Well, holy cow!

Well holy cow, it feels like I have been in Bozeman forever, so much has happened this last week, but I have only been here for a little more than a week! So my mind was blown when I realized that. I am loving it here, it is really hard, but I also am so happy. Last week we had a good beginning to the week, it was a little slow, but we were able to meet a couple families that we began teaching and had contacted and made appointments with my first weekend here so that was really nice. They were some great families that have a spouse who isn't a member, as well as some families that haven't been to church in a while so it was nice to meet them. Last Tuesday two of the elders in my district here had a baptism for two girls they had been teaching, and B came to it which was awesome! She had said she wanted to see one before she got baptized and so it was perfect that there was one two days after she said that. She had a really good experience and then we were able to talk with her about baptism more fully and discuss what happens when someone is baptized, we think it really helped. Then one of the highlights of my week and my mission up to this point happened on Wednesday! President Mecham decided he felt like the entire mission (230 missionaries) needed to come to the temple in Billings, and so last Wednesday was my zone's, or area of missionaries, day to go!! We woke up, cleaned our apartment, and were about to leave to meet at Walmart where the van was picking us all up here in Bozeman to head out, when one of the sisters in our district called and said that she had sliced her finger while she was cutting food, and that it was really deep, so they were heading to the ER. We were worried and hoping she was ok and so Elder Brown and I told the missionaries driving the van, and decided we would go to the ER and wait for them and drive their car to Billings as soon as she was released. So we went to the hospital, waited for her, were in the room while she got the stiches, and then drove to Billings! We had to be in the temple by 12:15 and so we were so hoping and praying that we would be able to get there on time, all while obeying the speed limit! Haha so we actually made it!!!!!!!! I was so grateful and we were able to go in and have a wonderful time there. The temple president spoke to all of us and then we were able to go through and have a wonderful experience.. At the end of the session as I was sitting there before leaving, i was just pondering a couple things I  had such a witness and reminder to me that our family is sealed and that no matter what happens, we will be together forever. It was so peaceful and I felt so loved and didn't want to leave the temple. But afterwards we went to dinner in Billings and then headed out. It was so uplifting and cool to be able to have one day to focus on the temple and feeling the Spirit. 

On Thursday we had a good goal to focus more on finding people to teach, and I had been praying so hard that we could find more people, and then a random RM came to our apartment, found out we were in a certain area, and asked how this one person was doing, and told us we should contact her. She was nowhere in our area books or records, and so it was a miracle in that we never would have found her, then that night we asked the Ward MIssion Leader about her and he had been thinking about her, as had the Bishop and they are now working to have her meet with us. I felt so grateful for that, as well as how many referrals we have had these last couple days, it feels like Heavenly Father has blessed us with so many names of people. Some of them don;t want to be taught, but it has been cool contacting them and getting positive responses from so many.

Oh also when we were at the library we ran into an interesting fellow. Haha he asked our opinion on the Zionist movement in America and how they had kidnapped several people from our church... and how they were following him to Montana and all sorts of interesting things. It was nice being able to tie it back into how through all of his struggles he can receive help through our Savior, but he was little more interested in talking to us about unique conspiracy theories than hearing our message. Haha but it definitely was interesting. Oh and yesterday we ate dinner with a family in teh ward who were doing a murder mystery and so they all were dressed up very nice and pretty cool, but it was just a little awkward so we left before the murder mystery actually started to unfold. But it was very nice for them to do that and have us over as well! Oh and I ran last week!!!!! It felt so incredibly good, and it made me want to race, which I know would probably be disappointing right now but oh well!

