Email home on November 24th, 2014

HEY MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!! How are you doing!! So much to talk about!!!!! So i have to tell you about this new Christmas initiative. The church is doing and it is called "He is the gift". It is dope! It's this huge thing the church is doing that is focused on the reason behind Christmas. There is a new video out and they created new pass a long cards that are getting sent out with all the Ensigns. It's crazy!! They bought advertisement space in Times Square in NY for the whole month of December!! Look into it!!! It's nuts!! WE ARE SO EXCITED ABOUT IT AS Missionaries!!!!!!!!!!!!! GUESS WHAT I HAD MY FIRST BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is the living forest Gump. He has aspergers. He has been homeless 3 times, he's a magician, a pro wrestler, a card dealer at a casino for 10 years, and worked at Disney. He's awesome! Also the family I am working with is progressing great!!! This week the Dad had an accident with his leg. He has thin skin by his ankle and when ever someone scrapes it, it just comes off. Well that happened and we went over to give him a blessing!! He's been living with this his whole life and after I gave him a blessing he said that it had never healed that fast. A literal miracle! So crazy!!! Like the church is true I have no doubt about it. Our Lord Jesus Christ lives, and he loves us. My new favorite song is I know that my redeemer lives. Because he does, and he loves us!!!! He is always with us!! I'm so excited to get my Christmas package!! Like I'm pumped!! I'm sad I'm not gonna be there with you guys!! But its okay!! So with the Skype, its pretty awesome!! We will set up a time later together so you will know when I am going to call!! You can do it at Grandmas house!! Which would be awesome!! We will get 45 minutes!!! So I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!! It's gonna be great!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When it gets closer we will figure it out!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I love you! I will see you guys soon!! Remember that this gospel is the way!! Through our lord Jesus Christ we can do anything. Lean on him. As it says in Matthew chapter 11:28-30 his yoke is easy!! He will help us when we need it!!! Thank you for all you do for me!! I love you guys!!!

Elder Crismon

Carter and his companion Elder Bagshaw with a Ward member and their convert :)

Carter's response to the "surprise photo"

Chan sent him an email about that picture saying how cool that was to get and this was his response:

"hahahah yeah! She lived in salt lake!! She said she would send pictures of us to our parents!! Hope you liked them!! That is Elder Stewart, and Elder Pyle great guys!" 

It's nice to know who was in the photo! :)

Surprise Photo!

Yesterday we received this surprise photo via a text to Andee. It was from a Draper family who are in Orlando vacationing and met Carter at church! They were sweet enough to text it to us and tell us what a great guy he is! MADE OUR DAY!! I hope the other missionaries in the picture got texts off to their Mom's as well! :) Thank you to the Maxwell's the sweet family who sent it!

Emails home November 17th

Hey mommy!!!! I've had a good week!! I'm glad to hear all that!! Bikes are fun!! I had to get new pedals because I broke the plastic ones! I guess I'm too strong! We rode 70 miles this week! Probably more!! It's fun though!! I miss you guys tons! But I love the work here! We just get to help people! So I got offered weed this week!! Hahahah and I said no. Hahahah And I also fell off my bike for the first time! Luckily I'm Okay!! Thank you for the pics!! I love them so much!! Makes my life!! I have to go soon! But I will write you guys!! I love you all!!

PS- I have my first baptism this week! And I fed some turtles! :)

Love,

Elder Crismon

New mission pictures!!

 I'm not sure if this was a meeting for their zone or what- but that's a cute group of kids!

 This had to be around Halloween?!!

 On the balcony of his apartment!

