20 August 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia!

Well it has been a really busy couple of weeks! Things are going well and I´m alive so that´s the good news. Last week we were busy with transfers and Elder Lopez, Elder Lopez (my big hearted old companion), and I were really busy running around seeing people. We stayed at the Staff House and the next day I said goodbye to E. Lopez and recieved my new companion E. Collett! He is from Vernal Utah and just got here in mexico so it´s been pretty exciting showing him what´s up here in Culiacán. I´m in the same area, so none of that stuff changed luckily.

Last week we had the chance to baptize Senovia, one of the doughnut ladys, and everything turned out really well! She´s been doing well and with thing that her sister Elda might get baptized soon too. She still hasn´t decided on a day but we were teaching her a lot about the Espíritu Santo (Holy Spirit) the other day. They´re really cool and it´s been awesome to see the changes they have made in their lives now that they´ve been able to learn about the gospel. I don´t remember if I talked about Luis the other week, but there´s a couple kids we have been teaching that we met one night at a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) activity. He got baptized last week and his brother Isaac decided to get baptized on Saturday too. Both of them are doing well and we´ve been talking a little with the mom. She is really nice but told us ¨now don´t go thinking you´re going to baptize me next¨ or something like that haha. There´s a lot of cool people in that colonia we´ve been visiting and it looks like we´re going to teach their neighbours some too. They were asking us some questions about the church after the baptism and we got to explain a little about our purpose here in this life, and gave them a couple Libros de Mormon.

It´s pretty fun being with E. Collett and I´m sure he´ll learn spanish fast because he seems like a pretty smart guy. It´s funny though because it reminds me about when I just got here too. A lot of times he looks like he has know idea what´s going on and the same thing happened to me.. We ate with the Bishop yesterday and we want to start warking on a new mission plan for the ward. We´re going to try and have some of the members who live near our investigators come with us to visit them when we share lessons. It´ll be easier helping them to make friends and feel comfortable when they go to church on sundays. Hopefully we can plan it all out well because sometimes it´s hard passing for a ton of people by ourselves on sunday.

Aside from that things are going well and we´ve been really lucky with the weather this week. Pretty much everyday has been cloudy and it´s rained off and on, so we only had one really hot day. The weather is really random here sometimes but not as bad as I thought it would be either : ).

Hope everybody is doing well and it´s good to hear that everything is going well with those who are now starting school again. Thanks for all your words of support, prayers, and love! Have an amazing week and I´ll keep you all in my prayers too.

Love,

Elder Carlson

P.s. Photos - Baptism of Senovia, Baptism of Luis, E. Collet and I, and Baptism of Isaac

 

6 Aug 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Well another sunny week has gone by and things are going well here! It´s so weird because this will be the last week of our cambio, meaning next week will be transfers. I feel like I have been able to learn a lot with my companion, E. Lopez, and it´s weird to think that he´ll be heading home soon to Michoacan.. This week was pretty cool because we ended up finding some new people to teach! We visited a less active family and one of the kids there invited a friend over for the Noche de Hogar (family home evening). His name is Luis and he had assisted church before. The lesson went well with and we gave him a Libro de Mormon. We passed by to bring him to church with us too. We found a few other teenager kids over there that we started teaching too and they all seem to be pretty interested. We talked with Luis´s mom to to make sure she´s fine with him talking the mormons and what not. She seems pretty nice and we taught a little bit to her too.

It´s been raining off and on through out the week, which means the weather has been nice for moments and later really really humid and hot. Today has been pretty good though and we´re enjoying our P-day. We´ve got some more plans to try and find more people to teach this week and we´re going to try and keep working hard even though we´ve been really tired, haha. We´re going to have a zone meeting tonight and it´ll be kind of weird because we´ve always had them in the morning before now. Should be good to learn some new things though and they told us that they´re changing the way the have zone meetings in every mission now. It´s going to be more of a council instead of the zone leaders talking the majority of the time, so it´ll be cool to see how that goes.

