Sometimes we have to take the good with the bad...

Hey Everyone,

This week was a good and a bad week. It was something of a bittersweet symphony.  We had two baptism but we also had to cut a lot of the people that we were teaching because they did not want to continue doing the thing which we had asked them to complete. However, we did mark one baptism and we also found two family which I feel could have some great potential.

My companion and I are trying to take a new road on doing the work. It is kind of a pyramid skeem, but if it works out we will have to work less and we will get more results.  We are trying to break the idea that their exists two church.  The church of the missionaries and the church of the members.  We are now trying to motivate the members in taking a proactive role in missionary work. We are now training them to speak to their friends family members who do not apart of the church, and we are teaching them how to place a Book of Mormon in their hands and giving chapters or a couple of verse to read.  We are also trying to get people to mark family home evenings with their neighbors and friends and talking about the church in general.  I hope that it gets some results.  I feel like if these works the results will be at least three times bigger them what we are currently having.

I ask all of you to take note of what I just said, and try to start having missionary experiences.  I remember when President Connolly asked that our stake to start praying to have missionary experiences and I believe that it gave great results for the missionaries and also for those who shared the gospel with those who do not know it.

I am doing well really well indeed. I got Amy's birthday package. Thanks Amy and Chris and Amelia and lets not forget Olivia.

I am still waiting on the others, but I believe that I will get them here soon.

I am doing really well, and I love you all and I hope to talk to you all soon.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

And the Oscar goes too... Who cares????

Dear Family and Friends,

Oh, how does time flies. I did not even remember that Oscar season was just last week.  Every year I got all excited about such things and now I couldn't careless about it. Oh how I have changed since I have became a missionary and changed my wayfaring ways.

This week was all good. We had two confirmations of the two women that we baptized last week.  It was good to see them at church. I have full certainty that they will stay active in the Church. We also started to frequent another chapel.  Our beloved Salgado Filho was closed this last week because it is an old chapel. It will be renovated and twice the size when she is done and so I cannot complain too much about it. It was a much needed change.

My new companion and I are doing great.  We have one bad thing though. We talk in English too much. It is going destroy our ability to speak in Portuguese.  It is really hard however because every now and again one of us will ask the other, "Oi você se lembra (incert show or movie or music here)."  Which means hey do you remember..." and we will get to talking about Back to the Future or Rugrats or OutKast.  We are getting better about meaning more self controlled but at the start it was difficult.

We are going to have two more baptisms this weekend. I am very excited about  these two.  It is a mother and her 8 year old daughter. Joci and Julia.  Julia´s grandmother is the 2 consular in the Primary and she was been going to church forever and one day our Bishops said hey go and baptize her.  He does that often.  So I talked with the little girl and asked her where she lived and if we could talk to her mother.  She said yes and gave me the address.  We went there and at first her mother was really nice, but did not seem to want much to do with religion at all.  She agreed to have us come back. She had a complete transformation and she got really excited. For example it was two weeks ago that we gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon, and she has already read to Mosiah. She is reading alot, and she has also quite smoking and drinking coffee.  It is a great progress that she has made.

Well Family I love you all and hope you are doing well.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Roommates Once Again....

Dear Family,

How is everyone doing? 

I am great, and I thank everyone for your love and good emails for my birthday tomorrow.  I am very thrilled that I will be turning 23 years old, but at the same time I realize that I am getting really old. My life is got much to do but little time to do it in.  I am all smiles however. I will get getting a new companion tomorrow.  I already know him. He is a good guy and he will be my third American companion.  Elder Hill.  He was my roommate in the CTM. It will be sweet. I am looking really forward to the new things that will be happening. 

I am doing really good. This last week there was a great deal to get done, and we managed to get it all taken care of before this past Sunday.  My last companion is ending his mission.  His name is Elder Monteiro he is a good guy, but he is really to leave.  The funny part of it his mother and father came to get him. He was really occupied by that for a while, and he did not think about too much other than that. We also received two more missionaries in our ward.  It is growing greatly and require two more Elders.  So this week my companion and I were on a constant companion exchange.  It was good however because we managed to help these two guys out, unfortunately one of them is being transferred to another area so I will have to help the new guys how is coming to the area.  

We also had two baptisms this weekend, and you would not guess it, but one of them the woman asked me to baptize her. Her name is Iracema. She is a wonderful woman.  She is the mother of three, and two of her children have mental handicaps. One cannot talk and is a result of lack of oxygen in the brain during the birth process, and they other is due to something that happened when he was a child.  It is very difficult for her, and she took to the gospel like no one I have seen before. It was an amazing transformation. She was a smoker, and when we taught her about the Word of Wisdom she stopped smoking, and that was about a month ago that she quiet smoking.  She is a great example of true will power through her faith in the Savior Jesus Christ.  

The other was a woman that was not baptized with her husband because she was pregnant and it was a risky pregnancy.  However she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and after a good time of recover and some trials of faith she too wanted to be baptized, and the cool thing about it was that her husband was able to baptize her having received the Aaronic Priesthood that same day.  It was cool.

My week is doing great, and I hope you are all doing really well. Amy Happy Birthday in two days.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

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