Some Pictures

Ok, so first I want to ask.  Do you have any pictures of my car because I don’t and I'm really hoping that you do because I want something with which to remember “Shirley”.  Also, I wish I could have gotten a little more notice (but don’t worry about it) so that I could have told you to tell the guy who bought the car what her name was and finally, as for the whole thing about getting a new car when I get home.  Don’t worry about it.  Remember when I called home at Christmas Grandpa Smigel told me he'd give me his TL.  So all is good. 

 Aside from that, that hockey game sounded pretty legit.  I've actually been kinda following the playoffs through the members here and although it pains me to cheer for them, I've been cheering for Vancouver and Washington. To answer your question about the teaching of English people, to be honest we really haven’t been teaching anyone.  The work has kinda slowed down here a little.  It's been hard, but that’s just the ways things are occasionally.  Also, I finally brought my camera and stuff so I put up some new pics and a couple videos. 

Daniel:  Good to hear that all is well with you and that you are enjoying grade 6.  It’s probably getting pretty close to those finals that you've gotta take right?  (I don’t remember what they're called.)  I'll bet you’re excited for that!  Flag football will sure be fun, but I'm starting to be much more a fan of Futbal, and Volleyball.  Currently those are my favorite team sports.  But you didn't really ask me any questions so I have no answers for you right now.  But that’s ok, you can ask me any question you want on Sunday.

 Christina: The weather here is very overcast, but..  SUPER GREEN.  Everything is so freakin green the night is darker here because all of the streets are covered by trees and they don’t really believe in having street lights.  But aside from the gloomy aspect, it's nice and warm, so that’s great.  As for the Spanish it's getting better little by little.  I can communicate with people more or less now.  Congratulations on making the high jump team.  Personally my favorite event when I was in track was the 3000m mainly because I wasn’t very fast and that’s the slowest running race.  The 1000m is still pretty fast.  If you’re gonna do that one, make sure you really train for it.  I'm sure you'll do great.  Also, good luck with Chester.  Has he gotten much better at listening to people yet?

 Sarah:  Unfortunately I can’t write to you since I haven't received a letter back from you yet.

 Dad: Just kidding Sarah!  Gotcha, (I hope) I agree with you about sushi, well at least for the majority of it, some of it is good.  It also smells terrible.  I had a roommate at BYUI who made it and it stunk up the whole house for like 2 days and no, Spanish people don’t really have any special Easter dishes, although, I have been asking the members to cook us cuy (guinea pig).  Anyways, that’s about all I got for you for now.

 Dad: for real this time.  That’s kind of a cool story about the drunk guy.  My drunk story is about this guy I was teaching who was obviously drunk off his rocker, but didn’t want to admit it.  Anyways, he wanted to pray so we let him and in the middle of his prayer he jumps up and starts yelling and grabs one of our pamphlets and refers to it as the bible and well it was just a mess.  It was a fun experience but a mess all the same.  I have another story to tell you, but I don’t want to tell all of them, I need something to save for the phone call home.  Which I have been thinking about and I think the best thing to do since we don’t really have any set plans is I'll call you on Sunday some time after 2 your time.  4 my time, and then from there you can call me back.  Just make sure your afternoon is more or less free.  Also, what mission is Sam going to again?  I've been meaning to write him, but it just keeps slipping my mind.  I am looking forward to talking to you on Sunday.

 Mom:  Last but certainly not least.  Good to hear that your class is going well, as for Jessica, that’s crazy, I don’t know how someone could be that willing to be apart from their husband, especially after only like 2 weeks of being married.  Is he a member of the church?  As for Tanner that’s quite the journey he's taken to come to his decision.  But hey, we all learn from life and lessons are learned through many different paths.  I'm sure he's had experiences doing things this way that I'll have to learn another way.  As for the transfer thing, I'll be receiving what they call shot calls on the 9th.  Those are the calls that inform you about who's leaving and who’s staying in an area. 

 Anyways, I'm gonna save the rest for the phone call on Sunday.  Until then I hope all continues to go well.

 Love,

Elder Dilling

Inside of the "missionary mobile"

Our new missionary wheels (Subaru Imprezza)

No explanation required

One of my favorite ceviche ingredients - squid!

No Letter?

I can't believe how short your last email was!  Don't you love me any more?  Just kidding! It must have been a finger slip or something because I know you really wrote more than a couple of lines and I will look forward to seeing them next week.

