Well all I have to say is life is good :) We just had a super good baptism this last Saturday and it was just amazing to see the difference that occurred over such a short period of time. We had just met Maria a couple of weeks ago on the street and she said we could pass by. Little did we know she would come to church and get baptized a couple short weeks later!! She got baptized with her granddaughter Alyah and there were actually a surprising amount of people at the baptism, so it was cool to see that she already had so much support! Elder Oliver baptized Maria (he actually had to do it 3 times - something kept popping out of the water) and then I baptized Alyah. Everybody in the branch already loves them - Maria is so funny. She has these little sayings that she says over and over like, "Gracias - muy amable" and "que lindos" (very kind and" that pretty). She's an incredibly nice lady with all kinds of faith. There are so many people that really are prepared and Heavenly Father works through us to be able to teach them. That's something that's kind of amazing about agency. Because it's an eternal law/principle, He has to respect our agency and we have to use it to do His work. That's why we do missionary work. and that's the only way it can truly be done. That's what I'm realizing the more I teach and the more people that I talk to - it's all about us using our agency to further the work and help them change their lives. If we don't do it, who will?
Oh, and something else that was kind of crazy was my exchange in the Foothills this week. So we started it right after district meeting and we got a ride back to their place. I quickly found out that the people giving us a ride were none other than the Guths! The grandparents of a family I grew up with all my life. He knew all of us and was asking about Dad, grandpa, and Chrystal. It was just crazy that we randomly rode with someone who knew my family and me! So that was pretty wild. What was even crazier was who we ended up having dinner with. I told him I'm from Alaska and he started talking about working in a cannery up in Soldotna - I thought now that's interesting... I came to find out that he had worked in our family business and knew me and my cousins! He literally knew ALL of my family and remembered me when I was 2 years old running around the entire place. His name is Mac Mooney, and he was friends with the Larson's in Phoenix. It was too weird running into people randomly in the Foothills that actually knew me. That's just random.
But life is going good here, and it's definitely getting super warm! Riding on the bikes is rough, and there's hardly anyone outside to talk to. The good thing is that people are at home a lot more, so we should be able to continue to teach quite a bit. This week was a little rougher in that we had a LOT of appts cancel, but we persevered and definitely had a lot of people that came to church yesterday! That was way cool - that and we should have more baptisms coming up in the next couple weeks/month. Good things are happening, and I definitely know that the night is darkest before the dawn. Our zone has made leaps and bounds the past couple weeks, and we're all super tight down here in our little isolated area.
So we'll see how everything goes - we're continuing with the Fundamentals Training and finishing it up this week with a huge combined meeting in Tempe with half the mission. It'll be cool because I'll sing a song with Elder Burgos playing the piano - his last musical number. We're singing "As a lamb to the slaughter" from the Nashville Tribute songs so I'm pretty excited. Should be sweet!
So life is good and thanks for all that you do! We're working hard and things are picking up,
Les Amo!
~ Elder Carlson
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