This is my favorite!!! Carter and one of his best friends Jaden who is serving in the same mission!! He just arrived recently and I was thrilled to see that they saw each other! :)

Updates from letters home November 15, 2014

Mission updates! Here are some cool miracles- One day while it was raining we were getting pretty discouraged but we decided to knock one more door and this woman answered, she looked at us and said, "That's spooky" in a British accent. Were were like... what's spooky? Come to find out she has been looking into the church for 2 weeks and had just ordered a Book of Mormon and she was listening to a talk by the prophet when we knocked on her door! How Crazy?!! We've taught her 4 times since then and her and her family are getting baptized in January! Another crazy story with her is I had to say a prayer after one of our lessons with her and she asked me to pray for her Mom who was in the hospital. The next day her Mom was released! She was supposed to be there for 6 weeks! How crazy! Miracles happen all the time out here- like every day and they are all in my journal (you'll be pleased to know that I have been keeping a journal)! Any who, I am thankful for your letters and ask that they keep coming! Know that I will write you back! In 12 days my first investigator will get baptized. He is great! He has aspergers syndrome and I love him! He has dropped coffee in 4 weeks! You'll get tons of pics at the baptism soon! I love you guys so much!

One more...

Mission life is good! With only $140 on my missionary card I am trying to learn how to budget! I've been using my own personal card too a little bit! I am doing the Lords work and I know it! I have to get going I love you so much!

Love,
Elder Crismon

Email home November 10, 2014

WELL CRISMON FAMILY......
now that we all know who the best team is!! In the pac-12...... All that
matters is the outcome at the end! And it was a blow-out! Hahaha
Oregon goin' all the way!! Hahahaha! Any who I love you guys!! Tanner
told me that it was close until the 4th quarter then Mariota just went
off.... Any who sorry, but I knew it all along!! Who all went to the
game? But Utah is in the top 25!! That's good!! This has
been a good week! I'm going to mail you details of the week! So I'm sure
you got a letter in the mail about Christmas gifts, and I'm sure you
want to know what I would like!! Well here is a list to EVERYONE, who
would like to send me something (that's because I don't want to send it
to multiple peeps, so just share it with anyone that wants it) all I
would like is......... :#1 a sick Oregon shirt, #2 some sick ties, and
#3 anything else y'all can think of cause that's all I can think of!
Hahaha! Any who! Just some office stuff would be good! Anyways I love
you guys!! Tell Will good luck for me on his job interview!! I'm sure he'll kill it!! And
I'm glad Brianne liked that stuff!! Anyways! I'll be sending you all a letter this week so be ready!! LOVE U GUYS!!!!!

(FYI- if anyone reading this blog wants to send Carter something for Christmas it has been requested that it arrive at the mission home no later than December 8th! THANKS!)

Email home November 3rd

Glad you liked the letter!!!!! I'm gonna write you again and tell you some more crazy stories!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes I got that stuff!!!!!!!!!!!! And I love it!!!!!!!!!! Any who, but can you send me my Oregon sweatshirt?? It's pretty cold in the morning!!!!!!!!! hahaha I'm such a wimp now!!!!!!!! I love you guys so much!!!! So for Christmas i get to Skype!!!!!!!!!! How cool is that?????????? Any who!!!!!!!!!! Yeah we see all this voting stuff, and they are voting on medical weed here in Florida!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any ways!!!!!!!!!!! Funny story!!!!!!!! We knocked on this door, and this guy answers and he looks drunk, and he says "Hey guys yeah I'm super hung over, and stuff I feel like complete crap and stuff, so i don't wanna hear about Jesus". I seriously laughed for and hour after!! It was classic!! He also had a shirt on, and on it was a picture of Darth Vader holding a sign that said free hugs!! hahahahahahahahaha I DIED!!!!! What a great guy!!!!!!! So we had a whole family come to church this week!!!! It was awesome!! We had a trunk-o-treat!!!!! It was fun!!!!!!! We made some chili!!!!!!!!!! We didn't win the cook off doe............ sad day!!!!!!! Any who on Halloween, we had an appointment later that night, but we got stuck in a traffic jam, so we helped fix it!!! haha we were there for an hour and a half!!!!!!!! everyone loved us after though!!!!!!!!!!!! It was crazy!!!!!!!!!!! hahahahahahahahaha Any who I'm going to write you!!!! love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!