Alejandra and Belen

How's everthing going back in Utah?

Well I don't have a ton to say because I told you guys just about everthing on the phone...

So Sunday night we had change calls, we get a call from our district leader telling us who is going and who is staying. We are in a four elder house and we were expecting one elder that has been here for 3 changes to go, but we are all staying, the only change was that my comp is our new district leader now. so nothing major.

Yes we have a microwave. I guess a lot of the houses didn't but then just a few changes ago the offices got microwaves and ovens for all the houses.

I hear the fireworks down here are even bigger on new years eve, so that should be cool. haha

We have two baptisms this Friday. Alejandra age 15 and Belen age 9. Alejandra's mom got baptized a few months back and at first Alejandra wanted nothing to do with the church, but a change happened and all of a sudden she started coming to church and reading a ton in the Book of Mormon. Anyway this is a long overdue baptism because they have both come to church 6 times which is way more than they need in order to get baptized. But it should be good, Belen is the cousin of Alejandra, her mom is a really inactive member and we weren't sure if we should baptize her because she didn't have that much support, but at the Christmas conference with Pte. Da Silva he dropped cane on not baptizing someone because you think they might go inactive. He said those were thoughts put there by Satan and everyone has agency and we aren't the ones to decide how someone might use their agency. So we are baptizing her, but it shouldn't be a problem because Alejandra and her family are supporting her really well anyway.

Sorry it was short, but I don't have much more to say.

Love you guys!

Elder Carlson IV

Elder Stilwell

Jordan with Elder Skyler Stilwell, his district leader and friend from Timpview.

It's Crazy to Think That Cam's Home

Dear family,

That is so fun about Cam coming home. I realized half way through sat. that it was the day he was going home, it's so crazy to think about. gall, So guess what? I had my 3 month mark the other day, I'm already 1/8 done with my mission, 12.5% - crazy right?  I like those pics you sent, I hope that sign gets all ripped up and ruined so you have to buy a brand new one for me- jk! and then Cam has gotten taller holy cow, ha.

Ok so I might as well start with the calling stuff. We are going to do it Saturday the 25th at around 3 pm  my time which I think is 10 am your time but I'm not sure.  I will call you guys for just a sec to tell you to go ahead and call me back. You need to dial:  

011-598-4352-3533

Plus if you have a calling card or something all those numbers first. Anyway I think the best way is for you guys to just get a calling card. You could use gmail to call me but I don't know if it would be easier with all the people, dad knows how to do it.

We only get 40 minutes, so you better make a list of things you want to tell me. This isn't one of those lazy Philadelphia missions where you get to call all day, we are going to busy christmas day! haha

So I don't think I have ever told you but everyone down here drinks water with carbonation, like mineral water, or club soda, it's so nasty, but they all love it, I do not. We aren't supposed to do this but all the missionaries just drink straight from the faucet with out filtering it, it tastes fine and it's really is pretty good quality, but they gave us all a filter its just a pain, and we always make juice, Tang is super big down here.

Last Friday the 17th we had a big Christmas conference with the entire mission! It was crazy, there are like 200 of us. I got to see all the guys from the CCM again which was cool, and we found out that I have a twin in my mission that just barely left so I had all these other missionaries coming up to me and saying I looked exactly like this other elder.

Pres. Da Silva and his wife talked and we all sang a musical number and they had lunch, which was really good, it was just some chicken thing but it was catered so they had coke- which is against our mission rules, well, we are only prohibited from buying coke, if someone offers it to us we can have it!

We have a baptism coming up this week, Alejandra, she is 15 and her mom joined the church just a few months ago, it should be good, except we have had to change the date of the bap. like 3 times, it should be on the 31 of December now though!

We have been working really hard to find new investigators because recently we have kinda run out because they are all getting baptized. We found two families, Veronica whose husband is military and is in Haiti right now, and the Marias, a grandma and her granddaughter. The grand daughter is hilarious, she is like 13 and she has a million questions. For example we tried to teach the plan of salvation and we were explaining the first principle, the pre earth life, and we explained that God had a body and we didn't which led to questions about if God and Jesus are alive then where are they?  We said heaven, and she was like, well then they are dead. Then I said something to my comp in English and she was like, you speak English? Wait, when he talks to you in English, do you understand it in English or in Spanish? I almost started laughing. We didn't even make it past the first principle because she had so many questions.

Anyway I will make a list of cool things to tell you for Saturday. Merry Christmas!

Love, Elder Carlson IV

Another Bautismo!