Anyways, unfortunately we still haven’t had an opportunity to give Nube a date, she wasn't at her house last Wednesday, and we haven’t really had an opportunity to go back to her house recently, so we're hoping to change that within the next couple of days.  Wish me luck; or better yet prayers are always nice.  Aside from that our other date is also getting pushed back once again. His work has been really busy, and has been keeping him from meeting with us and from coming to church, which makes things really hard when you’re trying to baptize somebody.  But hey, what can I do, everyone has their own agency.  Aside from that we are trying to find new people to begin teaching.  On Monday we had a Mission Training about the importance of finding people to teach.  This also happens to be the least enjoyable thing to do.   The most enjoyable being teaching people.  But I can't do one without the other. So.. Elder Fotu and I think we are going to have to make some new goals for the coming week, which might also be my last week in this area.  I've been here for about four cycles, and I think there’s probably a high chance that I leave at the end of this cycle.  So next week will be potentially my last P-Day here.  I'll find out the day after mothers day. 

On another note, I went on a split this last week to Danbury with the companion of one of my Zone leaders.  His name is Elder Kropf, and he's been here for about one cycle less than I have so I thought that it was going to be a little interesting with both of us being new and speaking Spanish.  But it turned out to be much easier than I thought that it was going to be we actually ended up teaching a first discussion to somebody that we door knocked, it was pretty cool and I was amazed at how even though we don’t know much, the Spanish that we did know was definitely enough to allow the spirit to be there and to work through us to convey our message this Older Gentleman.  It was just kinda cool to think back afterwards on how much my Spanish really has gotten better since I got to NY. 

But that’s about all I got, as you all know I'm not much of a writer.  But I love you all even though you didn't actually send me an email this week.  I live you all and look forward to next Wednesday and the Sunday after that when we can talk again.

Les Quiero Mucho,

Elder Dilling

Teaching English Too

Alright so this week has been kinda crazy. From Wednesday to Sunday it was normal, looking for people, teaching lessons,and doing all the other things that missionaries do.  But on Sunday things changed a little.  Elder Exilus, one of the other Elders in our apartment has had a nerve problem for the last little while, and he hasn't been able to get it resolved, so he’s been planning to go home and fix it then come back out.  We had all been hoping that he'd be able to finish the cycle here, and then when transfers happened, that he would go home and things could change.  But that’s not what went down.  On Sunday we got a call saying that he was flying home on Tuesday morning, and that Elder Wendel was going to be leaving for a different area too.  Soo it's now just Elder Fotu and I in the biggest area in the mission for only two elders and we have to start teaching both English and Spanish people, which kinda sucks.  (I'm afraid of English people; they're so much meaner than the Spanish people.)  So yeah, that’s the biggest difference between last week and this.

 Aside from that things are going really well here.  We’re just waiting for one of our investigators to complete the lessons and then he's ready for baptism.  Another one has a date for May 1st and Nube I'm planning on giving a date to as well for the 1st of May.  We have an appointment with her after we finish our letter writing.  Our last meeting we had with her on Friday went really well, we decided to read 3 Nephi 11 with her because she hadn't read from the Book of Mormon yet so I figured that it'd help her and we could kinda explain it as we read.  So we got to the part about baptism and got into a little discussion about how everyone needs to be baptized in order to be reunited with their heavenly father after this life.  Then she started talking about her family a little and about how they are all Catholic, herself included and that they had all been baptized Catholic.  She understood that she had to be baptized correctly, by someone who has the authority.  So her question to us was "Can I be Baptized?" To which we very happily responded yes.  But I kinda dropped the ball a little and didn't extend a baptismal invitation there, but it'll be OK, cause that’s what my biggest goal is for her today.  

 But yeah, everything is going good here.  My Spanish continues to improve with the help of Heavenly Father and all the blessings he's given me.  I love you and miss you all. 

Con Amor Carson

I'll post the pics of the car next week, I forgot my cameras cord.

NEW CAR!!

Well, I don’t really have a whole lot to add this week in response to your question about Marcello; we've kinda been dropped by his wife Sarah.  She doesn't want to join a different church and split up her family and her husband isn't willing to even hear what we have to say.  So we're a little saddened by this.  We haven’t given up hope on them, but it's been hard to meet with them recently.  But hey, Elder Fotu and I are doing all that we know how to do the work here.   We haven't been having perfect success, but we've been trying. 

Aside from that, the weather here has been pretty great.  Just the other day it was like 85 Fahrenheit out, but that was just a weird day.  The green is starting to come out, and the weather seems to be pretty nice, about 55-65 every day now, but it's getting nicer and nicer.

