Sunday, June 14, 2015

No matter where we go we always find our way back home!

Hey you all!:) I loved your guys last email it was great! Thank you mom and dad for the help with school and everything I really appreciate it! Sister keale our office couple called me last week and asked what airport I want to fly into? I told her Salt Lake so it's confirmed; we will get our itinerary next month. I can't believe the time has come, it has been a very hard long grind but overall I have grown so much since I have been here. Truly a mission is a life changing event I am grateful I came!  Grandma and Grandpa sound great with all of the family. 
This week has been such a great week. I have been battling the flu I think but it only kept me down for one day not three(dad) haha. Did I tell you I found monster energy drink chili I bought two haha they were so dang good. Green and I had some surprises come to church last week. We contacted a woman who is a New Jersey woman and she goes to church in America and she showed up at church it was a surprise because we contacted her in May and kind of thought she will go home very soon so we will let the elders there teach her. She enjoyed church though, we also got a bunch of other people who just decided to come to our church and they really enjoyed it. People here really love the fact that we learn at church, they get tired of listening to a false pastor preaching for 3 hours and going off in weird voices (what they call gift of tongues). So they really love learning instead of being yelled at. We are teaching a couple from Congo and they are progressing so well😄 they are such a great couple, the man is truly searching and trying to find the real church, he is praying and doing very well. I went on an exchange with elder Jake Jones. He came to Ghana with me and knew Jackson Kunz from Utah valley he had a buddy play there also. Jones and I have been good friends on mission despite serving in different areas but it was great to go out with him. He is now our AP so he is a great missionary. We taught some great lessons together. I was sitting in the one bedroom we were in and it was light off and we were sweating trying to teach and I was like despite all these circumstances I face here I am happy serving and teaching these people I love it! We were in coordination this week and Green was saying the prayer so I decided to fiddle his butt with a pen and Elder Thalelli couldn't hold his laugh in and made a little kkkkkkkkkccccccc sound haha it made all us missionaries laugh....o are ward mission leader didn't really know what was going on but it was funny! The Gha people a tribe has a culture that for one month there should be no music played or loud noise anywhere and that festival just ended and now there is always loud and annoying music everywhere. Literally when you go to a wedding or a party the music is so loud you can't even talk to anyone it’s like this is giving me a headache, so for this last month we have enjoyed peace😳! 
Family all is well I want you to know that I know Joseph Smith is a prophet. A man can never bring to pass all the things Joseph Smith has done unless he is guided by God. If this church isn't true I would love to see a man try to do everything Joseph has done, all the good, the teachings, the Book of Mormon, no one can do it. The Church has been restored; this is The Church of Jesus Christ! I am grateful to be in it! We also need to understand the importance of taking the sacrament. This sacred ordinance is a testimony to our Heavenly Father that we still remember the sacrifice our Savior has done for us. If we are grateful for what Heavenly Father has done in our life we need to show it by taking of the sacrament. I love you all very much! I again am so proud of my family I truly feel I have the best family. 

I love you all!!
Elder T-Cars 


Week 89- Love ya all!!

