Messing Up is a Pre-Requisite to Success

Mi familia y mis amigos!!! Como estan!? I hope the answer is a capitalized BIEN! :D

Alright, so this week was quite better than last week. We put in a lot of work and it payed off! More on that later. But because of that, I have some... Interesting goofs I managed to pull off :P

I managed to:

- Fall asleep for fifteen minutes in a member's bathroom during dinner.

- Wake up an hour late without realizing it, and then sit down for studies just to be told by my companion that we are about to leave for church.

- Ask a woman that said we shouldn't come by because her husband is jealous of us if there was another day we could pass by later that week, because I hadn't understood a word she said before.

So yeah, quite a few mess-ups. That was fun XD But it was worth it, cuz we had FOUR INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH!!! To put that in perspective, we have never had four investigators at the branch between all eight investigators, and Elder Quintana and I had four of our investigators there :) That was really cool, because once people come to church, they feel something special about it. It makes them more interested and likely to keep commitments until they see the truth of the Gospel. The investigators were Jesus and Maria, who also came to church last week, and then a 29 year old, Maria, and her 14 year old sister Piedad. The cool thing was, when they came to our missionary activity on Friday (we played volleyball and basketball), a less active, Jennifer, who we have been working with, knew Piedad! So then Jennifer came to church too, to help Piedad :) Yeah, really cool tender mercies of the Lord.

I realized that I haven't really said much about my companion. Really, he is awesome, but he is very... sarcastic, in a way. He will jump into acting like a punk from Denver (which he technically is) and he so good at it, that sometimes I don't realize he is messing with me. Here are some Quintana Quotes that might give you an idea of what he is like:

- "Walk what you preach." He says this at least three times a day. He is actually serious with that, he hates hypocrites.

- "Don't try, do." I literally can't say the word try without him saying that quote right back at me. So basically, try is no longer part of my vocabulary :)

- "My companion is a beautiful man." "Elder Poulson is the squat king, he can teach you!" Okay, here he was obviously joking, talking to a less active that is about 13. It cracked me up, actually XD

- "[Insert the lyrics of any song by Drake here]" He literally sings Drake songs all day, every day. He is basically his role model. And Elder Quintana is pretty much just as good as him! Not exaggerating: if you are curious, go look up his youtube channel, the_los_main, and you will see.

Anyways, yeah, that is my trainer ^-^

Spiritual thought of the week: The Slippery Slope. I was thinking about all of the experiences I have had thus far on the mission, and I realized that everything is a slippery slope. With anything from exercising, to talking to strangers, to commiting sin, it is a slippery slope: if you give in just a little bit, it becomes harder to stop later. For instance, look at David in the Bible. He wouldn't have seen that one woman bathing if he had been at war with his people (which he was supposed to be). That seemingly insignificant decision, to stay home from war for a time, led to serious sexual sin, and each thing he did afterward made it harder from him to stop.

The moral of the story: don't even get close to the edge of the slope. If you decide to or not to do something, don't let yourself give in when it gets hard. By small and simple things, great things come to pass: that isn't just for positive things, it works the same for sin and transgression.

I'ma leave ya'll with a poem that is in "the missionary's little book of inspirational stories", which my trainer gave me cuz I loved it so much! :D

"Be like the bird, who,

Halting in his flight,

On limb to slight,

Feels it give way beneath him

Yet sings,

Knowing he hath wings."

Victor Hugo

That is all for this week! I love you all! Do good and be happy! :D

Elder Poulson

**We've requested pictures with Bryan actually IN them!!  haha!

Elder Quintana and the District Leaders

This is a less active members son in his Halloween costume

Transfer mk2!!!

Hey Family and Friends!!!

This will probably be kinda short. Sorry :/ But this week was pretty crazy! A lot of ups and downs!

We had some members at lessons AND some investigators at church this week, which are both firsts for me! It was really cool! Two people we are teaching, Jesus (pronounce hey soos) and Maria, came after just two lessons! We also taught Evelyn some more this week, she is really solid. She is willing to listen and keeps her commitments. Except... She didn't go to church :P We'll figure out why this week though.

