The Mystery Gang

Hello one and all from Daphne Alabama!

To be perfectly honest, it's rather strange to be back in Alabama with Mobile so close and everybody being either an Alabama fan (ROLL TIDE!) or an Auburn fan (WAR EAGLE). To be frank, I think it's a bit silly how much emphasis is placed on a team of guys trying to beat up other teams of guys for a little leather ball. We see cars around here with Alabama license plates and stickers all over and little Auburn tiger tails sticking out of the back of their trunks. It's pretty crazy. You just can't be neutral - they don't allow that. I think I swore allegiance to one of the teams. I think it was Auburn. We were at Sister V's house and she makes AMAZING cookies. They were ooey, gooey, warm, and very fresh and in order to get one you had to be an Auburn fan. So I became an Auburn fan.

So I packed up my things most of the week earlier but on Wednesday I was sent off the to the transfer spot and clambered in a truck headed for Mobile. It was a nice ride since I got to talk to Elder A, an Elder I knew from Mobile who was headed back to his old area. I arrived in Daphne and was greeted by Elder W. He's tall, skinny, and from Ephraim, Utah! He's a very nice guy and was trained by one of the guys from my MTC district, Elder J (he was actually in the same room with me). He's only been out for 3 months or so now but he's pretty good and knows what he's doing and he's obedient. He also laughs at my jokes which is quite nice. He's my 7th companion! One rather nice thing about going through companions quickly is you can reuse old material! You can tell the same jokes and share the same stories and sing the same songs and they don't notice! =) I talked with President about why I get moved around so much. The answer I got was - it feels right and I trust you completely. Kind of reassuring and scary at the same time.

Anyway, it's pretty nice here. I'll be sending a memory card home quite shortly (today?). I'm a bit over due so it's a bit full. The more recent stuff from Daphne will be on the next card. I'll try and send that one home maybe next week.

Daphne is quite nice. The people here are most friendly and the members are quite insistent on us being fed. We've had a meal almost every night since I've been here and they are very good cooks. We had some quite delicious breaded shrimp last night. (Yes, I eat shrimp now. It's not my favorite thing ever, but it's pretty good.)

I'm out of time!

Elder W on the bridge that's by our apartment (see first picture). We go on a walk around the golf course we live on (it's kinda run down).

Our district from before the most recent transfer (see second picture).

LOVE Y'ALL!

Dragonfly Dynasty to Butterfly Reign

Hello everybody!

These past few months there have been dragonflies everywhere! In Pensacola, there was a small field outside out apartment complex and we would ride past it on our way to our apartment and there would be a veritable swarm of dragonflies and they flitted to and fro about the grass. It looked like a small cloud as there were thousands of them just in that small area. Recently, the dragonfly population has tapered off and now there are many butterflies. It's fun to bike and watch them flutter around me and out of my way. Luckily I haven't hit one yet but I was riding home and there were two flying, one chasing the other and I followed them along for quite a ways. It was quite fun to follow the butterflies until they flew off into the woods.

Anyway, it's been a pretty good week - particularly in the area of food. We have been fed every since night this week. On Saturday we had breakfast, lunch, and dinner at members houses. I really like all the members here in Gulf Breeze. It's a pretty nice place and I would probably live here if I had the chance. Anyway, I do have some rather unfortunate news. I am being transferred to Daphne, Alabama. I had been moving east in the mission but I guess I'm headed back west. All the missionaries who have served in Daphne I've talked to love it. It's Elder V's (he is in our district) favorite area. He's headed home to California on Thursday actually. My new companion is Elder W. I think I might have met him once before but we'll see how it goes. Elder T is coming here to replace me. It's a rather strange transfer. Many missionaries are headed back to old areas and companionships are staying together but moving to new areas. I'm sure it's for the best though. It seems as though I never get to stay anywhere for very long. Three transfers in Pensacola was the longest.

This week was kinda of a chill. Not too productive but we met some nice people who we can hopefully follow up with. We did do a good amount of service. On Tuesday, we helped a member move back into the ward. He had lived here a few years ago and moved to Louisiana but now he's moving back.