Hey family! Sorry I missed emailing you last Monday I have been very sick, I think that I had the flu....it's been raining a lot and the weather has been very cold (82 degrees) I literally woke up the other night shivering. I saw dad was sick and he was down for 3 days....man if I had that sickness I would have been healthy in 3 hours haha;) it sounds like you guys have been enjoying with motorcycle riding, the color run and school is out. I have been very good though I love your emails from all of you. Grandma and Grandpas emails are funny haha. 
So you heard about the flood, it has really devastated people here it has hurt my heart to see these people. The water would enter their rooms and destroy everything so the last couple of days as we ride and proselyte we see everyone's stuff on the road trying to dry out their clothes and their mattresses it's very hard to see. Please keep them in your prayers. Green and I were coming home that night from the church, it had been raining for about 5 hours and then we were like okay we better go. We put on trash sacks and then biked to the house. Well close to our junction we were riding and the water just kept getting bigger and bigger then next thing u know we had water up to our waste and all the roads were flooded. So we pushed our bikes to the house in waist deep water...it was wild. There was a large canal close to our junction and it filled up clear to the top and 3 people were swept into it and passed away it was sad, the water wasn't too strong though Green and I were able to get through with ease but Ghanaians hate water and none know how to swim so they were freaking out. Well Green and I dropped our bikes off and said we got to help people out there. So we didn't take our shirt and tie off we just ran out there and helped people cross the road, pushed cars as best as we could and just helped children and anyone that needed help. There were a lot of heroes that night. So many people were very grateful for us. One man was in the car with his wife and the water was coming over his hood and entering his car. He was almost in tears asking me to please help. I just helped him relax and told him to keep his car off or it would flood, then when he has a straight shot to get out of traffic we will turn it on and push him out. We did that and he was okay. Green and I and some Ghanaians cleared up a whole highway of traffic it was sweet. Where the explosion happened it was about a 25 minutes away from me. The missionaries there faced it a lot worse than we did their apartments got flooded and they saw a lot of dead bodies. Overall it has been a distress in this country for the past couple of days. The economy here is getting worse and worse by the second. The government doesn't do anything here. The president said this happened because the people liter and the gutters get blocked with trash....and that we shouldn't liter. Now that is true this country is dirty but the government doesn't provide rubbish bins for us to throw things away. I have never seen a trash can in public here. The flood has been hard but we are managing. 
The work however is going very good. Green and I are doing sweet like usual. We baptized a man named Isaac and three of our recent converts received the priesthood we were so happy for them. The ward is doing so good. I love this area. I tell you what I found a monster my first in 21 months I bought it without thinking I loved every minute of it. I tell you what I'm losing my desire small small but I'm hanging in there. I love my Heavenly Father so much and Jesus Christ. I am trying to do my best for them as I finish. Family I love you all very much!! I am so grateful for you all!! I'm sweet, I am with great guys and are finding great people to teach. I love you all tons!!

Love you guys tons!!!

Elder Carson 






Sunday, May 31, 2015

Week 87- 10 Weeks??

10 weeks???
5/24/2015

Family, You would think the longer you are on mission the less you would miss your family...it's not true I think I miss you all more and more as I have been out longer. I am so glad that you are doing all well. Mom track sounds sweet I am glad you are enjoying it. It sounds like everything else is normal. I loved talking to you all. I didn't talk to dad or Colby as much. I felt bad after forgive me if it offended you. Colb and dad it sounded like you guys had a great week. Dad, don't worry about this Muslim stuff in Ghana. I feel so safe here. I'm glad you are getting work done and all is well there. I saw some pictures and realized we now have a water purify in our house I was like what the? I think home will be a lot different, I think it's normal to you all but to me it will be a lot different. Thank you so much for always emailing me every week. You guys haven't missed a week...I am truly blessed. Countless amounts of African missionaries will never receive an email from their family members. Most have just packed their bags by themselves, said bye and left some of them their family members don't really understand what they are even doing. We are truly blessed, my heart is full every time I open my inbox and see my family member’s emails.

I love this area and my companion. This has been one of my funnest areas. I am serving around excellent missionaries and love the area. I'm serving around Elder Lomano(tonga), Nxele(South Africa), Thapeli(South Africa), Green(Arkansas), Lewis-Reese(Pittsburg), Mbyia(), Chatterley(Washington). We are really having a lot of fun together. Chatterley goes home at the end of this transfer and said this has been one of his best couple transfers. It seems every Monday we are doing something...we never rest. Sometimes we go to the temple and play basketball, or we go to the mall, or we have a Braii(grill). Last Monday we did a Braii, this Monday we are playing basketball, and next Monday we are roasting a pig from our Tongan brother haha we are enjoying. Last night (Saturday) was elder Nxele Bday, it was raining so we were like let's go buy a cake and celebrate at the mall...so we ran through the rain and had a great night celebrating our brothers Bday! We have had a ton of memories together and it had been a lot of fun!
In our area we are having problems keeping serious investigators that our progressing. We are contacting and teaching 10 new people at least a week but none of them are turning out to be very serious. We however baptized on Mother's Day George and Enock. They are excellent men and have strong testimonies of the church we love them and are so grateful for them. We just confirmed them this Sunday and they love the church. We also have another man named Issac who is also progressing in the gospel and will be baptized next week Sunday we are so happy for him. Also we have a young woman named Jennifer who we teach with George and Enock. She loves the church and loves the teachings we are happy for her she will be baptized next month.  We taught this woman in this huge house 4 weeks ago Saturday and she has been wanting us to come every Saturday. Well her family is an excellent family, very devote Christians and well respected people. The woman travels all throughout Africa and America and is very wealthy. They hold family devotionals every night before bed they are a great family. Well last Saturday they fed us nice bancu with tallapia fish it was great and then she gave us a present and it was snickers, milky ways, and chocolate I almost cried I was so dang grateful. It tastes different than ours there made with real ingredients and made in South Africa but they were so good. She then gave us fresh mangos right off the tree I love mangos so much I can eat them until I'm sick haha. God bless that woman. We also were Able to get a young couple to our stake conference in Kasoa last week. They are from the democratic republic of Congo and loved the church. As soon as they saw the church they were like oh okay we have these all over at home. I love Ghana whenever a visitor comes over they bring out water on a plate always and are always very welcoming. Then if they recognize you as a servant of God they have so much faith and want to serve you with all they have. It's so hard for me because I was raised by dad to never accept such things like that. So I have a hard time especially when I know that they have very little or no money at all. All I do is bow my head and pray as hard as I can that God will bless them for their kindness and he always does.  Members especially recognize this and love to feed the missionaries and it’s so hard because you know they don't have money but they recognize that we are servants of God and they want blessings so they strive to always help us. Members here rely on missionaries to much however they respect and love us very much.

