Hoot! Hoot!

Matthew sent us another wonderful hand written letter. This one was sealed with an owl sticker (hence the title of this post).

It is once again p-day. Crazy, huh? I don't know about you but the weeks are flying by and the days are dragging on. It's coming up on three months since I walked into the security things at the Portland airport.

This week has just been crazy. I think most of the weeks have been crazy. Zone conference and trade-offs just add to the craziness but things have been pretty good. We've had some really good discussions and we have four pretty solid investigators. I'm really proud of all of them. I think I mentioned a few of them in my call. That was fun. It was really good to talk to a little over half of you. [We called President Jensen to ask him to tell Matthew that his grandpa had just passed away and President Jensen told Matthew to call home. Only some of were home by the time Matthew was able to call though.]

Life here is good. My gut says I'll be here in Alma at least one more transfer. When I first came to Alma, I consoled myself with "I'm not going to be here my whole mission". I don't really want to leave. Actually, I lied. I really don't want to leave. But I'll go where I'm needed or where I need to be. I've learned that missionaries go different places because:

1. Someone is there for them
2. They have a lesson to learn
3. A missionary that they need to help or be helped by is there

We were with Sister W helping her clean out some storage. She thought about keeping something but she really wanted to burn it. She finally said, "It just don't feel right if you can't burn it." So we did. We were cleaning out her storage and carrying some heavy doors when we heard from Sister W, "Do you need a husband?" Elder F and I were confused. We looked at each other and I said, "No but I am looking for a wife." She laughed and brought out her husband. It turns out a husband is a funny wooden coat hanger. It's pretty cool. Elder F claimed it.

I saw some really cool cars this week. I saw a nice 1980's Z28 and a restored 1960's Corvette with whitewall tires, white paint, and red accents. They were both beautiful. I may send you a picture of the latter one.

Love you all,
[signed with a picture of himself]

Always on the Move

This week has involved many days of moving. I have spent the days of this week in Tifton, Hazelhurst, Nicholls, and Alma. I almost spent more days out of Alma than I did in. It's been a crazy week but it's been a very productive week.

The week started out very nice. On Monday after I finished emailing, we went to Brother D's for dinner. We had a delicious three course meal of salad, spaghetti, and pound cake. Brother D is very proper and we had a salad fork and everything. I can now tell a salad fork apart from a normal fork. As Brother D can't eat this stuff, he gave us a lot of salad, spaghetti, and cake. Later, we were walking around and we met a lady with a flat tire. We offered our services as the jack was very hard to turn and the handle to do so very sort and did not offer much of a torque advantage. It took 20 or 30 minutes to jack the car up and my arm was pretty sore afterwards. We took all but one bolt off. It was stripped out. They called a friend and he got his socket and then got it off. We popped the spare on and screwed it tight. She didn't thanks us but I think she appreciated it.

Tuesday was a pretty good day and we got dirty. We went over to Sister W's and chopped stuff down. We chopped a lot down and Sister W was just really happy. We had an awesome lunch of steak and potatoes. It was really really good and delicious. Her green beans were really good too. We met several other people including B who we taught. She has been coming to church for several weeks and it was good to finally really talk to her.

Then came the big day. Zone Conference. We woke up at 6 so we could arrive in Douglas at 7:30. We then traveled with Elder T and Elder D to Tifton. We met president and had some good talks. It was cool since all the chairs were in a big circle. It made it feel like we were just in one big discussion. I did get to talk with President Jensen but it was only for literally 30 seconds. He asked me a few questions and I answered and then he asked me "Do you have any concerns?" I said no, he stood up and gave me a hug, then opened the door for me to leave. I was hoping for some good advice like the last time I met with him but apparently it was not so this time. It was still nice to talk to him. We had a great lunch which was really good. We traveled back and Elder T and I went to Hazelhurst. We went straight to the church so we could make it to PEC. Elder T did most of the talking as I didn't know what was going on. Elder D (aka Catman) and Elder F went to Alma together and had a good time.

Thursday was in Hazelhurst. We did all sorts of things and talked to several people. It was a pretty good day and we met some fun people. Biking after not doing so for a while was really fun as well. There was a really strong headwind and it made biking difficult. I didn't like it. We had dinner at the P's and it was very fun. Brother P made delicious homemade chips. It looked fairly easy. Dad, when I get back, we are going to build a drill fry machine. I don't think I could wait for da Vinci Days.)We had a fun lesson about the Book of Mormon. We came back to the house and decided to stay the night in Hazelhurst since we could just trade back in the morning. On a side note, my hair is getting pretty long and it was so windy that it really whipped it around (see Picture #1).

Friday we traded back. There was a slight mix up on the road and we didn't quite meet up but after the confusion we found each other and talked for a bit. Then we headed back to Alma. I took a shower and
dressed and all that normal stuff. We had our weekly planning as that was something we had put off because of trade-offs and zone conference. We saw plenty of people and talked to many others.

Saturday was a pretty crazy day. My planner looks nothing like how the day actually went. At Sister W's we smashed a mattress. She needed it broken down to put on the fire and Elder F was happy to oblige (See Picture #2). Baking was another thing we did. We baked cookies for an investigator as it was her birthday on Friday. We really didn't bake them. It was pre-made cookie dough. We really just warmed them
up. I also know it says don't eat raw dough, but we did it anyway. She really enjoyed it. We had a less active member that we had been visiting regularly shout at us to "never come back". He's always been very nice and always invites us in. It was really weird and it kinda made Elder F and I sad. We cleaned up a painting that someone gave us of a deer. It had cobwebs all over it and dead things, but we sucked them out with the vacuum cleaner and now it looks really good (See Picture #3).

Sunday was Stake conference. It was broadcast from Salt Lake which was strange. Usually it happens at the Stake Center in Tifton. It was good though and I enjoyed it. All of our plans basically went kaphoot. Everyone rescheduled to a different time but it all worked out. We were going to have lunch with the G's but they had to leave. We had their taco soup and delicious pudding. We went home teaching with
President Park in Nicholls and met some really interesting people. That's where I saw two really really nice cars. I talked about them in my snail mail. We had a nice chat with S and B. We taught the Plan of Salvation both times. B was really happy which was really awesome to see. She's usually kind of straight faced and not to happy. It was a good day.

I love you all and miss you all. I hope everything goes well for you and may you find happiness.

Love,
Elder Matthew Carlson

Picture #1

Picture #2

Picture #3