1 Julio 2013, Guasave Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Hey! Well things are going pretty good here in guasave so far :). I´ve
been adjusting to the new atmosphere here.. This week everyday the
majority of the people we´ve been seeing have been new for me. It was
nice going to church on sunday and being able to know a lot of the
other members we didn´t have to the chance to see during the week.
They all seem very nice and I feel like they´ve given me a very warm
welcome! Right now I really want to get to know everybody I can so we
can work more with the members and so that I can know more about the
people we´re teaching.. The members seem to be pretty motivated and
easily persuaded. I´m sure we´re going to have a lot of success and
joy working together here!

As far as the weather goes it´s been really hot! I don´t know if it´s
much hotter than la paz, but it´s definitely a more humid hot. We ride
bikes pretty much everywhere in this area because it´s pretty big and
that´s been pretty fun. There´s always a nice breeze in the shade
too... Right now we´re teaching several people and they all seem like
they have a lot of desires to change. We´ve been teaching the family
Loredo and we had an awesome lesson with them my first day working in
the area. Uva, the mom, still hadn´t come to know if the Book of
Mormon is true but really enjoys going to church. We got to know more
about what´s going on with her and found out how she has a little bit
of fear and seems like she´s afraid to get married still. We invited
her to ask to know if these things are true and to really think about
what she wants for her family. She told us about the experience she
had later on when she asked to know if it was true, kneeling by her
bed that night. She said she felt peaceful and that the Lord had
answered her! They said they´re going to decide on a wedding date and
we´re going to check up on that soon.

There´s several other awesome people we´re teaching and one of them,
Esteban, was already prepared for baptism. I was really impressed with
the faith he had the day of the baptism. We had problems with the
water and it smelt kind of stanky, so we tried to fix it with clorox.
The smell disappeared but then it started turning yellow. We tried to
fix that by throwing in some blue cleaning tablets. That just ended up
making the water turn more brown though! Bad idea haha. To top it off
several of the members were busy with graduation parties and etc. so
there wasn´t anybody there besides our ward mission leader.. We told
Esteban that another option we could do is to drain the baptismal
fount and fill it up again on sunday, he´d have to wait another day
then and depending on the hour might not get confirmed until a week
later. He told us ¨no¨ and that ¨we might as well do it right now, I
can take a shower when I get home. and I want to sleep peacefully
tonight¨, referring to the clean conscience he´ll have.. We went
forward with the baptism and the bishop and his daughter ended up
coming before the baptsim started. Esteban felt and looked rgreat and
very happy. I felt touched by his faith and great attitude.

I´m going to ciudad obregon today for are monthly Leadership Counsel
with the new presiden, Pte Munive. I´m excited to get to know him and
the rest of the missionaries. There´s several people I already know
and I´m going to get to know more of the zone soon (this change
everyone in the zone are people that were in the culiacan mission
anyways). I know the Lord loves each and everyone of us and that he
really answers our prayers. It´s funny how even some of the little
prayers that I think might be something kind of insignificant, He
answers!

I love you all and thanks for your prayers and support. We need them,
and I know you all need blessings too! I´ll keep praying.

Love,
Elder Carlson

26 Junio 2013, Guasave Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Well there have been a lot of changes which has been really kind of
bittersweet this week! The week went pretty well and we have been
pretty busy. We visited several of the people that we're teaching and
went on divisions. I got the chance to visit a few old investigators
too with Elder Mejia. On saturday we had are farwell with Presidente
Cantú. It was a really great conference but obviously a little sad to
see him go.

I enjoyed the conference a lot. We got to see his two youngest kids
and they bore their testimonies. There oldest son, Brandon, wasn't
there because they accepted him for some summer program at Harvard!
He's graduating high school and I think he'll be leaving on his
mission sometime soon.. I really love their family and it was nice to
hear their kids testimonies too. You can tell they are all very strong
spiritually and they left us all a great example of what we'd like to
achieve in our own lives... I heard my transfer on Sunday morning and
had the chance to bid farewell to some of the members at church and
take pictures! As you can tell I didn't have a chance to write
yesterday because I got to my area really late. I'm in Guasave Sinaloa
now. I'm going to finish my mission in Obregon City!

