Dec.29th

Hi everyone,
I can't believe it has been so long since I wrote on the blog. We are doing well and loving the weather here. It was 74 today and people out mowing their grass. It looks like spring here the grass is green and it is warming up nice. I hope it stays nice. We had a week of rain off and on the week before Christmas.
We are having some success we had one of the couples we have been working with the whole time we have been here come to church on Christmas. It was exciting. The mom with 4 children we have been working with has been to church 3 times in a row and we have had them over for FHE several times. Their boys love cub scouts so we are seeing some response. I know we need to learn patience and that has always been my big downfall.
We really enjoy going to District and Zone meetings they are always so uplifting it helps us keep going. We had a really nice Christmas Zone Confrence. We came away ready to conquer all of Texas. Well it is getting time to end our day. Write to us. Love Elder & Sister Carter

Dec. 18

We have been busy this month. We have also had our ups and down times. Everyone is busy and some forget their apt.so we have not contacted as many people. We had a great zone meeting last week and it was fun to get together with other missionaries. Our Mission President is great we had such a up lifting meeting. It helps to have the encouragement.
Our Branch had a nice Christmas party and we had 2 of our families come. We have been helping with cub scouts because the one family we are activating have 3 boys so that adds a lot to the pack. The boys have a good time and it is fun to be their with them. We have a lot of members to work with. Their was 10 sisters today in RS. We have a lot of work to do. We love you all and wish you a Merry Christmas Elder and Sister Carter

Dec. 5 ,2011

Hi everyone,
Time has gone so fast this last week. In reading our last blog. It was Thanksgiving last time I wrote. We went to Granberry to see the light parade and the shoppes it was a lot of fun and the weather was perfect. Their was a town square with little shops all around with Christmas decorations and lots of fun things to see.

We are working with a family and some of them came to church on Sunday the mother and one of the children it was so nice to finally have them come on Sunday. The boys have been to cub scouts and the girl to activity days. Tonight we had them over for F.H.E. And decorated sugar cookies and had pizza. I think they had a good time.

We had a good lesson with our Spanish investigators last week we read with them from the
B of M and had a good discussion. It was fun to teach someone that was an investigator. Some time it is hard to have people give you so many excuses why they don't come to church or they tell you they will come but don't make it.

We went to the Temple on sat. with the adults in the ward their were only 7 of us that went It is hard for both husband and wife to go when you are gone so long. It takes two and a half hours each way. We had a good time. Then we went to the L.D.S. Book store and enjoyed it. It is strange to not have a distribution center close. We nave been so blessed to have LDS material so easy to buy.

The weather got cold this week end and we woke up to a skiff of snow this morning.
We have our Christmas tree up it is 2 ft. We also have a poinsettia and a snow man. Kira made us a Christmas wall hanging with scriptures to read each day. It really brightens our apartment. Everyone send Christmas cards so we can hear from you. Our address is
1100 Indiana #120
Graham, TX. 76450
We love to get mail or even e-mails it is great.
Well it is time to get some studying done and get to bed. We love you all and pray things are going well for you. Love Elder and Sister Carter

Nov. 25 th

Hi Y all,
We have had a slow week this week. We had a good time a the Temple last Sat. it is so beautiful as all the Temples. It is a long drive as most things are from where we are it took two and a half hours each way. We are going with adults in the ward on Dec. 3rd. We will have to send pictures. We had a nice visit with our kids yesterday. We did Skype so we could see them and they could see us. It was fun. They are all growing up so fast. We had a nice quite day for Thanksgiving. We watched that movie 17 miracles. We had seen it with Phil and Sami before we left but it is one you can watch more than once. To day we are going with a couple in our ward to see a light prade and some shoppes I am not sure where but know we will have fun with them. Not much to tell this week hope all of you are doing well. Love Elder and Sister Carter

