1 Month from today he'll be home!!!!!! 5/4/15

Autoridades Gerais são os melhores!

This last week seemed like it was just unusually long. So much happened and it seems like last monday was a long long time ago. Last week we had transfers but since my comp and I stayed in the area we didn´t go to the transfer meeting. It was hard to say goodbye to some of the elders from the group that left right now, many of them have been my best friends and companions on the mission and now it means that my group is the oldest. Weird stuff. 

We are just working hard here in Salto. Because of his crazy work schedule, Roberto and Andreia weren´t able to go to the government office last week to get the marriage process started. Now we are praying and encouraging like crazy because if they don´t go this week then I won´t be here for when they get baptized! So prayers are definitely welcomed!

President Farnes is just the best. At transfer meeting he introduced to us an inspired idea that he had and felt really really strongly about. Our mission is turning 80 years old this month, it is the oldest mission in Brasil, and he felt really strongly that we needed to show and give even more as a vote of thanks and dedication to Heavenly Father. So this month we are to knock on 80 doors... daily! Hahaha when I heard that I was so surprised. We don´t really knock doors a lot here, we do often when appointments fall through and here in Brasil the people are so open that knocking doors results in many baptisms, but like this and in this much quantity, haha it is pretty different to what we are used to. And man is it tiring! Haha so this last week we just worked our tails off! It was honestly pretty humbling, we are seeing that it is pretty hard. We are rejected a lot more, but we also get to have spiritual experiences a lot more as well. We were able to find a woman for example who was talking with us normally until she told us that she had grown up going to the LDS Church, that her mother claimed it was her church even though she had never been baptized. Then she told us that her mother was in the UTI (it´s the emergency unit, I forgot the name in english) for a month and she was really worried about her. She also told us about how she used to have The Book of Mormon and she had lost it when she moved. We gave her a copy and she started to cry and insisted that we enter and talk with her and her son. We offered a prayer and she told us how she had been talking to her son recently about the Mormon religion and how much she missed it as a child with her mother. 

Miracles.

So Elder Carney is going to be able to finish this month working hard and being very tired! But we are just having faith and seeing miracles happen as we are obedient.

We also had an incredible conference on Friday in São Paulo with Elder L Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Aidukaitis, who is a member of the Brasil Area Presidency. It was so so edifying. I am so glad I was able to be there, we felt so well instructed form the Spirit, and it was incredible to here and see just how much they have devoted their lives to serving our Savior. I took a lot of notes and it was one of the highlights of my mission.

Paulo Gabriel was baptized on Saturday and Confirmed on Sunday. He doesn´t have a lot of support from his mom, she doesnpt mind him going to church, but she doesn´t really believe in him very much. She is a single mom who works the night shift in a neighboring city and is really stressed. He comes from a pretty rough envirnment, the members are helping a lot.

We are working hard and this week we so badly want to help someone be baptized, unfortunately we don´t know who! We have several people that can be baptized and we are praying and working and planning hard to help these people follow the Savior and start on this path to eternal life. 

Well, have a great week! Love you all and open your mouths!

Elder Carney

April 2015

April 6-Pascoa, Conferência Geral, Milagres, Batismos, Felicidade!

What an interesting week and wonderful one as well! Last week seemed to be just jam packed! It was good getting to know Elder Nascimento better, it was strange getting to know a new comp already, but he is a great elder! He has a twin brother who is serving in Rio right now so that is fun, ad he is pretty goofy, I am enjoying working with him. 

We worked really hard this last week, we had a lot of good things happen! We have found that this area is a little harder for finding new investigators than my last area, haha in my last area it seemed like I just had to go to the favela and I could find 15 new investigators in one day, here we are trying so hard to talk to people but they are a little more closed here, but hat´s ok!! Last tuesday we went to a contact´s house, Gilberto, and we were there with a RC whose name is Batata (Potato, it´s a nickname), well the investigator wasn´t home, just his wife and daugher, we marked for another day and then went to other appointments. An hour later Batata called us, telling us that Gilberto´s wife had passed by his house while taking their daughter to school and that her husband had gotten home, found out that we had passed by, and told his wife "I really need to talk to those elders as fast as possible!!" so she found batata´s house, told him, and asked him to ask us to pass by there that same day if possible. So we did!! It was great, we got there and he welcomed us in and we were able to teach him and his wife about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They were really receptive. They already have a different church, and so when we talked about baptism and them being baptized they were pretty surprised, but they accepted our invitation to read and pray adn find out for themselves. So woo hoo!

