Pictures from "Toledo

•10/08/13 Transfer to Negros!!‏

Hi!
Another transfer is gone and past - they always come and go so fast.
and now, I shall continue my District Leadership as I travel to the
far away land of Siaton, an area on the Island of Negros. I may get my
first taste of a really bukid area, but we'll see.... no one here
seems to have heard of "siaton" so I guess that's a good indicator of
how small it must be. I can't wait to get there, because I'll have a
lot of questions about what's been taught and how new everyone is in
my district because that'll help me know what they need for my first
district meeting there. I'm going to do all my packing today.....
(trying to stop thinking of all I need to do and focus on what i need
to include in my last email from Toledo) I've learned a lot here, and
done a lot here. I'm going to trust that my companion with everything
like other missionaries have had to do with me.
Last weekend, I had the privilege of baptizing someone who I had
started teaching two transfers ago - however I was transferred to the
bukid half of the area, but then after a transfer and a half away from
there, I find out that as the District Leader, I was the one to
interview! so all in all, I found her, and later interviewed and
baptized her, The week before I get transferred. I also got to baptize
the other two being (re-)baptized because somewhere along the way
their membership records were lost. so that was a cool experience.
oh yeah, I just remembered about the workshop of the assistants to the
president this last week - it was the exact same thing that I had
taught in my District meeting the week before! I felt like I was
really inspired when I heard about that.
On another note, Just to remind everyone we haven't seen general
conference yet. If we watched the first broadcast we'd be watching it
Sunday and Monday in the middle of the night. there's a re-broadcast
here in the Philippines this weekend so it's at reasonable hours of
the right days.
anyways, got to go!
-a missionary of the Lord,
Elder Dallin Carlson

• ‏ 10/01/2013 FTTE

Hello Everyone!

recently here we've been trying to do more than FTE, Find The Elect, but to Find and Teach The Elect, or FTTE.  It has yielded abundant results, and we've gotten 8 New Investigators from that alone in the last week!  There was a group of three in Casoy and as we asked if they would be interested in being taught, they said yes, so we taught them.  Then another day there were two guys who were chillin on the side of a bridge of a major highway, and we asked if they would like to be taught and they said yes.  It turns out that they both live in a shack under that bridge next to the river  -  the whole lesson turned out pretty well, and they seemed to recognize they needed something in their life; we'll be teaching them again tonight.  The other three you may have already heard about on the blog, the ones from the radio station.  But we're going to give that to the sisters because it's in their area.  We got another new Investigator Monday, a husband of a Less-Active.  We were actually looking for someone else, but we asked if we could teach them and it worked out perfectly because the husband usually isn't home.  then Yesterday, we were trying to figure out where to go and who to visit because all the husbands were out working - then we were yet again led to a less-active whose husband isn't a member and who usually isn't home, but because we came by at that particular time, and got to teach him!  Then right after that, as we were checking if another of our less-actives were home, we talked to a young man, and he said we could teach him, so we said, "Can we teach you now?"(in Cebuano, "pwede mi motudlo kanimo karon?")  and so we did.  we'll visit him again next Tuesday.

Anyways, now I've gotta go - we're going to have a sweet activity which i planned - it'll be at a resort, we'll be cooking fish and pork and having that with rice, and also Frisbee/basketball/Filipino-games, and whatever other awesome stuff happens there :)  I'm even involving the senior couple, the Halls, because they need to be involved with all of the missionary stuff - they have no trainer to involve them in things, so I've been inviting them to the CSP (they got a good taste of what the transportation is like here, and the construction) and the District Meeting (Elder Hall loved giving a shining moment to his companion) and the activity (they will be attending later).

so that's all that's going on here!  Hope all's well with you and yours!

-a missionary and representative of the Lord,  ~Elder Dallin Carlson

9/24/2013 •Radio conversion :)‏

Hello Everyone!