Nov.17th

I can't believe it has been a week siene we wrote last. Last thur.night our dinner and the movie on the restoration went well. We gave both of them a book of Mormon in Spanish and a marking pencil. We read with them some and it was a good night. The next day we had district meeting so I made pumpkin cookies and we took some to the Elders they loved them.
Sat we had a good day in Jacksboro. We were able to meet with 4 members it was nice to get a warm reception. We will keep trying to find the rest of the members in Jacksboro. We have been their 3 times now it is about 24 miles from the Branch building.
Sunday they ask me to talk in Sacrament Meeting just before it started because one of the speakers had not come. It had left the iPad home so I could not look up a conference talk or anything. We were starting the empty nesters the next night so they told me to talk about that. So I talked about the importance of F.H.E. And then went into the empty nesters. I was scared to death. I better start preparing some thing and have it in my scriptures so I don't get so scared. We only had 7 of us show up to empty nesters but it was fun and we had a couple that we had visited that have not come out to church yet. So that made it worth while.
Tue. we had Vons Dr. Apt so we went to Fort Worth we have been their for 2 meetings but did not drive around as much as we did on tue. we did ok with the GPS we had a good time. We meet with other Sr.couples that are at the mission office and went out to dinner. They took us to a all you can eat. I have not seen so much food in my life. It was sooooo good. We spent the night in weather ford because we had a meeting their the next morning. It was a nice break but we were happy to get home again. We are going with the youth to the Temple on sat. that will be nice it seems like a long time since we have gone to the Temple. Well enough for now will write later. Elder & Sister Carter

Nov.10

We are set we now have Internet service in our apartment. It is nice to be able to sit at the table and not have to be in the car or in the pizza shop.
The weather here is nice during the day in the 70s most of the time but in the morning when we walk and run it has been 49 down to 41 today. It makes it hard to breath in the cold air. But we are so happy to. Have the nice temp. During the day. Not snow!
We have had one of our members to breakfast yesterday for wheat pancakes and watch a movie on the Temple. He is going with the youth this next sat to the Temple to do Baptisms. He had some questions so the film was helpful. Tonight we are having 2 men over for dinner.we found them when we were hunting for a members house. We have been to visit and teach them one other time after our initial visit. We will show a movie tonight. I hope it goes well.
We had a baby shower at the branch last night and it was fun.
We have set up to start the empty nesters on mon. I hope we get the members to come we are calling and inviting them so they can't say they did not know about it.
Von is helping with cub scouts again this week and one of our families has said they will let their boys come if all 3 of their boys can come so that will double the size of the group. They have been having 4 boys.
The one sister we are working with has let us meet her and her children at the church for a lesson yesterday. That was nice and worked out good. We showed a movie and I have made a magnet board layout for next lesson. The kids were really good.
We just keep trying to set up apt. and keep asking members to come to church. Las week I was sure the one couple would come but they didn't show up, and when I called to set up our next apt. They said they would call so I don't think we will hear from them.
We are trying to keep positive even when people call and cancel their apt.
We love you all and hope every one is doing great. Elder and Sister Carter

Nov.2

We have still been helping paint and clean for the family that is moving. I hope we can get them committed to come to church this week. We have still been visiting members their were two that visited with to today that have been thinking about getting to the Temple if we can get them coming then we will see about starting a temple class. Tue morning when we started our study time I picked up the ensign and was to the talk by elder Holland and it got me excited what a powerful talk if we could just stay fired up like that all the time. one of the new members we have been seeing is not reading and we are not sure if she can read so we ask. If we could help her teach her children so we can make it simple. She also does not feel comfortable having us come into her house so we offered to meet at the church so she does not have to worry about her house. I hope this will work better for her and we can get the kids involved. Her husband will not let them get baptized but he will let them come to church. All we can do os keep trying every thing we can think of. We love y'll have a good day Elder and Sister Carter

Oct. 27

Last night we had our branch fall social. It was a lot of fun. We had two of the people we invited show up so dad stayed with one family and I stayed with the other family so we could make sure they meet others and did the different activities that they were doing. We had pizza from Potters in the branch and I made pumpkin rolls, the had cookies for the kids to decorate and root beer to drink. They told stories,and had the setting all scarry and they had a bean bag toss game and a bowling game with cans painted like goasts and rolling a small pumpkin. Then the kids did the trunk or treat. Everyone had a good time. Today we have been helping a member that is moving to clean the home they are moving to. They have been inactive for about 3 years. She got her feeling hurt. I don't know if this will help but it does not hurt to try.

Oct.25th

Hi,
It looks like I wrote last on thur.morning last week so not a lot has happened. Von helped the Cub Scouts thur make small tool boxes and stilts the boys had a good time. Their are only 4 boys but we have invited 2 more boys from family's that we are working with so they would be a good addition. Fri we visited members all day but out of 7 we only got in the door of 2.
We had one couple over for dinner at our apartment on fri night and that was fun. Sat we went to 4 homes and only found2 home and found out one had moved.
We had a baptism sat. at 6:00 so we were at the church getting the water ready so it would not be cold and Von even watched some of the BYU game on the iPad
Sunday night we had a part member family come over for ice cream and cookies. She has been a member for a few years and he has had the lessons at least 3 times. They have two cute boys one two and the other four she is doing home school with them and they are good kids. The mission leader in our branch and his wife came over to so that was good. This week on wed. night is the fall social so we have been taking around invitations and cookies. Fri.they have a lunch bunch for sisters that want to get together for lunch so we will invite to that while we are out.
This week at church one of the sistes we saw during the week came she has not been here since we have come so that made us feel good.
The branch president ask one of the older sisters to start a empty nesters and told her I would help her so we are starting that on the 2nd mon of each month. I think the key is to get as many coming to something where they can meet the members. It is also a way for part member families to come and not fill that it is just church.
We are doing well just trying not to get down on our selves. This is the Lords work and he will help us. We love y all
Elder & Sister Carter

