correct choices. I have the vision of where I want to be and I am a lot closer than I was. It took me almost 8 months to get this far and I have a long way to go. I loved conference. The first thing I wrote down in my Book of Revalations is to actually pay attention to speakers other than the apostles. I kind of zone out and I feel bad haha so I am trying to work on that.

We picked up some more investigators these past few weeks and they are progressing at a steady pace which is good. A few of them are actually rap artists who are trying to bring back the tupac era of rap. When its not just about sex, haters, weed and money but its about philosophy and life. I was pleasantly suprised by some of them, that and I havent listened to any good music in months. The only good music is whats playing in the background at best buy while we email. Right now I think Coldplay is on, but I dont know anymore!

The bad thing about this week was that I got an ingrown toenail removed. That sucked worse than the warts. I was out of commision for like 3 days. I wanted to die, lucky for me Sister W is awesome and made me her special cinnamon roll cake. It is pretty freaking incredible! We didnt get any missionary work done all week and then I finally got back on the bike on Saturday. We found some really cool potentials. One of which is a refferal from the Elders back in Rosamond. I asked what they were doing in rosamond and they said they were doing service for a lady named Billie Stocking. I freaked out Im like do you know Zac Fernandez than? They said they were family friends and have known eachother for years. I lost it I was like " OH MY GOSH I BAPTIZED THEM!" Than they were like "oh YOU'RE Elder Carper" which I dont know why they didnt make the connection, how many Elder Carper missionaries do you know? Bottom line I was really excited to talk to them, they are R and L P. In all seriousness they are kinda scary because he just got out of Prison like a month ago. He is 46 and has been in and out of prison since he was 14. We did the math and he has spent more than half his life in there. He is a really solid potential though and wants to learn what his purpose is in life. He also hates people who are hyppocrytes and so I was excited because most mormons arent! At least Elder L and I arent haha.

 

I got the call on saturday and I am staying for another 6 weeks with Elder Lewis, we were both pretty excited! Elder L is a goofball haha he is awesome. So we had a party because Sister H is finishing her mission, and Sister W is getting transferred so on Sunday all the Ana Verde missionaries came over to our apartment and had Monster Melon. Its just diced watermelon in a bowl full of Monster. Its basically the greatest invention in the history of ever. We had a lot of fun, signed eachothers transfer journals and today have dinner with the Bishop and will say our goodbyes that night. The Elders are staying but both Sisters are leaving. Im bummed cause they would always bring us cookies and brownies! They pretty much owe me because they always call me to give blessings and kill spiders. So its cool, I think that is all for this week, I hope you guys are doing amazing and I hope you have a wonderful Easter Sunday!

Love,

Elder Carper

Zone Conference

This week has been uneventful as far as missionary work goes. On Thursday however, we had a zone conference. It was so sick! I love zone conference, 3 zones around us came as well so I got to see some of my buddies! It was really fun, apparently our mission has a huge problem with gossip. It is super understandable because there is a lot of rumors going around between missionaries about missionaries. So as a mission we are cleaning that up. He also gave us a new challenge. The new mission wide goal was to reach 50 baptisms in the month of March. We reached 47, we missed the mark but we had more baptisms than we ever had before. The new goal is that by the end of this next quarter, each area in the entire mission have a baptism, at least one. So we are working towards that. President Wilson is awesome, he sat by me during lunch and we were talking about Utah. I told him I think he should run for President of the United states, I said "you could be king!" He turned to me and said "I already am" with his business man smurk. It was a really funny moment the whole table was laughing!

Friday I went on exchanges with Elder M our district leader. We met a couple cool people, one of which became an investigator. Elder M is from Ammon Idaho, he was really surprised to hear that I knew where that was! A YSA member took us out to lunch to Panda Express. Im not that big of a fan of Panda but its free! For dinner he made me the best chicken I have ever had. He is a way good cook! Elder L claims to be a good cook but he will never cook anything, so whatever haha. We exchanged back Saturday and I made everyone French Toast. I love French Toast!

Saturday we took N to the AP's baptism. He really liked it and became excited for his, we are still working on helping him gain a testimony on the Book of Mormon, but it is hard to help a blind man who cannot read! He is really awesome though! We have correlation on Saturdays and we were talking with our ward mission leader Bro. T. turns out his son has served in Greely on his mission, and a buddy of his is going to ATC school out in Greely, so I was like maybe he knows Mike! Gotta be a small world in the weed center right?