We also had Alison get interviewed, as well as Roberto (the son, his dad´s name is Roberto as well but needsd to get married.) They both passed and were super psyched to get baptized! On Thursday we went to Roberto´s house wife the Primary President and her son who is the deacon´s quorum President as well. It was great, well, until Roberto told us that he thought he wasn´t prepared for baptism. We just listened and then we asked him a couple questions, but it was great because Sylvia, the Primary President started talkign with him about baptism and explaning to him it´s purpose. The Spirit was really strong. Well then we asked him again, and he said that he had been a little unsure but now was certain that he really wanted to and was ready to be baptized on Saturday!! We were all really excited and then Sylvia did something else heaven-sent, she turned to his siblings who we had also been teaching and whom had gone to church as well, adn said "Do you want to get baptized together with your brother? It would be wonderful for you all to be baptized together and it would be such a special day." We had been planning on inviting them but it was so wonderful to hear the member excited and asking them. We were super happy when they all said yes!!! There mom, Andrea, started crying and said that if she were them she would have said yes to baptism a long long time ago!!! So woo hoo!! The next day our zone leaders came to our area and interviewed Raiane, Andresa, and Kenerson, and all of them passed! On Saturday we went to get them adn everyone was ready and dressed and excited for the bpatism! So we ended up having 5 baptisms on Saturday after the first conference session! We were so happy and the entire ward was really excited, it was fun to see all of the members there including them and happy to see them at church. On Sunday they came and enjoyed the sessions. Andrea said to us and to a member that she wants to be the next baptism in teh ward!! Haha we are going to work with them this week and help them get married so that the parents can follow their kid´s examples. If you could pray for the kids to continue and to be confirmed this sunday and also for the parents to get married then I would be ery grateful!!

On Saturday morning we had an expo for the church at a plaza here in the middle of the city! We were there along with two other set of elders from our zone and a ton of members! WTher was popcorn, cotton candy, a bunch of banners and tables explaining the different organizations of the church and it was great! We talked to tons of people, gave away a TON of pass along cards, Easter cards, and copies of the Book of Mormon and other church materials like Liahonas, My Family History Booklets, and it was just great! We ended up receiving tons of referrals (more than 40) and several people insisted that we pass by their house quickly because of the Spirit that they felt while being taught right then and there. It was really cool to see the members opening their mouths and the energy and spirit fel there was great! Afterwards we had lunch at teh church with everyone right before the session!

Conference was incredible as always, it was truly a great experience!! I loved taking notes and reflecting on the talks and how they apply to my life! I am so excited to be able to look back on my notes and read the talks when they come! It was truly spiritual, I am so grateful to be able to sustain the Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. I know that on Easter I had the priveledge of hearing Christ´s representative on the earth. There was truly no better way to celebrate Easter adn the wonderful and miraculous event that was the Atonement adn the Ressurrection of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful to have been able to serve another Easter as a full time representative of Christ and to hear His chosen servants. It was wonderful.

Well, Happy Birthday Grandpa Burnham, I hope that it was a wonderful day!

Open your mouths everyone!1

Elder Carney

April 13- Referencias!

This last week passed by really quickly, it went really well and we were just going to work to contact all of the more than 40 referrals that we had received the Satruday before at the ward Expo that we did here. It went really well and we are slowly being able to contact these people. Unfortunately sometimes they aren´t home when we pass by there and some people live in  pretty far parts of the city or neighboring cities... haha so we are just trying our best to contact everyone. 

One of these experiences was really good, we were able to contact a man who is really humble, whose name is Paulo. Paulo is pretty old already and has cataracts in one eye and doesn´t hear very well. So we were teaching him and my comp was at his side. Well we deduced very quickly that he only could hear if we almost yelled in his ear. Haha so when my comp was teaching and stopped so that I could teach I told him quietly to just teach the whole lesson! I was farther away and with my american accent I was pretty sure he wouldn´t understand a thing! Haha so the lesson consisted of my comp yelling the Restoration of the Gospel of Christ and this old man occasionally telling him to speak louder. BUT, he liked it a lot and accepted to be baptized. So that was fun! As we have visited him it seems that he gets really discouraged because of his hearing and sight problems, but we are doing our best to help him.

We also went on another split, I asked for a split so that my companion could stay in the area and have an experience leading and being alone in our area! And it went really well, I was really happy for him! I was in Cerrado with Elder Linford again, it went really well and they are in the process of teaching several Haitian families, it was cool trying to communicate with them. Most of them only speak French, Criol, and Spanish, so it can be interesting teaching them, but it went really really well. Elder Linford reminds me a lot of me at the start of my mission, it was fun teaching with him.

A couple of weeks ago I was pretty sick with stomach problems, etc, and fortunately I got better after that week and didn´t have anymore problems!! Unfortunately now I am sick with either allergies or a head cold! Haha I just haven´t gotten sick very much on my mission and so now it is not very fun! But I have been taking some good allergy medicine and it has been going well!

Yesterday Alisson, Roberto, Raiane, Andressa, and Kennerson were all confirmed, the ward was excited and several different ward members were able to do the confirmations, giving them experience! It was great, the family of Roberto is excited. The father asked us to teach them hymns so that they can follow along better at church, so now we sing a hymn at the start of every visit and we gave them hymn books.

Andreia and Roberto want to get married, it seems like Roberto is a little hesitant and doesn´t want to go to quickly, haha so I took sticky notes and wrote "Marriage is a Blessing" and put them in several places in their house, like on their fridge and TV. They kept them there and we challenged the mom and all of the kids to pray daily so that the parents could be married as quickly as possible! We are teaching like 4-5 different couples right now who aren´t married, it is just crazy, but we are praying a lot of be able to help them get married as quickly as possible!

Other than that it was a really good week, we are trying to always get better and to work better! All prayers are welcome for marriages and baptisms to happen in Salto de Pirapora!

Have a great week and happy birthday Bradley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Carney

April 20- Workin Hard!

