Elder Carr

Skyler's New Adventure

2011-04-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Skyler has entered a contest in which he had to build a website. Here is what he has done, it brings most of his businesses together.

Utah Mosh Pics

And the winner is...

2010-09-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

A note from Susan, Skyler's sister:

Thank you sooooo much to everyone who entered my contest to win a date with Skyler! I would have said thank you to all the "girls", but we had one guy enter too. Too funny! Anyway, at long last I'm here to announce the winner. (We did the drawing last night over the phone and webcam with Skyler.) And the winner is...
BROOKE B.
So be expecting a call from Skyler soon! And thank you again everyone for entering and being such great sports! Stay tuned in 3 years to win a date with Jason Carr! :)

Skyler's Homecoming announcement!

2010-09-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

Win a Date wtih Skyler!

2010-09-02T20:50:00.001-07:00

I posted this once before on here, but it was a little premature. So now I am posting it again. For those of you who don't know, I (Susan, Skyler's sister) am holding a contest to win a date with Skyler when he gets home from Spain soon. Either leave a comment on here to enter, or email me directly at carr_susan_e@yahoo.com . I will draw a name from the entries from a hat in a couple weeks, so hurry, hurry! For any of those mom's out there who want to enter their daughter, that is totally fair, so email me. Skyler is an AWESOME guy, as you can tell by this blog if you read his letters home, and it totally fun too.

the end of an epic ride 1 Sept 2010

2010-09-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

I am left with very little time. I have been pushing back all of the going home stuff as long as i could, but i have run out of room to run, so i had a good long reading session. Trunky. Bah.

Alright, on to the real stuff.

The Lord is really being merciful and letting us be really busy this week. It is helping so much. There are wierd moments, but it is super easy to get rid of those since this is a strict contacting mission. Just stop someone and talk. It is really easy to get rid of sucky feelings when focusing on helping someone else feel something. Sadly, when we are in the apartment there are no people to stop, and since everyone is sick of listening to me i decided to come up with something to distract me. Honestly you would think it would be like a journal or scriptures or something like that, but i will be honest, its not. Not at all. I found an EFY song i like so i am coreographing a dance for it and we are going to do it as an apartment boy band on the last day and record it... No buts about it.

Hmm, probably didnt need to share that, but whats done is done.

Oh, interesting thing happened. A man from the Mormon Channel podcast thing came to the temple to interview people about it. He interviewed Elder Middleton and me and it should come out in november. I doubt we will get a part in it since he said he has over 30 hours of audio for a 30 minute segment with narrative, but it was a cool 13 minute experience so no worries.

Alright, couple of things. We have seen a miracle in the life of a guy we started teaching last week. Mostly just the total turn around in his life. He came to us with scars on his arms from his depression and cutting saying his life was a wreck and he didnt know what to do. We got to explain and it pretty much came down to the fact that he got here a while ago and fell in love with a prostitute and his relationship with here was destroying his life...... Duh. That was a no brainer. We got to have some really good spiritual throw downs with him and in just a week it has been incredible to see the change. Kind of interesting point- the things he likes the most about the church is the hymn book. (sorry this is all so jumpy, i am way out of time) He is done with her, going back to his country to try to fix things in his life and get back with his family, and when he gets back he is going to be baptized. One thing that really hit me was when he was explaining the first meeting we set up with him he had fallen asleep right before. While he was asleep he says he felt his bed shaking as if somebody was trying to get him to wake up and when he woke up there was nobody but he suddenly remembered the appointment and came running. The rest has changed his life.

The next thing was with Alvaro, the young man we have been working with toward a baptismal date. We sat down with him last night because he has been having hard time and we needed to have a heart to heart. We have been wondering if he was really ready to be baptized because we didnt just want him to join the church because of our friendship and have him fall when we leave. We wanted to have our own confirmation before setting up the interview. We started casually asking hte baptismal interview questions and it was really sketchy at first. We asked if he believed God was his Father. He said that he didnt really know what that meant. We asked if he believed in Jesus Christ and he said that he didnt really understand how it worked. We asked if he believed in Pres Monson as the living prophet and he said he didnt know enough to say honestly, but that he did like how when he read anything by him it made him want to be better. Then we asked if he believed the church had been restored and he said that what he felt and saw really made him believe it was, but that he was really trying to be sure. HE then reminded us of something we taught him in the beginning. He said that when we told him that as he read the book of mormon his testimony would grow he knew it was true and he has seen it happen. Better but not quite there. We decided to ask why he even wanted to be baptised. HE said that he wanted to be clean, he wanted to be a new person and start again. We asked what that meant for him and he said that he would get to live every moment of his life trying to progress towards God so that he could get to know him better. When he said that we both felt it. He was doing everything right and he was really seeing miracles in his life.

I wish i had time to be cheesy and come up with a good ending for this, but i will leave that for the sleepy homecoming.

Quick note: i think the most powerful random feeling right now is that of gratitude. I just keep thinking about how many incredible things i have seen, done and learned and cannot believe i got the chance to be a part of it all.

Its true. All of it.

Love,

Elder Carr
Defender of the Faith
185 lbs.

no es difithil querreros 25 Aug 2010

2010-08-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

It was a cousin that served here! Now i even know the name and can pretend we were best buds, and maybe someday we can even become best buds. Thanks Matt. When i met Elder Paya he looked at the tag and asked if they called me Superman too. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he was a general authority, so i pulled the good old smile and nod. Luckily he explained it after, but it was definitely ironic because i do get Clark Kent a lot. Not due to any work ethic or overachieveablity (from now on that is a real word) but rather to the glasses and perfectly sculpted wave in my hair that is now a month and 3 days old (my birthday present to myself- i call it my onda). I have had a couple random people bring it up but the one of greatest note is Pepi (Josepha) Maneu. She is in the ward i am serving in right now and we see her everyday because she works at the temple hostal. She is actually our adoptive spanish mother. We even got to be there for the baptism of her neice, Paula. Awesome connection.

The proclamations Susan put together sound soo good. Everyone here loves Susan. My companions love her for the packages. The members love her for the picture book which has turned out to be as good as gold. The investigators love her for the youtube video she made of my call- i still have no idea how they find it. Speaking of wierd stuff found on youtube, the ward has been having a good time with the tyedye and the knitting on mom's show which they tracked down on youtube. Youtube!

Finally! Business out of the way and we can get on to the good stuff.

Guess what? The church is true! My whole mission i have always loved to put that to the test and do what i call truth detectors. Today i had just one of those moments. Week 5 of every transfer is Madrid soccer week after we get out of the temple. All of the mission mormonaries from madrid show up. While we were waiting for the crowds to gather we snook the water battles of several elders away and set them up on top of the goal. We then took turns trying to hit them. I have holes in both my shoes so luckily i had an excuse for sucking because i was horrible. I didnt even come close. Also fortunate is that we were all extremely united in our terribleness. Then i did the test. The test has yet to fail. It really is incredible. I put the ball down from the furthest away spot attempted and procclaimed the test, "if i get this the church is true" and took the shot. The ball flew through the air like a torpedo from heaven and completely destroyed the small bottle in the middle and left the poor bewildered elder amazed and thirsty for the rest of the day. This has worked with a football from the far side of the gym, a rock with a skinny tree in the distance, the united states beating spain in soccer last year, and countless other moments. There it is. Nobody can say my testimony is not built on a sure foundation.

Oh my, running out of time.

Yesterday was a blast at our basketball activity. Every week we get like 25 poeple and there are never more than 5 that are members. Yesterday was special because a ton of new people showed up and we have appointments with all of them for later this week. The best part though was with a guy who has been coming since the beginning. He is a paraguayan man that used to play professionally in bolivia until he hurt his knee so now he is limited to the spotlights of the Madrid 6th ward chapel lights. He is an amazing guy but has never accepted meeting with us because he is afraid to try something different then the catholicism he grew up with. Luckily, the Lord let him smash his finger at work that morning so he asked us if we had tape to tape it up for him. We took him to our little first aid kit across temple square in the security office and took care of him. While there he saw the camera screens the security look at and asked why the security was so good. We then go to explain what the temple means to us. Seems like that got him thinkind. Towards the end of the night we told everyone that there was time for one more game because we had to be getting home. He was sitting out and came over to sit by me. He asked why we have such a strict schedule. Then he asked what we do all day. Then he asked how we make a living out here. Then he asked why we come. I gave him my whole story. Afterwards he got a hint of why we look people in the eye when we tell them it is true. He thought about it for a bit. Then after a few seconds of silence he turned and said, "i want a book of mormon." There are so many incredible people in that activity. So fun to get them asking questions. Sadly, the bishop of another ward is trying to shut it down because there are too many non-members.... hmm. No worries, good intentions are easy to work with.

That does it for today.

I love everything about my life,

Especially y'all,

Elder Sky

Period. 18 Aug 2010

2010-08-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Alright, i cant hold it in anymore, we had one of the coolest things happen yesterday. No one can ever tell me that my incapacity to control the volume of my voice has never done me any good. We contacted a family in the park the other day and they were really cool.. We gave them the Elder Carrleton experience (Carr + Middleton = Carrleton) and they loved it. They asked if we would be in the area the next day so they could see us so we agreed on meeting them in the park. Sadly, the weather was bad so they didnt show. Luckily, this is the Lord's work so something even cooler happened. We were walking through the park, a little bummed that they didnt show and we saw a group of kids playing on the play ground in the distance. About seven 12 year old kids. Like always, the kids yelled at us when they saw us. Like always, i yelled back. Then they said a couple of english words they know. Then i said a couple of english words that i remember. They were a little shocked because what i said sounded way cooler than what they said so they decided to come running over to ask what was said. We gave them a little run down on the lingo and there was one that spoke really well, a couple that spoke okay, but the rest were terrible. Then we started asking them about their english classes and why they hadn't learned anything. They said that they didnt like it and they didnt care. I told them that was stupid. Then we spent a good while talking about college and working hard. It was wierd and a little sad. You could tell that none of these kids had ever had anyone motivate them to be better, much less tell them that they could do it. They soaked it up and asked tons of questions about it. Of course they are still kids and would try to crack jokes or would say stupid stuff, and of course we would one up them and maintain the obvious dominance and forced himility upon them. They loved it. As we were leaving the ring leader, kind of the alpha-kid, came up to apologize for some of the dumb stuff his friends said. He was actually the one who spoke really good english and talked the most about wanting to go to the university. We started talking and he was the most incredible kid i have ever met in spain. Elder Melocoton (as i call him) caught some of what we were talking about and immediately was amazing and kept the other kids entertained by asking them to ask him any question about the mormons. While he had those ones on the side i asked Angel, this amazing kid, what he wanted to do in his life. He said he wanted to go to Harvard. I said, "do it" and a light just came on inside of him. He made an excuse about not knowing if he could pay for it and i said to not think one second about. Just work hard and do it. Then he looked at me for a second and out of nowhere just said, "i believe in God." He said that he just felt like there was something there. Then i got to tell him what i had felt and how. Even got to tell him about the Book of Mormon. He just looked excited to hear it all. I told him we would give him one and that he could feel it too and he said that he would love to have what we had. Then he hit me with a shot to the heart. Must have been one of the heart melting bullets because it worked. He said that he had actually walked on temple grounds before. He was alone and he didnt know why he wanted to go look at it, he just really felt like he wanted to. He said that as soon as he set foot on the square he felt something he had never felt before. Something very peaceful. He just felt good. We exchanged some numbers and some testimony and we will be seeing him later. Apparently Elder M had a good time with the other kids too because they called us that night to ask if we could show them around and give them a tour. It was so fun herding six 12 year olds all around the church.

Incredible experiences every moment of everyday, but so little time to even scrape the surface.

Oh well, take your scrapings for now.

Love you,

Elder Sky

my dear mamacita 11 Aug 2010

2010-08-12T08:15:00.001-07:00

I am sitting here beginning one of the most rushed emails ever, and there is an awesome elder sitting behind my and he just saw the title. He asked, "doesnt that have certain conotations?" I just looked at him and said, "you better believe it."

I would like to make a quick interjection to rhett- I stand corrected. Sharks are definitely not mammals. I tried to come up with some tricky cover up to protect the few remains of my shattered pride, you know, something like the fact that i was referring more to the aggresive mother sharks: mama maulers, or mamauls, but there is not time for such ticky tacky work. I will let you have this one. Twoshay (i didnt know how to spell that so i purposefully spelled it as horribly as i could).

I think the talk on the 19th sounds great. I was hoping to be able to add in something interesting and i think the jet lag will be the perfect spice. I remember what it did to me when i got here, i cant wait to see what it does when i am in front of a couple hundred people. I accept your challenge.

So we have become a bit infamous in the mission for being the zone that always has awesome activities every transfer. Today we topped it all. We planned on having a zone dodgeball day, but after thinking it over we decided to make it our zone vs. all the other madrid zones. It went down gloriously, and we are the dominant zone. I was pretty dominant for the first 5 minutes. Well, that is until a stray ball somehow found its way out of my hand and into a sister's face. No harm done, but i didnt feel too good about that one. After a while we switched it up and started trying out new teams since we had about 50 missionaries there. We did Utah vs. everyone else, people who use the lisp vs. poeple who dont, new missionaries vs. old ones, stuff like that. It was fun and it helped some of the bilbao and malaga people who have been having a hard time with the change get to know some of the mission. President even came and he would even cheer after i acted out an extremely overdramatic death after getting hit by a ball.

Sorry, time is super short, all the locutorios were closed until like 20 minutes ago. Let me hurry and get something worthwhile in.

We have been teaching a lot of really young people lately, So much of our efforts have been focused on youngins. I love teaching people that are younger than me. The lessons just stop being lessons. I love just talking with them and sharing what i have felt and helping them feel it. We do that with everyone but they accept it alot better. We have been teaching a kid who has been staying here with his cousins for the summer. He is from new york and is a total gangsta. We have had some awesome lessons and he has been reading and one time when he prayed he felt something incredible. He was worried with how his parents would accept it but this week he got a call saying that the missionaries talked to his parents and they are being taught and really like it. There are no such things as coincidences (you better believe that is sincere because i dont even know how to spell that word).

Sorry that is brief, but we gotta run to a lesson.

Health is great, life is happy, love is overflowing,

Elder Sky

hola mamacita 4 Aug 2010

2010-08-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

So the flight plans are in... oh my gosh, so wierd. I am not gonna lie, I am way super excited to see you all, but i am not happy at all that this is ending. Oh well, i will just take my frustrations out on Jason. All better.

We just got back from the museum of natural science. It was cool. We went for the dinosaurs and there were no dinosaurs. The entance was just roped off and i was like, "what the heck?" Under construction, so they say. It cost us 5 euros. The cool stuff i saw added up to about 4.10. The dinosaurs would have made the difference. It was like the spanish version of the
florida sea world trip all over again. Just waiting to see those sharks. All day seeing other sub par stuff just thinking about how cool those sharks are gonna be. Then it happened. Right before getting to the sharks. The beginning of Jason's acrobatic career begins with him careening off a bar onto his chin. The blood was cool, but it was not the resuflt of giant watery mammals tearing through the flesh of other helpless fish.

Wow, that was a forgotten piece of trauma that just surfaced. Sorry you had to experience that. Looks like another frustration i will have to take out on Jason when he gets here.

The baptism of Paula was incredible. Such an amazing program and turnout. She had a really hard day but came through like a champ. She said when she woke up that morning she almost called us to say she couldnt do it because she was attacked by feelings of being unprepared. She talked herself through that and went for a walk. While walking she got the thought to stop by the train station and catch a train to take her as far away as she could possibly get. Luckily, she ignored that one too. Then she got home and started to feel very very sick. She couldnt take it any more and just fell to her knees. She said she couldnt do anything else in that moment but pray. She just told God that she was not good enough and in no way ready, but that
she would always follow Him. She said that she would trust Him and leave her life in His hands. When she was baptized she understood why. I think she felt the Hands.

She is in the picture. The rest are her family and friends of the ward.

Life is good. Time is short. Love is abundant. Jason is in for it.

Just kidding,

but seriously.

Love,

Elder Sky
185 lbs. everyone says i look skinny... well, just the latina mamas.

Varadero, Cuba 28 July 2010

2010-07-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

There are some huge posters on the walls of this computer place and i decided the two that i like the most were the one of Machu Picchu and one of an awesome looking beach which turned out to be Varadero, Cuba. That explains the subject. I hope Rhett is still planning on cruising cuba with me because it is definitely something i am counting on.

As for the week, no, wait! I have to say thank you. The birthday package was.... da bomb! Thank you so much for all the effort that was put into that. I know it is hard to believe, but that was the best present i have gotten on a mission birthday, heck, i even had a surprise party and was given a 25 lbs watermelon that was incredible, seriously, we think they pumped it full of something because it is sooo good, like my mouth is watering right now thinking about it, but honestly, it is not even in the same league as the stuff you sent, so cool, so sweet, so boss. Mom, i will kiss you right on the face when i see you. And all you others that pitched in with letters, even those i dont know, be warned, you are loved and i may have the same thing in store for all of you.

Alright, now we can get on to the good stuff. This week has been filled with, wait! Sorry, one more thing before i forget. I have gotten it a lot lately, and once from a general authority, so i have to ask- our cousin who served here, the carr, did he serve around the years of 85-87 under Elder Piat? I remember meeting him at a family reunion we invited ourselves to over in pleasant grove or something. I would like to know because there are a few people here who served around him who keep bugging me about it.

