Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Last week of the transfer 1/27/14

Holy Cow this transfer flew by! It was seriously so so fast! I think part of it is living with another companionship of missionaries as well as this being the last transfer of Elder Agnelli, so that has been just insane! He was the Secretary of the Mission when I arrived and it is insane to think that he is going home! Also, last week I had officially 4 months here in Brazil. It feels like a lot longer and also like I have only been here a week. But it is fun! I had a good week, it was unfortunately not the most productive week we had this transfer, mainly because it felt like seriously no one wanted to talk to us this last week! We were working so hard and trying so hard and inviting members to lessons - seriously everything - and it just felt like a ton of appointments were falling through. But we still had a good week, we are inviting more people to make commitments with God (President talks about that a lot, that these commitments aren´t with us, they are with our Heavenly Father and these people need to realize the importance of that) and we have seen success in that regard. I don’t know if I already told you that one of the Standards of Excellence and an Indicator that we give to the mission every week is how many new addresses we receive each week, the standard being 42 or 6 every day. Well we have been working our tails off to get that and we have been getting it! It also has been very overwhelming because all of a sudden we have the info for 42 or more people every week!! All of whom we tell that we will pass by sometime in the future and all of whom need this message! It makes you feel a little overwhelmed and you realize just how much responsibility you have for your area. This area has a ton of members, many of whom are less actives, but only two full time representatives of Jesus Christ. Only two. Me. And my companion. Haha it makes me want to work even harder because these people need these blessings and the chance to start progressing towards eternal life. So we have been working hard to spend our time contacting these new people and using the Area Book like maniacs, very very organized maniacs.
This last week we also had the opportunity to go to São Miguel Arcanjo, a little city of 35,000 people that is about an hour away by bus, which is also a part of our area. In short our area is massive. We never have gone there because it just didn’t make sense to go there when there aren’t members, it is so far away, and we have so many people to teach and that are progressing there. But Adriana, our recent convert lives there with her family who are now investigators of ours, and the branch told us about a less active family that used to be super strong in the Church that moved there and all the leaders of the branch have asked that we visit them. So Adriana had a day off, we planned well, and went out there for an afternoon to teach her family and somehow find this family. Unfortunately we only had the name of the street of this family, no number, no cell number, nothing. Only their last name and the street, haha we didn’t even have a map. But not because we didn’t try, haha we called seriously everyone and used our resources here to find it, but no one had any info more than the street name. But then Adriana blessed our lives and used the phone book and found their number and cell number and gave us a map of the city!! It was so great! A real answer to prayer. So we contacted them and now members are planning on going out there in the future to visit them and they are excited because we visited their! So it was good and then we returned to our little city of Itapê and worked hard here. Now to answer some questions from Mom:
HOW ARE YOU??
Do you even need to ask this one!?!??!!?!?! Haha so good.

Are you taking vitamins/eating enough to stay healthy???
No on the vitamins, yes on eating enough. And when I say that I mean I eat a ton. Like all the time. And I eat healthy. I love how cheap vegetables and fruit are here, but I am eating a ton! But I will buy some vitamins or something, I actually was thinking about that the other day.

When are transfers (I think they're coming up soon)?  Will you stay in Itapetininga?
Transfers are this week!!!!! So we will see what happens! I am maybe going to stay here; since it is so far away and this is my first transfer here most likely I will continue here. And Elder F Oliveira already has three here and this is his first area so most likely he will be leaving. We will see what happens, haha I am loving it here and it is different for sure, but I will find out this afternoon or tonight! We´ll see! If I don’t email next Monday it´s because I got transferred to the Capitol and I will be at the temple. So there you go.

Tell us about your companion & roommates!!
My comp is from the State of Pernambuco, the city of Olinda (close to Recife where the temple is) and he is great! He is new like me, has a great accent which is fun to try out, and is really motivated to work. haha is super goofy, but very sincere. Also he is black, so that is awesome. Haha he wants to be the President of Brasil one day, but first the governor of Pernambuco, he has a lot of pride for his state. The other missionaries are Elder Ashford and Agnelli, I already told a little bit about both, I come to Brasil with Elder Ashford, and he is a nerd which makes me feel comfortable since I too am a huge nerd. Although he wants to be an engineer, so we aren’t really nerds in the same subject areas, but that´s ok, he is great, wants to work so so hard, and is going to keep on progressing really well. He graduated this last year and is from Austin Texas, after the mission he is going to BYU, and Elder Agnelli is from Paraná, the state next to são paulo, is a convert of about three years, and super great.

Did you ever get to email Joe Reynolds about that older lady in your branch?
Yep! I am emailing him and sending photos and fun things like that!

DO YOU KNOW YOUR MOMMY LOVES YOU??
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well that´s it!! Love you all so much! Have a great week!
Love,

Elder Carney

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