I was glad I got the chance to say goodbye to several people before I
left but it was also sad to leave them. We went to church and there
were a 2 new investigators that came! One of them was an lady that
Elder Nieto met on divisions this last week. I really enjoyed this
transfer with Elder Nieto and felt pretty sad as I was heading off to
the airport. We were hoping we'd be able to finish the mission
together because he's from the same generation of missionaries as me..
I flew to culiacán yesterday and we took a bus to guasave. I had to
wait on some other missionaries in the offices before I left and we
ended up getting to guasave at like 10:15pm!.. I'm with Elder Casimiro
now and he's from Veracruz. I knew him a little bit just from seeing
him at conferences in culiacán and he seems like a great elder. We had
our District Meeting this morning and our district seems pretty
awesome. I'm pretty excited about the zone we have too. It looks like
we have a lot of hard working missionaries! I'm excited to get to know
my new mission president. We had the chance watch the world training
meeting at church on sunday too. I enjoyed all the videos and really
think it helped the members out too.. I know we all can help spread
the gospel and it's amazing to see how many ways we can do it. It's a
great blessing to be part of this work at a time when the Lord is
really preparing the hearts of many in these last days. I can tell
there's a lot of changes going on for the better!

I feel like one of the things I learned with Elder Nieto was the
importance of enjoying the work we do. If we do something we shouldn't
just do it because we are told too or because it's expected of us.
There's a lot of responsibilities we have and the Lord does expect a
lot from us, but the choice we make shouldn't be in between doing the
right thing or not. The choice is between doing the right thing with
the right attitude or not. Men after all are that they might have joy,
and I've felt a great joy serving as a missionary.. I know that this
is the only true church of God! I know that Jesus Christ lives and I
feel like I've recieved more answers from Heavenly Father in this time
than I have at any other point in my life. I love the people here and
I pray to God that we can all begin to feel the same love for all of
those around us. Ask yourself, what would He have me do? What can I do
to change? And if you feel an answer in your heart, just do it!

I know that the greatest gift Heavenly Father has given us is our free
agency. We don't need to just live good enough to make it to the
Kingdom of the Lord. We can get used to living in the Kingdom of the
Lord hear on earth. We don't need to be like the rest of the world.
Have a great week and I love you all! Thank you for all your support
and prayers! It's all the little things that make the difference.

Love,
Elder Carlson

P.S. Some photos. The last photo with several people of my generation
(because several stayed in culiacán). Elder Baltich and some buddys.
Presidente and Hermana Cantú.

17 Junio 2013, La Paz Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,


This week was pretty good and kind of crazy at the same time! We´ve
been pretty busy and have been learning a lot together.. I had the
chance to do some divisions with E. Velasquez this week. We had a
great experience together and I learned a lot more about the
importance of having a good companionship study.

As missionaries it´s important to study the scriptures and in
particular the things that we may be teaching that day. We look at the
challenges people are facing and try to look for answers from Heavenly
Father on how to help them with their circumstance.. We´re teaching
Cruz right now and he hadn´t come with us to church yet. He visits his
Father on sundays and this sunday he was going to be visiting his
father too. We prepared some scriptures for him and focused on the
importance of the book of mormon, because up until now it had just
been a nice book to him. We visited him and were able to help him
understand the importance of reading the book of mormon and the
testament it gives us of Christ.. Later on in the week he expressed to
us his desire to change and the desire he has to return to our
Heavenly Father one day. He was worried about being able to overcome
the temptations that come upon us daily. He has a particular weakness
that he´s trying to overcome at this time. We taught him more about
the church and the importance of repentance and baptism. We invited
him to show his faith unto God and to come with us to church. And he
did! He didn´t even give us an exuse to not go and was still able to
visit his father afterwards :).

