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!
 

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!

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 Estación 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

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

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

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

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