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!