The Best District

Good to hear that all is great in Calgary, and that your Easter was good.  Mine just felt like another day for the most part, although I got to go give a blessing to a less-active member in the Sister’s area who was pretty cool.  He injured his foot in a NYPD basketball tournament.  We talked to him about the NYPD and learned all sorts of cool new facts, but I won’t bore you with those. 

I really don’t know what to write about this week.  I guess I could start off by saying that transfers have come and gone, and I'm staying here in North Manhattan with Elder Head which is way legit.  We're both excited about it, and things are going pretty great.

I think I mentioned last week that Jesse's wife passed away.  That was sad, but we got to go to the viewing yesterday which was nice.  Strangely, Jesse was in one of the happiest moods I've seen him in.  Not because his wife passed away, but I think he feels a little less burdened. And he's happy he can focus a little more on helping strengthen his family.  It was really cool talking to him about that for a few minutes while we were paying our condolences.  So yeah, he's doing well, but aside from that, we've really been struggling to find people to teach and our investigators aren't really progressing.  So we're working hard to find some people whose lives the gospel can change.

Aside from that, nothing super special has really happened since the last time I emailed you.  Elder Head and I caught some-kind of bug for a few days, but we're feeling much better now, and life is just great. 

I guess I can think of a couple of things.  So on Friday we had a blitz in the Sister’s area, and half way through, this Catholic procession of some kind went down the street right near us.  Something new I learned was that Good Friday is a pretty big catholic celebration. It was pretty weird, and kinda creepy.  I'm gonna stick up some pics too.  So you can enjoy those to make up for my lack of words this week. 

I also went on a split with Elder Bartlett, and had a good day with him knocking doors and stuff (lots of doors to knock here).  We also went to the George Washington Bridge and took a few pictures.  It was kinda creepy standing on it, because every time a semi-truck drove by, the bridge seemed to shudder.  Not what you want to feel 300 feet off the ground.  But it was cool…I'll put the pics up for you. 

But yeah, sorry I don’t really have all that much to report this week.  Life is great.  Hopefully I'll have more next week.

Love, Carson

Conference was the best!

Well, I guess I'll start off by saying I'm glad you enjoyed the pics.

This last week has been pretty sick.  Of course the best part was Conference.  I couldn’t say I had a favorite session this year.  I loved them all so much.  Some talks spoke to me more than others, but I really enjoyed all of them.  I think my favorites were the very first talk (Elder Packer I think) and the talk from Elder Bednar during the Priesthood session.  Oh, I also liked the talk by President Uchtdorf.  He gave a really cool talk with a short sermon involved.  I wrote it down word for word.  "STOP IT" Like I said, it was a cool talk.  He was just talking, from what I perceived, about Christlike love, and how we really need to refrain from judging others because they aren't at the same level we're at.  This is something that can be hard.

It's also the same topic (more or less) that I trained on at District Meeting on Monday.  We talked about Judging and Love, and just how we need to refrain from the one.  Or in the words of Elder Cook "Have the courage to refrain from judging."  And really allow the other to penetrate who we are, and how we view those around us.  It went very well, seeing as I didn't think it was going to be all that great.  But it was.  So YAY!!

On another note, we had something sad happen on Monday.  Our investigator Jesse's wife passed away Monday morning after a difficult fight with cancer.  So we tried to see him Monday.  He wasn't home, but we did get a little time to talk to him yesterday, and from what I could tell he's holding up pretty good.  Elder Head and I were just broken hearted when we found out.  I'd barely met her, but I could tell that Jesse really loved her.  And he was talking to us about how he wished there had been more he could've done while she was here.  Se we unfortunately didn't have much time, but we talked with him and reassured him that he will see her again, and be able to be with her.

And then aside from that the rest of our investigators aren't doing much.  So we've continued our search and we're gonna keep looking for those people that are ready for the gospel. 

Also I'll add a few more pics that I stole from Elder Head.  Plus transfers are next week.  So we'll see what happens...

Anyways, I love you all very much and I look forward to next week’s email.

Carson

My District at a member home

My District

Me riding the Subway

New Yorkers like to put stickers on their doors

All is well...

