The Pink Letter

We received this wonderful hand-written letter from Matthew today on bright pink paper.

Hello Family!

As you can see by the lateness and pinkness of the letter, things are a tad bit crazy. I'm in Douglas right now. In their kitchen. With a bowl of candy. It's deliciously bad for me. Elder H and I are having one last conversation. He's really become a really good friend. We're talking about missions and the Atonement. Two of our favorite topics. I'm sad that he's leaving but to every end there is a new beginning.

You have hopefully read my email [the previous post] and read a little bit about what's going on. Unfortunately, my email was deleted and never sent so you received the abridged/condensed version.

But the cool experience I mentioned in my email is this:

We were out on our bikes and stopped at a less active member's house. We knocked on L's door but he didn't answer. We called and reminded him of our appointment but it went to voice mail. We looked at our planners for backup plans but we felt like something was off about our plans. We decided to pray and afterwards we decided to tract the street to the left. Tracting is something we don't do often if at all. Members are much more effective. Missionaries in the past have tracted it over 4 or 5 times. So we tracted. We tried 3 or 4 houses and then knocked on the last house. They invited us in and we taught the Restoration. It was just an awesome lesson. I was a little thrown at first as I'm not used to just "Lesson! Go!". Usually we have appointments and I can prepare mentally. But once we started teaching I was fine. We answered a lot of their questions, gave them copies of the Book of Mormon, and gave them pamphlets. It's just up to them to act on. I prayed about them and I feel good about them. It was two guys. W and D. They were in Alma at their relative's house for the holiday. As they said themselves, this was the perfect time for come and really the only time to come. Hopefully they'll find the Atlanta Elders. But it was cool to see how much the Spirit really plays a role in the work we do. The rest of the week was very low key. Not many lessons or any new investigators :-(.

I did almost have a tree fall on me. We were at Sister W's. We were chopping down trees that day and had cut down 3 or 4. Sister W was chopping another down as we had taken a break on a nearby log. She took a break as it was a very thick oak tree (very hard). It was very close to being chopped down. As she was resting, we heard a loud crack and creaking. The tree started to move. I looked up and noticed the tree was getting closer. It was falling. Towards me! Sister W, realizing our impending squishedness, cried out with a loud voice of warning. Her cry of "ooooo! OOOO! OOOO!" rang in our ears as we jumped up and out of the way. It landed where we had just been sitting mere seconds previous. She later explained that she had been trying to say "move" but due to the sheer panic of almost squishing the Elders, she could only make out "OOO". We had a good laugh about it.

Love,
Elder Carlson

Transferance!

A small letter is way better than nothing at all. It's always so good to hear from Matthew.

This email is going to be short as well. I had typed a longer email but due to computer troubles I sort of lost it all. So here it is once again.

Transfers are here! The madness of the whole thing is once again upon us. This transfer happens to be one of the biggest transfers in the mission. There are dozens missionaries in Alabama headed to Georgia, several from Florida to Alabama and all over. There are only a few people that aren't affected by transfers. Transfers are actually quite nice in Florida. It's one slightly crazy half day and then it's over. Here in Georgia since everything is so far apart, it takes a good two days to get over transfers. For Elder H and I, transfers start Tuesday morning and end Thursday morning. Crazy huh?

Elder H is moving to Moultrie Georgia. It's right near Valdosta but I'm staying in Alma and an Elder F is coming to replace him. I'm very sad to see Elder H go. He's a great missionary and friend. He really taught me a lot. I know he says that I'm training him but I distinctly remember a letter from the mission office he received that said "Trainer" on it. I'm going to miss him and hope we can be companions again in the future. We are still in the same zone so we can still see each other.

This week was a rough one for him and I. Most of our investigators were gone this week for vacation. We did a lot of finding and it didn't produce a whole lot of fruit but we planted seeds. It was good. We had this one really cool experience one day but I don't have time to retype it.

I'll see if I can write you a letter later today or not. I really don't know what'll happen the next couple of days or even what I'm doing after this.

Thank you so much again to everyone who sent Christmas cards and presents. I tried to sent thank you letters, but I may have missed some of you.

Remember that I love you all and that I miss you.

Elder Carlson