Besides that things are going well. Both the Fernandos are doing good and got to recieve the priesthood. Little Fernando passed the sacrament for his first time on Sunday so that was exciting for us. The doughnut ladys we´re teaching came to church with us this sunday too and are a little sad that E. Lopez will be leaving us soon.

Hope everybody has a great week and that you all know that you´re loved! Thanks for all your prayers, kindness, and support! NOS VEMOSSSSSSSSS

Love,
Elder Carlson

P.S. Photos, 1. Elda one of the cool ladys who gives us doughnuts, 2. Last week when we went bowling! : )

30 July 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Well this week has gone by pretty fast but has been pretty tiring too! It was pretty fun to have 2 other elders in the house but for some reason wore me out more too haha. We went on divisions with them for part of the day when they would leave the Seminario. We had the chance to go out to our other area that we don´t get to focus on as much with the elders too. It was cool because we got to visit a few refrences over their who look like they have a lot of potential. It´s definitely hard to work well in 2 areas, and that´s why we kind of end up focusing more on the area we live in! But we can´t forget about the other one completely either ha.

Our district has been doing really well. We´ve been doing well completing with the goals we have set, so we had the chance to go bowling today! It ended up being really fun and was cool to do something different for P-day. We usually have the district meetings in the morning too, but we´re going to have them at night now. So it´ll be interesting to see how things go with the new schedule.

Elda and Senovia, 2 of the investigators we found selling donuts have been doing really well this week. We had the chance to teach them about the Plan of Salvation and helped them to realize more the importance of reading the Book of Mormon. If they don´t know that the Book of Mormon is true, they won´t know if any of the other stuff we´re teaching them is true! Luckily, they both have accepted the challenge well and we´re excited to see how things go with them this week. Besides that we´ve realized that we need more people to teach because we only have a few left that seem to be really interested in learning more. This week we´re hoping to work on finding a lot more people to teach and talked with a couple people in the Church that can go visit investigators with us.

It´s good to hear that everybody is doing well at home and I need to thank you all for the support you give me! I really appreciate the little notes I get from you all. Sorry that I´m lame and don´t get the chance to respond to all of them! You´re all in my prayers and I hope that you have an amazing week. Never forget how important you are because you all are children of God!

Love,
Elder Carlson

23 July 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Hello there! Another good week has gone by. Elder Lopez and I have felt a little bit tired today though, so we took a short nap in the house since it´s Preparation Day, haha. We´ve been working with Fernando a lot this week and he got baptized on saturday. Everything went really well and it´s awesome to see how much he has changed in such a short period of time. His 5 year old little brother, Brandon, was asking about when he can get baptized too but he´s still got a few years to go. Our district has been doing really well in general too. The hermanas had a baptism the same day with us.

Later on today a couple of missionaries are going to arrive and stay in our house for the week. They´re going to assist some other Seminario and from 12pm - 5pm they´re going to work with us in our area each day. It´ll be fun having a couple more missionaries in the house for a few days and we´re going to try and have them help us get a lot of work done visiting people!.. Besides that we don´t have to much going on right now. The hermanas have a couple more baptisms planned for the week and we´re probably going to bring some investigators to them. We´ve got some pretty cool investigators we´re working with but have to start finding some more people to teach also. Today in our District meeting we talked a little bit about how each week we need to be finding new people to teach and came up with a few plans.

It´s been pretty hot this week and I´m already kind of anxious for it to get cooler here haha. But everything is going well and Culiacán is awesome! I hope everybody is enjoying their summer and taking advantage of the time to swim. I love you all and have an awesome week. Thanks for all the prayers, love, and support as always.

