The Christmas Elder

Elder Carter (center) arrives at the Oakland Airport with 13 other new missionaries.

Sister Luscher is at far right.

My son, Elder Carter, has arrived safely in California and is now settled into his first assignment, just in time for his first missionary Christmas.  I've been collecting information over the past few days to share in this post, and now I'm finally ready!

Sister Bunker, the wife of his mission president, keeps a wonderful blog about the missionaries under their care.  Since she often includes photos of the missionaries at different events, I will be checking her blog often!  In fact, I "borrowed" the above photo from her most current post, called "Arriving Fourteen."  There are several pictures of Elder Carter there.  If you'd like to check it out, just click the link below.

Santa Rosa Missionaries

If you're interested in Sister Bunker's blog, there is also a link to it in the left sidebar with all my other favorite blogs.

Among the new fourteen missionaries who arrived in Santa Rosa on Monday was Sister Luscher of Utah.  Although we've never met her, she is the niece of our good family friends, Andy and Cindy of Arizona.  What a fun coincidence that she and my son reported to the MTC on the same day and flew to California together to start their missions!

On their first day in Santa Rosa, the newbies were immediately sent out to do some tracting.  In his first email from California, Elder Carter wrote:

"I'm in Santa Rosa and enjoying every minute of it. There is a lot of rain though, but it sure is better than snow. The plane flight was amazing. It was really scary at first because it was snowing really hard, but after a while it was not bad at all. My companion is a nice guy. His name is Elder Reed. He is from Riverton, Utah. We went tracting the first day. What an experience! Doors getting slammed in my face, and the funny one was when this lady freaked out because we came to her house and she had a rat problem. So she was all like 'who are you' and then we said that we were missionaries and she said to come in and show her how the Savior really works lol. So we got the rat out and then taught her a lesson."

Unfortunately, they were unable to follow up on the lady with the rat problem, since they were sent to their newly assigned areas the next day.

Here is Elder Carter's new address.  He loves those letters!
*

Elder Jacob Carter
160 S. Lenore Ave. #28
Willits, CA 95490
*

We enjoyed a beautiful Christmas Eve and a pleasant Christmas morning, which I will post in a day or two, but the highlight of today was Jacob's phone call at 10:15 this morning.  He was able to speak to us for a whole hour, but I admit I monopolized 40 minutes of the conversation, leaving only 20 minutes for Ed, Sarah, and Dylan to divide up!

Elder Carter and his new companion have really hit it off.  Elder Reed has only 3 months left on his mission, and they hope to finish out his time together.  Apparently they have their work cut out for them in the town of Willits.  They are the only two missionaries assigned to this small town of less than 5,000 people, and the bishop of the town's lone, small ward told them it has been all tracted out.  So Elders Carter and Reed are praying hard for direction, to find a way to be led to those whose hearts have been prepared and are seeking the truth.  They would appreciate your prayers, too.

It was hard to say good-bye, knowing the next time I'll get to hear my son's voice will be on Mother's Day, more than 4 months from now, but I'm confident that he is safe in the hands of our Heavenly Father.  What more could any mother ask?