So spiritual thought of the week. I have seen SO many families here that only have one parent, or some of the siblings are off the deep end, or whatnot. Very rarely do I meet a "complete" family. But they love whatever family they have, unconditionally. So all of you with your wonderful families, appreciate them! Love them! According to Elder Uchtdorf, love is spelled T-I-M-E! Spend time with them!

That is all. Till next week

Elder Poulson

This is the tree at Healthhaven Hospice where they hung the blue butterflies 

they all wrote their loved ones names on.  Bryan wrote about it last week.   

When New Zealanders Come to Town

Hola familia y amigos!!! I hope ya'll are doing well!

This week was a little hectic, but pretty good! We had a Zone Conference this week because Elder Ardern of the Seventy came to visit the mission!!! So that was really cool :) Him and his wife had really strong accents from New Zealand (hence the title), so it was really easy to pay attention to them when they talked! ^-^ They gave us a lot of gems about missionary work, it was really cool!

We had an event Saturday for the Hospice Company we volunteer at, called HavenHealth. We generally help for two hours every Friday, doing office tasks like folding stuff and sealing envelopes and organizing binders. Anyways, they had an event on Saturday where they held a service for everyone who had lost a loved one during their hospice care. They had a cool little thing with some poetry reading and singing, and they had every family write the name of a loved one on little blue paper butterflies (that we made, by the way), and hang them on a little tree up front. Then they gave each family a life monarch butterfly in a box to release into the wild, to represent their loved one! It was really cool! I got to write my Grandpa's name on one of the butterflies, so that was really awesome!

So tomorrow is transfers, which this time are crazy!!! We are adding another companionship to my District, which is also going to be a training companionship. So Elders Jumonville and Urbina are going to split their area. And then Elders Jumonville and Urbina will be trio training somebody (which never happens). Then Elder Avilles is leaving, and another Elder is replacing him. For the little amount of that that made sense, it is crazy!

I learned a lot spiritually this week. It was kinda a rough one for me, but yesterday I fasted and prayed for help. Last night, I just felt... Good. It had no reason or cause. I just felt comforted. If that wasn't the Spirit, I don't know what is! So that was really inspiring to me. Never understimate the power of prayer and fasting :)

Yup. That is it. Until next week!

Elder Poulson

Life Isn't Easy: It's Worth It

If you so happen to have questions such as "How fashionable are the clothes of a 350 pound Samoan?", "How much does it cost for a locksmith to pick a lock?, or "Has anyone ever bothered to make exactly 9 cookies?", keep reading. If not... Well, keep reading anyways, you've probably got nothing better to do! ;)

Haha so yeah, it was a pretty crazy week. Not much teaching, a lot of unusual stuff, but it was good ^-^

So... Tuesday of last week, we were leaving our apartment, and as I pushed my bike out, I took a glance at my desk where my spare key sat. And I thought "meh, I don't really need that, Elder Quintana ALWAYS has his keys". Well about ten seconds later, I felt pretty stupid when Elder Quintana froze, turned to me, and asked if I had my spare key. Sooo... We locked ourselves out :P

So after calling the office, having on of the senior elders come over with the spare key to find that it was made incorrectly and didn't work, I was ready to climb around the corner, where our open window sat tantalizingly close to the balcony. But of course, it was "too dangerous", so we went to plan B: sleep over with some other Elders, find a locksmith in the morning. Sooo we ended up sleeping in Elder Avilles and Si'a's apartment.

Elder Si'a was gracious enough to lend us some extra clothes so that he could wash our proselyting clothes for the next day... Elder Si'a also happens to be a 350 pound Samoan Elder! XD Yeah, it was a sight to behold. His shirt went down to my knees ^-^ So that was fun!

The next day, we had a locksmith come, who took a look at it and said he could pick it... For $175... Before I could offer to climb in the window again, the senior Elder said yes (since he was paying for it with missionary funds) and in about 1 minute, we were in our apartment again! So yeah, that was a rip-off, and we felt really bad. Fun adventure though!

