Monday, December 24, 2012

24 Diciembre 2012, Escuinapa Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Well this week went by really fast and was pretty busy! We went up to Culiacán for our Navideña and it was pretty fun. It was cool being able to see Elders that I haven´t seen in awhile and to have some fun with them. We played dodge ball, ate a nice christmas meal, had a little devotional with the President, and then had a testimony meeting at the end. It´s funny because now that it´s winter time it´s actually colder in Culiacán than it is here! Looks like I´m just going to have summer time all year long haha.

Tonight we´re going to eat with a family in our branch for Christmas Eve and tomorrow we´re going to eat with our branch president. I´m sure the food will be pretty good and it´ll be nice to spend some time with the members for these Christmas holidays. Although it sure doesn´t look feel much like Christmas time it´s been cool to see some christmas decorations in town and people getting ready to spend time with the family for christmas.. This week we´ve been looking for more people to teach. We´re teaching this teenager named Marcos right now and we want to teach his family more too. They have a Pastelería (Cake store) there in the house. So his mom has been really busy making cakes and selling them to people for the holidays. Hopefully after the Christmas she´ll have some more time to listen to us. We are looking for more people to teach and we went to a Plaza to do some more contacting in the street. We got to know a lot of people and a few of them gave us their addresses to pass by later on, so we´re hoping to see some progress there really soon! I know that the Lord is preparing people to listen to us, we just are going to have to be patient and do our part having faith in Him to find them!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas! I hope everyone gets to spend some time with their familys and remember the real importance of Christmas. I´m thankful for all the blessings I have and it´s nice to see when people really begin to focus on the most important things in life during this time. I love you all and thank you for the prayer and support you give me. Have a great week : ).

Love,
Elder Carlson

Photos: 1- Our Zone plus two random elders, 2. Elder Cruz and I, 3. The most decorated house in Escuinapa


Sunday, December 23, 2012

17 Diciembre 2012, Escuinapa, Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Well yet another week has past by and there were ´cambios´! We´re starting off our new transfer and a lot of stuff is going on. Elder Baltich went to El Fuerte today and my new companion Elder Cruz got here like 2 hours ago. Things are going well so far but we´ve been super busy! He´s from Yucatan and was in my zone in culiacan when I got there, so that´s pretty exciting news!

Besides that this week we´re having our Navideña activity. We´re going to Culiacán for the activity tomorrow and we´re going to have it on Wedenesday! So I´ll definitely make sure to take pictures and it will be nice to be able to get into the Christmas spirit and see some of the other missionaries there. It´s weird thinking that it is almost time for Christmas.

This week probably one of the coolest expieriences we had is when we got to teach this old lady named Thomasa. She contacted us and we were talking to her in the door. She said she had talked with missionaries before but hadn´t in a few years. She told us about how her son died and then they went to the Cathedral to have the funeral service and the Priest wouldn´t let them in. He said that he already knew that she had been letting the mormon missionaries visit her, and refused to give her the service. Unfortunately since then she´d been pretty afraid to talk to us, because of what her neighbours and other people like the priest would think. We started talking about Peter and when he saw Christ walking on the water. Peter began to walk on the water too but then he began to sink after a few steps because he doubted. I told her about how we also have things that scare us or make us doubt in life but we need to hold onto our faith. I told her about how the church always faces adversity and opposition, but that I know the church is true and I know that God knows it, so that´s enough for me. We asked her kindly if she´d let us pass in and teach her about where her son is and Heavenly Father´s plan for their family. We got to teach them a little about the Plan of Salvation and the Lord´s temples. It was a great experience and I was glad we could feel the spirit there. We hope that she will be able to keep progressing and are going to visit her this week.}

Well I got to get going, but thank you for all the support and letters you´ve all sent me! I hope you have a great week and that everybody get´s in the Christmas spirit. I love you all and pray for you.

