Carson's Missionary Blog

Sorry for the 2nd email. My homecoming talk will be in the Napa Stake Center on July 14th. The meeting will start at 10am. The address is 2590 Trower Avenue Napa, CA 94558 Hope to see you there :)

He´s been there before The alarm bell rings at 6:30, I stumble to my feet I grab my companions bedding and pull off his sheets A groan fills the room, is it already time to arise? It seems like just a second ago, I was able to shut my eyes The morning activities follow with study, prayer and such When it’s time to leave the apartment, you feel you haven’t accomplished much “We have a super day planned,” My comp. says with a grin I lowly utter a faithless breath, “Yeah, if anyone lets us in.” With the word of God and my faithful Schwinn, we ride off in the street Prepared to face another day of humidity and heat It’s 9:30 in the evening, the day is almost through My companion and I are riding home not accomplishing what we thought to do We ride up to the mailbox, hoping to receive a lot Only to look inside and hear my echo reverberate “air box” We go up to our apartment, the day is now complete The only thing to show for our work is a cas...

Hey Everyone, I hope everyone had a great week. As many of you know this is my last week in Paraguay, I will arrive in San Francisco about 1030 on Thursday morning. As a result I just want to share in this email 10 of the most important things that I have learned or received a greater testimony of in these 2 years. 1. I have an exceptional family, and I know that families can be together forever. 2. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and if we let Him, he can change our lives. 3. The Book of Mormon is the most correct book in the world, and it, along with the Bible can teach us everything we need to gain our salvation. 4. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not hard to live, but it can be hard to maintain faith in difficult situations. 5. Whenever we are about to have our most spiritual experiences, Satan will always try to stop our efforts before the miracle comes. 6. God hears and answers our prayers, even if it isnt' how we wanted. 7. Joseph Smith is a prophe...

Hey Everyone, Hope you all had a good week. Here in Paraguay things are going well. This last week we found some super cool new investigators. Last week I talked a little bit about Junior. This week we went back and he introduced us to his friend Vivian. She had a ton of questions for us and we talked for a very long time with the two of them. We left an assignment for them to read in Alma 32 about faith. At the end of the lesson with them, Vivian asked us what someone would have to do in order to join our church. We taught her briefly about baptism and how it must be done by someone who has the authority. She seemed very interested, although still hesitant about committing to be baptized. She said that if she were able to get an answer she probably would though. It was a great lesson.  Also this week we had Zone conference. It was the last zone conference for President Evans and my own last Zone conference here in Paraguay as well. It was really special. President and Herm...

Hey everyone, Hope you all had a good week. Here in Paraguay things are going well. This week I want to talk a little bit about one of our cool new investigators. His name is Junior, pronounced how you would pronounce it in English. He is 17 years old and has tons of questions about our church and religion in general. Yesterday we had our second lesson with him and it became very apparent that he has done his research on the history of Christianity. He knows names like Martin Luther and John Calvin and what they did. This is a big change from what I am used to down here. As is common in South America, a large majority of the people down here identify as Catholic but don't even really know what they believe. It really has been interesting to start teaching Junior and help him understand the importance of a Restoration in stead of just reformation. Hopefully things continue going well with him. Love, Elder Seibert Pictures with some of the members here in Concepcion Ram...

Well things are going well in Paraguay. We are having a good time and things are going well. My companion and I get along well and we are working hard. Love Elder Seibert 

Hey everyone, Well this week was pretty good. But really not too much to report. We found some good new investigators and we had lots of fun teaching some of our progressing investigators. Elder Vincent got to give his first talk in Paraguay yesterday and he did a good job. So we were both very happy about that. Anyway, that is all I have to report.  Love, Elder Seibert

Hey Everyone, Well this week was fun. We were able to find a lit of new investigators and we also had splits with the Zone Leaders. I spent the day with elder Trejo from Arizona in his area. We had a lot of fun working and I was able to meet some cool people. I learned a lot from him too. He is a great missionary. I am not going to lie, these past few weeks had been pretty rough as far as missionary work goes. We had been trying to talk to everyone, but people just don't really seem interested. However this week we were finally able to get some good referrals and we found some potential from street contacting. Sometimes the hard work pays off. I am so glad for the blessings that we received this week. Love, Elder Seibert Pictures of my apartment here in beautiful Concepcion Paraguay Also we knocked some coconuts out of a tree, and we made some chipa this week

Hey All, I hope everyone had a good week! Here in Concepción things have been going well. Yesterday we had Zone Conference so we have P-Day on Tuesday. Really not too much to report, but we are having fun and we are doing well. I have pictures this week so you can all just look at those. Love, Elder Seibert

Hey everyone, Not a lot of time today, I was talking to my dad for a while since he just got back from his treatment. He is doing well. Anyway, this week was pretty normal. Kind of difficult in finding our investigators and trying to get new people to teach. But we are doing well, no major problems. Love, Elder Seibert

