Aug 26, 2015- Hello from Covarrubias!!!

Aug 26, 2015- Hello from Covarrubias!!!

Hello mi familia!!! 

I am currently in Gran Avenida, on a ghetto computer, in a ghetto restaurant, in the ghetto!!! No not really, but kind of! Yeah so today is Pday! Wednesdays! We played soccer this morning and then went to the store and got food so I wasn’t starving like I was and yeah! Been a super chill day. Orientation was yesterday and it was a super long day. Really long. It started with us leaving at like 9 in the morning, on this super ghetto bus with bullet holes and all that! And yeah, then we were seated in the chapel (all the new elders) and then comes this wave of people, just sitting down and literally the whole mission staring at us! It felt like we were lambs to the slaughter. Then we met out companions, our trainers! Mine is Elder Booher, from, wait for it...Colorado!!!! From Parker! And he is exiting his mission to train me, so in 3 months when my training is done with him, he is leaving! Yeah kind of crazy!!! 

Oh, last week we went contacting in the Oeste mission, and we get off the subway and there is Connor Weaver!!! So he was my companion for half a day!!! It was super cool. His Spanish is amazing and he has really changed, just an awesome guy! We got rejected the whole time, literally the whole time. It kind of sucked. But I know that is just a glimpse of what I have to come, and a glimpse of what Christ has felt, what he did feel for us. 

Ummm, I miss the CCM, not the actual place, but the people in it. I had to give a talk on Monday about my experience at the CCM all in Spanish. It was good! But I really miss my district, disctricto dos! They are just amazing people and I really miss them already!!! 

I made it to the apartment, after taking a public bus with two suitcases, my companion, and in suits, in the ghetto, but I made it! It is super small and yeah, we live with 2 other elders, and they are both like 20 months out on their missions. So I am the new lamb ready to get slaughtered. Which I kind of already did. Last night, we were teaching this family. Yeah I didn’t understand like anything. But I tried, and they laughed at how bad my Spanish was. But I got to bear my testimony to them, if that’s all I can do, so be it! 

We taught this lady who just bore her soul to us, and of course, all in Spanish, and it was really humbling. I felt so much love for her. A love I have never felt before. She felt so lonely, she was weak, she hates life and has thought about ending her life, and I just wanted to give her everything I have. I almost cried while she was crying. I just felt like this is how God must feel as he sees his children suffering. He loves them so much. I caught just a glimpse of it, and it was so humbling. 

This whole experience is humbling. There is graffiti  everywhere, barbed wire fences and metal gates, no front lawns or porches, tin shacks, tin roofing, dogs laying on the street everywhere, sirens, and yeah. Very humbling. It’s hard to be here, it’s hard to be here where I can’t talk to anybody, where I want to talk in the language but I can’t. I can talk to my companion, but I just want to speak Spanish so I can learn it, but it’s so easy to speak English. I don’t know. But I love it! God is just smacking me! Just pray for me. That’s all I ask. Pray for investigators, pray for strength for me. I pray for all of you and I love all of you so much!!!! 

Elder Carney 

Aug 18, 2015- Last P Day here

Aug 18, 2015- Last P Day here

Well Hello Familia!!!

¿Como están ustedes? Well, this is my last Pday here in the CCM and next week I will be out in the field! We leave Tuesday!!! And my emotions, I cannot wait but I am also nervous, so the usual! I am excited just to get out of here! So next week you probs won’t here from me, but all is well! 

We got new native roommates from Chile and Columbia! I love them so much! They are so interesting! Haha, Elder Agudelo and Elder Montoya! Elder Agudelo is the man! He loves chick flicks and so we talk about them all the time! And Beyoncé, so we are pretty much besties. Haha, he is awesome! He is 25 and from Columbia! They are just so awesome and have bets that I will get married 2 weeks after the mission...so that’s not going to happen! But man oh man, what is life!? Oh they also compared me and my companion, they said I was SpongeBob and my companion is squidward, it is so true! 

This week was the same as others! I have learned a lot of patience. A lot. I thought I had it until I came out to the field.  It has been a struggle but it also has been a big learning experience which I am grateful for. God makes everyone in different breads that’s for sure, but hey, he still loves each dog! 

I have been praying a lot this week just to kind of get through, some days have been hard and the Spanish is challenging. It will just be a shock when we are actually in the field, but I can’t wait! I pray for my new companion and I just hope I have a good experience, I need it! But come what may and love it! Spanish is hard, but it will come! I can comprehend a lot but speaking, there are just so many tenses! Patience!!!! If that is one thing I learn my whole mission, so be it! 

On breaks we play smack a trash, a game that is like hackie sack but we made a ball with tape out of trash, hence smack a trash. But we don’t just see how many hits we can get, we see how many kill shots we can do! Yes, kill shots, where you just wail it at someone. Let’s just say my soccer skills have come in handy and yes, elders have been on the ground and hit in the family jewels. Its super fun! That’s the most active thing we do all day instead of sitting in desks! Haha! 

