•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