Baptism!

 

It's been a great week! Everything went well for H's baptism. I didn't mess up doing it in Spanish. A lot of members came and even an investigator, G, came. The sister missionaries in Salt Lake who first contacted H when he referred himself to the Church skyped so they could see his baptism too. The Spirit was really strong.

Not a ton of super exciting things happened this week other than that. We had a really good lesson with our investigator B on Tuesday. She is a very strong Baptist and so has had a hard time wrapping her head around our beliefs about the priesthood and prophets. We read a lot of scripture with her as we taught about priesthood and the apostasy. I know the scriptures are the word of God. They teach His doctrine so simply and beautifully. It really is a blessing to have them and to be able to study them so often. B just has to keep reading and praying and she'll get her answer. I am so grateful for that promise we're given that if we pray in the name of Christ, we will receive an answer.

I love you all and hope your week goes well and you learn the lessons God is trying to show you.

Love,

Elder Carlson

Baptizing in Spanish

Lots of teaching this week (especially H to prepare him for his baptism. He's still doing great and on track for being baptized on Thursday. I still need to prepare for it because I'm the one who's going to baptize him, but we're doing it in Spanish... We'll see if I can remember how to say it. We've also been able to see a lot of our other investigators recently as well. We have one investigator, J, who we set a baptismal date with for June 4th! She is a really kind lady, but is really busy, so it's hard to meet with her often sometimes. We read through 2 Nephi 31 with her and she understood it really well. She has trouble reading, but it truly is amazing how simply the Book of Mormon teaches the gospel. I am so grateful Nephi "glories in plainness".

I don't have too much to say for this week, but I want you all to know that I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. If we live it, it is the best and most joyful way of life. We need to be committed to it and continue to proactively live those principles and participate in it's ordinances. That is the way we "come unto Christ".

Love,

Elder Carlson

Put God first

 

It really was great to see you all yesterday! I told you already about our sweet lesson with H where we taught him the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, Gospel of Jesus Christ, Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, and Law of Tithing, plus we set a baptismal date with him for May 19th! He really is amazingly prepared to receive the gospel. You can definitely tell a difference between someone who is sincerely seeking for truth and someone who doesn't really care.

We did also have a good lesson with G this week, too. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he really understands when we teach him. He's just very hesitant to commit to come to church and to be baptized. He's studied a lot of different churches and is a little leery of committing whole heartedly to one just yet.

Also, I forgot to tell y'all that on Sunday at church we had 3 investigators and a less-active family who hasn't been in about 4 years come! It was a great meeting (despite the fact that I had to give a talk). S is the daughter of Sh and they are both really great. S usually comes to mutual and has been to church before, but it was a big step for Sh to come. Hopefully we can set a baptismal date with them soon as well.

I love you all and am very happy to hear about the things happening in your lives. I want you all to know the gospel is true. Even though life gets hard and hectic sometimes, if we put God first, it will all be for our good. But it's a continual process we need to go through and live.

Love,

Elder Carlson

Loving Comanche!

I really love Comanche! There are some amazing things happening here. This week we got a media referral for a guy named H. We called him right when we got his number, but didn't get to meet him until Sunday. He is from Mexico and had met with missionaries for a couple months over there. He came to church, even though he doesn't speak much English, and when he introduced himself he talked about how he knows the church is true and he wants to be baptized! He can only meet with us on Thursday, though, so we haven't set a date with him yet and don't know if there's anything more we need to work on with him.

We also got a new investigator on Saturday. We knocked into G a couple weeks ago and he talked about how he's been studying the Bible a lot and felt like he was like the children of Israel when they started turning away from God so he's trying to change his life. When we taught him he was very receptive and understood the Restoration very well. He's a little hesitant about baptism, but he knows he will need to be if he gains an answer about the BoM.

On Friday I made a big mistake. The W's took us out to this restaurant called "Cook's". They have all-you-can-eat steak and catfish. They usually take all the missionaries there at least once while they're in Comanche and we have a competition to see how much steak we can eat. I ate 3; Elder Felts ate about 3 1/2. We both almost exploded. Never eat that much meat in one sitting. It's not wise.

Something neat that I've learned this week comes from Moroni 6:4. Moroni talks about Christ as being "the author and finisher of [our] faith". A lot of people we talk to feel like they can decide what's true for them. Whatever path they decide to walk, as long as they say they accept Christ, they're good. But if He truly is the author of our faith, He should be the one who decides how we should live our lives. And that's what the gospel is. Christ is teaching us how to live our lives to be on His team, to receive a fullness of joy, and live with our Heavenly Father again. I know that it's only through Christ and His gospel that we receive those blessings.

Love,

Elder Carlson

Pictures in Comanche

Service

So this week after district meeting we went on exchanges with the elders in Brady. They both came here to Comanche with us so we were able to do a lot of work. We got two new investigators that day along with another new investigator (who I told you about talking to last week) later in the week. So it's been a pretty productive week I'd say. One of them is a lady named B. She is a Baptist and has gone on some humanitarian mission trips for her church. Elder Felts and Elder Walston taught her on exchanges, but from what I heard, it was an amazing lesson and she is super prepared to hear the gospel.

We did quite a bit of service this week too. It was the first week since we've been here that we finally hit our goal of 10 hours of service. A lot of it was for Sis. M who's in our branch. The missionaries before us broke her riding lawn-mower so we had to fix it. They had told her the drive belt had broken, so we took it all apart to replace the belt and found out it wasn't broken at all. So we put it all back together  and found out the only problem was that a pin that holds the belt on one of the pulleys was bent... It was a lot of fun, though, and after we mowed her lawn with it.

We also did some more service for the museum here in Comanche by moving some furniture for them from the library to the museum. Another place we like to do service at here is "Caring for Comanche". It's kind of like a thrift store but they give a lot of the clothes away to those who are in need. Some of the churches in town are assigned a week when members of their churches come and volunteer to be the ones who run the place. Since most of them are older, we do a lot of taking out trash and moving around the heavy bags of clothes. It was pretty neat this week because the church that was volunteering was the Eastside Baptist Church. I'm not sure if I told y'all that we went to a revival at that church a couple weeks ago (we were invited by an investigator) but because we went, some of the people there recognized us from that.

I know that this truly is the Lord's work. This is Christ's true church and it holds the fullness of His gospel. I love serving the Lord and am honored to hold His holy priesthood.

Love,

Elder Carlson

Service and Finding

This week has been full of service and finding. We have been meeting a lot of people, but it's difficult to meet consistently with them. I think making and keeping appointments is a forgotten art in todays world, haha. One day, when we were knocking an apartment complex here, we were talking to this guy about prayer. He was talking about how he never asks for anything like a TV or something he wants. It reminded me of what it says about prayer in the Bible Dictionary: "Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other." As I taught him that, it really stuck out to me. Our will is really the only thing that is uniquely ours that we can give to the Lord. If we are truly praying with real intent then we are wrestling to pull our wills in line with our Father's.

We've done quite a bit of service this week too. When the first missionaries got to Comanche about 3 years ago, we were told, there was not a very warm welcome. So many people had pre-conceived notions about who the Mormons are and how horrible people they are. Doing service was key to opening the hearts of the people here. Now when we go to places like the museum, the dog shelter, or chamber of commerce, we hear a lot of praise of past missionaries and what they've done. Service truly is the gospel in action and can change people's hearts.

I love you all. The gospel is true and was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. Remember how blessed we are to have the blessings of the priesthood in our lives including the opportunity to participate in priesthood ordinances. Never take those or any restored truths of the gospel for granted.

Love,

 

Elder Carlson