Well this was yet another week just full of hard work here in Salto de Pirapora. We are truly working hard, haha I find myself really really tired every night and morning, but during the day I am totally good to go and even though my comp is new I think I can still beat him with energy! :)

We are doign well here, I am feeling a little better, I had some allergy medicine from the states that I hadn´t used in 2 years and so that started to help and I am feelign good now. 

Last week after sending email we went to a contact´s house and met his younger brother, Felipe. Well we also met his mom, his grandpa, and his uncle. It turns out that his grandpa has 16 children, 25 grandchildren, and 16 great grandchildren, and pretty much all of them live here in the city! Haha they really liked our visit and on Wednesday we were able to teach them about the Restoration and afterward Felipe and his uncle (who is only 1 year older than him, they have liike 17 and 18 years) went and played soccer at the church with the youth. Unfortunately they were unable to go to church this week because of work but they are praying and doing the things that we invited them to do!

We also have been excited with a youung man who is 14 named Paulo Gabriel. He is really courteous but just lives playing with his friends on the street, haha he actually reminds me a lot of Bradley. Well his mom works nights but is supportive of him coming to church and he has a bptismal date for this Sunday! Prayers please! He came to church and really enjoyed it! We also worked with a less active young man and asked him to do visits with us, he really liked it, there is no better way to teach someone about the gospel than to have them help you teach! Haha it went well adn he is more excited now.

We also were able to mark for wednesday to go to the government office with Andreia and Roberto so that htey can get married! PRAYERS please! Haha we went there last week and Andreia said that she doesn´t know if Roberto wants to get baptized or not, but that she already decided that she wants to and that she wants to serve in the church and not just sit there on the chairs all day! Haha so she is determined to get married so ythat she can be baptized, and Roberto finally accepted a day for us to go and do his wedding there. Woo Hoo!! Also Inara and Alisson, the two recent convert siblings, have been praying every day for their parents to get married and baptized, and their parents are reading hte Book of Mormon every day with the helpful reminders of their kids. haha these youth and super strong, it is wonderful to see!! 

We also invited another recent convert whose name is Batata (nickname that means potatoe) to invite three people to come to church and he did! He actualyl had a family of 5 that had comitted to come but couldn´t at the last minute, but he brought two other investigators of ours to church that had never come before! We were really excited and in Gospel Principles class we had to bring in more chairs because there were so many RC´s and investigators! Blessings!

On Saturday morning we went to another city called Araçoiaba da Serra for a Stake Blitz. All the missionaries in the stake were there and we split up with members and visited less actives and did contacts with people and investigators. It was so awesome, I was with the Bishop and we just worked our tails off for 4 hours that morning and we had some really great experiences, were able to teach a family that had just moved there and also a young man that really felt the Spirit as we were teaching about the First Vision, afterwards all the members and missionaries ate lunch together, it was good.

Last week we also had a really good and clear lesson with Jadeilson, we were super clear and direct in our teaching because he is at the point that he is either going to be baptized or we will have to stop teaching him. Haha he is so ready but he doesn´t see that! But he came to church on Sunday and now he is dating a returned missionary who is super firm so hopefully that will help him see the light. :)

Well, I hope that you all are well and that you have a great week, remember to open your mouths!

Elder Carney

Branch President Luiz Fernando & Elder Carney

April 27- Last Transfer!

Well here we go! It´s just crazy but this transfer has already ended and this week is the first week of the new transfer. I wasn´t surprised that I stayed here with my companion since we opened up the area with elders this last transfer, everyone in the ward was happy that I am going to "die" here as they say it. This last week was really full! We started it out with a good lesson with Jadeilson last monday night, he was excited to tell us that he had good news to tell us the next day; haha he wouldn´t tell us that night and so we had to wait. It turns out that on Tuesday he ate lunch at hte members house with us and told us that he had decided to be baptized!! Finally!! Haha we were really excited, obviously, and it was a serious answer to prayers since we had gotten to the point where he just had to have the desire, he believes everything, is ready, and already is fulfilling the other commandments, so we were just praying so hard. And once he decided that he wanted to be baptized it was like it was a different person. Desire truly changes us. He was baptized on Saturday night and confirmed yesterday during Sacrament. It was great to see and the ward was really supportive. So woo hoo"

Last sunday we were very happy to see Alisson and Roberto both receive the priesthood! Alisson is a deacon and Roberto is a teacher. So this Sunday it was awesome to see them both passing the sacrament! Our ward has very few young men and usually the adults have to help pass, but this time it was all young men. I even got teared up seeing them pass, it was truly wonderful to see them progressing in the gospel.

During the week we were working hard and trying to help these wonderful people progress. We are teaching a youung man named Gustavo, but his nickname is Favela and he accepted a baptismal date, so we are excited to see how he progresses. Another young woman named Barbara accepted our invitation to go to church and I think she liked it a lot! She is friends with a young man in our ward who is serving a mission right now, so it was great to see how his positive influence and friendship is helping us in our work!

