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