August 23, 2010

Welllll hello family! This is not going to be a very long email you´ll have to forgive me. We got robbed on time this week! But all is definately well and we are going to have a baptism this saturday, i´ll make sure to send the picture!!! The week went by really really quick that is for sure. That is just so weird to me to know you met knight and went to his homecoming. Ky sure is a lucky bugger to have gotten a car! Whatapunk! I saw Jeff´s advertising on it.  Is Campbells back open or what is going on with that? Armando, Stubby, Adam? A lot of unanswered questions in my head there haha. So weird that Whitney ended marrying Gabe.  I don´t even remember them dating in high school to tell the truth. But Gabe is a great kid, i looked up to him a lot when we played soccer together. He took my number the year we took state i was always bitter about that haha. Tell Dad to get his home teaching done, and then to baptise Caputto if he wants to hahahaha. Good to hear my boys won their first game. I love those kids on my team. Tell them hi for me, man..... I miss them as much as anything from home haha. Good to hear Favre is back. You´ll have to send me a few little videos like you did last year. You can send em straight to my email if you want and i´ll put them on my flash disk and be able to watch. You don´t even have to send the memory cards :) Anyways here´s a few pictures, i haven´t taken much lately. You start to loose excitement of pictures after a while but i promise i´ll send em. We´re going to be in mendoza next week on p day for leadership council. Should be fun, i love Mendoza! And any time we get to spend with pres! Tell dad he´s a good kid, and he looked a lil thinner in the pics of ky´s car :) haha. Really though. Tell Jeff hi, sure love that dude!
Carson
ps. Hope you liked our 8 legged friend on the first pic. He was on the shower head. HUGE NASTY! I also sent you a favorite song of mine we always listen to. It´s a kid from the mission aparently that wrote it.

Nasty Spider!! In our Shower!

Bodily Men! Elder Bodily and Me

Almost Night

August 17, 2010

So we had conference yesterday in San Rafael therefore today i´m writing your email today! We had a cool week, we reactivated another family and their 9 year old girl is taking the lessons and is going to get baptised on the 28th! We´re teaching another family as well that are progressing. We´ve had to start going out far into the country and find people. Our area is so so so so small, this tiney little town of 1000 people all know us. So we´ve started going out and finding those people that have never heard the gospel. We got into 4 houses and the people told us that missionaries had never ever in the 30 years they had lived there gotten to the house. It´s neat to think we´re trailblazing, the FIRST missionaries ever in some of these remote areas. Really neat and at the same time a big responsiblity. Because whose to know if these people will have another opportunity. You´ll have to print the picture of Paolas baptism and take to elder knights homecoming. Thanks so much for the pictures they were great!!!!!! I can´t believe how different Scott looks with that long hair and nasty beard!! Haha, i was laughin at the beard. I love that kid, i miss him alot. Send him a text telling him i told you that. He´s got a good heart, that kid. Anyways, we don´t live with any other elders. We basically live in the middle of nowhere, 30 minutes to the nearest city or missionaries. We take ALOT of buses to do divisions and meetings with our elders. In Cordon it´s really safe, really relaxed place. Everyone works in the fields so most of the day the place is a ghost town, till 7 o clock when all the trucks show up with the whole town in the back. The majority are illegal Bolivians immagrants. They´re a lot like the mexicans you see that come fresh from mexico, yet they´re a lot more of a rejected people here. All of the racism seems to hang on these poor people. The other day i saw a headline that said ``Big storm in San Luis kills 6 people, and 2 Bolivans.`` Sad right?? They´re very easy to pick out with their Lamanite blood. All very short, Dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair. Admittedly very uneducated people, and speak horrible spanish yet the women for the most part are very humble amazingly nice people. The men on the other hand are a bit of a problem for us. The most of them come back from work, demand food and then sleep till the morning, and we´ve had 3 casas already of women that want to follow christ and be baptised but their husbands won´t permit them to. Then saturday and sunday the men usually spend the whole day drinking themselves to oblivion. It´s not to be said for the whole race, it´s just how it is in this little pueblo. It´s sad, but among all of these people that Satan has trapped there are a lot of good, humble, good seeking people. We´re just searching for them every day! ! ! In our little apartment we pay 400 pesos a month, and that includes our power, gas, and light bills. Imagine living for 100 dollars a month all bills paid. And we live in one of the most expensive places in Cordon. The majority of the Bolivans that don´t live in their own man made huts pay around 25-50 pesos a month for their rent. 3-12 dollars. Pretty humble!!! But thats a little about the area. Tell Knight hi for me at his farewell, you´ll have to tell me how it went! Love ya!