Okay, that is it, no more interuptions, on to the week. The week was filled with all sorts of, WAIT! Ha, just kidding that time. For reals, more than just experiences i think it is landmarked by interesting people. For example- there is one that we refer to as DOSM, which stands for Dirty Old Spaniard Man. We also use DOSM because it rhymes with awesome, but that is besides the point (but totally awesome). Our experience with him took place at a little kiosk sort of thing that sells otter pops. We were doing business and he came up, drunk as a dog (you better believe dogs get drunk), asking me if i knew any girls he could become acquainted with (NOTE: the true sayings of DOSM have been edited for the sake of the younger readers). He was a very dirty old spaniard man, hence the name. From the time i have been on the mission i have come to realize that the only way to shake off a drunk is to confuse them. Normal response encourages them, fear feeds them, annoyance angers them, ignorance has no effect, but english, oh my dear beloved english, confuses the living stars out of them. When he started talking to me, i responded in english and he was taken very off guard. He starting yelling that he had sworn he heard us speaking his language, but i just kept it going, and within 30 seconds he was off yelling at a stray dog. It was brilliant. Then as we left it got even better. We said goodbye to the otter pop man in spanish and then saw him so i said "take it easy" and he repeated it kind of in a mocking voice, and you would never believe it, but it sounded perfect. That is the secret to the english accent: drunk spaniard! It was incredible.

Then we were teaching Paula, the one who is getting baptized this week, and got to have a fun little question and answer. It was all normal stuff until she pulled out her bible and asked one that had been bugging her for a long time. She has been reading the old testament and it has been hard for her to read about the cleaning out of the holy land in Joshua. She was wondering why they killed everyone, even the children. I looked at her for a moment, then, reaching for my book of mormon said, "that is why we love the book of mormon". She accepted and things are better than ever.

Next interesting people were found in the Red Cross distribution center in a mystical land called Arganda del Rey. It is about 30 minutes from Madrid and is filled with Romanians and Gypsys. We went to go do service handing out food and the people that volunteer there are so cool. They absolutely hate religion, but love the missionaries to death. Elder Dunn, the missionary i went with, is training right now so i guess they got excited about having a missionary that could speak a little more spanish than normal. They took us for a tour and showed us the ropes. After, when they all usually go out to get drinks, they took away our agency and made us go with them. It was fun to see them in their natural habitat. So much artificial joy. It was fun to have a real smile when we walked out of that place. Free cokes and american music videos explained by half drunk spaniards- wonderful.

Alright, last one i have time for is named Ronny. He is very likely the most amazing man i have ever met in my life. We got a call from the temple saying that a man walked in that wanted to talk to us. We skidadled on over and found him sitting in the waiting room reading. He is a christian convert from Iran that grew up in Kuwait and had to run away to Armenia and now was looking for a better life in Spain. Some of the stuff he told us about was mind blowing. All the fighting he saw in Kuwait was really hard on him, then the turkish slaughtering of christians in armenia made him become a refugee with his family and his being apart from his family looking for work seemed to be the hardest part of it all. He said that not too long ago he met two missionaries that were the nicest people he had ever met. They gave him a book of mormon and he read it in 3 weeks. He came to the temple to tell us that he wanted to be baptized. He was amazing. The first thing he said was that he was Ronny, he was from Iran, he loved God, and did not hate americans. He lives in another elders area but talking to him was a really humbling experience. Hard to believe, but i am sure even harder to live.

Sorry for the lack of time. Every week it is the same.

Love you,

Elder Sky

many thanks 21 July 2010

2010-07-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

I am super excited to get your stuff, you are all so faithful at winning my love. It is yours.

So i experienced a lot of firsts this week. Three that are of the greatest interest.

#1: At precisely 7:12 last saturday evening we were at a members house helping him fix his printer and at that very moment i fell in love with shakira. Her new wakka wakka song came on the computer and it was a choice between that and the rear end of the member as he battled with the chords of the printer. She won.

#2: We were teaching Paula the law of chastity and she had one of the hardest doubts i have ever had to faced on my mission, and it is for the sole reason that it was absolutely doctrineless. She had already said that she would live it, in her words, "if God says it, we do it." But it troubled her to think of her personal future as to the fact that she had no idea what was allowed within the dating realm. Her question was- how do mormons flirt? She just couldnt imagine it. It was awkward. We were there with her aunt, her new friend in the church, and a member man: all single mormons. And then of course us who are in a class of our own. Unpracticed and unavailable. The best thing i could muster was that she needed to come to the US and walk across the BYU campus once and she would see, hear, and experience all she needed to.

#3: Mission Council with the new boundaries. The tricky thing with this is that the mission now is twice as big with the canaries as the cherry on top. It was too hard to make everyone travel, and president wanted it to be fully combined, so we got to skype it. Leon and Santiago set up in their chapels to get the video conference going, and the canaries did the same a little bit later because of the time zone difference. We got to go to the MTC and use the systems there. The biggest lesson i learned: the church has some serious tools at its disposal. It was way fun to judge the heck out of all the other missionaries. I dont know why that happens, but it is so much fun to just try to figure them out by what you see on a blurry plasma screen and hear through the speakers. I would love to know what they think of us. For some reason Elder Middleton and i sat in front of the camera most the time, were the first to be asked to do everything, and did the training. Everything in our own special way. We will see if we run into them some other day.

Best quote this week: "Elder Middleton, when i first met you i thought you were the biggest slacker of a lazy missionary i ever met. And then when i found out you and elder carr were my zone leaders i thought to myself - how could he put two of them together? But now i know that i am wrong. After your workshop in zone conference and our exchange i know that you are both great missionaries and somehow know how to have fun." -Elder Jackson (Trainee in his 2nd transfer)

Sorry, we need to end this fast. We dont have enough money to pay for the extra time.

Love,

Elder Sky

The octopus does it again 14 July 2010

2010-07-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

Before i even start thinking about writing the big stuff (which is pretty dumb to say since writing that there i was thinking about it (and even moreso now)) i will answer questions.

Wards in Madrid? There are 8 wards in the actual city, but if you go out about 45 minutes there are a lot more. Mostly branches out there though.
Where do they meet? There are 4 chapels shared by the 8 wards spead out in the four corners.
Where is the Stake Center? It is on the temple lot.
Where is the mission home? It is about 40 minutes from the center of madrid by bus, in car it is much much less, It is in a really nice area.

Okay, enough of the funny business. You need to hear about what happened. I have never in my life even dreamed of ever thinking about being near imagining what went down on sunday night. Epic. The entire day there was an inexcapable buzz in the air. Even at church you could tell that peoples thoughts were on the game. Honestly, had they discovered the cure for cancer on sunday, nobody would have heard anything about it until today. When the game started, the city died. The only people on the streets were the people who either left the bar to take a smoke or to throw up, both because of the nerves of it all. It was impossible to do anything. Nobody would accept visits. Nobody would stop to talk unless it was solely to yell a swear word about the game and follow it immediately with a chest bump. It was incredible. Every bar was filled to capacity. The streets were lined with big screens and shoulder to shoulder crowds. In the center i heard that on one single street there were more than 300000 people watching. So of course, with every living spaniard worshiping their false god in full dedication, we found ourselves standing outside the window of a bar watching the game. Luckily, it only caught us for about 10 minutes because then we had to go inside to do weekly number calls. We started getting things ready, still listening out the window for the sounds of the game, as was explained last week. Then it happened. Something that cannot be scaled on the missionary sound classifications. The explotion of noise, the silence, the gasp, and then the absolute loss of all reason. Fireworks exploding right out the window, people rioting through the streets, jumping into the fountains, climbing on passerby cars, and to top it all off, a huge beetle flew in through the window and landed on my face and really freaked me out. Even the bugs were celebrating! As you can imagine, calls didnt really happen. Too much noise and when the goal was scored the entire system locked up. It was a pretty noisy night, day, and following night. At least one thing is for certain: the work will proceed a great deal because now the spaniards believe in God. I hear the cathedrals saw record crowds for the sunday morning mass.

Now, to abruptly change the subject, we had zone conference yesterday. It was way fun. They asigned us a one hour training where we had a specific theme for the first thirty minutes and then our own thang for the last 30. It was way fun. We bought a rope and played a game then talked about it. The assistants, who are in our zone, along with Hermana Watkins said they were supposed to go around and listen to all the different workshops but they stayed in ours the whole hour because they didnt want to miss anything. That got the pride canteen all filled up as normal. Then to make good things great, Hermana Watkins singled me out in her talk. She spoke on unity and said, "Dont worry about being similar, just be united - if we all had to be like each other, Elder Carr would never survive."

Now for another radical change of topic. This last week we started teaching... wow, there is a kid that just snuck up behind me and started screaming at the top of his lungs. It really freaked me out. I looked at him and just started sreaming with him and he stopped. Okay back to business, wait, getting a call..... Done, now we can start. This last week we started teaching a girl named Paula. She is from Barcelona and is a really cool girl. Incredible life. I dont want to lest it off just for her sake, but suffice it to say it climaxes at a failed suicide attempt. The poor girl was just searching for something. When we met with her we had some really humbling lessons. Stuff that just leaves you speachless. We did feel very strongly that she could get a clear answer if she really searched, and that is what we promised her. We gave her asignments and she read them all and more. She would pray every chance she got, just pleading for something to help her know that she had not gone through all that she had for no reason. When we met with her she just said that there was nothing. It was hard for us. Times like that are tough because it is so far out of our control. But we knew what we had felt with her, we knew we had done our very best to leave our hearts on the table as always so we left her in the Lords hands. She came to the baptism on saturday and said it was interesting but still nothing. She came to church and went through all the classes and still had received nothing. Then we got to the last hour which is sacrament for us. She said that during the passing of the sacrament she felt really calm so she decided to give it one more try. She started to pray and said that she plead like she had never plead before. Then she just let her heart pour out and told God that if he would let her feel that He was there then she would be baptized and do whatever she needed to, but she just wanted to feel it. And in that very moment she said that the most overwhelming feeling of joy she has ever felt came over her. So much that she almost couldnt breath and just started to cry. We talked to her that night and when she told us about it we cried with her. I felt really strongly that she need to set the date then so we told her that we would help her fufill her promise and i said the first date that came to mind which was the 14th of august. As soon as the date was out of my mouth i felt the strongest feeling of "no, she has waited long enough, she deserves it now." She had agreed gladly with the first and i thought it might not be good to take the moment, but it was a really strong feeling and when i looked at my companion i was obvious he was feeling the same thing. So we invited her again and she accepted even more gladly. She said she didnt care, she would do what was necessary. On monday when we met with her she had already borken up with her boyfriend and had him move out and gone shopping with her aunt for more modest clothes. We still hadnt even finished teaching the restoration. It is super humbling to realize how little we do, but how much our very best effort is needed.

That is it for me. Talk to you later.

Hugs and kisses,

Elder Sky

P.s. The people in the pictures are Jazmin, who was baptized this last saturday, and her family. She is 9, her sister is a reactivated girl and her mom is working on getting baptized this coming month.

2010-07-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

tis a scorcher 7 July 2010

2010-07-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

World cup in Spain. Its different than i had imagined. I think the best way to describe it would be to imagine yourself living next to a huge stadium. You never really know exactly what happened, but the noises tell you everything. And i will tell you what, you can hear it. So far the decifering has gotten us thus far:

-Low buzz with the occasional outburst: normal play.
-Huge explosion of cheers through all the city: really good play.
-Huge explosion of cheers accompanied by honking of car horns: goal. (Car horns are key)
-Silence: Bad.
-Drunk people swearing: Loss.
-Drunk people swearing in form of song: Normal day.
-Drunk poeple swearing, singing, and dancing through streets kissing everyone they see: Normal weekend/holiday, but if done immediately following a game: Win.

The world cup has taken over. It is incredible. We contacted everyone we saw in the streets during the last game and ended up with 2 contacts.

There you have it. The world cup in spain. Everyone here is really excited about the game tonight because some german octopus told them they would win. That is where their faith seems to dwell at the moment.

The idolatry has progressed to an impressive point. At least it is a step up from a golden calf. El pulpo aleman.

In spite of all this the work has progressed impressively well. The baptism was amazing. Never in my life have i been able to see such a dramatic change in someone in such short a time. She came on monday saying that she had read all of doctrine and covenants in one night and knew she had felt the confirmation she was looking for. She was an entirely different person than when we saw her sunday. Sadly, she told us there that she only wanted us and the bishop to come to her baptism and that she wanted to be confirmed in a smaller branch because she knew she was too shy to do it all. We were willing to do what she felt she was capable of so we made some plans. Then on thursday she showed up just glowing. She was an entirely different person than when we saw her on monday. On friday we went to the baptism and it was incredible to see the miracles happen. Because of time we didnt get to invite very many people and she didnt invite anyone because she felt guilty inviting people when her family was not going to be there (lots of opposition). When we were about to start the baptism, one person and then later another showed up that were 2 of her best friends. Both didnt know why they came to the church that day, they just said they felt like they needed to. There were a lot of tears. After the baptism she even said that she would go ahead and be confirmed in our own ward (biggest in madrid) which was incredible. She showed up on sunday and she was a totally different person than when we saw her on friday. After her flawless confirmation she was the first one to get up and bare testimony. That was a shocker. She has had a hard life and the first time i met her she told us, through tears, that the only thing she wanted to know is if she was a daughter of God. She texted us yesterday and said that she feels full of light and that everytime she looks in the mirror it surprises her because she sees a person of eternal value- something she has never seen before.

Sorry, we have to leave early to get to a lesson a ways away. Everyone will be traveling to watch the game right now so we have to get our rear ends out of here.

Love you bunches.

Elder Sky Carr

ace in the hole? Well whats it doin there? 30 June 2010

2010-07-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, in case you were wondering, there is a strike right now in the public transit of madrid. This causes us to have to arrive late from everything and leave early for the other things. Obviously you were not wondering that, but now you are. Apparently the government made a 5% pay cut and the workers flipped. Now there are no workers and madrid is flipping. It is nuts.

So as for the normal stuff i can try to squeeze in in the 5 minutes i have left (i am going to make an attempt at filling for the lack of words with pictures of our bike trip) i will give you some quickies.

Susan!! So the other day we were on the bus and this kid got on, i said hi and he got off really fast so i didnt really get to talk to him. Bummer. Well, we ended up seeing him from the bus one day so we got off and went to talk to him and he said, "Hey Elder Skyler." Unexpected. After the shock wore off i was able to ask him how the heck he knew my name and who i was since we had never ever spoken. Turns out he found the blog. You are incredible. And even more incredible, he speaks english, so he will probably end up reading about himself pretty soon.

No time to expound any more on that, just know your reach is terrifying and impressive.

So the pictures are from the Tandem bike experience (thought they would fit the theme of your last letter, Mom). It was so fun. We domintated all the solo riders. Best part of all though: We had planned for a long time to get the tandem, but we knew we had to get something more to make it even better, and as we were walking into the metro we saw a nigerian selling sunglasses for 10 euros each. I went up and showed him the 10 and said that i wanted two instead of just one. He gave us two. So worth it.

The work is progressing. We have an investigator named Nieves that we picked up a couple weeks ago. She has been investigating for about 6 years and has a lot of problems. We have had some really amazing lessons with her and this last sunday we were talking about how we could help her more and it just came down to the fact that she needed to be baptized as soon as possible because she would not last much longer without the gift of the holy ghost, Luckily, the Lord decided to tune in on that conversation. That day we gave her a triple combination. That night she read the whole thing. When she woke up she said she knew what she needed to do. We met, she said she needed to be baptized this week, and here we are, running to make it happen. We are set for friday. Incredible.

Sorry for the shortness,

Just imagine the rest is filled with my love for you,

Elder Sky

dangerously skinny! 23 June 2010

2010-07-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

Skinny, eh? I dont know what is going on. I have never changed anything. Maybe it is one of those huge figurative analogy things. Like when i started the mission the weight and stress of the work was really plumping and cushioning me up, then when i started to quit relying on myself, the Spirit, which, as everyone knows, is made of helium, began to take over and is lightening the load.

Or maybe its just because we walk alot and its really hot.

I love being the offspring of a latin mommy and a cali daddy. Content when their kids are tubby and concerned when they are nearing average. I eat lots. Oh, and as for ceviche, i think it is my fivorite food ever, which is wierd, but true. I am also gaining a love for brazilian food. There is a group of about 6 elderly brazilian single women who love feeding us. We are like their vending machines. They put food in and in return i entertain them with my broken brazilian (i refuse to call it portuguese because i can understand brazilian portuguese just fine but whenever i run into a portuguese person i just smile and nod). I think brazilian requires more role playing ability than actual knowledge. Just have to picture that you are a drunk french guy trying to speak spanish. Way easier.

I just realized that the whole beginning of this email would have been a huge and useless sidenote had it not been for the fact that i started out with this... Now this is the side note.

So as for the new companion situation i am extremely pleased. Its like sharing the gospel with a buddy just becuase you both want to. I was super excited when i first found out, which was actually well before i was supposed to. I went on exchanges with one of the assistants to the president and my favorite game to play while i am visiting is the "lets see whats in this drawer" game. Found a lot of cool stuff. Amogst the stuff found was the paper with all the transfers on it. Oops.