Love,
Elder Carlson

P.S. A picture of Fernandito´s baptism : )

16 July 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

How´s everybody doing? Hopefully you´re all in good hands right now! Things have been going well here. It´s rained off and on which has been pretty cool. Sometimes it´s annoying when it´s really humid afterwards but I love the days when it is really cloudly. This week we worked with our district a little bit more. The hermanas went and visited our investigator Jose Ramon, and his wife seems a little bit more kind now haha. That is, the last time we visited she didn´t go and hide in her room and talked to us a little more. I think it´s little by little with some people. We also visited one of their investigators and meet with him. He´s a single Dad and he kind of wanted to here some advice from some men too, we´re excited because he´s baptismal date is for this Saturday and we´re going to assist.

Probably the coolest thing that happened during the week is when this group of 4 women contacted us. They were selling donuts and asked us about what we do and we started teaching them. We taught them about the gospel of Jesus Christ and later on we taught them about the restoration. 2 of them got the chance to assist a baptism of the hermanas with us and went to church this sunday with us. We´ve been having a little more success finding new people which is always awesome.. There´s another kid named Fernando that we´re teaching and he´s been really excited and interested in our lessons. His baptismal date is for this saturday so we´re going to help try and keep preparing him. The good thing too is that he´s already made a lot of friends in the church with some activities we invited him too.

I hope everybody keeps enjoying their summer time. Hopefully the weather doesn´t get too much hotter but I don´t have much to complain about. Thanks for all the support, love, and prayers as always!

Love,
Elder Carlson

P.S. Here´s a picture of Fernando´s baptism the other week and a picture of the baptism we assisted with the hermanas!

9 Jul 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Well this week went by really fast yet again! The most awesome part was that we got to baptize Fernando. He´s the 17 year old guy we have been teaching for awhile. I´m excited for him because he´s doing really well and seems excited to recieve the priesthood too. I think it would be really awesome if he decided to serve a mission one day too! I think he probably will haha.. There´s been a little bit of progression with some of our other investigators.

It rained some more this week which was pretty nice the days that it was all cloudly. Today has been pretty hot but we´ve been inside air conditioning most of the day, so I can´t complain. E. Lopez and I are starting to work with some of the members some more. We still are working on some plans to do more activities in the wards we are in. We thought it would be cool to have a movie night or something on saturdays. Something to get the youth more involved and excited to assist church on Sunday.

Besides that there´s not too much new going on. I didn´t even realize it was 4th of july this week because we were busy that day ha. But it´s not a holiday that they celebrate here anywas. I´m sure everybody had some good BBQs and enjoyed seeing the fireworks.. This week I want to work more on our commitments with our investigators. We´re doing a better job passing by for everybody on sunday for church, but it´s still really hard to bring people to church sometimes! The best way is just to help them realize the blessings they´ll recieve and for them to make friends in the church. That´s our goal for this week.

Thanks as always for all the love and support. You´re all in my prayers and I know the Lord is watching over you. : )

Love,
Elder Carlson

2 July 2012

Hola Familia,

 

Wow! This week has gone by pretty fast! Things are going pretty good here. We heard our transfers on Saturday and... E. Lopez and I are going to stay in the same area together! Haha, that´s what I expected and I´m glad we´re not getting switched around already.

 

We didn´t end up getting to baptize the 2 people we thought we were. Unfortunately Jose Ramon´s esposa doesn´t want to get married still, but we´re going to continue visiting the Hermano. Hopefully his esposa will let us talk to her one of these days too.. Fernando and his parents decided that this coming wednesday was the best bet for when his family would be available. So we´re planning on baptizing him this next week!.. Even though things didn´t work out as planned we were able to baptize Leopoldo. We´re teaching him and his family right now. He really has been wanting to get baptized and is 10, his parents gave him permission and they all assisted the baptism this last saturday.

 

It rain a little bit again today as we were walking around. I´m excited for this transfer and E. Lopez and I have a lot of good plans with how to work with the wards better. We want to have activities every week with the Youth, and also to go on divisions more with the members.

 

Hope everybody is enjoying their summer! Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers. Til next week! Byeee.

 

Love,

Elder Carlson