Current Address

Elder Jordan Carlson


Send emails to: urumontemission@gmail.com with ELDER JORDAN CARLSON as the subject line. The mission home will print the email and send it to Jordan.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Food!

Monday June 27, 2011
Dear Family,
Wow,  the trip to D.C. sounds like fun, I would have loved to be there at kate's wedding! The temple is something we take for granted, it's not that far from us here in Uruguay, but I miss it a lot, I wish I would have had more time to go before I left Provo, and it would have been  nice if we had the temple open at  the MTC in Argentina.  And it would be nice if we got to go more as missionaries.... I think we go about once a year is all. They went the week before I entered the mission field so it's going to be a little while till I get to go....

I never knew that Beth got married in the DC temple, and I never realized, never really thought about you getting sealed to your parents... weird.

I got over my sickness, but now I'm sick again but just with a normal cold, sore throat a little cough, and congestion. But its not too bad,  I should be getting over it soon.... The thing is that it's been really bad weather here. We are getting into some real winter..... It has been rainy and cold, but more than anything windy, which makes rain and cold like 10 times worse. We got soaked Sunday after church walking to lunch, we actually ran part way because we were late, but it was really far and the wind and rain was too strong for umbrellas, oh well, today is dry thank goodness...

Hot chocolate was one of the things written down that I wanted you to send me! I like the mint truffle kind :) Also if there is a way to send me Cheddar cheese, they don't have it here and I love it.....



Elders Lythgoe, Erwin, and Mero


Speaking of food...The other day we made fajitas! they turned out really good, we did it with chicken, and just recently there is a company that sells tortillas- like real tortillas! they are expensive but yummy! WE made it with like a spanish rice, it turned out really good! We are going to be cooking more often than my other changes so I am going to try some of those recipes you sent and I want a few more.... Oh and we made ham fried rice the other day too and it turned out really good. Now I just need to learn how to make egg rolls.....

I would like the recipe for:
Apple Pie

Magleby's syrup
Chocolate crinkles :)





And anything else that you think might be fun to try.  I still haven't seen sour cream or cream of chicken soup but I will keep looking!
Also you might want to send me some Cream of Tartar so I can make bettter quality snicker doodles, I tried once, but we only had brown sugar (they sell that here!) and no cream of tartar... they still tasted okay, but enough about food!

Anyway, about the area.... Its huge!!!!!!!! Its pretty much all city, we have a down town area in our section, lots of people, We don't have a ton of investigators right now but the best are:

Diego: He is 14 and his Mom, (remarried) joined the church with her new husband about 8 months ago, They had tried to get him to listen to the missionaries before but he was not doing it just because they said he needed to, but now he has opended up a ton and has come to church 3 times already! We are hoping to baptize him july 9th

Claudio and Laura: The biggest problem with them is its hard to schedule times to meet with them. Claudio has been investigating for a while but his wife just started, He has gone to church 3 times as well and his wife hasnt gone yet, they have a lot of potential if we can start having more lessons, he is really smart. they are both like 25 years old

Pablo and Silvia: 45 ish years old, Silvia has come to church but Pablo hasnt, we will have to see if they end up progressing and doing the things that they know they should like get baptized!

So we are looking for a new casa to live in... we found a nice one that would work perfect, hopefully we get it in time. We are going to call about it today to get the wheels in motion....

I told you my comp doesn't speak any English right? haha it's funny, he really  wants to learn, so instead of studying Spanish during language study I practice teaching English!  It's interesting. I get along with him just fine so far, but  i have noticed a few weird things that he does. He is from Equador so he is just dying from the cold, speaking of cold my fingers are really cold.... Also I started using the sleeping bag you got for me. The first night I almost died sweating. but now I got it figured out. It works perfect. The reason I got it out is because another elder didn't have a blanket.  Pretty much he had just a tiny one that they give to all the missionaries. so I gave him the extra I had.  Now i just have my tiny one and my sleeping bag and it works perfect!.

Wow! Kylie is leaving already! That is so crazy! I will try to write her a letter for when she gets to El CCM en Guatemala! Does she speak any spanish? if I remember correctly she took it in highschool or something! I'm sure she will pick it up quick.

Anyway. Thats about all for this week!

Love you guys!

Elder Carlson

Monday, June 20, 2011

Minas

Dear family,

So, I'm in
Minas. My area is called Minas 2B, we work with the branch Minas 2. I live in a Four elder house like I said last time, its a really old crappy house, but it's big. It doesn't get too cold which is nice. Right now we are actually looking for a new house, to move, Yeah, I get to start that process over again.....

Anyway, my new comp is Elder
Mero, not Nero... phone confusion.... He is from Quito, Equador and this is his 4th change in the mission, he has like 4 and a half months out here. So far I really get along with him well. He is 23 years old, he is shorter than me, good guy. He loves to cook which is good, I don't think we get as many lunches here in Minas so he will be making the rest! haha

So this week started out pretty rough.. like I said, I was sick Sunday and Monday, well I thought I was going to be feeling better by Tuesday, change day, but I didn't.  I didn't have a fever but I had some severe stomach pain. That bus ride was miserable. I got to
Minas and worked in a threesome most of the day, but at like 6 or 7 I started feeling awful, bad headache and stuff, anyway later that night I checked my temperature and I had a fever of 104, so I called the wife of the president of the mission and she gave me the number for the mission doctor, he asked me some questions and told me to take Tylenol and sleep. Well I didn't sleep that much, I ended up having diarrhea throughout the whole night. It was terrible, one time I woke up to go to the bathroom and I went and got a drink and immediately threw it all up. it was bad. My fever broke in the morning and the doctor told me to take an antibiotic because he said I probably had a bacterial infection in my bowels, anyway the antibiotic worked because I felt way better the next day.  It was pretty miserable just siting around all day, hope it doesn't happen more in the mission....

