Awesome week

HOLA  FAMILIA!!!

Anyways, this week was pretty awesome.  Yes we did make it to the Manhattan Temple in time, and that was really nice.  It was a great way to prepare spiritually for Elder Bednar, which was super cool.  Personally I didn’t stand up and ask him a question, but I did come with a question that I had, and the spirit was able to answer it through Elder Bednar.  I also realized that I need to focus on my prayers a little more, not that they're bad in anyway, it's just that he focused a lot on being agents and not objects.  So I need to change my prayers a little to the prayer of an agent.  It was really cool, because he came not with the intention of lecturing us on how to be better missionaries, but to create an atmosphere in which we could receive some kind of personal revelation.  I'm not sure how he was chosen to come, though I do know that him and my mission president are really good friends.  We also got the opportunity to shake his hand.  He related it to the scripture in D&C about “if a messenger comes to you, offer him your hand”.  He said that since he was a messenger, he wanted to shake all of our hands.  Also, Elder L Whitney Clayton, one of the members of the Presidency of the Seventy came with him.  It was just a really cool experience, so I am really going to focus over the next little while to try and make my mission a better experience.

Como Estan?  Hey, this is gonna be another short email, because I spent most of my time uploading some of my photos.  So go check those out.  Also, you don’t need to post all of them on the blog, just the ones you think are cooler.  I also uploaded a few videos for your enjoyment.

Going on, on Thursday we had another appointment with Ruben, and that went great, He accepted a baptism for the 20th of March, and is really excited about that, although we still need to help him with his worthiness worries.  He seems like a great guy.  Also, he can already see that Heavenly Father has been blessing him.  He was able to fix things with his wife, and they aren't going to be getting a divorce after all, which is a huge answer to all of our prayers.

Anyways, it's about time for me to be hitting the ol'dusty trail.  I look forward to next week, and I love you all,

Carson
P.S. In regard to the "Polar Bear Club" video, names shall be withheld to protect the innocent :)



Our apartment living room



Our apartment kitchen



Bednar? Sweet!!!

This week has definitely been better.  Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time today because we're going to the temple, and the ride we had, cancelled on us last minute, and so now we need  to take the train, which requires that we leave a little earlier.  So... to start off the bad news, I left you last week with one investigator, and then guess what?  On Thursday our last investigator dropped us.  WooHoo.. :( but that’s ok.  I'm not gonna dwell on that because some much better stuff has been happening.  On Friday we're gonna have a supper awesome opportunity.  We are having a general authority… well an Apostle is a better name for him, but yeah,  Elder David A. Bednar is coming to my mission to speak to all of the missionaries!!!!!!!  So yeah, we are getting the opportunity to have him come, and talk to us and for us to ask him stuff and learn from him.  We're SUPER excited!  So yeah, that’s one thing that’s been great.

Also, a couple weeks ago we were teaching a younger Ecuadorian man named Ruben, and because he wasn’t quite ready to listen to us, he dropped us.  So we were kinda bummed about that.  But on Saturday we received a referral from the church saying that this Ruben wanted a video.  Turns out he had lost our number, and that he had wanted us to come back, so he called the church and asked for them to send the missionaries back to his house.  This has really been the miracle that we've been praying for.  He’s been going through a very hard time recently, and now feels more ready to listen to us.  He came to church and said that he LOVED it.  Woot Woot!!  Which is great; the only problem right now, is that he doesn’t feel worthy to be a member of our church, which is something we'll have to work on, but I think he might just be the one we've been praying for.  He's also really been going through a hard time recently.  His wife is still in Ecuador, and recently some things have happened, and they are separating, which has been really hard on him.  He is someone that really has very good potential, and would benefit so much from this gospel.  Like I said, it's been such a miracle to get him back.

Anyways, like I said, we don’t have a ton of time.  And I've gotta get going, but I look forward to hearing back from you, and I'll send you some pictures next week.

