7 June 2011

OK so this computer says I have 5 minutes left so I guess I have to make it a fast one... but... this week has been super nuts!! on Tuesday of last week 2 members invited us to go to a real nice restaurant with them. It is a rather different restaurant, it might remind you of like a Texas Rhode House or something like that, but was crazy cool. It is a restaurant in the back of an old wild west built town! I sent a few pictures that we took on the phone not real good of quality, but I'll try to get some out to you soon! We got to watch an old wild west shootout and all! So dad I really didn't miss Jackson all that much, just the trees!! there are none here! Palm Trees aren't the same!! really they are dead trees now for the most part, because they have had no water in almost a year, and well starting to get hot!!! 103 and 105 this week and it isn't the summer yet!!! I'm so looking forward to it! :)

This week was my first week conducting in sacrament meeting not scary, just kinda weird! I'm used to standing up in a ward and talking or saying something, and now just a group of 35-40 people, lot smaller!!! It's a really neat experience! get to find speakers soon! for the month!!! aah! not been able to find any new people to teach until last night!
we found an 86 year old Deaf lady who really wants to learn and no it isn't because 2 good looking missionaries came to her door!!! it is because someone opened their mouth and asked her! finally! Deaf people here are a bit afraid to offend or ask someone if they want to learn!! I wish they would do it more often!!! finally :) what is the worst thing they could say... No?

Everyday I see people driving by, laughing, making fun of something they have never tested out themselves, never asked a question, never taken the time to learn. It breaks my heart to see them do that and to know if only they knew what they were missing, if only they knew what they could have and just ignore!!! We have something truly amazing! shaping us and making us the Person God needs us to be, it is the atonement. The ability to be forgive and the healing power it gives us and helps us to forget! He loves us and doesn't want us to suffer! take the time to think it over! he can change us and take and make us who he needs us to be!
In Mosiah 14 it says, "3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

6 All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth.

8 He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people was he stricken.

9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no evil, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

11 He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

He did it because he loved us not because he wanted to do so!! give it a shot Try it out! he will heal you as he is beginning to heal the 86 year old woman we are teaching!

Love you!! as you can see the computer lied! :) good thing or you'd got a few paragraphs is all!

gotta run! love you!!!

_\../ Elder Karlson \../_


Arizona Tucson Mission
939 W Chapalla Drive
Tucson, AZ 85704