Hispanic Food, Miracles

Hello my people from wherever!

You'd think that being out for almost six months, that I'd be used to
hot, spicy, Mexican food. You'd be dead wrong. And so was I.

We had a dinner with this Mexican family and they made us Sopes. Super
good Mexican food. I loved it and it wasn't very spicy, so double
delicious. And then we had some fruit to finish it all of. But WAIT.
Fruit is too boring, so what's the obvious thing to do? Obviously you
should make some sort of special pepper to ruin Gods glorious creation
of the melon. Well, I decided to try some of this evil creation on a
melon. I had too. Bad idea. The first bite was so good. The juicy
melon just exploded into my mouth, kinda lie when you eat a strawberry
starburst. Then I decided to do the natural thing of swallowing.
That's where it became dangerous. As so as the fruit hit the top part
of my asophogas, my throat, scorching flames. And then these flames
left a trial all the way down my throat. I was literally crying. I
don't know why somebody would come up with a creation such as this.
The lady that made us food, Modesta, told me: "You'll remember this
when you're on the toilet." No comment.

But on a different note, we had some amazing lessons this week with
our Peruvian Sheep Herder friends, Orlando, Eduardo, Ubaldo, and
Miguel. In our last lesson, we invited them to pray about baptism and
if it was the right thing to do. Orlando and Eduardo both did. And
they both received answers of "yes." Both of them had very special and
personal experiences that helped them to grow a testimony of the truth
of these things. It was so great as they shared what they felt: "an
energy" was one way that they described it. These are good men and I
love them a lot. We taught them the Word of Wisdom and they had some
things with it that they need to work on that will be hard for them,
but Orlando said: "This will be hard, but I want to be a disciple of
Jesus Christ and so I will learn this and live it." And ohhhh man, it
sounded so cool in Spanish! These brothers are good brothers and they
are along this path, the right one, straight and narrow and it is a
blessing to be able to be a part of it.

I read this scripture the other day and I really liked this wording:
"And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed
and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God." (Mosiah
2:41) I added the italics. You don't see that word: happy, very often
in the scriptures. Usually it's joy or something like that. But it's
true, as we keep the commandments and serve and love one another,
that's what you become: happy. And it's the best.

Love you all,

--Elder Pearson

1. The Demon Pepper fruit
2. I love the mountains. Pronounced: MOUNT-TAINS. Not, moun-nins.
3. Llama farm! We got corrected. They're actually Alpacas

Peacocks, Sheep Herders, Craig C. Christensen

Hello People!

What a great week. Update on ankle: getting better! :D

Alright, so for starters, yesterday, Elder Carmon and I were driving through this tiny little town named Wales, population: 350. Everybody is pretty much related so I have no idea how anybody gets married in this town. But as we were driving through this tiny little town, we all of a sudden saw these giant birds just walking through the road. Elder Carmon slammed on the brakes and we looked at them. They were peacocks! Why are there peacocks in the middle of Utah in this tiny little town? I have no idea why, but it was awesome! As we looked down the street we saw like ten more peacocks covering the road. We figured that there was probably like a prison break of peacocks so they just made a run for it. So if some day, peacocks run Utah, then you will all know the story of how and where the peacockcalypse started.

For the past couple months, we have been teaching these sheep herders, Orlando, Eduardo, and Ubaldo. We first met Orlando when his member friend, Miguel, invited him to church. Since then, Orlando, who is not a member has been the best missionary ever and has been inviting his friends to come to church too. This week we had an amazing lesson with them. We have invited Orlando to be baptized many times, but he doesn't want to offended family back in his country. These guys are out here alone, without their families. But he knows that it's important. As we were teaching hte gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, enduring to the end) we invited them to be baptized. Immediately, Eduardo started shaking his head in an affirmative "yes." Orlando gave us a similar answer as before. But the Spirit was super strong and we invited them to pray about it. I love these guys.

We had a huge mission meeting where Craig C. Christensen came and talked about the Spirit. He talked about the importance of recognizing the importance of the Spirit in the heart and in our mind and and connecting the two. I love it so much. It is really an incredible thing what the Spirit can and will teach us.

This work is so true. The Gospel is true. There's no way that it can't be. If you have questions, just read, pray, ask. That's it! It's that simple. You will receive an answer.

I love you all,

--Elder Pearson

1. Our Peacock Friends
2. All you got to do
3. Off to preach

Jacob 6 Sticks, ¡Ratón!

Hello people!

There is a scripture found in the Book of Mormon, in the book of the
prophet Jacob, chapter 6, verse 12 and it reads:

"O be wise; what can I say more?"

I needed to follow that advice this past week. I wasn't being very
wise and I ended up spraining my ankle pretty bad so I got crutches. I
call them my "Jacob 6 sticks." It reminds me not to be stupid.

So I guess I won't be stupid.

In life, we all have to learn things. That's just a given. A Father in
Heaven who loves us so much wants us to learn. He wants us to learn
how to grow and become better people. And so He puts us through
trials. Yeah, sometimes, they come from results of some unsmart thing
that we did, but other times they come from actions of others, but
sometimes, things that we don't like just happen! And it tries our
patience and it can make us mad, frustrated, and be not a very nice
person to be around. But does our Father in Heaven want us to be mad,
angry, and frustrated? No! Of course not. He wants us to be happy. But
we have to know the bad to know the good. I want to share one of my
favorite scriptures with you from the Book of Mormon. This is a dad
talking to his son. He says:

"11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.
If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be
brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery,
neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound
in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as
dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption,
happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility."