As for the actual week, it has been so flip turned upside down. Gosh. Let me just scrape the surface and throw it at you so you can get a sample.

Oh, and before i forget, i would like to request lots of pictures from powell once again. You have done splendidly in the past and i would like to request a repeat. I will reward with many loves and kisses, no matter who you are. Be warned.

Back to the business of the crazy week. We got a call from a guy who had been contacted a few months ago but lived in england so he dodged it with his excuses. The elders who talked to him did manage to give him a card which apparently has been burning into this said individuals concience for the past few months until he came back to spain to visit. When he got here he called us and said he really wanted to hear what we were all about. That was a first for me. While teaching him he said that he was very confused and starting telling us all about his life and i remember vividly that the thought that went through my mind several times as i struggle to focus and listen, which has always been an inward battle, was the thought, "this guys sits really wierd." He continued explaining his interesting story and sitting uniquely until he realized the two utah bubble boys in front of him just were not getting it, so he came right out and said it. Turns out hes gay. That was a first for me. Explains the sitting uniqueness. He was really nice and got a lot of stuff to think about and is actually going to keep learning in england. We will see how that goes down.

Not long after this experience, which caused us to feel a little strange, as you can probably imagine, the Lord sent 3 californian girls to get us back in line. We were waiting for an investigator so we couldnt really escape anywhere and they came to visit the temple so it is not like we could avoid it either. I think it is sufficient to sum up that whole awkward talking experience by saying that i had no idea what to do with my hands while talking to them. Apparently a temple missionary was supervising the activity and she was proud of my brave effort and ensured me i would figure it out someday.

Not long after this experience, which caused us to feel a little strange, as you can probably imagine, the Lord sent Danny, one of our sweet investigators to cheer me up. He was in awe when he realized that we had real names. When i told him mine he tried it out a couple of time (destroying it like they always do) and said, "your name sound like a transformer." That was a first for me.

Not long after this experience, which caused me to feel awesome, as you can probably imagine, i was awkwardly caught up in my first profession of love from one of the young women in the ward. It was wierd. I am going to have to write the whole experience down somewhere because it would make great material for a soap opera. She has helped us a lot with some of the investigators we have of her age, you know, befriending and what not. After sacrament meeting was over she just walked up, let it all out, told me she couldnt work with me anymore, and went on her way, Nothing you learn in Preach my Gospel prepares you for that.

Not long after this experience, which caused us to feel a little strange, as you can probably imagine, we saw a lizard. It was so sweet! We were coming home at the end of the day and there it was, just hanging out on the fence. I chased it for a while and then caught it. We were going to give it as a gift to the new missionary that we live with (he is actually dating a girl from MV that graduated with Jason.), but as i was triamphuntly gitting off the ground with my lizard (it was quite the tussle), my pen fell out of my pocket, and as i went down to get it the lizard slipped out of my hand and started crawling up my arm. That freaked me out so of course i screamed and dropped the lizard. As i chased it again i almost got it and then everything fell out of my pocket, as always happens to me, and it got away.

Not long after this experience, which caused us to feel a little strange, as you can probably imagine, we went to work for what was supposed to be an awesome day. We got a call at the last minute changing a few of our plans but it was no big deal. When we got to the first appointment, it turns out the guy was a bum so we had to change plans. Because of the plan change we ended up with an awkward window of time. Too little to follow through with what we had for a back up plan, and just wandering would be useless. So we made a choice. Contact as far as we could up a street towards the next appointment and catch a bus if we were not going to make it on time. We started out on the course that this silly man who showed tons of promise had put us on. Immediately i saw a man organizing his bags from the shopping trip he just had and thought we should offer to help him. I have loved doing this my whole mission, mostly just because it is way fun to offer my companions help, but also because they never say yes. We feel good for trying and we dont even get tired because we dont do anything. Win win, with just a little loss in the middle. Well, i kind of brushed off the thought because there were a ton of other people we could talk to and we were a little down on our goal for contacts. Luckily the Lord loves to give second chances, (at times i even feel like a walking second chance (not sure what that means but it is true)) because i turned after walking around a kid, tripping, and dodging an old man to see the very same guy walking right next to me with all of his bags. I gave in and offered help. He accepted. That was a first for me. We started talking and he was super cool. He even went so far as saying that he had never met anyone like us before. He then asked who we were. After explaning a bit he kind of got quiet for a second and said, "my wife and i have been looking for a church to go to for a long time." He asked if we were allowed to accept a drink from him. If there is one thing i have learned on my mission it is to always say yes to everything that gets us to have more one on one time with them and even moreso allows them to serve us. He served us and we met his wife and his two apartment mates. They are all amazing. When we had to leave he said he would walk us out. He not only walked us out, but walked with us almost all the way to the church. He said that ever since he got here he had been really sad and was looking for something he didnt even understand. He said that for the first time he had felt it with us.

It is incredible how much the Lord is in charge.

Hugs and kisses,

Elder Carr-emelito

read this 16 June 2010

2010-07-01T14:23:00.001-07:00

Wow, there are a lot of things going on over there. Sometimes i forget that while i am here you are all still living your lives. I have a feeling i will hit a greater culture shock getting home then when i got here.

Justin, congratulations on ending your life. Farewell my friend. You will be missed.

Bozzy too, huh? Hmm. Well, maybe Jason and I can share friends for a while until i find new ones cuz the currents are dropping like flies.

Elder Jackson is gone. This was my first experience with a dying missionary. Wierd. I have always had really young companions, and i just got another one so i think i got my first and last taste of that. Well, that is, until the first hand experience, Dah!

Subject change.

Nothing is coming to mind.

Dang. I will just keep going with this i guess. His last pday was fun. We went and catered for the Hermana party. Not sure how we got pulled into that, but I just followed my comp and there we were. All the hermanas in the mission and us serving them cake. It was wierd. I realized somthing while i stood afar off and stared. They are all really old. Like, all of them are older than me. Even the new ones. And of course, as this thought came fluttering through my mind it immediately slipped straight down and out of my mouth. That didnt help the case. I got reprimanded by some, others took it better. I think the ones who took it better were probably staring right back thinking how young i was, but thanks to their filter had no problemas. After that we went on over to the main event which was a big combined meal with a ton of missionaries, members, and investigators from the area that Elder Jackson spent a year in. An appropriate desire. Plus, they served us Ceviche. Amazing. I love mooching off of other missionaries connections.

As for the other areas that i have gotten to serve in, i will give you a simple run down.

Azuqueca. A little town that has one of the strongest wards in spain. Apparently a ton of spanish members a long time ago got up and moved to the same street in the same town because they were all super BFF's. I felt like i was in utah. People kept honking at us, giving us rides, feeding us. Wow. I forgot my camera there.

Torrejon. A significantly bigger town which was actually the beginnings of the church in spain becasue of the air base. Highlights: Serving with Elder Gomez from Guatemala- it was cool since Missy and Brad both lived there so we had an awesome connection (honestly, i am not even sure they went there or what happened, but faked my way through that pretty well. It has been so long i cant ever remember. I think that is actually the greatest skill i have gained on the mission, the ability to talk about any subject for at least 5 minutes and sound like a know what i am talking about.) Plus, we taught an 70 year old cuban man with a baptismal date. That was a treat. He invited me to the party he will be holding in the autumn to celebrate the 3 year anniversary of the death of castro. I accepted. I forgot my hymn book there.

Barrio 2 (ventas). Assistants area. Golden. Huge streets, full of people. Humble as can be. Every missionaries dream.

So far the running surprise i have received in the feedback of the exchange has been the energy. Kind of a hyper missionary movement going on. We will see what kind of impact it will have. Im not too good at the other stuff, so i dont worry about it, i just try to always share two of my favorite things, energy and uniqueness. Sometimes it is received well... The assistant i went on exchanges with wrote down on the exchange paper thingy, "you definitely have your own style of doing things..." Not sure how to take that. Dont really care.

Hmm I just reread the paragraph and it could me taken in many different ways. Hah, interperet as you may.

My new companions name is Elder Middleton. Sandy utah. Year in the mission. Pure blooded pueblo punk. There is excitement in the air.

Sorry, gotta run.

Elder Carr-emelito

184, im nothing!

remember me! 9 June 2010

2010-07-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

I got both packages this week. You guys rock. Thank you so much susan and mom (the rest of you are dead to me). Make sure you give Kris a huge kiss right on the face for me. That was super nice of her to do that and she even got harrased by an old spaniard on her way to complete her mission. That is what i call courage and determination.

I have to apologize, i have absolutely no time. It is my companions last Pday and i want to make sure it is his best. Sorry to cut you short, but he is already starting to finally realize he is going home. For example, he just turned to me and told me "oh man, i dont get to be elder jackson anymore.... gregory is a stupid name." You see what i am talking about? I guess the fact that it is now easier to just wait and tell him in person rather than write him is really making it all sink in. In fact, i think i am going to tell him that. Done. That didnt help.

Some quick cool milestones. This may not mean alot to anyone, but it is absolutly incredible for this mission. We hit the 100 baptism mark as a mission. It is incredible the things that are happening. We have half the missionaries, and there are even 40 baptismal dates right now. There are a lot of amazing things happening. Wow. Like i said, big deal for us. Probably almost as good as Karston`s weekly numbers...

I will quickly tell you of one sweet happening from this week. Stephanie, the girl we started teaching last week invited us to her house to teach her. We ended up teaching her and her mom. It was amazing. Her mom lost a child about 20 years ago and was a total wreck, but thanks to some members that got her involved in the church, she was able to keep moving forward. She was going to be baptized there but her husband would not let her. She then left to spain and lost contact with the church. Now her daughtered wandered into the same church and she is getting another chance. When we went in to teach them the second time i went ahead and told them that at the end of the lesson we would invite them to be baptized. We taught them and then we invited them like we said. I will never forget what she said, "Elder, I have waited enough time." So she is scheduled to be baptized with her daughter on the 10th of july. Prayers prayers prayers.

So in the last week i have only worked 2 days in my area because i went and worked in Ventas, Torrejon, Azuqueca, and Alcala. I wish i had more time to tell you about them cuz they were sweet. Guess i will just tell you with you come and get me. HAH! Beat you to the punch!

Love,

Elder SKy

visa shmisha Wed 2 June 2010

2010-07-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

Speaking of office stuff... Well, i realized now that we were not talking about any office stuff, but now we are so take this: the mission office is moving on the 14 of june. Plan accordingly! that is where all the letters and stuff get sent to.

Spain Madrid Mission
Calle Fuerteventura 4, 2º, Oficina 8-B
San Sebastian de los Reyes
28703 Madrid

Finally! On to the real stuff.

This last week was a biggie. Super biggie. I think the coolest of all was the baptism this last saturday. Surprise! Dont worry, it was for me too. I dont know if she told you, Mom, but Alejandra decided to get baptized. This was a huge miracle condsidering there are no longer missionaries in Talavera. She finally decided that she had had enough, quit her job, went to church, made the decision and made it happen. We got to hold the service in the stake center (our church) as a double service with the outlanders (the elders with a car that cover all the pueblos that no longer have missionaries, also not really called outlanders, that is just my name for them). It was unbelieveable. Okay, so this is why it was such a big deal. First of all, Alejandra was the first proressing investigator i ever had on the mission. So that was really cool. But even more meaningful, to me at least, was the fact that it came from Talavera. When i left on the mission i remember hearing alot about the importance of setting goals. To be honest i had no idea what to expect on the mission and even moreso in spain so i avoided the numbers (which are lame to me anyway) and just set the goal to make a difference in every area i served in, or in other words, baptize in every area. I never cared how much, i knew i would work hard, but i just wanted that to be my vision. Well, as you know, it didnt happen. Elder Carr had to be humbled first. And as you may be aware, it took a whole year (and the humbling never really happened, the tender mercies jsut started kicking in). My goal and dream was shattered before i even had a chance to get going. Well, the church is true, and i am one of Heavenly Father's favorite children so i got another chance. Talavera was taken care of, and not to mention it happened in such a way that it is a killer reminder that it has nothing to do with me, for heaven's sake i wasnt even there! (looks like the whole humbling thing is still in effect, at least a little bit) And the cherry on top of my bubbly tender mercy mountain: I got sent back to my first area. It is soooooo sweet!

Okay, time is short. Sorry, lots of silly extra tasks we have to do all the time.

On thursday Elder Caussé came to visit and train all of the bishoprics and auxiliary leaders in Madrid. He is actually the only member of the area presidency that has not done a mission tour yet so he went ahead and set his own appointment with the president and set up a surprise leader council. That was pretty legit. 10 missionaries, President Watkins and Elder Caussé sitting together in the high council room for 4 hours just getting the spiritual throw down. Even though my hind quarters fell asleep like 100 times it was a very cool conference. He just gave us the run down on the european vision and then let us ask questions for the rest of the time. Lots of big changes in store.

AAH!, really fast, we have this investigator named Stephanie who is awesome. I will tell more about her in the coming weeks because she is awesome. She is a 17 year old girl who came to church on her own one day and now she is one of the best ever. So, we had an appointment with her for last saturday and the member we set up to come with us stood us up at the last second so we were stuck in a pickle. Luckily, we consumed the pickle and found our way out of the crisis. We are always on temple square and since the MTC is right there we occasionally run into the missionaries staying there. We saw two sisters walking around and had the crazy idea to have them help us with the lesson since we cant teach single women. We called president and he gave us the go ahead so we had one of the coolest lessons ever. They both had about 2 weeks in the mtc and were totally spiritual powerhouses. THeir spanish was terrible, but honestly, it made no difference. It was cool to see at the end that some of the questions and prayers they had expressed were answered, stephanie loved it, and everything worked out in time for the next appointment. It was a way cool experience and i am really sorry i cant tell anymore about it.

I love you,

Elder SKy

ps i sent you a picture with me and franco.

When two elephants meet to fight, the earth suffers... 26 May 2010

2010-06-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

The subject was brought up by an interesting experience. In the ward there is an awesome nigerian family. They recently made me part of their family tribe. We even celebrated our naming ceremony yesterday. My new Bening City name is Osasu Mwen (pronounced VEH) meaning "God guides me". They are so nuts, you are going to have to meet them when you come. In fact, i already let it slip that you are coming to pick me up and they are counting the days until they get to meet you. They figure that you are a lot like me and that excites them. So much in fact that the head of the family said that he was going to prepare himself for the encounter because "when two elephants meet to fight, the earth suffers". So plan on it. I bet i could even get you all hooked up with your own names.

Quick side note. As we ended the naming ceremony Felix, the head of the family, explained the importance of having a name. It was supasweet. He started talking about how we usually act like the name that we have. It is the thing we hear more than anything so it influences us a ton. He then compared it to the importance of taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ. People should be able to recognize us for the name we have taken upon ourselves. It was way cool because he did it all in his wild nigerian preacher voice. Im currently working a lot on my wild nigerian preacher voice. I have taken the liberty of adding that to the list of things i want to be when i grow up.

So you asked why the other leaders or considered as greasers in my mind? (yep, thats right, i am actually answering a question, feel free to freak) ((double side note: I just accidentally burped really loud. Dont worry though, there is only one other guy in here other than us and my companion took the liberty of being embarassed for me.)) So, as for that, it has everything to do with the movie grease. Naturally they are who they are. The intimidating group of rough necks that have perfect hair and cars. They just fall into place. And its not that i consider myself to be the girl... so maybe i do at times, always, but thats no big deal, right? Okay, im confused on many different levels, lets move on.

Maybe i should just stick to ignoring most of your questions like usual.

Mom, you are such a rebel! I cant wait to see how we work out this whole package thing. Is she planning on visiting the temple? she can just leave it with us there or with somebody around. It will work its way to me somehow.

Okay, im just gonna start popping in some of the happenings of that last couple weeks in no specific order. Sorry for cutting you short last week, i will do my best to get you up to speed. The most important stuff has all played out a bit more so it is even better and more juicy.

First things first, i got to do a baptismal challenge for a cuban last week! The greatest thing i can tell you about the whole experience can be properly expressed in the form of a joke: why do cubans always have such short hair? Because when they get to the barber shop they always say, "cortame el pelo, chico." If you dont get it, ask mom. There you have it, he was elect.

I am going to go ahead and answer your question before you even ask it- No that joke was not part of the interview, it just came to mind right now when i was recalling the experience. He was golden, not much more about it. It was very fun.

I will now share the wonders of Wilson. Wilson is a colombian that we are currently teaching. He is so so so so saweeeet. When we first taught him about praying on his own about the things we had shared he asked us if we could do a fast together so he could get an answer... yeah, no joke. Of course we said yes (while or stomaches screamed NO!) and he felt really good about it. After that whole experience we went on to have another experience, a first for me, at the young single adult family night. That was a treat. Great crowd for nearly the whole time, then it happened... I thought it was a myth or urban legend of sorts, but it happened. I had always heard of people who attends stuff like this that are in no way eligible to be there. You know, the old creepy dudes. Well, these ones blew me away. Like 5 old, and we are talking old, canes and everything, came waltsing (more of a waltz waddle) on in like they owned the place! They didnt fool me with their big smiles and huge hearts, i knew deep down they were pure evil. They hung out in the bag just sucking the youth out of the room with their old person charm. Then the worst part of all- Wilson left to use the restroom for a moment so we stayed to mingle. He didnt come back for a while so i went to investigate. I didnt believe my eyes. He was in the middle of the geyser group talking to them and being nice. I turned to my companion and let him know we were ruined, he was mixing in with the entirely wrong crowd. He didnt seem to see the danger, but it was real. He made it out alive thanks to their need to go home to put their teeth in water. i dont know how many more close calls we can handle. Since then Wilson has done really well. He is a little scared of his own capacities to stay strong after baptism (awesome doubt), but there is some serious progression and promise.

