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 :)

22 October 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia,

Well another week has gone by and things are going pretty well. We´ve been having some more success this week with people accepting goals to be baptized. We met a pretty cool family this week too but unfortunately they weren´t able to come to church with us on sunday. We have a good amount of investigators right now but probably the biggest challenge is getting them to come to church. One of the things we want to do more is invite more of the members to help us out with this. We need to start having members come with us in the lessons and motivate the members to go and pass by for them on sunday. It really makes me happy to see people who are concerned about making sure that others feel comfortable and really want to be their friend. I wish we could all be more like that, the Lord taught us all to love one another, and even though it may be hard sometimes it´s possible! I´d have to agree that the best way to learn to love someone, is by serving them and praying to the Lord for them!

The weather is getting a little nicer here now and it´s been pretty enjoyable to not be sweating around going to places haha. Does not seem at all like a cold winter, but I´m good with that. :) Elder Collett and I have been doing pretty well too. We´ve been putting some more goals together as a companionship and look for ways to be more helpful. He´s a pretty funny guy and makes me laugh a lot at the silly things he thinks of doing and does... One of the things we´re trying to work on is talking more to eachother in spanish. It´s really hard sometimes to do that, but it´s the BEST way to learn a different language and not forget it!

It´s awesome to hear how well everyone is doing at home and all the good news. Thanks for all your support and hopefully everybody can get into the holiday spirit! There´s not too much Halloween things here, but we´re going to be doing some Día de los Muertos activity in november, so we´re excited for that! We´re going to head to some cemetarys with our wards and then teach some people more about how they can research theiry ancestry. Don´t know too much about it besides that though!.. Have an awesome week and thanks for all the prayers, love, and support!

Love,

Elder Carlson

15 October 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia!

Well another week has gone by and things are going pretty well. We had the opportunity to meet some new people to teach and those were probably the coolest moments of the week. We were trying to teach one of our investigators, Javier, all week but things kept coming up so he couldn´t meet with us. He went to go see his mom and some other family too, and then yesterday we got to meet some of his family. We were walking in this one area and a guy called us over, it ended up being Javier and he was over there with his brother´s family. We actually already knew one of his nieces and now we started teaching their family! Hopefully everything goes well with them.

We´ve been having more success with finding more people to teach these past couple weeks, but everyone´s got their own unique situation and problem so we´re trying to work on teaching according to their needs more. We have several people we´re teaching that want to get baptized but need to get married first! A lot of people in the world argue more and more against the reasons to get married now. Everything seems more convenient with out that commitment. But the good thing is even though the world´s standards are always changing the Lord always blesses those who follow him. Heavenly Father wants us to be able to have a family connection that wont only last for all of this life time, but also for all of eternity! I think that´s one of the things I´ve been learning more about personally too, is how important familys really are to the Lord. Satan also knows how important familys are, so his main goal is to destroy them! I know that everything is easier through following the Lord and that we can have true happiness only by learning to trust in him and NOT in just our own, very flawed, wisdom. I´m grateful that the He is very patient with us in our debilities and wants to help each and everyone of us.

Besides that there´s not too much new going on. It´s good to hear that everyone is doing well at home. I´m keeping you in my prayers and appreciate all the prayers that help us out :). Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Carlson

8 October 2012, Culiacan, Mexico

Hola Familia!

Well things have gone pretty awesome this week! Conference definitely was the most exciting part of our week and we got the chance to bring several investigators to church with us. Our church builiding is one of the Stake Centers in Culicán so the session on Sunday morning was packed!! There was pretty good assitance to the other sessions we went to (Saturday Morning, Priesthood, Both on Sunday) but definitely not the same level as the sunday morning one. There´s a family we started teaching in our other area a couple weeks ago and this week we had a Noche de Hogar activity (Family Home Evening) with them. We watch the Testaments and got to talk some more about Jesus Christ and the opportunity we have to be guided by a Prophet of God in these days. We bore testimony to them that they can go to conference for themselves with a prayer in their hearts and they´ll know if he is a Prophet of God and that Heavenly Father will send them answers to their prayers and very distinct preocupations in their lives. Unfortunately the parents both worked on Sunday, but the kids were able to go with one of the Hermanas in the ward. They enjoyed the Conference and we´re going to focus on the teaching the parents more so that they can progress together as a family.

We´re starting to find even more people to teach and they´re progressing little by little. We have been doing pretty well together as a district and have been really trying to contact more and ask more for more references from the members. We recieved a lot of references this week but had a hard time encountering a lot of them because they weren´t there at the times we passed, ha. But we will keep on passing by and hopefully have even more people to teach!

I liked a lot of the talks at Conference but some of the ones that really stook out to me were the Sunday Morning and Priesthood session. I liked how during the Priesthood session they talked about how we should look at people not just how they are, but how they can become. We can change are whole perspective on life if we really look at people the way Heavenly Father see´s us. Children of God with very distinct blessings and gifts that have an unending potential when we turn unto the Lord humbly! I also liked how much everyone talked about the Savior the sunday morning session. Like the apostle Peter we all need to come truly converted unto the Lord, and afterwards to never turn back. If we truly love him we should be willing to follow him and share his love unto others with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. I love the Lord and I pray that we all can remember Him more and try and become more like Him!

Thanks for all the love and support that you all share unto me. I hope that everybody takes an opportunity to smile and even laugh everyday! And if you´re not really feeling in the mood for it, make someone else smile and laugh, and you´ll feel better too :). Have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Carlson

 

1 October 2012, Culiacan Mexico

Hola Familia!

How´s it going? Well things are going well here. Yet another week has passed by and it´s crazy that we´re already into October now! The weather is cooling down slowly, but everybody has said that this is the month when the heat stops. So that´s exciting news. It´s rained a couple times this week but not anything too hard.

Saturday Elda and Lina both got baptized in the morning! Elda and her sister, Senovia, had to work during the day so they decided to have it in the morning. We had to do some running around in the morning and fill up the baptismal fount the night before but everything turned out well. It made me smile being able to see them smiling and laughing right before we performed the ordinances. I baptized Elda and E. Collett baptized Lina. Later on they invited us over to their apartment to have some dinner and cake and it was nice to celebrate a little. The next day at church they both recieved the Holy Ghost and were confirmed members of the church too. The only bummer is that we missed that part because we were bringing our investigator Javier to church and his nephew Armando.

There´s a lot of cool people we´re teaching and we´ve been starting to find some more ones to teach in the other area too. We´ve been really blessed because there´s been several members giving us references and we´re hoping to keep on working more with the members... Today has been pretty low key and we got go to Sam´s Club to shop for the week, so we got all stocked up on food for awhile! We´re definitely lucky to be in one of the couple areas in the mission with a Sam´s Club and Walmart haha.

Besides that, we´re just excited that we´re going to have General Conference this weekend! Hopefully we can bring serveral people to the sessions and invite a lot of people. :) Hope everyone is doing well and that you all remember how much the Lord loves and cares about everyone of you! Thanks for your prayers, love, and support!

Love, 

Elder Carlson