(Email from March 28, 2012)  I guess to start off with I'll say that all is well.  This last week passed by super fast, and it's been a really good week too.  Not much happened between Wednesday and Sunday, but Sunday was sweet.

First off we had Testimony meeting and it was a pretty typical Spanish Fast and Testimony Sunday - not a moment of silence. Anyways, there's this one guy in our ward named Oscar, a way cool Dominican about as tall as me, which is not normal. He's just a really funny and cool guy. So he went up and started to bear his testimony and stuff and this is what he said. "Que bonito es....es, soy bonito" (Meaning: What is beauty? I am beautiful). Then he made it spiritual by adding, "Soy Bonito porque tengo el evangelio de Jesucristo en mi Vida", which was great (Meaning: I am beautiful because I have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life).  It made everyone laugh.  It was good.

Later that night we held a movie night, as a way of finding more people to teach. We told members to bring their friends to come and watch "The Testaments" Which was sooo good. We had a member bring her neighbors which were way cool, and so now we're hoping to be able to teach them soon. Her neighbor’s son who is twelve made a really cool comment. One of the Sister Missionaries asked him what he thought about the movie and Jesus Christ and stuff and he said "He was here" Referring to Jesus, which was way cool. I talked to him a couple of minutes later, and he was just sitting quietly reading the Book of Mormon. It was a really good activity, and now we're working on meeting with all the people that came.

Aside from all that though, things are going well. We found some pretty cool investigators yesterday. It was actually a really good first lesson. We just got to know them, and shared a scripture with them about Christ and how he can bless us and what not. It was just a super great first lesson with them. And that happened last night, so not all that much has taken place since then. I'll send you some pics of me that were taken with the new camera. Hopefully they're not blurry.

But yeah, all is well here. I'm still alive, and now I'm gonna go play basketball.

Love, Carson 

A great week!

This last week has been great.  Not really with tons of success, but just cool experiences, which I have such a hard time expressing through email, but I'll try.  First off we haven't really been able to meet with our investigators recently.  They've been really busy and stuff, so that’s been trying but Elder Head and I are getting through it.

So let’s start with Sunday. We had a goal of at least two investigators last week, and we had only been able to find one by Sunday, so we spent the hours after church finding until our last appointment for the night at 7.  And we found... a lot of diddly squat!!  Just a plethora of slammed doors.  Not my idea of success.  But that's cool - nothing that much out of the norm.  So eventually it came time to travel to our next appointment, and about fifty feet from the front door, this lady across the street yells “Hey I know them”.  Which isn't uncommon either, so we kinda glanced over, thought she wasn't talking about us and kept on walking.  Then she left her friends and ran after us and shouted "hey wait up"...  I guess she was talking about us.  So we stopped and she caught up and was like “Do you remember me (to Elder Head)?”  Turns out she worked at a Duane Reade (Pharmacy here in NY) and he had contacted her when he was serving in the East Bronx.  A long way from where we are now.  He eventually remembered her as well, and she was like "Hey I want Bible studies now!!"  And then she asked if we could come to the Bronx.  We said “no, but there are missionaries there who could pass by” and she was like “No I want you two”.  "Could I come over here once a week and you could teach me?"  And we were like of course!!  So we exchanged info, and parted ways.  But it was just way cool to have that experience, especially for Elder Head.  Just shows that no matter what we do, the Lord has a way of making sure all those who need to receive the message, receive it.

After this experience we met a couple other people and so in the coming weeks we should be able to find a few new people to talk to, which is awesome.  And we had a great training from President Smith about teaching, and then yesterday we applied the model he gave us in one of our lessons, and it was just AWESOME!!  The model was [Observe and Listen --> Discern --> Talk], which was a great help for us, and the lesson with the family was great.  We found 2 news as well. 

That’s about all I got for now.  It's good to hear the all is well back on the home front.  Just let me know if I missed anything, or if you've got any comments or concerns.

Love, Carson

P.S.  I added a photo of the member I mentioned last week - the one who reminds me of Grandma Dilling (if she were Hispanic).

The Members Love The Missionaries

Hola Familia,

Bueno, para empezar. Voy a decir que... No lo creo que Sarah escribio esa parrafo por si mismo.  La gramatica que uso, y las palabras vinieron de un nivel mucho mas alto do lo que ella hubiera aprendido en high school.  algunas de las palabras aun yo no las sabia.  Para de todos modos de diverti leyendo su carta en Espanol. 

