Monday, September 24, 2012

24 September 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Buenas Tardes!

How´s it going? Hopefully everybody is doing well and from what I´ve heard you guys are! This week was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. This week we heard about our cambios (transfers) and I´m going to... STAY! Elder Collett and I are going to keep serving here in our area of Culiacán which is good. Things are finally cooling down, I really love all the ward members, converts, investigators, and friends I have made here. I´ll be kind of sad when I have to leave to be honest. The only change that is happening in our district is Hermana is leaving a new one is coming.

Things are going pretty well with our investigators. We´re starting to meet a few more but it never seems to be enough! haha. We´re teaching this really cool guy named Javier who was a reference from some other elders in the zone. He already accepted to be baptized and stop drinking alcohol, after 2 lessons! He unfortunately had to work this sunday so maybe that will be his only challenge for now. Elda (Senovia´s Sister) and Lina are both going to be baptized this saturday so we´re way excited for them. They´re 2 more of doughnut girls we met from awhile ago. It´s been really cool to see all the changes that have gone on with them since that night and they both were interviewed for their baptisms already :)... Besides that one of the really cool things that happened is that this week we got to baptize 2 investigators from the Hermanas area. They converts always seem really awesome and it was cool do be there with them.

We´re excited for this next transfer and have a lot of goals we´re setting. We´re trying to put our faith in the Lord and not just focus ourselves but that definitely is something we could work on! Thanks for all the support and love you guys always share with me. I´ll keep you all in my prayers and appreciate all the prayers you say for me!

Love,
Elder Carlson


 

Monday, September 17, 2012

17 September 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Well this week has gone by pretty well! The other day there was an activity we had a Noche Mexicana activity in the church because it was the Mexican Independence day. We brought our investigator Dulce and her niece with us and it was pretty fun. We got to eat some tamales and other food while seeing a lot of members from the Stake. Dulce enjoyed the activity and is excited to get baptized. We´re teaching her boyfriend Jesus still and they´ve talked about getting married in October. Jesus likes talking to us too but we always have to late at night because he´s a cook and doesn´t get home til like 8pm sometimes. Hopefully one of these days he can get off work so he can come with us to church, but we´re going to try and see what we can do to help them :).

We´re finding people little by little, but that always seems to be like one of the hardest parts of the missionary work. Once we´ve already started teaching them it´s nice to be able to teach them and see them progress when they´re really prepared. There are tons of ways to find people to teach but we want to work more effectively with the wards. We´ve talked about some activities we might be able to do with our ward mission leaders and we´re going to try and use more members in our visits with the investigators.. Sunday was awesome because in one of the wards this family brought a 5 people who weren´t members to church and we´re going to try and teach a mom and her family that live near the church. It´s always a blessing to see new faces who are eager to learn about the gospel of Christ because we know that they will be blessed by the word of God.

We´re going to have a zone activity next week where we´ll do a lot of contacting in one particular area, but they haven´t told us much details about it yet. Sounds like it´ll be a fun change of pace though and I´m sure we´ll see a lot of success in finding people in which ever area we go to that day.. It´s always good to have something to look forward too and we´re eager to see some more growth.. It´s good to hear that everyone is doing well at home! You´re all in my prayers and never far from my heart. Have an awesome week!

Love,
Elder Carlson

P.S. Some photos of the Noche Mexicana, 1.) Dulce, her niece Stephani, and I 2.) La fiesta 3.) Fernando (my convert) and I


Monday, September 10, 2012

10 September 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Well things have been going pretty well here in Culiacán. E. Collett and I have been having some pretty good experiences teaching and got the chance to go to Stake Conference yesterday. One of the general authoritys from Mexico, Elder Ovando?, came to the conference to speak too. We brought Dulce and a couple other investigators and they seemed like they all enjoyed it. We´ve been teaching Dulce a lot lady and started teaching her boyfriend the other night. They both have talked about getting married before and it sounds like they´ll probably get married before Dulce gets baptized. Hery boyfriend, Jesus, seems like he has a lot of potencial too the only problem will be having him come to church with us because he works sundays.

We´ve been learning a lot together as a companionship and really want to start finding more people to teach. We need to start planning better so that we can teach more lessons with the members. I really liked one of the examples E. Ovando said in his talk. He was talking about how this little girl was going on a flight with her Dad. While they were waiting in line they people could see that the little girl had a ton of balloons she was carrying with her from Disneyland. When it was time to get on the plane the flight attendant told her they could only carry one balloon with them for each person. The Dad and her were trying to decide between her 2 favorite balloons to bring with then. The people in line decided to help them out instead so that the little girl wouldn´t have to only pick 2. Everybody who came on the plane grabbed a balloon to sit with while they were on the plane. :) He gave the example that everything can be easier when we decide to work together and it was cool that everybody decided to help out just for one little girl and her balloons. We all can help out with things more in life and as church members we all can do a better job serving and sharing the gospel.

I´m enjoying the time I have here but want to learn to enjoy every moment I have even better. I know that the time I have here will pass by super fast and I think I wish I´d do a better job living up every moment I have here. I hope everybody can learn to enjoy each and everyday that have to live! True joy and happiness comes through serving those we love, and learning to love everybody. We´re not perfect and we don´t have to be perfect. What matters is if we´re making the effort to improve and do good each and everyday.

Love,
Elder Carlson

Monday, September 3, 2012

3 September 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Well another week has gone by and things are going well! This week we got to take Dulce to church for the second time and had an awesome Gospel Principles class we asissted that the bishop taught. We talked a lot about prayer and the importance of praying. There are a lot of reasons we should pray and a lot of times when we´re mad or have done something wrong we don´t really want to pray. That´s when we should probably be praying even more though! We´re working with Dulce more and teaching her mom. Looks like both of them might get baptized soon but we´re focusing on trying to teach them whatever it is that will help them grow closer to the Lord and be happy!

Elder Collett is now used to the food here in mexico which is good : ). We´ve had some pretty good ¨comidas¨with the hermanas that we eat with each day too, so there hasn´t been anything to complain about. We definitely never go hungry here which is an awesome blessing! It´s been cloudy but didn´t rain as much as the other couple weeks. From what everyone tells me is that after this month things start cooling down a lot. So I´m looking forward to the months to come!.. Besides that we´re teaching the Luis´s mom, Yesi, right now and she´s coming along alright. She didn´t have the opportunity to come with us to church yesterday but there´s always next week! Haha. It definitely helps when there´s members that can give us and our investigators rides to church and luckily there´s a few people we know that help us out.

Today we´re going to have our Junta de Zona (Zone Meeting) and we´ve been super busy because we had to go to the offices for E. Collett to sign the rest of his immigration papers. Having an american companion has it´s advantages but I need to stop talking in English so much! Haha, but it´s okay we´re coming along well and both learning a lot together.

It´s good to hear that from everyone at home! Sounds like everybody has been doing well from what I´ve heard. I´m sure all the kids are now getting more settled in with school life which is good news too. Thank you all for all the prayers, love, and support you give me!.. Have an awesome week and you´re never far from my heart and thoughts. : )

Love,
Elder Carlson

P.S. next week i´ll need to attatch some picturesssss