•Una semana fantastica aqui en Yuma!‏ 9/25/2011

All I have to say is I absolutely love our zone here in Yuma! Things are going really well (even though we've fought some adversity) and I am just so impressed at how much work everyone gets done for the number of missionaries here... It's pretty impressive. So it was a big baptizing week here - we had 3 and the sisters here had a family of 5 that got baptized and it was pretty intense. Both of these families are really solid and really sincere, but super hard to get a hold of. Nobody has cell phones and they're super busy. A lot of times when they set up lessons or plan on going to some type of activity, the craziest things come up (whether it be with family or work) and things just don't seem to work out. So it was kind of stressful arranging the baptismal interviews just because of those coordinating types of issues. We were scared on Monday because the fellowship for Damaris (the mom in a little family we baptized) called us and said she didn't want to meet but then we called her and she said it would be fine... so basically once we got in there and it was business time. I wasn't about to leave that house until all of those people were interviewed. Thankfully everything worked out, they got interviewed and Damaris got baptized with her two little girls, Jessalyn and Iris (the most awesome 9 and 11-year olds ever), and the baptism went super well. Our bishop in 9th ward, Bishop Titensor, was one of their fellowships and he baptized them like a champ - everything just went really smoothly. But the wild part of the night was when the niece Milly (short for milagros - miracles) just didn't show up to the baptism! She had been interviewed and we had permission from her mom, but I guess her mom just thinks she can get baptized anytime and ended up taking her out to the foothills to go visit some friends or family. We were just so shocked that we didn't really know what to do. So we decided to do what we do best! We baptized the family and they loved it. I sang "When I am Baptized" and Damaris was just crying the whole time. That's definitely one of my favorite baptism songs. But it was just so good to see this family that we've been working with for so long get baptized! It was just such a relief and so sweet to see how the 9th ward just embraced her. We decided English work isn't too bad.

I also got to interview most of the other family that got baptized and it was pretty crazy - they have been super hard for the sisters to get a hold of, so they haven't been able to teach them an incredible amount. They're definitely sincere though and even though they don't know a whole lot, they know what's important. So the interviews were definitely longer than normal and Candi (the mom) basically taught me the entire first lesson when we were talking about prophets! So that was pretty fun. And initially, only the mom and 2 of the boys wanted to get baptized so those are the ones I interviewed. But then the night before the baptism, we found out that her 2 teenage girls had a change of heart and wanted to get baptized too!! So all 5 of them got baptized Saturday and the baptism of one of the boys was really funny - he just dropped into the water like a deadweight and he was just like sprawled out under the water definitely with no part of his body touching the floor. Apparently he says he discovered a talent...he says he's really good at being baptized.

The confirmations were definitely a little stressful though - because of crazy circumstances (family that they haven't seen in months randomly coming for just one day yesterday and stuff like that) Damaris and her girls didn't come to church, and one of the girls in the family the sisters baptized didn't come. So we spent a large chunk of the day arranging everything so we could still give them the gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday. It was quite the battle and I definitely don't think Satan wanted them to have the Holy Ghost, but we were simply not going to take no for an answer. We took it as a personal attack from Satan and our persistence definitely paid off. So thankfully we got everything taken care of and it was a huge weight off my shoulders. It was probably the most stressful day of my entire mission (because of working out not only the confirmations, but also trying to find Milly so we can arrange a time for her baptism) but thankfully we made it and life is just so much better now. We're glad that being Spanish missionaries has made us a whole lot more diligent and persistent - that's the only way all of this would be possible. The families are in good hands and have really solid fellowship so we're glad that they have so much support. Basically Yuma is just doing really good and having a lot more success than normal! It's never produced like it is now, and especially not with so few missionaries.

