BRAZIL!!!

Haha so this week has been extremely eventful. It was so incredibly hard to leave Montana, it really surprised me actually. I was so bummed to say goodbye to the Mecham´s, they are truly incredible people. In the Salt Lake Airport I met up with two other missionaries going to Brazil, one to my mission. On the flight from SLC to JFK I had a great experience! I was able to sit next to this lady named Tanya who lived in Long Island and we got talking about her weekend and it somehow turned to the topic of families and that our genders are something divine, so i had her read my mini Family: A Proclamation to the World and she loved it. Then we started talking about death and life after death and that even though it can be very very difficult, it also can be a strengthening experience for us. She started crying as we shared our beliefs and I was able to bear testimony to her that I know that families can be together forever and that those whom we love who pass away live still and we can see them again. She was just ana awesome person and I had been praying the  days before to be able to meet someone I could share the gospel with on the flights. I was so grateful and then I was able to write my testimony in the Book of Mormon as well as the Mormon.org info and give it to her right before we landed, at which point she started crying again. haha it was super cool! Then as wel left the airplane a man in a wheel chair stopped myself and the other elder and told us he converted to the churhc a year ago and he has cancer and wanted a blessing. Well he lived in new york, we had a plane to Brazil to catch, so we gave him a blessing right in the middle of JFK with interesting music playing and interesting people all around us, but it was so cool to feel the Spirit as we were able to give this man comfort through words from our heavenly father. Then I had a good long flight to Brazil, we got here like 10 AM the next day and it then took us like 2 hours to get to the mission home because traffic here is so crazy. Haha that is one thing i really learned, there is a reason missionaries dont ride bikes or drive in Brazil, the roads and drivers here are absolutely insane! Like so insane. It was definitely interesting. But we got here, I was able to meet the other missionaries, which was different since most of them were brazilians and loved talking SUPER fast. Haha but I met President Martins and he is great, super funny, but also very strict in his rules. In some ways he is very similar to President Mecham, in others not as much, but he is a great man all the same. I had a pretty short interview with him and then found out I would be going to Vila Sabrina and be companions with Elder Mussin, an elder from Argentina who doesn´t speak english. Haha so we came here and our apartment is interesting, definitely not like my old super nice one! But I am getting used to it and to the things that are different here. The food here is really good, that has been different as we eat lunch with te members and not dinner, and most of the times we are working so much that we dont really eat dinner, but that´s ok, I love it! There is so much work to do here, it´s ridiculous. We seriously walk around all day just teaching people, I also have found Brazilians have a lot of problems with the law of chastity, coming to church, and keeping appointments. Haha but at the same time they are also super religious and talking about religion is a common things on the street. There are some Bolivianos here as well, they are very hard working people and love it when I tell them my dad served there. We have like 20 investigators right now and 4 people on date for baptism on the 12th of October. On Saturday we had a baptism, this 50 year old lady named Joselangi, she is super kind and she actually asked me to baptize her, haha which was interesting since I don~t understand a lot of what she says! But I was able to and it was such an uplifting experience for me and was cool to help someone onto the path of going back to live with our Heavenly Father.
It´s interesting because everyone thinks I am either a Brazilian or a German, never American, haha until I speak! This 14 year old girl said she thought I was Brazilian until I opened my mouth, but I also have received a lot of compliments from people who are surprised it is my first week because I am speaking pretty well. So that is nice to hear, although sometimes I don~t understand when they say it beacuse they speak so fast! Haha ah well! Also, Elder Mussin is awesome, he is seriously a great missionary. I am loving working with him and it is great for my Portuguese to only speak it all the time. At times it can be super hard and lonely, this last week had a lot of ups and downs, especially when I am frustrated beause of the language barrier and all I want to do is go back and serve in Montana, but I have also found that even when I feel like I can~t talk with anyone, I can always talk with my Heavenly Father. He is always listening and he understands. I love prayer because I have had to do a whole lot of it this last week. This week has been hard but I am learing to love Brazil. Haha oh last night I had my first night time favella experience! It was interesting, on the weekends and especially in the favellas there is constatnyl loud music playing, tons of people, havoc everywhere, it is all very interesting and it makes it hard to teach so we dont go there a ton during those times but it was definitely pretty interesting for me to see.
Mom, you´d be proud of me, i hard core cleaned the walls of our apartment today, haha they needed it. I will send some pictures next week but I hope you all are doing well! I am keeping you in my prayers and so excited for General COnferene, I found out we always watch in English so we can fully understnd the words of the prophets! So excited! Also, it really isn´pt very expensive to send letters so I am going to do that in the future. Love you all!!!
Elder Carney