On Friday we went and served during the afternoon at the Food Bank here in Bozeman with some of the other missionaries, it is something we do once a week and I loved it! We got to talk with and get to know slightly so many people, most who are in a really tough situation right now, so it was nice to be able to listen to them and help make their days a little better as we took their food and put it in boxes and helped them get it to their cars. Then on Saturday we had Stake Conference start, and a member of the Seventy was here this weekend for it, as well as President Mecham, and the temple President and his wife. It was so great to be lifted up by them so much, we were asked to go to a leadership meeting Saturday afternoon, then the adult session that night, and then the Sunday Morning session as well. I loved it so much, and it was great to here from these great men, especially form President Mecham, he is truly amazing! Having so many meetings and changes to our regular schedule made it hard for doing missionary work, but I felt truly blessed with so many opportunities that made it so we actually had a really productive week and got a lot of work done, Elder Brown said it was one of the most successful weeks he has had his entire mission. So that was exciting to hear!! Yesterday M came to church which we were happy about since it was her first time in like 10 years, and she really enjoyed stake conference. We are going to work with her and her husband on quitting smoking, so we are really praying for them to have the strength and desire to do so. We also taught B again after the session of conference on Sunday, and she is experiencing a lot of hardship in regard to pressure from a lot of different people in her life, a lot of whom are against her being baptized, and she is struggling that she still feels like she needs to know perfectly. We had such a great lesson with her and are now also going to be able to meet with her more often, so we will see if she is able to be baptized on the 7th still, I think she still can, but we might have to push it back depending on how that situation with her family goes. I really hope and pray that she can get baptized, it will be such a strength to her. 

Mom, could you post my mission home address for people to write letters to? Also, I got your package and I loved it!!! Haha it was so awesome and I am still eating some of the things you sent me. It definitely helped make my day that day! Did you get my thank you note?? 

In regards to online proselyting, and sorry that I couldn't do it for everyone, but I asked that you forward it, Katy and Mom should check their messages folder on facebook, specifically the "other messages" folder... I think you might get a surprise. 

I loved hearing about all of your weeks!! I am going to try to respond quickly to each of you but I don't have a ton of time, so sorry about that! Mom, good luck with the surgery, I thought it was this last week so you have definitly been in my prayers! Good luck with all of the craziness this week and CAMILLE IS ENGAGED AND GETTING MARRIED!?! Haha and I found out Madison is engaged too!!! And I can't believe Harrison is getting married as well so soon! Basically I feel very strange with all of that happening! Love you all!

Elder Carney

Oh shoot I totally forgot!!!!! I am teaching a lesson tonight in Portuguese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 The sisters here (one who is also going to Sao Paulo eventually) have a family in their ward from Sao Paulo and one of their friends in beginning to investigate the church, so the people invited us as well as the sisters over tonight to practice our portuguese, have brasilian food, and teach the first lesson in Portuguese! I am so incredibly excited and I am a little nervous since this is my first real lesson in portuguese! I have seriously been looking forward to this since last week when I found out it was happening! Love you!

****MOM note- I am removing the names of the people he teaches to protect their privacy!

BOZEMAN!! And new address!

Haha well I am officially in Montana! This last week has been crazy, but I absolutely love it here. On monday we flew in and I met my new mission president, President Mecham. He is an incredible man, one of the most inspiring that I have ever met, and it is incredible how much he knows about us and even more impoortantly, cares about us before we even get a chance to talk with him. He is super kind, and him and his wife were very welcoming and helpful. That first night all the elders stayed in this bunkroom type thing they have in the mission home, and we received our assignments. Mine is to Bozeman, which is a smaller town about an hour and a half from Billings. MSU is here and I am really liking it already. I had a turn of events happen and on Tuesday morning, one of the Assistants to the mission President, Elder Olsen from Spanish Fork, UT, told me to pack a smaller bag and that I would actually be his travel companion for a couple days and we were going down to Wyoming and dropping off missionaries, and then I would be on exchanges with two elders down in Riverton, Wyoming, and that after that we would head back up to Bozeman. Haha so that was a surprise, and I had the privelege of going down through a huge chunk of Wyoming, which is basically a whole lot of nothing. Haha it had some beautiful parts, and I actually came to really love Riverton for the people there and how awesome they were, as well as the two elders who I served with, Elders Linton and Organ. They were great, and the area needed a lot of organizing so we spent a lot of time with that and working as to how we could make our efforts more effective. Just as I was really loving it and looking ofrward to being there, Elder Olsen said we needed to move on, and so we left and made our way back to Billings for a night, and on Friday morning we left to come here to Bozeman. I met my companion, Elder Brown, who is awesome, and we live in an apartment with the two elders, Elder Burrows and Elder Schlenker. I love Elder Brown already, he is a good elder, loves music, very smart, and knows the area here really well.