As for the cookies thing... Well, my mom sent me a BOMB package, and in it was almost all the ingredients to make cookies already mixed in plastic bags. So I made my comp cookies! They pan was really small though... So I only made nine. Long story short, I ate 2, he ate 7. When I told the other Elders this though, they didn't really care about anything except the fact that I made 9 cookies. "Who makes nine cookies?" So for the week, that has been kinda a running joke :)

Alright, some awesome spiritual experiences of the week:

-We were teaching a lesson to Ismael, and I decided to start testifying about prayer, which we had been trying to convince him to do since we met him. With my companion's help, I managed to teach him an entire mini-lesson on prayer! The Spirit was really strong, it felt great :) So that was a huge confidence booster for me.

-I got to the temple today!!! The LA temple is HUGENORMOUS!!!! Seriously, I thought Utah temples were big, but this one is giant! But I missed the temple and the Spirit of it a lot, so that was really wonderful for me.

-I went on exchanges twice this week, once with Elder Jumonville, my district leader, and one with Elder Urbina. That was really cool (and weird, cuz my whole time here I have been with Elder Quintana), and I learned a lot! Plus Elder Jumonville and I have similar backgounds, so it was easy to relate to him ^-^

-And last but not least, Conference!!!

Let us talk about that for a moment, shall we? It might just be because I am on a mission, but it seemed to me that there was a lot of talk about missionary work. I would highly advise that you don't de-emphasize those because you aren't on a mission. I am currently in an area where the members are really hard to work with... Without the members' help, missionary work almost doesn't happen. So I would encourage yall to offer to help your ward or stake missionaries, if you can. I know it is different in Utah, and it can be hard when you are busy. I doubt I would have listened when I was home if someone had told me to go work with missionaries. But without members, missionary work doesn't work. Just a thought ^-^

Also, my favorite talk was the one by President Nielson on joy! Don't forget to find joy in your lives, and more importantly, in your afflictions. Which is, of course, easier said than done, but through Christ, it is possible.

Umm... So yeah, that is about it. Thanks for reading! Sorry this week's was so long :P I'll email ya'll later ;)

Elder Poulson

Bryan in the Samoan Elder's clothes

Exchanges with the District Leader

Map of Bryan's Mission

He found another Elder POULSON

Surprise Text !!

It's the BEST when you get a text from a fellow missionary mom living in your son's mission. Especially when you've been waiting all day for an email and are wondering what's going on!!  I love this lady who also had a son serving a mission in Colorado.  I am so thankful she ran into my Elder!

"Met these handsome men at Panda Express. Your son wanted me to let you know they changed p-days this week because tomorrow is a temple day and he will write tomorrow."

Business (or rather, Service) as Usual

Hey ya'll, how's it going? I'm approaching a month in field, and I haven't gotten shot yet, so I would say I am doing pretty good ^-^

Umm, there aren't too many notable stories this week. Mostly just a lot of talking to strangers, a lot of visiting past investigators, etc. I found this week that usually when an Elder is trained, their trainer has already been in the area for at least one transfer, and knows all of the members and investigators in the area. But for whatever reason, our area was reopened the day I got here, so my companion knew as much as me about the investigators. So that is kinda weird. We have basically been building up from ground zero, but we are gaining momentum, so it is all good :)

We taught a couple new investigators this week. We met a 16 year old kid named Aaron who has a surprisingly strong testimony of prayer. He speaks English, which is nice, but I tried to lead in teaching yesterday and totally failed... So that was a bit depressing. It's okay though, hopefully the Spirit can make up for my mistakes until we teach him again.

We started teaching a woman named Griselda and her three kids this week. We just found her on the street and invited her to church, and to our surprise, she accepted! So that was exciting! She came to church last week, but not this week. It can be tricky to teach her, because she has little to no knowledge of any church, and her kids are really rowdy! But last time, I pretty much distracted her kids so Elder Quintana could teach, and that worked alright. She committed to baptism, so that is awesome!

That is about all I have for this week. I just will say that this work definitely has its' ups and downs, but it is all worth it in the end! My testimony of how this Gospel can help EVERY one of God's children is growing daily. The Gospel can help everyone, and that includes you: and if you have faith, it can help you in every aspect of your life.

Talk to... err, email ya'll later! Adios!

Elder Poulson

Surprise Picture!!!