We have to no the bad to know the good. So no matter how hard your
life is now, know that there's always something better waiting ahead
of the road.

Awesome. Spiritual Thoughts are the best. Now for some stories.

Right now we're teaching this couple, Mary and Thomas. Aw, I love
these two. But this live in this trailer park and it's a pretty nice
trailer. Anyways, we're just having some small talk before we start
our lesson and all of a sudden, Elder Carmons eyes get huge and he
just points to this random spot on the ground and yells: "¡Ratón!" (I
hope I don't have to translate that for you (rat) too bad I did
anyways) So of course we all look to this spot of ground and...
Nothing. Just the floor. So we start laughing and tell him he's crazy.
Then about a minute later, he yells: "Ratón!" And again points this
bear spot of ground. "Where's a knife?" he asks.

"Why?" Thomas asked.
"So when that rat comes out again I can throw the knife and kill it."

We all think that he's playing again so Thomas got him a knife. And
sure enough, three minutes later: "Ratón!" But this time both Elder
Carmon and Mary yelled it. Hmm, maybe he isn't crazy.

 This rat is killing our lesson.

They both point to this spot of ground behind the couch and say that
it ran back behind the couch. So I'm looking at it, still thinking
that he's crazy when all of a sudden, this Tiny little mouse runs out
of it then dashes back. This thing was so small. Like maybe the size
of your grandmas pinky. But, a Mexican lady cannot have a mouse in her
house. And neither can Elder Carmon. So we start going on this rat
hunt, trying to kill this thing.

Thomas finally saw it and then started believing us. The rat was
behind the couch, somewhere. So we flip it up and see that this couch
has one of those pull out beds. So that's probably where it's hiding.
So Thomas gets this great idea: he'll stand at the front of the couch,
take off the coushins and shake the bed and Elder Carmon and I will
stand on either side of it, ready to kill the rat. That sounds like a
great idea! So I stand on one side ready to drop a board on this thing
and Elder Carmon is on the other side with his knife ready "to kill
this rat. I'm gonna kill it." He was pretty determined.

So Thomas starts shaking the bed and nothing's happening when all of a
sudden I hear this high pitched screech come from the other side of
the room as I see Elder Carmon jump back and scream and point at the
ground: "Ratón!" As the rat runs last him and into another room. Haha
he just let the rat run past him. Thomas takes the knife and goes into
the room with determination as I grab my camera. The rat runs up the
curtains and Thomas cuts at it and the rat falls down. And this point,
Thomas screams a manly scream, Mary screams a woman scream, and Elder
Carmon screams a high pitched girly scream. It was like listening to
octaves on a piano.

Well, long story short, we never got the rat. It got away.

But moral of the story: if you're gonna act tough like you're not
scared of rats but you are, then just don't.

I love you all and I hope that you have a great week!

--Elder Pearson

1. A Personal Goal Elder Carmon gave me
2. The "Rat Slayer"
3. The moment of the octave screams
4. The stupid things I have to do to heal myself from the stupid stuff
I did (that's a bucket of ice water)

Broken iPads, Baptism

Hello fabulous people!

Man, what a great week! Well, despite the fact that Elder Carmon broke his iPad. Haha, he's gonna kill me for laughing at him but it was so funny. So sometimes during companionship study, Elder Carmon gets a little unfocused. So to refocus himself he'll stop doing whatever it is that is distracting him and do something totally random to help him get back on track. So his choice of de-distraction that day, was to stand up on a chair and tell me his ideas for our lessons that day. As he was standing on the chair telling me his ideas, he also got the great idea to pass the iPad between his hands. Well, one of those times, it didn't quite make it to his other hand and kind of hit his hand and flipped over his hand. Now, Elder Carmon isn't that tall, like 5'5'' but he was standing on a chair about 3 feet off the ground. So he was almost nine feet off the ground. His iPad flipped, hit the edge of the chair, flipped again and then landed screen down on the floor. His face was priceless. It was one of those: "Oh, shoot. What have I done???" And he just stared at me. 

"Elder Pearson," he said. "pick it up for me and tell me what happened." 

So I picked it up and no matter what, i was planning on telling him that it was broken. Even if it was fine. He seemed to know I'd do that.
"And don't joke with me."

Darn it.

So I opened up the case and of this glass just falls into my lap. There were spiderweb cracks all over the place. I just started laughing and Elder Carmon was like freaking out: "Why are you laughing? What happened to it?!" I showed him. He just looked at it and then he walked into the bedroom. I found him three minutes later with his face in his pillow. Then he got up cheerful. Later he told me: "I knew I had two options. Either I could punch a hole in the wall or get over it. But I realized that if I punched the wall then there would be a hole in the wall and that my hand would hurt."

That's the way to do it.

We were blessed this week to be able to have a baptism. Sophie got baptized. This was a really special experience for me. Well, every baptism is. But me and Elder Pardo (my last companion) where led to her and her family and started teaching them. Then elder Pardo left and Elder Carmon and I have been teaching her. It has been awesome to see her testimony grow. We asked her what she would do if somebody asked her why she got baptized. To that she shared her testimony on prayer and how it helped her to know that it was true. That was such a sweet and special experience. And her mom has been growing too and was really touched by Sophie's baptism and confirmation. It was so great.

The work is coming and the work is true. If you want to know it's true, just ask. If you've already asked and know it's true, ask again. There's no hurt in receiving more confirmation.

I love you all and I hope that your weeks are great!

--Elder Conner Pearson

1. Elder Carmons broken iPad
2. Sophie's Baptism!
3. Elder Carmon chilling in a broken chair

5. Playing guitar out in the middle of nowhere, preaching the Gospel