Sunday was a bit of a let down, N is getting ready for a kidney transplant so he has been on dialysis for a while, he didn't come to church. I was really bummed about that. Sunday night was interesting because we were studying with Elder J and Easter, and the sisters just showed up. Elder J and I tried to calm sister W down because she was having a meltdown. We were sitting in J's car talking and freaking Elder Jeppson gets a call from the District leader and leaves. Just leaves Sister Weiman and I in the car, I was so uncomfortable, don't get me wrong Sister W is awesome and super attractive but it was horrible, I lasted about 5 seconds in the car before I got out and pretended like I got a call. She saw right through it but she wasn't mad because she knows how Elders are. I don't get what Sisters problems are, Elders will be pissed for like 10 minutes and then their fine. When Sisters are mean to eachother, suddenly they have insulted their family, their pet fish, their ancestors and the world. It becomes a ball of hatred that I don't understand. Probably never will but Im cool with being simple minded, its easier.

This is how uneventful this week was, the coolest thing all week, was that I found a sandwhich thingy that now only cuts the crust off, but it cuts your sandwhich into 4 puzzle pieces! So I became a peanut butter and Jelly master! Do you like my apron? Sister W made it for me cause I killed a spider in their car. Small and simple means I guess. To her credit it was the freakiest spider I have ever seen. I think Mom would have cried. So I will describe it for her since she didn't have the opportunity to see it! It was green, hairy, and it had like 4 REALLY long legs and 2 smaller ones, I don't get that but it was also a huge spider, it was probably close to the size of my palm. If I ever see one again I will take a picture before I stab it. I didn't want to smash it cause I don't wanna get my shoes dirty, so I stabbed it.

I will let you know more next week! Love you guys!

Elder carper

I Hate Dogs!

This week was very spiritually high and pretty suckish at the exact same time. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with the district leader. His name is Elder M, he came to our area and I went to the YSA area with his companion Elder B. Elder B is actually from Rigby, he was surprised that I knew exactly where that was! We went and talked to some people, it was pretty fun! I met a member of their ward who was 18, she was way hot but had a horrible personality so that was a bummer. She is going to BYU-I in the fall I think, I can't remember what her name was though, I think it was Haley, but it could have been Allison...anyways it was a fun day. Im not sure Elder M enjoyed being on a bike though, he didn't look happy when we exchanged back.

 The next two days were just like any other, we went out to try and find some former investigators, talked to some pretty cool people and did some normal missionary work. The crazy stuff happened on Friday and Saturday. N. called us at noon on Friday saying that he wanted to take a break from meeting with us. He has a lot of things on his mind and he needs to sort it out before he can continue, I asked what it was and he avoided the question. My gut feeling is that he ran into some anti Mormon stuff, so it is an easy concern to address. All I really have to do is say "you would not go to a Baptist church if you wanted to learn more about Catholicism" His doctor is a JW and doesn't like Mormons so that's what our assumption is, we are going to try and meet with him Tuesday though.

That same day I went on Exchanges with Elder J our zone leader. He is freaking awesome, we ended up talking until like 130am about anything and everything. We were talking  lot about apostate groups and how I think that if your not going to work than you may as well go home. Both of us actually decided to go on a 40 day fast. It is not a fast from food, it is a fast of fixing yourself. Each of the 40 days you progressively change things, for instance on day 1, Elder L and I will go to bed at 1030 sharp. Day 2, instead of waking up at 630 we will be awake at 629. So you progressively do these things over 40 days. It is going to be a hard 40 days but it wlll be SO worth it!