Elder Bry surprised us and emailed us this picture later in the day.  He knew how much I wanted a picture of him and his companion, Elder Quintana, for our missionary board.  He's the BEST!!! 

Straight Outta the Factory

Hola Familia y Amigos! How are you all? I guess that is a hypothetical question, but I hope ya'll are doing great!

Alright so this week... 

Well, I'll talk a little about our investigators. We have been teaching Demasio and Petra, the cute couple with little kids that I mentioned last week. They took the first lesson, but we haven't been able to get ahold of them since. We'll keep trying though! Our other main investigator is this gruff old man named Ismael. He is currently having some struggles, so he isn't super receptive to our lessons, but we will keep trying with him too.

Other than that, we pretty much just visit houses of past investigators listed in the area book and try to talk to as many people as we can on the street. That last part is particularly hard for me, because while I love talking to people, it is way different when they are strangers, you are an awkward missionary, and there is a good 50% chance that you won't understand their response. But it is still kinda fun! I am learning that if I just boldly do what God has asked me to, essentially talking to everyone, he will make it all work out for good. That is essentially what having faith means, right: trusting God to make everything work out :)

Every time I tell a member that I am from Utah, they say "oh, de la fabrica?" which translates to "oh, from the factory?" Essentially they call Utah the missionary factory. Which is kinda funny, but it got old after the tenth person. One person said "wait really, a white missionary from Utah! I have never met one of those before!" Basically, Hispanics are ridiculously sarcastic. But esta bien, it is funny!

There are a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses around here, which is... Fun. There was one guy that followed us on his bike for a couple minutes shouting about how Jesus said his skin turned brown in the sun, so we shouldn't be racist... Yeah. There is also a lot of mentally unstable people in this certain neighborhood. One guy spent ten minutes telling us about how if the member with us carried this little trinket he gave her and walked her kids by the ocean, they would have blue eyes XD Yeah that was a bit weird. We try to be courteous to everyone though.

The culture here is interesting. The people REALLY like to talk, although not necessarily about the Gospel. They will talk all day though. Also, it is generally accepted here that everyone will be fifteen minutes late to everything (not that I am complaining). So the missionaries don't really worry about being on time to stuff. Personally, I think we should be on time anyways, but I'm not driving, so I don't have much say in the matter... Plus I am not always ready on time, as I am sure you are all SO surprised to hear.

So Thursday night, we were trying to visit members but weren't having any luck. My companion really needed to use the bathroom, so I suggested we pray that someone would let us in. After we did that and walked around for five minutes, we went back to our bikes, and I felt like we should knock on a door right next to them. We did, and some Cambodian lady answered. Quick tangent: Long Beach has the biggest population of Cambodians in America. There are six Cai speaking Elders here. Anyways, this lady answered, and she spoke no English. But we looked inside, and to our surprise, two Cambodian Elders were already inside! :D So of course, they let us in, and my comp used the bathroom and we left. As awkward as interrupting their lesson was, it was still an answer to our prayer: someone let us in. So that was cool!

Yeah that is about all this week. Let me leave you with this thought: the Bible talks about how we may be the Children of Light! John 12:36 "While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light." I thought that was a really cool phrase! Be worthy of that title!

K bye,

Elder Poulson

fyi: Bryan lost his camera cord and we had to ship him a replacement, so no pictures this week!  :(

From Humble Beginnings, the Greenie Emerges

Hey family and friends! I've got a lot to say this week, so here goes nothing.

When I left the CCM in Mexico, it was kinda like leaving home all over again. I didn't realize how close I had come to my roomates and district until I left them. It is okay though, I should see most of them at BYU after the mission ^-^ Anyways, when me and my two friends going to the same mission arrived at the airport, we found out that our original flight had been delayed. All of our flights got rescheduled, and despite the assurance from the guide we had that "everything will be fine", the mission home in Long Beach had no idea that our flights had changed. Luckily, my mom called them to make sure everything was good, and she told them. Even with that though, I was stuck at the airport for like an hour.