Anyways, I got here in Bozeman and my area covers mainly the outskirts, so it takes forever to cover areas because of how spread apart our area is. We have a truck and bikes, so we often spend time biking or driving half way then biking to save gas and mileage. I love it here, it is so beautiful! I have also had some interesting experiences, this family had us over for dinner and they live in a trailer home, but as we walked in she was decorating a Christmas tree, which was interesting. .. haah so they are a great but very unique family. And unfortunately it reeked and was super hot in their trailer. Like bad. Like I am pretty sure I haven't smelled something that bad for a long time. Well I was mistaken in how bad I thought that smell was. Because on Sunday morning we woke up at our usual time to the worst smell I have smelled in seriously like my entire life. Our apartment REEKED! Our windows were open and we discovered this lady below us was cooking (or letting rot, or making smell as bad a possible) something, I don't want to know what, and it was coming up and killing us all silently. So we spent a half hour frantically lighting a scented candle, spreading dryer sheets strategically around the place, and dousing every surface in febreeze. But that's ok, it definitely was memorable!! The people we are teaching here are awesome, I love them all already! We are teaching a woman and that's been good, she is a less-active member, and she hasn't been to church in years and has had such a hard life. We are really working with her in helping her come back to church and she has such a desire to know God and have a more personal relationship with him so we are trying to help her pray more and read the Book of Mormon every day. She has been progressing well but there always seems to be something in the way of her keeping her commitments, so hopefully we can help her keep those and have a desire to pull through. My favorite investigator right now I met yesterday, her name is B and she is an immigrant from Shanghai, but she speaks really good English. Elder Brown has been working with her for three months, and she is so ready to be baptized. She has such a knowledge, desire, and she attends church every week. Yesterday we taught her in the Gospel Essentials class at church more about the life of Christ because she doesn't know a lot not being from a Christian background, and then we taught her after again about the Atonement, and it was so powerful. She is so ready and we challenged her to be baptized on September 7th, which she accepted. She is somewhat hesitant as she feels she needs a perfect knowledge of everything but we talked to her about faith and how she needs to pray to know if this is was she needs to do, and she said she thinks it is and she will pray. So that like made my week, and she is doing really well!

 I am really excited to be serving here though! Also, the address you need to send everything to is the one for the mission home, it should have been on the return address for my letter, but just have it be to me and they will forward everything. Also any packages need to be USPS priority or something like that, not standard, otherwise they won't be able to forward those. I am seriously loving it here, please put the mission address on my blog so that people can write me if they'd like (hint hint, nudge nudge) hahaha and I hope you are all doing well! I loved hearing from everyone via email and I am keeping all of you in my prayers! Booboo, I hope the tendonitiis goes away quick, work hard and be smart and then be aggressive with running when you can, Katy, I LOVED hearing about your week and I am so glad that you are doing well. Kyle, I love you lots, let me know how you are doing, and Dad, I am so glad that work is good and thanks so much for the advice, I really needed some of the things you said. Well I love oyu all, tchau!!!

Elder Carney

Danny's New Address is:
Elder Daniel Carney
Montana Billings Mission
1848 Rimrock Road
Billings, MT  59102-0765

Montana!!!!

