26 Noviembre 2012, Escuinapa, Mexico

Querido Familia,

What´s up? Well yet another week has passed by! Things have been going pretty well with our investigators here in the area too. In the beginning of the week I went on divisions to Teacapan. It´s a pretty small place near the sea and it seemed like a pretty cool town. We were able to find a couple more people who look interested in finding the gospel but it is weird because a lot of people there already know the missionaries. Not like they all know them personally but they know of them, which is good and bad haha. It´s nice to be able to see some of the other areas around here though and what´s going on. I was with Elder Gomez for the day and he´s a hard working missionary, it looks like they´re going to start seeing some more movement in the area soon though :).

This weekend was pretty awesome because Iris came with us to a Noche de Hogar in the church. We had a little ward activity and she participated and even brought one of her work employees. She came with us the next day to church and brought her grandson, even though she couldn´t convince Alondra (her daughter) to come with. She´s progressing really well and it looks like she´s going to get baptized the beginning of December. So we´re going to keep preparing her for her goal. Hopefully we can get Alondra to come with us to church soon too.. Another investigator of ours, Julio, is doing really well too. He went to church for his 3rd time on sunday and he seems like he´s progressing well. He´s going to start reading more in the Book of Mormon so though because he wasn´t sure whether he´s recieved an answer that is is true still.. We´re still looking for more people to teach and we talked with several other people throughout the week. I think we´re doing a good job finding the people who are really interested in the gospel but it is a little sad sometimes to see how many people aren´t really interested. That´s one of the reasons it´s so important to teach according to their needs!.. Overall I think we´re doing a pretty good job though, even though there´s always a lot we could improve on.

I can´t believe thanksgiving already passed by. I didn´t even realize it though until I was thinking about it on saturday haha. Sounds like everybody had a good week and I´m glad to hear that. The weather has been pretty good this week but it still feels really hot all of the sudden sometimes. There´s not too much to complain about though and I´m glad I know the area little better now. Thanks for all the support, your prayers, and love. I hope everybody keeps enjoying the rest of November!

Love,

Elder Carlson

19 Noviembre 2012, Escuinapa Mexico

Querido Familia,

Well this week was pretty eventful and went very well! In the beginning of the week I got to spend some time in Rosario with Elder Flores. Rosario is really pretty and we got to go to some even smaller ranchos that are in their area to visit some people. Looks like there is a lot of people waiting to hear the gospel over there and it was fun being able to work with Elder Flores. He´s from Puebla Mexico and seems pretty awesome.

One of the coolest experiences we had this week is when we went and visited Iris on Friday. Her family kind of totally turned on her and was getting her discouraged about listening to us. Her mom found out she was listening to ¨los mormones¨ and sent her uncle over there, who happens to be a catholic priest, to give her a good lecturing. We brought an hermana from the branch with us and she started gaining a lot of confidence with her and was helping her son peel some shrimp. The hermana used to be catholic too and was sharing a little bit about her conversion and when she felt that she needed to join the church and be baptized.. We had went there planning to give her a tour of the church and it looked like it wasn´t going to happen, but then she decided she wanted to go see the church before we left. The hermana helped give her a tour of the church and Iris told us that as soon as she entered the church she felt a peaceful presence. We got to explain some more and when we brought her back to her house she was telling everybody about the spirit she felt there, even though her daughter, Alondra, thought she´s just being crazy ha.. She wasn´t going to be in town yesterday but hopefully she will come with us to church next week! Either way it was an awesome experience for her and helped us learn more about the importance of bringing members to our lessons.

Saturday we got to go to Mazatlan also because we had some Zone conference combined with Mazatlan and Escuinapa. Presidente and Hermana Cantú taught us a lot and we were able to learn a lot more about how to teach better. We were there pretty much all day and got to have a big lunch there too so it was pretty awesome! Hopefully we can apply all the stuff we learned in our areas and with the people we are teaching.

Besides that some more things here I forgot to mention is that we ride bikes around in our area. Most the time we ride bikes, but a couple days this week we walked around so that we could talk with more people in the street. A lot of people in general ride bikes around here too, because there´s not buses that go around all of Escuinapa like they do in Mazatlan and Culiacan. The weather has a been a little more enjoyable this week but I´m definitely not going to have a cold winter it looks like haha.. Hope everybody is enjoying there November and thanks for all the support you give me! Your love and prayers are greatly appreciated :). Have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Carlson

P.S. Photos- 1.) Some of the missionaries in Rosario 2.) Our little Zone 3.) In order: E. Juarez, Me, and my companion E. Baltich

 

12 Noviembre 2012 - Escuinapa Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Wow! What a week. Things have been going well here and I´m happy to be here in my new area. It´s a pueblo (town) here and in our Zone we work with several other small pueblos around it like Rosario and Teacapan. It´s definitely smaller than Culiacan and Mazatlan, but not like a middle of nowhere feeling either. I actually like the population size a lot :) but there´s some adjusting I´ve been doing too. The beginning of this next week I´m going to go on divisions with Rosario so that will be pretty cool to see how things are going over there too.. My companion, Elder Baltich, is awesome! We both have similar personalities and we´ve been thinking of a lot of ways to plan better and make better use of our time here. It´s cool because some of things I haven´t been as good at with in my mission he is awesome! For example, we´ve been going out teaching with the members a lot more than I ever have before in my mission. And when we do commitments with the people we´re being a lot more direct.