Next you will hear of Leonardo and Jenny. Also from colombia. They are breathtakingly perfect. They are a young MARRIED couple that are here studying. As elder jackson put it, "I have been waiting to find a family like this my whole mission." They are just soaking everything up. It is hard to explain. They just get it. The best part of all is the find. We had set out for what was to be the best day so far this transfer. THe whole evening was filled with super sure appointments. Well, we went from appointment to appointment to find out that somebody forgot to tell the people we were supposed to teach how awesome the day was going to be because they all failed on us. AFter each fail, we set off to work the area and follow the plans. They all failed so effectively, in fact, that we had to stop to decide what we wanted to do. One of the goals we have is to never wander around. Even if that is all we have to do, we will at least plan to wander so it is not just us doing the wandering, but we can at least let the Lord in on it. So this is the best part. I was looking back and i realized that everytime we ran into a failed lesson, we made a move to another place. Each place we went to then led us to another place and another plan. Had we changed one plan, we would have ended up in an entirely different place. This is what i love about this work. The importance of the individual in the sight of God. We ended up on a street we are not usually on all because of hte chain of plans we had carried out. We saw them, felt it, talked to them, and they are incredible. In one lesson they were telling us about how many missionaries they have seen in their lives, it was actually impressive te hear. Then Jenny asked me why we talked to them. That wasnt the kicker, it came when she asked me why none of the others had ever talked to her and her husband. That one hit me to the core. MAde me rethink things a bit. Good one to dwell on.

Okay, i am out of time, sorry.

loves,

Elder Sky

192ish

OMG, i love castles 19 May 2010

2010-06-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

So apparently i made it in with the greasers (what i now call the really high up mission leadership, or in other words, those who have cars) because we got an invite at the last minute to go visit another caslte palace place. It was a very different experience. But before i get into that i would like to give you a briefing.

We just barely got back from our northern madrid excursion (add El Escorial, Segovia, Manzanares, and Valle de los Caidos to the visit list) and are dunzo for time. Nothing new i know, but i thought at the very least i would let you know. THis way you have an idea as to why this has to be so shor and vague. Also, i forgot my planner, so i dont have any of the funner more specific details of the week, which i promise to give next week in a super edition weekly email home. Prepare yoursleves because i know i will be preparing my fingers at the very least for the power surge they are going to have to excerpt the next time i am here. I have come to create a great alter ego for the short hour we spend during emails. I feel like i am on my throne just feeding you all my thoughts and.... Why is it that when i have the least amount of time i have the most distractions and random thoughts fly into my fingers? Usually i just delete them, but to save this email from being super short, i am going to leave it.

So back to the trip. We visited a place called La Granja. It was very much like Aranjuez. Actually, that kind of added to the trip. I have seen Aranjuez palace a bunch of times since there is not that much else to do down there and so i kind of know what to expect. Well, there was a really long silence in one of the rooms where the ancient carpetry was hung on the wall for display, and seeing as me and silence have never really gotten along, i kind of pushed myslef into the little group of mission leaders and began to describe the reason the carpets were on the walls. It all consisted mainly of the great spanish winds gust of 1612 that took the entire palace framework and threw it on its side, leaving the carpeted floor as the north wall. They made a great mistake of listening to me, so as you can imagine, it continued for the entire tour. Mostly by their request, i assure you. This was when i realized that my mission experience has been very very different from all of theirs. It was funny to see them react to me, i felt like a bacteria. It was like there was this part of them that wanted to take part in all of it and have fun, but there was this strange impediment, unknown to me, that was holding them back and causing them to be embarassed by me on several different occasions. Can you imagine that? Wierd. There was even a room portraying the clocks of the royal dining room which all happened to be of african statues carrying the clock part on their backs and heads. A little racy, and they almost got me, but then i remembered that when the african people discovered time, they used their superior hunter gatherer skills to steal it from the english that had settled there. These were natrually depictions of that very occruence. That is clearly a lie, but that is how it went down for nearly 2 hours. The greasers are an interesting group. Apparently they have always done little outings like this, so maybe i will either get to see more cool stuff, or stop getting invited. Both sound good to me.

Sorry if this is a wierd email, but like i said, we are out of time, i am plannerless, and my companion is waiting by the door.

I love you dearly, i am healthy, the work is exploding, and you will hear all about all of it next week.

Elder Sky

Weekly email: version number two 12 May 2010

2010-06-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

Well, turns out that i just forgot to click send last week. Hmm... I dont wanna talk about it. Ha, my bad. Dont act suprised. I am just surprised it is the first time it has ever happened. I deserve a prize.

Speaking of prizes, If that package is still waiting to be send, i would like to request some beef jerky. Any kind. The other day somebody called somebody else a jerk and it really made me have a killer craving.

Speaking of killer, our neighbor kids are pretty killer. Apparently either them or their parents dont really like us that much. We were walking out of the building the other day and this little herd of spanish chillins came running after us yelling. I was just about ready to bust some skulls but they stopped before they got to us. Their apparent leader spoke up and said two words, "Sois ladrones." Since that mishap i have been planning my attack to take over as the herds new alpha elder. So far they really like the invisible weapon battles i ensue with them whenever they cross our path on the way home. I would rather be a warrior than a thief.

Speaking of thieves, the Elders we live with are theives. This whole whitewash thing has been quite the interesting little persuit. We practically live out of our area book. Our big step has been trying to meet all the investigators we recieved from all the other areas. Well, apparently there was once in particular who was really good. We are talking way good. He is practically already dripping with baptismal water. So we finally got in contact with him the other day, set up an appointment and were set and ready to go. We ended up having to leave early to go meet him, funny thing was, the elders we live with, who work in the other ward, also had to leave early to teach a lesson. To make a long story short, we had both set up the same lesson and showed up for the same person. Turns out he moved the week before to the other ward and nobody told us or updated anything. I was wondering why he was so confused when we called and asked if we could meet with him. Moral of the story: the other elders are theives. There is a powerful rivalry going on since we both meet in the temple chapel.

Speaking of the temple, we got a call the other day as we were leaving the apartment from the temple patron telling us there were 15 non-members wanting a temple tour. The turned out to be an awesome group of mentally hadicap youth from andalucia. It was one of the funnest things i have ever done. When i told them that i have ancestors from andalucia they totally freaked and loved me. The tour was one of the most spiritually irreverent tours ever. It is hard to explain. I realized this had to be special and i wanted to make sure they had a good time and still felt the impact of it all. They loved it. I just gave them all the energy i had. Stuff like this really makes an impact on what i am wanting my future to contain.

Speaking of impacts, i think a pretty big impact was made at the mission council on monday. It pretty much just consists of all the big shots and me getting together to talk about the mission and present concerns and possible workshops for the mission. It was really boring. I kept my cool pretty much the whole time. Well, until we got to the complaints part. I didnt bring anything up, but somebody else said something about all the stuff we fit into the zone conferences and then president asked if we like what was happening in zone conference. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement, except me. I even had a "nope" slip out. Dont worry, it was followed quickly by a soft "oops" when all the heads turned toward me in terror. President asked me why so told him that it was a neat idea but it was really boring and i was tired of hearing from the same people in ever conference. He asked me to expound and some monster inside of me that i didnt even know was there excaped from its cage. It pretty much consisted of the fact that there are a lot of missionaries who get a lot from the zone conference, but they would honestly learn form anything because they show up prepared and seeking something. I felt that we needed to focus more on those who showed up just because they had to, and hated every minute of it. Heck, i had been to a conference or two with that in mind. Luckily i matured out of it, but honestly there are other things i would still rather do. President is so cool to put up with Bratz like me. He really switched the focus of the conference after that. It was cool.

Speaking of cool, we just got back from the wax museum. It was really wierd, but super sweet. They had a ton of spain specific things. Like all the big shot rulers of spain over the last 2000 years, tons of culture specific scenes, and even some pretty gross stuff, like the history of crime and torture in ancient spain. Way wierd. Way fun.

Speaking of way, i thought jason would be interested to know my plant-children are doing way good. Treeancum is growing well. Lion and jeff are still fighting. I need to figure out the watering schedule for them a bit better. I discovered small plant number three in the kitchen closet the other day and i am nursing him back to health.

Speaking of health, i am healthy and strong. Things are happy and going. I will try to get the pictures to you by next week for sure, mom. Sorry for the delay.

Loves,

Elder Sky

Are you ready? 5 May 2010

2010-06-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

So we finally found this legendary cultural center that gives free internet, but it took us about an hour and a half to find it, so i am a bit rushed at the moment. Luckily (and sadly) there are no big stories to tell, just humongous events.

So, remember how i was in Barrio 1 just loving life and thinking i was going to be ending my mission there? Yeah, about that... That is not going to happen anymore. We got a call on thursday telling us that they were going to remerge the areas and that only Elder Wallace was not supposed to buy his monthly metro pass. Naturally it all became clear that the brick wallace was to be outcasted to far off pueblo and that my companion, Elder Kay, would end up becoming the companion of the Barrio 5 elders that were with us. We knew one of them were leaving so we just figured they would do the most logical thing because there was no way that i would leave. Well, we were wrong. Apparently President got tired of all the huge changes and is just throwing darts at a map to figure out where to send us. Or at least that is the current theory.

They called saturday with the news and indeed Elder Wallace was to be outcasted. In fact he is so far outcasted that he will now become a missionary of the newly reorganized malaga mission. It was funny. We laughed.

Sadly, that is not all that they shared. I was about to hang up and he said that there was one more change. He told me i was out. It was not funny. I cried.

Shut up, Karston.

So we got the meeting, and it was a seious meeting. Just about the whole mission changed. There were a lot of missionaries going home and only 1 coming in. Plus, all the leadership and just like that had to be set in stone before the mission changes in July. So with how they do it now, we sat down in the meeting and they started announceing the areas and the companionships. Everyone laughed when they announced mine. I cried.

Shut up, Jason.

Due to all the holes and the prospected changes that were coming. They formed a new zone out of the previous Temple and Alcala zones. It is now known and Madrid Este. On top of that they merged the three Barrio 6 areas into one big kahuna of an area. Then they set to work to figure out who would be able to handle the job. Their first obvious choice was an easy one: Elder Action Jackson (as i like to call him). Ex-ZL, Ex-AP, current superstar. Done. Now, who do you think would be a good companion? This is when that one elder with a good sense of humor came in and said, "hey, we should give him Elder Carr." As you know, an idea like that is so absurd that everyone laughs and lets it just die away as quickly as it came up. Well, a mistake was made. Someone in the room thought that comment was serious and made it happen. I dont know who it was, but if i did.... So here i am. Totally lost and totally clueless. Hermana Watkins asked what i was thinking of doing so i told her that i only know how to do one thing well, and that is to be Elder Carr, so i will start with that and see what happens. It is what i have been doing so far and it hasnt been too bad. The white was is super hilarious. We get lost so much. We even have our own phones. Luckily, either nobody trusts me yet or nobody really believes it happened so they never call my phone, but it is kind of fun feeling important. I will hopefully figure this stuff out soon. Our first assignment is to make a workshop for the mission to go through at zone conference. It is going to rock. All the ones that they have done my whole mission have been super sucky. Way boring. This one is going to blow their socks off. We dont know how to do it yet, but my companion has given me free reign on the brainstorming of ideas. That is all i need. They might not learn anthing usefull, but they will remember!

So here i am. You might want to start sending letters to the mission again, i dont know our address yet but i will let you know when i do. My new number is 627486590. I have my own phone now so you can call whenever you want. I will keep planning on 930 for now.

Sorry about the scantyness of the email. As you can imagine, things are little hectic right now. I thought a whitewash was just a special tricks to turn your garments super white.

That comment may be evidence enough of my capacities.

Pray for those that have to put up with me, they will need it.

Love,

Elder Sky

its a hot one 28 Apr 2010

2010-05-08T08:29:00.001-07:00

Has the heat hit over there yet? This last week has been a scorcher. I was thinking about it and i am really stoked to get to have a non-stop sauna on the home stretch to burn off some of the cushion i have built up. You know, pross-cushion. Makes sitting and walking through big crowds a lot less painful.

I will get you the pictures of my john the beloved impression next week.

Call time, whoo! My companion is getting his call at 700pm our time. That stands unconfirmed. He has a really big family and we want to allow for some buffer so i was thinking 900 or 930 my time. If that gets in the way of church you could even push as far as 1000ish. We go to bed at 1130. So let me know which works for you. They are all good with me. It is the same number as Christmas = 627486512. As always i will let you figure out all the codage so i don't mess us up.

Wow, that pretty much does it for the business. Okay then, lets get to it.

I have two occurrences of note. I will tell them in reverse order. One comes from Saturday and the other from Sunday, and you were paying attention when you read the previous sentence that means i will start with Sunday and then tell Saturday's. "Why?" you might ask. Well, i am not really sure, the recent one is just fresher in my mind so i want to spit it out quick. Plus, i think the Saturday one is more of a mission nature, so we will count it as the grand finale. "Why is he expounding on such a useless explanation?" you might ask. Well, i would ask the same question. That is why we get along so well, you and i (consider the you to be the Spanish vosotros so that you can all be included).

Also may be for the lack of info i have to share this week. Sorry, it is rather warm in this cyber spot and i think my brain is sweating.

On to Sunday's happenings. We have been pushing way hard to work with the youth of the ward. They are super sweet but the adults treat them like crudloads (to be honest, i don't even know what that means, but it came to mind, and as always happens, what come to mind comes to pass). Our big focus right now is to find families and replacements (young dudes that will go on missions after baptism). We decided to go right ahead and start working with the possible ward replacements. We play soccer ever Saturday with them which is sweet. I have discovered how to deceive them into thinking i have talent. I do either one of two things. 1- play goalie. In Spain there is no public grass, so everyone plays on concrete mini courts. The goals are small and i am big. Whenever anyone wants to shoot a just gently lay myself down in front of them and make the save. That is the first mode of deceit. Next up. 2- move and flail arms a great deal while running. I have come to find that the added movement adds a great deal of trickery to one's level of play. These have both worked wonders for me and have gotten me into their circle of trust. Their families were pretty excited about that so they invited us over to eat empanadas. I refused to let them feed us empanadas unless they agreed to teach us how to make them. They agreed. It was awesome. I am know capable of making an Ecuadorian cheese empanada. Now for the point of all this. While we were finishing things up. The young men of the ward had successfully been gathered together and to pass the time pulled out the karaoke game they have for the xbox 360. When i walked in, cooking apron and all, they jokingly asked me to give it a try. I looked them in the eye and with the speed of a snake strike snatched the microphone right out of their hand. This game was legit, it rates you and everything. They carefully picked my song and set me loose. The performance left all of us breathless. They gave me complicated by Avril Lavigne so that was my excuse. But as for them, they saw me take that song out for a stroll through the park and even gave it a goodnight kiss, and not only that, the game gave me a big bang rating. I don't even know what that means, but apparently it was good because we have now become their idols. They kept saying, "Elder Carr, eres una maquina, tio." I love the Spanish culture. Had i known the path to the trust and heart of a Spanish joven was a simple stroll down karaoke lane i would have taken these kids out for a walk along time ago. So, the big news is that we are in. I will keep you posted.

On to Saturday's happenings. The week was a pretty rough one. It happens. No biggie. Saturday was one of the happiest days ever. I love how much Heavenly Father loves giving us presents. On Saturday there were 3 baptism in our ward. Cicilia, Guadalupe, and Luis. They are all so amazing. They are all such miracles. It seriously was one of the most amazing tender mercies of my life. As always happens, there are those feelings i have and i think just about every missionary has when things go tough about not being sure if I'm doing enough. You know, not really sure if there is that much change being made. It is a nasty temptation, but it happens. It was a tough week so i was getting some thoughts like that and i just had to keep telling myself, "Self, shut your mouth, you know you are working hard. Quit thinking it depends on you." Then Saturday came and it was incredible. Cicilia is a woman that was walking down a dark street on my first night in the area. I saw her and thought that it would be weird to talk to her because it would probably freak her out. We passed her and i just felt the strongest feeling of "who cares?" I stopped and ran back to get her. Funny because this actually freaked her out more. She tried to get away and almost ran, but as soon as had made my move toward i felt so strongly that she needed to hear something. So i told her that. She stopped, turned around slowly and i told her she needed this message. She asked me what it was and i just said the first thing that came to mind. I told her that she would be able be with her family forever. She started to cry and said that her husband had died just a little while ago. It was an incredible experience. It freaks me out to think what would have happen had i just kept walking. It is really sad to think of those i have let walk by. Pretty good motivator to do better. Guadalupe is her daughter and is now preparing to serve a mission. Luis is an old Spaniard man that was investigating the church 10 years ago but as soon as he started to get interested his father died and he lost contact with the church and God. 10 years later he ran into missionaries and asked them to pass by him, but they could never get in contact with him and lost his info. I was flipping through some old numbers we had lying around and i saw his name "Luis Conejo" and i thought, "that name is sweet, we have to go by him." Elder Wallace found his info and made it happen. He is so cool. Then when we got home that night i got word that a kid named Michael Alvarez had been baptized in Aranjuez. He had moved in while i was there and i got to get his info when his member family introduced him to us. He said he wasn't interested and i just called him a liar. When i asked why i told him that he didn't even know what he wasn't interested in. He was in the middle of making some big changes and he was looking for something more. We started teaching him and he totally got into it but had to leave because of a new job. Apparently he just got back and was baptized soon after. It was such an amazing weekend.

