Nov. 9, 2009

Last Monday there was a change of plans. I'm not serving with Elder Osmond; I'm now serving with Elder Richins and training him to be a new zone leader. That happened about 7:00 p.m. on Monday night. Its been a great week we've had a lot of people to teach and we actually went from zero current dates set to 5. Vanessa and Maurice want to be baptized this Saturday, James wants to be baptized the Saturday after and so does Tiffany.

Tiffany is a really cool story. We were driving back from transfer meeting in Franklin and we got a call from Sister Gale who lives in our ward. She told us that she had a new friend over and wanted us to come over and teach her. So before we dropped off any of Elder Richins stuff we went by sister Gales to teach her friend Tiffany. Sister Gale met Tiffany because she saw her sitting on the curb with her four kids and stopped to ask if she needed any help. Tiffany then explained that she just got to Clarksville and she's homeless with her four kids. She found a hotel that charged $40 a night for all 5 of them and she was trying to figure out a way to make $40 a day to get a roof over their heads. So Sister Gale let her come to her house and help her fold clothes and do some yard work. We went by and taught her a first and it went awesome. Then the next three days we went back to teach, now Tiffany is living with some members while she works at the PX (the Wal-Mart of the army) saving up money for her own place, and she's preparing to be baptized on the 21st. Sister Gale also found Chrystal Six who was baptized a few months ago because she was walking home with her 3 kids in the rain and she offered some simple service and shared the gospel. Its a great testimony of how simple Christlike service will do more to help people then anything else and it really opens up their hearts.

I may have told you about James already but he's a mildly schizophrenic and he used to have terrible involuntary seizure-like convulsions all the time. He couldn't walk very well, he couldn't read anything because he couldn't hold it still enough to read or hold his head still enough to read. After our first lesson with him we offered to give him a blessing and he hasn't had the convulsions since! It was really sweet.

Elder Arnold hasn't come yet, he gets here tomorrow and is staying till Friday. We'll have our zone conference with him on Thursday and he'll be doing a fireside for our investigators that night. He's doing a tour of our mission.

We hear a lot about the shooting at the post in Texas. Fort Cambell is on higher security now in a lot of areas. We went on post last night to try and see some people and we had to have a sargent escort us everywhere while we were in any of the buildings. It was weird.

I think that I have everyone's address that I need. I do have a request however for something to send. I got your letter and I remember the stuff your talking about that can seal my hems but I cant find any of it amongst my things so if you could send some of that out, or tell me where I can find some. Also I have that robe that I got from bath and body works, if you could send that out as well it would be much appreciated. Its getting chilly in the apartment in the mornings and Elder Richins likes it cold and that robe would be more efficient then wearing a blanket around the apartment :). Thank you very much for all you do. Tell Grandma that I love her, and I love all of you as well. Hope you have a great week!!

Elder Carpenter

P.S. That talk by Elder Bednar that you sent me we actually got to see a broadcast of that for our Stake conference. Then a few weeks ago Dad told me about a talk by President Monson where he talked about the lost battalion and a few other things, its really funny because back in Murfreesboro we got a broadcast where he gave the same talk. Also I got a letter from the Bakers 2 weeks ago and Lauren told me that she did the drill for a drum corp this summer and was in Murfreesboro, at the same time as I was!!! Crazy.
Anyhow Love you!!!