14 Enero 2013, Esquinapa Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Well this week went pretty well! We did end up eating up cake last monday and it was fun :). This week we have continued to teach the abuela, named Norma, not nancy haha. Accidently wrote her name wrong last week. She´s doing well and we taught her more about the commandments this week and finished teaching her about the restoration. She had some questions about what she would need to do exactly in order to be baptized so we talked about the importance of her recieving her own confirmation from the Spirit. She came with us to to church this sunday with all of her daughter´s family. Unfortunately, we haven´t really been able to teach Martin much this week because he got home late from working and had to work on Sunday too. Yesterday we talked with him to see how he´s doing and have an appointment with him today.

In the beginning of the week we went to Mazatlán to have a little capicitation and interviews with Presidente Cantú. The capicitation was really good and we talked a lot about the reasons we do things, here in the mission and in life in general. Everything has to do with our Desire. In order for us to do good things, we need to desire to do good things. We talked about what happened with King David and when he saw the woman bathing. He ended up falling because the desires of his heart changed. The mistake we make a lot of times we spend time not necessarily doing things ¨bad¨ but also not really productive or good either. We need to be actively engaged because if we spend time not doing to much of anything or get lazy, that´s when we´ll be more likely to fall. We can avoid a lot of unnessary tempations in life too if we keep ourselves actively doing good things. It made me think a lot about how I can make better use of my time and I liked how it applys a lot outside of missionary life too.. We learned about how faith isn´t just to have a positive attitude either. Even though we all should strive to have a positive attitude, faith requires more. A big part of faith is to know the will of God, and to do it. We can all strive to learn more about the will of God in our lives through prayer and doing what is right. It requires a little bit more on our part to do that, but it will make all the difference in our lives and the lives of those around us.

I´ve been striving to work on things that I know that I can improve and to learn more about what God would have me do in this time. I know that we all have a special purpose here and that we all have unique talents and gifts that Heavenly Father has given us. He gave them to use to be used to! Not to be lost or to be forgotten... Yesterday we got the chance to talk with Saul, Norma´s son, too. He´s had problems with drinking and drugs for around 20 years or more now. We promised him that he can change and that the Lord will be there to support him along the way. We´re going to pray for him and hope to see a lot more progress with this family, Martin´s family, and to keep finding more people this week!

I love you all and thank you for support! I know that Heavenly Father is very pleased with us when we strive to do our best and that His love is real!

Love,

Elder Carlson

7 Enero 2013, Escuinapa Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Hey!! Well today has been pretty good so far. Thanks for all the birthday wishes! We have been really tired in the mornings lately and we decided to go run a little bit in the morning. Although it was hard to get out of bed and do it I felt really good after running a little bit. Hopefully will keep up the habit this week haha. Things are going pretty well here in the area. We cleaned the apartment a little bit and I think later on we might go and buy a cake or something.

This week one of the cool little experiences we had is when we went to visit a less active family. We taught the grandma a little bit more and she had some misconceptions about the church we were able to clear up. Her name is Nancy, and we taught her a little bit about the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. We saw her in the morning sunday and she was feeling a little sick but told us she´s going to go with her family to church for a little bit and then to the doctor afterwards. She enjoyed church and it was awesome to see that she came with us still even though she wasn´t feeling too great. There´s another family we´re teaching too. Part of the family are members of the church but the dad, Martin, and one of his daughters named Mariela aren´t. They´re really friendly and we gave Martin a book of mormon. We want to share some more messages with them this week so we´re excited about that too.

Besides that there´s not too much going on. We´re feeling better now that there a few people to teach, but are going to keep looking for more with the down time we have. One of our goals is to visit a lot more of the part member familys in the branch and help reactivate familys. There was pretty good assistance in the branch this last week, so we were happy to see that there´s progress going on with that too!

Anyways, thank you all for your support and I hope everybody that had vacation got to enjoy it and those that a working and going to school can enjoy it too! Have a great week and I know that the Lord will help you guys in your goals if you ask for his help and are humble enough to follow his advice! The humble part is really important!

Love,

Elder Carlson

P.S. Here are some more Christmas and New Years photos I got a hold of

1 Enero 2013, Escuinapa Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Well this week has been pretty eventful! Things have been going pretty well here with the holidays. It was nice to be able to talk with some of the family on Christmas day and I was glad to see that everyone was doing well. We have been finding a few more people to teach and we´re going to keep on looking. Yesterday we went to Culiacán for our 'Concilio' and got to hear some messages from President and Hermana Cantú and enjoy New Years Eve together. It was a great meeting we had and we were able to discuss several things. A lot of the message was about our need to focus on the eternal perspective of things. We we begin to understand the Savior and His role more in our lives, we´re able to understand Heavenly Father´s purpose for us more. We all have things to work on and to change and Heavenly Father is willing to help us but requires that we follow and accept His son! I know that we can find peace when we truly follow the Savior and I really want to learn to appreciate His love for us more.

We taught a new family this week, the husband is named Alejandro and the wife Claudia. They´ve got 2 little boys and we´re going to visit them and pray that they start progressing and can follow the message we share with them. We also taught a member who hadn´t gone to church in awhile, Maximino, and his wife Carmen. Max got to come with us to a baptism of a little girl in the ward and brought his little son with. It was a pretty cool experience for them to get to see to be there for the baptism. I know with some of the experiences like these that we´ve had that the Lord really does have people here right now that are wanting to hear us. I want to give more to the Lord and his children.

I´m glad to hear from everyone and glad to see the Christmas season has gone well. I wish you all a Happy New year too and that we all can put more of our faith and trust in the Lord. It´s good to see the world didn´t end and I know it´s because there is much more in store for us this year! Let´s make the best of it.

Love,

Elder Carlson

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

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

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

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