Another Week!

89327 steps or 53.59 km. Once again, I am left with not much time to write this email. Sorry everyone... But this week was pretty great. Nothing really happened for Carnaval because everyone had left town to go to the beach. Campina Grande was pretty dead for the first half of the week. Also, we didn't have water from Friday until Monday evening. There was a switch for the water that someone had turned off. So after climbing up on the roof and doing some ridiculous things to satisfy our water needs, we discovered this switch right in front of our house. Super easy to turn on but it had been buried in dirt. We had a water party when it came back. Also, we had a very convincing and logical lesson with someone but they just said, "Wow, that makes sense and I don't agree with everything in my church but I'm never gonna change churches." It made me sad.

For another week,

-Elder Michael Carlson

Merry Presidents Day!

102397 steps, 61.43 km. We had a pretty good week. I took my first bucket shower. I was just there and I put on soap, then all of a sudden, there wasn't any water coming out. So I had to call for my companion to get some water from outside in a bucket. It was quite the interesting experience. We also had a mission conference. One thing that I learned was that in the church, we gain our salvation, but it is only through the works in the temple that we gain our exaltation. It was pretty interesting. Sorry, I don't have much time today. Love you all and thanks for the support!

-Elder Michael Carlson

Interviews and a Very Full Saturday

105756 steps, 63.45 km. So, this past week, we had interviews with the president, where I learned some interesting things. It was my companion's birthday yesterday. Fortunately, we avoided being egged (a popular Brazilian custom for birthdays) and had a huge lunch of tacos at the stake president's house. Saturday was a pretty crazy day this past week. We had appointments every hour of the day. We were almost running from one thing to another. We taught a bunch of great lessons and we had a couple people in church (which we haven't had in quite a long time). We had a full, rewarding week and now I shall rest much today. We played volleyball this morning with some members of the ward, which was fun. I lost the first game but it was a close loss. Then the second game, my team won 15-3, which was gratifying. But then I didn't play anymore because I hurt my toe this past week. OH! Something that I forgot. We also had a service project on Saturday. We took the roof tiles off a house, cleaned the tiles, replaced the woodwork of the roof and then put the tiles back on. It was heavy, dirty work but we got it done in the end. It was nice to be able to help someone like that.

Until next week,

-Elder Michael Carlson

A Week of Cutting

90477 steps, 54.28 km. This week was full of two kinds of cutting. The first (and funner) was cutting down some banana trees. I was able to use my lumberjacking skills, with the aid of a giant machete to help one of the ward members. It was quite fun and I felt very manly afterward. The second (and a lot sadder) was cutting the people who wouldn't progress or who didn't want to. We had to cut a lot of the people we were teaching because they wouldn't do anything. It's always a sad thing to have to do that but like a tree pruned grows better, I'm hoping that our area will grow and flower soon. We did have some good lessons with some good people but I have yet to see many fruits of these lessons. This week was a lot of walking. And sorry Mom, but I haven't been taking a lot of pictures. It's hard to bring my camera. I don't want to get robbed. I'll try harder this week though.

Love y'all!

-Elder Michael Carlson

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