With the Día de Los Muertos activity luckily last week they got a lot of references from that, and we were visiting lots of those references. Probably the most potential people we´ve met are this one lady named Iris and her daughter Alondra, and one of my companion´s converts gave us a pretty cool reference named Judith. Iris is a lady with a ton of faith and accepted to prepare for a baptismal date and already told us she knows the Book of Mormon is true. She has been reading a lot, and said she used to have that book when missionaries visited her a long time ago, but she lost it. Unfortunately she didn´t come to church though and tomorrow we´re going to see what happened and how we can help her to come with us next week. That seems like her only challenge so far. With Judith she has been drinking for a long time but would like to stop. She didn´t really have to the faith to think she can stop drinking so we helped encourage her and we have set up some good goals to help her stop and make productive use of her time.

We´ve been thinking about lots of other good ideas and we´re hoping this week goes even better, but I was pretty happy with how this week went even though we were only able to bring one investigator to church.. We´re in a branch too, which means it´s pretty small but I´ve never been in a very big ward either. I got to meet the President of the Branch this week too, President Chi, and he is super awesome. He´s also a really busy young guy. He works, studys, and has a lot of church work always going on.. All the members who I have meet have seemed super strong in the gospel and upbeat people, so that´s really made me feel happy.

Besides that this week was really hot! Definitely hasn´t felt like November but the last 2 days seems like it´s been cooling down now.. Hopefully everybody is doing well at home. Thanks for all the love, support, and prayers. Hopefully I can tell you about some more cool experiences next week! :)

Love,

Elder Carlson

P.S. I need to take some photos! That´ll happen soon.

5 November 2012, Escuinapa, Mexico

Hola Familia,

Well things are going good! I just got here about an hour and a half ago in my new area. I´m in a part of Sinaloa called Escuinapa, it´s like an hour or little more south of Mazatlan. So it was pretty cool driving through Mazatlan and seeing my old areas!! I´m really excited so far and my new companion seems pretty awesome. His name is Elder Baltich. He´s from Lakeland Florida and has a little bit more time in the mission than me. We´re going to do a lot of awesome work together and we´re excited :).. It was strange and a little bittersweet leaving Culiacán and I got to say bye to a few people yesterday before I packed up my bags. I know that E. Collett will do a good job visiting the people their in our area and will keep finding more. It will be good for him to have a mexican companion for the first time too haha, now only spanish allowed.

Besides that I don´t have a ton of time to write but I´ll try and write some fast! We had the Día de los Muertos activity this week and that was pretty awesome! We contacted a lot of people and we went one day with one ward, and the next day with the other. When we got their the first day we had a special experience. There was a woman there visiting that had lost her daughter a couple years ago. We got to teach some of the Plan of Salvation to her and her 2 other kids. The ward members helped us out teaching and bore their testimonies about the gospel and how we can live together with our families forever. We got to explain about what happens after we die and before the resurrection and testified about Jesus Christ and this opportunity he has given us to all be happy and live with our families forever!

I hope everybody is doing well! It´s nice to hear that everyone had a great time with Halloween. There was some kids that ask for candy from some of the little tiendas (stores) here, and were dressed up. Definitely not as big of a show like in the states but it was cool to see a couple kids dressing up for Halloween... I hope everyone has an awesome week. I´m thankful for this life and know that the most important thing we can all do is follow Christ, help out our families, and show love unto one another. I also know that we all should pray for guidance from the Lord each and everyday and that he is always willing to help us!

Love,

Elder Carlson

 

P.S. Una foto de la actividad Día de los Muertos

29 Octubre, 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Hey what´s up?! Things are going pretty well here. This last week went by way too fast and it´s weird because this will be our last week before we hear about transfers. We have quite a few investigators still, but we´re always trying to find new ones and help out with the problems and challenges they have. Each person is very different and unique but many of them have similar struggles, worrys, and overall want the best for them and their family! The awesome thing is that Lord can help us out, with ALL of that! It´s just sometimes hard for us to figure that out haha.

Probably the coolest part of the week is when we were walking around one night. We remembered a reference that someone gave us a little bit ago, and talked with a man at that house. He ended up being really awesome and we taught him the plan of salvation. He had told us that his grandmother and cousin passed away a little while ago, and we were able to answer a lot of the doubts and worrys he had. His name is Belem and we´re excited for him! He gave us some awesome tamales too! Unfortunately he had to work on sunday and might be in Mazatlan for a little while. But we have an appointment with him for this saturday. They´re changing a few things about missionary work and everything always is getting changed for the better. One of the things they finally implemented in our mission is that we´re not going to go out knocking doors anymore, they´ve always told us to not have that as a plan, but it was still permitted. For example, if we knocked on a door of some appointment or plan we had and the person wasn´t their, a lot of times we knocked the door right next them too. Sometimes we found new people that way too but overall it´s just not an effective way to find people. We find more people from reference people give us, old investigators in the Carpeta de Area (area book), and contacting people in the streets (like how we met Senovia and Elda!).

I love all the people I know in this area and sometimes think about what´ll happen with them later on down the road. I know that as long as we follow the Lord, everything else will work out fine and we´ll be happy. I´ve been thinking a lot lately about how we should love life for what it is and what the Lord gives us. Happiness doesn´t come from just getting more and more, it comes from loving more of what we´ve got. Thanks for all the support and love you all give me! I pray that God will bless the lives of each and everyone of us and that we´ll learn to recognize his merciful hand that´s always being extended to us.

Love,

Elder Carlson

P.S. A picture from our Junta de Distrito (district meeting) last week :)