On Friday, we had a big old day of service. We mowed two lawns, helped lay tile, and trimmed some lawns.

On Sunday, I gave a talk on repentance which turned out pretty good. Elder B gave a great talk on faith which I really enjoyed.

PICTURE TIME!

I got Elder B to put some of his pictures on my card so I have some oldies. I got a cake pop as it was Elder B's birthday and you get cake pops when it's your birthday from Sister Jensen. He was kind enough to offer me one and I accepted and graciously ate it (see first picture) Well, maybe not so gracefully.

It was after district meeting and we were enjoying each other's company (see second picture). Elder B took pictures and I made funny faces. They're many more but this one was my favorite.

Remember how I talked about how I painted a shed. This is that shed (see third picture). G, Elder B, S, and I are standing in front of aforementioned shed (see fourth picture) as we were the ones who painted it.

There's lots of funny pictures that you can see when I send a memory card home.

I am going to miss this place. It's really quite a great place and a fantastic ward. I'll miss Elder B too. I'll also miss Elder B. And the C's. And our wonderful memory foam beds. I know there's a lot of things I'm going to miss but I gotta look forward with faith. Hope is having the trust that everything is going to turn out for the best. "Whosoever believeth in God might hope for a better world."

It's true.

Love and miss y'all!

Matt with a Cake Pop

Matt making faces

Time is Flying By

Hello everybody from the Gulf Breezes!

Things are pretty good down here. I just got my hairs cut and had some pizza (the C's insisted). It's been a bit of a tough week as we didn't get as much accomplished as we had hoped but I guess every week isn't perfect. I've been really tired this week. So much so that come around 9 pm when it's time to plan for tomorrow, my brain turns off. It was really bad some nights. I just couldn't think at all. Poor Elder B, I was almost no help. It's mainly been because I've been kind of sick. Just a cold but it's taking a while to kick this one. I suppose I just need to rest, but I'm not going to do that. =P

We've got many sweets this week from very nice people. We have delicious chocolate pecan bars, a pumpkin pie, copious amounts of chocolate milk, cookies in many varieties, pumpkin cupcakes, candy, and large amounts of ice cream. I've surprised myself by having a large amount of self restraint. Usually I just attack those sorts of things but I've been holding back. I don't know when or how I'm going to eat all this but I suppose I have to.

Crazy events from this week... Let's see.

Last week we went to the airplane museum again (see first picture). It was pretty fun. A good fun preparation day.

We went to a Thai place and I was looking at the menu and asked the waiter what the combination pad-something was. She asked "Combination?" I responded "Yes" and she promptly took my menu and walked off. It was pretty good whatever it was.

I also got to go back to PENSACOLA WITH ELDER B! The dream team on the road again, Elders B and Carlson for another whirlwind adventure! It was pretty fun. I got to see some old friends who were happy to see me. We were reading scriptures with Sister T and after the prayer she looked at me and said "Wait... Elder Carson! What?" Brother F tried to convince her that I had never left but she was too smart for that. The look on her face was just awesome. We later had lunch with Sister F and after a few minutes Brother F pointed out I was here. Sister F said "Uh! I don't keep track of you guys!" It was kinda funny. Plus I was able to spend the whole day with Elder B.

But it was a pretty good week. Hopefully we'll start seeing some movement with the people we're working with. Sorry I don't have much more to write about.

I ate boiled peanuts (see IMG_0595). I ate way too many.

Anyway, I love and miss you all! I'll be sending an SD card pretty soon here though.

If I Want Fish, I Can Get Fish!

Hello one and all from Florida!

Things have been pretty good. We had a pretty crazy week. From spending 5 hours in the ER at midnight to building sand castles. Pretty fun. More on that later.

Anyway, we've pretty well fed this week. I think we had a dinner appointment every night this week! It's been great. We have left overs and an abundance of food. It's much different than when I first got here. There was no food, just flour and some cooking oil. Now we have all sorts of food and many, many sweets.

