Conference, I Loved It!

Me with Elder Moffitt

Elder Moffitt's shirt...he went to the University of Utah before his mission

Dear Family,


Oh my gosh that snow is amazing.... I'm super jealous.... It's going to be getting cold here soon but we aren't going to get any snow.... I guess thats better though, its not like we would have time to play in it or anything anyway. It would just make working a big pain.....

Anyway, a ton happened this week! Conference first and foremost. I did absolutely love it. It was fantastic. I did get the box too, last Wednesday. Thank you for everything. It all works fantastic and yes everything was still there. Just so you know, I have never heard of anyones box ever getting opened before it got to them.... 

Anyway, I noticed a few themes throughout conference..... Tithing.... Temples (Specificly getting married in the temple.... Spencer......) and Trials too. Elder Holland's talk was awesome as usual I especially liked the part of "Gods voice will be heard" and first comes the witness of the prophets and apostles and second comes the witness of earthquakes and disaster.... very second coming like....

Speaking of which. I would like my name with the churches when the day of burning comes (elder Nelson) so could you write out a check for my tithing for that apx money that came in October and in January. You will have to get on my bank and check the exact amounts, then its just 10 percent...... haha

I really really liked Elder Christofferson's talk, Robbins of the Seventy had a really good one too.

I forgot to tell you but a couple of weeks ago, on change day. I had a bad fever that came out of nowhere.... it was like 101.6 or so.... luckily it pretty much went away the second we got to the church in Montevideo... 

So today we moved out of our tiny apartment. They are going to be doing a few fixes and painting, we are going to be out for like two weeks. We moved in with our ZLs, it's already a four elder house,. but luckily its huge. the only thing is today because of conference and all there are an extra 4 elders living there for a few days. so for today and tomorrow its a 10 elder house! yeah, how fun...

Also I haven't ever mentioned this but I'm getting fatter. I havent gained much, like 10 pounds. But there are elders dropping weight like crazy. Elder Plyler, one of the elders that came with me has lost like 40 pounds....

Ha so Elder Moffitt, my new comp only has 3 changes more than me in the mission like 4 months, and for some reason people here are always saying something about our Spanish, whether it be a compliment or insult. Anyway, we keep getting mixed reviews, so I made a little list of the times that people say my Spanish stinks and Moffitt's is really good and for the times that are just the opposite. For example we have this family that we are teaching. The mom is kinda weird but Moffitt would explain something and she would just look really confused, then I would teach something and she would praise me for my teaching and speaking skills, and the member that was with us totally agreed with her. haha it hurt Moffitt's confidence a little. But then the day before we were contacting and these two old catholic ladies came out and Moffitt started out and then I picked up where he left off, the lady cut me off and asked us "What languages do you speak" Moffitt said, "Spanish and English" She turned to Moffit and said, "You speak really good spanish" and then she turned to me "and You speak really bad spanish"..... Good old 33

They made a few slight rule changes, Now we are allowed to take a small dinner break, before no. Now we have 30 mins to eat around 6 ish.... interesting. Also in the Cyber we can use two separate computers as long as they are right next to each other, before we had to take turns....

Anyway, thats about it. We didn't have a single investigator come to conference, but we are working with some good people so it should be fine..... Watching conference as a missionary with a bunch of missionaries was just awesome....

Thats all for now!

Love

Elder Carlson!

In Trienta y Tres With Elder Moffitt

Hey everybody!

So, Dad, Ya I got to see Elder Bendschenieder, or however you spell it at changes the other day. He looks good, ready to get out of the CCM, I don't know his trainer but I'm sure he's good. He is in an area called Trinidad. One of the guys in my group elder Plyler started in Trinidad, I'm pretty sure he really liked it. He is in a biking area. 