New week

It has been a nice week. We started Sunday with meetings at the church and then talking in sacrament meeting. We also had a nice visit with one of the active members about helping her get a son of hers active again. She blames her self for his being inactive because she was not active when he was in his teen age years.
Monday morning we left our apartment at 6:30am and picked up the 3 Elders in Mineral Wells. We had a special meeting in Fort Worth. We re to be their by 9:00 am and in our seats at 9:30am. At 9:30 our mission President and his wife Seagers and Elder David S. Baxter a member of the 70s walked in. we all stood it was a very neat feeling. Elder Baxter had all of us come and introduce our selves and then we went into the gym and had a picture of all of us together. They did half our mission on mon. And the other half on tue. Their are a lot of Elders and Sisters we almost filled the Chapel on mon. And I am sure it was the same on tue. The meeting started at 10:00 and went until 3:00pm with a break for lunch that the sisters in that stake made us.
We had a wonderful day of instruction that made us want to try harder and try to work more effectively.
I am enjoying the study time we have each day. I wish I would have studied more when we were home. Preach My Gospel has so much information in it. I am trying Togo through and not just read the info but also all of the scriptures as well so it is taking a log time.
Our Zone leaders came tonight to interview Justin Wise that is being baptized on sat. We meet them at the church and then after brought them back yo our apartment for dinner.It is good to see the young Elders excitement. So many good young men.
We love you all and pray for you as we know you are praying for us. Love Elder and Sister Carter

Oct.15th

Hi Y'all ,
We made cookies today and did a few batches of wash then went out to find a few of the members. We stoped at 6 different homes and only found one home. We are at the church checking our e-mails and writing. We had a good meeting yesterday with the elders and then went to dinner with the Carters. We went to pizza hut. It was good. We are having a nice day. We need to spend some time getting our talkes together for tomorrow.
The youth are getting together to go do baptisms for the dead today it would be fun to go with them but wen will be going to Fort Worth on mon. for another meeting.
Well enough for now Elder and Sister Carter

Oct. 13

We have had a good day we went to Olney, it is 39 miles from Graham. There are 10 families there and one investigator. He is ready to be baptized so at our district meeting tomorrow we can tell them we have a baptism ready. He is married to the sister we did the baby shower for this week. He was ready before the Elders left but his wife keep having problems with her pregnancy . His wife has grandparents and family that have been working with him.
Olney was a nice town. We have a lot of small places outside of Graham we will start taking a couple days a week and driving to them and seeing the members in them now that we are getting done finding them in Graham. We will tell you the other places when we go there.
Well it is time to get home, have been gone most of the day. Love Elder and Sister Carter

Oct. 12th

We have had a hard day today. I hope we can find some more members that want us to come that we can bring back to church. We had a baby shower last night for a sister and I was wishing I had my sewing machine so I could make a hooded towel. We had our meeting with the Branch president tonight. And after the young kids meet for MIA they have their Seminary for 1 hr. Once a week. Their are only 2 youth in the branch that are Seminary age. Well, I better sign off for now. Write to us when you can we love letters. Love, Mom and Dad

Oct. 11th 2011

We are at the church, we had to run to the post office so we came out to see if we had any e-mail. We are starting to feel better about things. We are finding more people to visit and still finding other members. We are having a baby shower tonight for one of the sisters. I wish I had my sewing machine so I could make a baby towel. I will have to find something else or borrow a machine. Yesterday we had 3 contacts and gave a lesson to one of them. She was baptized in March but quit coming after the sister missionaries left. She is not understanding why her baptism in her other church was not enough. She also thinks we need to be more verbal when we fill the spirit. Like roll on the floor or shout out. There are a lot of different ideas. I am out walking in the morning now my leg and hip are doing well and with Dad out running I fell like I need some excercize. If we walk to the school it is a mile around the school so Dad can run and I can walk. Dad gets 3 laps to my one. Their are not side walks so it is hard to walk on the roads. The school is only a block away so that is a good place to go. It has cooled off this week with the rain. So it is perfect temp 70 to 75 during the day.
How are you all doing? Are you having cold weather. What is going on with the temples? Are they going to have the one in Provo done in less time than the one in Payson?
Well, we better get going. We are trying to eat a big lunch at home and then a snack for night meal around 5:00. It has been working better than having a small lunch and then trying to have dinner before 5:30 so we can be out with the members after dinner hour.
Well we better go. Love ya all mom and dad.