Love,
Elder Carlson

Monday, December 10, 2012

10 Diciembre 2012, Escuinapa, Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Well yet another week has passed by and things are going pretty well! In the beginning of this week we did some visions with the elders in rosario. Elder Canul came here to Escuinapa with me and we had the opportunity to visit a couple people. We have some challenges here in our area right now we´re trying to work on, but we got to have some pretty awesome experiences this week!

This week we were preparing Julio for his baptism and we had a couple things we had to plan out. He got interviewed in the beginning of the week and he felt ready but then when it got closer to the day of his baptism we ran into some challenges. For some reason the water was turned off in the church building and we were trying to get a hold of someone to fix that friday. Saturday morning there was still no water and we were pretty worried because he was going to get baptized at 12. After some running around our Branch Presidente decided to send a water truck over. We couldn´t open the back gate where we wanted the truck to enter either so we had to go through the front one, which was further away from the baptismal fount. The hose ended up barely reaching the fount from the front in the end and everything worked out. Even though it was a little crazy we know the Lord helped us out and it wasn´t just casuality haha.. 12pm came and not too many people were there but then the missionaries from the other branch brought more people, and some recient converts in our branch arrived. It finally came time for the ordinance and Julio was baptized. He´s way happy and you could tell that his friend Elli was really touched and proud of him too.

We found some pretty cool girl the another night who was going on a walk with her little girl. She walked right by us and we said hello, and she pretty much contacted us herself. She´s been studying with the Jehovah´s Witnesses and usually those people aren´t really interested in talking to us. She didn´t mind at all though and was really open to talking and had a lot of good questions. Her name is Perla and we ended up teaching her some about the restoration right there on the bank of this street. We´re excited to see what happens with her this week but we felt really blessed with that experience finding her too!.. This week we want to keep trying to find people like Perla. Unfortunately it looks like Iris isn´t going to progress right now and we´ve been needing to find some more investigators.

Hope everybody is feeling the Christmas spirit and is excited for this December. It´s still pretty hot here but it´s not too bad :). Thanks for all the love, support, and prayers. Have an awesome week!

Love,
Elder Carlson


Monday, December 3, 2012

3 Diciembre 2012, Escuinapa, Mexico

Mi Querido Familia!

How´s everybody doing?! Wow, well it´s already december and that´s really weird. We saw part of some Christmas Program that the prophet Thomas S. Monson spoke in, last night. We were waiting for one of our investigators, Julio, to get there but unfortunately he didn´t get there. So we left without seeing the whole thing. Sounded pretty good from the part I heard in the beginning though.. This week things have been a little bit slower but they´re still going good! I had the chance to go to Culiacán for the ´Concilio´ thing thursday. We got to hear Pte. and Hna. Cantú and the Asistentes talk a little bit. We talked a lot about how to retain the people we teach better, the importance of having faith and sharing scriptures that the investigators need. There was a lot of good information and we had our zone meeting on saturday.

Julio is making really good progress! He´s definitely seems like he´s been changing a lot and he seems like a happier Julio. His goal is to get baptized on saturday so we´re helping prepare him more so that everything goes well and that he has a good experience. He´s pretty excited about it and we´re way stoked for him. It´s funny because several times this week we thought about things that we need to teach him or tell him and then he would appear out of nowhere as we were going around town. I know our prayers were definitely being answered because he doesn´t have a cellphone right now because it got stolen, and we wouldn´t of had a way to get a hold of him!.. On the other hand unfortunately, Iris, wasn´t doing so well this week. We came back and talked to her on saturday and she was all bummed out because of her familiy. She didn´t go to church the next day either because she said she needed to clean the house more. Her husband really doesn´t like the church, so we´re hoping we can some how get to talk to him and that he´ll open his heart more.

Besides that not too much else is going on! We´re going to try and find more people this week and we´re excited to try and apply what we have learned this week. Thanks for all the support and especially your prayers. Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Carlson