I am officially in Montana!!!! Haha I love it here already and I am really enjoying it! We have a little bit of time to email, and then later tonight we are going to have orientation and other things. The flight went well, I have to tell you about a tender mercy. After we got off talking to all of you on the phone, this woman and her husband were talking to us and they decided that they were going to buy us lunch. We told them that we had money and that they didn't need to but this lady was SO adamant. So we followed them and they bought us all sandwiches and bagels and then because we had to go get checked in and the sandwiches were taking a while brought them over to our gate for us. It was seriously SO incredibly kind of them and I was so grateful. When we were saying goodbye to go on the plane the woman just started crying and they were so appreciative of us going on missions. It made me feel so good and it was so kind of them. I will definitely be keeping them in my prayers, it was such a tender mercy. My mission president is so awesome, I love him and his wife already, and I am excited to serve here! I am still not sure of the mission address, but I will find out later and write to you to tell you it. P-days are Monday so I think I will get to email again next week. I am loving it here so much and I am so excited! OH also, Kyle, the bookstore ran out of Jesus the Christ books... but I hopefully will finish it and be able to send you it, let me know what you want me to do! I love you all so much and I was so grateful to be able to talk with each of you!! Haha I don't know what else to say, Oh, Montana, or at least Billings, is not very mountainous... haha that is something that I will miss, but it is pretty cool here and has nice blue skies like Colorado! Other than that I feel like I don't have a lot else to say since I just talked with you all! Oh we are getting new english name tags, so I am going to have so many by the time my mission is over! Haha kind of exciting! Well, I love you all, you're great, and I will talk to you next week!

Elder Carney

Bom Dia! Aug 6, 2013

Well it has once again been another week in paradise. I am absolutely loving it here, while also getting really antsy to leave and get out into the field. I am officially one of the oldest missionaries (in terms of being in the MTC) going to Brazil! We are the really old and wise (and really good looking) people that the first week people think are fluent in Portuguese... now I am acutely aware that that is a misinterpretation. Haha it is just crazy to me that I am going to be leaving this place so soon, it feels like I have SO much left to learn, and I definitely do, but it is also cool to see how much we have been able to progress and learn since we first got here. I love talking to the new missionaries, especially those I know, as it is so easy to relate to their feelings of overwhelmed and feeling inadequate, mainly because those feelings still exist, they just aren't as bad.

Some exciting news is that last week we got more visas than we have gotten since March! I think 20 visas in all came last week, which is really exciting and we were all super happy for those who got them. My district continues in our drought of not having received a single one, but that's ok, we all go through swings of really badly wanting our visas, but we all for the most part are really excited to get our reassignments and see another mission. I said goodbye to the district that came in a week before us today, the sisters in that district are going to Portugal and just left like an hour ago, Sister (Karyn) Christensen was in that district and our district always thought they were our favorite sisters because all four of them were so nice and kind to us, as well as super funny! Sister Kunz, the one that calls you Sally mom because she loves your cookies, was one of those sisters, and we are genuinely going to miss seeing them.

On Sunday we had Fast Sunday and that was super uplifting. We have dinner every day at 4:00 PM because all of the Brazilian missionaries aren't technically supposed to be here and so we are guests and have kind of the worst schedule, but on Fast Sundays we eat last so we don't eat until 5:45 PM. Let's just say I was a little bit hungry. Overall all though I have grown to love Fasting more here and feel closer to God after I have fasted for specific purposes that are important to me. On Fast Sundays we also have Mission Conference which is great, it's like Stake Conference and we get to hear from the entire MTC mission presidency as well as their wives. I loved it and felt really edified afterwards. One of the things that one of the speakers was talking about was faith, and said something along the lines of that our faith can be kindled or rekindled by those around us and I thought of our family and how many times I have felt my faith strengthened or rekindled by those in our family, whether that was hearing Mom or Dad bear their testimony in sacrament, or talking about spiritual experiences with Katy Kyle or Bradley. I just loved that thought and felt so grateful to have such a wonderful family that can strengthen and has strengthened me throughout my life.

Another cool thing on Sunday was the Sunday Night Devotional (we spend like 6 hours in meetings on Fast Sundays, it's really great, my legs just get super tight from sitting that long) and our speaker was Jenny Oaks Baker, the daugher of one the Apostles in our church, Elder Dallin H. Oaks. On top of her being a daughter of an Apostle, she also is one of the world's most renowed violinists. Like holy cow was she ridiculous. She played so many hymns on her violin that brought such a peace and calm spirit to me and those in the meeting, I really loved it. You should look up some of her stuff in your have time.