Today's been a really good week - we've started teaching some people who work at a radio station!  They're there almost 24/7 so it isn't too hard to set up times to teach them, which is pretty awesome.  One of them even said that they received a confirmation of the truthfulness of what we taught, and that was only after the first lesson!!  Then when we gave her a Book of Mormon, she said she might need only a week to read it!  There was two other people, one who really wanted to know more about Joseph Smith and another one who wanted a list of every prophet and his contribution.  They are all just really interested in learning and it's just super awesome!! The only thing I'm wondering about is Sabbath Day, because like I said, they are working there 24/7 and so I wonder about how that's going to work out... But if we wanted to have someone with no problems, we'd never really CONVERT anyone, because in that case they'd already be converted.  We just need to teach it with the spirit and help them to commit to God that they will do what he wants them to do.  

I'm trying to think of the needs of the missionaries in my district, and what I should teach them next District Meeting.  But I guess I'll keep wondering about that outside of email time, because that's over now! hope all's well there!

-a missionary of the Lord,

~Elder Dallin Carlson

9/17/2013 Hi Everyone

  Hi everyone!‏  

It's been a good week.  Me and my companion are getting along better and understanding each other more.  Recently we had splits with the zone leaders, and I learned a lot from the experience.  I mentioned to him when you said to be bold and firm with them instead of worrying about being friends/buddies with them because when we see them in the next life, if we didn't correct them they will say 'I needed a missionary, not a friend.'    My Zone leader accepted this very well, and then reminded me to do this with my companion when needed.  "Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;" (Doctrine and Covenants 121:43)   I'm going to study a bit about the role of trainer/senior companion and see about learning more about how to lead.

Last week we had a really cool experience.  we were figuring out where we could go even though we had no kuyog, but everywhere we went the people where gone for one reason or another - at one house, one of them happened to be having a baby that night, so the whole family was gone!  It was crazy.   But then we were thinking of where to go next in the pouring rain, and I was trying to think of branch leaders to visit, and then one came to mind that i hadn't thought of.... we went there, and he was home and we visited with him....we were there right when he needed us!  We were totally led there, and led by the spirit as we taught him.  It reminds me of what you told me when you said "The cool thing about being a tool in the hand of the lord is you get to feel the lord's hand"  and so that's what I'm working on becoming....by becoming obedient like the dust, "For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God."  (Helaman 12:8)

I think I'm going to do my next District Meeting on Teaching for understanding, so there's more interaction going on in the lessons of the new missionaries, because with their language skills it's too easy to get in the habit of preaching to people because it's so much easier than having to adjust it for different people according to their needs.

The sisters in our branch have an investigator named Agnes. She's the temporary house help of the Elder's Quorum 1st counselor. That's why she's been introduced to the church and has been going to church (they bring her). my concern is that they seem to move whenever they are starting a new muffler shop (there's three of them now) and i taught their last house help in Naga...the problem is not the distance, but the family. The absence of family support or even opposition of her family can stop her. I'm trying to have them schedule a time to go visit her family since they're in the sister's area in the same barangay as a recent convert there. The sisters seem to think that the Gimongala family would count as a guardian..(he's only her employer)...I'm going to take care of the situation, and just make sure she's individually and independently converted.

anyways that's about it! hope all of you are doing well and i've g2g!

-a servant of the Lord, 

~Elder Dallin Carlson

9/10/2013 2nd week as District Leader‏

·        2nd week as District Leader‏   

Elder Dallin Carlson

9/10/13

Hey everyone!

I am now on my 4th computer and trying to make it work - I might actually get in a letter to you!  Everything went pretty good with the last District Meeting - I could tell that the spirit had been preparing me to receive the president's workshop at District Leader's Counsel (DLC) - In fact, I had already taught from Doctrine and Covenants 97:8, and my District Meeting Monday before last was about exactly what you taught at the end about Consecrated oil - so that was pretty cool.  Right now I'm getting ready to teach my District about the new guidelines for the temple tour, and I've even drawn a map for all the new missionaries so they can know what's going on, if they get transferred to somewhere where they'll help out with the Temple tours on Thursdays.  I miss the Temple- but I guess it's a good thing because when I get to go inside again, I'll treasure it more.

Anyways we had a sweet experience with an FTE - I had forgotten my scriptures on one of those water machines to get some water, and so we went back and they were watching for someone to come looking for it - then we shared a bit, and asked if he wanted to be taught then and there, and he said yes.  as we started out, he said "moreg gituyo sa Ginoo"  which basically translates to 'I think the Lord made this happen'  I think that's exactly what happened because he listened attentively, said he'd come to church, and agreed to another lesson!  I'm excited to teach him again.

anyways, I've gotta go! hope all is well with you and yours!  Hopefully I'll be able to write more next time!

