ELDER DREW CARSON: Week 36 in the field!!!

Happy Saturday everybody!!!

Yeah, yeah, I forgot to remind y’all about the special PDay again. But it’s okay - the time’s passing so quickly that I don’t even notice it anymore. It’ll be next Monday in about half an hour.

LECCIÒN DE LA SEMANA: It’s always better to love than to judge. We had our interviews with President this week in the church building, and as Zone Leaders, E. Sanchez and I directed the proceedings.

One missionary, who has been causing problems in the zone, returned to the chapel after his interview in tears. I knew in that moment that he was being sent home. There were many thoughts that came to mind - what did he do? - but I felt the need to be a friend instead of a shamer, so I went to sit by him in the back pew and talk things over.

For a moment, I felt like my eyes were opened, and I saw the Elder from a different perspective. No longer was he a "headache to deal with" or a "danger to our success" - he was just a kid feeling like a failure. One of God’s own children who had just received a tough wake-up call.

We talked, and I felt like we ended up as friends. He thanked me for helping him out, and I made him promise to be more active in the church than he was before. He promised.

When people have tough times with failure, we, as their friends, have a great opportunity to love and teach. If we waste that opportunity spreading rumors or simply letting bad thoughts stew inside of you, we’ll miss out on lots of sweet moments.

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President told me about EVERYBODY’s transfers in my interview. It was interesting to get to know his thought-process behind it all. He told me that E. Sanchez will be leaving and that I’ll be receiving E. Mun, my Korean-looking zone-leader from Palmas! :D He challenged me to learn as much as possible from the guy (becuase he’s a super-elder) and that he expects lots of success from our zone.

There was an EFY program in our stake this week, and the ward secretaries were all asking us for 50 Restoration pamphlets each. LIKE WHAT? It was a fun Tuesday - we had to run around searching for materials in every corner of the zone. I consider it a good investment - the young-uns are going to be sharing the materials with their non-member friends to generate referrals as part of the week-long camp.

READ "BUILDING BLOCKS OF CREATION" by Elder Skausen! Read it!

The president of the Relief Society gifted me the ingredients to make a lime-cookie-cake! That was a fun little project. Delicious, if you haven’t tried lime-cookie-cake.

We had a grand shopping spree on Wednesday to get the food for our Zone Conference! We had planned to buy 72 DELICIOUS tamales (thereby funding the business of a sister in our ward) but she had to cancel because she couldn’t find the banana-leaves to wrap them. So: HAM AND CHEESE, YO!

The Zone Conference was great! E. Sanchez and I had the assigned topic of "Just Get Them Excited About Baptizing", so we whipped out our scriptures and testified!! I shared a story that got Hna. Reynoso to tears (which I secretly take pride for), and the Sister Trainers repremanded everyone for being disobedient. Overall, I think President got a great impression. He was laughing about it in the car-ride home.

Thanks for tuning in, everybody! There should be lots of great stories next time! Be sure to check out the pics below from our trip to the zoo, hit that "like" button and be sure to subscribble! Oh, and the most important part - LOVE, DON’T JUDGE.

With love (not judgment),

Elder Carson

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