Yeah not much has changed! We go tracking and contacting in a different mission, I think Santiago Oeste here on Friday. So that will be good! My district is awesome!!! I love them. I am going to miss them so much. 5 of them are going to Norte and I just don’t want to say goodbye! But life is good!

Oh we met this family, this white family wearing BYU stuff and we were all just so excited!!! They are from Utah and we found out that their daughter, died in the mission 7 months ago in Argentina from sickness. Kind of insane. I just felt so much love from them and just wanted to hug them. You could tell how hard it had been but how strong they were in the gospel. They were just inspiring honestly. They had such a testimony that they would see her again, and that their family would be together forever, for eternity. I just love that part of the gospel.

That is pretty much it this week! Kind of a spiritual message, I felt this so much this week. The spirit is the language; the spirit is what teaches people, not the language. When people feel the spirit, that is what changes lives. It doesn’t matter if the language or anything is rough, the spirit will testify, and that is all that matters. 

I am so grateful for this opportunity. I am excited to go out in the field and just be lost, have no clue what to say, and honestly to struggle, because I know that I can do it. I know that God cares and loves all of his children so much. SO much. He wants all the come unto him. Even when days are hard, just hold on. Hold on and focus on what you do know. Focus on building your rock. It doesn’t matter if your rock is so small of anything, just focus on what you do, and pray your heart out. Stay strong. God is ALWAYS there. He will never abandon you. 

I love being Elder Carney! It is just great!!! I love Chile and I love GOD. HE IS THE BEST!!! 

Scripture of the week: Helaman 5:12 about building your rock

Love all of you!!!

Elder Carney

Aug 11, 2015 Tengo gozo en mi alma! (I have joy in my Soul!)

Aug 11, 2015

Tengo gozo en mi alma! (I have joy in my Soul!)

 

Familia!!! How are all of you!!! So I don’t really know what to say except that we are the oldest group now in the CCM, and just two weeks left till we are in the field! Literally do the same thing every day, except Pdays! So

not much has changed. My district is awesome! They are amazing people and I will miss a lot of them! Half of them are Santiago Norte mission, so we will have to part ways soon! 

I feel like my theme for this week is COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT. It’s been hard a lot, not going to lie. I get frustrated with the language and especially with my companion, but I look at all that I have, all the knowledge that I have and all the love that surrounds me, all the beauty, and that totally outweighs everything. I am super blessed. Blessed beyond belief. District 6, the north American group who came 2 weeks before we did, just left today. And it was really sad saying goodbye! They are amazing people!!! I feel like their kid, even though most of them just graduated high school! But I just love them! They are an amazing group and just so much love and respect for them. I want to rage with a lot of them when we are all back at BYU!!! 

I am the chosen one for the desk apparently! Ha-ha, I come into class and there is this desk, with a note on it saying, Elder Carney, you are the chosen one. Ha-ha and it’s literally just a desk, but a desk that has been passed down by like 5 missionaries. And we all write our names on it after we are leaving for the field! So I am the chosen one, such an honor! And it has this ghetto water bottle holder on the side made out of duct tape. I just love district 6. I teared up saying goodbye to a lot of them! 

So we are enough the oldest white people in the CCM! There are two missionaries who came 2 weeks after us, who I decided I am their father! Elder Eyre and Elder Buhler, they are awesome! Ha-ha they feel like my children! Top notch guys though. 

What else!? I gained 1 pound, so that’s exciting!!! Ha-ha this bread is getting to me. I feel so fat and lazy! All we do is sit all day! But it’s all good! We play soccer for personal exercise every morning! And it has been raining these past weeks, so we play on the grass in the parqye(park) because the courts are flooded, and let’s just say I ate it a ton! I ate it into this puddle while I was going for the ball, and I was parallel in the air before I hit the ground...into a puddle! But it’s so fun! I love laughing here with everyone and I just love it! It will be bittersweet to leave. I will NOT miss the food, literally same thing every day. But I love it! 

Quote of the week: Focus not on our human fallibility, but the Savior’s divine ability. 

That quote carried me through the week. Just think about it in your life, and the great power of the atonement. I love the atonement with all my heart. It is the rock of my testimony. I want everyone to know how much I love it, and how I know how powerful it can be. Mistakes of the past don’t define, they refine you. Everyone needs to know that God loves them so much, and see how much potential they have, and to have faith in themselves! I have been working on that this week, to just have faith in myself. I go into lessons and can’t really speak Spanish, but you know, I just go for it! This is the message that the world needs to hear! That Christ lives! And he loves us so much! He wants us to be happy. He knows our struggles, trials, injuries, EVERYTHING because he has felt it. He died for us. 

Boom. inspiration done! I love it here and I am learning a ton. I miss good ol America, that’s for sure! But I know I am where I am supposed to be, even if I can’t speak the language at all! God is good, go carpe the crap out of life, and God loves you!!!

Elder Carney

Que es Vida! Aug 4, 2015

Week #3, August 3, 2015       Que es Vida!

