Happy 20th Birthday Elder Carlson!!!

Thank y'all for all the birthday wishes! It's been a good, but hectic week this week. We have almost all our stuff moved out of the apartment (I don't know why we have to live on the 3rd floor) but aren't quite moved into our travel trailer. We'll be officially moved tomorrow. On Friday they came and fixed our ac, which is super nice, but now we just don't have a working fridge. Bro. S (the member who donated the trailer) is bringing another one tomorrow.

District meeting this week went well. My instruction actually took long enough, which I was a little nervous for. The zone leaders came too, of course, which added more people and made me more nervous. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. A little more about my district, like you asked: There are four companionships in my district (including me and Elder Hanson). They're all elders. Two of the companionships are in a city called Big Spring and the other is the Spanish elders for Midland. I was happy to find out at the beginning of the transfer that I knew Elder Thornton (my MTC comp), Elder Gillette (my mission "brother"), and Elders Conkel and Kennedy (I just served around them in previous areas) before.

Mostly this week we've been trying to get our apartment ready to vacate and find more people to teach. We did get to meet with this one lady who is really interested and prepared, but since her mom's a member she wants to be baptized where she's moving. We haven't been able to see J too many times this week. He kind of just disappeared and didn't come to church either.

I think that's about it this week, but I've been able to study a lot on the sacrament this week for district meeting and it's been really neat. It's so important to remember the sacrifice Christ made for us and I hope y'all never forget how much He loves you. Strive each week to make partaking of the sacrament a sacred, cleansing experience and focus on the Atonement.

Love,

Elder Carlson

Great, stressful, exciting week!

It's been a great, stressful, and exciting week.  We've been able to see J almost every day this week. On Friday, though, we were able to see him and later, before we left Stanton at the end of the day we passed his house again and he flagged us down. His dad and brother were there with him and he was super excited to introduce us to them. It was really neat how he was telling them how much we had helped him overcome his addictions so far and how we never gave up on him and came by every day. His dad is a JW, but his brother seemed pretty interested in meeting with us! Unfortunately, though, J didn't come to church like he said he would.

The stressful part of this week was when I had to give an instruction during zone training. And now I'm preparing for district meeting, which I'm not too excited to instruct, but I'll survive. God will qualify whoever He calls. I just have to give Him all I've got no matter how miniscule it may seem.

Oh, and we also got to set a baptismal date with this girl named T. She's pretty cool, but really active in her baptist church and so is a little weary of coming to church with us. She invited us to her church and so we might go in the next couple of weeks and then she'll come to ours.

And we also finally got our trailer set up! We haven't moved anything there yet, though. The AC doesn't work yet so we're waiting for that to be fixed before we move; otherwise that would be miserable. And I'm glad they told you the address Mom! You should send that to me, haha. We have no clue what it is. Anyway, I love y'all and hope this week is fantastic!

Love,

Elder Carlson

Amazing miracle!

So adjusting this week to my new area, companion, and calling as a DL has been alright. Elder Hanson is from Idaho and is a really nice guy. He's been in this area for a while and so is a big help.

Greenwood is a pretty great area so far. Most of the time we spend in Stanton because Greenwood is just all the houses out in the county roads between these two highways outside of Midland. We do have a car, but not related to me being DL. We actually live in Midland and Stanton is about a 30 minute drive (so it would be quite the bike ride). We will be moving into a traveling trailer in Stanton sometime this week, though. We have no idea when yet. It will be quite the change going from the most expensive missionary apartment in the mission (and one of the nicest I've seen thus far) to a travel trailer. I haven't seen one yet so I don't know how small it will be. Because of that I'm not going to tell you an address yet, but you could just send anything to the mission office.

We had an amazing miracle happen just yesterday. We had a lesson scheduled and had this member couple, the P's, come out with us. Unfortunately, they slammed the door in our face and so we visited a less active family for a bit. After we said thanks to the P's and they drove off, we soon got a call from Sis P. There was this man who, when he saw them driving down the road, flagged them down and asked them about the gospel. We got to go in and teach him. He's a recovering drug addict and had just said a prayer for God to give him some hope when he opened the door and saw the P's.