OH!!! Speaking of looking up stuff, you all (anyone who reads this) should look up the mormon message on Youtube called Lifting Burdens. It is a collection of testimonies of Jesus Christ by the Apostles and Prophet in our church and had a really profound effect on me this last week when I felt like I really needed it. I love Mormon Messages, they are really good.

We met our new teacher, Irmao Smith, this last week, and he is awesome! He is American but he got his master's in Portuguese syntax. This all means that he is super intense and has been really good for our district. Oh, he also made (jokingly) a negative comment about Colorado to me, and my brain REALLY pulled through for me in reprimanding him with some eloquent response, by sputtering unintelligently and my entire face going bright red like it likes to do... luckily I was able to soapbox a little later to my District about how amazing Colorado is so everything was made good in the end.

No races this week to tell you about which is a little sad, but I have been playing soccer basically everyday, and I am loving doing that, I hadn't realized how much I truly missed playing it. Oh and I am really missing running, but luckily I still get to play midfield in soccer so I get to run up and down the field like a madman a lot! I am so excited for Taylor to run her half marathon this weekend!!! PLEASE, let me know how it goes, I have been keeping her in my prayers and will continue to do so that she will have a good experience! Also...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE BEST PARENTS IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Haha I hope that it is super fantastic and I am glad that you were able to celebrate it a little bit by going down and staying the Colorado Springs for a little trip! I love you both and I am so lucky to have parents that love each other and love the Gospel! So I hope it was fun going down there and I hope you have a good anniversary!

It is looking like we will find out what our reassignments are on Friday, and then we will leave whenever we are asked to, it could be as early as Saturday morning way early or next Wednesday, so I will just have to wait and see! But I am super excited to find out that way I can head out!

It was Sister Cotton's birthday on Sunday so we bought her some food and cotton balls (my idea, and yes, I do think I am funny) from the store here, and then decorated our classroom with sticky notes with messages or pictures for her all over the classroom and throughout her books and scriptures! It was really fun and I enjoyed helping her have a good birthday.

 

Oh, only my family knows about this, but a week ago today at our Tuesday Night Devotional, we had a FANTASTIC fireside that really was one of the highlights of my week. In the fireside, the speaker was so bold as to our purpose as missionaries, that is, inviting and helping others to come to Christ. It was so powerful, and in it they showed a part of a talk by Elder Holland, one of our Apostles, and he had so many great points. One of the points he said while talking about why we sometimes think that trials are so hard or unfair, or that missionary work is more hard than it should be. He said "Why should it be easy for me when it was never easy for Christ?" He also said in reference to missionary work being difficult, "missionary work is not easy, because salvation is not a cheap experience." Holy cow. It has been so hard here at the MTC. I have honestly felt more inadequate here than I have for most of my life, but I was talking to one of my friends (who got her visa the 2nd day she was here, not fair) Sister Madison Stolk, after she had just gotten here and told her that this has been one of the most tired I have been, but also one of the most happy I have ever been. It is hard because it is so worth it. Coming closer to Christ and becoming more fully converted is "not a cheap experience." I loved that and it helped me gain even more needed perspective as to why we go through difficult things in our life.

One Sunday Night we get to watch a movie or talk that they are showing and we went to Mountain of the Lord, which was a film about the building of the Salt Lake City Temple, which took 40 years, and the miracles, struggles, and hardships that happened in it's building and it made me so badly want to go to that temple! It was so cool learning more about it! Also, the Provo Temple opens next monday, so depending on when I leave for my reassignment, I might be able to go there once before i leave ( it has been closed the entire time I have been here because of rennovations)! So that is SUPER exciting!

Also, I hope you all are doing well, I fasted for you yesterday, and I really want to here more about how the missionary meeting went. Mom, thanks for all that have done, you are awesome and i have really appreciated you getting so much and doing so much for me! Love you!

I'd love to hear from anyone who has time, I absolutely love getting letters and hearing about what is happeneing. Oh, also, MC, thanks for telling me a really important world event in that Beyonce had her hair caught in a fan and kept singing during a concert. That was really necessary to my needs of hearing news... haha also, could you somehow get me Maddie Kincade's (bradley maybe) mailing address? Her letter had my address as the return address... haha so I thought it was nice but I can't respond right now!