After I arrived at the mission home and went through some orientation, it was about 3:00, and they usually take new missionaries out contacting on the first day. One of the two missionaries that me and 2 greenies were stuck with decided that since he had never been to Compton, we should go there. So my first day on the mission, running on 45 minutes of sleep, I went contacting in Compton! XD It was actually pretty chill, although there was not really any hispanic people there.

My companion's name is Elder Quintana, he is a half Hispanic guy from Colorado. He speaks both English and Spanish fluently, so that is pretty helpful! He is essentially a professional beatboxer, although he is very humble about it, and he destroys the whole zone in basketball. He kinda reminds of Donkey from Shrek, partially because he does a perfect imitation of Donkey's voice, but he is just a joking guy! He is real good at teaching people, so I am glad to be his companion.

Anyways, I got settled in that morning to a new apartment they were opening in our area. The next morning, I had a nice humble morning. The shower head didn't work, so we used a bowl to shower. The stove and microwave were broken, so we had a nice healthy breakfast of nuts and some caramel popcorn my Grandparents sent (thank you!). Luckily, someone lent me a bike, so we at least got around. I am in an biking area in Long Beach, with a small border on the sea, stretching pretty far into the city. There is a place called Signal Hill right in the middle of my area, so that is fun to bike over!

I have already run in to two familiar people here! Elder Oniki, one of my AP's, went to SoJo middle and worked at Zupas with my brother, the other one did some honor band stuff with me. So that was kinda cool! I am excited to see Elder Horton next transfer, he should be coming in.

My mission president is a spiritual giant!!! He is a fairly young guy with 4 young kids, and he is just the sincerest guy! Very firm though, I wouldn't mess with him. Anyways, he is awesome!

We have taught a fair amount of lessons already! And by we, I mean Elder Quintana speaks in Spanish and I try to understand as much as I can :P I am learning though. We taught a lesson to the cutest couple the other day, they were visiting one of the recent converts in our area, and they had in total six little kids running around! They all, without prompting, took little sticky notes and wrote "I love God" on them and signed their names. It was probably the cutest thing I have ever seen. We also taught this Hispanic Grandpa named Ismael. He wasn't very receptive to us at first, put we taught him the Plan of Salvation, and he opened up to us. He has had cancer twice and might a third time, so we are praying for him.

Umm, yeah, that is about it for this week! I am exhausted, but happy to be here! I just want to learn the language as fast as I can! ^-^ 

Talk to ya'll later!

Elder Poulson

Goodbye CCM, Hello California! :D

Qué pasa familia y amigos!? I hope you are doing well. I am writing this during a half p-day they gave me this Monday. I assume that my p-day will be on Mondays from now on, because I AM HEADED TO THE FIELD!!! :D No really though, I am so stoked! I want to actually use the stuff I have been cooped up in a classroom for 6 weeks learning ^-^

Not too much happened this week. We went through in field orientation, where they talked a lot about all the stuff we are going to learn in the field, but for the most part it was just a normal week.

I said goodbye to Elder Myers yesterday, my brother who has been with me from the beginning... Yeah, I sobbed a bit, but it is all good! Two years will fly by when I am on God´s time (Which would be now) I also said goodbye to a couple of people in my district that left this morning... Which was also sad. Yeah, lots of sad, and more to come, but I am excited for the field!

The MTC President has only spoken like three times here, but his talks are really inspiring! He teaches doctrine, but most of his talks are just a bunch of personal experiences he has had with the gospel. Everything from praying for his wife who fell down the stairs to be healed and then leaving her home because he couldn´t miss work in Mexico to praying for the rain to stop so that his family could visit ruins they had traveled for days to see, he really is just a shining example of faith! It is so cool!!!

Anyways, I am running low on time, but I can´t wait to tell ya´ll about my first week in the field!

Until next time,

Elder Poulson

WORST HAIR CUT EVER!!!!!!

Before Picture

I TOLD YOU.....WORST HAIR CUT EVER!!!!!! 

So, if you're ever in Mexico....don't get your hair cut! 

ELDER CHRISTIAN PAUL & ELDER BRYAN POULSON

First Day of Kindergarten                                           First Month in the Mexico MTC 

South Jordan River Stake Missionaries at the CCM together!

Elder Sierra, Elder Poulson, Elder Paul & Elder Myers