Finally...I show Life!!!!

Our Halloween Sign!!

Yup...you can guess which one
 most resembles me!!

Over nighters

Hello there everyone, I am alive and doing well and I have my computer back up and running and it is doing great and I have stopped slacking and am now finally writing on my blog again!!!!  booyah!!  anyways, tons of stuff has been happening that is for sure, I have been having a wonderful time just like always and have really been just learning a ton, but also just experiencing a lot of things and making a lot of really cool friends.  ummmm...so some of the more significant things that have been happening include that I got into the Christmas Castle Show (otherwise known as Celebrate the Season or CTS) and this is the show that is done on the castle stage in front of cinderellas castle (that castle at the start of every disney movie) and we perform it three times during each christmas party at magic kingdom (which happens 4 times a week with me working usually 3 of those) and I am a reindeer in it!!  so I am loving that and I am actually very lucky and blessed to be able to be doing it cause I have been talking to many people and there are some that have just got in the show for the first time and they have been here for 5 years trying to get in and then there are those who have been here even longer and never got into the show, so it is quite the blessing and accomplishment to get into the show after being here for only 3 months, and it turns out that I am actually the only male College Program cast member in it, so I am the only one that is doing this internship that is male in the cast of 100, so that is pretty special and I just love it , it has been quite the experience learning the whole show and working on the whole show.  speaking of the show here is a link and maybe a video of the show that you all can watch and I will be one of the reindeer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Z_DtqDhbk but ya that has been pretty intense cause we have been working on the show since the first-ish of october and we practiced the ummm...stuff out of the show, we could do the whole thing with our eyes shut.  Then part of that rehearsal process the week before the show opened then we had four overnight rehearsals in a row from 1030 at night to 730 in the morning which really kinda screwed us all up, but we just practiced on the castle stage to get used to the risers and not being able to really see in our heads and what not, ya it wasn't easy but it was so much fun and quite the disorienting experiences.

Yup, done with glue and then
weird make-up, everyone
thought it was pretty creepy

From the Side

My pumpkin!!

So in connection with that I will be doing the parade filming for the christmas parade filming this year so for the next three days i will have rehearsals and then the filming so i will try to find a way that you all can watch that cause supposedly it is aired internationally so you all should be able to check it out and i should be able to point out which reindeer I am.  So ya christmas has been all sorts of fun for sure, but I sure am going to miss my whole family =( I love you guys and I am going to have a blast down here but I am going to miss you all for sure cause you are all the best family in the world and I just love being with you all (even though I am not around yall a whole ton I still love ya!) but the holidays have gone really well, me and a bunch of my friends from back up at school down here have been putting together parties for each of the different holidays, so we had a huge halloween party complete with pumpkin carving, poster making, games, and tons of treats...oh ya and awesome costumes too.  Then for thanksgiving then we had a huge feast two sundays before where we all brought food and we had around 15 people there and had so much food and it was amazingly good and so much fun, and we made a thankful poster with turkey hands decorated how we wanted and it was so amazing and fun!!  And now we are putting together a Christmas party which should be equally enjoyable and I am very excited for it for sure!!!  So ya we are keeping busy.

Cinderellas Castle with Christmas Lights

Me and my pumpkin

Missionary work has been quite amazing, it is just so awesome how much I get to talk about the church with people that I work with, if I just leave my Book of Mormon out while I work then I am pretty much guaranteed that someone will talk to me about it and it is so cool to spread the gospel and the comment I get most from people after having a good discussion with them is, wow you really make me think about things and you have some very good points.  So it has been awesome, and the Elders have labeled me as one of their favorites so I actually go and work with them a lot and teach with them a lot.  I love it actually it is really nice to work with them and get to teach with them, it is like being on a mission again except now I am the member, which is so sweet cause i get to be the friend!!!  so ya that has been cool.  In connection with church I had a really cool experience with it cause I have really learned to express myself more and more through the piano and I have really learned to play with chords well and it has been cool.  But one time in between sessions of conference then I was playing the piano in the relief soceity room and a member of the bishopric heard me and came in and listened for a while and then left, then he came back a few minutes later and told me that he just had the impression to ask me to play in sacrament meeting and afterwards to give a talk, so i said of course I would.  The really cool part is that I had prepared to play a different rendition of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief that I had put together, but then the night before my talk then I was sitting at home and I suddenly had chords come to me and so I sat down with a paper and pen and wrote the chords in the order that they came and put the dynamics that I felt for each of the chords with it and i felt that that was what I was supposed to play.  So I went to church the next day and went and played with it in a room for a bit, and made sure I knew the chords.  So then when it came my turn to play in church then I got up there and looked at the chords and then I just focused inwards and felt what was there and that is what I played, I just let my fingers go and used the chords for a guide but I just played what I felt and it came so well and so beautifully.  After then I gave my talk and it went well, but later then many people came up to me very amazed at my playing but mainly that it had just come from my heart, that I was able to just improv my feelings inside and that I was willing to share those feelings with them all.  So it was wonderful and since then I have been able to play for two baptisms as well and been able to make up special musical numbers on the spot and it has been wonderful to have something so personal to me be so appreciated and loved by others.