-A servant of the Lord,

~Elder Dallin Carlson

9/03/2013 •1st week as District Leader!‏

Everyone!

I gave my first workshop this last Monday about our calling/purpose and we discussed how to become set apart and consecrated.  At the beginning there wasn't enough participation but at the end there was too much of them talking and the topic of discussion started to wander.  Afterwards Elder Ratu (one of our Zone Leaders) gave some really good advice - (took a little time to answer the less-active who bothers me with questions every time and taps my shoulder every two minutes and I have to take email time to answer questions) - anyways Elder Ratu suggested that I figure out what I want them to do as a result of it and make sure that everything goes towards that.  I've also found out that I need to give a little summary before so they know where the lesson is going and then ask good questions- I'm still working on how to ask those and what to ask for in such a way to help them contribute while controlling the subject and direction- i guess it'll come with time and practice.

It's interesting being with Elder Painchaud - he's from Quebec and they mainly speak only French there - he has ok english but now he's learning Visayan on top of that!  he's not stressing about it though - He's worried a lot more about having the apartment spotless:P   We're working on improving with how he says stuff and me and my teaching skills. 

I'm trying to learn how to become best buds with him but I'm not sure how to do that because I've never had anything like that.  I really don't know - I guess I'll just try to find out about him and his life.  

Right now we're trying to figure out how to inspire the less-actives to fulfill the commandments and inspire the actives to fulfill their responsibilities.  What inspires you to fulfill your church responsibilities?

That's about it for now - 

-og kugihang sulugoon sa Ginoo;

~si Elder Dallin Carlson

Toledo

8/27/2913 District Leader!

Hi everyone!

Transfer Calls came with a surprise this week - I'm going to be a District leader here in Toledo!  For those who haven't served missions before, the mission areas are well organized with a number of zones inside a mission, and a number of districts inside each zone.  These areas, of course, are led by leaders, and I'll be leading about 13 or so here in this district.  The transfers are six weeks each, and after each there is changes in who's assigned where.  My companion, Elder Gaerlan from Davao, will be transferred to open an area while training (I guess he might have been prepared by his experience here)  and I'm going to be finishing up the training of Elder Painchoud (I was told it was pronounced Pen-show  - don't tell him this, but French people don't know how to spell or sound stuff out :P )  I always thought of being a District Leader and training at the same time was something for Zone Leaders stepping down!  But I know that the Lord has prepared a way for me to accomplish this thing which he has commanded me(1Nephi 3:7)  because I've felt the spirit preparing and teaching me for this position, especially in the last few weeks.  

Another thing I've been thinking about is extending my mission, even if for only a transfer or two.  I've had a desire to do that for pretty much my whole life - I always wondered why it got shortened to 2 years, and I specifically remember when I saw "Other Side of Heaven", I remember hoping that something like that would happen with my mission.  The reason it's been a bit more on my mind lately is that I found out that the date for going home has been moved to late April, and I really want to extend.  I'm not sure if this desire is just me or the spirit, I'm not sure how to draw the line between those two yet. I feel that it would be a lot better to spend that transfer serving the Lord here in the mission.

I've got so many things running through my head right now that I need to find about and plan now that I'm about to be the District Leader here - I'm going to have to use that to do list in the back of my planner for all the things that need to be done and planned.   I want to be as organized and clear as possible with planning things, and I want to do everything the way it's supposed to be done... I know I can't do it perfect, but I'm still just gonna do my best  and leave the rest up to the Lord.

I'll write more next week with some more information on how Toledo District is doing!