Roberto and Andreia unfortunately were not married this last week, it turns out that hte day that we were going to go to the government office his mom broke her leg... darn it! then we found out that htey are really worried about their identification and birth certificates, because they are really old and kind of torn. They also can´t really afford to pay for new ones since it is really expensive here in Brasil. So we visited them with the Bishop and we were able to have a really good discussion with them and decided that we would go today with Andreia to see if the government will accept the documents or not. We went there with her and her son and we had been praying so hard for hte last couple days. Well we go there and the lady said the magic words, telling us that the documents were fine and would be accepted!!!!! Woo hoo!! The first thing that Andreia said when we got outside was "I am going to be baptized!!!!" Haha we are really happy for them and are working hard to help them. Tomorrow afternoon we will go with both of them and some of their family to sign the documents and here in 20 days they will receive the marriage certificate and then can be baptized! So we were really happy.

It´s very surreal with this transfer happening, the elders from this group that is leaving are some of my best friends on the mission. Elder Albuquerque. Elder R Cruz and Elder Gimenez are going home among others that have worked with me on the mission and have helped me learn a lot. So that is just strange, now my group is the oldest on the mission, kind of crazy.

This week on Friday we will have a devotional with Elder Clayson of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Aidukaitis who is a member of the Area Presidency. That will be fun, I am excited to go and learn and be edified!

Also Elder Noleto, my son, got called to be AP! I was really happy for him, he will grow and learn a lot, it is fun to see him growing!

Well, have a wonderful week everyone! Love you all and open your mouths!

Elder Carney

March 2015

March 2-  & Grandma Carney
Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for the emails. It was good hearing from you two. I have been praying for Grandma and Grandpa. I am glad to hear that Grandma was able to move on and be relieved from the suffering. I will be really honest, that was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I have been expecting to hear that she had passed away for a little while now, but that was just kind of hard. I was able to have a good little cry, although it is kind of hard in a public computer lab. Just know that I love Grandma and will really miss her. Please send Grandpa my condolances and also let him know that I love him and am praying for him. 

Where will she be buried? Will it be at the Golden Cemetery? If so that would be nice, that´s a sacred place. 

Thanks for putting me down as an honorary pallbearer, I really appreciate it. Shoot this whole crying thing isn´t fun! It makes typing kind of hard. 

I am so so grateful for the power of the temple. I know that families are forever. And even though I am not sealed to her (she wasn´t ever sealed to Grandpa right?) I know that one day we will basically all be sealed together as a giant family and so one day I will be. 

I love you two, I am keepign you in my prayers. 

Elder Carney

March 2-Trabalho-

Yet another truly great week. We were able to work really hard and just keep on moving forward with our area and our zone. We are realyl striving to do our absolute best. I am really striving to be my absolute best. 

That was hard to hear about Grandma Carney, I know that she is now relieved from her suffering, but I will be praying for Grandpa and the rest of the family. I nkow taht the funeral will be really good. I love her and Grandpa.

This week Elder Marchant and Elder Dallto came to work with us in our zone. It was a great help, we are trying so hard to help the zone raise their vision and to work int eh Lord´s way, so it was wonderful having more people to do splits and to help everyone work on being more efficient. We were workign so hard the entire week following up with our investigators. Maria Luiza is such an incredible lady, she has had so so many trials in life and it is amazing to see how she has been blessed by the gospel. This week she changed. She has loved reading the Book of Mormon and told us how great the Book and Church are because she feels like she is beign taught, really being able to understand the importance and the meaning of things like baptism, faith, and other topics. She worked really hard as well to obey the commandments nad prepare for her baptism, and on Sunday after church she was baptised, along with Gabriel and Vitor as well! It was a great baptismal service, they were supported really weel by the ward throughout the week and on Sunday as well. We had several sisters call Maria Luiza and get to know her and the young men and the elders quorum have been helping us with Gabriel and Vitor.

Yesterday we were going to visit this family that is really special to us, we had baptised their son a coupel weeks ago and him and his sister and Dad were at church on sunday but not his mom. His Dad and Mom are being reactivated. Well we planned to visit them and before we went we got a call from teh Elder´s Quorum President and he asked for the dad´s phone number. Well we felt we should invite him to come with us that night and he wanted to so we did. He went with us and told them that he would be their home teacher and proceeded to share a spiritual thought with them, one of his favorite scriptures. That scripture talked about enduring to the end and enduring in the face of trials, continuing with faith in Christ. Well the mom of the family then proceeded to tell us that she had had so many trials and their family had had many these last couple weeks since they have been coming back to church. She told us that that day she hadn´t gone to church and had decided that she wasn´t going to continue in the church. She then found out from her husband that we were coming over and we came with a surprise in this brother and his wonderful message. She bore testamony of God´s love for her and their family and that that was her answer to continue forward int he Gospel. It was a sweet moment. I was able to bear testimony of the importance of home teachign and told them about Bernie and how wonderful him and Karen had been for our family throughout the years.

It was a really good lesson and I am grateful for inspired members who are helping in teh work of salvation.

We are working really hard, I love this work and I love serving a mission. It is truly the best. I am so grateful for the Plan of Salvation, I know that families can be together forever. I know that our loved ones do not end, our lives do not stop at death. I nkow that we will continue onwards, that one day we will live again with our families and our Heavenly Father and our Savior. I know that we must haev faith, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end of our lives in order to recieve these greatest of blessings. 

Have a wonderful week and open your mouths!

