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

26 Noviembre 2012, Escuinapa, Mexico

Querido Familia,

What´s up? Well yet another week has passed by! Things have been going pretty well with our investigators here in the area too. In the beginning of the week I went on divisions to Teacapan. It´s a pretty small place near the sea and it seemed like a pretty cool town. We were able to find a couple more people who look interested in finding the gospel but it is weird because a lot of people there already know the missionaries. Not like they all know them personally but they know of them, which is good and bad haha. It´s nice to be able to see some of the other areas around here though and what´s going on. I was with Elder Gomez for the day and he´s a hard working missionary, it looks like they´re going to start seeing some more movement in the area soon though :).

This weekend was pretty awesome because Iris came with us to a Noche de Hogar in the church. We had a little ward activity and she participated and even brought one of her work employees. She came with us the next day to church and brought her grandson, even though she couldn´t convince Alondra (her daughter) to come with. She´s progressing really well and it looks like she´s going to get baptized the beginning of December. So we´re going to keep preparing her for her goal. Hopefully we can get Alondra to come with us to church soon too.. Another investigator of ours, Julio, is doing really well too. He went to church for his 3rd time on sunday and he seems like he´s progressing well. He´s going to start reading more in the Book of Mormon so though because he wasn´t sure whether he´s recieved an answer that is is true still.. We´re still looking for more people to teach and we talked with several other people throughout the week. I think we´re doing a good job finding the people who are really interested in the gospel but it is a little sad sometimes to see how many people aren´t really interested. That´s one of the reasons it´s so important to teach according to their needs!.. Overall I think we´re doing a pretty good job though, even though there´s always a lot we could improve on.

I can´t believe thanksgiving already passed by. I didn´t even realize it though until I was thinking about it on saturday haha. Sounds like everybody had a good week and I´m glad to hear that. The weather has been pretty good this week but it still feels really hot all of the sudden sometimes. There´s not too much to complain about though and I´m glad I know the area little better now. Thanks for all the support, your prayers, and love. I hope everybody keeps enjoying the rest of November!

Love,

Elder Carlson

19 Noviembre 2012, Escuinapa Mexico

Querido Familia,

Well this week was pretty eventful and went very well! In the beginning of the week I got to spend some time in Rosario with Elder Flores. Rosario is really pretty and we got to go to some even smaller ranchos that are in their area to visit some people. Looks like there is a lot of people waiting to hear the gospel over there and it was fun being able to work with Elder Flores. He´s from Puebla Mexico and seems pretty awesome.

One of the coolest experiences we had this week is when we went and visited Iris on Friday. Her family kind of totally turned on her and was getting her discouraged about listening to us. Her mom found out she was listening to ¨los mormones¨ and sent her uncle over there, who happens to be a catholic priest, to give her a good lecturing. We brought an hermana from the branch with us and she started gaining a lot of confidence with her and was helping her son peel some shrimp. The hermana used to be catholic too and was sharing a little bit about her conversion and when she felt that she needed to join the church and be baptized.. We had went there planning to give her a tour of the church and it looked like it wasn´t going to happen, but then she decided she wanted to go see the church before we left. The hermana helped give her a tour of the church and Iris told us that as soon as she entered the church she felt a peaceful presence. We got to explain some more and when we brought her back to her house she was telling everybody about the spirit she felt there, even though her daughter, Alondra, thought she´s just being crazy ha.. She wasn´t going to be in town yesterday but hopefully she will come with us to church next week! Either way it was an awesome experience for her and helped us learn more about the importance of bringing members to our lessons.

Saturday we got to go to Mazatlan also because we had some Zone conference combined with Mazatlan and Escuinapa. Presidente and Hermana Cantú taught us a lot and we were able to learn a lot more about how to teach better. We were there pretty much all day and got to have a big lunch there too so it was pretty awesome! Hopefully we can apply all the stuff we learned in our areas and with the people we are teaching.

Besides that some more things here I forgot to mention is that we ride bikes around in our area. Most the time we ride bikes, but a couple days this week we walked around so that we could talk with more people in the street. A lot of people in general ride bikes around here too, because there´s not buses that go around all of Escuinapa like they do in Mazatlan and Culiacan. The weather has a been a little more enjoyable this week but I´m definitely not going to have a cold winter it looks like haha.. Hope everybody is enjoying there November and thanks for all the support you give me! Your love and prayers are greatly appreciated :). Have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Carlson

P.S. Photos- 1.) Some of the missionaries in Rosario 2.) Our little Zone 3.) In order: E. Juarez, Me, and my companion E. Baltich

 

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.