Anyway, Im here in Trienta y Tres! (33) Everything is going just peachy. My new comp Elder Moffitt is from SLC, he went to Brighton High School. He has 10 months in the mission. We have a good number of investigators right now so we are keeping busy, Our area isn't a downtown kinda area. Actually its really similar to Estacion. They both are fairly small towns. Nothing really big building wise, but I did get to see some cool public statue things today. Maybe I will send some pics next week.

No Box yet. Maybe this Tuesday though. 

Conference- we are all going to the Stake center and watching it together. It's going to be great. I'm sure we are just going to buy a bunch of food and pig out during it too. I'm really excited. The last conference was amazing and recently we re listened to all the talks off my ipod, except i dont know why but the sunday morning session wasn't on there.... oh well. 

That is so awesome about Zach White! I bet you he will be learning Spanish and some Guarani. It's the native language there. Almost all the missionaries from Paraguay that are here in my mission speak both. But yeah, it gets really hot. 40 c is normal for them. Not fun. 

I remembered about Dad´s birthday already. And yes that is crazy I have an old man father now. 

It's starting to get cold already. We have had some chilly morinings already. Oh yes and my new house has an air conditioner. It's like the only one in the mission. Figures, right when it starts getting cold. But our house is teeny, very smalll and it's only a two elder house not a four  elder house like my last one....

Well I think that is about it for now. I forgot my camera cable.... but maybe next week.

Have fun in Mexico!

Love,

Elder Carlson

P.S. Is Whitney going to Mexico? or Spencer or Cam?

Leaving Florida

Hey Everybody!

This week flew by. We have changes tomorrow. I'm going to be leaving my good old oro area here in Florida and head up a little north to a city called 33. My area is called Central, I don't know if it's a downtown area but I know 33 isn't a very big city I think it's like Florida sizewise. We were expecting me to leave because I already have had 3 changes here which is fairly normal for an first area. But then on Sunday night Presidente Da Silva called. He only calls a few people before changes. Assistants, Secretaries, Financers, and Zone Leaders. He asked to talk with my comp. Turns out he is going to be a Zone Leader. That is the second, of two, of my comps that have become zone leaders after being comps with me. Anyway after we found that out we were doubting that I was going to leave because the Zone Leaders have specific areas in each zone and so we knew that Pesqueira was leaving for sure. And we werent really expecting a white wash in our area.... anyway. We got calls and it turns out that they changed the Zone Leader Area to my old area Estacion so Pesqueira is going to be staying! My new comps name is Elder Mofit. I don't know anything about him but I have seen him around. He was just comps with one of the elders in my CCM group, Elder Sasselli. So I am taking over his area in 33. I like my area here a lot but I have been here a while and talked with everyone multiple times and I would like to get to know a few more areas so everything worked out well. I just don't want to pack. That is going to be awful. We leave tomorrow at 9 in the morning.

No news on the box, there is a good chance that I will get it tomorrow at changes.
Also we have a few old investigators that we are working with but recently we found a part member family with twin 9 year olds that want to get baptized! Yeah! Now they just have to come to church! haha

Spanish is going really well. I don't really have many problems now a days. I just have to pay attention to understand people. Elder Pesqueira and I don't really talk that much Spanish..... because he isn't a real Latino, he is from Orem. My next comp is a gringo, but maybe we will speak more Spanish, who knows.

I think that is about it.

Anyway... Love You All!

Elder Carlson

5 Baptisms This Week!

Dear Family,

Well the weather is getting a lot nicer, it has cooled down quite a bit. I have noticed that this entire change, like the last 5 weeks, has been a little cooler. Just yesterday it dropped to like 20 degrees C, I don't know what that is in F. but it's significantly cooler. There isn't really fall in this country it shifts pretty fast from summer to winter, so we will see how long this nice weather will last.

I have a kinda weird request. Do you remember the photo that you included in that little book you made for me of dad and his big Alaska fish? Could you send me the original by email. I want to print it out.  Thank you

SO.... This week was incredibly busy and awesome! We had all 5 baptisms!!!! Yeah! and a whole boat load of problems!!!!!!! yeah!  Haha there are always problems when you are trying to baptize, this week was normal problems X 10.