Hola Mi Familia!

Como estan ustedes!? I don’t really know where to start.

We moved rooms and are out of the dungeon!!! The cave of misery. Thank goodness. We moved upstairs and have a room, with, wait for it....WINDOWS!!! So we can open them and see a little bit of civilization! The hustle and bustle of the city! We got new teachers as well, and they are just amazing! Some of them have the coolest stories. Hermano Pino, was picked to play on the Chilean national team and went on a mission instead and just has the coolest story. We got new North Americans!!! So nice not to be the new ones here anymore! We are moving up in the ranks! The new North Americans were just shocked the first couple of days, poor souls. And all of them are from Utah pretty much. But we love them and we gringos got to stick together! 

One of my old teachers, hermano traverso, is just the man. I was having a pretty hard couple of days and was just SO frustrated with Spanish. Because I am pretty much leading all the lessons because my companion doesn’t really know how to communicate, yet he is better than me at Spanish. So I kind of just go for it, and it is so frustrating! I have so much I want to say and to teach our investigators and I just can’t form it! But hermano traverso came up to me and expressed to me how amazing he felt when I teach him. How he noticed how much I care for him, and our fake investigator. It really was a tender mercy, and I really needed it. If all I can express to the people of Chile is how much God loves them, knows them personally, and cares about them, and that I care about him. My mission would totally be worth it. Everyone deserves to know that no matter what. Everyone.

Anyway, I really needed it and it just really picked up my spirits. The language is such a barrier, and is challenging, but I am picking it up faster than I expected! I can understand stuff which is pretty cool, yet Chileans speak so fast! Like, SUPER fast. But hey, I have 2 years and just need to have patience. 

We had fast Sunday this past Sunday and it was really good! Truly amazing! We fasted from lunch on Saturday to lunch of Sunday, and I loved it! You are so in tune with the spirit. Shout out to the Holy Ghost, love him! He is my homeboy. As well as Jesus, I love him! Sundays here are just like a spiritual rejuvenation, much needed! We listen to devotionals and this Sunday I really just felt peace. Peace that I am supposed to be here, even if I am here for one person to teach, that is all worth it to me!  Even if I just plant seeds my whole mission, that is so worth it to me. It is hard being out here and comparing yourself to other missionaries. There are some amazing ones, some amazing stories, just top notch people who are just awesome! But you can’t compare yourself to others, in anything. Because God needs you, and just you. People need you and not someone else you are trying to act like. I just have been really trying to focus on loving me, and accepting that I need be myself and to love others unconditionally, not act like another missionary or compare myself to others! So Sundays are the best I decided. We had fast and testimony meeting and I was just really like, alright, g got up there and bore my simple, small testimony in front of a room for of natives and gringos! It was really cool! Again, spirit, my homeboy. 

Fun little story. We were at this park for personal exercise, and a couple of us decided to go for a run after playing soccer for a little, and this stray dog just followed us the whole time! Like ran by our side and it was just the cutest little puppy! We named him and he followed us back to the CCM, and they have an electronic gate (its right behind the temple) and we couldn’t let it in, so the gate was just slowly closing and the dog was just sitting there staring at us, one of the saddest moments of my life! So we sang, ¨DOG be with you till we meet again. Like the hymn God be with you till we meet again. But yeah, that dog is the best! 

The food is getting a little old. I eat bread, meat, rice, and soda for every meal. That’s pretty much what it consists of. 

I saw Connor Weaver, or Elder Weave, here yesterday! That was kind of fun, nice to see someone from Colorado and catch up with him! 

We got new native roommates, one is from Peru and one is from Equador. SO that calls for a lot of acting out, because they speak almost no English and it’s just funny, can’t understand each other at all. But we love them! I noticed how blessed we truly are. One of the missionaries in my room literally came with nothing. The bare essentials. He is just so humble and so kind and it really just made me think how blessed I am. How blessed I am to have contacts or glasses, or a suit, or pairs of socks, shoes. Just really blessed. I came out of the shower and he was ironing my shirt, and just an awesome dude! 

That is life here at the CCM! I am getting used to it and it’s been a challenge, yet I am happy! It’s just so different. This gospel is pure happiness. It is a gospel of love. So much love. It is not temporal happiness, it is eternal happiness. It’s truly amazing. God is amazing. He cares and loves each one of us so much, more than we could ever comprehend. He sent his son to die for us, and through him we will return to him again. Jesus Christ is amazing. This perfect man, atoning for our sins. Life can be so hard. People can go through things unimaginable. But it’s crazy how much God impacts people, and sends people into their lives. This is a God of love; he will NEVER leave you alone. Ever. This is happiness!!! I just want everyone to have it!! If you have doubts. If you are alone. IF you feel the pressure of the world crashing in on you, pray. Always pray. This is our father, who hears you, who wants to hear from you! He will help. 

I love you family!!! So blessed to have an amazing family, and friends. I am praying for all of you daily and I miss you all like crazy!!! 

Elder Carney