I'm sorry, but I don't have much time this week, so I'll cover what I can.
This transfer looks to be a good one. We have some fantastic new people that we are now working with that I'm really excited about! I'll tell you about them in a little bit. This transfer is a bit of an odd one. The MTC is switching over to new, faster time schedule of 2 weeks instead of the traditional 3. Therefore, the mission is moving to a different transfer schedule to accommodate that. This new transfer is only 5 weeks long instead of the usual 6 (those of you with calendars, that means the next transfers are on February 20th). That means also that all the missionaries go home dates are moved up a week.
The three people we've been working with are: S, E, and L.
S is a super nice guy who has a lot of faith in God and is a good, hard working guy. He likes to be prepared and has noticed that almost all preparedness stuff goes back to our church. He has a TON of questions that we answer to the best of our ability. I feel that he will really progress and I really liked a comment he made: "You know, you guys are the first ones to really not just try and convince me but are like hey- go asked God about this". He wants to come to church and hopefully he'll be there next week. =)
E is the fiance of a non-member. She's been less active for a number of years but has a good testimony and really knows a lot! She came to church yesterday and loved it! Her fiance is really nice and he knows quite about us and has read the Book of Mormon before. He hasn't prayed about it. We had a great lesson with them both and we invited him to be baptized and he agreed! =) He didn't come to church yesterday as he stayed up for most of the night reading the Book of Mormon. I can't really get mad at him...
L is a media referral we just got! We were able to meet him and he's super nice! He's Baptist but always had some questions and recently visited Salt Lake City. He went through one of the museums there and the missionaries answered many of his questions. He really wants to read the Book of Mormon which is awesome! We're going to visit him next week and explain to him where the book came from.
PICTURE TIME!
It was a nice day and there was a nice view. (it looked better in person)
On the day that we got a referral from headquarters, we had a rather discouraging morning and when we got that text it really cheered me up. We were going by Fresh Market (much like World Market back home) and I decided to get some sushi for lunch.
I even made Elder W eat one. He was incredibly suspicious and it took a lot of coaxing to even get him to touch it. He did enjoy the wasabi though.
All in all it was quite delicious and it was pretty good sushi. Especially for coming in a box.
We were walking along and met some people who we knew that missionaries had worked with in the past. They were sorting boxes of girl scout cookies. We tried to help but it was kind of a two people job kind of thing. They did give us each a box of cookies though (I tried to refuse but they were insistent).
I love you all! and miss you and stuff!
--
Elder Matthew Carlson
