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

The Giraffe Letter

This is a hand written letter we received from Matthew. It had a giraffe sticker at the top so that seemed like a good title for this post.

Hi family!

Things are going good. I’m probably going to be in Alma a little while yet. Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see. We’ve been doing some good stuff. We haven’t seen a whole ton of success but it’s looking up. We’ve been working hard. We taught 31 lessons this week! That’s less actives and member lessons included, but still.

We’ve been working with a really nice young man named R. He’s been reading and praying. He’s planning on being baptized February 15, 2010! I’m really excited.

Today marks two months in Alma. It’s weird to think I’ve been here for two months now. I know it’ll be weirder in a year.

I can already see the great and dreadful day approaching. Great because I miss ya’ll :-). Dreadful because my mission means a lot to me already. I can’t imagine what it’ll me in 13-21 months. But we’re going shopping soon. So I close my letter.

P.S: I melted a toilet!!! I sprayed a disinfectant on the seat and I came back a few minutes and it was melting! Sort of. It looks really weird now. It has little dots that are really white and if you try to wipe them away they smear. It’s gross!

P.P.S: Thank you for the letters from you all! And the package. I loved the notes in the box and the stuff inside.

Thank you for everything!

Love you and miss you!

(that includes everybody)

Beat the Heat

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!

Sorry about that. I felt like holding some keys down.

This week has been a most interesting and tiring one. There are some days that the first half of my journal entry for that day is mostly non-sense. I would try to write in my journal, but would be so tired and half asleep after using the last little bits of my brain that were still working to plan; that I would just write stuff that makes no sense. I wrote for a few minutes, read what I wrote, and gave up. I would brush my teeth and crawl to bed. I then finished the rest of the journal entries the next day during lunch.

Some of the week highlights include but are not limited to:

Contacting bunches of less active members. They are 100 something people who are members here in Alma. Only about 30 come to church. So we talked to a good number of them. We explained to one lady that we don't pray to Joesph Smith. We tried to find some address that, as far as we could figure out, doesn't exist. We persevered and found one addresses that had been previously lost. It was abandoned and very dusty. I'm pretty sure that no one has lived there in several years.

Dinner with the W's. We drove out to Nichols. We followed the directions which were "the first store you see on the right by the church". We stopped at the first store we saw on the right, which was a diner. Elder F explained that store in the south is anywhere you spend money. While we were waiting since Brother W was running late, we received a call from him. He asked where we were. We then saw his giant black truck roll by and he stopped and picked us up. He flipped a u-turn and drove to his house. It turned out we were supposed to stop at the store right after the diner. There was a large church in between the store and the diner. We had a great time at the W's. They are a wonderful family and fed us fried deer. In cubed form even. It was actually pretty good. Brother W made a "secret" sauce that was actually really good for the meat (it's just Worcestershire sauce and ketchup mixed together but I don't know the ratio).

Dinner at the P's. They are another wonderful family here in Alma. They're the ones we spent Christmas with. D has several samurai swords. Elder F couldn't resist (see picture #1). Brother P is hilarious and he's really nice.

We found an attack helicopter. It's mounted on a stick downtown (see picture #2). There wasn't really a plaque explaining why there was a helicopter there. There was a memorial of all the people in the various wars from Alma. I don't know why there is a helicopter there.

We helped out an older widow prune her grape vines. I got stabbed many a time by the briers that were plaguing the way. They haven't been maintained in several years. She is a very nice lady who is the aunt of a member in the ward. She fed us spaghetti for our reward. She has many pets. She has literally a dozen cats, some alligators, and a peacock. I'm sure she has more but those are the ones we know about. We saw the peacock right there and we got our cameras out of the car but it ran away. We chased it and I got just the tail end of it as it disappeared into the trees (see picture #3). It was a beautiful bird. I got another picture but it's blurry and the peacock is very far away.