Elder Fotu has been out about 14 months and we're working pretty well together.  I mean we have our differences, but we're doing our best to work around those and do the work the way we should and be as obedient as possible.  Also, I got a brand new car on Tuesday.  It's awesome.  I sat down in it this morning and guess what the odometer said? 111 I was like WOW, I don’t think I've ever seen an odometer that low.  It's a red 2011 Subaru Impreza AWD.  Pretty legit!  I thought that I was going to be getting a Corolla and I was pleasantly surprised and happy to be wrong about that.  I'll put up some picks of it next week.

 Also, I put up some pictures too, some of the area and the people, but also a couple of the ward, so you can see what all the people that have been feeding me look like.  I'll see if you can guess, but one of them is my favorite part of ceviche.  Also, the picture of the piece of Iron is a piece from the two towers with a monument statue thing in behind it.  Oh and guess what?  I'm actually in some of the pictures this time!!  It’s a miracle, but I made it in.

 Anyways, sorry that I don’t have a whole lot to tell you about today, but hey, it can’t be super exciting every week now can it?  However, it IS FUN every week.   I am enjoying every second of it.  That’s about all that I've got to say for this week.  I love you all, and I look forward to hearing from you again. 

 Les Quiero Mucho,

Carson

Getting Better!

Ok, to start.  Yes I did receive Grandmas valentines’ package.  I thought I told you a month or a month and a half ago, but I’m not sure, I just keep forgetting or running out of time and when I do remember to reply it is late.   I also received your letter Dad, but the same problem has been occurring, no time slash memory problems.  It's good to hear that the vacation went well and that everyone is doing great.  Also "Congratulations on your diploma mark Sarah!! 93% is freakin amazing!!" anyways yeah, good to hear that you had a good time in Vegas.

 This week has been pretty good, just a bit of an adjustment period going from Elder Lopez to Elder Fotu.  He's a pretty hard worker, although I've had to push a little bit.  It's not that he slacks off he just hasn't had many great companions to help him in that regard, but he's pretty good and I like him.  His Spanish isn't perfect yet, which is great for me because I needed a companion to work with who could help me better my Spanish and this will be an opportunity for me to stretch.  I feel pretty comfortable with the language now, but I know I have a long ways to go.  My comprehension has gone way up and another thing that helps me is Elder Fotu is a quieter guy which forces me to talk more.  So my Spanish should see some great improvement this cycle.  I don’t remember if I told you last week, but He's 6' 6" which makes it kinda hard for us to contact the Spanish people here.  They all seem to be afraid of us and when they see us, across the street they go.  Oh well, what can we do?

 Yeah, I got to watch all five sessions of conference, but I'm excited to get the Liahona, so that I can read them in Spanish and actually learn more.  I watched a lot of it in Spanish because I wanted to practice and also one of our investigators was there as well.  Yes I'm still driving and am excited to hopefully be getting a 2011 Toyota soon because I'm driving the oldest car in the mission. 

 Anyways, enough with that stuff.  Our investigators are going pretty good, Nube really enjoyed the session of conference that she went to and our other investigators are doing pretty great too.  I don’t know when your next fast Sunday is, but if it is this coming week, I would like to ask if you could fast for Sarah's Husband Marcelo.  Sarah is one of our investigators, and she's really awesome, but her husband is keeping her from getting baptized, not that he won’t let her, but she doesn’t want to make this step in her life without him.  The hard part is that he doesn’t even really want to sit and listen to us.  I think the main reasons that they just joined a new church and he's happy with it more or less.  Our last investigator is Jimmy, he's the husband of a member and they have decided that they want to get sealed in the temple, so he's taking the necessary steps to prepare for baptism.  He's more or less ready, but he just wants us to answer some of his questions.  We're hoping he'll feel ready enough by the end of this month, although, it would be best if it was by the end of this week :)

 On the other hand, my scripture reading has been pretty good, I just finished Mosiah this morning and one thing that I thought was kinda cool, was that the early church in our times was a lot like the early church in Alma's times.  The members were being persecuted, but Alma told them not to fight back, although it does say that there were some brawls.  But yeah, both the early church in these times and in their times received lots of persecution.

Once again, it is time for me to be going.  I just want to finish by saying that I love you all and look forward to next Wednesday. 

Sincerely,

Elder Dilling 

I'm Alive!