So it's been pretty incredible - we have met a lot of really promising, really cool families this week. All of them come from member referrals, and we have just had some really cool experiences. While we were picking up dinner earlier this week, Sister Huston in 9th ward told us about some family friends and that she's taking the 2 teenage boys to seminary with her! They've already been going to early-morning seminary for 2 weeks and love it! She had also taken the 2 younger girls to activity days and they liked it as well. So we taught them, had a way good lesson, and the little girls were able to come to church yesterday (it's tough because the dad has serious health conditions). Another referral we went to with Sister Leos and it just did not look promising at all. The lady was totally not opening up or showing any interest. But somehow, we're not sure when, she just opened up and felt the spirit super strong. She started crying and even though it was a struggle to get her to pray, she had a way good experience and then had her 2 boys pray as well. It was just a testimony to how it is definitely not us that prepare people - it's all Heavenly Father.

We also had a cool experience this week when I was on exchanges with Elder Sawyer, who's a greenie in San Luis. He's awesome, but sadly everything cancelled on us that night. We did get to stop by Maureen and she randomly had her cousin's cousin over there whose name was Rod. I guess he's actually living there now... He's a big older Native American guy who has difficulty seeing because he has one artificial eye and his other eye has cataracts. But he's super sincere and we ended up teaching him the first lesson. When we invited him to be baptized, he said he'd like to do that because his mother was also baptized into our church. We extended Oct. 15 and he was surprised and just said, "Whoa, you surprised me there!" But then he didn't give an answer... he thought about it for a little bit and asked if he could Oct. 2nd because that was his birthday! So we were all excited, but sadly it will have to get pushed back a little bit because he wasn't able to come to church yesterday. But yeah, he's super legit and will definitely get baptized soon.

So this has probably been the most eventful week of my life and I can't wait to see what happens this week! I'm excited for General Conference and I'm excited to see what happens with transfer calls Sunday night! Ahhh, I don't want to leave Yuma...

Things are great! Love you all!

~ Elder Carlson

•Semana muy buena :) ‏ 9/19/2011

It's been a pretty sweet week and we've been able to get lots of things done! We had a couple awesome baptisms this last week as Maureen Miller (our Native American - her tribe is actually Quechan) and Maribel Soto got baptized. It's cool to see baptisms in different wards and branches, and to see the support that everyone provides for these people as they take this important step. Maribel actually got baptized on Friday, September 16th, which is Mexican Independence Day, so I guess there were some pretty huge celebrations going on in Mexico during that time. But she is incredible and everything went really smoothly. I actually got to baptize her! And it's funny that you mention "keep singing" in all of your letters because that's all I did this last weekend. I sang for both of the baptisms, and then also sang for the 4th ward on Sunday, and all of them went really well - it's just fun trying to find music for all of these musical numbers!

It's actually kind of crazy - we've been analyzing how things have been going lately in our little 10-man (well there are 2 sisters I guess) zone, and it looks like we're actually doing a lot better! We're seeing more people baptized, more lessons taught, and more people with baptismal dates than we've seen in a long time.... We actually set a couple zone records this week as far as member-present lessons go. So our conclusion is that Spanish missionaries are a special breed, and our experience in Spanish work has definitely increased our capacity to do English work. Working with the members and coordinating lessons was is so crucial to everything we do, and it seems like it's been a lot easier in our English wards to be able to do that.

Church was pretty fun yesterday...So we've been doing this competition in our zone to see who can talk to the most people outside (OYM's) and we've got this whole point system worked out. It was cool because it motivated us to really open our mouth and talk to more people, to go out of our way and search for people we could talk to. We established standards of excellence not only in OYM's but all of our key indicators such as people at church, people with a baptismal date, new investigators, etc. We needed some more OYM's yesterday afternoon so we were outside trying to find people to talk to and we see this car on the side of the road with the hood up and decide to go talk to them and see if we can help them. They did need a jump-start, and we thought it was interesting that they were all dressed up just like we were. We started talking to them and found out that they were all Jehovah Witnesses (another car pulled up as well so there were a bunch of them!) and we ended up inviting them to our church, and they invited us to theirs... They were actually super nice, but I just found the whole situation a little bit entertaining. A whole bunch of Jehovah Witnesses around 2 Mormon missionaries is kind of a funny sight. So that was kind of fun and exciting.

