Don't let a moment pass you by!

Sporting stylish mustaches for Halloween!!

It's been a very crazy week. On Tuesday we drove to Amarillo to pick up Elder King, one of the APs, for an exchange. He's a great missionary and taught us a lot about leadership, especially about the need for the spirit of revelation as a leader because things come up that you've never dealt with before. Like right now, President Heap is having all the ZLs make standards of excellence for our zones rather than having mission-wide standards. That's been interesting because half our zone is doing better than the other half and we need to figure out how to help inspire and motivate them both so they're both progressing.

Thursday we got to go to the temple again with Bro W. This time he brought Bro M, who got his own endowments and was sealed to his parents. It was really neat to be a part of that and there's no parallel for the amazing Spirit in the temple. Friday we went to Lubbock again for the mission tour. A mission tour is when a General Authority comes and meets with all the missionaries in the mission. We have to split it into two days here since our mission is so huge. Just the ZLs and STLs got to meet with him on Friday and Elder Foster, of the 70, introduced a program they're instituting here in the N American SouthWest Region of the church. It's specifically for helping the work of salvation be correlated between missionaries and members so they aren't separate works, but that it's the work of the whole church combined. We need to work on getting this mission to a member/missionary mission (members helping missionaries) and then hopefully to a missionary/member mission (missionaries helping members).

There was a lot I learned from Elder and Sister Foster at the mission tour, but one thing they emphasized a lot is how we shouldn't let a moment of this experience in the mission field pass us by. Neither should any of us let a moment in the experience of life pass us by. There's so much to learn, so much we can do to grow and eventually become who God wants us to become in this life. We need to be meek enough to accept and even invite and seek out correction and instruction from leaders and especially the Holy Ghost. He is willing to give us personalized answers on how we can become more perfect and continue to grow. Never sacrifice the blessings you can receive from being obedient for anything. Fun and temporary pleasure is no substitute for the joy, peace, and growth that come from making the right choice. I love you all! The gospel has been restored! 

Love, 

Elder Carlson