Transfers Once Again!

This past week, it was 109717 steps or 65.83 KM. I finally recovered from my sickness and am back to full health. This past week was just kind of chugging along. We did find a young man named Mateus this past week who went to church. He has a good friend in the church and we're going to go teach him later today. He seems very intelligent and willing to learn about the church. Also, we talked with Neide, the mother of some recent members. She just has some odd ideas about the church which we can't seem to resolve, no matter how many times or ways we try to explain. We had a 2-hour lesson to tell her that Jesus Christ did, in fact, preach to the spirits in prison for 3 days while he was in the tomb. And I'm pretty sure next time we go there she'll ask us again... It was also transfers yesterday. It was a pretty low stress one since everyone in the house is staying, so no one had to pack and madly scramble to not forget anything. It was nice. Also, one night, Elder Iuri found a cat (picture below). We fed him a hot dog and played with him a bit but then he ran away. All good things must end...

-Elder Michael Carlson

[Michael also gave us just a bit more information about his experience in the hospital last week]

With the hospital thing, my companion was in the waiting room and I was through a set of double doors while I was being nebulized. I think the woman was singing about how she wanted God's love, but I'm not entirely sure.

[It looks like Michael's hair has lightened up some with him being out in the sun so much]

Once Again Unto the Breach!

Let's see... I walked 81289 steps or 48.77 km. Once again, Mom and Dad, my sitting quietly practice came in quite handy. For those who don't know, SQP was my punishment when I was rowdy when a child. I would have to sit on the couch for about 15-20 minutes and be quiet [Parental Note: SQP was only when he was really rowdy at church]. I hated it at the time but it has turned into an invaluable skill. So, I have still been dealing with my bronchitis even after taking the drugs that the previous doctor gave me. So, I went back to the hospital. After waiting a while, I went in to see the doctor. He checked me out and told me that I have the beginnings of a chest infection. So he wrote some stuff on a paper and told me to go somewhere else and give the paper to someone. So I kind of wandered around a bit, then some guy (a doctor) took my paper and told me to sit down a bit. I thought he was going to get me some pills for free and I would just take them home and take them there. But, when he returned, he had a tray full of tubes and he led me to a room with a bunch of those racks for he IV drips. I got pretty scared that I was going to be pricked. But it turned out that there was also an air valve on the wall and I was supposed to take one of those nebulizer things. There was a little mask with smoke coming out of it that I was supposed to breath into for 40 minutes. There were only 2 other people in the room during the entire thing: A crazy old woman and what I can only assume was her husband. The woman had one of those canelli things (the tube that sticks into your nose) And she let the entire world know. She was just complaining the entire time. Telling her husband to get the doctors to take this "contraption of the devil" out of her nose. She was not quiet the entire time. It taxed my patience quite a bit. When my stuff ran out, I got myself out of there. I was so happy to not be with that woman anymore. I had to talk to the doctor again and he told me I had to do the nebulizer for another 40 minutes... So I went back to that room and the woman had started pacing around the room saying catholic prayers and singing "I want, I want, I want, I want, I want LOOOOOOVE" really horribly. I just sat there quietly and waited out my 40 minutes. After that, it felt soooo good to not be in that room. Other than that, the week was pretty normal. Just doing a bunch of contacts to try to find someone that will go to church. We haven't had any success so far. It was an alright, albeit, hot week.

Love you all!

-Elder Michael Carlson

Mosquitoes Are Quite Annoying

I took 79846 steps this last week or 47.90 Km. I'm still taking it slow because I'm still sick, which stinks. Also, it's been kinda rainy here, which makes the mosquitoes go crazy. I've been bit so many times that I've started looking for constellations. I've already found the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt but I'm looking for more. Also, the rain's made it super humid all the time, so I haven't stopped sweating. It's kind of gross. But we had a good week. We found a couple of new people but the clincher is getting them to go to church. People will invite you into their homes and feed you but they don't actually want to hear about the church, so we can find a lot of new people in a week, but they become investigators if they go to church. In other news, Leandro was confirmed yesterday, which was a great experience. And I got a package from my parents, which was quite fun. Pretty boring down here in JP...

Until next week! Love you all!

-Elder Michael Carlson

[we received a bit more information from Michael this week in a separate email]

Yesterday, we had a pretty cool experience. I was feeling really poorly. I took my inhaler early that morning, so it wore off during church and I was having a really hard time breathing. I was out of breath just sitting down. And I was having a lot of chest pain. Then a member asked us to go to a house for him and give a blessing. I was less than enthusiastic about going, I just wanted to stay inside, but we went anyway. And we had a great lesson with a non-member mom, then a friend came over who was having a hard time and we offered to help by teaching her about Jesus Christ and how he can help and she accepted, then we had another great lesson with her. And we got some lemon mousse as an added bonus. Another funny story: Here, they don't have dryers, you just dry everything on a line. So our line here is outside. I'll wait to do my laundry on a very sunny day, so I put it out on the line and we go out to work. And every single time, it rains. So my clothes get soaked again. This has happened every single time, with no exceptions. It's getting to be pretty funny. If I want it to rain, I'll just do my laundry.

One More Week Down

Last week was 105845 steps or 63.50 KM. We worked really hard this past week because we had to make up for last week where we didn't work too much on account of me being sick. So we did lots of work and found lots of new people. However, it was election day yesterday here so almost no one went to go see General Conference. So that was sad. I'll give an investigator update next week when things settle down. General Conference was really good, even though this was the first time I've watched it completely in a different language. I thought it was really cool that they let people talk in their native languages. I had an exchange with the zone leaders this past week. They wanted to see why our numbers were so low. We explained that I was sick and then they saw our numbers for this week and I think it's all worked out now. Also, now that I have a nice computer, I can send some pictures. Woo hoo!! The first is my previous companion. The second is my current companion.

-Elder Michael Carlson