Another Half-Week

100342 steps 60.20 km. We walked a lot this past week. It was crazy. Not a whole lot happened, it was a pretty slow week. But, we did play volleyball this morning which was pretty fun but I think I burned the bottom of my feet on the hot sand. Also, I found an interesting story that prompted a question. This story is in Isaiah. King Hezekiah is sick and he wants to be healed, so God says that he'll be healed and as a sign, the sun will go back by 10 degrees. So, as a physicist, I was thinking about the acceleration that would involve. The earth is moving really fast, like 2,000 km/hr so, for it to stop like that and return 10 degrees, I think everything on the earth would be completely destroyed. I didn't do the actual math but it would be probable on the order of 10-20 g's of rotational acceleration... When I die and can see everything, I'm going to watch how that went down, because I'm really curious as to how everything isn't dead. Think about that one this week... Well, that's about all I've got.

Until next week!

-Elder Michael Carlson

[Michael shared a couple of insights as answers to questions in a separate email]

[Tell us about your new area. What are the shops like? Where do you buy bananas (and other things)? Are there parks and trees in town? Do they have any fountains or statues?]
It's a pretty rich area where everyone already knows the church or is already baptized and doesn't go to church. We have nearly 600 members in the ward and only 70 go to church... The shops are mostly just small grocery stores. If you want to buy anything, you have to go to the center. There are lots of malls there for some reason. There's a little market at the end of our street where we buy most of our stuff. There's a few trees and a park, that we actually played volleyball there this morning. Fountains and statues, not really...

[Do you ride the bus, get rides with members, or mostly still walk everywhere?]
We take the bus if we leave our area (for meetings and stuff), but other than that, we walk and we walk and we walk.

[Michael also sent us the following addendum]
So, I actually did the math related to it and I found out much different results. Assuming that it takes 10 seconds for it to happen, everything would be subject to about 232 g's of acceleration, which for a 160 lbs person, is about 36,500 pounds of force...

Another Transfer Come and Gone

Well, the transfers have come and passed and I get to stay here one more transfer in Catole. 96752 steps, 58.05 KM. It was a pretty good week. We found some more people to teach, which was nice, but we still don't have many people who are actually solid. One funny thing that happened this past week was that we were teaching an older woman and we suddenly hear a knock at the door. She opens it up and who do we find? The Jehova's Witnesses there! When they saw us sitting there, their faces just dropped. It was great. It was a pretty normal week, with not much to report. Sorry parents...

Love you all, until Monday!

-Elder Michael Carlson

Second Week of 2015!

93099 steps or 55.85 km. This past week was pretty normal. We talked with a lot of less actives and new people. There were a couple days that were happily too busy. We couldn't get to all of our appointments sometimes. It was crazy. I saw two really funny t-shirts this past week: "Bite Me NOW!" (a rather large woman) and a man wearing "Pluto (1930- 2006) Revolve in Peace" Sorry, this letter is pretty short... Not much to report. My next p-day will be on Wednesday, so don't be worried when I don't email until then.

Until next week!

-Elder Michael Carlson

New Years!

92060 steps 55.23 KM. This past week was new years and to celebrate, I slept. I slept through all the insanely loud music outside my window. I slept through all the fireworks going off. I slept through the other missionaries waking up and celebrating. It was glorious. Also, we were teaching a girl who's 13. At the end of the lesson, I went to shake her hand but then she went in for a hug, so I threw my hands up like, "What are you doing?!?" She got really scared and said, "Am I not allowed to do that? I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I laughed a lot and it was rather hilarious. We also did a service project where we carried construction debris to a "dump" (empty lot) using wheel barrows. I forgot to put on sunscreen and I got burnt pretty good. But I've been using lots of aloe vera and sunscreen since then. It was rather fun, breaking stuff and just doing manual labor. But I'm paying the price now. Other than that, It was just a pretty normal week.

Happy new year!

-Elder Michael Carlson

[When asked "Have you had any interesting cultural experiences as a result of having a Brazilian companion?", Michael responded with the following experience]

He's been able to help with a lot of the cultural things that I should and should not say. One time, we were in a store and I wanted to get money back at the cashier, so I asked him if I could but I used the wrong word, that sounds very similar, that actually means "to steal". He responded, "You could if you wanted but you'd go to prison." We had a good laugh about that one.

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