As you can imagine, life is good.

Stay true, don't turn blue, i love you,

Elder Sky

hey y'all 21 Apr 2010

2010-05-08T08:28:00.001-07:00

Hey Hey HEY!

Big week, good to hear from you, not much time to answer you.... welcome to the story of my preparation day email life.

Lets get going, time to fly through this sucker. There has been some serious coolness going on in the temporary homested.

We went to the temple today and then had a killer big soccer tournament with almost all the elders in madrid. Time is spent, it is my own fault, lets get running.

Wednesday: (is that really how you spell it? i dont even know anymore, AAH! no time to contemplate it!) Elder Wallace loves risk. Elder Bartholomew and I dont really care to much for it. We decided to go ahead and make his day by playing with him and created an unbreakable alliance against him so we could crush him and get on with our pday. Well, we started blasting the Enya, but things went a little different than we planned. We did indeed crush him, and it was a thorough crushing, but the addictive poison of possible world domination had already worked its way into our veins and we were done for. We got him out after about 30 min, but we ended (and by ended i mean i ended up throwing the board through the air yelling "second coming!") 3 hours later. We didnt even want to play.

Thursday: More on the workish spiritish side of things. We had some really amazing lesson experiences on this said thursday. We went by an investigator named Liliana who just had her husband walk out on her. We had a really great lesson and at the end the spirit said to my companion, "Elder, give her a blessing." We explained it, went through with it, and it was exactly what she needed. It was incredible. Later that night we got to have another visit with the Enrique and Elvira (the drunk guy that got hit in the heart by the book of mormon). He is a really sharp guy when he is sober. He read and loved it, but is having a hard time understanding everything because he is connecting things together a little too quickly. We were explaining the pattern of apostasy and in the middle of things the spirit said to me, "Elder, tell him his family can be together for ever." We did, and it was so humbling. While we were trying to explain everything and give him the logic of it all, just letting him know a simple truth is what brought the needed comfort. You could see it happen in his face. He just relaxed and understood that there is a bigger picture. He is doing amazing.

Friday will remain a mystery.... no time!

Saturday: So apparently a lot of the members are unhappy with us. In the past the elders had spent a lot more time in the houses of the members. We just dont see the point in going by every week. They are bothered because they like us a lot more than the other that were here, but think that we are being rude by not passing by every week. We have already given them the run down on it all. If they want to invite someone over, they can invite us too, but otherwise we have way too much on the blessing menu. There was one member in particular that actually denied a calling to be a ward missionary (huge step, the ward has never had ward missionaries) because he thought we didnt like him. We went by on this saturday and talked to him about it. We told him that we are very sorry that we have not had time to pass by on a regular basis. Then we felt that we should show him why. I love those feelings. We went ahead and taught him the message of the restauration. It was a really cool experience. He apologized to us at the end and said that he understood and thinks once every 3 to 4 weeks is more than enough.

Sunday has fallen in with Friday, so many secrets! AAAH! No time!

Monday: We had a lesson and there was a guy there that you could just tell his life was totally hammered, just like he was at the moment. It was really funny because he kept trying to sneak in to sit closer to us. When we would catch him and try to say something he would run away. At the end we knelt down to pray with the investigator and i opened my eyes and he was kneeling with us mirroring us exactly. It was cool to see how much he was craving to feel a bit of what i think he saw in us or felt with us.

Tuesday: Hma Watkins gave the coolest talk ever in zone conference. She talked about the damages of working too hard, or better said, being a perfectionist. If i had more time i would expound, but i dont, so i wont. Sorry.

Loves,

I will give you time for the mother-s day call next week,

Elder Sky

Our mission leader describes me as "Mimoso" 14 Apr 2010

2010-05-08T08:27:00.001-07:00

Sweetness,

You got the package, YES! Alright, here's the low down. All the little wrapped package thingys are for all of the nieces and nephews. They are Mardrid key chains. I dont remember how many i sent, but hopefully there are enough for everyone. If i remember right, i bought them pre-Kaysoughn mortality, so i think his is for you, mom. Everything else should be labeled or just for everyone in general.

As for the extension of my mission, I clearly remember the following statement,

"If you have the guts to extend your mission, even by only one day, don't bother coming back because i will be waiting here to kill you."
-Maria Carr

That may not be word for word, it has been a long time since you said that to me, but it is the general idea. My current thought, which has been my way of thinking for a while now, is that i will not ask for an extension, but if they ask me to extend i will tell them to call my mom and ask for permission. As of right now i am thinking that what is planned is what will go down.

As for the New Testament videos, i think it sounds awesome and hilarious. Awesome because they might let me be one of the dragons from the book of revelations. Hilarious because i was talking to a companion about a year ago and told him, "I am probably going to end up selling stuff door to door during the summer, but i would much rather be at home. So if i manag to get an acting job during the summer, i will stay home, and odds are that if my mom finds out about that she will make it happen, she is one of those universe commander people." Mom, you are so omniscient it scares me. I will try to get some mug shots off next week. Is there a deadline?

As for the russian accent, i think that is awesome. I am not really sure why Alejandra thinks that, but i can see a little bit of that. Most people say i sound dominican, but that is mostly due to the fact i am in the dominican capital of spain. I dont really try to have an accent, just speak clearly. Funny how all of it added up sound russian. When she told me that i just started saying DA whenever she asked me something. That is the extense of my russian expertise. Oh, and i flipped when she told me she is going to get baptized. It is going to be incredible, apparently she is going to travel all the way to madrid so that all of her missionaries can come and so i can baptize her. It was way humbling to hear that.

As for the last note i wrote in my planner for stuff to answer/tell you, i had a really cool interview with president this last week. Usually i always have one things in specific i need to ask him about or get helf on, but this time i had a million things. I am so caught up in working on tons of things right now that i had no idea where to start. When i go there he asked me a few questions about normal stuff than asked if he could help me with anything personally. The only thing i could think of was to get a priesthood blessing. The last time i got one in this style was from dad. It has been a long time, and i was kind of craving it. It was a really amazing experience. The interview consisted in pretty much just that blessing. The pàrt that hit me the deepest was that it felt like dad was doing it. Hard to describe. The priesthood is so real. It was exactly what i needed.

As for the work, there have been some amazing things happening. We found a man a few weeks ago in the street who was really cool. I was walking beside him and i looked over at the same time he did and he kind of jumped and dropped his sodas. It was funny, i didnt expect the baby face to have that kind of effect. We ended up talking for a while and he was really cool. Apparently his life was pretty dumpy, which explained a bit of he nervousness, and he was looking for something to calm him down. When he asked why we had been walking so fast i told him that we have something really important to share with as many people as we can and that we would love to share it with him too. He was pretty stoked. Well, the devil hates it when we teach people, so he made him really busy for a couple weeks. We ended up going by his house one day and teaching his roommate. He actually walked in towards the end, totally hammered, and we told him that we would be by the next morning so we could talk to him sober. He was there when we went by the next day, and it was one of the coolest lessons ever. I had never been so forward in a lesson. We sat down with him and he kind of vented about his life and how much he wants to fix things. After he got it out, we told him a bit about the atonement and how it was going to help him. I then asked him what he was willing to do to change, and when he said anything, i committed him to stop drinking that very day. He agreed. Then we told him that what we were going to share with him was why he would be able to do it, our message is a testament that God is still in control and still cares and would help him do this. After explaining about the importance of prayer following everything we share, i told him to open his heart be ready because when finished sharing the experience of Joseph Smith, we were going to kneel down and pray with him about it so he could know it was true. It was so cool how the whole direction of the first vision changed after that. He soaked it all up. When we prayed the spirit was so strong that he just hugged us forever after we said amen. We set up to pass by the next morning and we taught about the book of mormon and prophets. I had never been able to see it so clearly before, but it was like he was dying from thirst and we were just teaching out buckets of water. We set a baptismal date for the 22 may. He is so excited and so prepared. I have always heard people talk about elect people and very few times have i ever been able to see it. It is incredible to see. Most of the time, though, i dont agree with what most people say (caution: you are about to get an elder carr power point of view) that if they are elect it wont matter how we approach them or teach them. I think that is bullhunky. In my opinion, only the elect find the elect. I am in no way elect, but i know that i am trying pretty darn hard to be better than i was yesterday, everyday, and i know that the Lord is capable of making up for the rest. It was cool, we were working one day and there were a bunch of wierd things that came up. Contacts and failed lessons that are usually awkward or tough to go through that we just swallowed hard and did, and after doing them, he came to mind to pass by. It has always interested me to think about what i have had to do on my mission to earn a referral from the Spirit. It has never been easy, and i am super grateful for that.

Well, times up,

Loves,

Elder Sky

2010-05-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

In front of the castle

heeeeeeey, MOM! 7 Apr 2010

2010-05-08T08:23:00.002-07:00

Way cool link to Jason's video. Didnt sound like him singing. Didnt really look like him. Sounded like the screams of love and affection drowned out the usual screams of pain and terror. Either that was an amazing editing job or i really have been gone as long as everyone keeps trying to tell me.

Twas cool.

I got your little package, it was gool (combination between great and cool (maybe it should be grool but that sounds gross)) and perfect. Thank you so much!

Knowing you, you have probably already disconnected from the media filtration, but i am still curious. What do you think about all this that is going on under the care of papa obama? Being in an already socialist country gives a twisted perspective. Is everyone as clueless there as they are here? I get worried when the anti yanks get excited. I smile and nod at most the stuff. It is really comforting to know that my parents were inspired to by a plot of land to build their pre second coming cabin in. We will have a lot to talk about when i get back. I dont really care about the info as much as how you feel about it. I guess i am just seeking some satisfaction to know that the family is still well rooted. Or even better, you could just ignore this strange tangent. I probably would.

Well, as for me, today has already been one of the coolest days ever. We took a trip up to Segovia, and that is my new favorite place. We went with some missionaries who knew their way around and it was amazing. It had everything. Cave diving, old stuff, A CASTLE, more old stuff, GRASS, a few more old things, and an all you can eat buffet. I will try to send some pictures of it so you can get a little taste in your mouth, my companion has one of those adaptor dealies.

Well, as for the week, i will just have to run through some of the experiences. Consider it to be a free sample friday in the costco of memories that make up my week.

We went by a less active member who we found in the street the other day. Whenever people yell at me, i immediately go talk to them. He yelled at us, "¡Elderes de Dios!" I flipped around and yelled back, "¿How in the world do you know so much about us while we know nothing about you? Lets fix that." One thing led to another and next thing you know we are praying in the street and walking away with an appointment for the next day. Turns out he is a lot more less active than i had begun to think. When we got there is smelled strongly of that one free concert i went to at the venue. Turns out he was smoking marijuana while watching "A Walk to Remember." I will let you guess which one surprised me the most. We started trying to figure out how to help him, but he was pretty baked. I didnt want to waste all of our effort, so i grabbed a picture of his son and shoved it in his face. I told him that he had to baptize him when he turns 8. From then on the things made more sense to him.

I ran into the MTC president who just got here a couple months ago. I spoke to him in Spanish because we had an investigator with us at the time. He asked me where i was from and i told him Orem. He then said, "no, where are you from." He thought i was from Spain. It was funny. You should of seen his face when i spoke to him in english.

Conference was off the hizzy. I dont even know what the hizzy is, but if there is such a thing, it would definitely be off it. The sattelite got messed up for priesthood session so we had to watch it in spanish, which means i zone out a lot more. Plus, we missed the last session as always. But even in spite of that, it was really cool. Missy, didnt you think it was cool that the whole conference was directed at you? Tons of stuff about new families and raising your kids. Needless to say, some missionaries may have liked that a little too much. Maybe could include myself in that one. Ha, just kidding, girls still freak me out. Anyways, dad mentioned he wanted to hear about stuff i have learned from studies and stuff. I will see if i can make something out of the next session of emails. I will look through my notes.

One of the coolest things though was seeing everyone. In between sessions everyone just hangs out and eats on temple square. All of my pueblo families made it up. It was incredible. Talavera and Aranjuez. I saw people i have not seen in years. Okay, that is a little dramatic, but it felt like a long time.

We ran into the drunk the other day. Not anything new. He did manage to make it different though. He introduced himself as Jesus Christ to get the party started. Then he started yelling that we were here to impregnate all the innocent women of Spain. I wasnt really sure how to react to that one, Preach my Gospel doesnt say anything about that. As he walked away ranting, i turned to the spaniard man next to me who had stopped to enjoy the show and said, "That is amazing. I had no idea Jesus was peruvian, i thought he was born in jerusalem. And i am not gonna lie, i expected a bit more..." He appreciated that.

Okay, this will be a short one, i want to try to make this whole picture thing work. Wish me luck.... in the past tense since i will have already succeeded/failed by the time you get this.

Loves,

Elder Sky

88 kilograms

PS Tell Brielle i visited a real castle. One of the pictures of me in the cave is with my companion, elder kay. I am a rare breed of cave cougar in case you couldnt tell.

hey 31 Mar 2010

2010-05-08T08:23:00.001-07:00

Some cool happenings this week. Seriously, i am not even pulling your leg this time. Well, not that i have ever pulled your leg before, but I'm for sure not pulling anything this time. Gosh, i am digging a hole....

So there are whispers in the wind of girls who want to marry me? I don't believe it. Where are the fruits of this outrageous claim? Where are the scented letters? Where are the pink mystery packages? Where's my ego? I have only ever gotten a smelly pillow case in the mail, and that was from Mica so that doesn't count. She's family. And that was stolen.

Side note: I am right now wearing a luminescent green tie that we made this morning out of duct tape. Thank you pseuzyn.

We now have 4 elders and 2 sisters in the ward, with six 6 total in the apartment. It is a blast. We got to experience some way cool new stuff. For example, language study band practice. I currently play the drums, which consists of 3 bowls, a Tupperware, a stapler, and of course, the area book to get a good base line. We are hoping to hit it big in the ward talent show next week. Also cool, we were coming home the other day after a ward missionary dinner, which went a little long. We were in the metro and there were a lot of weirdos, as always. We had the two sisters in the middle, and four of us in black suits creating a power perimeter. After we got mother goose to the nest, we went ahead and called it a day. Playing secret service really takes it out of ya.

We got to have another combined lunch the other on the tenth floor of a sweet apartment building. I have been lugging around extra paper for a good while now, and finally we got to put it to use. After having a 10 floor paper airplane throwing activity, we went ahead and let the sisters teach their lesson. I dont know what has been going on lately, but i have been feeling really in your face, like way more than usual if you can believe it. There was a nonmember that had just been hovering the whole lesson. She was way nice, but nobody was making a move. So after the sisters finished their lesson about prayer, which was really good, i asked them if they had an extra book of Mormon. They pulled it out and gave it to her. This has happened a lot before, but the thing i thought was cool was the feeling i had before. I felt so sad that she had no idea what the heck we were doing there or why we were there. It was like a huge craving for her to know. I told her that it was all in the book, and what she had just heard about prayer would make her just as sure as us. It was a really cool experience. So i just told her the sisters would get her info after we said a prayer to end and would tell her more. She is doing really well, and it was really cool to get to the feel that perspective. It has been like that for a long time now. I wish i could have hit this point sooner, but i wont waste time wishing and just make up for it.

Last story. We got home, on time for once, and opened up the planners to make some calls. We have gotten a few hundred names in the past couple weeks so we are really trying to cycle through them, but the time is against us. I scanned down, and there was one name in particular that stuck out. It was interesting because we had tried calling a couple times and she had never answered. I was thinking it but i just kind of automatically put the number in and called. The lady who answered was crying along with her baby in the background. All she could manage to say was to come now. So we said goodbye to being home on time, and shot out the door. We got there and it turns out her husband had come home drunk and was mad because she didn't want to let him hold the baby, and just when we called, he was about to try to take the baby, and she told him it was the cops so he backed off. It was sketchy, usually a situation i would not want to get caught up in, but i felt totally at peace, plus Elder Kay is a beef cake so i wasn't worried at all. We went up and found him sitting there waiting for us. He was surprised when he saw that it was a couple of preacher boys. Turns out that most of his family are members of our Church and he has read the book of Mormon and wants nothing to do with us because he doesn't want to change and doesn't think he can. I told him i didn't care. I didn't know why we were there, what the Lord wanted us to tell him, or what he had to learn from this, but i was going to do my part. I was going to make sure he got a another chance since the Lord for some reason had decided to give him another chance. He started to protest and say that lots of religious people had tried to change him and that we would never be able to either. I told him that he was right. God had brought us here and we were going to do all we could to let God do the rest. I told him that he needed to hear something that the Lord would say to us, but i was not going to waste time talking to a drunk. We told him we would be by at 130 the next day and asked him to do the same. We went by the next day and he was there waiting. We taught him and he it was a really powerful lesson. At the end we read a couple scriptures that had been hitting me in the head the entire lesson. One from the new testament which really took him by surprise, then one from the Book of Mormon which was amazing. I have seen it very few times, but it has always been incredibly to see. The visible change in somebody when they are hit in the heart by the spirit. He stopped, said something about what he read, closed the book and pulled it into this chest. He then put it into his backpack and said he would read it this week during his commute to and from work. It was incredible.