Also, good luck to anyone going to school soon!!! Sounds super exciting... haha but seriously though I am sure it will be fun! Well I love you all, thanks for everything, I have to go Love you all!

Tchau!

Elder Danny Carney

Just another week in Paradise! July 30, 2012

Why hello there!

So this last week was definitely good, filled with a lot of ups and downs, but mainly ups! It's so hard trying to remember back to what happened a week ago because the days feel like years here and yet it also FLIES by! Tomorrow is my 1 month mark!!!!! Haha so that is super exciting, but also makes me sad because I have genuinely come to love it here at the MTC and I am going to miss the elders and sisters that I have been able to interact with. In regards to you all fasting for me this Sunday, I greatly appreciate that. I have come to understand a little better the power of prayer and fasting while I have been here the last couple of weeks and I am so grateful that you are keeping me in mind. Also, thanks for thinking of my visa as well! Honestly I am not very concerned at all about it! I am actually excited to go to a different mission and experience what it is like to see somewhere else stateside. The way it works is if the visa comes then they tell you immediately and usually send you straight down, but since I am so close to leaving here, they probably would just have me finish my time here rather than send me down to Brazil right away. Also, reassignments and travel plans come the Thursday or Friday before you leave the MTC and so I will know what I am doing in a little more than a week!!! It is also pretty cool to think that the reassignments come from the First Presidency and so they are divinely inspired. I just know that if I was really needed to be in Brazil right now, I would be there, and when I am needed, then God will provide a way and means for me to get there. So thanks for thinking of me, I really appreciate it, but I also have faith that whatever is meant to happen in that regard will happen!

This week was interesting as I felt myself getting more tired every day! Haha you hit around the 3 week mark and it becomes really difficult to focus all day everyday!!! I was talking with Sister Harper (who left this morning for Seoul) and was talking about all the focused studious missionaries all around us outside and how it makes us feel bad when we can't focus or our district can't, and she said that those are the english speakers who make us look bad because they only have to focus like that for a couple weeks! Haha it was mainly a joke, but it is pretty true that you hit a point here where you are just running on fumes and ready to get out into the field and do the work. I am so excited to get out and teach people about the Gospel!!

Lessons this week have been really good! My Portuguese is getting better and better and I am so excited to be able to speak with others about what I believe! This last Friday I had a really good reminder from Irmao Read (one of my teachers) about teaching the investigator, not the lesson. I have always tried to do this but I feel like for a couple days my companion and I had gotten into a little rut of focusing too much on our Portuguese and the lesson rather than what we are prompted to teach by the Spirit. That night we taught him as our progressing investigator (the teachers role play as investigators and members who they taught and knew on their missions) and we taught him about the Restoration and the First Vision. It was so powerful. The Spirit was present and we were able to bear simple testimony that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, that God's true church is on the earth today, and that through prayer, each of us can receive a witness for ourselves that God loves us, knows who we are, and wants us to be happy through the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was such a powerful lesson and I felt so happy throughout it. One thing that I have been continually taught and reminded of here is that one of the gifts of the Spirit is joy, and I have felt that joy in my life and seen it in the lives of those around me. It is so cool to be able to have these opportunities. Teaching is such a key part of my learning here, and it gives us a lot of ups and downs, but almost always ups. On Saturday we also taught other missionaries in our District and were taught by them. One of the lessons when we taught was really good and the spirit was present. During the lesson another Elder, who has been struggling with the language, bore a simple and (yes grammatically incorrect) but powerful testimony. He spoke from his heart and talked about his desires in the past to gain a testimony and the answers he received from God. I really liked it and it made the lesson for me.