Friday Oct. 7th

Thanks for your e-mails Kira and Erin it is fun to hear from you. I am glad we have still got good weather it is still to warm at night. Even standing on the porch talking to people gets pretty warm. We are still trying to get people to let us talk to them. Sometimes you can hear the people in the house but they won't come to the door. I wonder if they look out and see our missionary badges and just don't want to be bothered. We have to 6 houses today and only talked to 3 people. It will take some time to get to all the members. We had a late lunch today we came to Potters Pizza and had their salad bar. It was good and now dad is ready to go again. It's good he is pushing it I am having a hard time with this. Slot of the porches you can verily stand on. I know we will learn to love the people here it will take some time. We have a dinner with the Carters tomorrow they are into genealogy. It will be fun.
Love ya all mom and dad

P-Day

We had two appointment on monday, on our p-day so we took it today. I had a hair appiontment at 8:00 so dad dropped me off and then went back to our apartment. Misti at the Kutting Edge did a color and a cut. The prices are the same as in Santaquin and she did a good job. One of the members gave me her name and she got me in in one day. She usually works on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays but she came in today after she dropped her kids off at school. She is really nice and easy to talk to. The rest of the morning we did the wash, changed sheets and cleaned the apartment. We had our neighbor and her little girl Riley over for dinner tonight, it is her husbands week to be gone out to the oil field. I made paprika chicken.

After we cleaned today we took pictures of our apartment so I will e-mail them or try, we will see if it works. We got our AT&T canceled today and found out that to get cable in our apartment it would be about $180.00 and then we would have $100.00 to go toward the bill until that was used. It sounded like it was more than we wanted to spend. So we will come to Potter's Pizza every day and check our e-mails. They are members of the Branch and told us we cold use their WiFi any time. So if you want to Skype us you will have to call and then we can come to Potters. They have fee WiFi at a lot of the eating places.

Oct.4th

We have been and are in Weatherford for district meeting. We came to Best Buy and there is not anything wrong with our iPad. We will have to get a cable connection in Graham if we can't get the internet to connect there.  It is frustrating but we will have to see how much that will cost. Oh well we have to go to the Wal-mart parking lot every day when we want to have service. We are going to be looking around to see what other apartments there are in the area and we will see if  AT&T has service before we make the change.

We have been visiting with the ward members that are not active and we have meet some great people. There are hurt feelings in some cases and so it might take time to let go and forgive.

We went to the branch building to watch Conference, it was at 11:00 and 3:00 Saturday and  the men go at 6:00.  They have hot dogs, chili and ice cream before the priesthood meeting. Then on Sunday between the meetings they have potluck dinner. There were only 8 of us that were there for the morning session on Sunday. We put things out on the table and had the blessing and then the branch president and his family came. After lunch everyone left but the two of us. We had a nap while we waited for Conference to start and then watched conference.

We are on the way now home from Weatherford so I don't know how long we will have a connection.

We are giving the missionaries from Mineral Wells a ride because their car is broken. Their are 3 of them so they are cramped in the back seat. It is hard to ride and write at the same time.

Dad was excited to hear about the cement that you were doing last week. He would have been their with doughnuts for you. We have not had any since we left. That is a big surprise with all of the little shops around with coffee and doughnuts.

We just had one of the members call us and tell us of a lady that wants to visit with us so we will go this afternoon to see her. She has a shop in the town square. We have not been down to the town squire yet so it will be fun.

Well I will sign off for now and will try to write again every day.

Love, Mom and Dad

Update

Sorry we have not written, I could not get a connection. Our iPad got stuck on power on our trip and we just went to the AT&T store and got a new chip put in and it is working good now.

We got hear at 6:30 Tuesday night and could not find our street so we stoped at a chicken place and got dinner and talked to them and the gave us some idea where to go. We found our apartment and I was so disappointed. It is old and dirty. The walls in the kitchen and bathrooms the worst.

Second day of travel

Well we are on the road again it is 7:05 am. We are done with breakfast and back in the car. We got to sleep last night and Dad's cell phone rang it was a recording saying that our debit card was on hold so to dial 1 and they would fix the problem. I just hung up. Then a few hours later my cell phone rang and I let it ring and then checked to see if I knew the number their was no number so I went back to bed. We will have to call the bank this morning and see if their is a problem.