I know that we all have priorities in our lives and that God should be
our first priority! Sometimes we're worried that we're too weak or
incapable of following him, so it stops us from even trying. The great
thing about His love for us though is that when we repent He doesn't
remember anymore the mistakes we have made. And He never gives up on
us, even if we don't think we can change!

We also had a little activity that has been going on so that took up a
good amount of time. It was another one about a plane flight crashing
and what happens after this life hah. I liked this one a little bit
more than the one I did at the beginning of my misison. The Hermana
missionaries planned it out pretty well and everyone had a great time.
It's awesome to see how people feel when they come to know the plan
Heavenly Father has for them in this life and forever.

Besides that things are going good and we´re going to be having
transfers next week. Presidente Cantú is going to give us his farewell
this week and it´ll be good and sad! But changes are for the better...
I love you all and I'm glad I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and
each and everyone of you. I hope you all had a wonderful Father's day
and are able to express the love you have for your fathers and family
members.

Love,
Elder Carlson

P.S. Here's some photos of the activity and a photo of the zone. We're
going to give a photo to Pte Cantú when he comes to visit us this
week.

10 Junio 2013, La Paz Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Well this week has gone by pretty fast and things are starting to heat up here. Luckily it's not as hot here as it is in Sinaloa.. This week we went on divisions with a couple areas and we have had some pretty cool experiences finding new people and teaching lessons.

The beginning of the week I went to an area with E. Calleja. We ended up visiting an investigator that we had met here in our area and we had sent to them as a reference. We got to know here husband more and hopefully they get to see some more progress with them. E. Calleja is in my generation of missionaries and it was good to get to know him more because I still hadn't really known him too well even though we started the mission at the same time... Later on here in our area I went with E. Castañeda. We've had a goal as a zone to do more street contacts there is a big cemetery in our area. We decided to go into the cemetery and look for a couple people to contact. There was pretty much nobody there because it was hot and in the middle of the day, we had said a prayer to find 2 people with familys we can visit. The plan was to find someone visiting there, but we ended up finding a few guys working on a little house their constructing for a grave site. It's pretty common here for them to build little hut things for the gravesites. We contacted them and got to know them a little bit and left them a couple handouts. We got their addresses and it turns out one of them lives their in E. Castañeda's area. I don't know what's going to happen with them still but it's amazing to see how Heavenly Father really answers our prayers. At the end of that day we were heading back to the house when a guy called us over and told us his brother has been wanting to talk to us. We met him, Alfonso, and his brother, Arturo, it turns out E. Castañeda had ran into Arturo in his area the other day and they talked to him but didn´t find out too well where he lives. They both began to express to us their desires to come closer to God and to repent of their past lives. They were kind of scrubby looking guys but as they talked my perspective of them began to change. I realized that God loves them too and the potential they have. They both accepted on preparing to be baptized and making the changes necessary in their lives, starting with going to church... Alfonso went to church on sunday and ended up going to the the first session (the other ward´s schedule). I felt bad because I honestly did recognize him at first as we were walking in with a couple investigators down the hall. He said ¨hey you don´t remember me now?" and I told him of course I do a little embarassed haha and realized who it is. He came to church in his nicest looking clothes and looked really happy to be there.

We're excited for them and two teenagers that came with us to church. We're getting to know the parents more of the teenagers, and right now they're working on sundays but we had a great lesson with their Mom last week.. Alfonso and Arturo look like the Lord has something prepared for them in the future too and we're praying to do our part in following the spirit!

I love you guys and I'm proud of the good decisions you are all making. I know that Heavenly Father loves all his children and wants our families to be more united and together forever. I've visited a lot of families in the time I've been here and I can definitely say the most happy ones I've seen are the ones that are really trying to come to know God! The amount of money they have, the number of kids, whether they are pretty looking or not too pretty, etc. has really not had much of a difference!.. I'm thankful for the knowledge I have on how to be happy. I pray that we all might be happy and come to know Heavenly Father more! :)

Love,

Elder Carlson

3 Junio 2013, La Paz, Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

Well it has been quite an eventful week here in the field and at home. Lots of things are changing and the Lord really expects and hopes more of us. I can tell that He really is preparing us for all the changes and trials that we may be going through. I´ve been learning more about the importance of seeing things through Heavenly Father´s eyes and have been pretty busy with my companion!

