Life is fragile. Handle with prayer.

Hello y'all!

It's been a pretty crazy week - it's a Wednesday and I'm emailing. Like I said crazy. Let me splain. The library we email at is the local college library but it's in between terms right now and have reduced hours of operation. We arrived after a grueling and intense floorball session only to find the library was closing. We were planning to come back the next day but we had some business to take care of from Gulf Breeze (a baptismal interview for the senior couple down there) and due to a subsequent storm did not make it to the library before closing time. We arrived after a lovely lunch at Chick-fil-a with a member only to have the library tell Elder B that he needed a proof of address since he card was registered to an Elder G. We biked back to the apartment, got a letter, and came back. She still didn't want to accept it as the letter's address was hand written. She wanted a bill or something. We explained we receive no bills and therefore could not comply with her request. After some discussion and a phone call to a manager she let us slide in this once but next week we may not be so lucky. I don't know why they let us in for 7 weeks without any problem. Ah well. That's life =)

Other crazy stuff....

I hit a squirrel. On my bike. It was nuts.

I was biking along rather rapidly and trying to get back to the apartment to meet up with a member who came to pick us up and we were already late when a squirrel hanging out in the grass doing regular squirrely things decided to run at my bike tire. I'm not sure why squirrels instinctively run at large moving objects but they do. It happened so fast and so quick that I didn't have time to react. The squirrel dramatically threw itself underneath my tire, somehow escaping the crushing rubber tread, and decided life was not over and there were yet many more acorns and nuts on which to gnaw briefly and then bury. It then did a double or triple back flip and hurriedly ran up a tree. Elder B saw the whole thing and he said it was hilarious.

Finally some pictures!

This a picture of our district at the last transfer (see first picture).

We've recently began the practice of naming our weeks code names. This week is named "Buttered Turtle" (don't ask, it was Elder B's turn to decide this week). He drew a rather cute little picture which I thought might be fun to share (see second picture).

There's lots of pretty clouds here in Pensacola. I took a few more pictures. (see third and fourth pictures).

During our companion study we learned that the ancient Jews in Jerusalem around 40 AD had cars. The one recorded was a Honda Accord. It's Acts 7:57 (it's during the stoning of Stephen). "And they came on him in one accord". Elder B drew a picture in commemoration of this discovery (see fifth picture).

I'm having a pretty good time here in Pensacola. Elder B and I are continuing to have good fun and do our best. We're just going to keep chugging along. I love and miss you all!

Cheers!

--
Elder Matthew Carlson

Pensacola Round 2

Weellllp. Looks like I'm going to be in Pensacola for another transfer! With Elder B! As far as people to teach goes, we've been a little dry. We really only have one person we are actively teaching. We have some promising referrals and some potential investigators that we'll be following up on this week.

I don't really have any funny or cool stories this week - sorry. It was a fairly standard week for us. We did our missionary thing and talked with many less actives - a few even came to church! It was really good to see one less active, M, that we've been working with for a while there. He is a really nice guy and even though he stayed up the whole night before studying, he still came. It was really special for me. I've been pretty happy and upbeat this week except for one day. It was hot, lots of bad things happened (popped tire, appointments fell through, etc.) and I wasn't in a good mood. It could have just been dehydration because after a little while I felt much better.

One neat thing that happened this week was that we went out with some the youth in the ward and went tracting. They seem to have enjoyed it so that was nice. Elder B is really easy to get along with which really helps. We accidentally tracted into a less active who doesn't have much desire to come back to church =(. Really nice guy though.

You asked me a few weeks ago what I've been studying lately. It changes from day to day but I always get a little of the Book of Mormon - just a chapter or two. Then whatever else I want or need to learn about. Sometimes I just keep going in the Book of Mormon and sometimes I study other stuff. For example, yesterday I studied "being saved". We have been talking with a less active who has a lot of the right ideas but just some things are right. We've been explaining and reasoning but he doesn't really want to listen and sometimes tries to argue. I've been restraining myself and not arguing back. But he asked me to research "getting saved" with an open mind. So I did. I looked up everywhere it says saved in the Bible. It was an interesting study and I enjoyed it. Even if he doesn't change, it still strengthened my testimony.

I don't have much in the way of pictures this week. I didn't pull out my camera really at all this week. =(

But I love y'all! Send me a letter, please?