Dad says tonight he is asking to see the room before he takes it.  The bed was so soft and worn out that when you sat down on the edge you just slid off. We were up at about 5:30 and got ready and they had a breakfast bar with waffles and juice or cereal. It was ok and so we are on the road looking forward to another day in the car. The weather is good, sun shining and blue sky's.

The land is pretty flat, no mountains a few rolling hills driving into the sun rise. The roads don't have signs saying how many miles to the next town. You just have to figure it out. The next large place we are going through is Santa Rosa. We were thinking of going to their last night but we were done by the time we got to Albuquerque.

We are on our way

It is 6:52 Monday morning and we are on the road. Our car is packed to the top. Phil got everything in last night but we had to take one box out this morning to get the last of our things in. We will call tonight to let you know we are stopped and ok.

Done at the MTC

We have just finished our day at the MTC. It has been a wonderful few days. We have meet many wonderful people and had great teachers. We are glad that we do not go forgin and wonder if we will have a bathroom or have to sleep with nets over us so we don't get eaten alive.

We will spend tomorrow washing and getting our furniture taken downstairs. Then we will pack our things and see how much we can get in our car and what we need to mail. Our mission president called today and he is ready for us. He would like for us to be their this weekend they are having district meetings. It will take 3 days to get their so we will leave Monday morning. We have our route marked and are excited to get started.

We love you, Mom & Dad

Our third day at the MTC

We had a wonderful day to day. We had a nice meeting all together with the other senior missionaries. There are 77 of us this week. We are devided into districts. We have 8 of us in our district. So after our big meeting we meet with just our district. We did our lesson to our investigator and that went well. Then back to have our teacher tell us what we could improve on and what we did well at. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. We do another one tomorrow. 


After we finished with our dinner tonight we went to the Temple. Dad and I were ask to be the witness couple. It was a wonderful night. Also a wonderful day.

We are headed home to read our assignment and to make a lesson plan for tomorrow. What a wonderful time. We hope all is going well with all of you.


 Love, Mom & Dad

Farewell Dinner

On Sunday we had our farewell dinner.  All of our kids came down and we had a big dinner.  Two of Von's brothers also came down to be a part of the celebration.  President Olson had the boys stand in the circle with him while we were each set apart as missionaries.

Me and Von with all of our children.... Back (l-r) Sheri, Phillip, John, Hollie

Front (l-r) Ray, Von, Janiel, and Steven

Our last 2 day at the MTC

Yesterday was a very exciting. We had a fun program and got all oriented. Got our shots recorded. We had fun checking out the cafeteria. Their are a lot of lines of food and you get to choose what you want and everything if you want to and some of the elders do.

We got done early and got home about 4:30. Dad mowed the lawn and I fixed dinner and did the ironing.

Today was a different story. We have been going from class to class and tomorrow we have to teach a lesson to some investors. I am felling very overwhelmed.

We had a neat fireside to night the speaker was M. Russell Ballard. It was a very wonderful evening. Well we better sign off for tonight.

Love, Mom & Dad

Getting ready for mission

We had a busy day today. I started with hair appointment then we had dental appointments. Good news; we have good teeth. We had to stop at the bank. Make a stop at the D.I. and dropped off a trunk full of stuff. Make a stop for bread and milk. We ended our day with a nice visit with our Stake President. It has been a good day. We fell like we are almost getting there.

Yesterday we went to Salt Lake and I got my shopping done. Sheri, Abbie and I had a good day. Elder Pearson from our mission contacted us they have us an apartment for us. They are getting it furnished and ready for us. It is getting to seem more real. We can't wait to get on our way.

 Janiel

August 23rd, 2011

Today I am doing better than yesterday with my back. I hope it is soon better so I can get something done. Today I got all the family birthdays in my iPad. This is fun and I am learning more each day.

Janiel

Working on my ipad

This is my second blog . I am home trying to get my back better, after a fall. I am trying to learn more about my iPad. I hope I can get the hang of this before we leave. Kira made me a case for my iPad to match the purse she made with lost of pockets to put pamphlets in. Well I will sign off for now.

Janiel

logo

isn't that cool

getting ready for mission

Jim is helping us learn to use our iPad. Today we went to Ray Bobbi's for cake and ice-cream for Canon's B-Day. We are so excited to finish getting ready to go. We still have a lot of questions for our mission president and the MTC. Well I am going back to learning how to use other thing for now, bye.

Testing

Just testing to see how things look