Green and I are getting along better than ever. We are having a blast every day. We buy a 3 cedi(75cent) ice cream quite often and we enjoy chopping that ice cream together I think we have feelings for each other haha just kidding but we are definitely brothers and feel like we are just chilling every day. I thought of grandpa and Dad and how much they love to get ice cream so we decided to get ice cream more haha. We have done some really great things together. We fellow shipped a less active a young man and he loves video games haha so we got along very good talking about video games and we got him to church.  Green and I were riding our bikes and it was blazing hot 94 degrees and we were sweating our shirts were soaked and see through and we were being smart a** about things and Green said I'm going to kick this goat. Well as we rode by some road side goats he booted one in the butt and it flew some ways and we laughed and laughed and laughed until we were off our bikes dying of laughter with tears down our eyes. I'm sure Ghanaians were looking at us like these freaking dumb a 's are laughing over this haha it was so dang funny!!  I have loved all my companions we have all had good laughs but Green and I laugh at times until we can't breathe so we are doing very well.

Family I love you all very much. I want to encourage and invite all of you to read your scriptures at least once a day. I love the scriptures dearly. I thank God that he has helped me gain a testimony of them. Heavenly Father can truly speak to us through them. The sweetest thing about the scriptures is they lead us to our savior Jesus Christ and if we come unto him we can find answers to all our questions. I am over whelmed because I want to read so many books and scriptures but have so little time left on my mission. I do my personal study and then read at night to put me to sleep I love the scriptures so much!!! I know they are true and I know all the prophets in them are true listen to them and learn from their success and also from their weaknesses.

I love you all tons,
Elder Carson

Week 83- Yo Chick!!

Yo Chick!!!                                                                                                                                          4/26/2015
Hey family! As I read your emails I am so thankful for my family, I truly feel so grateful as I read all of my families emails. I'm sorry my emails are getting sparser, it's not easy, I’ll work on it. Dad, Darin is such a hoot, I could just picture his big smile as you come out to see his truck, with his little head nod and a hell yeah this truck has a Cummins haha.
I really enjoy this area. It's really a nice area, it's a lot different then the village but it’s still a great area. We have some wonderful investigators. We actually had a baptism on Sunday. It was a young man named Isaac. He is 19 years old and has the strongest testimony of the restored gospel out of all my recent converts. I know I came to Odokor to help him get baptized. We get along very well. He wants to go on a mission so bad, so I'm excited that some of my recent converts want to serve, that brings me so much happiness and joy, I know a mission is the best thing for everyone at mission age. The three girls I baptize in Kaneshie, the oldest wants to serve a mission, she would do excellent I am very close to that area like my area now borders that area so I was able to see all my people I have loved it. We are also working with two men named Isaac and George: they come to church and love the gospel. They want to be baptized on may 3 so we are so excited to baptize these men and get some future melchelzidek priesthood holders. Enoch he sells sunglasses at circle, a major selling market. He walks around all day with sunglasses on his head in 90 degree weather and makes on a great day 20 Ghana. That is about 6 dollars. He will work from 6 am to around 7 pm he is a great guy and loves the gospel. Elder Green and I are doing our very best here. This area is not easy. The people are very stubborn. They love there church even though they know it isn't doing the correct things. We just try our best to get everyone to pray to ask Heavenly Father if they should join us....the ones that do always join the ones that don't usually remain in a midst of darkness.