So we baptized:

Daiana and Alejandro age 22 and 41

Joselin age 15

Maria and Maria! age 82 and 14

I baptized Joselin, Elder Pesqueira baptized Daiana, Alejandro, and old Maria... Daiana and Maria with my help. And then we had a future missionary in our ward named Martin baptize little Maria.

So, up until Friday everthing was going good. My comp and another elder (we did a comp exchange) went over the interview questions on Thursday and there weren't any problems. But when we came back and went over them again on Friday with the Marias, the old Maria (she is 82), was having some problems because they hadn't eaten in a while and she started blaming our church, it was kinda confusing because she is a crazy old lady and kinda goes off about weird stuff sometimes. Anyway, she said she didn't want to get baptized.... But we were going to be coming back on Saturday morning to do the interview for at least the little Maria. 

Saturday. We planned on having the interviews at 10 in the morning with the ZLs, they didn't end up getting started till 11:15. Finished by like 12 ish and took a taxi over to Marias, Old Maria was really happy and said she wanted to get baptized. We had told our president of the branch what they had told us about not having food and he ended up pulling some stuff together and bringing it to them. So we had the interviews and they took forever but we finished without problems. We ran to lunch, 2 hours late, and then filled up the font. Then at 5:30 we walked over to the Marias house again to call a taxi and bring them all to the church. we called the taxi at 6ish and it was supposed to be there at 6:15. Well we called them back at 6:30 to see why they weren't there, they finally showed up at 6:40, but the stinkin taxi driver already had a person in the taxi and thought he could get away with double booking his taxi!!!! So we decided to put the Marias in the taxi and start running to the church, we told the taxi driver that he needed to drop the Marias off at the Mormon church and then drive back on this big road called Artigas and pick us up and then we would pay him for everything. So we took off it was already 6:50, oh and it takes about 30 minutes walking to get from Marias to the Church. So we started out running until we got to Artigas then we were basically powerwalking and waiting for the taxi to come get us... 

The stinkin taxi never came back. He never got paid either. It ended up making us even later. And we still hadn't set up chairs or figured out baptismal clothing for our investigators! Luckly the other elders set up the chairs for us. We got the clothing figured out, got changed and got started. There weren't any other major problems after that except screaming children and both me and Elder Pesqueira had to be in the font to baptize two of the people because of certain difficulties.

The Marias, Joselin, Daiana, Alejandro, Elder Pesqueira, me and Martin

Anyway it all turned out fantastic and they all came to church the next day and got confirmed. Yeah.

Now we just find some more people to teach...

Love 

Elder Carlson 

P.S. We have transfers on the 22nd. Yep, there is a really good chance that I will be changing areas so there is a really good chance that I will be seeing Elder Bendtschneider in a few days.

Great News About Kylie's Mission Call!

Dear Family,
That is so AWESOME about Kylie!!!!!! Maybe I will write her a letter in Spanish or something....
Thanks for the box.... in advance.


Well things are going great here in Uruguay, you might notice that today is not Monday, I expected to have an extra 3 emails from mom asking what's going on..... I can see now that Spencer was the only loved one....jk.... Anyway this Monday and Tuesday was Carnaval, a huge parade party holiday thingy in Uruguay, it's even bigger and more evil in Brazil but they still celebrate it here. So everything was closed, very boring pday. We mostly just sat at home and did nothing. But we did go to the huge catholic cathedral near the center of Florida. There is a big plaza and this huge Church. It was interesting inside. Kinda weird, definitely not the same feeling you get when you walk into one of our churches. More intimidating, it almost makes you feel guilty for sins you didn't even commit..... hahha.


So, we have 5 baptisms this Saturday. Yes 5, we are very excited and  busy. Hopefully they all go through....