It's strange being here in Midland 3rd ward again and has brought back a lot of memories from when I was here with Elder Morley. I've been able to think back and realize how much I've grown and changed in this past year. I learned so much training Elder Evans and I know being a DL will make me stretch and grow even more. I love you all and hope everything goes well at girls camp!!

Love,

Elder Carlson

Transferred and District Leader

So this week we did have some crazy weather. And we've been stuck on bikes all week because we already went over on our miles for the month. We did get to still go help at the community garden we've been helping at luckily as well as the Catholic Charities place we help at every Saturday (some awesome members took us). On Thursday was when the weather was crazy. We had planned to go help a family move but when we opened the door we stepped into a torrential downpour! We were instantly soaked and as we biked we were riding through puddles that were halfway up our shins on our down-peddles. Since we were already drenched we got to help a man push his car out of the flooded street. It was insane but so much fun, haha!

On Friday we got to go to the temple with a less-active lady that we've been working with a lot. She struggles a lot with smoking but recently we've set some goals with her and she's been able to stay clean for a while and is worthy to do baptisms for the dead!!! I love the temple so much. 

On Saturday we got transfer calls. We were actually at our assistant ward mission leader's house having correlation meeting when President Heap called. Elder Evans is staying here and is training a new missionary. I'm going to Greenwood (right next to Midland, and in the same ward I was in when I was in Midland last I'm pretty sure) with Elder Hanson (who I don't know yet). I'm also going to be a district leader. So I'll leave Lubbock tomorrow. Also, they are moving us so instead of the Greenwood elders living in Midland we'll now live in Stanton (which is in our area). If that doesn't work out, though, we'll be living in a traveling trailer. Elder Evans is super jealous of that, haha.

It really sucks being in an area so long because then when you leave it's so much worse because you're so much closer to the people. I'm going to miss everyone here, but the Lord needs me elsewhere. 

I love y'all and hope everything goes great this week! Enjoy your summer while I burn up in Texas again, if it ever stops raining (maybe y'all should pray it doesn't stop raining). 

Love,

Elder Carlson

Dropped, slipped and kneed

Sorry I wasn't able to write yesterday. I'm sure you probably realized all the libraries were closed due to Memorial Day. Anywho, this has been a pretty eventful week. More of those events had to do with my harm, though. We'll start with the emotional harm, haha.

We got dropped by two investigators in the same day. The first was the investigator who we met last week. She was so interested and loved meeting with us but on Tuesday when we stopped by her husband was there. We talked to him for a while and apparently he had met with missionaries in the past and said he and those missionaries had come to the conclusion that they had different beliefs and they'd go separate ways. He was really against her meeting with us but said it was up to her. I don't think he had told her anything good about us and so she dropped us. Hopefully she'll stay interested and have another opportunity to accept the gospel later. Later that night our long time investigators dropped us. We hadn't seen them in forever so it wasn't a big surprise.

Now on to the physical harm (it's nothing serious, so calm down Mom)... last p-day we were out playing some frisbee golf and we cane to this big gutter that was filled with water and extremely mossy (which I didn't realize at first). Another elder didn't want to get his shoes wet so I offered to carry him. As soon as I picked him up and took the first step, I realized the moss made the ground absolutely frictionless and I did a full blown cartoon wipeout. My companion watching said it was hilarious to watch the other elders surprised face as he fell into my lap and suddenly got wet, haha! The physical harm came from the fact that my elbow got scraped up, but that's it.

Then, on Wednesday we were playing ultimate frisbee for morning sports and I was booking it to catch the frisbee when suddenly there was a large, solid object right in front of me. I slammed into another elder, who is quite a bit larger than me and I stopped pretty abruptly. I thought little of this incident until when we got back to our apartment I found that my knee was about 4 times it's normal size. So this week hasn't really been fun since we've been biking every day (we're running very low on miles for the month) and my knee doesn't like it. Don't worry, though. It's a lot better now, so don't worry. 

Anyway, I'm out of time, but I love you all!! Y'all are in my prayers.

Love, Elder Carlson