NEW YEARS!!!

So, I forgot to include last week's count, so here it is: 93305 steps, 55.98 KM. This week: 106526 steps or 63.91 km. Not much really happened this past week, or really, past 4 days. We walked a lot. Tried to find people to teach. Didn't have much success. It's kinda crazy to think that in less than a week, it'll be 2015! 2013 seems so far away and yet so close at the same time... It's weird. Not really much to say I guess, other than HAPPY NEW YEARS!

Until next year,

-Elder Michael Carlson

CHRISTMAS

Well, here we are at Christmas time, once again. It has been quite a year. I think one of my favorite presents this year was the bacon socks. But it's also a time to think back to what has happened this past year. It was the first, and probably only year that has been fully dedicated to missionary work. I had a couple of Christmas parties this past week, one with the mission, one with a family and one with just the missionaries in my apartment. I got a lot of chocolate and fruitcake (both very good things to get). However, I have learned now, more than ever, how valuable public peace laws are. It gets really annoying when everyone and their dog wants to play really loud music in the middle of the streets. Loud enough to rattle the windows. All through the night too. I hardly slept last night. So I'm super tired, but still Christmas was great. Also, I got to talk to my family, which was totally awesome. It made me pretty trunky though. I really miss my family, they just all are so cool. Just 6 more months. It was really weird having it be a hot Christmas. It really didn't feel like Christmas. I got used to the whole snow thing and here it's like 95 degrees with sun that's beating me up. But I still got lots of chocolate, which was great. I even got a tiny little stocking, stuffed with bunches of goodies.

Hope you all have/had a great Christmas!

-Elder Michael Carlson

[Michael sent us a short story and a couple of pictures in a separate email]

We had a mission conference this past week for Christmas and there was a white elephant portion too. I brought one of my protuguese-english excercise books that I don't use anymore, all wrapped up. It was hilarious because a brazilian ended up with it. I was laughing for at least 20 minutes after he opened it. I ended up with a really crappy santa hat. We also watched the new movie, "God is not Dead". I rather enjoyed it. It did have its bits of false doctrine but overall shared a good message.

Catolé II

100231 steps 60.13 km. After a year and a half of faithfully working, my pedometer finally needs a new battery. Just another sign of how mission-old I'm getting. It's kind of weird to think that some of the things that I have will last me until the end of my mission, like my sunscreen. It's coming so fast. Well, there's not really much to say about these last 3 days. We walked a lot and did a lot of contacts. I'm in a pretty rich area now, so that's both good and bad. Good, because lunch is excellent. Bad, because no one wants to listen. One fun thing that happened: A member asked me if I had a brazilian parent because my portuguese was that good. Other than that, pretty boring over all.

Love you all, remember Christ this Christmas season!

-Elder Michael Carlson

Once Again in Campina Grande

61660 steps, 36.99 km. Well, I was transferred this transfer and now I'm back in Campina Grande and my companion is Elder Cardoso. This past week was pretty chill. Not much happened (at least that I remember). We were really worried about the transfer. We both wanted to stay together but we knew we probably wouldn't. It was really annoying, last night, at 10:35 PM, the zone leaders called us to let us know about transfers. So I had no time to pack my bags. I had to wake up at 5:30 this morning to do my bags and then wait at the bus station for 2 hours waiting for my companion to go with me to CG, but then they told me he'd be there. So I went on the 2 hour bus ride and arried in CG. Then my companion actually wasn't there, so I had to wait even longer. We took our bags to the house and ate lunch. I'm whitewashing my 5th area (that's out of 6 total areas). I'm pretty sad to have to leave Elder Jones, he was a pretty fun companion. Well, I think that's about it. Merry Christmas to you all!

-Elder Michael Carlson

[Michael sent us a bit more information in another email]

[Did you get transferred or have any changes to the other companionship in your house?]

Yeah, the three other people of the house stayed but I left to Campina Grande again. I'm now in Catolé. My companion is Elder Cardoso, a Brazilian. The other two people in the house are Elder Kaiser and Elder Leavitt. Elder Leavitt got to the mission field yesterday. It's kind of bad but having a new Elder makes me feel a lot better about my Portuguese.

[What was a scripture message you shared recently?]

I shared a message about one of the wars in the BoM. It talks about one of the generals of the Lamanites, how he decided to attack Zarahemla itself, instead of taking out the surrounding cities first. Then he decides to take over all the other Nephite cities but gets destroyed by the Nephite armies because he gets really prideful. And I related that to our lives, how we see very prideful people who are breaking the commandments, and they're seemingly "winning" in life, getting good things, and then we see humble people who seem to be getting the bad things of life. And it's the same thing in the story. The good people had bad stuff happen to them at first and good stuff happened to the bad people. But then it changed. The bad people lost and the good triumphed. It's the same in real life. Good will always win and get the better reward in the end.

One More Thing!

I forgot to tell you all, this week is transfers, so expect my email on Wednesday instead of Monday. Also, I wanted to send some pictures that are much overdue. One is of Mateus, Elder Iuri and me. I promise that Mateus really was happy, he just really doesn't like pictures. The other was the missionaries in my house but now there's a new one and I need to take a new picture. I also found out how hard it really is to take a picture of an x-ray without one of those fancy light-things, sorry I can't include that...

-Elder Michael Carlson

Super Activity!

Let's see, first off, 92148 steps or 55.28 km. And, I actually forgot last week's count, it was 69865 steps, 41.91 km. This past week was a pretty crazy one. I got my x-rays back and they say that my back is fine (next week, I'll include a picture for Stephanie to study). It was cool to see the x-rays. I always enjoy that kind of stuff. Also, Elder Iuri was emergency transferred and Elder Pennington arrived in his place. It's actually kind of funny, I've already lived with Elder Iuri and Elder Pennington was in my district before and I've gone on exchanges with him. I was sad to see Elder Iuri go, he's a good friend. Another crazy thing that happened: the super activity last saturday. It lasted almost all day. We got there at 8 in the morning and we left about 7 in the afternoon. There was a bunch of stuff there, like art displays, a basic health test, lawyers, nail painting, hair cutting (I got my hair cut and it looks all fancy now). It was a lot. Also, we had a zone p-day here. We had a spiritual part and then we played around a bit then there was a barbeque. With ice cream. It was good. I ate way too much though. And it took up a lot of our day. That's why I'm emailing so late. But, I love all you guys!

-Elder Michael Carlson

[we asked Michael about his investigator pool in a separate email and this was his response]

We got a lot of new investigators this past week with the super activity. There were a bunch of people there and we talked with all of them. Also, we met with a guy named "Hilkies" (rhymes with mucus). We had a really good lesson with him. It was kind of crazy because it was during the activity, so there was a bunch of kids running around everywhere. He asked us, "Is it always like this?" We quickly responded that it's a lot calmer at the actual meetings.

It's crazy to me that it's already December. It feels like yesterday it was Halloween, and just a week ago, it was Easter. The time is passing so fast. I need to make the most of it while I'm here.