Les Amo Mucho,

Carson

Rough Spots

Ok, so another week has come and gone.  I am still companions with Elder Lopez, He goes home at the end of this cycle, and I'll probably stay in Peekskill for one cycle after he leaves, but hey, you never know.  Anyways we still have this next six weeks, and we have some pretty good goals to help us receive the miracles that we want (unfortunately we are really in some dire need of them).  On Monday we had a Meeting with the Zone to discuss the goals that we want to set for the month of March and so Elder Lopez and I had to plan a goal for our companionship that would work towards the Zone goal.  (Zone goal=all companionships added together.)  So on the way to the meeting, we were talking about our investigators, and about who we thought could be baptized in March.  And through our discussion, we came up with 3.  Two of those three being Cibelis and Israel.  We decided that we both felt good about our goal, and that we could achieve it if we continued to work hard and be obedient.

Now we have been having a pretty hard time recently with finding people, and getting the number of lessons that we want to get on a weekly basis, and many of our investigators have been calling and dropping us.  and so it happened again, on the way home from the meeting, we called Cibelis to check to make sure she was still alright with us coming to her house to teach the two of them, and during that call, she told us that they weren't ready to change, and that they didn’t want us to come over anymore, because they were too busy.  So once again, we lost what we thought were our most solid investigators.  Now we have a large goal, with no idea of who's going to fill those numbers.  Of course we're going to work our very best, and if it doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen we’re just going to put it in the Lords hands, and do our best to make the goal.  I've been thinking about the emails that I've been sending home recently, and I feel kind of bad because they are all containing bad news.  But hey, I just saved 15% or more on my car insurance by switching to GIECO.  But yeah, although we've hit a couple rough spots, we're doing our best to continue the work here and to find people.

Now for a couple other little things, slightly less related to missionary work.  I was rear ended for the first time in my life, the key word being, "I".   Elder Lopez and I were sitting behind another car that was waiting to turn, and then the car behind us who wasn’t paying attention hit us.  But don’t worry, there was very little damage, only some scratched paint.  Over all it was just fine, just a new experience.  I feel like I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I also think that my most recent emails have been a little dry, so I decided I'd add something a little more interesting.  Recently the weather has been super nice, like 50 degrees, it's awesome.  I can’t decide where the winter weather is nicer.  Here or Calgary.  Sure Calgary gets cold, but here you have the humidity, which literally doesn’t care how many layers you have on, it's going right through everything!!  But on the other hand, it never gets as cold.  I haven’t had a day where it got less than 0 Fahrenheit, which is also a great thing.  I guess the nicest thing, is that here they have more distinct seasons and from what I've heard the fall is super nice and colorful.

Well that’s about all I've got for this week,

Con Amor,

Carson

A quick update

Well, another week has come and gone.  Things here have been going quite well.  Things are definitely picking up, meaning we're teaching more people.  YAY!  But still not a whole lot to add for now.  I've been thinking about a couple ways of trying to get pictures to you.  I'll still try sending my memory cards, but I was thinking that if I posted them on my blog, it would be an easier way to get more of them to you.  What do you think?

About the transfers things, I'm really not sure.  I find out on Tuesday, and then transfers are on the following Thursday.  I'll let you know what's happening next Wednesday.  Unfortunatley this is a really short little update, but I'll add more next week.  Also, we might be getting a couple new baptisimal dates for the end of this month, or early March.  Their Names are Cibelis and Israel.  Myself and Elder Lopez would really appreciate it if you could pray for them.  But that's about it for this week.

Con Amor, Carson

Hardest thing to hear as a missionary...

Well, you were right about the weather.  It didn’t snow too much though.  The worst part is the freezing rain.  It just makes everything super slushy, and all the snow on the side of the road gets a nice layer of ice.  But the roads are still good, because they do such a great job of cleaning them.  Anyway, it still really sucks, because it impedes our work, since we need to drive to get to most of our appointments.   kinda unfortunate, but, it's still lots of fun.  On Tuesday we walked around Peekskill contacting people and doing all we could to stay busy.  That’s really all we try to do when it snows.  Just show the Lord that we are doing all we can to progress the work no matter our circumstances.

Unfortunately the bad weather wasn’t the only bad news we've had.  Yudelka (the single mother) called us last night when we were on our way to her appointment, and told us that she doesn’t want to listen to us anymore.  Probably one of the hardest things to hear as a missionary.  Because when you’re teaching these people, you really develop a love for them, and when they don’t want to accept it, that hurts, because you know what they're missing and turning away from.  But we've just decided to take comfort in knowing that God knows his children, and he has a plan for each of us. 