Well things here are going pretty good.  It was cool getting a letter from all of you.  I'll start off by saying I'm gonna get a new camera, because I always hold the button down half way and make sure that the camera gives me the green light saying it's focused.  So I'm assuming that something isn't working as it should be.  So I'll go ahead and do that today, and let you know what it cost next week.

I guess I'll start off answering your questions.  There’s approximately 12 Wards (1 stake) in Manhattan alone.  Then there are five in the Bronx, and I know that there’s a Queens Stake, and a Brooklyn Stake.  So the church is pretty big here, but it really appears small in comparison to how many people are living in this city.  One of the Elders in my District got a letter from his dad with the statistic for how many people live in his area.  Apparently in the skinny part of the island over a distance of 25 blocks or so, approx 400,000 people are living.  Crazy right?  As for Christina’s questions, the ward I'm in right now is super awesome.  The members are so supporting of the missionary work, and that’s just so awesome, because not many wards are.  We're gonna have an activity on the 25^th.  It will be a Movie night.  We're inviting members to come see a movie, and their ticket is a non-member or less-Active member, so hopefully we can get some good success from that.  We're gonna watch The Testaments.

From the sounds of your letters everyone back home is doing great.  Hopefully Sarah gets that job at Spruce It U.  It'd be a lot of fun, and when I was there I got $12/hr.  But maybe they'll pay her more, who knows. 

As for me, things are going great.  We had a pretty good week, still not a whole lot of new investigators, but we're happy and finding some success from our knocking, and finding efforts.  A couple of cool things happened this week.  First off Elder McMullin came back with his Family for a visit, and I met his parents at church on Sunday, which was kinda funny because His mom already knew who I was.  She was like “wow, you’re Elder Dilling” (apparently when you search "New York New York North Mission" My Blog comes up) so she'd read that a little bit, and it was kinda cool to meet them.  We haven't really had any really cool spiritual experiences lately, but we've had some more success with our finding efforts as I said... Just a few less people said “no” to us or ignored us through the door.  These are all good things that lead to success sometimes faster than others, but that’s cool. 

I just have a quick story to let you know how the members feel about us.  We were walking to an appointment the other day, and this member (her name is Hermana) was walking towards us and the first thing she said was "What happened on Friday?!?" (We hadn't stopped by) She then went on to talk about he she had cooked for us and stuff and expected that we were coming over, even though we hadn't made any appointment with her.  We were actually trying to give her a break and not be a burden on her.  That obviously didn't work; she then said that she expects us to come over every Friday.  We were just so impressed by her love and desire, and we also felt so bad for not having gone over.  But we figured that since we hadn't made an appointment with her she wouldn't do anything like that.  But it just goes to show how much the people here love the missionaries, at times too much, but you need not worry, I'm being well fed here.  We have dinner appointments like 3 or 4 times a week. And the occasional lunch appointment too.  Just another side note, I was thinking about this member and the thought just came to my mind about how similar she looks to Grandma Dilling, I have a picture of her, but I want a better one.  If Grandma Dilling were Hispanic, this would be what she looks like.  I'll get a better pic when we go over on Friday.

But yeah, as I said things are going great here in the Campo Misional.  Hope everything also continues to go well for you in Calgary, and that the weather gets better.  It's been like 20 everyday for the last week here.  Spring has definitely arrived early.

Love Carson

P.S. As for Dad’s School question, I'm currently leaning towards BYUI, to at least get my associates, but then after that I'm not entirely sure.  But I'm still allowing staying in Calgary to be an option.  I'm trying to be fair about it, but I think I'd be happier at Idaho.  We'll see though, I know I've gotta decide soonish, and that'll definitely be a question on my mind during this coming conference.  For now though I'll focus my efforts on what’s at hand.  It'll all work out whatever I do.  I've also been thinking of some other career paths I might pursue.

Something Great is in Store

Hola mi familia,

 All is well here in Manhattan. First off, what do you want me to do about my camera?  Should I for sure go ahead and buy a new one?  If so, how much should I spend?  I might just break into that cash that I have saved up.  What do you think? 