Carson

August 9, 2010

Baptism of Paola Fredes


Me and Elder Frischknecht.... our last day together.


Monday August 9,2010
Hey momma! So this week was really crazy with transfers and everything but ended up being really good. We had the baptism of Paola Fredes on Dad´s birthday. Their such an amazing family. I¨ll be in contact with them for the rest of my life. We´ve come so close, and i love them so much. She asked me to confirm her a member of the church before sacrament on Sunday. It was really spiritual experience for me. I´ve baptised a lot of my investigators but this was the first time I confirmed them a member. Just doing so in that little old broken down iron shed turned chapel was a great experience. Really an experience to have a baptism in a tarp and metal pipes like our font is in Cordon haha. Something I´ll never forget. My new companion is great, Elder Mitchell from Cedar City. He´s a super good missionary and is helping me a lot with trying to get this Stake running how it should be, as well as our own branch, not to mention the zone of missionaries we´re over. It´s a lot of work every day, more than i´ve ever imagined. To know we basically run this stake... is overwhelming sometimes haha. This week we had a meeting with all the branch presidents and committed them to reorganizing their home teaching and starting to get the program running. It´s the largest reason why a lot of our retention is down. No one recieves visits, and they slowly but surely fall away and forget the spirit they felt with their missionaries. I have such a testimony now of home teaching and the importance it has. It´s so simple yet to vital to keeping people active in the church. We even made a contract and made all the men there sign it saying they swore they would reorganize before AUG 15 and for the rest of their lives they´d do their visits to be and example ot their branch and because they knew it was what god expected of them. Last Sunday i was feeling really overwhelmed during sacrament meeting with everything going on, we had the members mad at us because we changed our meeting hours to the afternoon (we weren´t getting anyone to church because of the terrible cold in the morning), but you know how old people are when you change anything from the norm so they were all upset with us, the day before we had just planned, directed, and saw through a baptism for a little member girl. We gave the talks, set up the font, bought the refreshments and afterwards the father came up to us and yelled for not playing one of the hymns he wanted to sing. After all the work we just left kind of down for being a bit unapreciated, and for the rough july we had a zone. Only to have to plan sacrament meeting, set up the chapel, and give talks the next morning. As we were sitting in sacrament it seemed like everything was just closing on me i was feeling so overwhelmed, i just said a little silent prayer right there on the stand. Just asking the Lord for a confermation that he was happy with me, that everything i was doing was his will, and if I was acceptable to him. I was honestly on the verge of tears when the Stake President got on to speak, and right away he said ´´ I just want to let you know how blessed this town is, to have two young men like these two missionaries we have with us here today. We know the missionaries, their always here but there is something different about these two. I just want to tell you how much I love them and appreciate them. Their my best friends...... and I know the Lord is happy with them.´´ And then just began to give his talk.... I lost it right then, i was just up there tears runnin down my face, i´m sure everyone was thinking something was wrong with me but i just couldn´t hold it in. I was so grateful, i know the lord answers our prayers! I know it, with out a doubt in my mind. Anyways, dad´s wreck looked fun! NOT! It´s always been like my biggest fear to fall on one of those things, ouch! By the way happy birthday dad!!!!! I know i´m 2 days late but if i could have written saturday i would have! Trust me! Just gotta let you all know i love ya! I´ll send ya a pic of the baptism and of me and frischknecht our last day together! Love ya have a good week!