I think the hardest thing for me to do right now, is sit here and write this email.  I pretty much have nothing to write about.  One cool little fact that I've found out recently is that the crime rate in the town I'm currently located in was worse than the Bronx, and that was pretty recently!  Apparently when they made a big push to remove the crime from New York, all the people that left came to Peekskill, so that’s pretty cool, but don’t worry, it's much better now.

That’s cool that Sarah is officially a UTEP Miner.  When will her name be up on the website?  Oh, and tell Brooklyn to say "Hi Jason" for me, and "congratulations on the baby girl".  Good to know all is going well back home.

I'll definitely need to send a letter to Sam.  That’s awesome that he gets to go to California.  He'll love that.  I'll bet his family is super excited about that.  Is the church still having missionary visa problems?  Either way, I'm sure he'll get his visa on time; he's got like 5 months.  He also enters the same date of the month that I entered the MTC.  Also, don’t worry too much about my sub and amp…as long as you can sell the car. 

So far we haven’t had a whole lot of zone conferences; about 4ish.  But that’s including goal meetings.  I've only had one mission conference, and technically it was only half the mission.  But that’s just because it's hard for the city elders to come upstate, so they just do the same thing twice; one for upstate and one for city.

But anyways, Elder Lopez and I appreciate any prayers, and are working really hard to progress the work in this area.  How are the Elders in Heritage Ward doing?  I can imagine the work being pretty hard there too. 

Anyways, my mind is about out of things to ramble on about.  Hope everything is going well back home.

Love, Carson

Another week in the life of a missionary

Okie Dokie.  So another week has gone by in the life of a missionary.  Things have been going pretty great here.  This week was a little bit harder than the past week.  It started off quite good, but fairly quickly got harder and harder.  The reason being that all our appointments were getting juked, and that we've had to drop a couple of our investigators.  But on the bright side, we had a couple investigators at Church on Sunday.  We've been teaching a family recently and they all seem pretty excited about everything.  Elder Lopez was teaching them the last time that he was here, and so here we are teaching them again.  It's a single mother with four daughters, 3 of which are old enough to get baptized.  So we're working really hard with them.  We've been working with a family in the ward to help fellowship them, and that’s going really good.  The mom’s name is Yudelka (I know, it's a little different.  But apparently in the Dominican Republic they like to give their kids different names).  Her daughters are Laura 18, Reinisi 11, Reina 8, and Juliana 4.  Recently we've been trying to focus a lot on how the gospel can really help her with whatever stress she has in her life (her daughters make things hard for her sometimes).  But that’s what the focus of our lessons has been with them.  Another thing we've been doing is bringing Brother Antola and his Daughter Maite with us to teach them, and then when we do the actual teaching, we split, and Maite and I teach the Kids while Elder Lopez and Bro. Antola teach the Mom.  That’s been working great, because it allows her to focus on the lesson, and to really feel the spirit and allow it to reside there during the lesson.  Tonight we're having a FHE activity at the Antolas house, and we're hoping that it can really help them too, and bring them closer to baptism.  But yeah, I and Elder Lopez would really appreciate it if you included them in your prayers; especially so that the girls will start understanding why it's important to help their mom.

Anyways, in response to your questions, the Mr.Mac Jacket sleeves are fairly short.  Like 2 inches too short.  I was talking with Elder Lopez about the rain, and he was saying that you barely wear a jacket when it rains, because it's so warm anyways.  And I could buy one here if it really came down to it.  But let me know for sure what you want me to do.  I still haven't taken any tags off of it, and I have the box they sent it in. 

In regards to your package question, I'd say it's best if you send it to the mission home.  But you can send it to my home address if you want.  The only thing I'm not sure of is what they'll do with it if I'm not there when they drop it off.

That’s kinda sweet that you got a new car and all.  As for selling my car, try and keep my sub and amp if you could, cause it'd be nice to put in the car I get after my mission; unless Grandpa wants to give me his Acura TL (wink wink nod nod...  JK).  But yeah, I have no problems with you selling that.  Hopefully you can get a good bit of money for.  Like $2000 ish, maybe $2500.

In regard to your question about challenging investigators to baptism shortly after starting to teach them, the reason it's better to give them a date sooner, is because that’s normally when the spirit is testifying to them the strongest, and it gives them something to work towards.  Of course you always need to let the spirit guide, and if it's not the right time, then you don’t do it.

