Friday, November 27, 2015

Nov 11. 18 & 25! Catch up blog!


Nov. 11, 2015
Hola Familia!!
Hello mi familia! How is everyone doing!?

So this week, has been super long. Really tired. My allergies are turning on like crazy too so that hasn’t been fun. And its starting to get hot here which I thought I could do, but man, it gets HOT. 

So this Pday was just another day of missionary work it felt like, we just went around and my comp is saying goodbye to people and what not, because he leaves for home on Monday! So yeah, it is happening. I will be not only leading my sector, but also another one too, with a new comp, so PLEASE pray for me! I need all the help I can get. It’s really stressful but I know I can do it! But yeah, pray. 

Hmm what has happened this week? Another tremblor happened, super strong, at like 4am and they are just really cool! The earth is just shaking super strong and dogs go crazy barking everywhere and it’s just cool, I love them! People have a ton of fear here of them though. 

We had a baptism for one of our investigators, Juan! He is really old, and has a walker thing but he was baptized! It was really good! He can’t really read nor comprehend much, but he was crying saying how happy he was with this, how excited he was to get baptized! So yeah, that was cool!

Mentally, it was a hard week. It is hard living with 3 guys who are all leaving. It’s hard with everyone asking how I am doing, how prepared I am. It’s hard just being a missionary in general. But all is well! Mentally, really hard, but all is well!

We are teaching a guy in English, he want to know English and practice with us, so we got him folletos and Book of Mormon in English for him and are teaching the lessons to him and it’s been really fun for me! We showed him the Joseph Smith first vision video, the Restoration and he totally changed his beliefs, he said he gets it now and how he would have to pray about it! That’s a challenge here, people are never home, never do their homework, their commitments, and never go to church!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 
Above all, never lose faith in your Father in heaven, who loves you more than you can comprehend. 

I love this quote. Everyone remember that. Tell it to everyone. We are never alone. We also have someone who believes in us, who sees our eternal potential, even when nobody else can. He loves us so much. SO freaking much! 

So the gospel is cool. Go preach it.  Wish I did it more when I was in high school, given this knowledge and testimony to my friends and just to everyone. So DO IT. Just DO IT, preach it to everyone!!!

So yeah that was my week. I am excited for my next comp hopefully it’s a Latino! And just pray for me! Love you all, miss you all like a fat kid loves cake! 


Elder Carney


Nov. 18, 2015
LIFE JUST GOT REAL!

Well family, excuse my language, but. SHIZ JUST GOT REAL. Haha so I will tell you why. I killed 3 people in my house this week, they all went home from the mission, so it was kind of sad time yet also cool, it was good. They are great guys, really learned a lot. But then at change meeting, I found out who my next comp is going to be...ELDER MASER!!! Yeah, the same guy who is in my group, who is from Colorado, who I was friends with at BYU, who when he got his mission call we were walking up to B9 and I told him how sick it would be if he got called to my mission, and now, we are comps!!! We got lost in Atlanta together with Elder Brown as well on our way to Atlanta, that little adventure! And now, we are not only fresh out of training, we are greenie-breaking each other AND taking on another sector, another part which none of us know the people...so, PRAY FOR US. Lord, help us. Haha I am excited yet still shocked. President said to us after that that is the same thing that happened to him on his mission, so I don’t know why he feels this is right but hey, we are going to give it a shot! Haha his Spanish is better than mine, but yeah, I think it is going to be really hard, really hard, but it can also be really good! I hope! Haha pray for us!!! And it’s also just us 2 living in the apartment together, no one else! 
> 
> So life just got real. It’s going down for real! This Pday, we literally just put on hiking clothes, went to the micro (subway) and got on a train and just adventured, we went to St. Cristobal, hiked it up! It was great, hiking a mountain (sort of..in the city, more of a hill) with 2 stray dogs following us, not having any clue where we are going! It was beautiful, the kind of adventure I LIKE! SO PRAY FOR US!!! Haha that’s pretty much all that happened this week. I love you all, PLEASE WRITE ME LETTERS!!! Or emails, any one! LOVE LOVE LOVE
> 
> Elder Carney