Saturday we ended our exchange and Elder L and I went to go visit a former investigator. On the teaching record it says to call out to her from the drive way because if we just walk in the gate, her dog will bite us. So we did everything like we were supposed to, we called out and her father came out to meet us, we talked to the Dad for a little while and the dog was banging on the gate trying to get out. I don't know how it happened but I glanced and saw the lock break, and the door slowly open. So I tried to shut the gate before the dog could get out but it was already halfway out. It squeezed out and lunged at me, I don't know how or why but I punched the dog in the face before it got a hold of my leg. So it only scratched me with its teeth instead of really sinking in. I got it off that first time but it lunged at me again but I was able to put my bag in the way and it bit a hole in my bag. By this time the owner had come out and grabbed it and kept apologizing and apologizing. I was only bleeding a little bit so that was ok. They invited us in and both became new investigators. The Dad and the daughter, his name is A and hers is L. They are pretty cool, so that story had a happy ending. I was really out of it that day because I had a huge adrenaline rush while fighting a dog, so I was totally out of it. I wish I could say it was a manly fight, but Im pretty sure I screamed  little bit, Elder Lewis says otherwise but I felt like I was screaming like a little girl. Im really scared of mean dogs ever since Jaleese got a big chunk of her leg bitten off during a family reunion. If I know the dog is nice than Im ok but if it is mean I get nervous. So that experience didn't help my resolve!

 Anyways this week was good, I hope all of you are doing good! The work here is pretty sweet, the members are awesome. A few members from Rosamond came down and took us out to lunch, they are really cool over there! Love you guys, have a good week!

Elder Carper

We call this the core, Elder Cox, Elder Angles, Me, Elder Gillies

 

Diamond Investigator Mode

So I basically have a man crush on our investigator N. We taught him the Plan of Salvation last Friday and he just ate it up. We committed him to be baptized on March 29th. He is absolutely incredible! He straight up has been searching for the truth for years. The whole time he kept asking really really good questions. He understood everything we said and that it "makes complete sense." He is blind and hasn't even read the book of Mormon yet and he knows its true! At the end of the Lesson I asked if he would pray to know specifically if what we told him was true and if he should be baptized. He prayed and asked out loud in front of us and then was quiet for about 5 minutes. I swear even the most vilest of sinner could have felt the spirit in that room, it was just working in him like I have never seen. He finally looked at us and I asked how he felt, he told us that he "felt really good." We are now meeting with him twice a week and he has come to church every time since we found him. He is already trying to share the gospel with his brothers, and his doctors. This guy came prepared for sure, I could probably show him the baptismal font and he would just dive in! Nelson is so freaking awesome!

Oh in other good news my bike broke! There was a really nice bike given to me by another Elder who is apparently freaking rich because he paid $350 for the bike he gave me. I decided that I would use mine until it broke because there is no point in just letting it sit. So I broke it on a dirt road, I was going way too fast and the forks snapped off. It was all dirt so I didn't get hurt too bad, just a couple scrapes! My helmet cracked though, that was cool! So now my bike issues are over! Seriously the Lord is just spoiling me, any stress that I have he fixes it so that I can focus and get to work. I received an email from the last missionary who was here just completely apologizing for leaving the area as bad as he did. I basically told him that I wasn't angry and that he has probably suffered enough with guilt and doesn't need me to chastise him. He wass pretty appreciative of that. I also felt really good knowing that I forgave someone. Lets hope God was serious when he said that Mercy will be shown to the merciful. That's what Im hoping anyways hahaha

I'm super excited for this next week because we are hopefully teaching a family of 7! That will be like a total sick lesson to teach!  Love you guys, I will let yall know how it goes!

Elder Carper

During Trials Come Miracles

I am going to start off with the bad things that have happened this week, so that this story has a happy ending. On Saturday one of the greatest people in the world passed away. I didnt find out until 8am on the following Monday. I didn't email anybody because I wanted to be able to process my thoughts because I knew I would have rambled on about how much I missed him. I sat in the chapel of the stake center for the next two hours begging my Father in Heaven for comfort. I will say that I didn't feel comforted right away. I was absolutely torn apart and I didn't know how I was supposed to handle myself. I got back on the computer at around 10 and just thanked my parents for telling me, I couldn't bring myself to really talk about how I felt so that is why nobody was emailed last week. It was really hard overall to hear about Papa, I had a lot of emails from family telling me to be strong and that he was in a better place. The one that hit the hardest was Grandma's email. All she said was that he really loved me and he would tell the other temple workers that his Grandson was a missionary in California. It was really hard to read everything but I did and I started feeling better. I hope everybody knows that I really did love Papa. He was the one who really taught me how to ski, he would take me up with his ski class and we would ski all day and he would take me home afterwards. He was also the one who took me on my first mountain biking trip. I remember the time when we got to the top I realized that my rear brake didnt work. So I biked down the path behind the temple with only my front brakes. Needless to say I got torn up pretty good! My Grandpa was honestly rock solid, he biked over to our house from Bountiful because he could. He was a hero in my eyes! I remember being so angry with him when he told the family he was going to Micronesia because I missed him so much when he was in Yap. Needless to say I loved my Grandpa a lot. Right after I got off the computer President Wilson called me up and asked how I was doing. I talked to him a little bit about it and he just kept making sure I was ok. It was a pretty cool feeling that President Wilson cared enough to call me personally.