This week we went to culiacán for the last counsel meeting with Presidente Cantú. It was a really good meeting and we had our Zone Meeting on saturday. It has been really weird thinking about how Pte. Cantú will be leaving us soon. I know that what we have learned from him will always be with us and with me in a special way. It may sound weird to some but I really have come to love and appreciate the leaders the Lord sends us to help us here in bringing forth His gospel. I never really expected to learn so much from someone in such a short period of time but am so thankful that I have!

One of the things that we were talking about that stuck out to me is the ability we all have to choose. With every choice we make we literally can begin to have more light and truth. It makes it easier for us to feel and follow the promptings of the spirit. Like David from the Bible we all will face a few ¨goliaths¨ in our lives. If we are prepared like he was and are obedient we will be able to overcome them. David did not fear in the presence of goliath because he had the faith in the Lord and knew that he could do ANYTHING that the Lord commanded of him, and he had done so from his youth.. Faith is more than just a belief. Faith is knowing and following the will of the Lord. For example, we as missionaries of the Lord may have the faith, authority, and power to heal somebody and they may have the faith to be healed. But if the will of the Lord is that this person needs to pass on to the other side, then it will be done... It´s important for us to continue to nurture and strengthen our faith. We loose light and truth slowly from little decisions we make, that lead us to make bigger and worse decisions. It may be a little decision like choosing not to pray. Choosing not to wake up on time to go to church, etc.. We all can feel the light of Christ and it will help us follow the path of the gospel. It will help us to show love to one another. This will allow us to discern the specific and quiet promptings of the spirit.

I know that Heavenly Father loves all of His children. I know that He is a God of mercy and justice. I know that He respects our agency and will allow us to choose to follow Him and His Son Jesus Christ. I pray that we all might be able to come to know His love and really learn to know him. If we can come to love those around us, it will be easier for us to learn to love Him even though we cannot see Him.

Thanks for all the love and support I feel from you all. I pray that you all might feel the love and comfort of the Lord in your own lives.

Love,

Elder Carlson

 

27 Mayo 2013, La Paz Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

How is everybody doing?! Things are going pretty great here :).. This week I´ve been working a lot with my new companion E. Nieto and we´ve been making a lot of goals together. We had a goal with the zone to teach a lot lessons to members and we completed our goal! It seems like they are getting a little bit more excited about the work too and we had a really good ward council meeting yesterday.. There hadn´t been hardly any work going on with the visiting members, and especially those who are less active. Everybody made plans to work together and to do a better job at visiting people.

One of the things I was talking about with my companion is how much we´ve seen the mission change since we have gotten here. There´s ups and downs in the work all the time but we noticed that there had been some fear in general of challenging people to do things. Fear of being rejected or of not being good enough. We´ve been talking about ways that we can overcome our fears and have more faith.. Sometimes as missionaries, as members, and as children of God in general we´re really conformisits. I realized that I had been conforming in many aspects. Instead of doing what I know I can do, I´d look for someone else to put the example first so that I can follow them. It´s easy to justify lazy habits when we can say ¨well everybody else does it!¨.. It made me think about the story of a homeless man begging for fish. A lot of times we want to help out people and we give them the fish right in the mouth. But what we don´t do, is give them the opportunity to learn. I thought about how if we REALLY love people we´ll be like the man who taught the homeless man to fish. We want to see one another progress and we care about their future and eternity. Then we will choose the longer and more difficult way to help, even though it would be much more convienient to just give them what they want in that moment.

Right now we´re hoping to see some progress with a couple familys we are teaching. A couple members brought people to church and it was really great to see how they are helping out.. I´m learning how to love people and choosing to be happy no matter what the circumstance is. What we need to do whether it´s work, school, helping our family, working out, etc.. We NEED to do! The choice we have is whether we´ll be happy and positive while we do it, or whether we´ll complain and be sad.