We had a really nice lesson with a nice lady we had finally contacted. We had tried to visit her several times before and her husband told us she worked 3 jobs and it would be very difficult to catch her. We were praying and heading out for the day when suddenly she popped in my mind. We had already tried to visit her several times so I kept going according to plan. When we rode by the street that she was on, I felt like we needed to go visit her again so I asked Elder B what he wanted to do. After some deliberation, we decided that the only way to find out if it was a prompting was to try it. We rode to her house and found her car gone. We parked the bikes and I asked Elder B, "Now what?" My question was quickly answered as her car pulled up. We set up a return appointment and we came back this week and taught a wonderful first lesson. She had excellent questions that really helped things along. We were able to answer all her questions and she kept remarking how much sense this was all making. She seems very excited to continue to read the Book of Mormon. I'm hopeful.

Anyway, during this time poor Elder B had come down with a bug. Just typical flu like symptoms - stuffy nose, coughing, icky feeling, etc. Sister C was convinced he was dying and when she found he had several mosquito bites she called Sister Jensen (they're really good friends) and we were driving home when we got a call from Sister C informing us that she would be there in just a few minutes to take us to the hospital to get Elder B checked for West Nile Virus. I was rather confused and protested but I was told she had orders from Sister Jensen. "I guess we don't have much of a choice then do we?" "No you don't" came the reply. We had to wait in the ER while the various people filed in and out. It was eventually our turn and they did tests and found it just a bug. I got the impression that West Nile really isn't all that bad and it gets deadly in extreme cases and for children and elderly. Go figure. I was very tired when we got home around 2:30a and while it helped to sleep in, I was still very tired by the end of General Conference Priesthood session.

We had a barbecue before the session and it was quite nice. I got to interact with other members and Brother L was there. He's one of the "honorary members" in the ward. I was rather surprised to see him at the session. He comes to church when he can and intends to one day join the church once he retires from the military. Very nice guy though. =)

But yes, sand castles. It was on Monday (my birthday) and we went to the beach (see first picture) to eat our sandwiches. I made a sand castle using my cup from Firehouse and it came out quite cool (see second picture). I was very windy and the temple pass-along card was going to destroy the castle with the force it was exerting on the castle from the wind. It was a fun day. I took a video of the presents but you can see I was very prepared for presents (see third picture).

This next week looks like a good one so I'm pretty excited. Those of you who sent me letters, thank you! Please give me some time to write back as I don't have much time to do so and have a few I need to write.

Well, I'm out of time. I love and miss you all!

Evacuate the Building!

Hello y'all!

As you may have guessed, today is

MY BIRTHDAY!!!

It's been pretty fun so far. : D

Anyway, this week was a pretty crazy week. We've been working on trying to find more people to teach and have been somewhat successful. We've been going through the old potential investigator forms and visiting people. We've found many people had moved and a couple deceased people. We have found one or two people who are interested so we'll see what comes of that.

I'll just try and go over the coolest events of each day.

Monday was a nice day as it was preparation day and we mostly prepared. I had a ton of popcorn while I was writing my email. The C's have "popcorn Sunday" where they make their own popcorn on the stove and it's really good. Particularly the day after. I ate way too many bowls. In the evening, we all met up at a Fuji Hibachi Sushi place with sister B. I had some wonderful tempura and it came in a bento box. I thought it was just super neat. I will definitely have to explore this "bento box" concept further later on. We read the Book of Mormon with S and that went alright. He's a great guy. He just has to read the Book of Mormon and really know it's true.

Zone Training was on Tuesday and I greatly enjoyed it. The focus was on faith and on finding new investigators as that is something that our zone has been struggling with in particular. There was a very interesting and lengthy group discussion on faith which was neat. We did role plays afterwards of helping members do missionary work. We arrived early and I was able to meet several of the missionaries in the zone who I don't get to see all that often, which was fun.

