Baptism next week!!

This week was good but seemed really long for some reason. S came to church this week and is doing great on quitting smoking! Today will be her 9th day without a smoke. She also had her baptismal interview yesterday and it went great. I'm so excited because she's getting baptized next week! She's so solid, but the adversary is going to work hard on her so it'd be great if y'all could pray for her.

The bad part about this week is the K family didn't come to church and when we texted them to invite them again, they said their dad doesn't want to come to our church anymore. We haven't been by yet to talk to them since then. It makes me sad when people hold others back from accepting the tremendous blessing of the gospel. I can tell the whole family likes our message and is willing to at least give it a chance but their dad is holding them back. Also, there's a boy who we've been teaching and really wants to be baptized but his home life is really messed up and his parents are telling us not to talk to us because we're Mormons. She even threw away his Book of Mormon. We've actually started talking with all their children now and they're all interested, but we can't even talk to their parents because they avoid us at all costs.

There's been quite a bit of excitement with one of our members. We've started teaching his brother and his wife. He has been taught the lessons before but stopped investigating for some reason, so hopefully they'll be more open to it this time. Also, his wife went out of town to help one of her friends move to Missouri. We woke up one morning to get a text that she was in the hospital there! I think they found someone to come give her a blessing and she's ok now but then Sunday we got a text that she's now in jail there! That's been pretty intense hearing about all this stuff happening to her without being able to do anything about it.

Sunday was pretty great. I finally got to get a break from going to Spanish Sunday School because Elder Hansen decided to go with him this week. So I was excited to actually be able to understand the lesson for once, but then found out like a minute before class that I had to teach it with Elder Ross. It actually went really well. It was on the Lord's law of health from Gospel Principles. I think you learn a lot more when you're the teacher because I really learned a lot and enjoyed it a lot.

We got transfer calls Saturday night. We' re both staying in Seminole. Elder Christensen is happy about that because tomorrow's his birthday and he didn't really want to spend his whole birthday on the transfer bus. Anyway, this week should be fantastic because we get to plan S's baptism, which I'm so excited for.

One thing that's helped me this week is that all we need to do is give our best. If we give Christ all we can, He will make it enough. Just like he was able to take what little food that young boy had and make it enough for the multitude. I love you all and never forget that God does too, no matter what.

-Elder Carlson

Seeing miracles

Elder Christensen and Elder Carlson

This week was a really great one. We had 8 investigators at church!! It was awesome! The Mennonite family finally came because we taught them on Saturday and really stressed church attendance and how that's one of the fruits by which you can know whether this church is true. It was a great week for them to come too because testimony meetings always have such a strong spirit and this weeks was just amazing. Everyone talked about how they know this church is true and I think it really helped them. I can't wait to meet with them again and see what they thought about it.

Also, we were having a branch fast this week that our branch will grow and it has been so amazing. Before we even had the fast we've had three new active families move in. Then that couple I told you about were baptized. And now that family came to church and that bumped us up to 72 people at church this week which this branch has never been able to do without anyone from the stake there. We're very hopeful that we can finally hit 100 people in the branch and can finally become a ward!

S finally set a baptism date! We've been trying to get her to set a date because she knows it's true and has even been calling herself a Mormon but she didn't feel like she knew enough to be baptized. Then we go on exchanges and she sets one while I'm in Lamesa! But I'm just glad she's finally set that goal. We still have to work with her a little because she's been working on quitting smoking and she didn't come to church this week (that's kind of a long story), but she's really solid.

Exchanges were fun. I went to Lamesa, Texas with Elder Ross(he looks quite a bit like Kevin James if I haven't mentioned that before) and Elders Christensen and Hansen(our district leader) stayed in Seminole. I liked Lamesa. It's a little bigger than Seminole but there aren't many members there so they're in the Seminole Branch too. It was nice to have a car too and get a break from biking, haha. We mostly did morning finding while we were there, but we also gave L a blessing because he's been pretty sick lately. We also got to sit down with this guy we morning found and taught him the whole restoration lesson! It went really well and they're still teaching him, so hopefully he'll keep progressing and accept the gospel.

I think that's about it, but this was a fantastic week!! The Lord is definitely helping us along here and we're seeing miracles. A while ago it was unheard of to teach any Mennonites but now they came to church and hopefully felt that spirit and have the desire to come back. I love the gospel and I'm so grateful for the privilege to be here helping to hasten the Lord's work.

