Sister Carson Home from Tennessee

Lisa Carson, youngest of Kendall and Mary Jean Carson’s two daughters, is home from fulltime missionary service in the “green and gorgeous but hot and humid” Tennessee Nashville Mission.  Despite the many ups and downs and twists and turns of her missionary service, she had 14 baptisms while serving in four different areas of the nation’s Bible belt, where most of the people she met were staunch Baptists.

Her original call as a fulltime missionary was to the Nevada Las Vegas Mission … but 1½ weeks after opening the envelope from Church headquarters, she was reassigned to the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission.  She knocked on many doors and had many favorable experiences in “the Land of 10,000 Lakes,” but two months after she stepped off the plane, she and her companion developed a nasty combination of cryptosporidium - typically an acute, short-term gastrointestinal infection, but which in her case became severe and non-resolving - and e-coli -  from which healthy adults usually recover within a week, but some cases are debilitating and can cause severe complications. While her companion recovered, she did not.  After trying to “wait it out” for several weeks, she returned home to the loving care of her family while waiting for the Lord to decide what course her life should take. 

Four and one-half months later, she was called back into the mission field – this time to Tennessee.

She is now attending Dixie State University, with a goal to complete the requirements for an associates degree this semester.  She is not sure yet whether she will continue to study for a degree in psychology at DSU or transfer to another school, but her longterm goal is to be a school counselor or open a private practice in child psychology.

This beautiful blond returned missionary misses the mission field and those she served.  “Southern hospitality is a ‘for real thing’,” she notes.  “The people are very warm and loving and I now have many more in my family circle, including new nieces, nephews and grandparents I love in Tennessee.”