Jan. 26, 2009

NOTE: We got a short note from Bryan early today that said he only had 5 minutes and only wrote a quick note. We were glad he got back on later in the day. Here's what Bryan has to say this week:

Okay we found another computer; it only took us 4 hours to get one that was available. So now I'll try to answer all of your questions. Don't know about Hans's surgery because we haven’t seen him yet he got home on Friday and we haven’t had a chance to go visit him yet but we're going tomorrow. Ironically enough I was going through the area book and found his name in there twice already but no teaching record just a contacting record. So he's at least seen the missionaries at his house before. Ed and Vicky are doing magnificently! We had our lesson with them on Friday and they're both really progressing quite well. Ed's 13 days without smoking now and Vicky has gone just over a week with no cigarettes. The tough part is that they want to be baptized together and Ed is an ex-communicated member so he needs another disciplinary council or something through the Stake Presidency and we A) don’t know how long that will take to get the ball rolling, and B) we don't know what the outcome of the council will be. It's been over a year since he's been ex-communicated and he's really changing and ready to do anything it will take to come back into the gospel so hopefully it will be soon. The longer we wait on getting Vicky baptized at least the harder its going to be. They're both really great though and most importantly they're progressing.

My foot is 100% better no problems at all, I have a picture of it that I'll send home with my next memory card, it's pretty intense. I got the coat liner and the thermals and they came just in time. It was about 65 degrees on Thursday, then I got the package on Friday just in time for it to drop below freezing. Then we're supposed to have some freezing rain tonight and tomorrow. As for my bike, I do have it but it's not put together yet because we need to take it to a bike shop to make sure that the warranty is still valid, we're taking it tomorrow. So I've been riding Elder Pearson's bike for this past week. He was Elder Hansen's last companion and he went home to California and is now at BYU but he left his bike here. We actually do bike in the cold quite a bit because we have some investigators at the far reaches of our area. I live in a small apartment that’s not too bad at all.

As far as the people in the area we have a variety. There's a small neighborhood here that the locals call 'little Brentwood' because apparently Brentwood is like the 4th richest community in the United States or something like that and this small lakeside community is like a little version of that. Ironically enough about half of the doors that we knocked in that area were preachers of other local churches. There's probably more churches here in about a 15 mile radius then there are in Sandy! The difference is that they're all different denominations.

The members here are CRAZY!! Yet pretty good. They're all really really nice but lazy as well. It's a mostly working class area and a lot of people are either out of a job, or struggling to keep their jobs. So that stands as an excuse for people to not do home teaching, not go on exchanges, and not do member missionary work. All the baptisms last year came from part member or less active families in the ward. We receive nearly no member referrals and the home teaching percentage is if I were to venture a guess 8% completed per month. Elder Hansen has been here for his entire mission and loves the ward too much to speak harshly against them. Luckily I'm brand new and like everyone here so far, but I'm not afraid to ruin friendships that don't yet exist. So using crucial confrontations skills I can speak 'boldly' using 'hard words' against them as it calls them in the Book of Mormon. So far no one has gotten mad at me yet and we still have a calendar full of dinner appointments, for the past two days the only meal that hasn’t been provided for us has been breakfast. It's actually kinda sad and kinda funny when I talk to the members about home teaching and missionary work, I did it yesterday in our correlation meeting. Because everyone is really nice and talkative and happy until I start asking them questions on how they can do better then they'll all answer promptly and use the exact answers that I'm looking for, then I ask if they already had known how to do member missionary work then all the smiles fade and it gets quite and no one looks at me. I love the members here some of them don't have a strong enough testimony yet for me to push, others don’t need me to push they just do what is right all the time and help us out whenever we need it, but most of them are just lazy and need constant reminders. Things have already started to get a little better Elder Hansen is getting bolder with the members and they're starting to be more helpful and we're all coming together and hopefully it will continue to get better.

As far as sending things just make sure you send them standard mail shipping no UPS or anything because then the mission home can't accept them, but for now mostly because I don’t even know my address and because its liable to change and the mission home can get them out the next day just send them there. My mission e-mail rules are I can't stop anyone from e-mailing me, in fact I got an e-mail from Harrison today, but I can't write them back, I can only write immediate family. So I wrote Harrison a letter explaining all of that to him.

So just an insight to how the ward members are crazy here. The man who drove us to and from the transfer meeting when I got assigned to Hendersonville was Santa. His real name is John Gladden and he's an older retired man who works as Santa during the Christmas season. He's got Alzheimer’s and forgets things like his name so he puts it on the ring he wears. He has a neon green box of a car that says Santa's Green Machine on the front. His house is decorated with life size coca-cola Santa advertisements and he hasn’t had a clean shaven face for 30ish years and he only cuts his hair once a year. However he's the nicest guy you'll ever meet we had lunch with him today and he rocks. He also buy's copies of the Book of Mormon in different languages off eBay. Then we have another recent convert (recent being 2-5 years) who works freelance as a Andrew Jackson lookalike. He's going to be in a PBS program coming up about Andrew Jackson. He still smokes and struggles a bit and we visit with him quite often but he's a really nice guy and me and him really connect. However he's still really insane, maybe that’s why I connect with him.

Thanks for sending me all that stuff its been awesome to have it, I sorta feel bad because every time I write I ask for you to send something else and this time is no exception. If I could get a CD copy of those talks on the sacrament, and any other gospel talks that you've liked. I already have all the Lectures on the prophet Joseph Smith, and I have all of the House of Glory ones as well, and the Noah Blindness, but if there's any other good ones can you send them to me in CD format. Along with that I have my old CD player, if you can find it, I'm pretty sure its in my room by my stereo, if you could send that as well. Then along with all that stuff could you ask Matthew to burn a few CD's with some of the gospel music that he got on his mission. I know its a lot and again no rush just send it at your convenience. In the two weeks I've been here we've already listened to all of the Joseph Smith lectures, all of House of Glory, and all of Noah Blindness.

I love you guys so much and I love the work. I'll talk to you next week!!

Elder Carpenter