I was told some other things that I would rather not have to share that also was hard to find out. It felt like all these things were laid on top of eachother and I just couldn't function. I was so torn apart that I spent the rest of the day playing basketball to get my mind off of it. I hate basketball, it isn't fun but it was enough to distract me for a little while. I told Heavenly Father that I didnt want to feel anymore, that I just wanted to become a robot that is incapable of feeling anything. Unfortunately, for me the Lord doesnt work like that haha. My week got worse when I fell on my bike tuesday. I hit a pot hole in the dark and flew over the handlebars onto my head. I ruined both my shirt and pants during my fall. I also screwed my bike up in the fall. I gave it to a member who works on bikes. I told me that The front forks are basically crap, he said I can ride it, but he also said that if I fall like that again on my bike, my forks will snap in half and I could be seriously injured. I just got called to a bike area, so you could say Im a little scared! I cut my shoulder up pretty well too so that was great. I dont know why but I am just brutal to my right shoulder haha. Ok, now we can get to the happy part!

 

The good Part :)

As I said before, I did not feel like the Lord answered my prayers that day in the chapel. I felt horrible because of Papa and completely alone and abandoned by the other things. While I was talking with President I told him that once I can get back to work I will be fine, I won't have to think about anything else and I wont be reminded. Tuesday we got to work and then the bike thing happened. I almost laughed because things were just piling on. It slowed me down a lot because of the pain in my head and shoulder but I forced myself to go back to work. I can tell all of you sincerely that I worked harder this week than I have my whole life. I was still frustrated that my prayers weren't answered and I still felt horrible for everything that happened. Here is where I can get to the good part, because it wasn't until Saturday that I found out the Lord blessed me even before I had ever thought to ask him for it. and turned my week into the best of my mission.

When the age change for the Missionaries came, I was still determined to wait a year and go to college. It wasnt until Trevor Obray's call opening that the idea hit me that I needed to go right away. I told my parents that I wanted to go right after school ended. After I began my papers I started to drift off, I had a lot of doubts of whether or not I could handle being away from home, I wanted to delay everything and wait a year. I was really determined to do it but every single time I prayed about it I got the overwhelming feeling that I needed to leave. The feeling of doubts and inadequacy didn't stop, while I was in the MTC I still had wished I waited, I didn't feel like I was ready for it. I always figured the Lord wanted me to serve now because I will have my whole life ahead of me when I get home, now I have begun to think that I needed to be a missionary during these trials. I dont know how I would have handled everything if I wasn't. Being a missionary gave me the strength and the will to push through everything and continue to pray and gain faith. That alone was a blessing.

The day Papa passed away I was given the amazing opportunity to baptize Billie Stocking and witness the baptism of Zach Fernandez. Being able to have been apart of their conversion story made me so happy! That was an incredible reminder of why I came on a mission, to help people come closer with the person that has made my life amazing. They both are so very special and they deserved what they recieved. I was able to confirm Zach a member of the church yesterday in sacrament meeting. That was also an amazing experience, the spirit was so strong in that room and the Ward really got the good spiritual feeling, they are now beginning to come alive in the work. That was another blessing.

One of the biggest and coolest blessings I recieved this week, was that while everyone at home was at Papa's funeral, I was at the LA temple. Which is exactly where I needed to be. This temple trip was so spiritual for me, different from any other one that I have gone. For the first time the whole week I was just happy, I didn't have anything else on my mind but Papa and the Lord. I was irritating the member I was with because I spent a long time in the Celestial room praying and trying to find things to be thankful for instead of dwell on how sad I was. It really was the most amazing experience that I cant describe in its fullness. It was amazing that the rare opportunity I have to attend the temple just happened to fall on a day I was not looking forward to.

