Hey y'all!
Hope everybody had a great week! Hope Jessie had a great birthday! It
was Sister Crowtons birthday yesterday, so shout out to her! That's
awesome to hear about Nathan! Neuroscience with a minor in Mandarin?
Wheu! I bet he's glad he gets a little break. Please tell me he gets a
break!
This was a really fun week. The church's Easter campaign on Facebook
is really cool. Don't know if it official, but I think it's nice...for
some reason today my brain is working slow. This happens every week to
some degree. Tons of stuff happens, and then I'm looking at a blank
email that I have to fill up and my mind turns into a blank slate. I
always ask my companion, "What are you writing about? What happened
this week?" The days just run together.
Tuesday we helped a lady in our Ward who just had twins get her house
in order. The babies were in the hospital cause they have to grow a
little bit more before they can come home, which is good, cause these
people are totally unprepared. All these people having babies when
they can't even take care of themselves. "Children having children, it
makes no sense!" (From the Mormon message for youth: "I Choose to be
Pure") Not that these people are children. I guess if everyone waited
till they were perfectly ready before having kids, nations would go
extinct.
Wednesday night was nifty. I guess everyone was fired up from General
Conference cause we got at least two referrals at class and a new
gator. (The week before there wasn't any people there!) A lady in our
Ward brought her daughters boyfriend to Wednesday night mutual last
week. He went with the YM and all they talked about was camping. He
was not interested.
So this week she brought him to the missionary
class. Elder Shelton, our new district leader, was teaching. We read
Alma 46 and talked about standing up for your beliefs. Watched
President Monsons Mormon message for youth "Dare to Stand Alone."
Matthew really liked it. We taught him the first lesson this past
Saturday at Sister Smith's home. Pretty good lesson. Matthew is 13.
Sister Smith talked to his mom about bringing him to church and taking
missionary lessons. She said his mom is ok with it. They'll have to
have anger talk if he decides he wants to be baptized. He seemed to
like church yesterday pretty well. We'll see where he goes. Next week,
Ashley (a teenage recent convert in our Ward) asked if she could teach
about eternal marriage. Bishop gave her permission. This is gonna be
good. I'll keep you posted.
I love these iPad things. This past week when we go to a less actives
house we show a General Conference talk. I think I've seen "Your Four
Minutes" five times already. It's really good. Very non threatening.
The ones we've shown them to really liked it.
Thursday was District Meeting! Our first district meeting of the
transfer. It is Elder Sheltons first fine as a DL, and so for the
first hour he was asking for suggestions on how we could make our
district more unified. We have the largest district in the mission
with 20 people (I think it's normally supposed to be around 10), and
so there's not many things we all can do together. They can't really
split the district because of the placing of the wards. Today the
meeting was even bigger because, unexpectedly, the Assistants to the
President were there! First I thought that they were going to take an
Elder to the airport or something, but they were just there to take
the Zone Leaders to lunch. Wheu. But still. I got to give my training
in front of the biggest district with the ZL's and the AP's present as
well. We were also on a time crunch cause Elder Shelton took so long.
Sigh. The only other time I've given a training there was only five
minutes left in the meeting so it basically flopped. This time, I
didn't care if we didn't get to role plays or if we ended late, I took
as much time as I wanted. Which turned out to be 15 minutes. Must have
had the Spirit because afterward, I had no rememberance of what I
said. Sister Parmer said she liked it a lot :)
We've been doing really well on our goals this last little while!!
Gators are coming out of our ears and have been meeting or exceeding
every goal! Crazy. It's really all God. In GV 1st Ward, Sister Shelley
and I tracked 1-3 hours every day and nobody wanted to talk to us.
Just a few days ago, we knocked doors just for 30 minutes and found a
new Gator and two potentials. Most of that time was spent talking to
the new gator. We just mentioned Jesus and the lady just went off on
all the miracles she's seen this past few months. Her son was healed
of cancer. I should show her Sister Hutchins blog "When You Believe in
God."
I've noticed something though. It doesn't matter if we have 20 gators
or none, my happiness level doesn't really depend on that. It's really
dependent on obedience. For sure.
K is really starting to get it! In our lesson with her this week,
all we talked about was impressions she got from watching General
Conference and recognizing the Spirit. She's been progressing! E
is kind of staying in the same place on the other hand. He still comes
to church every Sunday and to scripture study class every Wednesday,
but things have slowed down teaching him any other time. Until he
moves out, nothing can really happen.
Anyway. We're at Chick-Fil-Eh eating some healthy foodstuffs (starting
to add stuff into the diet. We're thinking I might be allergic to
peanut-butter). Everyone is ruling me out and want to move on with
their P-day. Gotta end.
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention that we have a new Ward Mission Leader.
Brother Brown is an officer in the Navy and is doing a flight training
program at the base nearby. He and Sister Brown are in their late 20's
and have a baby boy. They're the best missionaries ever! Sister Brown
goes tracting with us and everything. This is gonna be good. Brother
Lund (the old mission leader) is being transferred to California. He's
in the Navy as well.
Anyway. Love you all! Church is true!
~Sister Carlson
