I'm All Sorts of Sore

Hello from Pensacola! =)

We're pretty sore right now as Elder B's bike had to go in the shop. He has no back tire tread and he lost a few spokes so we've been walking. As Dad and Grandpa like to talk about engine or suit-on time, I have had about 9 hours of feet moving time, which translates to about 16 miles in the past two days. Saturday we did 12. We both received a good singe from the sun. I'm not complaining, I'm pretty much recovered by now.

Anyway, I don't have too much to talk about as a good part of this week was in Tallahassee. We just sat around, read, and got fat. It wasn't really all that bad. I like hurricanes. =)

Lately, we've run into some interesting people. There is very little we can do. Usually we just smile genuinely, ask if they need help, and give them a mormon.org card. There just isn't a whole lot you can do.

Enough about the bad stuff - on to the good stuff. We've been working with some fantastic people. It's nice to teach people and actually see a difference in them when you leave. It's a great feeling. Keeping that difference for one investigator in particular seems to be quite tricky.

While we were in Tallahassee, an interesting question was posed by one of the older missionaries. He got to Omni and asked "Where did the Urim and Thummim that Mosiah 1 had come from?" We discussed it, drew diagrams, and searched diligently. We found that the Urim and Thummim had been made and given to the Brother of Jared who passed it down and most likely fell into the hands of the Ether. Mosiah 1 used a Urim and Thummim to translate a stone which was mostly likely written either by Ether or Coriantumur. Mosiah 2 was given the 24 Jaredite plates which he translated by the aforementioned stones and later gave to Alma who gave it to Helaman. Moroni sealed up a Urim and Thummin for Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith had the same one the Brother of Jared was given. We determined that either Ether somehow got the Urim and Thummim to the Nephites or there were actually two Urim and Thummim. We sadly settled on it being unsolvable due to lack of data when Elder B had a breakthrough. He published a radical new finding which he called the "Multi-parallel-dimensional-portal/wormhole-type-thingy theory". It was an immediate success.

On to the pictures!

We were in Tallahassee and found the gym full of mattresses (see the first picture). We decided for privacy and A/C sake, we would move to the seminary room (see the second picture). We had a nice table set up in the middle of the room which I spent many many hours at (see the third picture).

Anyway, I'm doing good. I love and miss you all!

--
Elder Matthew Carlson
Pensacola, Florida
Florida Tallahassee Mission

Camping in the Gym

Camping in the Seminary Room (with A/C)

The Study Table

A Hand-Written Letter!

Hello Family!

I’m doing well! Elder B and I continue to do and try to stay busy and dry. I didn’t have much time to email as Elder B needed the laptop. It was kinda cool to be laptoping it again.

Just a quick update on what’s going on: my biggest problem right now is that the gyms are now banned. The treadmill was really nice and really helped me actually move in the morning. Elders get hurt trying to get ‘buff’ so now it’s off-limits. Back to running in the parking lot I guess. I know it’s for the best and I’m gonna do it. I shouldn’t complain. The other problem is rain. It’s rained here almost every day. It’s just frustrating. You can’t really fight it. We tried – but it wasn’t very effective. [Matthew drew a cute picture of a missionary battling a raincloud with a sword and a piece of paper. The angry faced rain cloud says “Your sword cannot hurt me!” and the missionary says “Aw man”]. But we’ve been trying to/staying busy.

We painted a shed! It was really nice to just have something to do that was very mentally relaxing and simple. It was a light red with white trim. It was pink when we painted it on . We got to talk with G, a young man who’s preparing to go to college and then on a mission. We have been going out with him and really encouraging him. The B’s (whose shed we painted) were really grateful for our service. They gave us brownies . We got a whole plate – each! I’ve eaten many a brownie and have found they’re quite delicious chilled. I did fall off a ladder; that was kinda scary. I only got one cut. It was kind of a miracle. It felt like I was being lowered to the ground. Maybe it was the whole time-goes-slower thing but it seemed like I should have been falling faster. I’m pretty protected.

We had a fantastic lesson with S. She’s wonderfully spiritual and very charitable. You can tell she really does have that relationship with God. A lot of people say they do – she does. She was very receptive and loved our message. She’s excited about reading the Book of Mormon. We’ll see how it turns out. I’m very hopeful. She’s dealing with a few medical challenges which is no bueno.

We have a few people on the back burner. The P’s (a family in the ward) have a friend interested in learning – she just has medical problems and is very busy at the moment. J is still working on reading the Book of Mormon. She’s really intelligent and has been very busy lately. She’s stuck in the Isaiah chapters. She wants to, it’s just hard sometimes. She recognizes her church has no authority and is looking for the true church. So we’re hoping. I think we just need to sit down with her again and discuss it – but she still isn’t really open to that. We’re praying for her. I really have hopes for her and really care about her.