In the mission President Hill has set a goal he wishes us to achieve each month. We call it 2 fers. It's 2 baptisms 2 recent converts with a temple experience and 2 less actives returning to the fold each month. It's not easy to achieve this goal each month but it has given me something to work for each and every month. I have yet to achieve it all in one month but I have exceeded in other aspects. In Asuom my companion and I reactivated around 5 people that all hold church callings now. While we didn't get as many baptisms as we wanted. I love these 2 fers though it is sweet. I wish to set goals similar to this when I am just a normal member. Goals are such a wonderful thing. I don't know anything really spiritual to say this email other than setting goals. A talk I read striked me to set goals to write down the progress I am in, in the eternal aspect of things. Like get baptized, graduate seminary (didn't do that one dang it), serving a mission, getting married in the temple, always have a calling, always pay my tithing etc. I love the prophets and apostle as I listen to their talks and instruction it always motivates me to set more goals to help me achieve exaltation and happiness in this life. Family the Book of Mormon is true it is the word of God. Read it every day and feast on its words and I promise you will gain the desire to read it more and will find so much peace in this life. I love the Book of Mormon so much.

I got your package thank you so much I am so thankful for you guys. I love the m and ms I don't need any more packages though god bless you I was thinking I was finished it was a good surprise. Family I love you all very much I pray for you all every single day. I pray for everyone. Tell all that I love them including Grandma and Grandpa. Green and I play catch every morning and I'm missing ball but I am thankful for green!

I love you all tons!!!!

Elder Carson




Sunday, April 12, 2015

Week 80- Transfers

Transfers                                                                                                                                  4/8/15

                                                                                                                                                                    Well family it was great to hear from you!! I can't believe we will talk on the phone in like one month it is pretty sweet. My final home call! I'm grateful that you are all doing very good, happy and healthy. I know God lives and loves you all very much he has watched out for you as I have been here. Thank you for keeping me informed with Grandpa and Grandma and also Camille. It really helps me when you let me know how everyone is doing. Thank you for the emails and thank you so much for the support. I know that with whatever happens in life my family will always be there to support me and I am so grateful for that! 

Transfers were here o! I was transferred to Odokor. Elder Jessee was transferred to Tantra Hills. I am so sad to leave Asuom my heart wanted to stay there but I was losing my fire there. So I know God knew and knew that someone else needed to come and rekindle it a little and get full flame again. It's hard as missionaries sometimes we get stuck in routines and start just going through the motions. Especially for me I like getting into routines. It really speeds up time and helps me stay focused. However at times I really need to take a step out of my routine and see what God would have me do in that situation of time. It applies to us in our journey of mortality. Are we stuck in routines? If so we have the Savior and the Holy Ghost to help us. We can take a step out of our own clouds and see what do I need to be doing in my life, what should I do to please God. Don't be afraid to change. 
Asuom was so sweet, I will forever miss my gym out there that is killing me right now, now all I do is just normal push ups and dumb bells made out of gears haha. It was very neat however that on my last Sunday there we had a baptism. We assembled the font(a small swimming pool) and baptized one of the greatest men I have ever met, S N. I will never forget his sacrifice he had made to join the Lords church. I will use his example in my homecoming talk I know of it. He speaks very broken English but he and I got along so well and he and I will be great friends in the celestial kingdom. You know it's not easy serving in Africa. When you say goodbye it's most likely goodbye forever. It's not easy. 
One thing that I again have realized is the importance of  “blessed are the poor for they are the ones that will inherit the kingdom of God.”  My last Sunday in Asuom we always heard of this big plantation called GOPDC. So I decided to go see it...make a memory as Grandma would say. Well Elder Nyampong and I got us a moto, piled three of us on a little motorcycle and went on a 10 mile ride to see it. It was so neat the whole time I was like my family would love to see this. They had a huge farm of Palm Nut and  had a huge plantation. Well they had an air strip(Dad) and it was very interesting the whites lived on one side while the Blacks were on the other side. There was the sweetest swimming pool, with tennis courts chii it was so tempting. Well we decided we are here so let us do a little contacting. Well we contacted some big houses and the first two houses were Africans. Very nice humble people. Very welcoming and very friendly. They loved talking and were very interested in what we were doing. Well then we went to the whites side and they were all mostly from Belgium(explains it) and we contacted them and they were so rude and so prideful. One guy in particular was sitting outside reading and we walked to his presence and started talking. Well you know me I love small talk so I was trying to chat with him. I asked him a question of what exactly the plantation does? He said as you can see in a very rude way. Chii I almost gave it to him. I about said yeah it looks like a slave plantation so maybe you can correct me. I just said okay we will see you another day and we left. You know I will forever love Africans because they are so friendly and so inviting. I will never forget their examples to me. I then realized why I'm not in America because I would get in a lot of arguments when people are jerks...God does know me haha! 

