New Jersey, New Comp, and Christmas

Aloha everyone, 

Hope y'all have had a great week, like I mentioned last week I was getting transferred, and now I'm up in Moorestown New Jersey, it's actually called riverside New Jersey but it's in the Moorestown area I guess. We have a car which is nice, and we also get bikes so we do that a lot too, and it's freezing so that makes it suck but you can't win em all.  My new companion's name is Elder Watts, he's from Utah, and he's not polonesian. He will take some getting used to. We get fed here quite a bit which is nice, the people here are a lot ruder than in southwest Philly, but there are definitely nice people. We do a lot of knocking on doors which I hate cuz nobody wants to talk to us cuz they have lives and stuff, but it could be worse I guess. 

On Friday we had a Christmas zone conference and that was awesome. My new district seems pretty cool, and we had a talent show and I got to play a piano peice I know and it went really well. Yesterday was Christmas eve and we got to take cookies around to investigators, and that was fun! Then we had Christmas eve dinner at a members house and we ate vegan shepherds pie which was actually really good, definitely different than anything I've eaten on Christmas eve

Today I get to FaceTime my family which I am SUPER excited about, and thank u to everyone who sent presents and packages, its been super awesome to get them. I know this church is true and that's the only reason I'm out here doing what I'm doing, Merry Christmas! 🤶

-Elder Carlson

First Transfer

What's up everyone,

So I just found out last night that I'm getting transferred, so that's fun. It's weird to think that this place I've spent like 4 and a half months trying to bring people to Christ, and now I'm moving on to somewhere new. I'm not sure where yet but I'll find out tomorrow morning so don't send anything to my apartment cuz I'll be gone Tuesday morning. I'm definitely gonna miss this area, I've learned more about polonesian culture than I ever thought I would, and it's been an interesting experience literally sharing the gospel in the hood, and street contacting gangs smoking weed on the side of the road, and basically the whole ward being from Africa, but it's been a great experience.

We were able to meet with Anime this past week and it went well. He has a bunch of weird questions that we don't even have the answers to like why do we not call Jesus Christ Yahweh, and stuff about the Bible and really deep doctrine. The thing with him is that he doesn't like faith, he wants there to be physical proof of everything before he believes it, but it can't work like that because we got put on this earth not knowing everything, and that's because faith is a huge principle Christ taught during his early ministry. He definitely could feel the spirit and said he did and he's coming to play basketball today with us. He's a super great guy.

We were also able to go down to New Jersey this week. We were helping a member move, and he needed to go down there, so he drove me and my companion in his big u haul, and it was amazing! It was literally all open fields, forests and farms. It was so sweet to get out of the hood and go down there for an hour or so. 

But yeah we haven't been able to meet quite a few people this transfer with elder Selu, so I'm really hoping that he will be able to meet with them while I'm gone. I really want them to be able to be baptized because they want to we just literally can't get a hold of them and then they always cancel. 

So yeah that's that. I've been able to study a lot of different topics to answer investigators questions and it's been really helpful to study all those topics and it always makes me realize how true the church is, and how God truly has a plan and his timing is perfect. Love and miss u guys! 

Pics descriptions:

1-2. Last time getting falones cheestake

3. Dope mirror selfie with the elders 

4. Right before going street contacting for 4 hours in the freezing cold 

5. Christmas tree in the mall

6. Christmas tree with cool effects 

7-8. District pictures 

9. Messing with snow

10. The elders when we were waiting for 45 mins in a snowstorm

11. Collage of some things this transfer.

12-13. Pics from New Jersey 

14. With ma boi Anime before I head out

Snow and Dispelling Spirits

Hey guys! 

Haha yeah that title might seem a bit strange but I'll explain that in a bit.  First off we finally were able to meet with our investigator Anime and that was awesome, he had a lot of really interesting ideas and most of it didn't really make sense and I'm not sure why people have these weird questions, but they were really genuine and we answered them pretty well, just a lot of questions about Heavenly Mother and whether or not to call Jesus by that name or the original Hebrew name Yahweh. Stuff I've never even thought about but it was cool to see other people's perspectives I guess. I really hope we can keep helping him progress, he's super solid and feels the spirit a lot with us.

Now about the dispelling spirits...so this happened actually when me and Elder Selu were handing out Light the World cards next to the church for three hours in the freezing cold and getting ignored by everyone. This older African man comes up and asks if we can give him a blessing. I say of course, and he says that Satan has been sending evil spirits into him and giving him demonic attacks and doesn't know what to do. Now I can tell he has an evil spirit in him because right when he walked up a terrible presence felt like it came with him. So we take him inside and go into a room, and I start giving him a blessing, and I basically tell the spirit in the name of Jesus Christ to leave his body, and all of a sudden you can feel the Holy Ghost in the room. After the blessing he goes "after that I no longer have bad urges and demons because I am filled with the holy spirit" so yeah I guess that can go down as a pretty dope experience! 

Other than that we were able to help a member move all day on Saturday which was sweet cuz that meant we could spend a ton of time in the snow, like for real it feels like I'm in Idaho or something cuz that's like the only time I see snow! It's so cool, plus I got these really sweet snow boots that are actually super ugly but freaking sweet. Um other than that we convinced a bunch of people that me and my companion were from Australia (we started street contacting in different accents to keep things from getting too boring) so that was dope. So yeah there we go, this week has been focused a lot on lighting the world during Christmas time. I know that doing as Christ did in his earthly ministry we can feel the love of Christ for others and be blessed for doing that.  Love and miss y'all! 