We still have a pretty good amount of snow, and I've heard that we're supposed to get like another 20 inches or so in the next day.  It's snowing a fair bit right now.  It hasn’t started collecting on the ground, but when it does, there’s going to be a lot of Ecuadorians receiving jobs.  And it'll build up fast.

Transfers happen in about three weeks of so.  Hopefully I'll be able to stay with Elder Lopez, because it’d be best for this area.  He goes home at the end of next cycle though, so if I stay with him, I'll also be killing him too.  If you referred to it in mission terms, I'll be killing my Dad and my Mom (trainer and follow-up trainer).  And yes, I'm still the driving missionary, which I love.  I'm hoping to get a new car soon, because ours is dying on us.

Anyways, I've gotta get going for now.  I look forward to hearing back from you.  And let me know what you want me to do with the jacket.

 Love, Carson 

Ceviche is amazing!

OK, well to begin, I need to say, that I did get my jacket, but I hadn't tried it on until after your email last week, and the sleeves are a little short.  So, I don't know what you want to do about that, but I still have the box, so I am able to send it back if need be.  Don't worry too much about it either, because I've been talking to people, and they've been telling me that it doesn't get much colder than it is now, and my jacket from home is plenty sufficient for this cold.  Plus the scarves help a lot.  So let me know what you want me to do next week.

This has been another great week!  We’ve been keeping really busy, and Elder Lopez and I get along quite well.  This last little while has been just amazing.  We had a companion goal to find 4 new investigators, and through our hard work and faith, we were able to find 9!!!  Most of them seem pretty solid too; some more than others.  Unfortunately we weren't able to meet with Luis, Fernando and Jorge because they had to work.  That's one thing that is really hard in the Spanish culture.  They work a lot, and if they can get work they don't care what else they miss.  But we'll keep trying with them.  The family whose basement they rent should be able to help a lot, especially with bringing them to church. 

We also met with Soledad, it was an amazing lesson, and I think she definitely felt the spirit during the lesson.  We also had a member come with us, which I think will help her a lot because now she might feel more comfortable at church.  We're planning on extending an invitation for baptism the next time that we teach her.

So far all the stuff I have has been working great, my shoes are still plenty comfortable, and my feet are staying nice and dry, even with all the recent snow, and freezing rain, which by the way sucks.  Yesterday I had to clean the whole car off, and that involved my chipping ice of the whole thing.  It was covered from top to bottom (not fun).  But anyways, I really am enjoying the weather.  It's not too cold, but the humidity definitely makes a HUGE difference.  The coldest we've had was like -15 Celsius, but it felt more like -25 or so.  The humidity just goes right through you, especially if you don't have a scarf.  They're life savers here.  My missing button isn’t too much of a problem.  It really doesn’t serve much of a purpose other than style.  I'm using a safety pin for now.  The only problem with going to a dry cleaner is that I doubt they have buttons that would match mine.  Mine all say American eagle on them and stuff.  But whatever… the last place I might have seen my extras back home is on the kitchen window, or on the thing above the desk in Daniels bedroom.  There should be two different sized buttons.

We’re teaching two guys right now who are an Uncle and Nephew, who left their families in Ecuador, and came here to try and start a life so that eventually they can bring the rest of their family, which can be a pretty hard thing to do.  But the good thing is that they're progressing a little, and if they accept what we're teaching them, and receive a testimony of their own, I know it'll help them so much.  That’s the wonderful thing about this church.  We can know that through our faithfulness, we will be blessed, and that God wants nothing but the best for us.  I know that it would bless their lives in such a great way.

Also, I had some ceviche this week.  Once again, those Peruvians got me to eat something that I wouldn't have thought I'd ever eat.  But I must say, it was amazing!!!  I've been told that Peruvian ceviche is the best too, and I don't doubt it, cause it was good.  If you could find a Peruvian restaurant in Calgary, I'd go.  They also have this really good food called Jalea (Hu-lay-uh).  It's battered and fried ceviche pretty much.  But it's SO good.  They eat it with a homemade salsa, and some kind of hot sauce.  But yeah, if you can, get some Peruvian food.  It's really good!

Anyways, that’s all I have time for today.  I'm gonna write some letters to you, and I need to clean the apartment a little bit.  I love you all, and hope you all have a great week. 

Con Amor, Elder Dilling