Dear Family,
Haha sunny, warm??.... those are not the words to describe this week. It has been really really rainy.  On Friday it started.  In the morning it was sunny and beautiful and just by chance I cleaned out my backpack, and just by chance I took out my umbrella that I had been carrying around for 3 weeks without use. And just by chance,  Friday we got dumped on!  My trainer didn't have anything either so we just worked in the rain. The water proof Eccos worked great! Anyway the next day started out sunny and hot as well, but I wasn't going to be fooled!  I brought my umbrella, and guess what? It started raining, but whats more, it started to hurricane, (hurricane is now a verb, i just decided it) and there was some super strong wind, anyway the umbrella broke because of the wind.  I got way way way more soaked than Friday, literally as wet as I would have been if I jumped in a pool. It was crazy! The most powerful storm I have ever seen, it was worse than the one that Cam and dad and I were driving in in Virgina a few years back. It was neat though, haha,  except everything we had was soaked and we were trying to get things done. We ended up jimmy rigging a clothes line inside of our house.

Anyway, we had another bautismo this week, I can't remember the English spelling of bautismo. His name is Antonio, he is awesome, really humble and lots of faith. He has had some set backs with the bautismo process and he works a lot so its been hard but we finally got it done. Then on Sunday it was pouring down rain again and a ton of members didn't even come to church but Antonio was there! It was a serious blessing.

Other than that, everyone I'm around always talks about how fast the mission is going. It really didn't seem to be going that fast until these last few weeks, the first change is the longest, but I can already feel it starting to fly by! It's crazy, its crazier to think that Cam is done. So weird, it will be fun to talk to you all on christmas, I will email you more details about that next week. We will figure everything out and let you know when. But as for homesickness it really is a joke to me, we are way too busy to even think about home. And the seasons are so different that nothing reminds me of Christmas even when I see a Christmas tree in a house or something. Honestly I'm good so don't worry. But as for the presents I have been really good about not opening them. The other day I did get into the rice crispys and made some treats :) and then yesterday we were making doughnuts and I decided that I needed some hot chocolate to go with them and I happened to notice this suspiciously shaped cylinder in my box, and I figured that since it was rainy and cold and this is probably the only cold day left before or after christmas that I might as well take advantage of it. But nothing more. Promise!

I could use a few things in the package with the ipod...
-water proofing spray from like Sportsmans or something (i found out my coat is a little less waterproof than we thought)
-Gatorade mix, only fierce grape or orange like one of the big ones :)
-conversions, if you could attach a pdf of a bunch of american to metric cooking, tempurature, and other conversions!
-and then some recipes maybe, maybe potato soup and then cookies or brownies or cakes or something, but they don't have chocolate chips down here so be warned!

That's all for now

Love,
Elder Carlson IV!

First Baptism!

My First Baptism!

Dear Family,
Haha mom, do I have a car?  Ya right, haven't you learned anything from your missionary moms email group? Only the assistants have cars, a few areas have bikes though, but not us. Yes it is hot here so far it's like 90 ish with humidity. And no one has AC.

Dad, on p days we go to the ciber (cyber cafe, to do email).  We can go to stores and stuff, I bought a sweet Uruguay jersey last week.  We play sports, almost all the chapels have sports courts with basketball hoops and soccer goals. We do play soccer but most of the time there are only 4 of us so its not that fun so we don't play a ton. Oh yes and they have ping pong tables in all the chapels.

Here is another picture of our apartment

Anyway, This week was pretty fun. Not too much happened, but one of our baptismal dates got cancelled because our investigator moved away. It stinks but there is a bright side. We had already kinda counted her out because we recently found out that she was still together with the father of one of her daughters, and therefore not living the law of chastity. She had wanted to marry him but he wouldn't because his mom forbid it because our investigator (Andreina) has another older daughter from another guy. Anyway we had a little milagro because after our law of chastity lesson she pretty much told us that she wasnt going to be able to live this law because she couldn't get married, so we kinda counted her out. But a few days later we talked to her for like 30 seconds at her mom's house and she said she had a special invitation for us, we assumed it was to her going away party or something, but really she was going to ask us to be witnesses at her wedding! It was awesome! She is still moving but she is going to get married in like Feb or something and then the missionaries in San Ramon will baptize her if all goes as planned.

I feel like I have left out big parts of Uruguayo culture in my letters, I think I have never really told you about mate. In Argentina we would always see people drinking mate in their houses and stuff, but here in Uruguay it is EVERYWHERE! Everyday we see people walking around with their mate cups and a thermos full of hot water. We see people on bikes and motos carrying their stuff and drinking it while they drive. It's crazy how addicted everyone in this country is to mate. Ha ha good thing it's not against the word of wisdom. But missionaries aren't allowed to drink it, mostly because drinking mate is kind of a social thing where people sit around for hours talking and sharing the mate, and that would be a huge waste of time for us. 

Oh ya, yesterday I had my first ayuno (fast) in Uruguay! Its easy to fast down here because we never eat dinner and breakfast is pretty small, so they start their fast after lunch on Saturday and fast until the closing prayer in sacrament meeting (which is the last meeting of church) they they go eat another huge lunch!

I don't know if i have mentioned it but Elder Skyler Stilwell is my district leader, It's the elder from my high school, and his dad is a salesman for Action target. I think you guys knew he was out here. Anyway I went on a companion exchange on Friday with him, it was fun. we talked about action target and provo and stuff.

Anyway thats all for now.

Love Elder Carlson IV