Well Odokor is so sweet. We have a sweet compound and some sweet tenants. They are very wealthy so they take care of us. They love me too so they have fed me almost every night with nice grilled chicken and smoked fish. The down side is they love partying. They love girls and are always drinking and bringing girls over. So they keep us up when we want to sleep with loud music and drunk laughter but other than that its way sweet. We have everything we need here. The nicest mall in west Africa is just down the road and we have one of the greatest doctors in Africa in our ward so we are very blessed. It's totally opposite from Asuom where we were alone and had nothing haha. However they did get another senior couple from Idaho, he was a dairy farmer and is a great guy he was sad I was leaving there. He saw my cowboy hat and o buddy we clicked right away.

My companion is Elder Green he is from Jonesboro Arkansas. He is about 5 months on mission and is a sweet guy I really like him.  He had a beautiful girlfriend and is handsome himself. He played the French horn in band and loves football so we get along pretty good. I played the trumpet pretty freaking  good when I used to play haha.

Well family I am going to chop rabbit. I have a video of it. First I am in the same apartment with Elder Lewis-Reese from Pennsylvania and again Elder Uzoho who was companions with Elder Jensen when I was training Elder Luvhengo while Jensen trained Elder Uzoho...that was almost a year ago haha. Well we all get along very well I love Uzoho I call him Nija haha sweet guy. Well he likes rabbit but doesn't like killing them I think. So he bought one and I had to kill it the ole African way last night. By cutting his head off. It was a first for me...had to make a memory. I did it very fast so it didn't suffer but still I felt bad haha it's like dad says when you about shoot the dogs that last look just gets you but if times get rough I know how to do that stuff. We will chop him to tonight. 

Well Family! I love you all very much. I am so thankful that I have such a wonderful family. I am grateful for the prayers you send my way. I am getting anxious to come home but still working as hard as possible. I want you to know I hope I will forever keep the gospel of Jesus Christ by the Grace of God. I know it is true and know that my Heavenly Father lives. I feel at times we forget that he is an actual being and he is actually at the other end of our prayers. He is our father and he does love us. I am thankful for my Savior. This Easter was very special for me, the number one thing I have learned since I have been a missionary is that the Savior is the most important aspect of our lives. He is the reason we get to live with our families forever. He is the reason we will be resurrected and because of Him we can find peace and happiness in this world. He loves us and I love him very much! Can't wait until we meet again.

Love you all tons,

Elder Carson
(t-cars) this name is what everyone calls me here haha!

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Week 79- Go and Come with Honor!!

Hey family!  We are able to email today "by His grace" as we say in Ghana.  I sure love this place and will have a hard time leaving it. It sounded like you all had a great week.  Cami is so dang funny, reading dad's email and mom's email this week made me laugh and really miss her.  It was good to get a good laugh though.  I can’t believe the weather is changing already, it seems too early.  I am grateful that you all had great weeks, that you are all happy and safe and doing well.

