Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Feb. 24, 2016

Feb. 24, 2016
Hellooooo!!

Wow hello family!!!

So this week was good! So we had stake conference, which was very interesting. And when I say interesting, I mean that literally no one from our ward was there, well two families who are super strong, but bishop, counselors, other leaders, no one was there! Haha welcome to Chile!!! Nah, it’s all good. So I have a story! I was sitting there in Stake conference, and just kind of like, really? This is awful. This is just sad. No one is here, I felt like none of our people were progressing, just really kind of frustrated and down, just kind of like, alright, I’m trying to work here, but I feel like I have nothing to work with. Then we got up to sing and I turned around to stretch out, and boom. There was my Chilean family! Familia Gonzalez Turedo. From my last area, my last ward! I was just like, in shock. I was just so so SO grateful to see them. I wish I could have hugged them with all my might, I was about to (but I didn’t!) and I was just so so so incredibly blessed to have seen them! They came to our stake conference, to see me. I was just sitting there, just about to cry, I just haven’t felt so much love from anyone as much as they have shown me. They are angels on earth. That family has my heart. I wish I could be there in the ward to help them, to visit with them, to grow with them, but it pains me that I can’t! I was just thanking God, for all that he has given me, for letting me get to know and be a part of this beautiful family. SO that was just really really cool, and I am just super grateful for them! 

Then we had interviews with President Cook this week, and wow. He is just incredible. He really helped me out. I went in with some questions I wanted to ask him, and he just gave them to me how I needed them. Just really feel the love from him and am super grateful he is our president, it will be weird to get a new one in July! Anyway, God just knows. He knows our struggles, our pains, He knows. And he sends other people to help us get through them. 

Something that we had today was an area broadcast from Argentine with Elder David A Bednar, just for the South America, and he just, wow, incredible! He talked about faith, about how we are vessels of it, just talked about incredible stuff, truly inspired, and as he was bearing his testimony, I just knew that he was called of God, he is a special witness of Jesus Crist, and just awesome! So if you ever have a chance to look up that talk, do it! 

It was a good week. A giant heat wave is here, so like 90 or 100 degrees and it’s just freaking hot, but the work goes on! We have an activity with the ward that we have planned and nobody is really helping us, not sure if anybody will come, but let’s hope! Prayers welcome, trying to help people and find new people, prayers would be great! I am just so blessed. I love this work. It’s so incredibly hard, the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but forgetting about me and just serving God, serving others, I feel like I have found so much, learned so much already, and just am grateful. God is good! He is the best! 

I love you all, have an incredible week and just give thanks for all that we have!!!

Elder Carney

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Feb 10 & 17, 2016 Hello FAMILIA!!!


Feb. 10, 2016
Hello FAMILIA!!
Well hello their everyone! Hmmm ok so this week was good. I hope grandpa’s funeral went great, hope everything is all good, and everyone I just miss and love all you all a lot! Well, we went through changes and I am still with my comp, still in my area. It will be good. He is a good guy, we are having more fun together and opening up a lot more, he is a great guy! Yes, a gringo, probs never going to learn Spanish, but in time! Haha well, this week was good. Here is a bullet point list
  • a lot of people are moving from our ward, which kind of sucks! But all is well, haha our ward is already small, but it’s going to be smaller!
  • Ivan, one of our menos activos (less actives), he is just incredible! He wants to serve a mission, but he told us he needs to just take time and find out if he really believes everything! Just incredible, he is truly coming unto Christ and its only been a month since we found him, since he was praying to find missionaries to talk to again, just really cool!
  • I got sick again. Yep, don’t really know what’s happening. I was throwing up and my body just hurt really bad, so that was for 2 days! Haha but I’m good. No worries, I feel a lot better now, and trying to be a lot healthier, not drink soda (literally its soda, not water here, that’s all they drink) and all that! But I feel better.
  • We played soccer for pday, on a mini turf field, AH incredible! Haha I love it
  • I am now really sunburnt because of it
  • The members are just awesome, there are not that many, but the ones there are, are just incredible!
That’s about it for the week. I am sorry! OH AND THE BRONCOS!!!! WHAT!?!? Haha that’s so sick! Well, I love you all, so sorry this is short! But praying for all of you. God is just a homie. 

Elder Carney



Feb. 17, 2016
HUH?!

Haha, so hello family. First, I need to tell you all a story. So we were walking down, middle of the day, walking down a street of blocks (ghetto apartment buildings) and it’s just freaking hot, I was tired, just not really thinking, and this guy who was peeling fruit with a long knife, turns the corner, saw us, and comes charging at me with this knife! I was like, oh this is just a joke, and then he got super close and I was like, well shoot, this isn’t a joke. Ha-ha and I just didn’t even react, just kept walking, and he got like inches away from me and just started laughing and continue walking on his way, eating his fruit. It didn’t hit me for like a couple of seconds ha-ha that I could have just been killed ha-ha! Kinda funny! That was thrilling. I just turned to my comp and was like, what the heck just happened? But I’m alive! Ha-ha just a funny story!

Anyways, this past week was good. I need to tell you guys something cool also. So we have these people in our ward, who are deaf. The guy is married and have kids and the guy and the wife are deaf, but they are just awesome! So we are learning American sign language, ha-ha its super sick! At first, I just thought there was no hope and I didn’t have to learn it, because the other missionaries are going by and live in their sector, but we had an open chapel, where people can walk through and this is this whole tour, pretty cool! And so we brought them there and we had to translate all of it! Ha-ha me and my comp, Spanish sign language, super cool! Super hard at first, but we are learning! It was just really cool to see that the spirit speaks all languages, even hands! Really edifying to see how hard it truly must be, but how they make the best of it! He is our ward mission leader and just incredible. I want to learn more sign language now! So that was just a really really cool thing, that God uses people in so many ways, to help his children out. 