 Anyways, it's good to hear that all is going well with you back home.  Unfortunately I can’t really say the same for us here in my area.  We haven't really been able to find any new investigators these past few weeks and it seems that every time we try and do some finding we really don't find much.  Then to top it off, most of our present investigators are dropping off the face of the earth, or just not keeping their appointments.  In spite of all this I feel that Heavenly Father is trying to teach me something, I'm just not all that sure what thing is yet.  I just wish it would be a little clearer sometimes.

 This week was pretty good in other ways though, Elders Hill and Bartlett are doing great together and they've brought a great spirit with them to the area.  It's been a lot of fun with them.  Yesterday we went and did some service at a local garden.  It reminded me of my days at Spruce it Up.  (Which, by the way I suggested to Sarah that she put in an application there.)  All we did was shovel mulch into buckets and then carry said buckets about 100 meters to the garden, dump the bucket and then another missionary would spread it while I went back to get some more.  I'll tell you what.. My back was KILLING me this morning when I got up.  I think I'm gonna need a massage and a chiropractor when I get home.  Also I might need a new retainer.  Mine is getting pretty old and has a couple holes in it as well as a few cracks.  But I still wear it as often as I remember.  (most nights.)

 We also had a great lesson with one of our investigators named Hector.  But he goes by Daddy Rane.  Don’t ask me why.  Anyways, we went over there with the plan of dropping him because he hasn't been progressing and ended up giving him a baptismal commitment.  Not a date.  (because he's got a long way to go), but a firm commitment to which he said he wanted to work towards, so we're excited to keep working with him.  Aside from that, Elder Head and I are convinced that the Lord is preparing us for something big because of our lack of success in finding new people to teach.  I can hardly wait.  Things are still going great regardless. 

Anyways, just let me know about the camera and stuff and I look forward to hearing back next week.

Love, Carson

As for the mission it's going great

Hey Family.

Well, thanks for emailing me this week, you’re definitely doing much better than that other missionary’s family, you've only missed twice, but that doesn't mean you get to slack off. 

As for the camera situation, I'll see what I can do.  My camera is having a tough time focusing, so if you want to send me the Pentax that would be awesome.  I know you don't use it that often... jk.  But I'll go look into another camera.  I don’t know what’s up with mine.  Is it the majority of the pics?  If so, I’ll definitely need to look into a new one.   I'll also try and get more pictures.  I just don't really like doing it, you know me.  I like pictures of things, not people.  I don't know why though, I'll try and change that.  That way you can get rid of the bad and the ugly part.

As for the mission, it's going great.  Jesse's still doing alright, not progressing super fast or anything, but he's there and he's working towards it little by little.  Then there are the other three.  We haven't had an opportunity to meet for like 2.5 weeks.  It’s been pretty tough here recently.  Also Elder McDaniel and McMullin went home today, I'm definitely sad to see them leave as they were both great missionaries and I learned a lot from them both.  I am definitely planning to keep in touch with them.  They were pretty excited to go home and see their families again, but still worked hard and were just great.  But it's time to move on and just "Put [my] Shoulder to the Wheel."   To replace them we got Elder Hill and Elder Bartlett (the one who I lived with already for two cycles) also, Elder Hill is from Elder Hulmes home ward, which is pretty cool. 

But yeah, that’s about all the news I got for y’all this week.  I hope everything continues to go well.  Good luck with the advertising thing.  Till next week.

Love Carson.

P.S. That’s so awesome that Jared is planning on a mission I'll have to write him a letter and just get in contact with him.  Maybe he has an extra camera ;)

P.S.S. Just a second note since I have some more time.  Since you asked about rats, I am happy to report that we don't have any.  We work very hard to keep our place clean and clutter free.  Also, I've gained a little bit of weight.  I think like 10 pounds over the course of my mission and thankfully it's not fat! Yay!

As for the memory card, when I send it, it gets wiped in customs.  Remember the one I sent you last Christmas...?  You could definitely send me a hard copy of photography tips.  That might be help me to remember what I need to take pictures of.  I'll even post it on my wall to remind me every day... ;)  ha-ha.  Anyways, that’s about it for now once again hope all continues to go well.

Much Love, Carson