Gotta love the funny names eh?

T-I-Double G-ER that spells Tigger!!

But ya, along with all that it turns out that I will probably be going to England in the summer for a ballroom dance competition for a week, so that is going to be way awesome and very fun and an amazing experience, (I know that was random but I thought I would just pop that out there).  I guess this is quite a bit to read actually so I will leave it at this with some pictures and I will write more if I think of more to write so that I can catch you all up on things.  I love you all tons and miss you all and wish you were here with me, have a wonderful day!!!

Daniel Carter
Yup...the Bouncy One!!

im sorry

hey there, i really want to post, but right now i don't have any time, and second my computer is having problems and I can't use the internet so i am going to try to get to a computer tomorrow or soon and do a big post...so it is coming, but i love you all and thanks for the happy birthday!!!

love
Daniel Carter

Bring on the Holidays!!!

Pooh, Tigger and I

Alright!!!  so I haven't written in a while, but here I go....  Things are going amazingly!!!  there are quite a few things to write about so I will do my best to write in paragraphs (for Lia) and be detailed and have some pictures (for mom).

Ok...so the first thing that i have been thinking a lot about lately (and actually had a really good conversation with my friend Elle about the other day) is how much I like my job because for the first couple of weeks then I liked my job but I guess I just wasn't the happiest with it because I was too focused on wanting to dance and on how it wasn't quite what I was expecting.  But after about three weeks or so then suddenly my whole attitude changed and I came to love my job, I mean it isn't the most physically appealing job since it really does wear you out and make you tired, but I came to start focusing on the guests instead of myself and everything became so much better!!!  I truly came to love to interact with the guests and with my partner and I started to really just have fun, and now I couldn't imagine having any other job here at disney, this one is the best, especially for me!!

One of my favorite depiction of Wizard Mickey

So the beautiful thing is once I came to accept and love my job for what it is I suddenly got an awesome blessing!!  You see me and my dancing friends had all been very set on getting into the Christmas Parade but it just didn't seem like it was going to work out, pretty much cause none of us made it in.  So we were all pretty sad about that and kinda bumbed cause it looked like we weren't going to get into any of the shows.  But just a few days ago then I got a text from my glorious friend Peyton and she told me that I needed to check the lists for the Christmas shows after work, and then right after then my friend Elle sent me a text telling me that I was chosen to be a reindeer in the castle christmas show!!!  which is awesome, and my friend Peyton, Elle, and Cassie all made it into the show as well, so we are all going to be in the Christmas show that happens at Cinderella's Castle in the center of Magic Kingdom during the Christmas parties that will be happening all through November and December!!!  we are so so so so so so excited, so if anyone comes to visit me down here in those months then they can see me as a reindeer performing on the stage there!!  So that is something exciting.

Bottom: Me, Elle; Middle: Cassie, Michelle, Andrea

Along the dancing lines we did have this awesome dance workshop this last weekend for everyone who had advanced movement skills (which includes me and all my friends above) and it was so much fun...it was jazz based but had a latin feel to it so I was able to take my ballroom and apply it to the dancing and I just had a blast, all of us did!!  oh how I love dancing.  A funny thing that happened with it was that when we had split into groups so that we could dance full out and be critiqued by the instructors then I went up and did it for my second time (the combination) and the people on my side closest to me were just cheering my on cause I was getting my hips into the dancing (from my latin ballroom training) and just going nuts with my face and it was just so much fun, and they loved it and it was great to dance so openly and be so accepted for it, compared to when I told my roommate william that I had cleared out the living room when no one was home and I had danced for an hour, and he asked who my partner was, and I said myself, and he just thought it was awkward and weird, so it was nice to be accepted for what I love to do!!!