So yesterday I had a fun experience!! I was studying outside and there were some elders running during the exercise time up and down the road next to our tables. Then a bunch of them decided to race and then I started getting really antsy as I saw all of them race! Haha next to me was an elder from another district who was a 400 runner for BYU this last year and we both were getting a little competitive. Then the elders around us decided that we should race them. Keep in mind that my friend and I were in our missionary clothes, tie, church shoes, everything. But we decided after a lot of persuasion by the other elders to go and do it for fun. I had ZERO expectations considering how I was dressed and the race was less than 100 meters, which in other words was WAY TOO SHORT for me. Haha so we went and raced them, well as the person was saying ready set go, he paused before the go and I leaned to go, stopped and leaned back briefly, then as I did that he said go. Haha so I lost at the beginning, but that's ok, like I said, I didn't have a lot of expectations, it just felt good to run a little bit! haha it was super funny though, I got totally owned by all of these random elders and mainly because I almost false started. So I think the morale of the story is that I am not a sprinter, and that I dishonored my ancestors by not even being able to start correctly. Talk about amateur hour. haha

This week we also had the opportunity to see several Mormon Messages. Oh man. I love those. I know that you showed me this once Mom but one is called Mountains to Climb, and it seriously gets me. I absolutely love that video and it is based on a talk of the same name by President Eyering. You should look it up.

Yes we did get your cinnamon rolls and everyone loved them!!! One of the sisters in the other district calls you Sally and wants to meet you because she likes your cookies and other food that you send so much! Also, I got the shoes and shorts and thank you so much, they are so comfortable and I have been using them!

I hope Booboo feels better!!!!! Holy cow it looks like that kid can't get a break! I have been keeping him (and all of you, including Taylor with her running and soon to be half marathon) in my prayers! I love you all so much and I hope that he gets better soon.

In regards to your mom radar, yes i am totally good! Just really, really tired!. My teacher said something that I really connected to. He said that he felt before his mission that once you get out you are just perfect! haha and then he got to the MTC and the field and that was the most aware of his flaws and mistakes in his life. He also said that through that you are made humble and even more so have to rely on God. I am very aware of my flaws here. So often I feel as if I am inadequate and I won't be of any use to Heavenly Father. Then as I turn to Him in prayer I am lifted up and made strong to do the things that I need to do. Even as I have prayed to ask Him to help me be more energized and awake just so I can teach a lesson better, I am given that energy for that task and I feel lifted up. It is seriously like this is some of the most tired I have been so far, and I know it will be like this and even more so for my mission, but I am also so incredibly happy! Haha tired does not mean sad. I am very tired, but it is because I am working so hard and doing a lot so that I can be a better missionary, and I have the examples of so many missionaries around me to help as well! If they can do it I can too right?

Also, if you want to just advice people to write to me on Mondays because I print off my emails in the morning on Tuesday, and then write at this time around noon. Also, you are totally fine writing me emails mom, I just print them off really quickly so that I can read them without having to use up my time and so that I can have them with me for the whole week!!

My doctor cleared me!!! Woo hoo! Haha I had been having some pain in my abdomen last week but by my appointment it had gone away and they said it was because I was just getting more active and that it was part of the healing process, so I am allowed to do whatever I want now, just to be careful for another week or two. So woo hoo!!!

I unfortunately have to wrap it up soon, and I am sorry that this letter hasn't been super crazy interesting and that nothing really exciting happened to me this week like getting surgery or my visa!! I am absolutely loving it here, and just as a quick wrap up, a quote I heard this week was really good and really helped me. "When it gets too hard to stand, kneel." I love that so much. I know that through prayer we are able to be lifted up by our Heavenly father. I know that this gospel is the gospel of Jesus Christ and that He is the head of this church. Eu sei que Joseph Smith era um profeta de Deus e Thomas S Monson e um profeta agora. Atraves oracao posso fallar com Pai Celestial e eu sou um filho de Deus. Eu sei que minha familia pode ser uma familia eterna. Eu sei que este evangelho e a verdade.

I wish you could here that spoken because Portuguese is so cool sounding, and i decided a long time ago that it is significantly more beautiful than Spanish, sorry Pai e Kyle!! Well I love you all so much and I wish I could write more! I'm keeping you in my prayers! Ate mais!

Elder Carney