Hey everyone, This week was really good. It started off with a trip back from Asuncion with my new companion elder Vincent, from Holladay SLC Utah. he is brand new and I am very excited to be training a new missionary for the second time. Unfortunately our trip back here from Concepción was less than relaxing. We left at 1130pm from Asuncion and arrived back here in Concepción at 730am on Wednesday morning. We were both wiped out, and I didn't want to make my companion hate his life, but we had some visits planned that we couldn't miss. I definitely felt bad but there wasn't anything I could do. The rest of the week was good though. We have gotten a lot of work done, and we are moving forward to find new people to teach, we are still in a bit of a slump, but I cant complain. We keep marching on. I am short in time otherwise I would try to write a little more, sorry! Love, Elder Seibert

Elder Seibert, President Judd has received notification that you will be returning from your mission on July 11 th . He has asked me to schedule your release interview at 645 that evening at the Stake Center.  President Judd would like to meet with you and your immediate family in your mission release interview. These interviews typically include some time with you, the missionary and President Judd; followed by some time with available immediate family members. During the personal interview, President Judd will be reviewing My Plan which should be provided to you in your mission, typically sometime in the last 4-6 weeks of your mission. Ideally, you will have this document for review and preparation prior to your return. If you are unable to obtain a copy I can email a PDF to you, just let me know. That same evening, we would like you to report your mission to the High Council at approximately 745 pm. Please plan on taking up to 15 minutes in that meeting where you are en...

Hey everyone, Hope you all are doing well. I wish I had a little more time but today I have to go to Asuncion to pick up my new companion. I guess the big news this week is that I will be training for my last 12 weeks of my mission. I will be headed down a little later today and tomorrow I will know who my new companion is. I am very excited to be training and cant wait to see whats in store for me. Love, Elder Seibert

Hey Everyone, This week was great. We met a few new investigators who have some real potential. This family, the matriarch is named Ramona, and her kids and maybe some grand kids are listening to our message now. They have talked to the missionaries before and have friends in the church. Now I am not sure that everyone in the family will progress, but there are a couple members that definitely have potential. Her daughter Daisy and a couple of other teens who were around seemed to really enjoy what we were saying. We still don't know a ton about them, but we have a lot of hope. Also, as many of you know this weekend was the General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That means we got a spiritual weekend, listening to a Prophet of God, Russell M. Nelson, and his 12 apostles. They have such inspiring messages and I really do love to hear from them. It always makes me feel so good to hear their messages. In case you missed it: https://www.lds...

Hey Everyone, This week was pretty good. We had Zone Conference and District Conference as my subject line implies. I learned a lot from President this week. He talked about how the worst thing we can say in our lives in "That's good enough." That is something that my Mom actually taught me a long time ago. I remember her telling me that I should never say good enough. I have always tried to live by that ever since. And district conference President kind of talked about the same thing at our district conference (what would be stake conference) and talked about the importance of doing everything you can, because the only thing God wants from us is our Faith. He really doesn't need or want anything else he only asks that we show our faith. I really like d that message. I know God doesn't expect anything from us that isn't necessary. he only wants our best. Love, Elder Seibert My dad is making a blog of his time in Russia, if anyone is interest...

Hey Everyone, This week has been super good. We have been working hard to find those that are ready to hear the gospel and we have been having some pretty good success. We have a good pool of investigators and a couple of them are clearly ready for the gospel. One in particular is Gloria. i talked about her a few weeks ago I think. She really wants to get baptized now, but her husband is not really on board. SO I would like to ask you all to keep her in your prayers. She can feel that it is the right decision and the right thing to do, she just needs a little help convincing her husband to let her do it. She is a super nice lady, a retired school teacher and we can tell that she needs the gospel in her life. her husband travels for work for weeks at a time and so she gets lonely, she also does not have any kids because she was never able to. Now she takes care of her mom who is pretty sick with some heart complications and definitely could benefit from the gospel, as could everyone...

Hey Everyone, I hope you all had a good week. This past week was full of rain, but things turned around at the end. Most of te week it was hard to get efficient work done with the rain. We were in rain boots and the water got so deep that it flooded our boots. It is a good experience, but obviously not comfortable. But the good news is, Nico got baptized. We were supposed to do it on Saturday but it got rained out, so we postponed until Sunday. Sunday it rained a ton, but we still decided to do it anyway. Everyone arrived soaked from the rain, but it was such a spiritual experience and a great meeting, it was all worth it. It is such a blessing to watch other people make these life changing decisions that will help them everyday.  Love Elder Seibert PS. the pictures are of a service project we did helping out another family of investigators, Oscar and Luz are the names of the parents. I will send baptism pictures next week.