Love, Elder Carlson

Pioneer Day Celebration and Spiders!

This week has gone by so fast but it's been great! We finally had an investigator come to church! She's been planning on coming for a while, but things always come up. We forgot to tell her that church is three hours, haha, but she still loved it and is planning on coming again next week! We still need to help her with the Word of Wisdom a bit before she can be baptized and she doesn't feel like she knows enough about the church to be baptized anyway. She has received an answer that this is true, though, and so I think it's just a matter of time until she feels that desire to be baptized.

That tarantula in my pictures was right outside of the church (which is right down the street from our apartment)! Luckily we haven't had any in our apartment, but Elder Christensen saw a black widow on the outside of our window once. We'll definitely keep our windows and door shut because I don't want any of those in my bed.

(Brian took a traveling gnome to take pics with on his mission! You can see how big the spider was compared to it.) 

We actually did have a pioneer day celebration here, which was weird. I guess a while ago someone moved here from utah and gave the branch here that idea. Elder Christensen and I helped with it and invited our investigators but none showed up, but a couple less active families came, which was great! They made us cut the watermelon (which I found out I suck at, haha) and we got dutch oven cobbler at the end. It was really fun!

We had zone training in Hobbes on wednesday before the pioneer day thing. It was really good and I got to see some of the elders I came out with because there's a couple in my zone.

We talked about a lot of things but one of the things that stuck out to me was how we are called of God and even though what we say isn't perfect, the spirit will testify of it and make it so our investigators can understand if they have an open heart. All we need to do is bring that spirit and he'll do the rest.

Love,

Elder Carlson

Grateful to be sharing the gospel (and for AC)!

So first off I'd like to say how grateful I am for air conditioning, haha. The guy came by on Monday to fix it but then he found out they sent him the wrong part to fix it with so he said it would be a while. We weren't too happy about that so we actually slept in the church monday night, haha. It was a lot cooler but the floor was really hard. Tuesday we had interviews with Pres Heap which was awesome. I really love Pres and Sis Heap already and that's great they sent you that picture. After that we got back to our apartment and found out that our AC was fixed!! That was a good day, haha.

It seems like this week has been so long so I might not even remember everything that happened. It was a lot of riding around in the heat again without much success. I was so excited Saturday because we were expecting to have 13 investigators at church Sunday which would have been awesome! One family showed up but nobody else did. Some others really want to come, but their dad isn't really open to it yet and wouldn't let them come.

Sunday was fantastic this week, though, because we had a baptism! The elders in Lamesa come to our branch here because there isn't enough members there to have a branch. They were the ones who were teaching the couple being baptized.  They got married last week so that they could be baptized this week and it was so amazing. Elder Christensen and I had to clean out the font Saturday, though because the Lamesa elders can only leave their area for church and the church is in Seminole. It was really nasty and took some scrubbing because it hasn't been used in a while, but it looks better now. Anyway, the baptism was fantastic and Elder Christensen and I had to fill in the time while they were changing before they were confirmed and so we taught the restoration lesson. Then we got to be a part of the confirmations which was also really neat.

During church was ok, but Elder Christensen had to teach the spanish class (he's a spanish missionary if I haven't told you before) and so I had to be in there with him. It was really boring, haha. I understood the basics of the conversation but i couldn't contribute and Elder Christensen made me read a section from the book in spanish, haha. That wasn't too fun.

Well, not much else happened that's too exciting this week, but even though being a missionary is hard and hot and seems frustratingly uneffective sometimes, I love it. I'm still not that great of a teacher because we don't get too many opportunities sometimes, but i'm feeling much more confident when I do and Elder Christensen said I don't say "um" as much anymore, haha. I love you all so much and hope you all keep reading the scriptures and studying in Preach my Gospel because I know it can help everyone. I know the Lord has helped me so much out here and i love Him and His gospel so much. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be sharing it with everyone we can find and I hope you all are doing the same.

Love, Elder Carlson

Meeting the new mission president

Brian with President and Sister Heap

Enduring heat and dogs

This week has been kind of long and definitely hot. Our AC stopped working last Tuesday I think and so it's been almost 90 degrees in our apartment all week. We called our apartment manager quite a few times until someone finally came to check it on Thursday, but we found out that the compressor was broken so they had to order a new one. Long story short, our AC still isn't fixed, but they told us the part would be in today and they'd fix it today. Hopefully they do because we got a fan, but that only helps if you sit directly in front of it.