This week was a great week for Elder Nyampong and me.  We really had a great week and really felt the hand of the Lord as we went throughout the day.  The Asuom branch is really struggling, to be honest it is on the verge of collapsing, we are trying our best and coming up with ideas from the Lord on how to change it but the members aren't willing to put in their parts to change it and it is really affecting us all. Pray for this branch oooooo.  We have been working with a couple people who are really progressing.  We have a man whose name is S.  He is such a great man that I will never forget.  He is so determined to change his life and has so much faith in Jesus Christ. He knows that this gospel is his only way to have true happiness.  It’s funny though because he speaks Ghanaian pigeon English so when I try to speak to him we have a good laugh because I can only hear the pigeon but to speak it dea is not easy haha.  Also we have an older women whose name is E. She has been coming to church and is such a sweet lady.  She doesn’t speak a lick of English so my companion does all the teaching and I just laugh and draw pictures as he teaches on a small white board we have.  We invited her to pray to know if the church was true and the following lesson she told us that she as she was praying saw Joseph Smith when he saw the light and knew it was an answer to her prayer.  Well we went there Sunday and she told us that her friend had told her that the church was not true.  My companion did a great job by saying who are you going to listen to God or your friend?  She responded with of course God and then she came to church so it was sweet.  We have a few other people that we are working with that are being very stubborn and aren't being honest with us. I tell you what though this Church is so dang true.  You know I was just discussing with my companion the culture in Ghana and the mindset with members with the topic of going on mission.  Here in Ghana and I think it is safe to say in West Africa, the culture in the Church is if you are a man worthy of age to serve a mission basically you have to go.  Their mentality is if you don’t serve you bring dishonor upon your families head and upon your own head.  You know I don’t know if this right because it may force people to go when they don’t want to but I also agree with it because not only does that aspect of their mentality make sense I think we miss out on so many blessings into our lives and miss out on such a wonderful learning experience that you can only learn on a mission.  A mission is so important, it truly is a university of life, it teaches you so much about the gospel of Jesus Christ and truly helps you develop a sure foundation that will carry you the rest of your life.  I was once participating in a family home evening in Kaneshie with members and with a group of young single adults.  We were celebrating the departure of a leaving sister missionary.  It was so cool to be in this single room with so many wonderful people strong in the faith.  Well as we were closing they asked each of us in attendance to give the future sister missionary some words of advice. Well it went through about 9 of us then it was the turn of a young 9 year old girl.  She said 5 simple words that changed my life.  She said "go and come with honor." I thought of such a powerful statement by such a young girl that is the mentality that each of us should have. I think this is what God and Jesus said to us as we left their presence to gain a body and be tested I imagine God saying "Taylor Go and Come with honor my son."  I will forever live my life so when I stand before that Judgement seat of God he will say "well done thou good and faithful servant." My family the church is true, prepare yourself in whatever way imaginable to magnify our callings, go on a mission or do what you know the Lord expects of you at this time. I love you all very much and miss you like crazy!! I will see you in 4 months!!!:)

Elder Carson

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Week 76- Bang!!!!

Hey family!!!! it sounded like you guys all had a pretty good week.  I tell you what I love having a companion that can speak Twi it truly has hastened the work out here.  Training has been sweet it has truly gave me a big push and he is so motivated to work so it has just helped me get out of the being trunky rut.  Elder Nyampong is a sweet guy we get along very well; he reminds me a lot of Boehmer so we get along great.  Elder Esplin is sweet too he has so many card games that are so sweet to play...one is called BANG it is the best game I have ever played and would recommend it to any missionary coming to Ghana.  The missionary work has been sick out in Asuom we are running into a lot of distractions; Satan is definitely at work out here. We have had so many distractions with family members, members causing issues, and so many other things, I feel like I’m serving in Oakley. There is a literacy program that President set up out here and that has been sweet we have a sweet investigator from it named N.  He is a great guy that can’t wait to be baptized he extended himself a date so we are very happy with him.  These past couple of days I have been really thinking about life and other things, and have realized however how truly blessed I am.  Sometimes to be honest I make myself stressed because I am so grateful that I am like scared to come home I don’t know it’s a weird feeling but words cant describe how grateful I am to my Heavenly Father for the way I have been raised.  I was studying however and I have always wanted a way to give back my gratitude to God which is why I strive to work hard always, but I was studying in Jacob and Jacob pleads with us that we need to give freely or something along those lines in Chapter 2 I think.  Well a seventy said a way to show our gratitude to God is by paying our tithing and offering.  It really touched me as not only are they commandments but they also are a way of showing thanks to God.  We have so much to be grateful....I wish you could just see what we see here....you wouldn’t care to give offering or your tithe.  We have truly been blessed and we have so much to be grateful for.  I hope we can all strive from this day forth to pay our tithe and offering.  We have seen miracles from our Heavenly Father and have been blessed with a wonderful community, country, and family.  We may not be perfect, but Jesus Christ will help us become it.  It’s not much but it something that touched me this week as a way to show my thanks to God.  The church is so dang true, I know it with my whole heart, if you don’t know it, or you are lacking some things, just read the Book of Mormon, with a humble heart and that will change.  Literally the Savior is the son of God and our redeemer, it pains him when we don’t do what he has taught us, he did die for us and he loves us, his arm is always outstretched and never shortened...come unto Him!!!
I love you all very much!! Tell Grandma and Grandpa that I love their emails and letters; they give me more life and motivation for the coming weeks.  Dad and Mom thank you for writing me; I am blessed to have a family that emails me every week.  Count your blessings and the send thanks up to your father.  Love you all!! Love You Colb man!!!

Elder Carson