Free Agency is a Powerful Thing!

Well Family,

This week was a good week. We managed to have many lessons and also we marked two baptisms for this weekend. It was also a colder and all around a better week.  

I had a couple of interesting experiences which prove that free agency is a powerful thing, and that laziness is more powerful at times.  I have done a lot of things to help a certain investigator to get married, but he has been keeps a secrete from us for some time now and our bishop discovered what it was in a chat that he had with him.  He is on probation for a crime that he has committed a while back, and he never told us.  So even if we were to get the marriage taken care of, he would not be able to get baptized because of the criminal troubles that he has.  It is a stab in the back, but what can you do.  I realize that none of this is my fault and that I did everything in my power to help this man out, but until he looses his vices which easily binds him, we cannot move forward and he is procrastinating the day of his repentance.

On a more littler note I have started shaving with a straight blade razor.  It is much better than anything else I have used.  They still sell actual razor blades and I recalled that Dad once said that when he was learning how to shave he said that a straight one blade was much better than anything that we use today. So I thought to myself, why not.  I have to say it is the best save I have given myself.  I will bring it home with me.  

My companion is ending his mission now and so it is somewhat funny. He is working hard, and he is showing me lots of things how to improve my teaching and what not, but it he knows that he is ending his mission, and he is becoming really trunky.  It is really funny.  I hope that I can continue on like that, working, but have a sense of humor about the end of the mission.

Happy Birthday Seth.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Things are going my way!

Well family,

I am very good. I tired,but I am good. That life is good and things are going my way.  This last week we were able that we to teach many lessons in spit of a transfer and also a council meeting that we had that took up a lot of our time that day.  We did not have the wanted baptism, but this week I am feeling that is going to be a good week.

I have a new companion. I do not remember if I mentioned that. It was somewhat of an unexpected thing. My companion was called to a new position in the mission and my new companion is Elder Monteiro.  He will be ending his mission this transfer.  He has just two more weeks left in the mission. We have been in the same zone for many transfers. It seems that we were always in the same zone, but never companions, and now it has come.  We´ve done many division together and the people that we found on those divisions have been baptized.  It was good times had by all.

I really do not have much to say other than that. I am doing well, and people are saying that I am getting really skinny.  I do not know if that is true or not, but I am glad to hear that. 

I love you guys and I will talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Hello Family and Friends,

I am doing really well.  I will be getting a new companion soon.  My new companion was called to be the assistant of the mission president.  I am very happy for him, but it is a little sad to see him go.  He and I were working really well together this time around and we have many good results to our work as of now.  My new companion is going to be the old assistant.  His name is Elder Monteiro.  He is from Belo Horizante, which is the capital of Minas Gerais.  It is a huge city.  I really do not know the exact population but I would say around the size of Chicago.  

 The weather is about the same.  I think I am getting used to the weather.  It is much easier now. Although I am sweating bucket all the time. It is really uncomfortable sometimes, but I am getting used to it. I am red. It is my color it seems. I am using the sun block that Mom and Dad sent me for Christmas, and that seems to be helping me just great.  I am not nearly as red as I was and I am getting tan.  Thankfully.  I am looking good. I like it.  It is a nice change of pace, although the rest of my body beside my face and arms is the color or refined sugar.  I am afraid of what people would say if I ever left my house in shorts and a t-shirt.  It is somewhat embarrassing.  

Tonight I will be making pizza for a family home evening that we will be having. I am very excited for it. It has been a while since I have made pizza.  I hope I can still please the masses with my culinary mastery.  We hope to baptized this family here soon.  The father and mother need to get married, and we are working on that and they have three children who are already members of the church.  It is good.  Keep Alex Dos Santos in your prayers for me.  

I heard that Lafayette will be getting snow soon. Oh how I miss snow.  Thou knowest not.  Life is good, and it is a good test of faith and patience, and I hope that I will pass this week with flying colors.  