Yesterday, church in 4th ward was fun. We had Maureen's confirmation, I sang a musical number, and then Elder Oliver and I did the opening and closing prayers. I actually didn't remember that I was supposed to be saying the prayer. I was so satisfied that everything went well with the song and I guess just wasn't worried or thinking about the prayer. So after the closing hymn, I was all reverent and in my prayer position until Elder Oliver nudged me and told me to go up there! So I walked up there super quickly (it was pretty impressive) and everyone found it amusing...

So it's pretty awesome - October's looking like it'll be a really good month. We already have 3 people with a solid baptismal date, and a whole lot more that are close to one. The only problem is transfers happen right after General Conference so we're not sure what's going to happen and who's going to be here for all of that... Katie and Nick Cavenee are 2 adopted kids that we just started teaching a couple weeks ago and they're going to get baptized soon (Katie's 13 and Nick's 9). Nick is the coolest little kid and came to the baptism all dressed up in his sweet little suit and looking like a missionary. He says some of the most random things that are just so entertaining. I was sitting with him at the potluck after the baptism and somebody asked if the elders were teaching him. He said yes and they asked if we were nice to them. He said that he liked me but that Elder Oliver kicked him in the face! He looked over at me and said, "Right, Elder Carlson?" Of course I had no choice but to agree. I don't know where he got that from but it was pretty funny... and he said that he liked me because I gave him $50. Goodness, teaching kids can be really fun sometimes.

We're also teaching another 9-year old named Jadin that's a little more difficult to teach because he doesn't seem to capture or understand the things that we teach. We'll say that the Book of Mormon teaches about Jesus Christ and then ask him what the Book of Mormon teaches about....no response. That's taken a little bit more creativity and simplicity than I'm used to. But hey, I guess it'll help us to simplify things to the utmost degree! That's one thing that being a Spanish missionary helps you to do - teach simply. First of all our vocabulary isn't incredibly massive and we don't really have any choice. Second of all, just because of who you're teaching, they won't understand a thing unless it's super super simple.

We're pretty excited because we're going to have a big baptism on Friday! Damaris and the 3 little girls Iris, Jessalyn, and Milly, are all getting baptized on Friday in the 9th ward. Their fellowships are incredible and it was definitely the right choice to take them into the English ward. We were worried because the family just seemed to disappear for a couple weeks and we thought we had lost them. We kept coming by all of the time, and thankfully we found them and they're doing great! We were worried that we had wasted time in trying to keep stopping by, but thankfully we didn't give up on them. So that'll be an awesome day.

And it was an interesting day on Tuesday going out to the foothills with our district leader out there. He'd been really struggling with depression and discouragement and it was weighing down on us and the rest of the zone. So I went with him and did my best to stay super happy and optimistic, and it just didn't seem to be doing any good at first. He wouldn't really respond and nothing seemed to help. I guess he had been stressed out with responsibilities and stuff, but as time went on he seemed to be doing better and better, and now things seem to be going great!

We actually went out early this morning with these members in 2nd ward here that are biologists and joined them in some lizard hunting out in the desert right by the Mexican border. We became pro at lizard-finding and ended up finding desert iguanas, flat-tailed lizards, zebra-tailed lizards, side-winders (rattle snakes), horned lizards, and all kinds of exciting creatures. We actually caught them with this stick that has a little noose thing at the end of it - you just have to get it around the lizard's head and pull. It was actually super fun and we caught a bunch of things they had been looking for. It was actually pretty crazy how much work Sister Donaldson had to do to get the activity approved by President Howes...but it worked! It was pretty sweet.

So yep, that's what's going on here! The zone is doing great and hopefully pretty soon here we'll have some sweet zone t-shirts!

Love y'all! hasta la proxima,

Elder Carlson

•Sigamos adelante!‏9/12/2011

It's definitely been a solid week and yesterday was a very satisfying Sunday! We were surprised to have 10 people come to church, and we had a solid number in each one of our wards! So first of all we go to our Spanish branch, which has been doing a lot better recently. The attendance has been way down but yesterday was a good day and Maribel's family came to church (she's actually getting baptized this Friday!). The rest of her family will definitely follow, but in the meantime she's setting the example and just consistently amazes us. So how we met her was actually kind of funny. It was through our awesome ward missionary Sister Leos, and she just lives a couple houses down from her. But what's funny is that Sister Leos didn't even know her before she brought the sister missionaries over! She basically said, "Hi neighbor, I just really felt like I should come over here and share the gospel with you. Here are some of my friends that want to share a message with you." So they taught her, didn't think she would progress at all, and now she's incredibly solid and getting baptized! She has already faced so much opposition but she's unfazed. Goodness, we're excited.