We've been working with Brother J a lot this week as well. He has a smoking problem and we have been working with him to help him quit. It's hard for him since it helps him relieve stress and he has a lot on his plate. He's making steps though.

I don't have any really crazy or funny stories this week. At least not off the top of my head. It's been workity working work this week.

Fun fact about Alma. There is a dog food plant. You can see it here (see picture #4). It's cool that we have a dog food plant and all but it smells bad. It's smells like dog food like nothing else.

Today, I asked the post office for the Pixar stamps but all they had were Christmas ones. I hope they get some new ones by next week or you may get a Christmas themed letter in late January.

Life continues to go on and get a little better every day. I think it's awesome. Missionary life is just getting better and better. The other day it was thundering and lightning and it was AWESOME! They was a flash of lighting about every 10 or 20 seconds. It was so cool. Not really any in the way of thunder. We weren't too badly soaked by the time we got home as it was only drizzling. Getting better all the time!

Thank you all for everything you do. Even you too Michael (Dad told me about how you've been helping out with mah blog).

Love you all,
Elder Matthew Carlson


Picture #1

 

Picture #2

 

Picture #3

Picture #4

The Sticker Letter

Matthew sent us a handwritten note with stickers on it. He used stickers of a cat, a UFO, a snail, a hot rod car with flames on the side, a hammer, and a flower. Michael had sent Matthew a letter with some math problems on it so that Matthew can keep his calculus skills sharp. Matthew included his answers to the problems on a pink sticky note that was in with the letter. They taught 27 discussion this month!!!

Familia!

How's it going? I've very much appreciated the letters, cards, vitamins [we sent him some vitamins], cookies, and love. Did you get my package? Was it safe and was anything broken? I hope not. [The package was safe and wonderful - it was like Christmas morning again for us. The letter in the package was posted earlier]

But yeah. Today has been a good p-day. We got gas, cleaned the house, shined our shoes, started laundry (not done yet), washed cat paw prints off the car, and did our shopping. It was a busy day. About the cat paw prints, we had parked the car and contacted people in the area so we were on foot. When we got back to the car, there were about 5 or 6 cats all over the car! Elder F, the diplomat that he is, walked up and shouted "Rawr!" in a big voice. The cats all jumped off and hid. We drove home with paw prints.

But yeah. This week's been a long one. Busy too. Friday in particular. I'll probably have emailed you [previous post] by the time you get this letter. So I'll email you about it.

I don't really have any stories this week. We really just worked a ton this week. We gave out 10 or so copies of the Book of Mormon which was a record and taught 27 lessons! We usually get 12 or 14. So we kicked butt this week.

This week we found a lot of new investigators and lost some old ones. The lady with the baptismal date isn't doing so good. She wasn't progressing and she was going to another church. But we found two new people. A man named D C came up to us and told us he had just moved from another town. He had almost gotten baptized. We also found a R G. He's an 18 year old kid who has a baptism date of February 19th! We found him this week. I'm excited.

I can't believe I've already been out 2.5 months. It feels like not that long ago that I left but it also seems like an eternity.

One thing I'm excited about is we are going to help out an older lady named A. She's not a member but she's a member's aunt. So we're going to serve her. I think she has a barn and chicken coop that Elder F and I are going to tear down. Exciting stuff!

But yeah. Life is good. We got weather stripping and sealed our front door. It's going to be a lot warmer in here at night. Last night was pretty warm. I wore a sweater. The nice blue one you sent me even.

I do enjoy preaching and preaching the Gospel.

I found a really awesome tie the other day! It was just a really old, really colorful polyester. Kind of Jerry Garcia like but it looked like it was from the '80's. I've definitely seen some pretty crazy ties that missionaries have. They save them for Sunday or zone conferences.

But, I close.

With all my love,

Elder Carlson (or Matthew)

Two Guys On A Dusty Road

We're almost to the two month mark that I came to Alma. It feels like much longer than that but it also seems like much shorter.