Last Tuesday we got to go to Roswell to meet President and Sister Heap. They are awesome!! i'm really excited to serve under them because they really seem in tune with the spirit and you can just tell he will be a great mision president. Roswell was cool with all it's alien stuff all over, but it was about a 3-4 hour drive which wasn't too fun. I got to see Elder Arave again because he's in my zone, which was awesome. He met Elder Garey's family and said that was really neat.

Something President Heap said in Roswell about our mission: "It's not hell, but I can see it from here". HAhaha, that's definitely true and I can tell you that I can definitely feel it too. I may not like Texas yet, but I definitely love the people here. They are all so kind, but I don't like their dogs sometimes. Especially the chihuahuas. They run right up to you as you bike by barking their ugly little heads off and you're scared you'll run them over (even though I almost want to sometimes, haha)

Anyway, I really love being a missionary, but it's frustraring sometimes because I really haven't been able to teach a whole lot yet. We've had one lesson with that Mennonite family since I've been here and it seems like whenever we have an appointment with someone they always bail last second. I guess I just have to keep being patient and do my best. I know the Lord will bless me for that and it's His work, not mine so He knows how to do it best.

Week 2 in Texas

It's true what they say that once your first Sunday is past time flies by. This week has gone by so fast!

Seminole is kind of a smaller town. Our area actually encompasses a few other towns, but they are impossible to get to on bikes unless we bike through the farmland and oil fields literally all day, so I haven't been to any of those other towns. P-days we don't do much. We go shopping for food and come here to the library to email and do laundry just in our apartment because, luckily we  have a washer and dryer in our apartment. We cook a lot of our own food because Pres. Augustin made a rule that we can only eat at a members house three times a week, but we don't even get fed that often.

Yesterday we had an interesting experience. We were biking down a busier street just after leaving a members house when this big tattooed guy on a motorcycle comes up next to us and yells, "Hey, pull over up here for a minute!" My first thought is, "We're going to get beat up or mugged or something" but we pull over and so does biker dude. He turns off his bike and says, "How are you Elders doing?" That really threw us off, haha. It turns out that he just moved from Utah, is a member and was wondering where the church is. That doesn't happen to often in Texas, haha.

We didn't do much on the 4th because they called us that morning and told us we ahd to be back in our apartment at 6:00. So we ended up not having the BBQ until the 5th and we just sat around and listened to Christmas/Disney music from 6 to 10, haha. For some reason that's what Elder Christensen wanted to listen to. I really like him. He;s funny and goofs around sometimes, but knows what we need to do and is a great example. He graduated the same year as me and is from Odgen and has been out for 7 months. I'm the first person he's ever trained and since his last comp "died" (went home) and I was immediately "born" (got to the mission field), he calls me his phoenix, haha. I like that a lot better than being his greeny or trainee. Also, some members brought us some pie and icecream that night because they knew we had to be in really early because of the holiday. They're awesome.

The BBQ was great! They use a lot of peppers in Texan BBQ, but it's really good. We had these things called "armadillo eggs", which are jalapeno peppers stuffed with cream cheese, baby shrimp and bacon bits (or whatever you want to put in it with the cream cheese) and the whole thing is wrapped in bacon and BBQ'd. They were amazing! ahah! They're kind of hit and miss, so occasionally you get a really hot one and I did. It was so hot!! We actually went out to the farm where we had the BBQ quite a while before we had it and helped the man who's farm it is weed. There were so many weeds, but it was pretty fun and I didn't get as burned as my comp did which is reallly good, haha.

Sunday there was almost nobody there so church was only two hours. Right after, though we taught this family who has been coming to church, but they aren't all members. Our goal is to get the dad to be able to baptize his kids. It was the most amazing lesson I've taught so far, because we didn't even do that much teaching! the mom and dad were talking a lot and really teaching themselves. i'm pretty sure I almost cried a couple times and by the end, their dad was even tearing up.

I'm loving it out here! It's hard work and I don't exactly love Texas, but I love all of the people, even when they're straight up ignoring you or dodging your questions and telling you for the fifth time that they already have a church. I love you all and  hopefully I can figure out how to send some pictures, although most of them are just from the MTC.

Love,

Elder Carlson