26 March 2012, Mazatlan Mexico

¡Hola Familia!

 

¿Cómo estás?.. Everythings is going pretty good here. We had another pretty awesome district meeting this morning. We talked about the ways we can help our investigators to come to church more and practiced challenging people to come to church. Probably the most important part is bearing your testimony about assisting church and talking about all the blessings they will recieve. Most people aren´t going to do something new without hearing about what they´re going to recieve for doing it. The goal then is for them to understand that Heavenly Father really blesses us everytime we follow his commandments. Every commandment equals a blessing, if you want more blessings you obey the commandments. It´s really that simple, but the world will always tell us otherwise.

 

We did find some more people to teach and that was pretty cool. We were teaching a family, 3 kids, and they all were very excited about the gospel. Unfortunately they told us the last time that they visited that their parents don´t want them to go to our church because they already have one. We want to talk with the parents this week (haven´t met them still) and hopefully get their permission to keep teaching. I could understand how people might be hesitant to have their kids talking with a white guy in a shirt and tie and his companion ha.

 

Sounds like everybody is doing well at home. The weather is starting to change here but it isn´t normal at all. Probably the most exciting part of my week is one of the kid´s in our ward recieved his mission call sunday. He´s going to Massachusetts Boston! How awesome is that?! Anyways, I was pretty excited for him and told him how he´ll get to eat a lot of cookies in the Provo MTC and hear some cool devotionals... As always you´re all in my prayers. Thanks for all your prayers, love, and support!

 

Love,

Elder Carlson

 

P.S. This is my district, the big guy is my companion. We ate ice cream today for like my second time in Mexico!

March 19, Mazatlan Mexico

Hola Familia,

 

This week has picked up a little bit but our work with the ward is moving slowly but surely. We had a lesson with the bishop´s family in the beginning of the week with our investigator family. It went pretty well, and the bishop and his wife got to talk about the blessings that their family has recieved through living the gopsel. It was really good because we´re trying to help, Alba, the wife see the blessings her family will recieve when she follows the example of her husband.. They´re an awesome family though and they cooked some food for us this week too : ).

 

We found a few more people to teach this week but we´re still seeing if things are going to progress with them. Sometimes it´s really hard to figure out what we should do to find new people. Ultimately we need to be humble and rely on the help of the Lord though. Then whatever it is we feel like we should be working on and improving, to just do it!.. We had a good District Meeting this morning and it helped me think about the things I can change to improve myself as a missionary. One of the most important parts is what we study in the mornings. We need to study specifically for the people we teach. Not just for our own benefit. Also, to pray to recieve revelation about what our investigators need to here.

 

Also during the week we had divisions with the Zone Leaders and it was pretty fun. I was in Central Mazatlan with Elder Frias and we taught some pretty cool people. After that he had to interview a couple people for baptism.

 

Hope everybody has an awesome week! Thank you for your support, love, and prayers!

 

Love,

Elder Carlson

March 12, Mazatlan Mexico

Hola Familia,

 

This week was pretty good. I feel like we´re beginning to gain a little more momentum but we still don´t have many people to teach, which is a bummer. But we did find a couple more people this week. We had a couple references that might be potential progressing investigators. We had a zone meeting today. The Zone Leaders are really stressed because we have hardly any baptisms and baptismal dates in the zone right now. The mission also is having the lowest numbers it´s had in years they told us to, for this month that is. So we need to change some things. It´s kind of odd though because last month we almost broke the goal of 27 baptisms in Mazatlan, we had 26.

 

The family that we are teaching, Familia Meza, is doing pretty good. The mom, Alba, promised us to pray if the book of mormon is true and about the church. We´re going to see them tomorrow and they wen´t to church so it looks like things are going good. Hopefully we can help her to progress more in the gospel because she appears to have a lot of faith already. We´ve been looking for whatever doubts she might be having right now.. Besides that my spanish is definitely coming along more. I can understand just about everything people say to me now but still am learning new word everyday. You definitely don´t learn a language in one day, it´s step by step, but I´m not too worried about that like I´ve said. I want to work more on improving the way I teach the lessons this week.

 

Hope everyone keeps doing well. Thanks for all your support and prayers as usual!

 

Love,

Elder Carlson

March 5 - Mazatlan Mexico (area 2)

Hola Familia,

 

Well things are going pretty good here. I´m still getting used to the new area but it´s nice getting to know all the knew people here. I had a good day at church yesterday and all the ward members seem really nice. We don´t have a ton of people to teach right now so that kind of bummed me out at first but we had a really good Zone Meeting this morning that got me more excited. Things are going well with my new companion too. Elder Rosales is from Veracruz Mexico and he is a pretty hillarious guy. I´m glad I got another mexican companion this transfer too and it´s kind of fun to move even though I didn´t move very far.

 

There´s a lot of missionaries who got sick this week and I was a little sick too. I feel better already but it was just a little bit of a cold that´s going around.. For fast sunday we did a special fast for the health of the missionaries and that every companionship can baptize this month in the mission..The weather has been changing a little bit but it still feels pretty cool and not to bad to walk around in the day. We have one family that we are teaching right now that is pretty awesome. The daughter, Olivia, seems like she is ready for to be baptized but her mother doesn´t want to be baptized yet. Her Dad is a convert of E. Rosales and E. Lopez from a month ago or so. He´s really awesome too and it´s always cool to see a new convert with such a strong testimony of the gospel. He wants his family to be baptized also and he seems like he is putting a good example for them right now.

 

Besides that not much is new! Thanks for all the support, prayers, and love! I hope that everybody has a good week.

 

Love,

Elder David Carlson

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

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!

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.