•Una semana diferente.... 8/29/2011

Well we have been trying to adjust to the changes down here in Yuma, and it's pretty intense. There were an incredible amount and we've had quite the time juggling all of these new wards and trying to get things started in all of them. We were trying to think about how we were able to do it so quickly with the 4th ward...we already know most of the members and have a lot of solid investigators there. Speaking of which, we had Annette's baptism this past week and it was awesome! We had a whole lot of support from the ward, and it was cool to see her grandpa baptize her. Apparently he had grown up in Utah next to a church and was curious so he just started going... It was a pretty cool story, and he actually lives in Mexico so it was awesome that he was able to come up. And since he's a little older, he forgot some things with the prayer and everything, and there were a couple times she didn't go completely under the water. So I think overall we had to do it about five times, but she loved it and he was just so proud of her. It was just an incredible baptism, and we got to have a way good luncheon afterwards. It was cool - the young women in the ward made her a candy bar poster. And it talked about hoping her grandpa didn't have "butterfingers" so she could have a "fun dip". I was impressed, it was pretty clever.

So there's that, and we're teaching a lot of part-member families as well in the 4th ward that we're pretty excited about. We foresee big things in the near future. So it's interesting to see how the make-up of our zone has changed (our tiny little 10-missionary zone). We realized recently that there's a lot of older missionaries here, which is super unusual. I've always been in way young zones my whole mission. We've got all of the missionaries from Elder Oliver's MTC district here, and still almost all from my MTC district - weird to think I'm considered an "older" missionary now. I don't think I like it.

But life is good! One thing we've been really noticing lately is how everyone's related in these wards. There's all these main big families and they all seem to be related somehow. I guess that gives a new meaning to ward family...

Ooooh, and we had a couple pretty sweet lessons this week with Maureen (our Native American investigator) and Maribel (currently our only solid Spanish investigator/family). We met with Maureen earlier this week and we weren't exactly sure what to do with her. We've never taught anyone with that kind of background and we were just really unsure about how we were going to help her progress toward baptism, and really get her to read and pray. When we went over though, she said she had been reading and praying and that she knew the Book of Mormon was true! So we invited her to be baptized September 17th and she said yes! It was super cool, and definitely helped us realize who's really in charge here. The Lord really is the one who does all of the work, and we're just here to harvest. We also found out that she had just recently decided to stop drinking and smoking and hasn't for the past month so that's a huge leap - definitely something that can put off baptism for a while. So she called us to get a ride to church, and it was just sweet to see her make these changes and just put forth all this effort.

With Maribel it was also cool, because she's been reading and praying as well in the Book of Mormon, but hasn't committed to a baptismal date yet. Oh and by the way she is just incredible. She has said some of the most profound answers to our questions that I've ever heard. When we were talking about Lehi's vision we asked her what she thought the iron rod could possibly represent. She said she thought it could mean the word of God - the scriptures. We looked at each other and were just dumbfounded. Who would even guess that?! We were pretty impressed. And just with some of the other things, we'll ask her what they mean and she'll give us this perfect word-for-word answer, and we'll wonder if she has an answer book somewhere...that just doesn't happen - and especially not in Spanish work! So anyways, we were talking to her and we invited her to be baptized. She said she would. We invited her to get baptized the 17th, and she just said a solid yes. We were definitely not expecting it, so it took us a little while to register what she had just said. So that was cool, and yesterday she came with her whole family to all of church and it was just nice.

And apparently they're doing a media blitz down here in the Phoenix area where they're doing all of these commercials for mormon.org on all of the local stations and they're putting up all of these billboards to get people interested about it. So at the leadership training on Thursday we were trained on how to take advantage of it and how to train our members in responding to these friends that will approach them. We're all making profiles on there, and encouraging every single member to make a profile, so it should be pretty cool. The only sad part is that the website is not available in Spanish yet, and that the media thing isn't going to reach down to Yuma, because we get TV from California. But we're definitely going to take full advantage of mormon.org and I'm excited! I think it'll really help people understand us better.