Ok, Sorry I don’t have a lot of time today, it's been a bit of a hectic day.  First, Elder Lopez has officially left.  I was kinda sad to see him go, but that’s ok, cause it's part of the mission.  Elder Fotu is my new companion, and he's pretty sweet.  He’s from Pleasant Grove, UT.  Nube is still going good, and we're doing our best to keep the kids quiet.  Other than that not a whole lot of new stuff has happened since the last week.  Anyways, like I said.  I don’t have a lot of time today, just wanted to say hello, and let you know I'm still alive.  I'll respond to the rest of your emails, next week.  Love you lots. 

Love, Carson

A golden contact...finally

Hello family,

Yes like you said in your email, I'm about 25% done my mission.  Hard to believe it has gone so fast!

That’s awesome that Sarah and Christina did so well in their provincials.  Also, for dad, my P-Day schedule is pretty open.  We do emails at night, and then go proselyting.  But before that we do our shopping, laundry, and play some card games.  I've gotten all the people in my apartment addicted to Rook!!  As far as your question in relation to conference, I'll probably be watching at the church.

In response to your question about Amanda, it has been really unfortunate, but we have not yet had the opportunity to speak with her again, so that’s really been unfortunate.  But on the other hand, we had an appointment with another investigator who was AMAZING.  But she's got a bit of a story.  This is how it goes:  We were on one of the streets in Peekskill, trying to find a house (that ended up not existing), and so Elder Lopez decided that we would go knock on the door of a family he had taught before, but they had moved, so we contacted the Lady who lived there.  Her name is Nube.  She seemed pretty cool.  We set up a time to go see her and then continued on the day.  Her appointment day came, but when we went, she wasn’t there, so we called her and talked to her, but we weren’t able to set a time then.  So... she asked us to call her later that day.  Unfortunately we both forgot to do so... he he, our bad.  Anyways, about ten days go by, and we don’t have any contact with her.  Then one day, we're being juked left and right, so were kinda running out of plans, and we run across her name again.  So we called her back.  This was when we figured she was a little better than we thought, because she was saying that she wasn't sure what happened, because we had never called her back, and she was waiting for us (she had lost our number).  We made another appointment with her, and she juked us again (her son was sick).  Once again we set up an appointment.

The date is now March 21.  This all started about the 3rd of March, and we have an appointment with her.  We knock on the door, and to our dismay she's not home!  We're not sure what to do, so we call her, and to our joy, she was just on her way home from buying groceries.  So we wait till she gets home.  So we go in, and start getting to know her.  She's an Ecuadorian from a town about and hour or two outside of Cuenca.  She has two children, a 6yr old boy and a 4 yr old girl, and has been living here for 7 yrs.  Her family is all Catholic (which as soon as someone tells you they’re from Ecuador, you know they're Catholic).  Anyways, so we're getting to know her, and she commits herself to coming to church without us even asking her to.  Sufficeth to say, she seems pretty dang good.

So we start the lesson.  The hard part is her two kids.  They both have ADHD, and are a nightmare to teach with.  I mean it, as cute as little kids can be, they are of Satan.  He uses them in such a way that their parents can’t focus on what we have to say.  So I pretty much start focusing entirely on the kids, and eventually get them to settle down enough that I can keep their attention, and Nube could focus while Elder Lopez taught her.  So about halfway through the lesson, the question of baptism came up, and we answered it pretty frankly, that her Baptism wasn’t valid, and that she needed to be baptized by someone who holds the Priesthood, which amazingly she was fine with.  She seemed rather excited to hear that.  But the pivotal moment was when we were talking about the Book of Mormon, and testifying to her that the answers to her questions were in there, and that if she read and prayed she would receive and answer if what we were teaching her was true.  We continued a little more, and then told her that she could have the book.  At this point she almost broke down into tears.  The way she reacted when we said the book was hers, was almost like no one had ever given her something so special.

Elder Lopez and I are so happy to have found her, but Elder Lopez is a little disappointed, only because he seems to find these elect people just before he's going to be leaving an area.  But we're both quite sure that she'll be baptized next month.  Finding her was just such a testimony that there are people out there, and not just that, but I know that she was a blessing that we received for all the work that we have been doing, and the diligence with which we have been doing the work, even though it's been hard. 

Anyways, I've gotta get going but I just want to all to know that I love you, and I hope you have a good time in Las Vegas,  but... unfortunately you’re not going to have as much fun there as I am having here.

Con Amor, Elder Dilling

This is one tough tree!