And then we went to 9th ward, where we were super happy and pretty surprised to see Damaris and her little girls at church! Damaris had never gone before, and we had been really struggling for a long time to get her there. But we had a really good lesson with her this week, and the bishop and his wife (who's the primary president - it worked out perfectly) were there. They were awesome fellowshippers, they hit it off, and I've never seen Damaris so happy. We talked to her a little bit after church and she told us that this is the church she had been looking for. We asked her what her favorite part about church was and of course she said... relief society!! Seriously, every female investigator we have just absolutely loves relief society. It's always their favorite part about church. And when we saw her come out there were all these ladies that were hugging her and giving her information, telling her how happy they were she was there and that they would see her next week. They really took her in and it was just incredible. The girls loved primary and it was just sweet.

And speaking of primary, we got to be special guests for the 4th ward primary yesterday. They wanted us to talk about the blessings of serving a mission, and it was so much fun. We asked all of the kids who was going to serve a mission and they all raised their hands, including a couple of the kids that we're teaching! Maureen, our native american investigator, is getting baptized this Saturday and she's just incredible. She's consistent in reading, going to church, and doing everything all by herself. I guess when she reads she gets in the zone and her cousin says that no one can talk to her. She's focused on that reading and nothing else. And when they announced the baptism in sacrament meeting, a 9-year old kid we're teaching leaned over to his mom and said, "I want to get baptized!" He definitely didn't say that in our first lesson, so that was way good to hear. I love our English wards. And it looks like I'll be doing a musical number next Sunday, so that'll be good.

We did have a pretty interesting experience this week though...so Thursday we came to the library here to work on our mormon.org profiles and as we were trying to upload our pictures, all of the lights and computers shut off all of a sudden and we were left in darkness. We went outside, thinking it might have been something here that just tripped but found out that it happened all over Yuma! Even with all of the stoplights and everything. When we talked to more people, we found out that it extended not only into California, but also into Mexico, Nevada, a lot of Arizona, New Mexico... It was pretty big. So everywhere we went people were outside their houses, because they had no air conditioning inside. We thought this was perfect! We've been struggling to find people outside to talk with, so we just figured this was Heavenly Father intervening and making it possible :) They're stuck there, because they don't want to go into their hot houses! So we got to talk to quite a few people. So that went on from like 3:00 to later on in the night. Luckily it wasn't for too long, but people definitely realized how important it was to be prepared! I don't think anyone still knows exactly what happened, but we heard it all came from one worker somewhere in Arizona.

So there was that, and then last Monday it rained!!! I have never missed or loved the rain so much in my life! There was this big storm and a wall of dust, but after that passed there was just a lot of rain for a little while. We stayed out, got soaked, and played in it like a bunch of little kids, and it was pretty sweet. I really enjoyed it. That has only happened 2 or 3 times during all of my time in Yuma (which is fairly substantial). All kinds of people that see me are so surprised that I'm still here! Everyone is asking if I'm just moving my stuff down here - I definitely feel part of our branch "family" here! That's for sure.

Oh and then another thing that was pretty cool was randomly visiting a recent convert on her birthday. So there's this 88-year old lady named Josephine that got baptized just before we took over ninth ward and she's the nicest lady ever. She lives in Somerton, which is a little out of our way, and we never really go down there. But Friday we randomly did go down there, and found out that it was her birthday and she was SO happy to have company on her birthday. She lives alone, so she loves having people over. She's quite the chatterbox...we were there for quite a while, but glad that she wasn't alone for her birthday.