So that was some main things this week. Our ward is good. We had an assistance rate of 35 people this past Sunday. Yep! It’s like a branch here! But really good people. Our young men’s president (who kind of went off the deep end and got back into drugs) is now just incredible, and doing so good. We are working with him a lot and it’s just incredible to see people who have a desire to change, a true desire to stop things and just come unto Christ. It feels rare to see people who have that, but when they do, it is INCREDIBLE! 

That is what I have learned a lot of this week. Just how we need to come unto Christ, we need to let him in. Let him take over. I love doing things my way and doing everything by myself. I am just like that. But honestly. I can’t do everything! At all. We can try so many times but we will keep falling! That is why we have Christ. That why we have this gospel. I really like a quote that I heard from someone, which is 

I don’t walk around happy all the day, every day. I struggle. I have problems. I am human. I have faults. But I walk around with the knowledge that I am a child of God. That this gospel, brings me peace to have that. That is my happiness. 

Something like that. So yeah, we are children of God dangit! How incredible! And this gospel, how incredible! So that’s what I am trying to learn, to just come unto Christ. Let him take over. We can’t do it alone. And he is right there, ready to reach out and help. 

That’s my wisdom for this week. I love you all. God is good. You are children of a heavenly king, who loves you so so much. Never forget that. Peace and blessings.


Elder Carney



Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Feb. 3, 2016 (his grandpa passed away) Jan. 26, 2016

Feb. 3, 2016
Well,
Hello Family! So yeah just received the news about grandpa. Wow. I guess I should have expected it but it still is hard. I read moms email that she sent me and I just really felt at peace, really felt the spirit and I feel like grandpa knows, and he is just having a great time with his brother and parents in heaven! Haha makes me think of the memories I have with him, how I was the only lefty in the fam! And I remember him yelling at me one time for riding a bike that was way too small for me, and he scared the crap out of me haha! I was pretty young!!  But, I just regret not being able to spend more time with him, spending more time. He was super calm and quiet, just trying to think back on all the memories that we had, which is hard to remember which makes me sad! But I just love him! Him and his jumpsuits!  Haha love them! 

But it makes me think of the plan of salvation. To the people who I have seen who are so firm, so firm in their beliefs, compared to the people who don’t have this knowledge and are just destroyed. I am just grateful to have the knowledge. I don’t know, I feel just off right now, don’t know! Hard, but I know that I will see him again someday! How are all of you guys? 

Also, one of the guys that we baptized, hermano Juan, he passed away too this week which is kind of hard. He was a really good guy and he was old, but he got baptized and was a firm member for the 4 months that he had, he was a saint! Haha. Kind of just a week of dying. Sucks! But this isn’t the only life. No doubt about that. 

I don’t really know what else to say this week! Umm it was good, it has been an interesting journey. I feel like I really need fast Sunday this week, with everything that has happened and that is going on. I really just need to rely on the knowledge that I have, the testimony that I do have, and just grow! I am really thankful to share this gospel with the people here. It really can change your life. I have seen it. God loves all of his children so much! I guess that’s it for this week! I love you all! God is good. There is a plan. No doubt about that. Till we meet again, it’s not the end! Love you all. Praying for you all!
Please pray for me too.

Elder Carney




January 27, 2016

Sick in Santiago

Hello family! Haha sooo this past week kind of sucked! I was sick! Haha on Saturday I actually felt like I was getting better, and then Sunday it just hit me! I was on antibiotics last Wednesday but they were not working. Finally, Monday, I just couldn’t do anything. My body was so week, had a fever, just everything hurt, yeah haha so that was fun. Then Tuesday I got new antibiotics (the nurse here doesn’t really know crap, I’m gonna be honest) and then I just laid in bed, just trying to get better haha so its hasn’t really been all that fun. Being sick on the mission is SOOO much worse than being sick in college, because in college you can just snuggle up, watch Netflix all day, do whatever, well, the mission, you’re in a foreign country, you can’t really watch Netflix, you just lay there. It sucks!!! Haha just want to go out and get rejected haha nah, but just wanted to go outside. Being sick sucks on the mish. 

But I am getting better. I feel a lot better today, so that’s good! Oh but I think I have a sinus infection, but all is well! 

What’s new this week? Well, this area, it’s interesting. The ward should be a branch. It just has NO priesthood, no leadership. Just kind of sad, but the members who are firm are are really great people! 

This kid, Ivan, we found him like 3 weeks ago, he is a menos (less) active, and he is just INCREDIBLE. He keeps asking us about a mission and he is just a homie, he is 23 and he was actually searching for the missionaries for a long time, but could never find them, and finally we should up one day at his doorstep and it was just super cool. He is awesome! 

Hmm what else? Oh I am not only learning Spanish but also Spanish sign language, haha yep our ward mission leader is deaf. So I am just learning, this other missionary here is like fluent, its super cool to see. But yeah, guess I need to learn that too know. I can pray in it, which is cool, but other than that I am a lost puppy! 

This past week was good. Nothing really knew happened, haha just sick and felt like crap. But oh, I was just feeling a little down yesterday, being sick for so long and just feeling like crap, and then I got the letter that Katy sent and the package that mom you sent, and it just made me day. Thank you. I really needed it, funny how God sends us things when we need them, at the right time. 

We are reading the Book of Mormon as a mission and it’s been good! I encourage you all the read it, start now! Man I am learning so much, but super cool to see! Nephi is a beast, heck all those people are just the best! God is the best. What a guy. I love you all, please tell me about your lives!!!!

Praying for all of you!!!
Elder Carney