The lesson Learned

I think that when something we hold close is lost, we as humans have a tendency to do one of two things. Either they instantly look for other things that are bad and they just feel worse, or they involve Heavenly Father. I think that when we do involve Him, He has a tendency to show us the things we are actually blessed with instead of the trials. Before my mission, I tended to do the first action after a trial. It was really hard to be happy. When these trials came I decided to put my burdens on the Lord. This became the best week of my mission. Being able to look back and instead of seeing all the bad things that happened and only seeing the good in all of it has been an amazing miracle. It has strengthened my testimony exponentially of how my Heavenly Father really knows me, that he has been preparing for this time for a while. I know that he really does love us and that he always fulfills his promise in John 14: 14-20
14 If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it

15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever,

17 Even the spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you

19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

20 at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

I know that the Lord means it when he says he will comfort us, we may not see it at first, and we may not find comfort right away. I know he always comes to us and will lift us up when we need him. "I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." -Joshua 1:5

There has been another scripture that has been involuntarily filtered through my mind over the past week. I did not know what it was, but I found it and found an amazing sense of relief and comfort in it. The scripture is 2 timothy 4:5-8

5 But awatch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an bevangelist, cmake full proof of thy ministry.
6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

When I finally read this It was really hard not to cry, because I knew that Papa was happy, that he lived worthy enough to inherit the celestial kingdom, that he "fought a good fight, finished his course, and kept the faith." He IS truly an amazing man and I am so proud to be his Grandson.

This has been the most rewarding and spiritually challenging week of my mission, I lost my Grandpa but I gained a greater testimony of my Father in Heaven that I could have never found otherwise. I hope you all didnt get too bored reading this, but I hope you guys know that Im doing well, that I am happy in my mission and that the Lord is really watching over me. I love being a missionary it has brought me the greatest 6 months of my entire life. I love this gospel and the peace and joy it brings people. I am so grateful for my trials, they have helped me come closer to my Heavenly Father.

I hope you all are doing well, and that the Lord can impact your life as greatly as he has in mine. I love all of you and am thankful for all the wonderful letters, emails, and support you show me. I hope to hear from you all soon and hope you all have a wonderful week!

Elder Taylor Carper

Highs and Lows

I am writing the blog post for Taylor this week.  His email time was spent in shock with news from home.

High:  Taylor had his first baptisms on Saturday, February 22, 2014.  B & Z were baptized.  What a miracle it was since the grandma was on oxygen.  Her sats went down to 60, but she was able to get baptized.  What a great occasion.

Low:  Taylor's grandpa (Scot's Dad) died on the same Saturday.  He was diagnosed with throat cancer right before Thanksgiving.  He was given a treatment plan and pretty good odds to beat it.  He was 90% through his radiation and chemotherapy treatment when the doctor decided he was finished with the treatment.  Poppa had to deal with shingles beside the pain from the treatments and it was time to heal.  He was nourished this whole time through a food tube.  He had a stroke which prompted a MRI.  The MRI revealed that one of the tumors kept spreading during treatment.  The cancer was in his jaw and brain.  We found out on Thursday that he was terminal.  He came home that same day, refused food and water and died Saturday at 7:45 pm.  It was quick, but what Poppa wanted. Taylor found out on Monday (yesterday) by email.

Blessings:  There are too many blessings to list here, but we have been blessed.  While the funeral is in Bountiful on Saturday, Taylor will be going to LA Temple.  What a perfect place to be.  He gets to go to the temple because it is his companion's birthday.  Coincidence?  We know otherwise.  We are so grateful that Poppa didn't suffer any longer than needed.  He lived a great life, and he told us that his parents needed him on the other side. We know that Poppa will help Taylor from the other side.  Scot and I were relieved that we didn't have to worry about how much to tell Taylor because we didn't want to cause worry and distraction for something he couldn't change.  It was easier to just write about what happened realizing that he could deal with it easier then worrying about when Poppa would pass away.  Taylor's mission president and his wife are wonderful and have checked on Taylor and reported to us that he is doing well.

Love,
Elder Carper's Mom