So yep, good things are happening and we're excited like always! We found some more promising investigators and we hope to continue to have success! People are definitely beginning to trust us more in the wards and it's resulting in a lot more missionary work and a lot more excitement. Missionary work is pretty sweet! Love you all! Hasta luego!
~ Elder Carlson

•Al final esta bajando poquito...‏ 9/05/2011

Well this has been quite the interesting week - it seems like this week, in terms of missionary work, it was feast or famine. We had days where we wouldn't teach at all - every single lesson cancelled - and then we had days where we would go from one teaching appointment to another the entire day! Kind of crazy...
But once again, we had another week with lots of meetings... Thursday was zone leader council and then Friday was zone conference, and those are always some pretty incredible meetings. I was definitely inspired as I went to ZLC and we talked about how we're called to give everything and we talked about if we were really leaving everything behind and being 100% obedient. There are always little things that you realize you can do better and we definitely committed to being a little bit better and having more of a sense of purpose to be able to serve with more power and authority. President Howes always inspires me - he's an incredible mission president.
So we're still getting super excited about mormon.org right now and about all the plans the church has for advertisement and getting everyone excited. It's going to be going on around the Phoenix area from October-March so we're getting all of the members trained and prepared on what to do and say if/when people come up to them asking about it, or when they talk to friends about it. It is kind of sad that we're not going to get an incredible amount of the attention or advertisement down here, but we're determined to do what we can and to get all of our members to have a profile down here. People are going to be interested about the "Mormons" and they're going to want to find out about people they can relate to that have similar interests or that are going through similar situations. So that's been a huge push and we're excited to see what happens.
We finally got to know our ninth ward a little bit this week, and decided that they're awesome. It's the biggest ward here in Yuma, and there are just a whole lot of youth. So we went to the bishop's place on Saturday to meet him and talked to him (surprised him as he was mowing his lawn), and we had a way good chat about plans for the ward. His name's Bishop Titensor, he's a young guy, and he just barely got called to be a bishop a couple weeks ago! So he's still new to everything but way excited. He actually came out with us for awhile Saturday afternoon, and yesterday in ward council they had a super good meeting where all of the auxiliaries brought him an auxiliary plan (with what they're goals and plans are, specifically geared toward missionary work) and they're going to put them all together to make a ward mission plan. Goodness, we're so excited to have a plan and a ward council that really can help us with missionary work and focus on those people that are being taught, and families that need help in activation or re-activation. Plus it was funny because all of the people at ward council had a sense of humor so the whole time there were little jokes and people just having fun as they were getting things done. So yeah, we also realized it's going to be important to really involve the youth because there are over 15 priests in the priest quorum!! There are a lot of kids preparing for their mission, so it'll be cool helping them prepare for that.
So yeah, we got to enjoy a lot of church yesterday, with ward council meetings and 3 wards to go...I was definitely spiritually drained by the end of that. But it was cool - in both of our English wards, there were a whole lot of kids that bore their testimony, and I was so impressed at how profound they were and what kind of faith and confidence they had in it. There really was no doubt and it's just so clear to them. So that was pretty sweet.
And this week we met an awesome family that was a referral from one of our Spanish members. He owns a trailer out in the counties here that he's renting to this lady and her 2 boys (a girlfriend lives there as well). So the mom's name is Esther Bell, and then there's Carlos (22), Ronnie (19), and Salina (18). We went there and she said she had been waiting for us! They told us all about how they had gone to a few different churches, and had a really bad experience with the last one, so they just didn't know where to go. They've been searching for a long time, but just couldn't find it. It was incredible to see their faith though - she had really been depending on the Lord and knew that He would provide. They are really struggling financially but they've seen miracles as God has helped them through it. So they all came to church yesterday and it was sweet because they were all spiffed up and looked really good there, sitting all together. The ward really took them in, and we're excited. Good things are definitely coming.
And it was fun - with zone conference we had Elder Rappleye, who's an assistant down here, and he came on exchanges with us. It reminded me of all of our times here in Yuma last year, because he was here with me and Elder Cuthbertson and we spent a lot of time together. It's crazy to see all these missionaries go home...
So yep, life is good, and we've got big plans for our tiny little Yuma Zone. I love how tight and unified our zone is able to be, and how much support there is. So we're here loving it, and it's much better now that the weather has finally cooled off a little tiny bit :) Now it's only like 110...
Love you!
- Elder Carlson