Love,
Elder Carlson

Power Week

This week was a pretty good week. We worked hard and tried our hardest to do the best we could. This week as a mission we did a "power" week. Every missionary set really high goals and everyone did amazing things. As a mission, we almost doubled our usual numbers. It was amazing. Elder B and I had some cool experiences this week as well. We felt impressed to tract a few houses in particular and we found several people with some potential. Hopefully something will come out of that. I also had a cool experience. We were biking on a street I had never been on before. We passed by a house and I felt impressed that we needed to come back and tract one house in particular. I wrote down the address and later as I was going through the area book, I found a less active member that stuck out to me. I looked at the address and found it was the exact address that I had written down.

We've been having fun. Elder B and I get along really well and are pretty unified in our teaching. It's really nice to be in sync with someone.

I don't have too many fun pictures this week. I need to start carrying and taking out my camera more. But this morning we were studying and I looked up to discover that Elder B had a telepathy shield on his forehead. Apparently I was shooting mental static at him or something that was very distracting. I was unaware that I was even able to shoot anything in the mental variety of projectiles but I tried hard to stop. Then I took a picture.

Now for the fun poem of the week.

I have wept in the night
For the shortness of sight
That to somebody’s need made me blind;
But I never have yet
Felt a tinge of regret
For being a little too kind.

Love y'all!

Elder Matthew Carlson

Flying by!

Things are just zooming right on by! It seems as though the weeks are just melting together into a giant blob of missionary work. I'll ask Elder B about "Oh yeah, we saw that person on,...Thursday?" "I think it was on Tuesday" *checks planner* "Oh. It was Wednesday." Anyway, just crazy. I just gotta keep chugging on. =)

But I've been doing pretty decent. It's been a productive week and were trying to do our best. I don't always do everything perfect but hey, I did the best I could do at that time. It was pretty cool. I decided that tracting and our usual approaches to find people weren't working so I decided to ask for a media referral to a family who was ready to hear the Gospel. The next morning we got an HQ referral for someone who wanted a Bible. We stopped by today and they seem pretty interested but we'll talk to her in a few weeks about how her reading in the Book of Mormon is going.

President Jensen has really been encouraging us to become scripture scholars and memorize scriptures. I've memorized 25 scriptures so far! I have all the articles of faith and some of the Book of Mormon scripture masteries. It's kinda cool to be able to whip them out as need.

Sorry I don't have too many pictures. It's been rather rainy and I don't take my camera with me as often. I got drenched one day. It was nice to come home and put on dry clothes. We've been getting fed pretty well by the ward. They've given us groceries if they can't have us over that week which is really nice.

Last week, we went to the thrift store and Elder B got 8 ties. I got one tie. This one (see first picture). It's nice but I didn't notice it was silk. They get ruined in the rain so I don't usually wear them all that often. I really like the CTR Clothing ties. They're very durable, hold up nicely, and, as far as I've been able to tell, are fundamentally indestructible.

It's also been rather hot some of the days this week. One day in particular it was hot and we came in for lunch but neither of us wanted to really move so we sat down for a cold drink. Elder B decided his face could use some cooling off and I took a picture (see second picture).

That's pretty much all I got for this week. Sorry - it wasn't very exciting.

But I miss you all!
Sincerely,
Elder Matthew Carlson

Pensacola Nights, Like Pensacola Days

Shalom and good evening to you my friends! Welcome to my letter, center of stories and wonder.

Haha, I'll stop now.

Hello to all of you. I didn't get a letter out last week but I here's this weeks (complete with pictures). Before I start, a bit of humor.

This story is from Brother R who was in the airforce for many years. He hold us of one time that he was flying a top priority scramble. He and his copilot hopped in the plane and got in the air. After a few thousand feet he noticed a bee in the cockpit. After mentioning this to the copilot, the copilot explained rather panicky "I'm deathly allergic to bees! If it stings me I'll die!" He wanted to land but Brother R wasn't going to abort a high priority mission for a bumble bee. "Just keep climbing. I won't agitate it." So they kept climbing and once they reached about 45,000 feet. He hit the depressurize cabin button. The bee was hovering right above his face and he said the bee grew bigger and bigger and then popped! It was hilarious.

Things have been good here in Pensacola. Elder B and I are continuing to do our best and find those who want to listen. If I could, I would just serve and teach all the time. But alas, I do other stuff. Like meetings and contacting potential investigators, and tract. We're hanging in there and having some fun as we go.

We were helping the old people play bingo and Elder B had this one lady who was really funny. The employee would call "B 15!". This lady would look at her card and notice she had a ten as well as a five (her column was something like this 3-7-10-5-12). She then asked if she could move the 5 and put it in the 10 to make 15. Elder B laughed and said no. We have some fun stories about the bingo people.

