Hello everyone!
Well compared to the super exciting weeks that we've been having the past couple months, this one has been a little more low-key. There was definitely good stuff that happened, as always, but things are a little different. So yesterday was a way good Sunday, and almost every single recent convert from here in mesa came to church!! We visited Gabriela Garcia this week (she got baptized last April when I was with Elder Johnson here) because she hasn't been coming for a little while and she came with all of her kids, and definitely bore her testimony for the first time. So in the Spanish ward I went up to bear my testimony and Johana Lopez (who just got baptized a week ago) followed me up there. I was able to bear my testimony to all these people I've truly come to love, and afterwards listed to a super sincere, heartfelt testimony from Johana, thanking God and us for the things that we've brought into her life. She got super emotional and could barely speak, and it was a way powerful spiritual experience. After I sat down, Gabby asked me if she could go up there and I told her absolutely. She said it was too late, but then decided she would go up anyway. A she walked by me, she asked me if the fear would leave her when she got up there so of course I told her yes it would :) She also bore a powerful testimony and it seemed like everyone who went up there thanked the missionaries who taught them and talked about all of the blessings that had come into their life since then. It wasn't necessarily our most stellar week, so it was really good to hear that, and think about the lives that we've touched. There are so many families that I love so much, and it's a little sad when you can't visit them too often afterwards (you need to find more people!). But it's cool to think of the relationships that we're building and the people we were meant to teach and bring into the gospel.
Things aren't going as well with Lois as we had hoped. We had a lesson with her on Tuesday and talked all about the commandments. We were teaching her these cool hand signs to remember which one is which and she was really enjoying it. We bore testimony of the commandments that we've been given and the blessings that are available as we obey those commandments. There are eternal laws that we have to obey if we're going to truly find happiness and there's no cutting corners. Those blessings are real though and they will come. The lesson was going super well, but once again when we brought up tithing and the Word of Wisdom, she said that she couldn't make any promises and didn't think she could live it. We shared experience and really testified of those blessings, but especially with these specific commandments, the only thing you can do it try it out and live it. That's really the only way. It's tough, because when it comes to things like this, people forget the spiritual witnesses that they've had and focus on how hard it would be to live a certain lifestyle. It's especially difficult with people that you've really come to love and care for as special children of God. Lois has been so prepared, and felt the Spirit so incredibly strong in her life, and she's just going to have to act on that. So everyone please keep her in your prayers! She wasn't able to make it to church this week, but we know everything that has happened so far has happened for a reason.
Oooh, and another thing that was way cool about yesterday was we had a class about family history in priesthood and it got me way excited to do family history when I get back home. They were showing us how to use that new family search website and how we could get started not only doing that family history searching, but also doing the ordinances for those people. I had never really seen how you go about it and I was pretty fascinated, because it also talks about it a lot in my patriarchal blessing. I am definitely going to jump on that when I get home.
Well, we haven't been able to have as many investigator lessons as we would like to have. We're teaching a lot of recent convert lessons to help retain all of them and the good news is that they are indeed getting retained!! Our Dobson Ward recent converts all have callings now, and our Spanish recent converts are doing whatever it takes to get to church (Alberto and Adriana's family came all the way to church walking, I'm pretty sure). We are picking up again with some of the investigators that we were kind of teaching before. It was cool going by one family's house that we felt we should go by, for some reason. They weren't terribly solid before, so we were a little hesitant about it, but we went over and things have definitely changed a little since the last time we were over there. We asked the mom about her religious background and she told us all about these different churches she had been to and how she had just recently (within the last 3 weeks or so) stopped going to her other church for various reasons. Apparently they're in a transition stage and she's just wanting something they can all be together in, so we're hoping her husband's alright with it! There's definitely been a lot of little miracles lately. We were going by Juan Jimenez, who is way hard to contact, and we randomly went during the early afternoon (which is generally the worst time to try to contact people) and because of the weather conditions he got home early from work and was there! We had a good lesson and he definitely has some desires. We were stopping by some former investigators and felt like we should stop by one that lived in these sketchier apartments here in Mesa. It was definitely not the same person that lived there, but they were still interested and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon! We found out later that we had written the number wrong (the person that lived in the right apt definitely wasn't interested) so it was kind of cool that it worked out the way it did. As I was on exchanges with our stud district leader Elder Nix we were headed to this apartment and he stopped to talk to this black guy that I hadn't seen because I was so rushed. He was super nice and talked about all these members he knew. He said he had been super interested lately in learning more about Mormons and "getting into it". He was excited about church so we'll hopefully teach him tonight! There's been a lot of cool little miracles and experiences that keep us going. The Lord is definitely preparing people and we're here to find them!
We also had ZLC on Thursday (zone leader council) and this time was a little different because we got to go to the temple that morning with President Howes and all of the zone leaders and assistants. We were seeking revelation for our zones and it was definitely very spiritual and peaceful. It was interesting because everything that they trained on that day, Elder Twitchell and I had discussed earlier in the celestial room. We talked a lot about unity, sustaining one another in our various capacities, and becoming converted missionaries. There have been a lot of companionship struggles in our zone lately and that companionship unity is so crucial to every aspect of the work. It affects literally everything and we have to be able to really have a sincere trust and love for our companions. We talked about the dinner that we were going to do the next day, which was entertaining. We served all of our stake presidents this dinner and we wore these really cool black aprons that said called to serve on them with our long sleeved shirts. We were the waiters and learned all of the rules for it. It was pretty cool. I did another last-minute a capella number with another missionary doing "Come thou Fount" and it turned out really well. We found out right before dinner that somebody forgot to bring the meat (they thought it was the next day) so we had to do the presentation first and scramble to get everything together. It was fun to be around the stake presidents and mission leaders so much, and it was just fun :) So that's about it for this week! We're siguiendo adelante and doing the best that we can!
Love y'all! ~ Elder Carlson
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