•Semana de milagros!!.......12/12/2011

It has been a pretty incredible week. We're pretty sure it's linked to the mission fast we had last Sunday, and we hear that it's happening all across the mission! So Tuesday morning we got a text from Angelica, who comes from a part-member family (we were teaching her before but temporarily dropped her because she's living in Tempe with a friend for a little bit). She said she wanted to meet with us at the church that evening so we said that would be cool. We met there and were just talking and then after we said a prayer we just asked her why she wanted to meet with us. At first she shied around the question and said she just wanted us to teach something, and then... she said she wanted to get baptized!! I guess she'd been meeting with the bishop every week the past few weeks and has been doing some real searching. She had been taught like 2 years ago and was going to be baptized, but took off and ever since then she has just said she's not ready. We were absolutely blown away, and it was completely out of the blue. Straight-up miracle. So we started planning that baptism, she got interviewed, and she's all set to get baptized this week. Miracle #2: We had a lesson with Saturday night with Xochitl Castillo (also from a part-member family and somebody that has been taught for a very very long time) and we decided to bring Nelly Ramirez, a recent convert from the first time I was here in Mesa. They totally hit it off in the lesson even though Xochitl said she was depressed, and she brought her to church yesterday. So we were standing there talking with them and President Richardson (the old branch president here - from when it was a branch) came up and asked her when she was getting baptized. We talked about it a ton with her before but she's always said she hasn't got her answer yet or that she's already been baptized before. Somehow this time was different and it became very legitimate and real. She pulled out her phone and started checking her schedule to see when she would have time and be able to do it. Somehow we decided on doing it this Wednesday (which is Nelly's birthday) and it looks like Angelica might do it that same night which is kind of funny, because they're cousins about the same age (22 and 23). That has just been an absolute miracle, because everything completely changed with them. Their whole attitude, demeanor, and just everything. I don't know if I've ever been quite so happy at church before. It was pretty incredible.

That has definitely been the highlight of our week - the rest kind of pales in comparison. I also got to do a pretty sweet baptismal interview for a super prepared guy this week. I guess his wife was a member for a long time but they had never really gone to church before. They didn't put much into it, and they didn't get much out of it. Plus, his kids weren't learning anything, so they found themselves just searching. They had kind of talked about the church for a long time, and they decided to do a bunch of research. He prayed to God and asked for guidance, and got a very specific, direct answer that this is the path he should take. So this is all before he even had met with the missionaries. I guess that makes the teaching process quite a bit easier... He had incredible experiences with tithing and the word of wisdom, and stopped smoking cold-turkey. He said he hasn't even had the temptation to smoke and he knows it's God blessing him for obedience to that commandment. He has a ton of kids, so it'll be cool to see some of them get baptized in the future.

I went on exchanges with Elder Lee, an awesome missionary in the zone who stepped down from zone leader to train Elder Tuavao, who's from Tonga. We had a super good day, and I got to meet this incredible family that they just started teaching. A lady who's a member just moved in with this friend and her family, and the family just latched on to the gospel. They absolutely love the missionaries and everything that's taught, and it looks like he's going to be able to see them get baptized Christmas Eve right before he goes home on the 27th! She's completely fluent in Spanish so of course it was fun to go over there and teach her - it's weird to think about life when I didn't know Spanish. I guess there have been awesome experiences all over the mission where people just have come to the missionaries saying they want to get baptized. All I have to say is tis the season! If there's any time to see success, and when people's hearts are opened, it's going to be now. The Christmas lights here are quite the hit, and we've been getting a whole lot of referrals from that. We actually tracted out both of the main trailer parks in our area (where our 2 families are that need to get married), so we could see where any potential is, and so we can make sure everyone is invited to see the lights! Everyone can feel the spirit there and recognize that it's something special. People here love it. So during this glorious tracting, we've had some cool experiences being chased by dogs, hopping fences, and confronting some very unhappy white people (and Mexicans who love the virgin Mary and thus won't talk to us). But...we also found a sweet potential family that had been meeting with missionaries before, but had moved and just lost contact! So we're excited for anything new, and we're definitely seeing some new potential here.

So yep, we're getting excited as Christmas nears, and people are getting ready to be baptized! We've also got the family of Alberto and Adriana that are going to get baptized Christmas Eve and confirmed on Christmas! WE had a great time painting their trailer the other day (we had no idea we were going to paint the whole thing), and they were telling us how they had been telling all of their friends that they had changed religions and were coming to our church. It was funny because part of the reason we stopped by Saturday morning was because we were pretty sure the Jehovah Witnesses would come by her house (they had been for a long time), and we wanted to make sure they were strengthened and prepared :) Our high councilor over ward missionary work is super awesome and helping us finance the passports for these people. When we asked him he said he would talk to the stake president and then changed his mind. He didn't want to have to wait to get permission or anything else so he talked to his committee and had everything ready in a matter of a few days! Awesome.