Alejandro and Dayana: I don't remember if i told you about them but they are really cool, Dayana's mom got baptized a couple weeks back and we have been teaching them ever since. They are super willing to change their lives for the gospel, but what's even better is that their lives aren't that far from living the gospel anyway. They are already married, huge  blessing. She smoked but quit about 2 months ago, they aren't regular drinkers.... it's all just worked out so well. A very nice blessing indeed.


The Marias: Las Marias is a more correct name. It seems super weird to call them the Marias... anyway its a grandma and her granddaughter both named Maria. We have been teaching them for a really long time.... their main problem is that they never come to church even when they said they were going to.... The grandma has tons of health problems and can barely walk. The first time we got her to church, she passed out immediately after the first class when she was walking over to the sacrament room.... since then she hasn't fallen at all in our presence.  But she did fall and break her wrist the other day, so she has a cast and it can't get wet, which is a problem for baptism by immersion. So we are still thinking of solutions for that one.


Joselyn: Joselyn is another fantastic blessing from the Lord. She recently moved from another area. She is 14, was pretty much raised in the church and already has been taught almost everything. We just have to finish everything up, baptize, and mesh her into our wonderful ward.


Oh yes and the other day we went to Montevideo for a leadership conference. It was good,  I got to do a practice up in front of everyone, where I introduced the Book of Mormon. Normally the practices are two missionaries practicing to two other missionaries but I got the pleasure of practicing to Presidente Da Silva and his wife. I wasn't nervous..... ya... anyway it went good. I must have either done really bad and he didn't want to hurt my feelings or he could tell how nervous we were because he praised us an unusual amount after.... haha, oh ya I did the practice with an elder that has 6 weeks more than me that I knew from the CCM.


Thats all for now!


Love Elder Carlson

Our Branch is Awesome!

Dear Mom,


Thanks so much for the package work, sounds like its coming along nicely. Don't forget that candy is always welcome too. If you send it in a padded envolope its a lot cheaper. Keep that in mind.


So our branch is awesome. We are in a branch, and a district. We have quite a few members but much less active. I'm guessing around 50 active. We have some real studs of leaders, our president is awesome. We have quite a few good leader type people I think more than normal, but we can always use more obviously....


We still have like 8 or 9 people progressing towards baptism, but only 2 went to church..... fantastic. It's alright they can repent.


This Wednesday we are going to a leadership meeting in Montevideo, should be good. I really like the meetings we have had with Presidente so far.


I remember one time you telling me some news story about some guys making a really stripped down simple laptop, and I think you said it had something to do with Uruguay, do you remember the details of that story, because every single kid in this country has a little green laptop, every one. its kinda weird.


I'm really having a hard time thinking of stuff to tell you guys!


I guess thats all for now....


Love Elder Carlson!

A Letter from Elder Pearson

Hey mom!

Everthing is going good down here.

So I got a letter from my good friend Elder Pearson. He is in Brazil and I haven't heard from him up until now!

Other than that. We have 9 people with dates for baptism right now:

1.  Claudia, 20 year old girl that has a 3 month old kid. She is really willing to learn and accept the commandments but she still hasn't come to church, she always finds last minute excuses.

2 and 3.  Patricia and her daughter. They live right next door to Richard and Axel, and they have talked to missionaries before.

4 and 5.  Las Marias, they are doing good but they didn't make it to church this week either.

6 and 7.  Dayana and Alejandro, they are a miracle!  Dayana's mom just barely got baptized and they are super excited to learn and get baptized too. We will see how it goes.

8.  Jissel, we will see how she turns out but she does like learning and has accepted a baptismal date.

9.  Sabrina, she has a little baby and is living with her boyfriend but they are going to get married in August. So she has a little time.

Anyway other than that everything is going great. Just really busy is all. Next change, (the 22 of March) I get my awesome scripture cases. I will send you a pic. I have pretty much ran out of things to say.

Love,
Elder Carlson!