A fellow-servant of the Lord,

~Elder Dallin Carlson

Poses

8/20/2013 Mission Life as Always, Just Saving Souls as Usual

• mission life as always, just saving souls as usual‏

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Dallin Carlson

7:41 PM

• 

Hey Everyone!

 with the baptisms we had the other week where there was 4 baptisms, we had three families completed - 1.a husband of a returning less-active 2./3.husband and wife  3. last child of a member family.   That was a cool observation from our branch president.  The next week, we had a woman baptized whose husband is taking the lessons!  They are on fire with the spirit and the Gospel, inviting their friends and families to hear the message, because they have complete confidence in the power and truth of the message.  It's cool to see them coming to Toledo Sacrament meetings; with how they live farther away it should be harder, but their faith and commitment is greater than the obstacles.  This is why that area, Casoy, is now my favorite area in my mission.

one of our other investigators, Nap-john, really wants to get baptized, but the problems are that he's not sure about if he's received an answer that the church is true; he's also not fully active (misses church every once in awhile despite living down the road a ways); and he isn't reading the Book of Mormon at all recently.  He needs to be fully active and reading daily if he intends to endure to the end - in our teaching to him, I made sure to not just say that he needs that to be baptized, but I told him he needed to do that to the end of this life, which I then and there committed him to do for the rest of his life.

We also have a family, Bacasmas, who is returning to activity after we taught them about true repentance and how we have to abandon the sin as explained in Mosiah 4:10 and then after their first time back we taught them about accountability with the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-29.  It was really good to drive the point home that they need to not just have good excuses or "just try" - they need to fulfill covenants and keep commandments.  And since then, they've been doing just that, and we've finally been able to teach them as a family - twice now.  That hasn't happened at all in the time that Elder Gaerlan has been assigned here until now.  There's a investigator that hasn't been coming to church or be taught for months, but now he's doing both!  It seems to mainly be because of his..'partner' ... one of the girls in the Bacasmas family who's pregnant with his child.  But the good thing is that they've finally gotten over their shyness and now they're coming to church and being taught the lessons by us!

that's about it for stuff going on here!  Hope all is going well there!

~Elder Dallin Carlson

8/06/2013 Mga Bunyag! (the baptism)

kamusta tanan!

We now have 4 people who are going to be baptized then including the child of record from Casoy as well.  But I sort of wonder if our district leader is looking for quoted answers like quoting the pamphlet and stuff like that - that's how he tends to teach in district meeting (taught repentance- it was straight out of the pamphlet).  And I'm not sure how a slight confusion about the Godhead (saying lord in her prayer and not able to explain exactly how they're one when he whipped out the scripture in Matthew) keeps her from baptism - I'll find out on Saturday during Zone Interviews because I couldn't find anything related to that in D&C 20:37.  I think we'll start teaching them individually maybe.  or possibly just those two that have had their date pushed back.  I'm just really confused now on how perfect their understanding and stuff has to be in order to be baptized.  

On a brighter note, our kuyog/unofficial branch missionary, Lorenzo, has been continuing to go with us every day, thereby enabling us to teach the families while their husbands are at work all day.  We would take the other kuyog-Ricky-but he's trying to take care of stuff for work and whatnot so we're going with Lorenzo daily.  Without him we'd be struggling to teach people; especially with Zone Training meeting on Thursday and Zone Interview workshops on Friday and interviews on Saturday.  So to make  up for that we've been trying to teach as many people and help as many souls as possible the last few days to make up for the rest of the week because we'll be in meetings

Anyways I'm super glad that I've found the reason we have key indicators - it's to indicate how we've been helping souls - when people say not to focus on the numbers they just mean don't lose the focus on the people/souls.  We do need to worry about how effective we're being with our time so we can help more people towards salvation; we just need to make sure that we're teaching people not lessons and Finding the Elect and not just doing FTEs.

I hope we can fulfill our responsibilities and keep the correct focus on getting ourselves and others to the Celestial Kingdom.

for now,

og kugihan nga misyonaryo,

Elder Dallin Carlson

7/30/2013 Casoy :)