As always, time is way spent,

Sorry,

Loves,

Elder Sky

Todo el mundo esta diciendo que elder carr tiene tumbao 24 Mar 2010

2010-05-08T08:22:00.001-07:00

Less questions this week, but still questions.

Stickers. I dont really have any idea what he would want, but what you have sounds awesome.

Temple Pics. I will try to pass by soon to take some pictures. Hopefully during general conference. Sorry i have been slacking on that. At least my new companion (we will get to that later, dont be pushy) has a really really really nice camera. We will take them with his and copy it over to my card. Just remind me next week so it will be fresh in my mind.

Guitars. The two that we have in our possession right now are not ours. One belongs to the mission and the other belongs to a member from Aranjuez who found out about the class and has committed himself to the commute. We will see what happens with the class now because my new comp knows how to play better than i do (seriously, i will give you the low down in like 2 seconds (if you read slow it will be like 8 seconds)).

EFT. Once again, it was a blast. He does it all in such a cool way. His focus is on using all the tools we have been given at all times all the time. He told us stories of people who were in really bad shape that he went to work with. He would start with a blessing, then do EFT, and top it all off with reflexology. With us, everytime we work with something, he puts it into terms we can understand and and always ties it into the gospel. It is super interesting. I will be blunt, mostly because that is who i am, and secondly so you can get a good example. Working with the luggage is now to the point that we can do it on our own. I got an idea the last time of something we might be able to do with him, so i ran it by him. In europe the women have zero standards. During the summer it sucks to have eyeballs. Everyone is either in the process of becoming, or already are, naked. I wanted to see if the miracles of EFT could help with the defense. It was cool. He didnt just go through the motions, he knew this was an important one for missionaries. He talked us through it which was really cool. I have always heard talks like it, but the way he referred to everything, and the little tweaks he put it really made it hit home. He said that the problem in the world is that we objectionalize women. It consider everything in front of our eyes as what it really is and what God made it to be than they are the tools of God and not the tools of the devil. Second, he said that we most importantly need to remember that these are our sisters. That is was i thought was cool. I have always heard people say they are daughters of God, which means a lot, but i relate more with the sister. Had Preston turned out to be a jerk, we would have destroyed him. It wasnt until we realized that he was even more committed to the protection and care of missy than we were that we let him join the pack, and he's alright. Then he threw in the EFT and it was really cool how it wasnt a loss of desire at all, it was just a change in mindset. Gaining control over what we want to feel. Like i have said about 12 times now, really cool. My favorite quote of all was when he was talking about how he wished every missionary would be open enough to try it because if we are free, we will be able to "have the faith to share with others what the Lord has had the faith to share with us."

I just had a thought of what that whole story might mean to 90% of those who have no idea what i am talking about. It makes me laugh how wierd it all is from the outside. Just ask mom.

Okay, so i will finally let you in on the big news. I know i know, it has been way longer than i promised, but now you will get the info. They split the Barrio 1 area because there was an incredible amount of blessing to be received by just one companionship. The brick wallace (as i like to call him) is now with Elder Bartholomew from Springville, i think. And i am with Elder Kay from mesa Arizona pioneering the new area limits. So much fun. Elder Kay started his mission in Cuenca one transfer before i was transfered to Aranjuez. We got to go a bunch of exchanges and it was always so much fun. Ever since then we have joke about becoming companions. It was cool when we both showed up to transfer meeting and had no idea what was going on. Now they call people to tell them if they are leaving and then make them wait until the meeting before they let them know where they are going. When i got there he was super excited at the slim possibilities. I naturally assured him that it would happen fo sho fo sho, si o si, because i had done all the necessaries to guarantee it (fasting, prayer, burnt offerings, the works). His natural resoponse after a short pause was that if we ended up being companions he would poop his pants, an acceptable response if you ask me. Well, the time came, pants were pooped, and now we are here. Okay, now for one of my favorite parts. It is so cool to have moments where i get to realize how well the Lord knows me. As tends to happen in the mission, i have made a lot of improvements, but recently i have been hoping that they would be of a permanent nature. Anyone can be a good person as a missionary, the challenge i think will be after. Well, Kay reminds me of someone i would hang out with as a normal human being which is allowing me to mold the two. Being a missionary and being a person. Luckily it is not too tough yet, but it is exactly what i needed, and exactly when i needed it, in exactly the way that will cement it forever, i hope.

Okay, i am almost out of time, but i just wanted to quickly tell you about a cool split we had last week. We planned for it to be with 2 young men, but one cancelled at the last second leaving us shafted. We called up Hestrobel, the mission leader, and he said he was willing and ready. So we split up, changed all the plans, changed all the set ups, and went of too hit the town. We passed by Carlos and he is doing great. Afterwards we were walking to nowhere because the set stuff went with the other companionship. That was when something amazing happened. Hestrobel is an extremely fat and jolly man. He walks slowly. As we walked, i got the chance to really think about where we were and what we could do and the idea came to pass by a potential. Weird idea because he was never home, but i felt like it needed to be done. I told that to Hestrobel and he got way excited. We got there and the man was not home. Luckily, the Lord is in charge, because there was a family there that has been praying to find a way to grow closer and change. After an amazing lesson with them (i am sorry this is so brief, i am out of time) we went to pass by someone else. When we got to them, i got another idea of another person we could pass by, even stronger feeling than before. I wasn't going to pass up another opportunity to see something great happen so we shot right over. We rang up to his room, nothing. We called him, nothing. Rang again, nothing. I was a little down about it. I said we could maybe go try and contact somewhere nearby. Hestrobel just looked at me and asked if we should pray. I love stuff like that but i have never been one to do it. He said that he felt like God wanted to show us a miracle. I thought it was a sweet idea and he offered to say it. We prayed and it was a really neat moment. I really needed something like this to happen. We had been through some weird stuff the earlier days with anti Mormon people and losing some investigators and i just really felt like i needed a good reminder that the Lord was in charge. He prayed out loud, i plead inside. We rang again, nothing. Called again, nothing. We sat for a second and decided to ring one more time, and right when we did, we heard someone come around the corner and ask if we were looking for him. It was the man we were looking for. It was exactly right.

Time is up.

Love you,

Elder Sky

my report 17 Mar 2010

2010-05-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

Lots of questions, from both sides of the mission veil.

First of all, this is for Bri and Ali. I lost my pen in a huge contacting spree. It will be missed but it will be honor for falling in the line of duty. I was in dire need of a writing utensil so i popped into the nearest "chino" (stores that sell anything and everything and are run by little Chinese people). I needed something with fine tip to write in my planner, and the only fine tipped ones they had were located in the Disney princess collection. I am now sporting a pink and yellow Belle with diamonds. I tell everyone she is my girlfriend. I am starting to convince myself.

Second of all, this is for Susan. YEYYEYYEYEYEYEYAHAHAHAYEHA BLAST OFF! I don't know what that was, but that is the noise i make when i get a package. It was sweet. Green. HA! You rock my socks off.

Third of all, this is for Mom or for anyone who can help. We were eating at a members house and i was telling a story. Of course, my words tend to be conveyed even more loudly by my actions in storytelling and one thing led to another and next thing you know there was a little girl crying, my companion laughing, and a broken glass on the ground. I felt bad even though he ensured me that he wouldn't miss his favorite glass that much. After doing a little detective work i found out that there are two things he wants way bad. 1. A mug from the Olympics of 2002, not sure how available those are anymore. 2. Those little pictures that you put in your scriptures for certain stories and things of the sort. You know, the transparent thingies. Well, if you get a chance to sneak either one of those into the next package coming my way, i would definitely be able to make up some grown with the ward leadership (he is second counselor in the bishopric).

Fourth of all, for Dad. Santo, the recent convert has some serious back problems. In Spanish they change all the words for back problems but from what i understand he has kind of what you had. If you could send some of the exercises that you did and any other ideas that could help him it would be so appreciated, by him and me.

Okay, on to your questions. Lets hit these babies in order.

Guitar students: They are actually doing really good. Last week we actually got an extra guitar. So in total we had 17 students and 2 guitars. Believe it or not, it is actually a really good system because they all end up helping each other learn the finger positions and rock poses.

Missing toe nail: I am doing really good. I feel more aerodynamic without it. I don't even know why we have toe nails, all i can think of is to keep the foot from getting jealous of the hands.

Shoes: I don't think i will ever get used to wearing shoes. With or without toenails. The orthodics save me. I am just meant to be a free footer (i may have just made that up, if i did, i dibs the copyright: DIBS!) i guess.

Elder Kopischke: Amazing. He came and told us that he had no agenda. Whenever any one of the Lord's anointed says that i get super excited. He gave each and every one of us a spiritual round house kick to the face. He flirted with a lot of topics that usually get hit on in every conference, you know, planning, commitments, etc. Each one was incredible and done in ways i had never really thought of. But the killer for me was when he talked about mindset and vision. It sounded like he was stealing some of Mom's ideas. He talked about waking up in the morning and instead of praying right away, spending 1 min to just picture the people you are looking for in white, standing by the font, or a family, kneeling around the altar of the temple. He said that this would let us contact people we already know, because we had already seen them in our heads. He then asked everyone to work on remembering how they felt before they left on their missions. How they expected they would do because those moments and feeling were sacred. That was us seeing our future with our own eye of faith. He said that we are all capable of achieving exactly what we expected before. He then shared Ether 12:19 "Y hubo muchos cuya fe era tan sumamente fuerte, aun antes de la venida de cristo, que no se les pudo impedir penetrar el velo, sino que realmente vieron con sus propios ojos las cosas que habian visto con el ojo de la fe; y se rogocijaron." Sorry if that is wrong, and in Spanish, i don't know it in English. It was really cool. I don't have my notes with me or i would share more. But the coolest thing of all was right at the beginning. He asked everyone to write down what we expected to learn and he promised it would happen. He didn't lie.

EFT: It was a blast. He is an extremely happy, energetic, overweight man. He has some fun spins on it that i had never seen you do, mama. He started by showing the video on the founders website, which is a sweet video and gave my comp the run down and me the update. Tons of fun. We are having a follow up this week again. I will keep you updated. I feel like this is going to be a huge pump for me for the time i have left. Side note: Mike, the EFT man, calls me ORBIT.

Letters to piso: They are getting here super fast. It Is really funny because my companion is now just as excited, if not more to get the letters. He loves reading your letters and now proclaims adoption throughout the mission. I thought it was good idea. Everyone should be able to have an awesome backup family. So far they are averaging 5 days to get here. It is kind of cool being up to date.

Pick up from mish: No more butts about it. Come get me. I think it will be a blast.

The Baptism: It was amazing. I will just post what i wrote to president in my weekly informe.

The baptism this past week was amazing. Carlos did everything possible during the entire week to make sure he was ready to have this amazing experience. His family was an awesome push and support during the entire process, and the refreshments they brought to the baptism were incredible. Seriously though, the refreshments were really good, but they did not beat out the power of his testimony. It was inspiring. He spent the entire week writing and rewriting his testimony because he wanted so badly to do it well. I kept telling him that he would end up just speaking from his heart and in the end that is what happened. He got to the church, reached into his jacket with a smile, the smile quickly faded, and he told me with horror that he forgot his notes. I laughed and told him that it was a sign that he would be amazing without it. He was. He bore the most sincere testimony. He told a bit of his experience, asked for forgiveness, expressed his hopes, and just told us what his heart was saying to him. It was beautiful. it was an amazing experience for everyone involved. He will be an incredible blessing to the church. The church has already been a super blessing for him.

Caleb’s birthday: Caleb? Who the heck is that?

Wow. It is really nice just filling in the topics. Turns out a lot more focused. We should do it like this more often.

Love you tons,

Elder Sky

Baptism

2010-03-14T14:53:00.000-07:00

Notice the baptismal font behind them

In front of the Palace in Aranjuez

2010-03-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

Real Madrid Stadium Bernabeu

2010-03-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

Skyler says all the seats are air conditioned

Fishing on preparation day

2010-03-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

At the temple with members

2010-03-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

Still at the bull fighting arena

2010-03-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

Las Ventas, plaza de toros

2010-03-14T14:01:00.001-07:00

The circus was in town so they didn't get to go down "in the dirt"

9 Mar 2010 sorpresas son una pasada

2010-03-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

Good news! I havent changed much at all on the mission, I am still just as scatter-brained as ever. So much in fact, i had to learn the word in spanish: despistado. I forgot to tell you that we have changed our P-day to, well, today. Surprise! Elder Kopishke (sp?), president of the Euro Area is coming to visit. Should be sweet.

Aaron, thank you for your faithfulness and your advance email. In return for your efforts, i will take your children as apprentices and teach them each one of my sub-par skills (guitar, wakeboarding, spanish, knitting, etc). Many may think this an uneeded risk placing such young, moldable minds under my stewardship. They may be right, but it is all i can offer. As for the rest of you, just because i wont be reading until next week does not mean you can skip out on this weeks email.

So anyway, on to the happenings...

Mom, you are gonna freak! Last week we had a lunch appointment with some members who are sweet. That is not the freaky part. The husband's name is Mike and he is from California, and his wife's name is Pilar and she is a crazy, hiped up spaniard lady. Every few years they shift between wher they live, USA or SPA, and now they are here. That is not the freaky part either. We were small talking it up and i asked them what they do for work here. Turns out they are both english teachers. Still not freaky. He then went into more detail about it and it turns out he does something a little different. He is a trained EFT coach and professional reflexologist. You may now feel free to freak (if you want, now that i wrote it down i realize i did a really bad job of climaxing it). I felt so at home talking to him about the craziness of the EFT. His stories are amazing. He has had a ton of success in his coaching. Everything from crappy students to hurt/trunky missionaries to investigators having difficulties giving up catholicism. The coolest part to me is that i have gotten to the point where i am pushing myself a ton. I am just dying to give it everything and be what i know i can, but i know i have a lot of bad habits. A lot of baggage from stupid stuff. Companions, mistakes, lest downs, turn downs, and just the overall pressure from the dimishing mission clock. I have made a lot of good feeling steps in the last few weeks, and i was getting to this point where i felt like i couldnt add much more without getting rid of a few things weighing me down. He was sent at such a perfect timing. Little miracles like this are so cool. When he saw the look in my eye when we were talking about it, he went ahead and offered to do some work with me. We are gonna have a go at it this week. Mom, i know we all call you crazy, but you are rubbing off on everyone. Dont get me wrong, we will never stop calling you crazy, but now we will have to include ourselves every once in a while.

Yesterday was pretty funny. I invited President to come to a district meeting one of these weeks and he decided to take me up on the offer the same week i made the invite. We had been going for a few minutes and he called us up telling us he was outside. We let him and his wife in, they sat down, and we got things going on the road again. The first thing i said to him was, "Well President, we are playing a game and you are up next." The look on his face was priceless. He already makes awesome facial expressions, but this one was amazing. After our get to know you game we moved on to "happy thought hour" where everyone shares their favorite happy thought from the last week. It doesnt actually take an hour to do, but its sounds better than "happy thought minute". After the happies we had the hermanas make a spanish study skeleton. Turned out great, really boney. Then to bring it to an end we practiced awkward contacting situations. Any contacting practice is super fun so we ended well. When President finally recovered from his shock we got some pretty good feedback which is always helpful. His wife told me i have a style that has a lot of Bon Ami. I dont even know what that means, but i love it. Then to top it all off, we had a feast of spanish pastries. Apparently it made an impression on him because today we heard from a few missionaries that they heard about our district meeting. Dont know what impression it was because the missionaries just laughed when they said it. I am just happy i made it out without a scratch. I kept forgetting president was there. I kept making jokes and then remember he was there. He didnt laugh at too many, which is fine, but his wife was having a ball. I will consider it a success.

We have a baptism this weekend. His name is Carlos Ruiz and he is so funny. He is a big old buff peruvian. Everytime we go over to teach him and ask him how he is doing he always comes of with a different way to describe how he is. He always manages to explain his current state of being by connecting it to the him breaking the word of wisdom in some absurd way. He thinks the laws of the church are hilarious, because to him they are common sense things. But he loves teasing about it. So we always get a good scare at the beggining when he explains that he was feeling tired but he is better now that he finished his pot of coffee spiked with rum. The best part is that is combinations never make sense. We get along really well.

Shoot, out of time.

Well, loves,

Elder Sky

Wed, Mar 3, 2010 Spain deoderant just isnt working for me

2010-03-10T14:56:00.000-08:00

I just took a woof of air and smelt the musk of an old spaniard man, usually very pungent stuff. Sadly, i just looked around and there was nobody i could tag the smell too, and upon further under jacket inspection, it appears i am the culprit. Tragic. Oh well, at least i fit in better now. (this is not a cultural slur, it is a simple comment on the tendency that a certain culture has to spread their musks about my nose)

I dont have too much time because we took the district on a Aranjuez tour. Super fun. Then, when i got here, the computer rebeled and would not let me log on to my account, so naturally i had to destroy it. Delays delays delays.