Today is a wonderful balmy 71 degrees. It's slightly cloudy, sunny, and I'm enjoying it while it's not frying me. I'm not looking forward to the summer. Maybe I'll serve down by the coast or the beach. Those ocean winds do wonders for the temperature.

This week, I've walked down a lot of dirt roads. We've been visiting a lot of the less actives that live way out there. So we've been walking on dirt. I've got the pictures to prove it. Sorry I don't have a whole lot of pictures, I just didn't take any pictures really so far this transfer. I'll try and get another of Elder F and I.

I sent you a letter this week [the next blog post] so that should go over a little bit of what went on this week. However, I did save one day in particular so I could write it up in my email.

I will go over the rest of the week lightly, but I don't have my planner with me and the moment. I am pretty much lost without the thing. It's my favorite thing that I carry with me (besides my scriptures and my water).

We taught a lot of new people this week. Elder F loves going out and just talking to people. It's not just tracting. He knocks on doors, talks to people in the street, pretty much everywhere. I'm getting better about just opening my mouth and talking to people about religion. It's a little weird still but it's getting more normal. I know back in Oregon, religion is just not a subject that came up really.

We met many interesting and sometimes very strange people. I talked more about one person in particular in my mailed letter [the next blog post]. We talked to lots of people and very few really pursued it any further. We've been busy though. Our meal calendar is the fullest it's ever been. We have about 3 to 4 every week! We taught some good lessons and had some fun times.

The day I was referring to earlier was in fact, Friday. We received a call late Thursday night. It went something like this:
  "Hi Elders in Alma!"
  "Hi there Elder T. What can I do for you?"
  "Well, actually do you want to come to Tallahassee tomorrow?"
  "Ummm,...why?"
  "Someone is coming to speak and we're headed there."
  "Uhhhh,....Sure."

So the next day, we arrived in Douglas about 11 o'clock. We hopped in the transfer van and drove to Tifton. We picked up the Elders there and then drove to Tallahassee. We got there a little before 4. Elder Larry Gibbons from the 70 was speaking. He talked a lot about working with members and finding people. He talked for a really long time. It was good but 3 hours straight of sitting and listening kinda wears me out. We had sandwiches at the mission home and then hopped in the car and headed back to Tifton. We had to ride back with the Sisters as there wasn't enough room in the transfer vans. On the way up, the Zone leaders had made two of the new missionaries ride with them. On the way back, they asked us to ride with the sisters. We left about 20 minutes before the zone leaders left and they still beat us to Tifton by 10 or 15 minutes. The sisters got lost twice on the way back. It was Sister F, Sister G, and Sister H. I was a little apprehensive about riding with the sisters as the two missionaries who rode up with the Sisters said they almost died. Sisters G and H were drifting in and out of sleep so we really only talked to Sister F. She's really awesome.

But yeah. We arrived in Tifton and then went with the zone leaders to Douglas. We drove back to Alma even though it was really late.

I love you all and miss you.

Loves,
Elder Matthew Carlson

Box Letter

Matthew sent us a box full of goodies and with it this letter. It was very exciting.

Hello family!

This is a box! With stuff!!! Not impressed? Ah well.

Any who, this is a box with some of my Christmas things in it as well as a taste of Georgia.

I sent some grits. In packet form. They're the four different flavors. So you can cook them up and each try a little bit of every one. If you want to put cheese on the original, I suggest pepper-jack. Apparently, it's a big breakfast food, so that's why I haven't had it at a member's home. The fried chicken here is really good. It's chicken that's fried, yes. But it's somehow more than that!

But yeah. Life is good. Like guda cheese. Maybe guoda? Gouda? I'm not sure how to spell that.

Matthew drew a picture of a very important math equation: "Cheese! + Crackers = Mini Sandwich!"

Your Noodlehead in Georgia,
Elder Matthew Carlson

This was found on the back of the letter.