Hola de Yuma!
Wow, it's still weird sometimes to think that I'm here again... It feels like I've never left. Especially considering how busy this last week has been! It reminds me of the last transfer I had here with Elder Lindquist! We had over 20 lessons, and a large majority of them were lessons that members came to which was awesome. Our elders quorum here is awesome, and most of them choose an evening to come out with us - so we have someone with us just about every single day. It was cool visiting people that just got kind of lost in the transition, but still have desires to learn and progress. We have kind of turned the area around, and are already starting to see some really cool things! One of the most exciting things is the husband of a recent convert that we're teaching. The sisters here had baptized the wife and didn't think he would be too interested but we met him at a dinner last Sunday and started teaching him. He accepted a baptismal date that same lesson and came to church yesterday with his daughter! He's really quiet and timid (his name is Jesus Pena) but he really liked everything and totally is warming up to us more all of the time.
We also had this pretty cool experience with this lady we randomly talked to on the street - she was super nice and invited us to come back so we went and taught her and had a sweet lesson. We found out eventually that her daughter was baptized quite a while ago, had made some mistakes, and really wanted to come back, so we taught the entire family and they all came to church yesterday as well! The mom's name is Maria Zara, and we're going to see if she'll get baptized soon. She's super cool and it's just been amazing to see these things come out of nowhere!
So with our branch being at 9:00 in the morning, it makes it very difficult to get Mexicans to church - just being honest, i love them like crazy, but it makes it a lot harder to get them there. So we don't have hardly anyone at the beginning and they trickle in as the meetings go on. But what was the best was coming there at 9 and seeing 3 families that we're working with (only 5 actual investigators because of all the kids and such) already sitting there, making up a solid amount of the congregation! It was pretty much one of the best feelings in the world. I guess there have hardly been any investigators at church in the time I've been gone. So our branch president was pretty happy and excited, as well as the people that had gone with us to our lessons! Pretty cool.
We had the first of a series of trainings this week on Fundamentals from Preach My Gospel and the AP's came down since it would have been such a trek for us. It was cool training on the basics, our missionary purpose (the doctrine of Christ) and the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion. We did a whole lot of practicing baptismal invitations and resolving concerns since that's been a big push lately - in the very first lesson we invite people to be baptized, with a date at least by the second. It literally is part of the pure and simple doctrine of Christ and as soon as people recognize the spirit that's testifying to them of that truth, they'll be able to accept it.
So we went on exchanges earlier this week with the Traveling AP's (Elder Cuthbertson) and then later on with the regular AP's (Elder Shiffler) so we're about ready to be done with those... It'll be fun going on exchanges more as the transfer goes on, but it was just kind of rough when Elder Shiffler was with us because we had some of the hardest lessons ever with him. We were teaching people that were just really stubborn and not willing to change yet, so it was a hard process. But it was cool learning from both of them - there's always so much we can do better.
And last Sunday we had a pretty cool experience giving a blessing to a less-active's son who had fallen and slipped into a coma. We gave a blessing and Elder Oliver blessed him that he would rise the next day. We found out yesterday that he did, and that he's opening up to having missionaries come over! We're excited.
So the zone is doing great, and things are really picking up here (they really had been pretty dead)! I'm excited to be able to be here and help out all the members, investigators, and missionaries. We're making a branch mission plan here, and good things are in the works :)
Love you all and it's good to hear from you!
Elder Carlson
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