Things of not this week:

First official guitar class took place. 9 people. 1 guitar. Amazing. Either they know how sensitive i am deep down and didnt want to hurt my fillings (i wrote this on accident, but i am going to leave it because it creates a fun little mental picture of my fillings getting hurt), or they really like it because they all said they are going to go buy guitars now. Pretty soon we are going to have an army of extremely dramatic, sub-par, rockers who overdo everything.

The ward is gaining a lot of confidence with the missionaries now. Not sure if it is because of, or in spite of my presence, but it is definitely happening. For the first time ever we are having the leaders call us to figure out when they can help us. And even more of note, i am now the butt end of every joke. Attention is a attention, no matter wether positive or negative, so i am in seventh heaven. In case i didnt inform you, i had a milestone in my life last week... i lost a toenail. I know, i know, its nuts! I may have also not told you about the stubbed toe i got playing soccer around christmas time. I also may have left out our efforts in salvaging the toe by creating an 8 elder drilling team to relieve the pressure through the nail. We saved it, or so we thought. It was really black for the last couple of months, and in the last couple of weeks it was starting to grey up. I got out of the shower one morning and the nail was really lose, and of course, i sarted playing with it. Well, one thing led to another, my nail turned into a mouth that lipsings EFY songs, and next thing you know, POP! Off came my toe nail. After i finished screaming, i did the only logical thing: i laminated it in tape and put a date on it as a keepsake. Dont worry, you will be getting it in the mail soon. It has caused quite the interesting train of thoughts to say the least. Every time i walk into the metro, or sit down on the bus, i realize in one of those AHA! moments that there is an odd number of toenails in the group in which i find myself. Even now i am making this exact realization. So anyway, not sure how it happened, but the whole ward found out (i may or may not have begun every visit with, "guess what!" and then told them) and loved it. So the point of the story- we were in the investigator's gospel priciples class and i was naturally the example of everything. One in particular was brilliant. We were talking about agency and the teacher was talking about how along the road of life there are stumbling blocks. If we make the wrong decision and run into the stumbling block, we may end up like Elder Carr and lose a toenail. I loved it. It that is what is needed to make people have a good time, bring it on. I have always loved teasing myself. I have no insecurities to worry about, so i have always rather it be me than somebody else. Plus i get my need dosage of attention on top of everything.

Oh shoot, we gotta run. Sorry about the shortness.

Keep up the good work on the home front.

Oh yeah, about how long you are planning on spending here, you decide. Any decision i make is biased depending on the day. If i know it is what you want, it will be perfect.

Lots of lovey doveys,

Elder Sky

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 A sopapo of an email

2010-03-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

I got the letter. Super fast I might add. It came on Monday. It might have even come sooner had it not been for the weekend... Amazing. If you want we can keep sending stuff straight to me. I also got the package during interviews yesterday and it is sweet. I especially love the flying cow on the bottle of the lactose stuff. It all makes sense now... actually, it is even more confusing, but at least I have an awesome mental picture of a superhero cow flying around my intestine breaking up all the evil air pockets to protect my companions olfactory headquarters. Thank you. I also let our Spaniard roommate try some of the dried mangoes and his response was "holy butterfly." We taught him holy cow and I guess he thought it was free to use with any animal... who knew? So, thank you thank you thank you.

We have been having a lot of activities with the troubled youth of the ward lately. They usually don't like the missionaries much, but lately they have been way cool. They have been calling us up to go hang out, so that is what we do, we hang out, missionary style. We do stuff like bet them they couldn't teach a single principle of the the missionary lessons, and then they try to prove us wrong. It is sweet. My favorite part is the Spanish slang. I make sure to run everything I hear by the mission leader and Elder Moreno to make sure it is not vulgar. So you can have confidence that at least in Spain it is acceptable. So to explain the subjects of the last couple emails - Estar cachas = to be a real hunk, and describing something as bombo and platillos = loud and noisy (literally drum and cymbals). They tend to use the second more with me, but we are working it towards the first. It is funny how many different kinds of Spanish there are. There are so many words that we can only use with Spaniards and so many we can only use with south americans. Then when you get into the southies, they each have their own words for everything. Confusing at times. Sad thing is, there are no Mexicans here, so I will have to learn a whole new Spanish when I get home.

So you are coming to pick me up after all? Man, you guys are so rich. It will be way sweet. Let me know how much time you are planning on spending. I will give you small lists of places and people with their emails so you can get it all planned out. Sorry, but people will take some precedence over places.

Oh yeah, Dad, last week we went to check out this free massage place and it was pretty cool. They have this so called state of the art table that uses infrared to make you feel awesome. It felt pretty good and they let you go as much as you want. It is called Ceragem. I lady in charge came to get some of my info while i was getting a massage and I gave her the low down on my Chirodad. I think they want to give a lot of free stuff to try to win us over. After i told them about you they got really nice. All i want to know is what you think of it to know if it would be something worth doing during pday.

We did actually manage to do a good amount of missionary work this last week. Things are going super well. So well in fact that President told me in the interview to start planning for another companionship to come help us. Way cool. We will be one of the first wards to get a boost. That wasn't my favorite part of the interview though. When we walked in we were soaking wet because it was raining like always. President came up to us and handed us his umbrella and his keys and gave us a big list of stuff he wanted us to grab. He then turned to his wife and asked her if she had any change, and as usual, my brain to mouth connection was working unhindered and i said, "President, no hay que pagarnos (you don't have to pay us)." Apparently he just wanted us to pay for his parking, but he look at me, shook his head, and said, "Ah el Elder Carr is su buen sentido de humor (elder carr and his good sense of humor)." The cool thing about this was that it was the third time he has said it to me, and the first time that it resulted from a joke. The first was when he asked me what the palace was called in Arajuez and I told him, "supongo que es el palacio de Arajuez (palace of Arajuez)." I hope you get the joke, if you don't, your are lame.

I think i am lame, i don't get it.

The other day we went to the hospital to visit the sister of our mission leader. She has cancer everywhere. She is the one i love to flirt with. We got there and she was doing really bad. We gave her a blessing and then tried to help her. She was really cold and there just happened to be a cup of something warm on the table. So we made her drink it. After she tasted it she asked what it was. Once again my brain to mouth connection was too well connected and i told her that it was probably Elder Wallace's urine, but to drink it anyway because it will warm her up. She laughed and felt better. It was cool.

Sorry, we gotta run already.

Love you a whole lot,

Elder Sky

Plaza de Toros

2010-02-24T15:10:00.000-08:00

Bull fighting

2010-02-24T15:04:00.000-08:00

If you look close, you can see him standing in front of the cathedral.

Aranjuez

2010-02-24T15:00:00.000-08:00

2010-02-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

2010-02-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

2010-02-24T14:53:00.000-08:00

In Aranjuez

2010-02-24T14:28:00.000-08:00

One of these guys is an archeologist who has a house and land in the mountains near Aranjuez

Mis semana de bombo y platillos Wednesday, February 17, 2010

2010-02-24T14:27:00.001-08:00

Sweet! I’m glad the package arrived ileso. Let me know how the pics are received.

Oh, and I would like it to be publicly known that I made an effort to write a heartfelt letter to every sibling, and Jason is the only one to reply. Come one! JASON even replied! You know, the younger one of the family who gets on the family website once every leap year. I hate to say it, but you have all been burned by your youngest of kin.

Well done lad.

Back to the mission thang...

I think my favorite quote for the week was what Elder Wallace said in english classes. We teach the more advanced class and we were talking about vacations and so naturally we got on the topic of Disneyland. Elder Wallace made the comment, “Disneyland is the funnest with little kids...” then after a short pause, “and Elder Carr.” I am the oldest Ï have ever been (duh), and people still call me a child! Its okay, I will kill them later.

Oh yeah, I visited the coolest place last week: BABYLON! After we taught this atheist guy we were hanging out talking to the rest of his family and they thought we were cool (totally fooled ‘em) so they invited us to their daughters birthday party. She was turning 7. Totally harmless, right? WRONG! We walked into their apartment, and as any good host would do, they handed us some beers. I was super thirsty so busted them both down immediately. Ha, JK. They were shocked we werent accepting free beer, I mean, this was heineken for heaven’s sake, HEINEKEN! Their interest was peaked at this point. To fuel the fire, I am shameless, and even moreso around sinners, so I got to preached my first repentance sermon, Elder Carr style. It was cool, they all migrated to the door (since we just hung out right there, you know, easy escape in the case of stoning) to get a load of the show. One of my favorite little Dominican bombshells was there and she yelled out, “you dont even know what your missing!” and so i said, “your right, because none of you will be able to tell me about it since you wont remember a thing.” It was so much fun, but one of them actually asked if we would let them in to the church if they came on Sunday. Only if they were sober. We actually went back a couple days later and they said it was no fun after we left and invited us to the grandpa’s party next month. They even asked us what drinks we like so they could have something ready just for us. It was so sweet.

I know it is hard to believe, but we do actually do real missionary work. The other day we were stopping by an investigator but he wasnt answering his intercom. Some guy came walking by and since I say hi to everyone, i gave him a shout out. He stopped, thinking we were his friends. When he saw us he realized his mistake and asked if he knew us. Wrong move. We jumped him and now we are friends. We got to teach him and his son on Saturday and it was awesome. His kid is 10 years old and he is way sharp. I love how the parents learn more when their kids learn more. We pretty much taught everything to the kid. When we went to pick them up for church the kid showed us that he read what we had given him and he really liked it. The dad was blown away that his son was so into it, he hadnt even opened the book yet. I looked over in sacrament meeting and he was reading through what we had given him, and the best part, he had one of those “WOW” faces on. They are sweet. Their names are Angel and Angel. We will be going tonight it he gets home on time from work.

Well, things are good. I am healthy (one of the only missionaries who is not sick), happy (not too rare), and fightin’ hard.

Loves,

Elder Sky

p.s. 187,39 pounds (85 kilograms) = Im so skinny! Why does my face still look way plump?...

estoy cachas Wednesday, February 10, 2010

2010-02-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

He-ey,

A package sent my way already? Oh gosh. Thanks for the guilt trip. It took you 3 days... I am hitting 3 months... Oh well, guilt gone. I have finished the mission library a couple times so President is letting me read the Miracle of Forgiveness. Nothing really makes me feel guilty anymore. I am about half way through, and to put in bluntly, that book makes you feel like crap. I’m glad I’m my mother’s son so that when I come across somthing outrageous I can just say, “I’m glad I dont agree with that.”

Thanks a ton for the package, I can’t wait to get it. If you want, you can start sending stuff to me here. One of these days you will get somthing in the mail from me, hopefully. Go ahead and copy it from there. Well, that is if you still love me by then.

Oh yeah, the Haiti stuff is super sad. I dont know how bad/good things really are down there. We dont hear much anything, but when we do it is just quick glimpses on the unfiltered news networks. A lot of really graphic stuff. Stuff they cant show in the states. And although gross and inhumane of me, I did manage to find humor in it. I am speaking of the high amount of Dominicans that live in my area. They are all very racist towards the Hatians. I enjoy standing up to them. They are some of my favorite people because they are all nuts, loud, and outspoken. As you can imagine, we get along really well. Everytime I hear one of them ranting about the how evil the Hatians are I tell them to be careful because soon they are going to share a state with them. After what I say sinks in and they ask me what I mean, I tell them about how the U.S. had to go in with troops and in order to solve all the problems it will just be the easiest to go ahead and take the already broken country as a colony. You know, help it from the inside out. And since there are only like 20 Dominicans in the Republic since all of them are in New York and Alvarado (neighborhood in Madrid where they all live, known as “little Dominicana”) we will just go ahead and take the DR as well. We can call it “La Republica Americana de Haiti.” It is so funny to see them flip out, but in the end everybody wins: they get their American Citizenship and I get my beach house.

Back to the missionary world, things are going great. The baptism was awesome. For the first time in my mission, the water was warm (us: 1, devil: 0). There was a really good turn out (us:2, devil: 0). There was a musical number that was supposed to be done by the Hermanas, but for some reason they asked me to help them at the last second (us: 2, devil:1). Luis Miguel (he who was baptized) made his very own programs and has volunteered to make all the programs from here on out because he loved doing it (us: 3, devil: 1). He went down in one try even though the water was a bit low (us: 4, devil: 1). Best of all, his testimony at the end was awesome and the spirit was incredible the whole time, I even got his testimony recorded so we could make a CD for him with the pictures and all (us: 5, devil: 1).

We win.

Real quick, I made a mistake on the boundary changes. All of Bilbao is getting split in two. The eastern half goest to Barcelona and the Wester half (coruña, leon, etc.) becomes part of our mission. There you go. I will continue to keep you updated.

There is a bit of a buzz in the mission as of late. President Watkins’ new system for transfers is, “if he doesn’t need to move, why move him?” This last transfer there was only one change and it was only because there was a new Hermana coming in. Funny enough, she is now in our district. Her first day was when we had District Mtg so we all got to meet her right off the bat. She was doing really well. Later in the day we were walking down the street and I was just thinking about my first day and how crazy it was. Luckily I spoke spanish so it wasnt all that bad, but I was wondering what it would have been like had I come in like she did. I suddenly wished I could see her face. And as you know, the church is true, so she came rolling around the corner in front of us. The look was priceless. She had the joy and excitement of finally getting to be a missionary mixed perfectly with the fear and horror of realizing you are in a strange place with a strange tongue and have a long rode ahead of you. It reminded me of one of those faces guys make when they are playing around with kids, and as always happens, one of the kids lays a blow to the tenders, but to save face they try to play it off like nothing happened, you know, smile your troubles away. It was cool.

Well, that does it for me, for now...

Love you bunches,

Elder Sky

Ambassador to La Republica Americana de Haiti

how do you spell "Akuna Matata"? Wednesday, February 3, 2010

2010-02-24T14:25:00.001-08:00

Wow, looks like we have a lot of business to take care of. Lets get right to it.

You can do whatever you want with the email notices.

The street i live on is called Bravo Murillo in #127.

I will not come home early. January it is.

Thank you so much for taking care of all of that. I have been with a lot of missionaries who have had to do it all here and it is very distracting.

We are starting up some guitar classes and I was wondering if you could send as much of the loose sheets as you can. Also any popular songs that may catch your eye that would be easy to teach here. Lastly, if you get a chance, could you go buy a book for playing the hymns on the guitar and send that my way? Nothing too fancy.

Sorry about all the requests. Last one. Instead of sending the family website stuff in the mail could you start sending information like the notes from the seminar. Anything and everything would be amazing. We had a conference a few months ago about the importance of the spiritual creation and how we are the most important spiritual creations there are. The basis of it all was that we can spiritually create ourselves. I have been trying to figure this all out for myslef on the limited info they gave us and totally didnt even think of the gold mine I have at home with y’all. I want it all.

Big news. We just got an announcement that in July the mission boundaries are changing. We are losing all of our southern rim pueblos to Malaga and are gaining the Canaries . All this is happening because Bilbao is being absorbed into Barcelona. Sorry Mike.

Oh yeah, almost forgot to tell you. We are going to be having a baptism this weekend. His name is Luis Miguel and he is hilarious. Best part is, he is a spaniard! He met a venezuelan girl on the internet who was a member which got him curious. He fell in love with her and became very curious about the church. He realized he has lived right next to a mormon church his whole life and never gone inside. So one day he just walked in and started getting taught. He was being taught for a while by the I got here, but never really wanted anything. Looks like now the time is right. Huge blessing. I will let you know how it goes, plus some of the others I forgot to tell you about in the last few weeks.

We had an awesome Zone Conference last week. So badly needed. The whole conference was focused on street contacting and nothing else. It was so perfect. Instead of having it be a “tell how” it was a “show how” conference. Tons of practices. I think it was the funnest time i have ever had in a conference. They kept asking me to be the dummy becuase they said it was the most “real person experience” they could get. Before going in i would ask them what they would like to practice and then my companion and i would act it out. Two missionaries wanted to practice contacting old spaniards on a bench. I tore them apart. They now know everything about my childhood experiences growing up in the hunger stricken slums of talavera in the 20’s. After i realized that they had been standing there with their mouths open for a few minutes, i finally let them say something. Then another group wanted to contact a small family. Interesting fact: i always end up being the worman. Not sure why that is. We were walking with a stroller and then they contacted us. My hubby didnt really want anything and told them that we werent interesed. Who told him he could speak for me? I exploded at him about how he never pays any attention and i am not even sure if he loves me any more. So i made the missionaries put down my number so that they could fix my husband. After that they stopped asking me to do it. Too real for them.

Okay, all the other missionaries are waiting for me.

Sorry to cut the stories short. I always wonder if what i say makes any sense...

Probably not.

Love you,

Elder Sky

the happenings Wednesday, January 27, 2010

2010-02-24T14:24:00.000-08:00

Hey there sweet cheeks (I will not specify who this is, you know who you are),

It has been a good day. We got to go to the mission home for a zone pday which is always sweet. They mission home is in the ritz of Madrid. No city noise. Makes my volume levels seem a lot higher than usual, well, so says the zone.

