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, July 25, 2011

Changes!

Wow, Spencer's Vivint sales have really jumped up there. I hadn't heard anything about his selling in a long while.... thats good that they both are doing well then.....

Sounds like a pretty chill week, I'm guessing dad was off working, I think he said he was going to be in Idaho Falls, one of the elders with me here, and that started with me, Elder Lythgoe, is from Idaho Falls. Small world.




Well let's see, Changes are tomorrow, but we received the calls last night. I have never been able to guess what is going to happen, I wasn't right this time either. It was actually a big suprise. So, right now their are 6 elders in Minas. The most expected change was my comp, Elder Mero, that part i was right about, is leaving. He is going to a part of Montevideo, The part no one guessed right is my new comp. Right now we share one branch, Minas 2. I'm in Minas 2B and there are two elders, Lythgoe and Erwin in 2A. President is combining Minas 2A and 2B so  Elder Erwin and I are comps now. Really really unexpected, mostly  because Minas 2 is gigantic! Minas 2B is gigantic! This area Minas 2B, is about twice the size of my other areas I have had in Florida and Trienta y Tres. Now they are more than doubling that. So it's going to be like 4 times as big as my other areas.  I would have to guess that it's one of the biggest areas in the mission. There is about 25,000 people in our area. There are some areas that you get to know every single person that lives there they are so small. Not this one. Ah I'm not sure what we are going to do, its going to be hard managing an area this big.
Elder Erwin is cool, he is kinda weird but we will get a long just fine. haha, he is one group below me so we met in the CCM, he is from Brigham City. Both his parents are deaf, he knows sign language. he doesn't like Spanish, and he is like 6 ft. 5 in. so we will go to gether well.... its weird because we both know half of our area.... I guess we will have to work together a little bit.

Here is my district in Minas!
The tall one is Elder Erwin.... my new comp....

Yesterday was crazy. I'm sure you guys have no idea, but all of Uruguay is celebrating because they won the Copa America, American Cup. some huge soccer tournament between all of central and south america. They beat Paraguay 3-0 for the win. we studied during the game, because no one would even answer their door during it. Then we finished our study right about the time the game ended. The entire country erupted. everyone in minas took to the streets and headed for the plaza. There was a huge caravan of people yelling and shouting and celebrating. Montevideo was I'm sure hundreds times more crazy. Anyway, that was an unproductive evening. hahah.

oh ya, so now we are only going to be two of us in our super nice house. I will send photos. It's a tiny bit cramped with four but it will be very very nice with two.





Here is the new house..... it looks really messy because I took these the day after we moved in....
Don't worry mom it's not that messy still.

So recently we have found some pretty awesome investigators....
On Wednesday a woman came up to us and said she wanted us to pass by her house. We went on Thursday and turns out she is super prepared, she lived in an other part of Uruguay before and was best friends with the Hermanas. The only reason she didn't get baptized was because she was living with someone and they didn't want to get married. The only problem we have right now is she didn't come to church like she said she was going to.... we will see what happens though. Her name is Angela....

That same day we found another older lady name Julia that, 15 years ago was about to get baptized but then didn't because a missionary offended her. She is super good friends with a member here and just barely moved back to Minas. Hopefully we can baptize her soon too!

We have a few other new investigators that we are working with, hopefully things turn out well for them.

Diego is no longer an investigator.... he said he didn't want to learn anymore, also he got two piercings the other day.... maybe later on the Lord will change something in his life so that he can accept the gospel......

Claudio is still progressing, very slowly though. work is a big issue, we never can meet with him cause he is so busy.....

And now we have all the other investigators from the other area! so we will see what happens there.

Thats all for now. Love you all, thanks for the support and letters!

Elder Carlson!
 

Monday, July 18, 2011

A Quick Note...

Dear family,


Wow, I hate Uruguayan computers.....

Thanks for the pictures of the Gillands.  Loren looks way bigger and much more like Hillary. In dad's letter he wrote Taylor twice but never Tyler.....

I have no time and I was going to just send photos but thanks to this wonderful machine I'm using I cannot.....

Today is a holiday in Uruguay. 18 de Julio its like their 4th of July. Everything is closed that's why we aren't in our regular ciber.....

We moved houses this morning. It's a really nice house.- I will send pics and stuff next week.

Thanks for the love and support

Elder Carlson!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Como Estan?

Hey Family!