I tried to eat the biggest calzone I've ever eaten on Wednesday. The C's took us out to meet with one of the recent converts, Sister S, as well as another less active member that they're working on. We all went to this nice pizza place right by the church. It was really good but I thought it needed more marinara sauce. I should have taken a picture. There we go (see drawing below). =) That morning we had received a referral from church headquarters and they were close by so we went and saw them. We went to the house and saw two people sitting on their porch talking. We were a little hesitant to walk up since we didn't know whether to knock on the door or to ring the doorbell. We walked up and the man said "We know who this is!" They told us to come to the door and invited us right in. Their nephew is on a mission in Oklahoma City and sent the referral. We sat down and they asked us to teach them. It went really well! They asked all sorts of questions and seemed very interested in the Book of Mormon. It was kinda funny as we were explaining prophets he asked, "Well, why haven't there been any prophets since Jesus Christ?" We smiled at each other and I said "We'll get to that." They (the S's) are quite nice and hopefully we'll be able to go back and share more. He's a robotics engineer which I think it super neat.

The majority of Thursday was spent planning and meeting with people. It was weekly planning and we were encouraged by the Zone Leaders to really go into it thoroughly. We did have dinner with the S's who are a wonderful younger couple. I really like them. They have a one year old little girl that is really cute as well.

Friday was anything too special. We did visit some people and got some things done. We did go to the beach by the dock and see the ocean. It was really pretty (see the second picture). The camera just didn't capture the moment correctly. There's more pictures but you could see the ferris wheel all lit up.

Saturday we helped the C's neighbor move. She's quite nice. Hopefully we can talk to her more about what we do and what we know. I also played some very competitive volleyball and actually did alright!

Sunday was the craziest of them all. There were two child of record baptisms that we stayed for after church. I was eating a cookie when someone came by and asked everyone to evacuate the building. I smelled a faint electrical burning smell but it was apparently much stronger in the chapel. We stood outside while it was starting to sprinkle and watched as fire truck after fire truck came on up. We had 4 engines and two support SUVs in the end. We went to the M's for the confirmation. One of the M's boys is headed into the MTC on Wednesday and he's just awesome. I think he'll do great things. It was cool to see that. We had dinner at the L's (a super nice family) and we gave a good lesson about missionary work and temples (the dad is not a member but comes every Sunday and thinks he might join one day).

That's my week! I'm out of time!

I love yall!

(The frog was in our apartment. It was so tiny! I shooed it out. The squirrel just stared at me with a pine cone in it's mouth.)

Biggest Calzone Ever

The Beach at Night

A Tiny Frog

I see a squirrel lookin' at me

Good ole Gulf Breeze

Hello!

Well, I've been here in Gulf Breeze for almost two weeks now. It doesn't seem like that though. My mission is going by much too fast. Part of me likes it going by fast and part of me doesn't ever want it to end. It's just crazy.

Thank you for all the letters (Grandpa and Grandma I received your letter as the Pensacola Elders gave it to me a district meeting). I really appreciated them all. I really liked Dad's letter about Keith. I knew he had guts. =) Tell him I said hi and congratulate him on doing what he knows is right.

This week as been a pretty interesting. I don't really have any amazing events that happened this week. We did go to a funeral for a member in the ward. She sounded really nice from what everyone said and I kind of wish I had gotten to meet her. We also went to a baptismal service! Ironically, the first time I've been to a baptismal service on my mission has been in Gulf Breeze.

I played volleyball with the ward on Saturday. This wasn't the usual volleyball I had played in the past. This was serious stuff. There were rules and all sorts of responsibilities that the different positions had. Brother M (the volleyball enthusiast of the Gulf Breeze Ward) gave me some good instruction and tips. In the past it was just get the ball over the net. This was pretty crazy. I'm still a bit sore still in my quads - something I haven't been in a while (probably because I haven't jumped in a long time).