-Elder Carlson 

Pics descriptions:

1. Chilling with the Phillies mascot 

2-5. Handing out Light the World calendars in the freezing cold getting ignored

6-10. Snow!! 

Tis the Season

Hallo everyone, 

Hope y'all have had a great week, this week we have been focusing a lot on serving because of Christmas time and I never realized how many Ebenezer Scrooges there are in the world. Like for real we knock on people's door and ask if we can take their yard and they're like "who do you think you are this is my yard"...some people need to chill.

 We have been able to show quite a few people the Light the World video which is amazing and always brings the spirit. This one person we showed it to and somehow that conversation turned from him talking about 3 bibles to how we need to enlist in the army. Then he sees someone drive past and he waves at him, then turns to us and says "that's my nephew, all he does is kill people and steal money, I've tried to talk to him but he's so stubborn he won't listen" so that's always fun to hear especially as missionaries. 

Other than this week has been kinda discouraging because we literally can't get any lessons. We will set up appointments, call them that morning, and then they will cancel, or we show up and they aren't there. This has been happening to every investigator and so we need to find ways to fill the day which usually means street contacting (my least favorite because literally everyone we walk up to could possibly have a gun or something) or service (more fun but nobody is interested...yee)

So yeah that's pretty much it. For those of you who didn't see the first presidency Christmas devotional last night it was super awesome, and u can check it out on lds.org or BYUtv. I know this church is true, and that by serving others the way Christ did we are not only becoming more like him, but helping others feel the love of Christ. Love and miss y'all! 

-Elder Carlson 

Pics descriptions:

1. Me chillin' on my throne

2. My companion and I with 100 chicken nuggets that his parents had catered to us

3. Ma boi Gregg came to chill with me during sacrament meeting, love that kid

 

Aye it's Pday again

Hey everyone, 

 

Hope u all have had a good week. These past 4 days since Thanksgiving have been pretty tight. Friday we had 5 lessons planned, and 5 cancels...and then we were supposed to have 5 investigators come to church on Sunday and they all said they were coming that morning, and then church came and a solid zero ended up coming. So that's a rip but you can't win em all. 

So we've been doing a lot of street contacting since we've been having little success with lessons. On Saturday we were stopping by to give this one lady a Bible she requested and some really ghetto looking guy with a huge goatee and a blunt in his hand answers and is like "what do you want" so we tell him we're here to give the girl her Bible, he says he will give it to her, so we're about to leave and I give him a Christmas pass along card, and he goes "oh u wanna talk about Christmas cuz we can talk for hours about that but you ain't gonna like it" now these are moments I really can't stand cuz I'm a missionary and cant just rail them in the head while they spew all this false doctrine at us, but my companion LOVES these moments, so he's like "yeah we have time tell us" so that proceeded into an hour and a half back and forth thing with this dude on his front porch while it's freezing. He's just going off about how we are going to hell because we believe in Jesus, and he says we shouldn't have Christ's name in our church because...i really don't know because halfway through I just completely zoned him out and started thinking about food. I wanted to knock that dudes teeth out, but however that probably wouldn't be best for anyoneI wanted to just walk away so bad but my companion kept asking him questions because he loves this kinda stuff

Also guys! It's almost December, and our church is doing this thing called #LightTheWord because Jesus is the light of the world, it's basically 25 Days of December, and 25 days to do service. It's super dope, and we've been handing out a lot of those cards and advertising it a lot so go check it out at mormon.org, or lds.org. I know this church is true, and that with Christ we can overcome anything, and by giving service we are giving back a tiny fraction of what Christ did for us. Miss and love y'all! 

-Elder Carlson 

Pics descriptions:

1-3. Me and elder Selu saw cool leaves and took pictures with them

4. With a package my mom sent 

5. One of the Light the word poster things 

Thanksgiving and Poly comp #2

Hey everyone, 

Hope y'all have been having a good week. It's been pretty good here. I'm emailing you guys today because our pday got moved to today because it's Thanksgiving. Hope you guys are having a good meal, cuz we aren't getting fed tonight. I got a new companion, his name is Elder Selu, and he's a huge Samoan dude from Utah, it's crazy cuz both my companions have been Polynesian...maybe it's a sign. Anyway he's a great guy and we get along really well. It's definitely been hard having Elder Makuakane gone just because he was an awesome trainer and taught we so much, and was also like my best friend.  But like it's cool.

We've actually met some solid people this past weekish. We met this one guy named Hamlet who is sooo solid, and we actually have him a baptism date for the 9th, he couldn't come to church and we haven't seen him since so I hope we can still get to see him come to church and get baptized. Then one day we were street contacting, and I felt impressed to go talk to this one lady, so we went up and asked if we could help her, and she was like "I've been praying for someone to come help me for so long" we prayed with her on the sidewalk, told her about our church, gave her our number and card, and then we went back to work, then we met this guy named Anime (yeah like the Japanese cartoon) and he had a lot of weird ideas about religion about spirituality, but he's super solid, and I have high hopes for him.

I know this church is true, and I know that everyone can feel it if you truly have a desire, love and miss y'all! 

Elder Carlson

Pics descriptions:

1-2. Last pday with elder Makuakane

3. My new companion elder Selu

4-5. Service with part of our zone (Elder Selu is the one in the black crouching down in the front)