I don't have much longer, so on to pictures!

We were biking across the street when I heard a loud bang behind me. At first I thought it was a car backfiring but I realized it came directly behind me and the only thing directly behind me was Elder B. I rationalized that bikes don't backfire and was confused. I looked back and saw Elder B in the middle of the street, stuck. It turns out his bike had indeed, backfired. One of his gears split in half and his bike locked up. He got off and wheeled it off the street to inspect it. That's when we saw the damage (see the first picture). It's fixed now but it remained like that several days since it was a bike from CTR Bikes. Their customer service is terrible. Elder B gave up and paid for it out of pocket.

Elder G and I (see the second picture) together for almost the last time. He's doing well in Madison and is enjoying his new companion.

We were biking the other day and stopped for a water break and I spied a really cool cloud with the sun coming through. The camera actually did it some justice and I enjoyed the effect (see the third picture).

I never sent any pictures of the naval air museum so here's one of me in an airplane (cockpit)! (see the fourth picture). I'll send the rest of the pictures home on an SD card here pretty soon.

I love and miss you all!
---
Elder Matthew Carlson

Drinkin' a big ole' glass of P-Cola

HOWDY! :D

Things are going pretty good here in Pensacola. We're working on finding, as our investigators seem to have disappeared. They all moved away, stopped progressing, or dropped off the face of the earth. Ah well. We're going to have to hit the books and hit the streets. We'll rack our brains and figure out a good way to get things done. People are out there and we just have to find them.

I'm doing fine and am healthy and well. I'm not too fat (yet) and am working on maintaining my money and size. I only got $20 of groceries this week! That's pretty good. I can spend $30 a week! That includes haircuts, stamps, other food, and any other expenses.

Nothing too terribly exciting happened. Things did happen. I got a letter from Stephanie! That was exciting. Elder G left and Elder B came. We ride out bikes a lot. Someday I'll have a car again, but until then I BIKE! I'm considering asking president if I could buy a little 20cc gas engine for my bike. Just for the hills. =)

I do have some pictures today, but the computer and my camera got in a fight and now they won't talk to each other. =( Next time though. =)

I LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL!

Elder Matthew Carlson

And the cycle continues...

Well, it's transfers. In a nutshell, I'm staying in Pensacola. Why? I don't know. President Jensen told me when I got transferred here that he didn't know why. Elder G is leaving for Madison and Elder B is coming. I think I've heard his name once but I've never met him. It seems as though I'm never able to hold on to a companion for very long. I'm not complaining or anything, I'll go where I am needed and with whom I'm needed. It just seems that I am destined to move around much in my time here. We'll see what happens. I like Pensacola. I think there are some wonderful members here and there is much to do and a large pile of work to be done. Someone has to do it.

Anyway, it twas an most exhalirating week. We had some success and were able to put in our efforts and were able to reap somewhat. We recieved a referral for a fantastic lady who is really excited about the Gospel and about the church. Her name is J. She found the church from the TV show "Sister Wives". She watched and correctly reasoned that there is no way that we actually did that. So she started investigating the church, bought a copy of the Book of Mormon from a thrift store and began to read it. She has read most of mormon.org already. She's even already halfway through 2 Nephi in only a couple weeks! She's very smart and has already done much research and already know tons. I think it's really cool how whenever we ask her "Do you have any questions?"; she often says "There are no questions, just answers". It just really helped me out. Most of my efforts here on my mission are devoted to finding and helping people like her. It's pretty cool. =)

I really have learned so much and changed/grown significantly in my time here on my mission. I can feel that I'm a different person, and I just have to trust in the Lord that I've grown in a postive direction.

In other news, I had lamb the other day! It was actually really good. It had eggplant with it and everything. It wasn't very lamby though, it just tasted like meat with tomatos and eggplant. It was really good though.

Thank you for sending the salad recipe! I also have a recipe. =) It's for Dad. It's from Brother J and it's very simple.

BROTHER J'S COOKIES

1 batch of chocalate chip cookie dough
An oven

1. Make chocalate chip cookie dough.
2. Seperate dough into two parts.
3. Bake half of the dough in cookie shape for the required time
4. After pulling cookies out of the oven, smear the remaining cookie dough on top of the baked cookie.
5. Enjoy. =)

I hope you all have a wonderful week and know that I miss you. A lot.
Love,
Elder Matthew Carlson