Elder Carney

March 9- CHUVAO

Well this last week was really good! We started up with a good family home evening on Monday night with this family that we are teaching and some other families from the ward. The family we are teaching are from Cochabamba , Bolivia. The elders baptized the mother of the family before I got here and now we have been reteaching her and also teaching her daughter-in-law, Alejandra. They are a great family, haha they don´t speak very much Portuguese, but they are improving and it is pretty easy to understand spanish so we are able to comunicate well. Yo hablo español. Haha that is about the extent of it, but luckily they have been here for a while in Brasil so they understand portuguese pretty well. Haha but my comp is from Cape Verde and so him and I both have accents, it just makes for some pretty interesting lessons!

On tuesday we had interviews with President Farnes, he is such an incredible man. I love hearing and listening to him. It is wonderful to be a part of this mission. We were blessed to baptize 199 people in the month of February, the shortest month of the year! And the last weekend of february we baptized 75 people, we are really excited and praying for the entire mission to truly raise their vision and help our Father´s children. 

I spent the week basically away from my area, on tuesday I went on splits with the elders from Brasilândia 2, Elder Patterson who is from California. It was good workign with him and trying to work with them on the needs that they have in their area right now. On Thursday morning early we got a bus to go to Sorocaba for Leadership Council, it went really well as always and it was great hearing some training and counseling together on how we can help the mission improve and move forwards. We have been recieving a lot fo tools that have been helping a lot in the work adn we are excited to use them to help our investigators progress and also help the members become more involved. On Friday I went to another area, São Domingos (Saint Sundays???) to work with the other Elder Patterson who is from American Fork. It went really well, haha but the heavens decided to open up! It just rained and rained and rained. It was crazy, very few times have I been so soaked!! We had a good lesson with a family of recent converts whose 20 year old son is getting reeady to be baptised. He had had a date for hte weekend before but he had backed out because he felt he wasn´t ready yet. We read some amazing verses in Mosiah 18 together and afterwards he just asked if the baptism could be marked for the same time on Sunday! Haha it was great, I love seeing how people get touched by the Spirit. Sunday was good, we have this lady named Rute (Ruth) who came to church. Haha she was in the car with us and the member and she has like 80 years, it was pretty great, she started singing some hymns in the car while we were getting other people, she talked about just about everything, she is just realyl great. We are preparing her to be baptized this Sunday.

Sunday after church we had the baptism of Alejandra, she was so excited to be baptized!! It was so great! We took a great picture of her with her daughter who is only like 1 yeards old, but it was wonderful to see her taking this important step that will bless her daughter´s life as well. Her mother-in-law, Judith, gave the closing prayer, and she did it in Spanish but she just broke down crying and said how grateful she was for the gospel. It was a cool experience.

Well, we are just working like crazy! And praying like crazy as well! We really want to help these people and help as many people as possible. 

Have a great week!

Elder Carney

March 16- Transferencia!

Yet another wonderful week serving the Lord! I am just loving hte mission as always. This last week we worked hard and I was able to do a split and work in Brasilândia with a missionary from Rio de Janeiro called Elder José da Silva. We worked hard and followed up with an investigator that they are teaching, who has been stopping smoking in order to be baptized. It was great working with him and we saw a lot of succes that day. Back here in Pirituba we have been really striving to work with all of our recent converts and find new investigators through them. Maria Luiza, who was baptized a couple of weeks ago is really excited, one day we were close by her house and I had the thought to go and visit her, but immediately I remembered that she wouldn´t be home during that time of the day adn it would be better to go at night. Well I was in our area on a split with Elder Albuquerque (yeah my ex companion from Tucuruvi!!) and just decided to try it out and see if she was home. We were walking and right near her house there was this lady who actually stopped us and asked us about the church. We found out that she was a neighbor of Maria Luiza and had talked to the missionaries in the past. She accompanied us to Maria Luiza´s house - who wasn´t home - and so we taught her a quick lesson in her house next door. It was so great, we then were able to teach her the next day with Maria Luiza, and Adriana, another RC who lives near by as well. It was so wonderful to hear Maria Luiza help us teach Heleina and help her understand things that just a couple of weeks ago were foreign to her! They both went to the Relief Society activity on Saturday and to Church yesterday and she loved it! We are going to help her get married so that way she can be baptized as quickly as possible! The work is going well here, we are just doing our best to help these people and these missioanries progress! 

Also, I got transferred!!!! Again!!! Haha, I thought I might get transferred so that way I could train, well that was a correct assumption! I am going to train a new missionary and will be going to Salto de Pirapora, which is a small city next to Sorocaba, another city in our mission. I am excited, this area was a sister area for LONG LONG time, and so I will be opening it up with elders! So woo hoo, challenge!! I had a great moment of reflection and prayer and really received a confirmation that this is where I need to be and that I need to be with my future comp. I don´t know who it is, we dont find out until the transfer meeting tomorrow, so I am excited! I will really miss Pirituba, it was such a short time here but I loved it a lot. It will be hard to leave. 

That is about it, sorry about the lack of other details! It was just a good, hard work week!

Love you all! Open your mouths!!

Elder Carney 

March 23- Piraporense!!!