Nov. 25, 2015
TRUCKING 4 JESUS
Hello family! So I just wanted to start out with a story today during PDay at a little supermarket, we were just shopping for food when this gringo man, mid 40os or 50s comes up and starts speaking in English to us, this gringo dude! And after a little chat he told us he had cancer, and doesn’t really know much time he had left. It just hit me, I just wanted to cry as this man, Bill, was telling us about his life story and all the things he learned and appreciates in life, especially know that it is ending. He isn’t Mormon, he was just a normal guy in the supermarket, just another bystander, yet we had NO idea what he was going through. Before all of this, I just was super frustrated. I was frustrated with Spanish, how I just don’t get it, how slow it is taking me it feels like, and just with life, just felt super overwhelmed and just didn’t care, and then Bill told me this and I just welled up. I needed to hear it. I needed a reminder, that people are struggling, that we don’t know. That people have trials, things that we don’t even know about, just people in the store, in cars, just normal people, or so we think so. Yet everyone has a story. EVERYONE. Everyone has their own problems, their own trials, and bill reminded me how good my life is. How precious life is. How at peace he was with him dying, just living his life to the best he could, helping others. I just really needed it. And I feel like we all need to remind ourselves how beautiful life is. How we need to treat others equally, NO MATTER WHAT. Just a super humbling experience in which h I needed. I really needed it. 
So this week was really tiring. I am just really tired. We are taking on another sector on top of ours, which has been really rewarding .We have been super packed, like it’s incredible. Our little garden of Covarrubias, Gran Avendia in Santiago Chile is being harvested, we have a baptism this coming Saturday!!! Constanza, who is 19 yrs. old and she is super cool! So we are excited! But yeah, I am tired! 
This week, has been overwhelming! Haha I have kind of never felt so inadequate with my Spanish, it’s been hard not going to lie. Elder Maser is like, fluent, and I am just the driver of the struggle bus! Haha have been my whole life! Haha love it! No but it’s hard, which is why we can’t compare ourselves to others. Life lessons number 2 this week! One of my favs quotes, COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY. It so true. I can’t compare my progress to anyone elses, just be me. Keep on keeping on. That’s all we can do at some points. SO BE YOU. Boom, life lessons by Elder Carney. 
This week was really good .We are teaching a lot and just trying to love all the people. We had a capilla abierta, an open chapel and just invited a ton of people to come explore the chapel, had stands of everything’s set up and baptismal font and just everything and didn’t really get any people there, but those who came it was really good!!! That was my week! Please pray for me! I love you all. God loves you all. He is right beside us. We just need to reach out and sometimes, let him in, let him do it, let his love encircle us, he is there. I love you all with all my heart. I am doing good, carrying my own cross, my little cross compared to what Christ had to carry. He is the man. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

Elder Carney

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Funny Story/Josh Groban!! Oct 21,28 & Nov 4 2015

Oct 21, 2015 Well Hello!!
Oct. 21, 2015  Funny Story
Dear Family & friends -
So first things first, how are all of you!? 
This week has been good. I got to confirm Jacqueline, our recent convert with the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting this Sunday, it was super cool! Yes, I nailed the ordination right in Spanish, the blessing after, not so much, but it was great! Super cool experience, I am just blessed. Blessed she even asked me to do it, and just love that family. They are my second family here, love them!!! They remind me a lot of our family, and I told them they always have a place at our house if they come and visit the US, they are just incredible! 
Well, funny story! We were on divisions, so I was with our zone leader, Elder Despain in their zone in Gran Avendia, Los Nogales, and we had this appointment with this guy, and he just keep going on and on telling stories and what not and near the end we were just super tired ha-ha kind of sick of him talking, and then he just started to sing, out of nowhere, and just loudly and staring at us! Ha-ha he had a good voice, it was alright, but he was telling us how he won so many competitions and what not, and Elder Despain was like, ¨You know what, Elder Carney is INCREDIBLE, in fact, I went to his concert, yeah, concert before the mission. In fact, I have a song by him on our phone!¨ and the guy turned to me and I just went with the flow, and was like, yes I write and perform songs. Ha-ha and then Despain pulled up this song on his phone, the one and only Josh Groban, the Don’t Give Up song. And the guy, was listening to the intro with the instruments, then when Josh Groban, or Brad Carney as Despain put in the phone, start singing, the guy just looked up at me SHOCKED: his face was priceless!!! He was amazed! Ha-ha he thought it was me! Ha-ha and he now wants me, or Josh Groban , to sing at his baptism! Ha-ha so that was just funny I couldn’t stop from laughing, so this guy still things I am a prodigy! Ha-ha it was good!
This Pday we climbed Santa Lucia, just a hill in the middle of the city, not really a hill but yeah super pretty, it was cool! The smog was cool too, ha-ha the air here is awful! 
It has been on and off raining and sunshine, hasn’t hit summer quit yet which is super rare here apparently. But yeah, the house of TRUNKY (3 elders leaving this change) is going good! 
(Honestly, it’s been really hard sometimes, to try to focus and just everything, but all is well. I have a ton of support and all that, I did ask president for a Latino comp because my Spanish just feels like it isn’t progressing, all me and my comp is speak English in the street, ha-ha so yeah that’s my little vent sesh, I JUST WANT TO SPEAK SPANISH!!! But all is well!)
This week was good, so yeah, we are working hard and just trying to do our best. It’s hard. Missionary work is hard. Ha-ha it sucks sometimes, not going to lie. But there are moments when it is great. I try to cherish those moments when we have them. Yeah, I dont know what else to say this week! Ha-ha hopefully more stories next week, sorry this email isn’t that good!
That is my life! I am just here in Chile, ha-ha living life and trying to serve the Lord. Nada mas! Mother, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I miss all of you, write me and send me pictures, tell me about all your lives and dreams and everything!!! I miss you all greatly, I hope you know that! DONT FORGET ME!!!
Elder Carney