Love, 

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Hot Hot Hot

Hey everyone,

My goodness it is darn hot, hots I's tells ya.  How hot, thou knowest not.  Today however is cooler, and it looks like it might rain.  I hope it does, although I bought myself a hammock and I was looking really forward to taking a P-day afternoon nap.  I while simply have to do that in my bed.  Oh wo is me.  I am just kidding of course.  I am really happy. My new companion, well old companion and I are getting alone great.  He was in Cruz Alta with me for two transfers and now we are going to be together at least one.  It is good. We already know our idiosyncrasies and we are used to them.  He had a good week however for being a short one.  We had a day where we taught 9 lessons.  It was great. I really enjoyed working like that.  I hope that we can continue the pass. 

We are going to have another baptism this week.  It is a nine year old girl named Luiza.  She is super smart, and she wants to be baptized. She is a daughter of a less active member of our ward, and she was going to be baptized when she was eight years old, but for what ever reason it did not happen, but she now wants to get it done, and we are more than obliged to help.

My new companion, like I said is my old companion from Cruz Alta, Elder Vianna.  He is from São Paulo.  He is a hard working missionary.  It is a good thing. I want to work hard, and reap the things with I have sown.  He and I are having a good start. He found some good new investigators this week, and we are planning and how to find more in a different and more effective way.  I am very excited to see how this transfer pans out. 

I have had a good couple of weeks. My last companion and I reactived a couple of families who had been inactive for more than a year. It is a good thing to see them in the Church with smiles on their faces. I get joy in seeing these families in the Church.  It is good.

I love you guys, and I will talk to you next week.

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

An uncle once more!!!

Well family,

I am very happy to hear that I am an uncle once more.  It is a good feeling to see the pictures of Olivia and Amelia playing well together.  It is something really nice.  I did get a laugh out of the penguin thing as well. It is the coolest animal.  It is always very well dressed. 

I am doing well. I had a good week this week. We taught some very good lessons and my companion is being transferred this week.  I my new companion is also my old companion. Elder Vianna is my companion once more. That is a funny turn of events. It should be a good turn of events. I hope you all are all fine and well.

I got Mom's and Dad's Christmas gift. I am super excited to eat a whole lot of junk food from the good olé U S of A.  I have got little to say about that what is going on.

I love you all and I hope that you all doing really well.  

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Short term Goals

Well family and friends,

I am happy to announce that I am alive and well and that my new years thus far has been good. I had troubles sleeping on new years because of the heat, and also because all the fireworks.  I must say, if there is something  Brazilians love other than Soccor it lighting off fire works.  It is somewhat rediculous at times.  They shoot them off in the middle of the day time, night time, or any time that tickles their fancy. So on nights such as new years eve they started at 6 o'clock and did not stop until 2 or 3 in the morning, and they promptly started back up again at 7 in the morning. I really have never seen so much in my life.

I am still working on completing my short term goals, which are for the next 2 to 3 years of my life.  Then I will start with the mid-term goals which are 5 to 10.  I am trying to be more proactive with what I want to happen in my life than simply letting things happen as them may.  I am discovering this daily in my work as a missionary.  I can be much more productive then I could be with out a plan for things.

I can officially say that this is my last year on the mission.  I have 7 months now before I get home. exactly.  The 3rd of August I will be arriving in the Indianapolis airport.  I would like to get myself registered at Purdue, so that way I can get my mind out of that and continue with work at hand. If you guys can get a start on that that would be great.

I love you guys

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Happy New Years

Hello world,

I am going really good. This week was not that great with two exceptions. I got to talk to mom and dad on Saturday, and on Friday night we ate dinner at the house of our mission president.  That was a good thing.  Everyone had a good time, and we got to stop and relax.  It is a good thing to take your mind off of things, and just relax. I hope to do that to, when I get back to Lafayette.

Another good thing that happened, was an idea that my companion had about putting out a box with an ad that said, Hey you want a Christmas present.  We got a whole bunch of names that way, and we hope to contact them all this week or in the next.  It was a good idea on his part, it takes out a lot of work for us.  We just now search and destroy instead of a mass bombing raid.  

This morning was also a good one. We climbed the mountain once again, with a couple of the youth here. They brought a friend with them that wants to get baptized, but his parents are less then thrilled with the idea of letting their child enter the church.  Keep Mike in your prayers. He is a good kid, and wanted to become a member.  

I love you guys, and I am sorry that this letter in not as big as past ones.  I hope that you all are going extremly well ,and that here in a couple of weeks I will be a uncle once again.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere