Weekly Update 2/22/2016

Weekly update.

#WTD

                    Well Mommy, it finally happened, the moment that we've all been waiting for..... ELDER JOHNSON AND I WENT ON AN EXCHANGE SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We'll cover that when the time comes! Other than that some pretty swell things went down this week. We found out the higher law of missionary work, we found a super duper prepared guy who will be baptized come April, we also saw a lot of cool little miracles throughout the week. In our area in particular I had the best week I've had statistical wise since I began my mission. Particularly due to the fact that Elder Johnson and I just killed it on Saturday. It was a pretty good week and over all I'm pretty happy

with it!

                  So to start I'll tell of a miracle that took place this week. On Thursday Elder Thornock and I were diligently out searching for new investigators. We were seeing some success but nothing really notable. With a prayer in our hearts we pressed on. Being hungry as we both were, we thought lets go get some grub! So we were on our way to get dinner, when I had the thought to hit up a media

referral that we had who requested the Bible. Elder Thorncok felt it right so we went. As we knocked on the door a lady answered and asked who we were looking for and we answered Reginald. Well literally he was sitting there just like waiting for us or something. It was amazing. Turns out he had been talking with sister missionaries online for a month and was really interested. On my exchange with Elder Johnson we committed him to a baptismal date of April 2nd, please pray he makes

it! We know he will! He then went to church on Sunday and even told the ward he loves how the church is structured and wants to join as soon as possible! #MannaFromHeaven Seriously miracles have not stopped happening, that's for sure!

                  So then..... it happened. Elder Carter Crismon and Elder Jaden Johnson reunited for the first time since we both began our missions over 15 months ago. What. A. Day. We went ham in dat paint though! I seriously don't even know where to begin! We stayed up till 2:00 the night before talking about missionary work and what we've learned. Then the day of the exchange we just went off like David Hasslehoff. We literally did every aspect of missionary work except baptize, although we did set a baptismal date, so we'll take it! We found, taught LARCs, taught Gators, saw miracles, and had a crazy experience or two.... LOL! Maybe Johnson will mention it. Seriously though what a sweet experience. Two best friends since fourth grade got to go out with our missionary name tags on and boldly declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and when I say boldly I mean Boldly!!! We had such a good time, we even did a little experiment in this area to see if we could "find" in a different more effective way. And it worked #HigherLawOfMissionaryWork. The best part of the day was the very last lesson. We had a little Testimony meeting with some of Johnson's recent Converts. It was so so cool to feel the power there, and to watch my brother testify of the eternal truths of this glorious

gospel. All I know is that Jesus is The Christ, the Eternal God. What a tender mercy and moment it was for both of us. Literally all day. Plus it's just weird to teach with and see your bro all day as a

missionary. LOL. We loved it, it's cool to know that Heavenly Father cares enough about me to allow that to happen. I think it's just a tip of things to come.

                    So funny story of the week actually happened last week that I forgot to mention.... Hahaha so after our Zone Training Meeting we had to make sure everything was in order. Well we had to roll in a piano to the High Council room, where the meeting took place. We had some elders roll it back while we had another meeting with a small group of missionaries. Well afterwords we

were doing some final clean up to make sure everything was Gucci Mayne. And we couldn't find the piano! Here we are two fellars, and a lost piano. Seriously only this guy could manage that. So we start frantically looking around this church, and we can't find it. In my mind I'm like "Are you Freaking Kidding me?! Someone Stole a Piano?" Like I'm not even mad, I'm Impressed! Hahaha!! Anyways, after a couple of long, hard, sweaty minutes of searching. We found that instrument in a random room. This was the literal fulfillment of the saying "If you want something done right, do it yourself." Maybe I didn't give good instructions... that is possible too! ;)

                   Other cool things that took place this week, my email wasn't working on Monday so if you didn't get an email from me I apologize. I swear I sent you one! LOL! Also we found some

other people that could turn out to be solid. We taught just a ridiculous amount of lessons, and really helped some lost souls find peace! That's cool. For another cool thing, here in the coming weeks

Elder Johnson and I will tag team training at zone conference coming here shortly. That will be sick. I'll get another chance to testify along side my best buddy! It'll be 40 minutes long, so that's pretty

nuts.... Hahaha! We have a couple people on date, and we are looking forward into the future here in the Long Wood area. I would ask that you all continue to pray for me as we keep going on this new way of finding, I'm so excited to go out there and teach some people! God will put some people in our paths that are ready to be baptized! So please pray we find them!

                         Well honestly this was probably the best week of my mission. Largely in part to the killer exchange I had with Elder Johnson. Honestly, it was just one of those weeks you can proudly look back upon. It's cool to see how the mission changes you and who you are. I love my mission, with all my heart. For those of you reading this who maybe thinking of serving a mission, please do so! It will bless your life, and your families lives forever. What you learn here is priceless. Something I learned this week is the importance of Hope. "Faith is the substance of things HOPED for, and the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) Hope comes before faith, and in order for us to truly put our faith in someone or something we must place our hope in it first. Especially in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hope is the prerequisite for the power and action of faith to truly take hold in our lives. I now know that this principle is true. I know that Jesus Christ lives. This is his church and His Prophet President Thomas S Monson stands at the head of it. The Book of Mormon is true, and as we read and pray about it we will come to know the Savior, and have the ability to become like Him. I hope you all have an amazing week this week! LoVeS!!

Love, Elder Carter Crismon

P.S.- CAN'T BEAT IT!!!!!

Pictures of Carter and Elder Johnson from their time together! Priceless!!

Weekly Update 02/15/2016

The weekly email!

Wahoooooooo!!!

                  Well we had an amazing week! Some good stuff went down here in the lovely Lake Mary Zone. Also had some good stuff happen here in the Long Wood Area! As for me and Elder Thronock! We are best buddies already! We both love lifting, and rap music, and we have just a lot in common! We have a plan to get just huge while we are together! We are pretty excited to just really get this transfer going! We had some good stuff happen this week! We had a Zone Training Meeting, we had to give a report for our mission President to all of the leaders on our Stake which was pretty wild!

Haha! So I'm pretty excited looking forward into the future!

                     So to start this week we had a Zone Training Meeting or ZTM. I love ZTMs!! They are like my favorite thing to plan. We go to MLC (Mission Leadership Council) the week before to listen to president. There we hear what he feels needs to be pushed! So we then plan on how we can adapt that to our zone. It was a great meeting. Right before it started instead of playing hymns we watched a couple bible videos! It really brought the spirit and set the tone for the meeting! My training that I gave went very well! It was one of my better I believe! I got a couple compliments! We had a very good ZTM, and everyone was pumped afterwords. It got some zone unity going! Elder Thronock also gave a great training as well. I really believe that our zone is pumped looking into the future! Wahooo!

                      Then later that same day we had to present a report to all of the stake leaders in the Lake Mary Zone. It's lots of fun Being a Zone Leader because we get to work closely with president Berry. We got to sit next him during the meeting on the stand. So we gave everyone at the meeting a report of how things have been going here in Lake Mary. Overall things have been going pretty good! It was a good report and we are excited looking into the future. It's a cool experience to be these couple of young guns up there in front of all these leaders and testifying of the Savior and his work that we are doing. All these cool experiences that I get to have are truly something else! I'm so very grateful to God that I get to take part in them.

                           So our mission has really started to push the importance of setting goals and working to achieve those goals. So the subject of my training at ZTM was goals setting and how to reverse engineer it to know what you need to do today to make those goals happen! It just makes me so jacked! In missionary work it's so important to just push yourself every single day. The minute you let up, you become lazy. Then you won't be successful! That's really what I want is just to baptize some people! So it's nice to know what I need to do every single week and every day to achieve my dreams. So please pray for this little fellar, because really I'm just a chumlee out here working hard! I know God will bless me! WahOOO!

                         So miracles that happened this week! So well one that happened! Some how throughout the week God just blessed us with people to teach. We had so many meetings and all these trainings to prepare that I was seriously worried about how our week was gonna turn out. I was worried that we weren't gonna preform to our abilities! So Elder Thornock and I just went ham bone in the paint! As we showed our faith and worked hard God put people in our path to teach. I'm forever grateful for that! Haha God is blessing us according to our faith! So I guess that's probably what I've learned the most about this week is faith. I've just been trying to put my trust in God and work according to that. Luckily it's all been working out for me here in the Long Wood.

                        Well I hope everything is going well back there in that place I call home. It's pretty crazy to be a missionary! I love it though, the things I'm learning, and stuff. It's priceless! I just love life right now. I owe it all to my Savior! Literally every good thing in my life has come from Him in some sort of way! That didn't mean I didn't work for it. But He gave me the strength to push on. Even when things just didn't seem worth it any more. A picture comes to mind that a close friend gave me of Christ. On it is a quote that says "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it." I know that this life is meant to be a challenge. If it wasn't then why else would we be here. It's also meant to bring great joy, and that's only found through The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know he lives, and I know that he loves us. This is my testimony. I hope you all have an amazing week out there in the UT or where ever you are! #LOVEs!

Love, Elder CEO Crismon.....

#TurnUp!

 Not sure who this is with Carter, but I am figuring it was at one of his meetings last week.

 Driving...

 This is Carter's new companion Elder Thornock!

 

Weekly update 2/8/2016

The weekly email from Carter.

Yep.

                               Well I hope everything is going good in the world back home! I know it was super bowl Sunday! Weird..... Literally a year ago it was also super bowl Sunday and I was training

Elder Willard! Time seems to be flying by. Well it was a good week here in Longwood, and also Lake Mary! We had some good success and saw some pretty cool miracles! Also this coming Tuesday is Transfers! Wahoooo! Pretty nuts. They are changing the way they do transfers so I now know who my new comp is. His name is Elder Thornock! I'm training him to be a new zone Leader! Second time I've done that! Wahooo! So I'm excited for this next week!

                             So to start this week was full of finding. After baptizing all of our investigators we had to start finding some more solid ones. Well it happened this week. We found a young man named Patrick! We were going to visit a guy who just had moved in and was less active. As we got there he had his friend Patrick with him, and his friend Patrick has been looking for a church for a while now. We were able to teach this guy about the Book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith! It was a miracle because we were looking for some more people to teach! Also we were able to continue

teaching Sunny! The guy who just walked into church the last week! We actually set him a baptismal date! Which is pretty cool! It's in March, we are planning on setting another baptismal date this week as well! So if y'all could pray that it goes well! That's be greatttt.....

                             Another cool thing that happened this week was we had MLC. On Thursday we headed on over to Windermere, and we ready to turn up! MLC is a good time, we get to see all of our

bros. I got to talk with Elder Johnson, Doman, Chidester, Egan, Pututau, Ashworth, and Lamgston, and president. Really is just a great time. But it was pretty intense this time around. We had a pretty

heated discussion on one of the topics. It was wild. Fun to participate in though! It's such a cool experience to be a leader in the Florida Orlando mission. I get to help decide on what the mission

needs right now, and what they need to be trained on. Quite the humbling experience. Afterwards is always a classy lunch that had some salad, and pizza.... #Healthy. So this week on Thursday we have

Zone Training Meeting. There I'll be giving training to my zone on what we need to do!

                            A cool little fun fact, my zone this last month lead the mission in baptisms. The best part about it is we are also the smallest zone. #ComeBackCity We did some good work here, this

month is not as looking as fruitful, but hopefully March is. So that's Gucci.

                            So funny story of the week I guess! So my hair is getting kinda long, and a tad bit nappy. So on the day of MLC I thought well I'll try a new hair style.... I just took my hair gel and just went hard in the paint. Well I liked what I saw and I thought It was kinda funny. It wasn't undignified or anything just a little different then what I normally do. So I walk into MLC, and my good friend Elder Ashworth starts just cracking up! Haha He thought it was just freaking funny, like the rest of my bros at the MLC. I mean they said it looked good, not sure if they meant it or not. But I'll take it. I'll be sure to include in this email a picture of what it looked like! Haha

                            Well that was my week in a nutshell. Honestly nothing super crazy to report to you all this morning. I'm grateful for the chance I have to once again train a new zone leader! I'm pretty happy about it. Please pray for me this week, as we head into a crazy week packed full with random stuff!! We have a ZTM, and also that same night we are having a meeting with all of the leadership in

the stake, and president Berry, in which we will be presenting how our zone has been performing the past couple of weeks. I'm excited but it'll all be on me with a new zone leader! It's crazy to think how

much I've changed. Yesterday was the super bowl, yet I honestly wasn't that sad I missed it. One of my favorite quotes comes to mind. Not sure who said it but it's dope "Let us here resolve that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, does not have the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto eternal life and salvation." Now we don't really need to sacrifice all things, but the point it makes sticks with me. I love this gospel, and I love the Lord. I also love being a missionary! They say if your willing to die for something it shows loyalty. That's easy though! God doesn't want people who are willing to die for it! He wants people who are willing to live for it, cause that's the true test. This is my conviction! I will be praying for you all this week! I hope you have a great week! Loves!

Love, Elder Carter Crismon.

Shout out to Isabel Jones for signing with Utah!!!!! Wahoooo! #GoUtes

#PAC12 #Leggo

This is the photo of his hair with the gel at Missionary Leadership Counsel! :)

The Week 2/1/16

Welcome to Longwood little Fellars.

Weekly update #72..... RoughlyLOL

          Just kidding I don't keep track of how long I've been out. That's crazy, plus I really don't believe I can count that high.... ;) but isn't that what college is for? Haha! Well it's been a good week thus far out here in the glorious land we call Florida! Another successful week here in Longwood. This week slowed down a little bit which was nice. Only one exchange, and a district meeting. Well and some other stuff I guess. Haha! Time seems to be just going by. Every week seems to be going by faster and faster. Oh well! 

             Well to start this week we had an exchange with the college park elders once again. They cover The University of Central Florida. I stayed in Longwood with Elder Birchell. This was the second exchange I have been on with him! He's a great fellar from Vernal Utah! We had a great time staying up and talking about life, and girls, and football. We had a great exchange and saw some cool miracles even though we had people cancel on us through out the day! This transfer has just been filled with exchanges. We've gone on 11! I want to cry! That means for literally 11 days and nights I wasn't with my compadre, but instead helping some other missionary! Pretty cool I guess. Every exchange that I go on I seem to learn another principle. I learn another way to help others. Exchanges are the best! Even though they are just exhausting, they are totally worth it. 

               A couple really cool things happened this week. The Lord taught me a simple but important truth! No matter how many lessons you teach, and you will teach a lot, there will always be one special person that the Lord wants you to meet! Now, we still impact a lot of people on a day-to-day basis, but I now know that every day there is a specific person we are to bless. Great example of this was yesterday. Elder Honda and I were going to visit a media referral. As good missionaries do we talked with every one and we met a very nice lady. As we talked we found out that she was a less active member of our church! We talked for a little while, and she made the comment "I know God sent you here to help me!" Pretty cool. It was nice to be able to help someone out! It was a cool experience and now we are gonna start meeting with her! Wahoooooo!

              As of late our mission has been making a huge push to do more service work for the community. We have been doing service for a place called Hope Helps. We've been doing things for them and their thrift store! It's been loads of fun, and there is some cool stuff to buy there! On Friday a couple of us missionaries got to take part in a very special service project. We got to help the homeless. We as missionaries went to this Christian charging center, we then helped homeless and less fortunate people get free food! Pretty nice food too! A whole semi-Truck load of stuff! It was cool and felt amazing to see the genuine gratitude on people's faces. We talk a lot about how good service heals the soul. Well I definitely know it does. When we make time to serve our fellowmen, the Lord blesses us with love for them! I'm grateful for the chance I've had to serve them and their families! As they say service heals the heart!

              Well finally just as a little plead for help, Elder Honda and I are just having the hardest time finding solid people to teach! We are finding people, they just either have gotten passed off to other missionaries, or they are a little shaky. I would ask that if you want to to send up a prayer for us! We just need some solid people to teach who are older then 10! Right now we are puttering along and it's bugging the crap out of me! Not like we are having horrible weeks, we are still doing very well for where we are at. But we need some extra prayers to find a prepared family to progress in the gospel! Thanks!

               It's been a fun and crazy week. Every day I'm more and more grateful for the chance I've had to serve a mission. It's been amazing. The experiences I've had are truly priceless! I still have my struggles. But it's all in good measure, for I know that it's for my good! Jesus Christ lives, He came, He suffered and bled and died for us. He knows of you and your trials and circumstances! It's true! This is His church, and I'm proud to be out here spreading the good word! I wish you all the very best this coming week! Also I'd like to apologize if you didn't get my email last week. My LDS Mail seemed to be having some issues. Hahaha! So don't think I hate you or anything! If you didn't get my last weeks one let me know, and I'll apologize or something! Also Valentine's Day is coming up, I'm currently taking applications to be my valentine! Just lemme know! LOL;)  Hahaha! Have an amazing week dudes! #LFG #theRISE #LDSface2face 

love, Elder Carter Crismon! 

FOM

                                                            This Email was brought to

                                          You by Carter Crismon, an Elder of the Church

                                                 Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.®

How classy is that? LOL.