Elder B and I are still getting along well. He's a very easy going guy and fun. Plus, he laughs at my jokes so that helps. =)

Anyway, the bishop here is really nice and is excited to make missionary work more of a focus in the ward. It's a good ward and is very loving and tries it's hardest to really be a family. We had a meeting (and lunch) with the bishop (it was stroganoff) and discussed how we want things to move forward. Elder B and I really want most of our investigators to come from members instead of us going out and talking to people. Much of what we've been doing these past couple of weeks is that we identified all the people in the potential investigator section of Preach My Gospel and have looked at all of them. We've found many bad phone numbers and vacant houses. The whole zone is going to Fox Run tomorrow for training on "having the faith to find", so I'm excited to learn some things and maybe we can start finding new people. I know I'm planting seeds but I just want to reap fruit now I suppose.

Picture time!

Here is Elder B (see first picture) at a soccer game that one of our investigator's sons played at. The mom and sons are all recent converts and now we're working with the dad. It was a pleasant day out of the sun and the boys who are only like 10 and 11 had some crazy foot work. I saw jukes and fakes and head passes (they hit it off their head to their teammates). I was quite impressed.

Here's me with the famous F's (see second picture)! He's the ward mission leader in Pensacola. I think he'll be pretty surprised to see me again on Wednesday (I'm going up there for a trade-off).

I've been learning and growing much as of late. One of the things in which I have grown much is in my understanding of Jesus Christ. There were very few Sundays growing up where we didn't go to church and there were none of those Sundays where we went to church where He wasn't mentioned. Every night before family dinner we would pray over our food in His name. I know about Him. I'm quite familiar with the various stories as well as the various parables that he shared with his disciples and the people of Judea. I had a testimony and belief that He was who He said He was. I knew the Atonement was real. But that understanding and that deeper appreciation where that knowledge takes on deeper meaning to become a facet of your life was not quite there. It's that understanding of who He is that has caused me to have really developed a greater love and appreciation for Him. Sometimes I think we all forget that as we get caught up in the hubbub and business of life that we let things become surface level. We brush them off too easily and move on to other matters. But much like any good cleaning product, it is most effective to let it sit and allow it penetrate to the root of the dirt.

Jesus Christ really is the Savior. I believe that and all the evidences I have found point to it. The Church really is true.

I love and miss you all! I'd love to be there with y'all, but I'm a little busy right now. =)
--
Elder Matthew Carlson

Breezed Down to the Gulf

Hola mi familia!

I am now in Gulf Breeze and am greatly enjoying the frequent breezes off the coast. We've been walking some the past few days and that breeze really makes life quite nice - just really cools the place off. The ward is quite friendly and is happy to have missionaries. There is already a senior couple here, the C's (on who's computers we are currently emailing). They are really fantastic and it's fun to work with them. There are many wonderful people here and I'm excited to get to know them. I'm hoping they come to really care about me as I do them.

Sister B is a really cool recent convert of three months. She's just a wonderful lady and had many friends in the ward and she fits right in. She gave a talk on Sunday that was quite impressive. She talked about how she always respected her member friends' rules of no Saturday night sleepovers and no Monday night stuff and how she was always curious why but never had a the courage to ask. She knew it was true she just didn't have the courage to ask. She was invited to activities and enjoyed them but someone finally made the leap and asked. We're still working with her husband who is a really nice guy. We read the Book of Mormon with him but there is still just something holding him back. We're working with him though.

I do have a few pictures this week (I have many more but they'll have to wait till the memory card gets sent home).

Elder B wanted me in all my various Perry the Platypus paraphernalia (somehow I've amassed quite a bit). So I dressed up and posed. This was one of my favorite pictures so I thought I'd send it home (see first picture).

Here's (see second picture) Elder B as we romped through the woods looking for a street that as far as we can tell, doesn't exist. =(

We took a picture of the district (see third picture) and from left to right first row: Elder C, Sister C, Elder V and from left to right second row: Elder B, Elder H, me.

Isaiah 53 (or Mosiah 14) is one my favorite scriptures as it definitively sums up the mission and purpose of Christ. It's one of the best descriptions I've found in the scriptures. I'm working on memorizing the whole chapter. I'm about half way through right now.

It really made me feel good when you told me about Spencer praying for me. All your prayers particularly on my behalf really mean a lot to me.

I love you all!