So that's what's going on here! Busy as ever and loving the heat! (okay maybe not loving- that might be a stretch)

~ Elder Carlson

Family 8/2011

Should have put this picture in.

The whole family (except Elder Jesse, and Steve - in residency).

Dallin just got ordained to be an Elder, before heading off to BYU.

•Otra vez...‏ 8/22/2011

Well, it doesn't look like there's going to be too much change for me this transfer... We just got the transfer calls last night and guess what the exciting news is!! I'm staying in Yuma again... They really are never going to get rid of me. It's actually funny, because some people have been coming up and telling me that I might as well buy a place and start moving my stuff down because Yuma's just my home! So I guess I was kind of expecting not to move - they're making a lot of big changes down here and I don't think they want to change up the leadership on top of all that. So they are doing what we talked about last week and we're dividing up all of the english wards here amongst 4 sets of missionaries and we're also going to be doing all spanish work within those boundaries. It's been tough keeping all of this to ourselves down here, because everyone kept asking us what was going to happen and it's difficult for me to keep secrets! But we finally were able to tell everyone, and things are definitely going to be changing a lot. So the only difference for us is going to be that we take on 9th ward as well, and we have to give up some solid spanish investigators.

So what was really cool is that the entire Barraza family came to church yesterday!! I was on exchanges with an elder from the Foothills on Saturday and we decided to go stop by their house, since the dad Cesar said he's been having some struggles waking his kids up to come to church with him. It's actually a funny situation, since he's not even a member yet he's the one that's pulling for everyone to come to church. So we stopped by and had the first whole family lesson with them that I've had in a long long time. We talked about how the son Cesar and Nathalie had gone to the San Diego temple - talked about how they felt there and what they need to do to be able to go back. I finally got them to be serious and it was just a super good lesson, and they ALL came to church yesterday. Wow, it felt so good to see them there.

Other news is that our 4th ward is doing awesome!! Annette, who we've been teaching for a couple weeks, is getting baptized this Saturday, and she and her mom could not be happier. It's been amazing to see the change in them over such a short period of time. Annette was super timid and wouldn't really talk to us the first time, but now everything about her is just so much brighter, happier, and friendlier. She loves going to church, she's going to seminary, and she's super happy because her grandpa is coming up to baptize her. So that's sweet. We also picked up a bunch of solid new people that should be getting baptized within the next few weeks - some part-member families and some friends that people have invited to church/activities. We went and visited this Native American lady named Maureen, who came with her cousin to church last Sunday and said we could come by. She's way legit and said she would get baptized, but we're going to have to overcome some word of wisdom issues first... So during the lesson this guy named Rod, who was another cousin, came out and said that his mom was baptized and a member of our church. He basically said, "I don't know really how you go about it or anything...but I want to be baptized". It was pretty random but way cool so we're going to see what happens there. I love just fun experiences like that. And it's actually pretty sweet - last night we taught this 16-year old guy named Bernie Montoya and it turns out he's like the fastest high school kid in Arizona and like the 3rd fastest in the nation for his age! He's a really well-known kid down here and apparently at a state meet last year he ran a 4:12 mile and did most of it with only one track shoe! Somebody stepped on it and it came off, but he finished even though he was bleeding and stuff. It was a pretty cool story... So yeah, his parents are members but way inactive and he went to church a couple times when he was younger. He's way sincere though, and definitely sees the need to be closer to God. So we're definitely excited for this ward - they hadn't had like any investigators hardly all year long. So things are for sure picking up there!
So yep, lots of changes down here. They're taking out all of the english missionaries (the sisters and one of the elders) and we're making this a pure spanish zone. So there are only going to be 10 of us again (like when I first came down here) and we're ready to rip it up. I'm excited! Some day I might move out of Yuma, but it just doesn't look like it's going to be any time soon. It's interesting because a lot of missionaries call it Zion's Camp (because it's not the easiest place to do missionary work) and that's just all I know! I'm definitely a Yuma missionary...

So life is good, the work goes forth, and I will talk to y'all later! Love you!