This last week seemed to be just really really long! It was a good week filled with so many different things that were happening and changes as well. On Monday I was able to go and say goodbye to a couple different people in Pirituba, it was honestly pretty sad to leave from there, I really had grown to love that ward. We had a good visit with our bolivian family, and I said goodbye to them. Alejandra´s mother in law, Judith, is such a good lady! She gets emotional sometimes and as we were saying goodbye she got all teared up and said thank you and to not forget them! I just love that family! Then we had a family night which was really good, there were a ton of youth and a couple recent convert famillies there. It went well and at the end they threw a surprise going away party for me!! Haha there was a ton of food that htey had made and they gave me  journal they had made and decorated with notes they had written in! It was really nice of them. 

Tuesday was great, we went to the office and I was able to see a lot of good friends. I was able to eat lunch with Elder Vieira, it was really great talking with him and seeing how he was feeling, he went home the next day so it was good to spend some time with one of my best friends from the mission before he left. I said bye to Elder Irineu as well, it was great seeing the two of them!! Now they aren´t missionaries anymore, how crazy is that!!!!

Transfer meeting was great as always, we had a great time and it was fun, they have a slideshow that shows the trainer´s photo and everyone claps and we go up to the front and then they show us our trainee´s picture and we get to meet them! It is a really great environment! So I actually have a comp who is super great, his name is Elder Farrapo!! He is from Fortaleza, Ceará, where Elder Davis is serving! He is 22, and it is kind of interesting, he actually has already served here in this mission! He served here two years ago and had to go home early and now is back! He served for 9 months of his mission and unfortunately had to go home but since he was gone for so long he is being retrained, by me! He is pretty quiet, but a really good missionary. Haha he is trying to get back into the rythm, and also remembering how to teach, but he is remembering quickly!

We got into Salto de Pirapora late on Tuesday night, at like 9:30. It is a small city, really small! We live in the center and it is super easy to get anywhere, it is really organized as well here. The sisters that were here left the Area Book and hte house supér well maintained, for that I am grateful. Then we just went to work! It is different opening an area, haha we met a ton of members, received some great referrals, and tried to meet hte investigators the sisters were teaching. It was a little stopped here, but on Sunday we were blessed to have 5 investigators at church! Haha I fouund that the people here aren´t super used to change or changing quickly, so several times we shocked some people with our baptismal invites for being so quick, but as these people are touched by the Spirit and fulfill our invitations, they also recognize the worth of this decision. One investigator, whose sister is a RC was a little nervous, but is now super excited and firm to be bapytized on the 4th of April, in between conference sessions!! His name is Alison, haha yeah it is a guy´s name here. He is really great and we are psyched. 

The members here are exited to have Elders again, they are helping us a ton and it seems liek every member we meet tries to feed us. Haha maybe I will finally gain weight in this area!!!

Well, it was a hard week, we reaally want to baptize and teach a lot, I am having to adapt to being in a very very different environment, but we are seeing blessings. 

I love you all, have a great week and open your mouths!

Elder Carney

March 30- Familias!

What an interesting week that went by! It was just kind of different! Haha we went from being rained on every day the week before to a really really hot sun that was intent on burning my skin! Thank goodness I have sunscreen!

The week went well, we had a good District Meeting, everyone threw in a couple reais and we bought bread and cheese and little cakes to have breakfast together beforehand, so that was fun! Unfortunately on Tuesday my stomach starting hurting and I have had a lovely week of stomach problems since then! Elder Farrapo also starting feeling bad on Tuesday and we were pretty convinced, as were all the members, that he had dengue, which is this fever that you get from mesquitos and in the city here there have been tons of cases. Haha we were a poor looking little companionship, we kind of felt like zombies walking arouund the city in the sun and just not feeling it. So i have been taking some good medication but it made for a pretty rough week. 

We have been working hard to help the family of Messias and Eunice and their kids. They are from northeastern brasil and have lived here a couple years. Their son, Jadeilson, who is 20 was interviewed this last week! It went well and he passed but he unfortunately doesn´t feel like he needs to be baptized right now, he believes everything but says that something is lacking for him to feel the need to be baptized. So we are praying a lot for him and trying to understand how we can help the Spirit teach him about the definite need for baptism, it´s a commandment after all!!! His parents are great, they really opened up to us this last week. It turns out that their youngest son passed away when he had 3 years of age, which now happened about 4 years ago. They just loved loved loved their son, and it was so hard on them that they decided to move here to get away from all of the hard memories in the city where they lived. Messias is an older man, pretty hard looking, but he just opened up to us and cried and talked about his son. Well we were able to read Moroni 8 with him, it was really good. His son hadn´t been baptized (they´re catholic, although they don´t really practice) and we talkaekd about how his son was in a great place and was already good to go in regards to salvation. We then talked with him about how he doesn´t need to worry about his son, his son will be saved, he needs to worry about himself, because his son will already receive all that the father has, but he doesn´t have that determined yet! We talked about eternal families and how his decisions now will determine if he will get to be with his family forever or not. It was a powerful lesson and he really loved the chapter, he marked it to read it later and with his wife who wasn´t present at this lesson.

The ward here is working hard to help us, they had a movie night at the church and watched Night at the Musuem 3, we invited a bunch of investigators and Messias´ family came and loved it!

