Well it's already that time again - goodness transfers go by so fast. We just had transfer calls last night and a lot of it was what I expected. Elder Twitchell and I are staying together here, but they're taking out a lot of our solid senior companions and putting them into leadership. There are a whole lot more people leaving than we thought would leave, so we're interested to see what happens and who comes. It's going to be sad to see Elder Ricker leave - he's way musical and we had all these plans for musical numbers and everything around Christmas time.
It was a pretty exciting week though, and we have a lot of momentum going into this next transfer. So I issued a challenge to the zone here to get a certain number of lessons with a member present. These are by far the most effective lessons, and when investigators have true fellowship they're able to progress so much faster and be so much more solid in all of their commitments (and in getting retained). I could tell that there was a lot of room for improvement so I said if we got 50 as a zone I would treat everyone to pizookies at oregano's here (pizookies are these big cookies in small pie pans with ice cream on top - they're incredible). So all week long we really pushed everyone and worked together at it but at the end of it we found out we got...48! Ahhhh, we were so close, but it was almost twice what we got some weeks and way higher than we've had for months here. I don't know why, but it's super fun for me to look at past statistics and really get pumped and excited to do way better than what's been done before. It gives me something to really push and stretch for, and we've seen some cool things come from it. So we'll see if the zone can get the challenge within the next couple weeks - still a prize on the line.
We also did some pretty crazy back-to-back exchanges this week as we finished everything up for the transfer and had some pretty cool experiences.
My favorite was actually with this brand new missionary that I was with on Thursday, and I was in his area (he still didn't know it all that well). It was just not his day. So we got lost in almost every apartment complex we went in, and when he made pancakes it went terribly wrong. He turned on the wrong burner and smelled something burning...he saw that the pan had burned through the handle of the spatula that was sitting on the other pan, so there was just a chunk of the handle sitting there on the stove and melted plastic all over the pan. It was just a little bit entertaining. One thing that made things kind of interesting was this black guy we talked to at a gas station. I was airing up my shocks and this guy pulled up in a bright red sports car from the car dealership right next door, and he comes out to talk to us (his "brothers"). I found out that he had this LDS-mobile back home, a way fixed-up old car that he had bought from an older member of our church. It had LDS on the front and back license plate and it was decked out with pass-along cards and any other kind of church material. He came over asking us if we had anything we could give children so he could help keep kids occupied who came in and teach them what's important. This whole time I thought he was a member but then he was talking about how everyone asks him that and he says, "No, not yet!" He's sure that this all happened for a reason though, and it wasn't coincidence that he had this LDS-mobile. He also said that one thing we had going for us (mormons) is mormon women. I guess he worked in a gym a while back and lots of members would go work out there. He said there is just something about them - they have a glow, a purity, a light about them that nobody else has. He said, "Don't get me wrong, I love my lady. But there is something special about those Mormon women." So that was actually pretty sweet - we are definitely a light to the world.
I think that was about it for excitement this week. We're still working a whole lot with this legal issue and all of these families that want to be baptized but can't because they can't get married. We've decided to take the passport route and we're setting up appointments today with the Mexican consulate to get that taken care of. It'll probably be a couple months, but it's the only way to do things legally. Our families are still super solid though. They have overcome word of wisdom issues, and have some pretty incredible desires to be baptized. People are definitely out there, prepared and ready. It's just up to us to open our mouths and let them know we have what they're looking for! We're excited to keep inspiring the zone and really keep things rolling here. I love the work and am looking forward to another 6 glorious weeks in Mesa!
Love y'all!
~Elder Carlson
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