Monday, February 27, 2012

Mazatlan (Villa Galaxia) Mexico‏

Baptism of Itzel

Culiacan Mission Seminary

Zone Conference
Hola Familia!
 
Well this week was pretty good and really busy! In the beginning of the week we had a Zone Conference. It was cool because President Cantú came down and spoke to us. We also heard a couple testimonies of some missionaries who are going home this month in our Zone, because their 2 years is already coming to an end. It´s weird to think that I will be there some day too and their testimonies felt really strong to me. I try not to worry about that stuff though!.. We also had a thing called Seminary. Some of the missionaries in our zone and other missionaries in the Mission all gathered in Culiacan. It´s supposed to help teach us more about leadership in the mission too, but President Cantú also made it clear that it doesn´t necessarily mean we´re going to be a District Leader or anything like that haha... I learned a lot more about missionary work in both of the conferences though. What things we should be focusing on and how to help get our investigators to come to church.
 
Today was transfers and I got transferred to Villa Galaxia in Mazatlan. Not a very far transfer but it will be fun to have a change of areas still. I´m here with Elder Rosales, and I already knew him so it´s not too weird being with him right now. I hope that we can see some success in this area and that we´ll work well together then. E. Soto and I were also busy finishing getting ready the papers of the couple we were going to marry. The judge couldn´t marry them until today, so I´m not going to be there for it, but it´s awesome that they´re still getting married! I told E. Soto he needs to tell me all the details about what happens with our investigators there haha... We baptized one of our investigators, Itzel, on Saturday. The service was pretty packed because we also were baptizing with Villa Verde. They had 3 baptisms the same day too! Everything ended up working out well and E. Soto baptized Itzel and I got to confirm her the next day.
 
I hope everybody is doing well! Thanks for the Love, Support, and Prayers!
 
Love,
Elder Carlson
 
P.S.  Photos: Baptism, Seminary, and Zone Conference

Monday, February 20, 2012

February 20, Mazatlan Mexico

Hola Familia!

Things are going pretty good here again! Tomorrow we are going to have our Zone Conference, so Presidente Cantú is going to come down and talk with us. That should be pretty good! We had a pretty awesome activity this week at the Church too. The Elders of the other ward (Villa Verde) had the idea to do this activity about the Plan of Salvation. We had some fake plane that crashed and everything. It was pretty cool and fun, kind of like a theater kind of deal. After that we took them to different rooms. One that represented each of the Kingdoms of Glory and the Spirit World.. We had a couple investigators who came and they enjoyed it so that was good. They had me dress up in my baptismal clothes too because I was the one who demonstrated the judgement with the Lord. Even though it was just a demonstration I didn´t want to send one of them to the a lower kingdom, so I said they lived all the principles of the gospel and are going the Celestial Kingdom haha.

We have to marry 2 couples that we are trying to baptize soon, Maricruz and Myra. It´s crazy how many different weddings we are having to plan haha but hopefully everything goes well with that. We have been trying to help them gather their birth certificates and all the other paperwork so that we can marry them this week. If they get married this week we´ll probably baptize them Saturday but if not we´ll wait a little longer obviously. This next saturday we are supposed to hear about transfers too. This is the last week until we transfers start, I think I might of not explained that really well in the last email.

I´m having a good time and feeling more comfortable with being a missionary and everything. E. Soto and I are having fun together and learning a lot about how we can be better missionaries and help our investigators more. Thanks for all the love, support, and prayers! I pray that everything continues to go well with everyone.

Love,
Elder Carlson

P.S. A couple pictures of the activity!




Monday, February 13, 2012

Feb 13, Mazatlan Mexico

¡Hola Familia!,

This week was pretty great great! Our investigator Irving had to leave town for a couple days but we still planned his baptism for Saturday. In the beginning of the week we talked with him and he just was a little nervous about how the people in the ward were going to be with him. I think he was mainly just a little nervous and it was our fault for not checking up on him the week before. But luckily Saturday after he finished working he showed up at the Chapel and I got to baptize him. The next day at church I got to confirm him too. Elder Soto and I were both really happy for him and his family. His son is 7 and he looked pretty excited about when he is going to be able to be baptized too. 

Besides that we´re working with some other investigators that we have. President Cantú is going to come down next week and I think we will have a Zone Conference. It´s crazy because it will already be transfers again soo. So who knows if I´ll stay or I´ll go somewhere else. I want to stay another transfer because I want to see some of the people we´re working with progress more and I enjoy working with E. Soto! 

José Luis, an 89 year old investigator of ours, still needs to assist church but has been very excited each lesson. I think next week we´re going to pass by for him and hopefully he´ll come with us to church. We´ve been passing by with other people in the morning to try and bring them along to Church with us and there´s one family that has given us a ride in the back of their truck on the way to church the past couple sundays. We keep finding more people to teach through this family so that has been pretty awesome too! 

Hope everybody has a great Valentine´s Day. Thanks for all the support, love, and prayers! 

Love,
Elder David Carlson


P.S. Photo of the baptism and one of day they got married.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Feb 6, Mazatlan Mexico

Top of mountain overlooking Mazatlan

View from mountain top

Elder Carlson with Elder Soto

David's zone - Feb 2012

What a cute guy!
Hola Familia,

Well it is February now and things are going pretty good still! There was a little bad news though, the day we were going to baptize Irwing he didn´t show up and he has been having a little doubts. He mentioned something about not knowing if he is ready still, we know he is ready and he has been really excited about his baptism. We asked him if he had prayed about it and he hadn´t, but he said he is going to pray about it now. We have an appointment with him later today so hopefully we can help him with whatever he is going through. Elder Soto and I have a good idea what it is he needs but we will see!.. But aside from that their wedding in the beginning of the week went well. We were witnesses for the wedding and everything. It was nice to see Irwing and Marisol making such an awesome step in their lives together.

We found some more people to teach this week too and they both seem like they have been very prepared for our message! It´s always amazing when we run into people who seem like they´ve already known everything that we are saying is true. It´s like we help them find a part of them that has just been dorment in their lives!.. One of them is this lady named Gladis who actually lives really close to our house. We were looking for this one street and asked her, ended up talking to her more, and teaching her a lesson right then in her house. We left her a Book of Mormon and she has been reading it and everything. We want to teach her husband now too. The other is this old man who is 89 and likes to talk a lot but is very wise! I´ve been learning a lot of things from him and we taught him the Plan of Salvation the first time we meet with him because we felt that he needed it. He told us we´re the only people in his life that have ever really wanted to teach him something. And was very happy for us teaching him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today we had an activity in the morning with our Zone. We hiked up this mountain right near the beach and it was really awesome. It was a fun little activity and our zone leader Elder Foulger is leaving this week, so it was kind of like his farewell too. We had a good district meeting after and Elder Soto and I have been doing good this week. My spanish is getting better but definitely still needs improvement. I´m not too worried about that anymore though. Mainly just am trying to figure out how we can help all the people we are teaching!.. It´s awesome being able to see how much the gospel effects the peoples lives around me, and thinking about how much of an effect it has had on my life.

I hope everybody has a wonderful week. Thanks for all the support, love, and prayers.

Love,
Elder David Carlson