We also are teaching a family thta is really humble but really good. We had already talked to the parents about teaching their kids, Roberto and Andresa, who had come to church and loved it. Well we received their permission to prepare their kids for baptism and them as well (they aren´t married yet, so we are wokring on that). Well on Saturday we were teaching the mom and her teenage son in front of their house, haha and the dad, also named Roberto, arrived. He looked pretty mad and he just told us that he wanted us to follow him into the house and he needed to talk to us... well I was pretty sure he was going to kill us or something because of how he looked!!! We went and talked to him alone and he just opened up, told us how they´d had a fight with their neighbor and how things were really tense in their home and he wanted more peace for his family. He preceded to ask us to say a prayer for him and to come always to his house to help his family!! Woo hoo, a whole lot better! We encouraged him to come to church the next day with his family so that they could feel peace. Well Sunday morning it was raining and I got there with our ward mission leader and who was all ready and waiting for us... Roberto!! We asked him if anyone else was coming and he said they were sleeping, so I asked him to wake them up! He did and the entire family of 8 came to church!! They loved it too! Two of their kids are really young, but the other 4 and them are excited and we are helping them get ready for baptism! We are grateful for this blessing. 

We also had a great lesson at Alison´s house with his recent convert sister, Inara, and their parents who aren´t members. The YM President and his wife joined us and it was such a great lesson, Alison is psyched and his parents are as well for his baptism this saturday in between the conference sessions. They also bought him a white shirt, tie, slakcs, and shoes so taht way he can go to church prepared and pass the sacrament soon!! 

We are being really blessed, we want to be able to do more, but we are workign hard.

On Sunday there was a transfer! A little different! Elder Farrapo was transferrred and I got a new son! My new comp is Elder Nascimento who is from Maceio, Alagoas. He is really great and I am just getting to know him today since we got here together last night from transfers. So there you go! Love you all, open your mouths, and invite someone to conference!!

Elder Carney 

Feb 2015

Feb 3- Transferencia

Hey there my wonderful family!! I am just getting on to inform you that I got transferred!! I was kind of expecting it and it happened, I will be going back to be a zone leader in a zone here in the Capitol called Pirituba!!! I am really excited, I will be the companion of Elder Lopes, a missionary from Cape Verde. So there you go, i won´t be getting on on Saturday anymore, just on Mondays, for the rest of my mission!! Love you!!

Elder Carney

Open our Mouths!!

Feb 9- Pirituba!!

Mais uma semana boa!! Things are going well, this last week was crazy! On tuesday we had transfers and I got here to my new area, Pirituba! It is in the Capital and is only like an hour from my old areas near the office by subway and train. I am serving with Elder Lopes, who is from Cape Verde. He is an awesome missionary, pretty quite but a really solid missionary. In Cape Verde they speak Portuguese and Criol natively so he has been teaching me some criol. We are working really hard and we really want to help our zone fulfill it´s potential and baptize a lot. We have some really really great missionaries here serving with us and I know most of them very well already. Our zone is all elders and there are 7 sets. One of the areas is Brasilândia, which is this giant favela here in São Paulo. Last week we started working hard, we are basically starting over and finding all new investigators. We have been praying a lot to be able to find the people that are ready to receive us right now, we found some good families. We also had Leadership Counsel which went really well, we were able to be taught and to counsel together as a mission to see what we need to do in our respective zones to progress more. We are really striving to be more effective and multiply our efforts as missionaries through working with members and through effective planning. We are teaching this less active family, Carlos and Gilmara. They are a young couple who have been less active a couple years but are really great. Their daughter and son are helping them come back to church and we are preparing their son Carlos to be baptized! They are really great, we were able to share a message with them adn share a video from the Church´s website, it is that mormon message from President Uchtdorf about Your Potential, Your Priveledges, and we had a good discussion about what was their potential as a family and if they were doing the things right now to live up to that potential. The Spirit taught them really well and on Sunday they came to church for the first time in a really long time!!!!! We are excited, we really love this family. We also are teaching some people who live in really difficult situations and truly want to overcome the challenges that face them. I am really liking this area and it has been going well thus far. We planned really well with members and our investigators to help people cometo church and unfortunately several people who we planned on didn´t come, so any prayers to help us bring people to church and to baptize would be greatly appreciated!! I am really enjoying this area and this week we will be doing exchanges with some great elders in Brasilândia and also Elder Albuquerque who is in an area called Freguesia do Ó! So there you go! Just loving the work as always, it is so wonderful to be a missionary!!

Have a great week and open your mouths!!

 

Elder Carney

Feb 17- Pico de Jaragua!!