Carson

August 2, 2010

Hey mom, so you have to forgive me for last week. Once your time runs out on the computer it runs out! I couldn´t send anymore details but don´t worry about anything i´m just fine. A kid that had to either be mental or drugged out came walking on the same sidewalk as us going the opposite direction and he took out his knife and started flashing it. I was close to him but he started slashing around at me, i jumped over the big gutter and booked it, looked back and the missionary i was with dodged him and started running too, we just kept running till i could run no more. I never looked back so i dunno if he chased but i´m pretty sure he didn´t run. It was scary but it all happened so fast i didn´t even have anything more to do than just react. But as for now i´m in the most calm place in the mission so no worries there. I´ll probably never go or see that area again so no worries. The last week went really good. The amount of things we do, or in other words the workload we have being zone leaders and 1st and 2nd councilors hasn´t gotten any easier. It´s just an incredible amount of responsibility we have but some how we seem to do everything. The blessings i know are on their way, the first blessing being this saturday when we baptise an amazing woman named Paola Fredes. She´s the spouse of a recently activated member who returned after 18 years of inactivity. She´s an incredible person, and i´m so happy for saturday. It´s going to be great. After so much early success in my mission, the last 6 months have been a lot more of being in leadership positions and helping the missionaries in my zone do well. But there is nothing like being able to baptise. I think the lord has been testing my patience with all of the hardship and responsibility added with not baptising for a few long months, but Like the scripture says in D and C 121:7-8 if we endure well we will triumph over all our foes. I know that promise is true. We just found out that Elder Frischknecht is leavin me after 2 tranfers and I met my new companion Elder Mitchell today. He´s a red head, really cool kid with a ton of energy. I´ll have to send ya a picture! I´m kinda nervous about being in my same tiney area for another 6 weeks, it´s really really small and i feel like i´ve met everyone and knocked every door but we´ll keep searching and find more miracles! I think in the package I would love another flash drive (4 or more G´s), sour patch kids, and other cool things... i can´t think of anything haha but i´ll write you next week after i think about it!!!!! I´ve got to go for now, keep doing all the right things. I´m so blessed with the prayers we recieve, i know they are protecting us every day!
Love ya
Carson

July 26 2010 Pictures!!! (mom's favorite)

View from the Bus


Mt. Tupungato. Sits at about 21,000 ft. Not too shabby, twice as big as Mt Ogden



Playin in the Snow!



Moutains.


My normal morning here in Cordon del Plata


Member Girl...such a cute smile!

Elder Frisch and Me

Our Baptismal Font

The vineyard and wine factory ´Salentein´ one of the most famous in Mendoza. (Mendoza is reknown for the wine)

Our Pday Tour

Elder Miller, Me and My MTC Companion Elder Barrus

July 26 2010

Wow sounds like it was a week of miracles. I´m just so impressed on how our heavenly father really blesses us. Can´t say that i didn´t tell ya right? :) This week has been a nutty one.. I´m debating on whether to tell you a few things or not and i´m thinking i´ll wait till i get home so you don´t go calling Pres Lindahl demanding i go home because it´s too dangerous here or something haha. I´ll just leave it at... Mendoza has some very very dangerous areas. The leadership training was great, unbelievable to tell the truth. It´ll change missionary work all over the world. Truely inspired men are in charge of this work. We´re really just focusing more on people, and teaching people with the spirit. Helping them understand what it is to feel the spirit. Had a neat experience while i was in Mendoza, we were walking looking for an inactive members home. As we were walking we saw the house numbers and the missionary i was with E´Smith (who is an assistant to Pres) asked me which way i thought the house numbers went down and which way went up. I said one way and we continued walking, of course i was wrong and after i had realized i said ´´Elder Smith we gotta go the other way we´re going down not up.´´ He looked over to me and shrugged it off and said ´´ maybe were going this way for a reason.´´ We walked a bit further and i got a thought in my head that just said STOP. As i stoped E´Smith stopped right at the same time, the pricise moment, we looked to the home on our left and i said ´´This is why we came this way´´. He just said i know, and we knocked on the door. The 28 year old man opened the door behind his glasses he said, ´´hey come on in´´. We taught the most amazing lesson i´ve ever taught in my entire life. He told us his best friend had just passed away in Buenos Aires, who was going to be baptised this week. He said he had talked a lot over the phone about the things the missionarys were teaching him. Earlier in the month his wife also had just miscarried what would have been their first child. I promised him right there in that room that he would have that son, and that some day he would baptise him in the church of God. I´ve never been that bold before, the promise wasn´t from me.... it just came out. He smiled back at me, and said he couldn´t wait for that day. I´ll never forget that night or that lesson. Or the looks of their faces as we taught them using all of the new things we´d just learned earlier in the day. AMAZING! Today we just got back from Salentein, the most famous vineyard and wine factory in all of Argentina. It was incredible, the best news is.... I´ve got the stuff to send you some pictures! So enjoy! I´ll get working on it now but not without reminding you to thank our heavenly father for the blessings he has been pouring out over us. I love you so much! If your ever thinking about sending a package in the future i do have a few requests (another flashdrive of 4G´s, a new jazz shirt with their new colors, and pictures/videos from home like you did for christmas!) Love you!
Elder Campbell