• Casoy :)‏

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Dallin Carlson

8:10 PM

Hey everyone!
another awesome week in Toledo! when we were up in Casoy this last
Sunday for the group sacrament, we had higher attendance than
apparently they've ever had- 32! Even an elderly couple, Brother and
Sister Rico, came from Bagakay! from what I've been told, they and
some others come to Casoy sacraments sometimes but only one member
from Bagakay has ever come all the way to the church in
Toledo....once. but all the members and investigators from Casoy
always do! So that's why we're holding the sacrament meetings in
Casoy. One of our investigators there has taken a long time to pray
to know if it's true, and in his prayer he asked for a sign - if the
church was true, have the lizard there (called tuko in Visaya) make a
noise (croak type of sound) three times, and if it wasn't true, have
the rooster outside crow three times. To give you an idea, it's
almost always the chickens and roosters making noise and hardly EVER
the tuko/lizard. But apparently when he prayed, the tuko sounded, and
the chickens were silent - that hardly ever happens, but he already
had the faith to finally pray about it, and for him, this church is
definitely the true. Of course I already knew that, but I'm glad i
could assist someone else in finding that out for theirself.
We're also getting a ward plan set up! We've got plans started for a
ward fireside about the how and the why of referrals, setting up a
church tour, and other stuff! We're even gonna train our ward
missionaries on how to extract referrals because we can only do so
much on our own. I'm not sure if we're starting a wave here or if
we're catching on or starting the catching on here - either way, it's
awesome!! We've got plans to help the investigators and recent
converts and less-actives, as well as the active members - and helping
them to help others! so we're going to do our best to help everyone
come unto Christ and build their lives on that sure foundation
"whereon if men build, they cannot fall" (Helaman 5:12)
hope you have a good week! Next saturday we should be having a
pentuplet (5 people being born[in Christ] again through) baptism!
It's all people from Casoy and they all seem to be ready for baptism,
and they will be interviewed this weekend!
a kugihan sulugoon sa Ginoo,
Elder Dallin Carlson

7/24/2013 Hey Everyone!

• Hey everyone‏

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Dallin Carlson

9:12 PM

To: Christine Carlson

• 

kamusta tanan!
how's everything where you are? I am doing pretty good here with
Elder Gaerlan, he's super kugihan(diligent)! our only obstacles are
the people using their agency to not recieve our teachings. But he's
awesome and I hope we can do wonders here - I went from no baptismal
candidates to 5 which will maybe be baptized on august 10th! The only
problem which might arise is that we can only teach the husbands once
a week because they're working most days, but it's going pretty good
overall. one of the husbands used to be a born again - he is starting
to accept the Book of Mormon, but he still asks for bible verses for
everything we teach - I'm not sure yet why, I'll try asking him and
teach him how to find them for himself when he has time. apparently
he's even reading Jesus the Christ!
I'm glad I have this chance to work with Elder Gaerlan on my language
a bit - everyone says I have an accent that makes it a bit harder to
understand me, and my grammar's a little off - I'm still working on
how to take care of that so they can focus more on the message and
less on the way I say it - I'm seeing more and more how we should do
language study throughout the mission like so few missionaries seem to
do here.
anyways, I've gotta go! I guess next time I should print off emails to
me so I can write more and use the time on the computer more
effectively.
gotta go! talk to you all next week!
Elder Dallin Carlson

7/16/2013 Transfers Na!

• transfers na!‏

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Dallin Carlson

9:18 PM

To: Christine Carlson

• 

Hi everyone!

stuff's going pretty good here in Toledo - it's different with Elder Ursenbach not here anymore (he's a Returned Missionary now) but it's ok because my new companion is Elder Gaerlan!  He's from Davao Philippines and he's really kugihan(diligent) and we've been getting some good work done!  It's pretty easy to get along because he was in the other half of our branch's area - The Lord's plan was perfect for our area - we needed sisters in our part of the area, so he assigned an elder in both companionship's in Toledo 2nd branch so their companions could become a companionship, and so it worked perfectly!  It'll be interesting to get the sisters to where they know the area and the people - I think we'll have them use the area book and ward missionaries as well, because we won't have much time for that.

My new area (the other half of Toledo 2 area) is very very remote!  just yesterday we went to  a part of the area that took an hour ride mostly along a dirt road to get there!  the view was pretty awesome though, and we got to have some coconuts from this guy we're going to start teaching next week!  It's pretty awesome.  I'm excited.  Even though there's gonna be a TON of walking that might somehow make me lose even more weight.

anyways, g2g now and try to get stuff done!  

a servant of the Lord,

Elder Dallin Carlson