So at work then a very sad thing happened, I was hanging out with Tigger and we were about to go down to the break room so he could take a break, but then one of the attendants that was up there with us came and asked Tigger if he would come over with Piglet and visit this girl at a table, so I sat back and watched as Tigger went over to this table where this girl (in her early 20s) was just sobbing, she was all alone and just was in uncontrolable tears.  So I see Tigger and Piglet sit there for 3-4 minutes just hugging her and holding her hand and just trying to comfort her.  After a while then she calmed down and was able to get a hold of herself and so then I went with Tigger for his break and the attendant that had grabbed Tigger in the first place came up and told us that the girl that Tigger had been comforting had been planning on celebrating her birthday with her boy friend that morning and they had planned on meeting at the Crystal Palace for breakfast...but he didn't come.  So on her birthday she was ditched and was left to spend the whole day by herself, without her boy friend (who probably isn't her boy friend anymore, but who knows), so it was really sad to hear what had happened to her but it was quite amazing to see the comfort and love that Tigger and Piglet could give to the girl, it made me really appreciate and respect the characters for the influence they can have on those around them.

Cassie, Michelle and me at an Italian restaurant in Italy at Epcot

Ok.....there is more that I could write but I am really tired and need to rest...but I promise to write more sooner than later!!  but I love you all and hope life is treating yall well!!

Daniel Carter

Little kids can be so darn cute

Well, life is still kicking along down here, yup yup, things are going just peachy!!!  I would have to say that the one thing that I have truly learned a lot about this last week-ish is the power of body language, how much you can truly get across through your actions.  In my job then I have the opportunity to be in contact with a lot of guests everyday, and I have the opportunity to interact with them in a lot of situations.  In those situations then we communicate a lot though body language, through a hug, a high five, through a blown kiss, through a dance, and other such things.  But the amazing thing is even though the people aren't really communicating with us through means that they are used to (words) there is a special connection formed between us many times.  many times in the last week or so I have realized the power of a strong hug, or a gentle hug, or a loving hug, or a small squeeze, each based upon the person receiving it.  each person you can tell needs something different, something special to make their day magical and to give them the love and connection that they need.  so when I hug a bigger guy then it is a strong hug with back patting and strength and they feel that respect of their manliness, with a sturdy woman then it is a strong, consistant hug that gives that pressure that tells them that you love them and are their friend, for a smaller woman then a soft hug with not a lot of pressure is used to not smash them in the first place, but to show respect for their femininity but then pressure can be applied into the hands to show that same love that would be shown through a strong hug.  then with children it is a gentle hug, one that is tender, with maybe a little rub on the back, and you just hold them as long as they want to be there, even if it be a couple of minutes, they just love that closeness and that warmth and love.  Now with all of this it is amazing but you can feel a type of connection, an openness where...I guess you could say your spirits connect, and it is amazing to see how the people change, men who are hard and look as if they don't usually show emotion will laugh and then give ya a strong hug and they will just be smiling the rest of the time, children who are stone walls will break and smile and dance around with ya.  Now of course this doesn't always work but many times it does and it is a beautiful amazing thing, and really makes work amazing!!!  It is amazing how you can just use your body as an instrument of communication to connect with others and let them know how you feel, especially when it is the only instrument you have to communicate with.  So ya that is something interesting that I have been observing and that I have really come to love about my job.  Other than that, things are going great, my friends are amazing, we had an FHE tonight that we organized and it was fun to be with friends and to be able to just delve into spiritual things and really be able to be lifted up by it all.  Ok....here is something fun, I went to a workshop this last friday and it was a stilts workshop!!!  yup yup I now know how to walk on stilts, jump on stilts, skip on stilts, ya it is so much fun, I am hoping to be able to go to another beginner workshop and then do the intermediate one and then hopefully I will be pulled for parades and shows as a stilt walker, how cool would that be???  booyah!!!  So ya that was way amazingly fun, if mom and dad want to get us all some then I could teach everyone!!! hehehehe....  Anyways, I also am finding a great outlet though my dancing, yup yup!!  my roommates were both gone so I cleared out the living room and hooked up the music and just danced for an hour or so and it was amazing to just fling myself around and just express how the music made me feel and to really just open up like I did back at school, oh man it felt so good.  The funniest part was when my roommate asked me what I had done that day I told him I had been dancing and he asked where and i told him in the living room, then he asked who my partner had been, and I said myself, and then he just told me that that was very awkward, and I just laughed cause I didn't expect him to understand why I would just dance by myself.  Anyways, so things are great, I am loving life down here and making many friends for sure.  I hope everything is going well for everyone else, and I love you all!!!