~ Elder Carlson

Summer in Alaska 2011 with the family

Elder Jesse's siblings in his signature pose, at the beach.

We wanted Elder Jesse to know that we were thinking of him too.

The girls copying Uncle Jesse!

Thinking of you Elder Jesse!

•Mucho mejor...‏8/15/2011

Well this week had a rocky start... So after our morning hike last P-day we had a big breakfast and everything and then showered and came here to do e-mailing. I had been trying to stay super hydrated but I guess I didn't do the best job ever. As we were here at the library I got these super deep stomach pains and chills, and my head started hurting like crazy. I warmed up when we went outside (even though my head was hurting like crazy) but when we went back into the apartment i just kept getting hotter and hotter! The heat just wasn't leaving me, I wasn't sweating, and I was just hurting more and more. My fever got up above 103 and we went to the clinic to get it all checked out. By then it was 104 and nothing seemed to help - nothing they gave me took it away.... Our branch president, President Domingues, came and stayed with me while Elder Oliver went to our appointments. He was doing a way good job caring for me but there was just nothing that was really making a difference - even this intense ice bath I had! My fever wasn't going and my head wasn't feeling any better. In the middle of this, we also gave a sister a blessing and were dealing with these huge changes we're going to make in the zone this transfer.

Anyway, by 10 I had just had enough and we decided to go to the hospital. So we went in, they did all these tests, put in IV's (gave me fluid and morphine) and I don't know what all they did since I was way out of it, but all I know is when I woke up I felt SO much better and the pain in my head went away considerably. They figured it was some mix of heat exhaustion and food poisioning (maybe from some bad horchata) that beat me up. So we got back at like 3:30 in the morning and slept in, and it was great to just be able to finally sleep! We went back to work in the afternoon and although the transition was a little rough I'm great right now. I'm just going to be a whole lot more careful about staying hydrated and definitely be careful about what I eat/drink.

The good news is that during all of that excitement, Elder Oliver had an awesome lesson with Annette, our only solid english investigator, and she's going to get baptized August 27th! So that was way cool - once I came back to myself I was way excited.

So we've been talking about some pretty huge changes in Yuma, and they're not finalized yet but I'll just give a hint of what we might do. So our mission is down like 20 missionaries and they're having to cut a lot of areas and things. They're especially down english missionaries so it looks like they're probably going to take all of them out of Yuma and we're going to have a zone of strictly spanish missionaries that also do english work. So we're thinking about dividing it up so that each companionship here in Yuma covers a couple of english wards, and also covers the spanish work in the area that corresponds with those ward boundaries. We're probably going to be back down to 10 missionaries here in Yuma, but we'll all be spanish missionaries as well as english. But we'll see what happens for sure - transfers are next week. So we'll find out soon enough.

Other exciting news was that even though a whole lot of people didn't come to church (in the branch - all of our big spanish families), we have all kind of potentials in our english ward! We found out about some kids that are going to be adopted that we will start teaching tonight, and we had a couple of non-members just randomly show up - which never happens. So that was pretty cool. Good things are happening there.

We also had a cool lesson on Friday that we weren't really expecting. So we were visiting this girl named Evelyn, who is awesome and wants to learn but her mom is just hanging on to tradition right now. She was there with a friend from school named Mariah, and they were being typical school girls, loud and ridiculous, not really being serious.... but then we started asking some questions, finding out that she used to really believe in God and read her scriptures, but friends convinced her otherwise and she stopped believing. She didn't feel like God was listening so she said she just stopped doing those things and kind of gave up. As we asked questions and explained things it was amazing to see how the spirit was working with her. She kept stopping and talking about these crazy feelings she was having, that she had never felt before. She felt happy and she was really recognizing the spirit. It was one of the most incredible lessons because by the end she was a completely different person. She recognized that yes, she did have faith in God and that was the only way she was really going to be happy. They kept on asking us what made us so happy - what we're doing that they aren't. So we told them! These small and simple things we do make all the difference in the world. They could see the light in our eyes and see that there was a happiness and a level of peace and joy that was available. So basically you can turn anything into a teaching situation.