So that's what's up! It's raining right now, and Arizona drivers don't know what to do - they're going super slow on the road... It was way cold the beginning of this week (like mid-30s in the morning - cold for here) but it's gotten a little warmer. Thanks everyone for everything!

Feliz Navidad! ~ Elder Carlson

•Guau (wow), ya diciembre...12/5/2011

Wow, it's hard to believe time is flying by so fast... I felt like the summer was so short, and here we are, already coming up on Christmas! It has been a pretty eventful week for us, lots going on. We've had all kinds of training meetings and baptismal interviews and basically not incredible amounts of time to hit the pavement and proselyte. It was funny - in a baptism we went to on Thursday, the missionary baptizing left his phone in his pocket so he "baptized" his phone. They said that it was confirmed and that it is now the missionary meal coordinator of that ward... Thankfully the phone still works, but it was entertaining to watch him realize that it was still in his pocket. We had a Zone Leader Conference on Thursday and mainly just talked about the need to work better with the members and being more powerful teachers. We've been noticing that missionaries are kind of struggling in teaching with confidence, power, and authority. We talked about taking it back to the basics - what exactly does the Restoration mean, and why is it important? What really is our unique message to the world? After we teach people that first lesson about the Restoration, do they understand it and have sincere desires to find out if it's true? Did they understand it?

It was cool thinking about these questions, and thinking about people in the past that I have taught. If I'm able to teach it simply and powerfully, they're going to be able to understand it, regardless of whether or not they want to accept it. We're not here to mess with their agency, but we're sure here to find those prepared by our Heavenly Father - if they are ever going to accept it, we're going to give them the tools they need to find out if (that) it's true.

So I've really been going through everything and simplifying it, looking up definitions in Preach My Gospel and True to the Faith so that I can have a deeper personal testimony of it and be able to teach it in the way that I personally know it's true. The better we know these things, the more simply we will be able to teach and explain it. Revelation is one of the coolest things to really research and find out about. It's simply communication from our Heavenly Father to His children. It's how the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are revealed to prophets and how it is confirmed to us that that revelation is true and real. We've been really focusing on that lately, and how it's so necessary for our investigators to receive that revelation and be able to understand and recognize it.

At Zone Conference the next day (Friday) we focused on similar things and were able to do a whole lot of role-playing and practicing teaching. It was cool to help people out and see what they're doing in their teaching appointments so that we can make it a lot more powerful. Our message is unique and people really do have to understand why/how and how it applies to them personally. No matter what our circumstances and situations might be, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way we are going to be able to overcome those trials and find true happiness.

I've been realizing the importance of being super transparent and helping people realize why we're there, as missionaries. We're teachers, and we are here to teach them about their Heavenly Father, His plan for them, and how they can find the happiness that they're searching for. We tell them right off the bat why we're there and where we're going with our message - we're not there to simply share a message and leave. This is the most important thing they could possibly do in their entire life and we're going to help them understand why. I went on exchanges with Elder Johnson and we learned a lot - about being super enthusiastic, smiling, and being sincere and simple. We don't need to use fancy words or worry about how exactly we word things. We need to simply talk to them and let them know who we are and why we're here. It's crazy thinking this is the only time in your life you're able to just meet random people on the street and just teach them. It's pretty cool, and it's sad to think it's going by so fast.

One thing that's also been awesome to learn is how much offering help can really go. We've been going by auxiliary leaders and simply asking, "What can we do to help you?" We want to be a blessing, not a burden to them, and we know they have all kinds of responsibilities and things stressing them out. So we've been getting assignments and lists of people to visit, and we're seeing that it is already helping and improving the spirituality of the ward! Building a relationship of trust is way crucial for missionaries, and we're starting to see why. A family we visited on Saturday that's inactive came to church yesterday and it was awesome! We all felt the spirit super strong in their house, and are working on helping them to be missionaries and share the gospel with their friends.

We had a solid mission fast this Sunday, fasting for a "White Christmas" and we're pretty excited. The mission's getting pumped up and we see big things happening this month. People are just nicer and people around here love the Christmas lights at the temple! We've also gotten a couple referrals from that, which is way exciting. We got to see some of the Christmas Devotional yesterday, and that's always one of my favorite things ever - I particularly enjoyed Pres. Monson's talk about the Christmas stories. It really does put it into perspective and helps us know the importance of giving and sacrifice (sacrifice being greater than the reward - me gusta) like

Life is good though, and the Christmas season is here! It's the best time to do missionary work :)

Love you! Hasta pronto See you soon

~ Elder Carlson