Well this week flew by like all the others. It's hard to believe but we only have two more weeks left in this change. So I'm getting a new comp in just two weeks..... my comp elder Mero has been here, his first area, for 4 changes already. Elders almost never stay in their first area for four changes. It's almost a guarantee that he is gone. This week was good. It was a lot warmer than last week. the worst part is that our stupid house is colder inside than it is outside. hopefully we will be moving this week.

So as you see from the pictures, I made Chocolate Crinkles! They turned out great! better than any other recipe i have made here. Also i made it a little more Uruguayan and put Dulce de Leche in between a few. It was really good, just an overload on sugar really
. 



We went to Cerro Artigas, (Artigas' Hill) not really sure how to translate that one. maybe the hill of Artigas.... So ya supposedly this is the largest statue in all of South America.... I'm not sure what they are including in that definition, but it is really big. 





So most of our investigators are doing well. Diego was the only one that came to church, Claudio I guess didn't come because his back or something hurt. I'm not sure what to think about that one. But he is still doing really well, he is so smart. He is probably one of two investigators that I have ever taught that you can just say things logically and he will understand, you might remember Oribe, he was the other one that is smart and understands, from my first area. There is actually a guy here in our ward, the first counselor of the branch, he used to live in EstaciĆ³n branch in Florida. Its kinda neat.

I just remembered, this last week I went to a leadership conference, it already seems like it has been a few weeks since then because the time is going by so fast..... Anyway it was really good, it was about 45 elders from the mission, including all Zone Leaders and District Leaders and a few that aren't like me! ha ha I saw Elder Bendtschnieder there! That was fun, his Spanish is coming along really well. Also all my former companions were there, Elder Luke, Pesqueira, and Moffitt. I think I already told you this but Moffitt is now with my CCM comp Elder Spilsbury.
It was really nice to get away and just have a day to learn how to be a better missionary and hear and feel the testimonies of the other missionaries, it was a really good meeting. It was all day long. we had to get up at like 330 to make it there by 600 and then we left at like 630 and made it home by 845..... long day....

Really not that much happened last week.... ha ha I'm glad to hear that everything got done on the patio, it looks really good, where is the fire pit going to go, or is it a fire place.... dad said fireplace but I'd imagine pit.... I saw Spencer's car in the background, I was wondering what he did with that....

Anyway, That's about it for now!

Love Elder Carlson

Monday, July 4, 2011

Holidays

Dear Family,

Thanks for the recipes, mom. I'm going to make those chocolate crinkles lots. What happens if you don't refrigerate the dough over night? I like to do things without waiting very long....

Unfortunately,  I don't think I can get a lot of the ingredients for the Magleby's syrup..... we will see....

Well it is another PDay in Uruguay. It does not in the least bit feel like the 4th of July. It's funny because the 4th of July is the only holiday we call by its date. I guess you could say independence day but we rarely do. Here in Uruguay their holidays are just named by their dates. 18 de Julio, 25 de Mayo, 8 de Agosto, 18 de Abril..... Its a little repetitive if you ask me.

Wow I'm definitely going to miss not going to the Porters today. I haven't had good bbq chicken in forever.



I am better- thanks to a concoction I made!  Here's a picture...
This is the witches brew I made out of Uruguayan herbs....
The finished product!

So this last wednesday my companion and I went to Montevideo because he had an appointment with an orthodontist. It was kinda fun. we didn't really do anything else. but we did get permision to go to the distribution center because my comp needed garments. So I bought a few things too... only spent like 15 bucks but there is so much good stuff there. DVDs and other teaching stuff. I bought another Preach my Gospel because mine was thrashed. 



This is the house that we live in right now. It's only the second story and the bathroom is  not attached to the house. 
VERY COLD....

It was a good week, less rainy than last week and we made some progress with some of our investigators, Only one came to church, but he is a stud. His name is Claudio, he is like 26 married with two kids. Super smart. He really understands what we teach which is nice. The biggest problem we are facing with him is his schedule is really tight.  We never can meet with him.


Pablo and Silvia accepted a baptismal date for the 23 of July and they were super committed to coming to church but then they didn't.

Diego didn't come which is really werid, we are pretty sure there was some sort of family problem because his step dad came but no one else in their family which is really weird.

We have a new investigator with potential name Isabel, she has a long story that I will tell another day but  suffice it to say, she is super catholic, probably the first real catholic that I have ever talked to. But she wants to find the true truth so it should be easy now that she has the Book of Mormon. :)

Well my hands are ice, and I'm out of time!

Love you all!

Elder Carlson