Oh, and more random news...we found the community of christ church (the RLDS one) as we were searching for addresses the other day. Elder Oliver asked me if they were the RLDS church and I just didn't remember. We kept biking down the street and talked to this guy we found outside his house and of course we found that he was....the pastor of that church. I asked him a little about it and unfortunately how old the church was. He said,"Just as old as yours is! We came from Joseph Smith too." Oh boy...so yeah I found out real fast who they were and we kept our correspondence brief and pleasant so we didn't get into any kind of bashing. But it was cool because he actually gave us a referral! So overall it was a good experience.

But I think that's mostly it for the week - nothing groundbreaking or terribly exciting quite yet. Besides the fact that I almost died....

So yes, life is good! Thanks for all you do!

Love you! ~ Elder Carlson

•Todavia caliente...‏ 8/08/2011

Well this week had a rocky start... So after our morning hike last P-day we had a big breakfast and everything and then showered and came here to do e-mailing. I had been trying to stay super hydrated but I guess I didn't do the best job ever. As we were here at the library I got these super deep stomach pains and chills, and my head started hurting like crazy. I warmed up when we went outside (even though my head was hurting like crazy) but when we went back into the apartment i just kept getting hotter and hotter! The heat just wasn't leaving me, I wasn't sweating, and I was just hurting more and more. My fever got up above 103 and we went to the clinic to get it all checked out. By then it was 104 and nothing seemed to help - nothing they gave me took it away.... Our branch president, President Domingues, came and stayed with me while Elder Oliver went to our appointments. He was doing a way good job caring for me but there was just nothing that was really making a difference - even this intense ice bath I had! My fever wasn't going and my head wasn't feeling any better. In the middle of this, we also gave a sister a blessing and were dealing with these huge changes we're going to make in the zone this transfer.

Anyway, by 10 I had just had enough and we decided to go to the hospital. So we went in, they did all these tests, put in IV's (gave me fluid and morphine) and I don't know what all they did since I was way out of it, but all I know is when I woke up I felt SO much better and the pain in my head went away considerably. They figured it was some mix of heat exhaustion and food poisioning (maybe from some bad horchata) that beat me up. So we got back at like 3:30 in the morning and slept in, and it was great to just be able to finally sleep! We went back to work in the afternoon and although the transition was a little rough I'm great right now. I'm just going to be a whole lot more careful about staying hydrated and definitely be careful about what I eat/drink.

The good news is that during all of that excitement, Elder Oliver had an awesome lesson with Annette, our only solid english investigator, and she's going to get baptized August 27th! So that was way cool - once I came back to myself I was way excited.

So we've been talking about some pretty huge changes in Yuma, and they're not finalized yet but I'll just give a hint of what we might do. So our mission is down like 20 missionaries and they're having to cut a lot of areas and things. They're especially down english missionaries so it looks like they're probably going to take all of them out of Yuma and we're going to have a zone of strictly spanish missionaries that also do english work. So we're thinking about dividing it up so that each companionship here in Yuma covers a couple of english wards, and also covers the spanish work in the area that corresponds with those ward boundaries. We're probably going to be back down to 10 missionaries here in Yuma, but we'll all be spanish missionaries as well as english. But we'll see what happens for sure - transfers are next week. So we'll find out soon enough.

Other exciting news was that even though a whole lot of people didn't come to church (in the branch - all of our big spanish families), we have all kind of potentials in our english ward! We found out about some kids that are going to be adopted that we will start teaching tonight, and we had a couple of non-members just randomly show up - which never happens. So that was pretty cool. Good things are happening there.