Well it was an interesting and very good week! We worked hard as always this last week, we are really striving to consecrate ourselves and to help the missionaries in our zone to become consecrated as well. We decided to fast as a zone and presidente joined us as well. We ended up fasting on the hotest day of the week and it was actually really hard but it helped us to become more united in our purpose and also more united with the Lord. We were excited as Carlos Henrique got baptized this last week!!!!!!!!! We were super psyched, his dad was given permission to baptize him as well and so it was a family affair, his mom gave the spiritual thought about baptism, and his sister gave the prayer!! It was so wonderful to see this little family happy and to see Carlos excited about getting baptized. It was a great experience and the parents are excited to work and serve, his mom was telling the Primary President in one of our lessons how she wants a calling becuase she had never had one before and she doesn´t want to go to church just to be a bench warmer!! We just love this family and it was a result of a lot of prayer and action on their part. ]

This weekend also started Carnival! Last year I was in Itapetininga and there wasn´t a lot of action or things going on but this time it is different since I am here in the Capitol; Haha on friday we were teaching a woman named Silmara, she actually studies theology adn is a missionary for her church, well it was a really good lesson and the spirit was present when we heard a bunch of noise getting closer. Haha it was a block party for Carnival and it passed right in front of her house, I was and still am so amazed that human beings are capable of producing so much noise!!! Haha for like 5 minutes we had to just sit and wait and laugh a little bit because we couldn´t hear anything!!! But we waited it out and then we had a good lesson. Other than that there hasn´t been much of a difference, a lot of the stores are closed and people are traveling, but that´s it. Oh, that is also why I am emailing you all today, yesterday every place that had computers was closed and today as well, but President told us we could use a members home today so this wonderful family that helps us out a ton is letting us send email from here. So yeah, sorry about that!!

On Monday we were able to climb what is called the Pico de Jaraguá, which is this mountain that is the highest point in São Paulo. It is a part of our zone so we asked permission to climb it as a zone adn it was awesome!! You start out on this jungle trail and then when you get up to the top you can see all of the city which just goes on forever!! Haha yesterday it was actually pretty rainy and cloudy so up top we couldn´t see anything! My companion and I shared a spiritual thought and at the end we opened it up for some other missionaries to bear their testimonies and at the end the clouds opened up and we were able to see everything, it was beautiful. Also, there were monkeys, lemurs, and these ant-eater type things. It was pretty fun. I am grateful we were able to do it.]

Last week we also met this family that is really great, Sinésio and Naldeia. Naldeia is a less active member whose sister referred us to her. Sinésio is going through some serious health problems right now and really has a lot of desire to follow Christ. We visited them last week adn Sinésio accepted to be baptized! Now they just need to get married, we are really praying and working with them to have that happen, it is a little dificult because sometimes Sinésio gets pretty sick but we have faith that they will be able to as quickly as possible. 

We also are teaching this young woman named Natalia that has a baptismal date for this weekend, she almost got baptized this last Sunday but didn´t because most of her family traveled including her parents so we changed the date to this weekend. 

We are just loving it here and working hard, I love this area and I love the mission!]

Have a great week and please remember to open your mouths!

Elder Carney

Here is a lemur that liked my knee!! Or possibly the food that was on my knee!! But I finally met King Julian!!

I have more pictures but I won´t send them, sometimes in the computer places here there are viruses that destroy your memory card, haha so I won´t be sending a lot of pictures for a while! 

Feb 23- Bencaos

Yet another great work filled week in Pirituba! As always I am loving it here and we are working our tails off! Also... CONGRATS BRADLEY ON GETTING YOUR MISSION CALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Haha That is just so crazy! I can´t believe that you will be going to Chile!!! I could have sworn that you were going to come to Brasil, but that´s ok, at least it is the same continent. And actually I am pretty sure that there is a young man in a branch that I served in here that is also going to that mission! So that´s pretty fun! 

This week I was able to go to another area to do splits with a set of missionaries, I went to Freguesia do Ó, which is the area next to ours. I worked with an elder called Elder Taveira, who is from Recife. It was great working with them in their area, it is always a little interesting going into a different area becuase I didn´t know anyone and I didn´t know the area, but that is ok! We worked really hard and marked a few baptismal dates together. One of them was this young man named Guilherme, he has a lot of faith, he is only 15, but he has a strong desire to be baptized and to follow Christ. I found out yesterday that he went to church and loved it! Also while I was there I drank this shake made out of açaí, guaraná, and peanut!! Haha it was wonderful. 

Here in our area we are working a lot with the members, we are teaching the son of a recent convert. Renato is his name and we are now teaching his son as well! Both are loving the Book of Mormon and we are working really hard to help them to get baptized, unfortunately they couldn´t come to church yesterday but will this next week. 

Gabriel and Vitor are really progressing well, they both came to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. There are a lot of young men in our ward so they helped out a lot and really involved them in teh classes. Two weeks ago we also had found a young man named Wilian, who had moved here recently from a different part of São Paulo. He moved here to restart his life and to really get on a good path, we he had said he would go to church and ended up not going, so that bummed us out and this last week we weren´t able to get into contact with him, until the end of the week when we stopped by. He was home and apologized as he had traveled that weekend but was really wanting to go to church and get baptised still!! Haha he is really excited for his baptism and yesterday he woke up super early and was ready waiting for us so that way we could walk to church with him. He is 22 and really enjoyed the class that was given in Elder´s Quorum as well. We feel very blessed, we had a lot of investigators at church and we asked the bishopric to announce the baptism of several of them during Sacrament meeting and they really enjoyed that. We are just really praying hard and working hard to help these people come unto Christ. It is inspiring to see them make changes in their lives to do this. 

This week the assistentes might be coming to our zone to help us out, so that will be exciting, I should be seeing and working with Elder Marchant which will be good! 

Other than that, it wasn´t a really different week! We are just working hard!! 

Have a fantastic week everyone, and remember to open your mouths and invite!

Elder Carney