Daniel Carter

Just Keep Swimming!!

Me and William (roommate) dressed as Japanese men at Epcot

My training group, so so so amazing, I love them!!

A bunch of us at Blizzard Beach, awesome water park!

A picture of just about everyone in our hang out group,
kinda hard to see though.

Sorry for the long delay in writing everyone, it is still weird for me not to be able to write the coolest parts of my days and so I just didn't get around to writing....but here I am.  So things have been great up here, I would have to say that I have been very blessed with the people that I am surrounded with, all of the BYU students who are awesome and great (most actually from BYUI), my roommates are some of my best friends (especially William my tongan from hawaii) and I have been able to just meet a lot of cool people.  So pretty much when I am not working then all of us here hang out together, we go to the pool, or go to the parks or get ice cream and watch a movie, or just sit and talk or walk to the strip mall, or a myriad of things, but it is so much fun, we have a blast for sure!!!  I would have to say the best part about all of us is that we are just like a bunch of kids at a candy shop as we go around the parks because we are all just so excited all the time and happy and just estatic to go on all the rides and go to the shows and to see the characters and it is just so so so so so so much fun, I love it!!!  We actually got a really cool compliment yesterday, we me and Cassie (the red head in all the pictures) we were on the bus yesterday coming home from work and this guy from pennsylvania figured out that we were mormons and he told us that he loves hanging out with the BYU kids because they know how to have a good time without doing anything bad or morally wrong, it was cool cause he realized that even though we don't drink or smoke or whatever that we have more fun than everyone else, he truly said that hanging out with mormons, especially in on their days off is intense and exciting cause we make the most of it for sure.  So that was pretty darn cool, I loved that comment.  Also...I don't think I wrote about this but I met this way cool girl named Emily who I think was from Wisconsin, and what was cool is we were working together and we were just sitting there waiting for our next shift and we were talking about dance and how there were periods in our lives when we weren't able to dance and how sad that was and I said that my time had been when I lived in Hungary for 2 years and she asked me why I lived there and I told her it was a mission for my church, and then she got all excited and said "yes I finally have met another hard core christen!"  it was so cool, she is a hard core christen as well, baptist, and just such a cool girl, and the cool thing is I could tell she was different before she told me cause she had not sworn once in front of me, and she was so kind to all the other workers around us and she was modest and had a very good spirit about her that naturally made me want to be with her cause it was comfortable, and so we had some great bonding time there with dance and with religion and it was way way way way cool, and I am hoping to find her again cause I wasn't able to get her number because then she can come hang out with all of us with morals and then we can dance too, it was a cool experience.  So other than that lets see here........I did get to go to a sweet dance workshop here at disney, it was just a basic jazz one but it was so nice to get dancing again, I went with two people from my training group (Elle and Michelle) and it was great fun and really nice to get to meet a bunch of other characters who love to dance, it was awesome.  And....this next friday then I am going to start a beginning stilt walking class, booyah!!!!!  and if I do the advanced one as well then I will probably start being put into shows as a stilt walker, how cool is that!!!  But ya I have now been to all the parks, I haven't been able to look around them completely yet but I have definitely had a great time, the Lion King show is amazing here (hopefully I can be in it when I get my stilt walking certification), and Fantasmic was great, I just got so excited, even though I know all the behind the scene sort of stuff that is going on I just love it and still get excited when I see Mickey appear and start commanding the waters, it is so much fun and wonderful!!  But ya I guess that is it for right now, I will put more if I remember something that I wanted to include, but I love you all and hope you are all doing well....oh ya and if there are any good books that I anyone thinks I should read just umm.....let me know, or even better send them to me cause I don't have a library out here because lets just say at work I do have quite a bit of time to read ( I got through a 120 pages of the Hunger Games yesterday during my shift, so I am going to read a ton of books), so ya books are appreciated.  Love yall!!!

