But anyway- we've had some fun times this week. Monday the big highlight was Pizza Hut with Sister P as it has been every Monday for a while. I ate a lot of pizza. My favorite would be the steak and barbecue sauce one- it's just so good. Then on top of the many slices of pizza, I had many bread and cinnamon sticks. So, I ate a lot. Then we went and played tennis with A and J. We played for a long time and had some pretty good volleys back and forth but we still are all not very talented. We had dinner at their house which, as usual, was really good.
Tuesday I went to Crawfordville with Elder T. We went to district meeting and it went pretty good. I feel that many things were learned and that faith was increased. I hope the district appreciates these meetings- I just don't want them to feel like they're boring or a waste of time. I really want to help them as I have a lot of love and respect for the Elders of my district. I've gotten much better at being a district leader but I still have a long way to go. Planning district meeting has gotten much easier and I feel my delivery has improved as well. Anyway, Crawfordville is a large and very good branch. They also have a lot of good food but I'll get to that later. The Elders there temporarily gave up their car for a transfer as there is a car shortage here in the mission. So all they have is bikes. Their area is also very far away from ours. It's about an hour and a half of driving on the freeway between Madison and Crawfordville. But anyway, I hopped into the car of the member who had brought the Crawfordville elders to the meeting in Perry. The first stop was at Golden Corral. It was pretty good as far as buffets go. The floors were clean and the food was decent. I really liked the desserts though- they were really good. It was my second or third time going to Golden Corral so I wasn't sure how different it would be from the Pensacola one (the Pensacola one was really nice and bigger). I was a little disappointed with their lack of selection though. We got back and after studying for a bit and working out plans for the day to try and throw off the food grogginess, we hopped on the bikes and started biking. I had forgotten to put the bike rack on the B's car that morning to bring my bike as the B's take us to district meeting so I rode Elder A's bike that day. He's about 6" inches shorter than me so his bike was kind of small. It was a Liahona bike from back in the day when the church made bikes. It was actually a pretty nice bike considering what it has been through. Anyway, we biked to many people who weren't home or busy. =( It was kind of disappointing but Elder T didn't let it get to him and we worked hard all that day. I did get to see a giant elephant in someone's yard which was kinda cool.
I'm not quite sure what he's doing with an elephant but it was pretty big. We also got chased by a dog. That was a bit scary but I outran it (I was surprised how quickly I accelerated). We had dinner with a wonderful family who is a part member family. The husband is reading the Book of Mormon and is really nice. He's a teacher who taught math and computers. We had a good chat about a variety of things: computers, telescopes, and most importantly the Book of Mormon. It might take a while but he's on the right track. The food was really good as well. German noodles called spaetzle or something, Swedish meatballs the size of my fist (for the record I have a large fist), and cheesecake brownies (with whipped cream and cherries). We biked out a ways and visited M. The Elders have been working with him. He's a great guy and we invited him to be baptized. He's not sure yet so we talked about reading the Book of Mormon. He made the comment, "Maybe I should read it everyday. Just take an hour every night before bed and read it". I was very impressed. He gave us a ride home which was really nice as it was dark and the apartment was a long ways away. The Crawfordville apartment is really nice and I enjoyed the trade-off. Elder T is a great missionary and works very hard to follow the Spirit. His main focus and desire to serve and help people. Usually on trade-offs I like to ask people about their family and what they like to do to get to know them better. Most of our conversation was focused on missionary topics.
Wednesday we traded back and Elder B came to pick me up in Crawfordville. We had a great lesson with C. She's doing great! We taught her about the restoration and she just understands everything and really just gets it! She's a wonderful lady and really enjoys our visits. We mowed Sister B's lawn which was fun.
We had a few other good lessons particularly with R and R. We also had some disappointments as many things fell through this week. I'm just going to keep going.
I'm out of time but I love you all!
Many people are "happy if..." The Savior's Atonement allows for all our losses to be made up. So therefore, life is even. When we trust in the Savior we are "happy even if...".
I love and miss you.
Elder Matthew Carlson