I love you all and hope you have a great week. I know each and everyone of you is special and have a potential far greater than you could ever imagine. Your life can be as happy as you choose to make it today. :)

Love,

Elder Carlson

P.S. Photos: Missionaries of the Zones La Paz y Comondu. My companion, Hna Tejeda and I waiting in the airport

 

20 Mayo 2013, La Paz Mexico

Mi Querido Familia,

It´s great to hear how well everyone is doing and for those that are struggling it´s good to hear the ways the Lord is ready and willing to help. I´m with my new companion Elder Nieto from Tabasco now and things have been going quite well.

What a busy and awesome week it has been here! We started out the week visiting a few people and finishing up preparing for Elder Holland´s visit. E. Snow and I had the opportunity to teach a few familys and it looks like we´ve got a few new investigators to teach. We had a lot of missionaries stay at our new house because they came in the day before to stay the night on thursday. They came from Constitution and the missionaries from Los Cabos stayed in a couple other houses in our zone.. We flew to Culiacán the next afternoon on friday. All of us flew out of La Paz and it was a pretty cool sight to see 42 missionaries on one plane together, plus a few bishops and 2 stake presidents! I´m sure people were wondering why there were so many people in white shirts and ties together haha. We contacted a few people along the way.

Saturday morning we got to meet with Elder Holland. We started out the day getting everybody organized for a photo with him. We were all lined up for the photo when he came and the first thing we did was take the picture. Afterwards we all got a chance to shake his hand and it was a touching experience. You could tell that he is a very special person and servant of the Lord, he´s got a good sense of humor too. Later on he told us how he had a little interview with each of us in that short moment and can tell that we´ve got a great mission here and it only seemed like a few of us are struggling but that´s normal to be struggling at times... We got to hear a few short messages from President Johnson, his wife, and a general authority.. Elder Holland started out telling us a little bit about what has been going on with President Monson and with the news of his wife passing away. He said he´s going to be feeling a little lonely during this time and he´s been in and out of the hospital visiting her the week before she passed away. Our prayers are greatly appreciated. He also told Elder Holland to make sure and tell all of us that he loves us and wishes he could be here (which is a typical comment from President Monson)

Elder Holland spoke to us for the next 1 hour or so, with a few questions and answers afterwards.. Some of the things that really stuck out to me was when he told us that we each can promise at least one convert. That convert is each and everyone of us. The Preach My Gospel manual was made with the purpose of converting the missionaries first and then those that we come in contact with. If there´s anyway we can help change the hearts of others, we should first change have that change in our own hearts. We may want the people that we´re teaching to repent. And the Lord wants US to repent.. Afterall what hope can the Lord have in this work if He can´t trust in the sheperds following His path. What possible hope could there be for the sheep if we´re worried about the sheperds staying in the herd.. I left with a desire to come even closer to the Lord and experiment an even deeper conversion to His gospel. When we find ourselves asking why things are so hard? Why does it have to be so hard? We can remember that because for Him it was never easy. Salvation was and is not a cheap price. The road to salvation always has to go through gethsemane and a cross on calvary. If we have the desire to call ourselves His disciples why would we ever think it we wouldn´t experiment at least a little of His suffering. To shed at least one of the tears he shed... I know that we´ll never fully comprehend what Jesus Christ did for us but that as His disciples we should be willing to walk at least some of the road that He walked. Then we will begin to comprehend more about who He really is and what He has done for us. I´m so thankful for this opportunity I have to repent and to follow the Lord´s path.

I´m ready to start a new page and I feel like this is yet another great opportunity to do so. I´m starting to measure time in changes or transfers now, more than weeks and months haha. This has been such a great experience to be hear and I never thought I would do and witness all the things that I am seeing.. I know that Heavenly Father has a great plan for each and everyone of His children here on this earth. And you are one of His children!. Nobody can do everything, but EVERYBODY can do something. I pray that we all can go forward and do something new even if that means it´s hard, to make us grow, and to come to know our Father´s love even more.

I love you all!

Love,

Elder David Carlson

P.S. I´ll send photos next week!