We’ve been really well fed lately. The members seem determined to give us all the food. We have a freezer full of hot pockets and a pantry full of stuff. I’m not complaining.

Sorry but I forgot to mention this in my email. President has started doing a conference call once a week in district meeting. It’s really neat but the tiny speakers on the phone aren’t all that great. Could you poke around online for a 3mm to 1/8" aux adapter? I think it would help the senior missionaries as well.
Speaking of senior missionaries, Elder and Sister C kind of remind me of you except older. I can just imagine you both with name tags and hanging out with us younger folk. They’re really nice.

Now if you’ll excuse me – the J’s have some Finnish chocolate they want me to eat :-). I love ya’ll.

Love,
Elder Matthew Carlson

I Am Fine

Hello Family. I'm alive and stuff. It's getting crazy down here, all the peoples are really hyping up this hurricane thing. We'll see what happens but I'm pretty excited. We're been taken care of very well and everything is very well planned out. We have special permission to email you today to let you know that I'm fine. =) Just let y'all (especially mom) know that things are going to be okay. We're going to be staying in the church building for a day or two which are quite safe. I'm kind of looking forward to being able to spend some time catching up in my journal and in the scriptures but I think I'll be singing a different tune after 6 or 7 hours. Luckily Elder B and other missionaries will be there to keep sane. =)

Anyway, we're going to eat some lunch and then go help someone fix up a roof and take down a satellite dish (those things become missiles during hurricanes).

See picture to see how fine I'm doing. =)

I love y'all and hope you are all doing well.

Love,
Elder Matthew Carlson

All is well

I'm still alive here in Pensacola. This email is coming to you from the lovely laptop of Brother J! The library decided to close an extra two hours early today! But all is well. =)

I'm still doing fine and am enjoying my time with Elder B. It sounds like things are going well at home so that's pretty exciting. I wish Michael good luck at college and stuff. Remember, HOMEWORK FIRST! Mom and Dad tried to teach me that for years and I think I'm only now starting to get it.

Sorry I don't have many pictures but I do happen to have one lovely picture of my (previously) ridiculously long hair. I got a hair cut today and now it's much much shorter. I'll have some fun pictures and videos soon.

Remember that I love y'all. And try not to get ru'rnt. =)

--
Elder Matthew Carlson

Rather Stormy

Greetings!

As the subject suggests, it has been rather stormy here in Pensacola as of late. It's rained about every day. I've only gotten stuck in it once. I got absolutely soaked. My planner used to be beautiful. Now it's all crinkly and twice as thick. We were actually on our way to lunch at Firehouse (a local sandwich shop which is really good - we had a gift card) and it started to sprinkle. It then just came down. The roads quickly filled up and it got crazy. We made the final turn and started going against the rain. Man it stung! Those little rain drops stung. We finally made it there and went inside. We ordered our food and proceeded to leave a large trail of water and a puddle around our table. They have this cool machine called a Coke freestyle. It basically had twenty or so different sodas in it that you can select by a touch screen. But they also have flavors that you can add. If you want vanilla root beer, raspberry diet coke, or orange sprite so be it (I didn't like the orange sprite). I like to try several different flavors so I kept getting up and dispensing a little bit of a new flavor, leaving a trail of water in my wake. It was a good sandwich and the rain finally let up and we were about to make our way back to the apartment to get dry clothes on.

On a spiritual note, it was rather neat as we were able to give a blessing to one of the member's neighbors. They have been working with her for 6 years. The D's are wonderful, and their neighbor S happened to be having some medical problems. They saw the opportunity and invited her over for dinner. They also invited us over. We had a good conversation and the spirit was very strong during the blessing. She was very open and receptive to it. It was a wonderful thing. I really do love to give people blessings. I'm a little nervous of saying the wrong thing but I suppose I just need to trust in the Spirit.

I don't mean to alarm anyone but I did get scrapped up this week (it was actually miraculously much less worse that I thought). We were biking along and someone put their trash can out right in the middle of the sidewalk. I didn't maneuver correctly or did not have adequate space to do so because my handlebar clipped the trash can resulting in my bike taking a sudden hard right and the rest of me continuing on. I actually fell into Elder B's back tire and got my shirt pretty good (see first picture). I stopped my fall with my hand and got pretty dirty and scratched (see second picture) but that was all that really happened. I had a few chuckles after I had hit the ground because it must have looked rather comical. We rode to a nearby Walgreen's and I washed up. We then both got cool Pensacola t-shirts since they were on sale (see third picture).

Well, that's all I have time for today! Hope y'all are well and safe and stuff. Remember that I love you all!

-Elder Matthew Carlson

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