Dear Family,
How are you all doing? I am doing just fine. I climbed up the mountain one last time. I liked it. It was a lot of fun. I am, however, very tired, and I would like to take some time off of everything. Unfortunately that just does not happen as a missionary. I am doing good beyond that.
This week my companion, and I have been working harder than every before. We are trying to build up our teaching group, because it is a little small and many people are being cut, because they are not progressing the way we would like them to progress. It is a sad thing, but it is a necessary thing every now and again. It is like cutting down a forest, and planting a new one, it takes time, but in the end it is worth the effort that was put in.
Our mission to get the member to get to working is still going strong we had a new ward mission leader called in our area. I am really excited to work with him now, and he is doing a good job up until now. He is a good friend of mine, actually. His name is Antão. He was baptized about two and a half years ago, and he is a strong member of the Church. He was serving as the ward's young men president, until he was called this week. He is a hard working man. He will do just good and fine on his new calling.
As for me, I am fine. Cannot complain too much. Life has been good to me thus far and I am just loving it here. I got Alyson's gift this today. I am looking froward to make the brownies. That is something that does not exist here. It is good to have a little slice of home. The closest thing that they have here is translated to ( and remember they are not racist here) "crazy negro cake". Which is good, but it is not as good as brownies which does not sound so racist.
I am doing well, and I hope you all are too, and remember always look on the bright side of life.
Love,
Elder Caleb S. Carriere
Fight to the end...
Well family,
I am doing well , and my companion and I are still working on that project that we are doing.
I am doing really great. I am feeling much better about my life, than I was a couple of days ago. I was going through some difficult times, but thankfully I got over it and now I am more deteremed to work until the last day of my mission. I have seen so many missionaries just up and give up a couple months before the mission is over, and what good comes from that. None what so ever.
I know that my job is not yet done, and I am determined to get it accomplished. We had a pretty bad week compared to weeks passed. We did not reach many of our goals which we had previously set for ourselves and our zone, and I more than my companion got frustrated with this, however since he is just a good easy going guy we was able to show me the better way of couping with this kind of let down. He is a big sports fan and he remembered a quote from the quarter back for the football team for the Univercity of Florida. They had just lost one of their games and he said, " you will never see a person in the US work harder than I will work this sesson to take my to the national championship." That year they won the NCAA nationals, so I think there was some merit to what my companion had to say to me in that situation. We are going to be the two most hard working missionaries that Santa Maria has had in a long while, and we are going to take names and kick butt in the process.
I am going well, and finally today we woke up and it was kind of chilly. They weather is finally cooling down and fall is starting to come in. I am so happy. I am done with this hot mugginess, and ready for something different.
Love
Elder Caleb S. Carriere.
ps. I got Amy´s birthday gift last week. Thanks Amy.
I am doing well , and my companion and I are still working on that project that we are doing.
I am doing really great. I am feeling much better about my life, than I was a couple of days ago. I was going through some difficult times, but thankfully I got over it and now I am more deteremed to work until the last day of my mission. I have seen so many missionaries just up and give up a couple months before the mission is over, and what good comes from that. None what so ever.
I know that my job is not yet done, and I am determined to get it accomplished. We had a pretty bad week compared to weeks passed. We did not reach many of our goals which we had previously set for ourselves and our zone, and I more than my companion got frustrated with this, however since he is just a good easy going guy we was able to show me the better way of couping with this kind of let down. He is a big sports fan and he remembered a quote from the quarter back for the football team for the Univercity of Florida. They had just lost one of their games and he said, " you will never see a person in the US work harder than I will work this sesson to take my to the national championship." That year they won the NCAA nationals, so I think there was some merit to what my companion had to say to me in that situation. We are going to be the two most hard working missionaries that Santa Maria has had in a long while, and we are going to take names and kick butt in the process.
I am going well, and finally today we woke up and it was kind of chilly. They weather is finally cooling down and fall is starting to come in. I am so happy. I am done with this hot mugginess, and ready for something different.
Love
Elder Caleb S. Carriere.
ps. I got Amy´s birthday gift last week. Thanks Amy.
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
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
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
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,
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
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