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!