Oct. 28, 2015  Well What a week!
Hello Familia!
I am trying to think of the things that have happened this past week and I just can’t! Ha-ha for first right now I am SUPER tired. I don’t know why, I feel like everything is catching up to me! This Pday we just did shopping for my comp because he is leaving, buying recuerdos and what not, so it wasn’t really all that much fun ha-ha kind of sucked, but ah well! These next few ones he is going to say goodbye to all his people he wants to say goodbye too, I am just kind of here ha-ha but all is well. Man I’m tired!
Hmmm I have like pink eye or some kind of eye infection, just in one eye, so that’s kind of cool! I got eye drops though and I hope it’s going away! This past week has been good! We have this one family, the two girls want to get baptized and they are just great, I just hope the mother allows them too and she is kind of really firm. But through prayer, everything is possible! 
At times, the mission is just hard. Just plain hard. I don’t know how to explain it, but it just is. This past week has been a little frustrating just with everything at times, with my comp and with the area and people and just myself. But I am here to testify that we need to look inward. I need to knock my little pride down, because it’s not little, I am a prideful son of a gun. I don’t think I show it or express it, but in my mind I am and its awful!!! So I will be working on that!
I don’t know what else to really say this week, I am really sorry! I am tired and my Spanish sadly feels like it’s going backwards, just feel stagnant. Blessings of having a gringo comp to speak English in the street all day! But I know that someday I will be able to speak! Ha-ha isn’t that what faith is for? This week was just the same thing as any other week, ha-ha just living the missionary life! 
I am EXTREMLY sad I am missing fall right now, SO sad! I LOVE FALL!!! And Halloween, they don’t really celebrate it here, I don’t know I will tell you next week how it goes! But yeah, please someone watch a movie for me with Starbucks and snuggle, ahhh  or go for a run with all the leaves and the crisp air. DANG!!! Ha-ha someone do it for me, ok? Well family, I just wanted to tell you all I love you a lot. Like, a lot a lot, and I just love hearing from all of you! Makes my day! Well, my hour and 15 min I get ha-ha to write family. I love you all!!!!
God is good. He hears our prayers. Everything will work out. Hold strong. 


Elder Carney


Nov. 4, 2015
So hello everyone!
Well this Pday we have done nothing but walked around visiting people for my comp and saying goodbye, because he is leaving in 2 weeks. So it has kind of not been fun, at all, but all is well. Just have to do it another week also. Hmm.
Life is going good. Better. 
Our sector is going good. We have a baptism this week for this really old guy Juan. He had a stroke and is regaining his strength but he wants to be baptized! He doesn’t really retain info that well, but he has a testimony with is really cool! So I will tell you all how that goes!
Hmmm Spanish is an adventure none the less. I really  hope I get a Latino comp, because my Spanish it feels is not progressing at all. I hope so! But hey, so be it if I am lost for 2 years, no worries! No things are good
This week has been good. I am really trying to focus more on our investigators who are not really progressing. We have investigators which is good in the first place, but some of them my comp has been teaching for like 8 months, and not progressing. So that has been hard, to kind of remotivate and reamp everything. ENERGY!!! I need energy. It is hard at times, being happy. I love being happy. But when I am not happy, I don’t like that. And this is the gospel of happiness, and I need to be happier! So I’m gonna be happy dangit! 
Other than that, the ward is good. Some incredible people. It’s frustrating at times, because there is so much Gossip. SO much. And I HATE it! So like Pres Uchtdorf said, JUST STOP IT! I need to get better about it myself. I really do. Because everyone is a child of God, and who am I to judge others? We all have our own problems and everything, and that is my Godly council this week, for all of us to work on. Because man I am just done with it! I don’t know why, but people just tell us everything and gossip about anyone and everyone to us, ha-ha I hate it! So yeah. Rant done
I am learning .I am progressing. Slowly. Learning patience. Learning love. Learning to follow Christ, his example. It’s hard, not going to lie. Being a member of this church, being a follower, a believer of CHrist, is hard. It sucks sometimes. But it’s worth it. He has felt our pain. He knows our souls. He is here for us, ALWAYS. We just have to reach out to him. Have faith in him. Show him. 
I love all of you, hasta ver!

Elder Carney