Day 7,8,9

Well......things are being amazing, we finished up our training yesterday and today was my first day of legit work and oh man it was awesome!!!!  I just want to say I love my job and think it is amazing (but yet again if you want to know more about that you will have to personally call me or facebook chat me or something of the sort) and I have a ton of stories that I can totally share that are the best and really magical so give me a call!!!!  But other than that then pretty much we have just been being exhausted and just been resting a lot after work but it feel great!!!  Last night I watched the Fox and the Hound for the first time ever (yup didn't grow up on that one) and it was sad but really good, I quite enjoyed it.  Also I have been making awesome amazing friends both member and non-member and they are the best (looks like I might be the designated driver sometimes cause it got out that well...I don't drink, booyah!!) they really are fun and overall good people.  The coolest thing though is to see the way that the girls react to someone who is a gentleman.  So in the mormon culture, especially at BYUI then we are taught to be gentlemen and to be very kind and respectful to the ladies and we are also taught to be very helpful and always there for others, and it kinda just becomes natural to want to help to make someone's burden lighter and to help someone be more comfortable.  So we were all waiting for the bus at Disney Animal Kingdom and it came up that I served a two year mission for my church in Hungary and it was way cool cause one of the girls just turns to me (Hannah) and she just starts commenting on what a different man I am from others because I am a gentleman, I am there to help and want to without reward and that I am just wanting to be a good person and strive to be that.  Pretty much she was impressed with how mormon boys are, they are respectful and helpful and loving and happy, so it was so cool to see how over the course of 5 days how it affected these girls, I don't know if they think it is weird or not or how comfortable they feel with it, but I know that it did impress them and that it was a nice change, so go Mormons!!  Anyways, so that was super enjoyable and really a good motivator to me to continue to be the best I can be because the people here need it, both the guests and the workers.  Other than that you will have to call me to get more details about my amazing magical adventure up here, but I love you all tons and hope things are going well in your lives!!!!  Have a Magical Day!!!

Daniel Carter

Day 5 and Day 6

Alright, things are going awesome....I am pretty much just working my butt off, it is crazy, pretty much every morning I am waking up around 6-ish and then going to work and then coming home around 5:30 in the evening, realizing how tired I am, I then eat some food, do preparation for my job the next day and then go to bed....yup that is what is happening so far, but I love it (and truly if you want to know more about my job call me cause I would love to tell you all about it, I just can't say much on here).  But....yesterday (Sunday) after work we came home all sweaty and nasty and ran into our apartments, changed cloths into sunday cloths, and then ran back out to the bus to take us to a location by Disney University to be picked up for church.  So we went to church in all our nastiness, but dressed nicely, and it was wonderful to have church even though it was only about 40 minutes long.  Pretty much for the College Program people down here we can't always make it to morning church and so they hold a night church at 8 at night and it is pretty much just a short sacrament meeting with one or two talks.  It was great to go (even though we were all at the point of almost falling asleep cause we were so tired) because it just hadn't felt like Sunday the whole day, which was hard cause I really wanted to treat the day like a normal Sabbath Day but wasn't able to because of work, but it turned out good with the sacrament meeting.  After that then I met the missionaries there and found out that one of my dear friends here in the program with me was going to be visited by them that night, and so I told them that I knew her and they asked it I would come along and I said sure I would love to.  So it was great cause I got to drive with them back tot he apartments and visit with them, and it was awesome, and then we were able to give a blessing to my friend and it was awesome, I could just feel how much the Lord loves her and how much He truly cares for her, He gave her some amazing council and warnings that I haven't really ever heard so potently before, so it was amazing and I was glad to be able to be there for her as a friend and give her my love, she really is amazing and I love her dearly.  That same friend told me today that she is going to be going home back to utah tomorrow because she has just been having a hard time with life down here, but the blessing was able to give her good council to follow and it sounds like she followed it so it is good she is going home, but I am still sad she is leaving cause in these few short days we have created a very pure and strong bond with each other and I will truly miss that and miss her.  But that is all good friends do come and friends do go and we just can do our best to keep contact and keep that relationship alive if it really has that worth to us.  But anyway, life is going great, I am having a great time down here (especially with the new experiences such as Dole Whip/Pineapple Float from the Dole shop in animal kingdom which is so wonderful, it is soft serve pineapple ice cream (for the whip) and then the float is that same stuff but in a cup full of pineapple juice, oh ya it is good).  I love you all and I hope that things are going well.

Daniel Carter