Other than that, the branch is small but nice, I'm getting to know the investigators we have and all the members, us four  missionaries share the same branch so that is different, sometimes we all four go to lunch together. That's fun.

Well that's about all the time I have!

Love Elder Carlson

Monday, June 13, 2011

Changes!

Dear Family,

Cambios!..... No me quedo....Me Voy! 

So I am leaving 33, Im going to Minas, 2B I think..... It's on the same route as 33, so there is a good chance that they will just drop me off on the way down to Montevideo, I would like to go all the way to Montevideo because then I get to see all my missionary buddies... oh well. 

Elder Moffitt is staying for a 4th change, its actually really weird that I'm leaving and he is staying, especially because he has an extra half of a change because he had to get special changed in because before there was a disobedient elder. By the end of next change he will have 6 and a half months in 33, that is a lot of time.....

My new comp is named Elder Nero, He is a real Latino, not like Elder Pesqueira, He is from Honduras, I don't think he speaks any English, and he has like 4 months on the mission. So I'm the big senior comp now. So much responsibility.... hahah, I think this is his oro area (First area in the mission)

One cool thing is that I'm going to be in a four elder house with Elder Lythgoe who started the mission with me, it should be fun, he is a great elder, and we actually share the branch, it's a really big area so they have four elders in one branch instead of the normal 2.

I'm excited to change even though I really like 33 and the area is really starting to pick up, when Elder Moffitt first got here it was pretty dead, partly because of the aforementioned disobedient elder.... But they should have a great change here, he is getting my old mtc comp Elder Spilsbury! This will be his third comp from my group (Sasselli, Me, Spilsbury). its kinda funny.



So I don't know where the Davidsons are originally from, I know sister Davidson was born in Brigham City UT, But I do know they have lived in Texas a lot, Houston, and San Antonio. 

No fun plans for this P-Day, just packing......

Also Saturday night I went to bed, I didn't feel sick really but I felt something like maybe I might get sick, I was actually thinking what might happen if I just started puking in the night. Anyway I didn't start puking thank Goodness. But I didn't sleep at all that night. I woke up at 230 with a bad fever, I got a drink and tried to go back to bed, around 430 I was still awake and my comp kinda moved around in his bed so I called his name, I guess it woke him up, he grabbed my thermometer and I had a fever of 102.5. I didn't sleep good the rest of then night and ended up staying home almost all day, I missed church, Moffitt went on intercambios so he could go. I only went out for about 40 minutes around 6 o clock so we could get our contacts in for the day. It was miserable, I still don't feel ship shape, but my fever is gone, now its just a headache and a typical south American case of the runs.... I do feel a lot better though.

Also, Sunday night we came home after the contacting that we did and Mofffitt locked the door because the door knob is kinda broken so it swings open sometimes. The other Elders weren't there yet. Anyway, they arrived and went to unlock the door but it wouldn't unlock, They thought we were playing some joke blocking the door or something so they started banging on the door which wasn't cool because I had a terrible migraine at the time, anyway turns out the lock broke, so Moffitt and I were trapped inside and They were trapped outside.... Obviously since I'm in the Ciber right now writing you an email we got it fixed, but it was a nightmare, it took like an hour and a half to find someone and get them to come over to fix it. Just another Joy of living in this country :)

Wow, Kylie is going to be gone before you know it! Zach White too... Have any other boys in the ward done anything with mission papers? 

That's about it for this week. I will tell you about my new area next week.
I have heard really good things about it though!

Love Elder Carlson

Monday, June 6, 2011

Toto

Wow, so got a lot of emails from everyone this week, and just so you know, I  don't have any time to respond to them, sorry....

So this week has flown by, faster than most, I think you are going to be hearing that a lot from me..... Anyway, we just barely got back from the Davidson's house, they are finally all settled in and so they invited all the missionaries over to have hamburgers! They were very yummy, their house is the first house that feels like an American home, even though it is very small. We were going to play games but we didn't really have time, we played a little speed scrabble, and they have Settlers of Catan and some others.... so maybe if I don't get changed I will go play some games with them another p day.... We have change calls coming this Sunday. I seriously cannot even believe the change is almost over. It feels like I have been with Elder Moffitt less time then I was with Elder Pesqueira.... but I've been with Moffitt almost double already... so weird. 

So we had a ton of people in church, lots of inactive members coming back, it's really amazing. One of the families that we just reactivated has a 4 year old boy named Toto, or at least that's his nick name, its really fun and I don't know why, but for some reason this little boy just loves me. We go to the family's house for a lesson or something and I almost don't participate at all because this kid is just dying for my attention, the other day he colored all over a bunch of my agenda pages, it's cute but kinda distracting. haha

So today they moved two Elders from Plaza into our house. They are going to be there for at least 6 weeks, one change, and they are going to be putting an extra pair of missionaries in another ward, it's because we are getting a ton of new missionaries, like 26 and not that many are leaving this change.... 

Well thats about it! I really am super rushed today!

Love Elder Carlson


P.S.  I got the package. It had:

my usb
perfect push ups
choclate chips
floss
pumpkin
spice cake
pb
brown sugar

I made the pumpkin cookies it worked great, they were fantastic!  I might have forgotten to list something.... but thanks so much!