We also had a cool lesson on Friday that we weren't really expecting. So we were visiting this girl named Evelyn, who is awesome and wants to learn but her mom is just hanging on to tradition right now. She was there with a friend from school named Mariah, and they were being typical school girls, loud and ridiculous, not really being serious.... but then we started asking some questions, finding out that she used to really believe in God and read her scriptures, but friends convinced her otherwise and she stopped believing. She didn't feel like God was listening so she said she just stopped doing those things and kind of gave up. As we asked questions and explained things it was amazing to see how the spirit was working with her. She kept stopping and talking about these crazy feelings she was having, that she had never felt before. She felt happy and she was really recognizing the spirit. It was one of the most incredible lessons because by the end she was a completely different person. She recognized that yes, she did have faith in God and that was the only way she was really going to be happy. They kept on asking us what made us so happy - what we're doing that they aren't. So we told them! These small and simple things we do make all the difference in the world. They could see the light in our eyes and see that there was a happiness and a level of peace and joy that was available. So basically you can turn anything into a teaching situation.

Oh, and more random news...we found the community of christ church (the RLDS one) as we were searching for addresses the other day. Elder Oliver asked me if they were the RLDS church and I just didn't remember. We kept biking down the street and talked to this guy we found outside his house and of course we found that he was....the pastor of that church. I asked him a little about it and unfortunately how old the church was. He said,"Just as old as yours is! We came from Joseph Smith too." Oh boy...so yeah I found out real fast who they were and we kept our correspondence brief and pleasant so we didn't get into any kind of bashing. But it was cool because he actually gave us a referral! So overall it was a good experience.

But I think that's mostly it for the week - nothing groundbreaking or terribly exciting quite yet. Besides the fact that I almost died.... So yes, life is good!

Thanks for all you do!

Love you! ~ Elder Carlson

•Todo muy diferente....‏8/1/2011

Well, life has been pretty different and exciting lately!! We did end up taking on the 4th ward down here and making a lot of changes in areas and such. So we had to take some time to get it all figured out and kind of get started. Nothing much has happened in this ward for a long time, so it'll be cool to actually spend time and get to know them so that we can help them. We already have a lot of potential and referrals to go contact, and things seriously just seem to be popping out of nowhere! It's like this area has been ready to spring and produce, but has just been waiting...

Things are also starting to pick up on the Spanish side as well! So last week we were stopping by this trailer park and there just hasn't been super solid people there...but this lady that we've taught a couple times was there and we decided to go talk to her (she was not the most promising investigator ever) and her sister showed up - they're both ladies in their 50's or so. So we started teaching the sister and she loved it all! She said more than anything she wanted this for her family, especially for her 16-year old grandson, who she's worried about. So we said that would be sweet and that we could absolutely teach her family. We stopped by the next day and found the lady's daughter, her grandson, and a whole bunch of little girls (3 old enough to be baptized). We taught them all and had an incredible lesson....the mom had been in jail and searching for something the past couple years. She had never found what she was looking for, but said that as we were talking she felt like she had found it! She and all of her kids accepted baptismal dates in that first lesson for August! It was so sweet... and the girls are super smart and super cute. There's one named Iris who's 10 and has been reading like crazy every single day in the Book of Mormon. She said the coolest prayer the other day - asking that her brother would come to church with her every week and that he would read in the Book of Mormon with her. They are a pretty incredible family.

We also found a sweet part-member family that was surprisingly open to the gospel! Their grandma, who was a member, had just died, and there heart had really been opened and touched. The mom is a member but the rest of the family isn't, and they were all pretty excited to come to church and be a part of everything.

And then yesterday at church, people that we just weren't expecting to come, came! The Barraza's dad finally came to church and part of this family we thought we had lost came. So that was a pretty cool surprise.

We're excited though - we should have two 9-year olds getting baptized next week, and then the family the week after that. We're really working and hoping and praying that everything goes through!
Sunday was pretty weird though, going to church in English. It's been far too long! There was a ridiculous youth speaker though, that just cracked me up. He was a deacon and got up there and said that he was going to talk about blacks and blood types.... at least that's what both Elder Oliver and I heard. He proceeded to struggle through the entire Official Declaration 2 and then just say in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. It was probably one of the most ridiculous talks I've ever heard in my life. So yeah we were at the church for over 7 hours yesterday and it wore us out! It takes up our entire Sunday!

But life is good and things are literally just starting to explode down here! I love Yuma!

~ Elder Carlson