Quick interjection: I just had a funny quote experience come to mind. It comes from one of the sisters in our district. We were in the middle of our coordination meeting with the mission leader and we were chatting about an investigator who had some problem or other. Amidst the exchange of warm fuzzies and hopeful prospects for this investigator, one of the sisters piped up during a silent pause, after not having said much of anything, and said, “bueno, si Dios le quiere.” Now keep in mind this sister has a heart the size of a small utility vehicle stuffed inside her small, childlike frame. Her american accent made it come out a lot more sarcastic sounding than usual which made me lose it. I was laughing so hard. There is a term that is used very often that goes “si Dios quiere” = “God willing”, but when said “si Dios le quiere” it then becomes, “well, if God loves em.” Get it? Hmm, well, now that I read over it, it is not as funny.

Dang.

So back to the point at hand. The happenings.

To answer your question about the moving of missionaries, there is reason to the madness of it all. There are a lot of missionaries being taken out of pueblos to meet greater needs (more on that in a moment) so they are getting shut down. Our situation had more to do with the fact that before I got here there used to be 8 missionaries in the ward. They lived in the middle of the area but when the numbers dropped they went ahead and moved in with the other ward’s missionaries. Only thing is, they live 30 minutes out of our area. Very crummy. So they had us find one that would be central for both of us. Oh, and it is sweet. It has now been tagged as the best in the mission (more on that another day). But as for the removing a missionaries, it is sweet. President Watkins is so cool. Aparently the focus of the last mission president seminar was on the need to work where the gold is and focus on going from the inside out. Like starting where there is a strong base and working out from there. Not just sending out randoms to wierd places and hoping they build from scratch. Well, we are only getting 2 missionaries per unit, but there are some that have too much for just 2 and other that are dead. President wrote an email to all stake presidents telling them what was up. He pretty much just said that if there are no meetings taking place, no mission leader, no ward/branch missionaries, and no ward support for the missionaries, then they will lose said missionaries. It has been intense. 4 places have had the missionaries removed. My favorite part is that success has nothing to do with it. Baptisms change missionary to missionary and depend on the Lord, but support is something that is always under the control of the members. There were a couple places that didnt surprise me that they lost missionaries, but there was one that has had a bunch of baptisms in the last couple months and still lost the missionaries. There is not support and no help for the missionaries so they lost them. Of course, there is alot prepared as far as still helping the wards that dont have missionaries, but in the short time I have it will have to stay at that. As you can imagine, all the units have boosted up their meetings and support in the last few weeks. Super sweet.

Before I forget, could you give me jasons current email. Something he will check. I have a bone to pick with him.

Oh yeah, cool story. Well, before that, I gotta tell you something I think was funny. So my companion looks a teeny tiny bit like Jude Law. Of course, I have taken the liberty of reminding him of that every single day. He has denied it a lot, well, until now. The new sherlock holmes movie came out and there have been tons of posters everywhere of Jude Law. He was trapped, but I didnt expect to be pulled into it. We came home one day and one of the other Elders said that he saw our companionship at a bus stop. We didnt ride any buses so I was lost, but then he told us that it was on a picture. He said that our companionship is totally the sherlock holmes duo. Me, apparantly, as Robert Downey Jr. and my comp as Jude Law. Even better, the members at church all commented on it too. I found a small picture in a newspaper so we cut it out and we put it on the door to our room. So, since I have been failing at sending home pictures, you can assume that is how I look now.

Alright, back to the cool story. This is kind of funny too. I am now illegal in the country. There has been a hold up in the office on the renewal of papers and my card has expired. Luckily, I am not as bad as my companion. He visa waited (also in chicago) and got here a couple months late. He has been forgotten about. We got a call about it the other day and had to go to the police station to take care of it. They said that it was their fault in the email and they would go ahead and get his process started right away (and then me in a few weeks). So, we went off to go get him fingerprinted. I love going to the residnecy office, there is such an interesting feel to the building. All those immigrants hoping to make it through the system as soon as possible. A strong sense of hope and fear, similar to what we all feel about baby Casen. Anyways, we got there and they sent us up to a special room and I took seat and let my companion go take care of it. Well, we got a bad one. The lady we got would love the DMV. Very disrespectful, and just horrible all around. I was enjoying all this from a nice, safe distance. It then got a little bad, she saw that his passport had expired and refused to attend to him because he had not followed the guidelines. She sent him off. We called the office and they said to try again and show her the info they sent us. She refused to look, refused to listen, and threatened to kick my comp out. He tried again, and she sent him to her colleague who was just as bad. He came back, a little confused and a little scared, looked me in the eye, handed me his papers and said, “we are calling in the cuban.” I had been preparing myself for such a thing to happen, but when he said that, I lost it again. So when I was done laughing I trotted on over to the that wicked old witch and ask if I could just ask her a quick question. She started to rant at me and I just let her roll. Then when I got a second I gave her the speal, not really sure what I said, but it was mostly just along the lines of just apologizing for being dumb americans and asking to just look up the info, it was all there that they made a mistake. She started saying no mistake was made, we were lost, and she was done. Then I went way american on her. I asked if we could speak to a supervisor since she was finished. I got to him and gave him the speal, pretty much just letting him know she was done with us, which was wierd because she never even started. She started yelling to him that there was nothing for us. I told him, “I am positive we are not lying, but I would love to be proved wrong and get out of here.” He took the paper, typed in a number, the info came up and he took care of everything in about 5 minutes. She didnt say a word after that. It was super fun. Stuff like this keeps happening. It was cool being able to go into such a crummy situation knowing that we were right, not becuase of the papers, but because I know we are supposed to be here.

Alright, gotta run.

Love you bunches,

Elder Sky

oh gosh Wednesday, January 20, 2010

2010-02-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, first things first because that is probably all we are going to have time for. I just barely got done moving and worst/best of all, dealing with our cranky landlords and their cronies. More on that in a moment. There are bigger fish to fry right now.

Like the following fish (I don’t know how this earned a fish theme, but sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles):

“Speaking of El Prado. I will begin to work on plans for our trip next month. You should let me know if there are places in Spain you want to go to that should be included.” - Maria Carr

Either I read this all wrong or you are actually going to try to eldernap me. Well, to be honest, I think I understand it now that I have posted it over. Oh. That’s a bit embarrassing. You are going to begin planning next month… Youre not actually taking your trip next month. Gotcha. You gave me quite a fright. Its too early to plan that stuff anyway. You make a list of stuff you want to see, I will add and edit.

I love my ESL mother.

Some may ask why I didn’t just erase that to save face. Well, I have absolutely no time and am about to become a disobedient missionary for the day just to satisfy my Cubriarch… Its okay though, president is really happy with us right now and I think this is the only chance we will get. Others of you may now be asking why I am continuing to comment on this strange interjection. I would include myself within that group of people.

We have not done anything today other than move. The only change was when we went to our piso at night to meed our landlady, who actually turned out to be our landlady, her husband, and her lawyer son. Last night we had planned to meet them so we could work today, but she called us, screaming and yelling, that she refused to meet at the time we had settled on because she wanted to meet at her own time. Apparently we are breaking our contract and leaving the piso 6 months early due to the drop in missionaries from 120 to 66. The thing is, we have had this piso (I will keep saying piso because it is shorter to type than apartment) for 16 years and have payed them almost a quarter of a million dollars. You’d think that 6 months would not be that big of a deal. Well, it was. I had to hold back a lot on the phone, but succeeded. I called up Elder Thompson, the senior missionary in charge and he gave me a little lesson on Pundonor (sp?). Very interesting stuff. Apparently people of latin decent have been proven to show a bit of pride in situations where a loss is at stake. Explains a lot about my life. But anyways, he told me that I needed to do my best to be an angel and try to get them to show some kindness. As he said, they could hold our hands over the fire if they wanted to, but we will try to get out clean. So I went ahead and called her back and asked her if there was anything she would like us to bring or have ready and thanked her for being so willing to meet. I kind of took her aback which might explain why she brought her family reinforcements. It was a blast. I may not be the best scripture guru or golden child, but I love things kinds of situations because I feel like I was made for them. They came in hating us. They were screaming about all the things that were wrong and somehow by the end we were all just chatting like best friends. I even got to bear my testimony to them when they were asking why I came out here. They said they were still going to fight it out with Thompson, but they said that they would thank him for having attended them so well by having us there. It is really cool how the strengths and weaknesses of every inch of my life have all been pushed to their extremes and beyond. I have found out so much more about myself while trying to forget myself. To be honest, I haven’t changed much, but I didn’t come here to change, I came to grow.

Alright, I really gotta run.

Sorry sorry sorry,

Love you love you love you,

Elder Sky

Tell Jason he is nuts.

Tell Graham to go watch some highlights of the Soccer game last Saturday (I think) between Real Madrid and Bilbao (Atleti… not sure). The goalie was nuts, he pulled a huge upset.

Digale a Mamina que ella tiene Tumbao… al mejor no me entenderá, pero voy a estar sonriendo toda la semana por causa de eso.

on time, finally Wednesday, January 13, 2010

2010-02-24T14:22:00.000-08:00

Hey family,

I'm getting a missionary plaque? For reals?? OOOH, I'm so giddy. I have always had to listen to all the other lame sauce missionaries brag about how cool their plaques are to all the other missionaries... now I get to be one of those lame sauce missionaries! Hmm, gotta make it good. First one that comes to mind, naturally, is Alma 10:4. However, even though it is the most accurate and true, I think it would offend the members of the other ward we absorbed. So, to avoid contention, my second choice is Alma 26:36. It is even better if you combine the two into one super verse. But since the super verse would probably not fit (on the awesomeness scale, not just the plaque), I will sacrifice and just go with the latter. Let me know if it passes the social filter.

The Prado? That was sweet. My favorite part was the trip there. We walked down the street 5 minutes and there it was. It is huge. If you want to plan it in you will probably have to pick a whole day. It took us about 3 hours to go through everything at missionary speed. Some really sweet stuff. My favorite painting was of little-toddler Jesus and little-toddler John the baptist playing together. Interesting piece of doctrine. Overall it reminded me of what our house probably is like right now. Lots and lots of little naked, chubby babies flying around.

Hold on, President is calling...

I love that man. In my interview last week, we had a really good talk. He was telling me something or other, I dont really remember what, but whatever he said reminded me of a question I had. I told him that I have been having a really hard time lately understanding obedience. I told him straight up the problem I have always had with coming home on time. I have just never been able to agree with it as easily as others do. I told him that the majority of those we teach dont get home until after 8, buy since we live 30 minutes out of our area we get home late very often. I have just never been able to find the desires to come home and skip teaching someone. He smiled and asked me why I came on the mission. I told him, “i have to figure that out every single day, but I know it was not to come home on time.” He laughed and said, “you have been called to teach. He pointed all dramatically to preach my gospel and said, “you are a teacher, everything else comes second. There are some people who will only have time at 2 in the morning, if that happens, call me, I will come and pick you up and we will go together.” I love him. He just told me now that we have permission to make copies of CDs with hymns to give to members who in turn will give them to their friends. We have been doing it for the past little while through members, but now we want to streamline it because it is working really well.

We taught a recent convert this past week who said he needed to apologize for something. When we asked him what, he said that he didnt have the pamphlet we had given him anymore. He said he was down at a locutorio the other day and he was preaching to the owner and he gave it to him.

I dont think we will ever be able to forgive him for that.

Solid.

This whole health purge has been a funny kick. Mom, I think you are going to have a blast molding my diet when I get home. I have been noticing a lot lately how I feel when I eat well. And seeing as it says in my p. blessing that I need to take care of my health, it is starting to kick me into gear. I now get soy milk, which actually isnt too bad, and my companion is very grateful (those who understand lactose intolerance will understand why). I have been getting lots of fruit and veggies too. The Roneys are gonna flip if they hear about this. I wonder how long this will last. We shall see.

Well, I am out of time, but I love you all the same.

Elder Sky

M83

me and my experiences Thursday, January 7, 2010

2010-02-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

Go Tara! I didn’t know you could skip the baby and childhood stages and just give birth to a miniature man, but you did it! Interesting name you picked. K.T.? Sounds a lot like Katie. Is this due to the single-mother status that Tara is currently in? It works. Karston is gone a lot. I haven’t even seen him for almost a year and a half. Seriously though, I think Johnny Cash was just kidding about naming your kid Sue to make him tough. But then again if he wasn’t, we will find out soon enough.

God speed little KT.

That rhymes (I think. In Spanish, everything rhymes).

Ooh, a missionary plaque. I will give it some thought. Remind me to return and report next week.

So this weekend was an experience. That is all.

Ha, just kidding, I will let you know what happened.

Miracle Story.

We planned an activity for the recent converts to all go to the temple together. By together, I mean together with us. We had the go-ahead from President, all but one of the recent converts, and we even had a carpool! (Yes, that is me getting excited about a carpool. I am turning into such a soccer mom.) I was ready and rearing to go. I don’t really know what rearing means, but it also sounds like something used to explain stomach discomfort, which I will use right now. Upon entering into the metro, my stomach started rearing (see, it works). After the first stop, it started roaring. Im not a spewer, but I am pretty sure my body was ready to try it out. By the end of the trip I was standing against the wall with my eyes closed, breathing slowly yet heavily, and trying not to hurl (wow, sounds like pregnancy. I will go ahead and calm your fears now, it wasn’t.). We managed to get me to the church where I sat and tried not to think of cookies, because I was about to lose them. At this point I was a little caught up in trying to weigh my options. Going home would be a relief, but a huge huge huge downer. Going to the temple was the desire, but an impossibility. So, I prayed. I just asked to be able to go to the temple. That’s all. Whatever else I had to feel, I was willing to take it, but I just wanted to have enough relief to avoid throwing up in temple (I am pretty sure that sin lists right below murder and adultery.). I climbed in and as soon as we unloaded, my desire to unload went away. It was like all the massive storming came together and formed some huge dense rock. I knew it was there, but nothing more. Then it kept getting better. They asked me to be recorder. Amazing. They let me sit in a chair the whole time and not move. Exquisite. They never had me touch or baptize any large object or man. Wonderful. I was on top of the world. Then we left. Then I died. Barely made it to the piso in time. I wont be too graphic, mostly because I am out of ways to creatively describe the process of emptying ones stomach through the same source in which it entered, but we did have to set up a bed next to the bathroom for my convenience.

According to the mission doc I got a virus, but that is his answer for everything.

That is pretty much my week. All better now.

Skinnier too.

Loves,

Elder Sky

M83

no subject, only predicate

2010-01-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 11:52 AM

> Devoted followers,
>
> Low on time, as always. Get used to it.
>
> The call was a treat. You all sound pretty much the same.
> Too bad Jason couldnt come be part of the call, I miss his
> girlish puberty voice. As they say, pooburty hit him hard.
>
> The following is an email I received from President
> Watkins:
>
> Feliz Navidad, Elder Carr. Es una bendición servir con
> Ud.
> Es Ud. un actor y cantante y un misionero increíble!
> Que el Señor le bendiga.
> Pte.
>
> I am glad he was able to include all of my passions.
>
> Christmas was pretty fun. We ate a ton. Our mission leader
> is a chef in a 5 star hotel and he wanted to impress us. He
> succeeded. We ate with him, his niece, and his sister.
>
> Speaking of his sister, she is hilarious. She has been
> fighting cancer for the last several years but is just too
> stubborn to give up. She is a soury old bat, I love her.
> Well, as a result of all the kimo (spell check) all her hair
> has fallen out. We are always giving each other a hard time
> so I thought I would stick it to her. I went to a craft
> store down the street from her house and bought her a big
> flashy wig. Well, jokes on me, she loved it.
>
> I forgot to tell you all that we had a baptism this last
> week. He name is Santo and he is from the Dominican
> Republic. He is elect. It was like a 3 week drop. I will
> tell more about that later. I actually ended up playing the
> piano at his baptism. I felt like Elton John, all dressed in
> white just taking those hymns for a walk. It was a good day.
>
>
> We had the funnest activity ever this last weekend. We went
> with a chunck of the ward to a place called plaza de
> castilla, sang hymns and handed out copies of the book of
> mormon. We took 3 boxes of books and handed out all of them.
> The members really blew me away. They all made fun of me
> after, though. They said i am different than every
> missionary they have seen do this activity with them. I cant
> really think of why, but I have some ideas. At the beginning
> we would sing and then when someone would stop read our
> little sign, someone would go and talk to them. I was too
> laid back for me. I saw a group of kids hanging out a
> distance off watching us so I made a bee line to them. After
> a couple minutes I was able to double our singing force cuz
> those little dudes could sing. Then I ran into I think my
> favorite contact ever. He was an older guy that was standing
> a way off so I started chatting with him. When I asked him
> where he was from he said, “A little place in the
> carribean, its called Cuba.” I lost it. Totally
> flipped. We chatted for a good while and he ended up taking
> 2 books, one for him and one for his son, and for the first
> time in my mission the contact ended with a hug, 2 hugs
> actually. It was so cool because I love talking to cubans
> because it is like my unknown heritage, and he was super
> happy to know that there was someone in spain that shared
> his blood. It was so so so cool. He may have been as excited
> as I was.
>
>
> Well, I am out of time.
>
> Loves,
>
> Elder Sky
>
> M83 – Aaron, this is totally up your alley. Think, I am a
> missionary. Its cheesy.

Christmas? The 3 kings are right around the corner!

2010-01-04T10:46:00.002-08:00

Wednesday, December 23, 2009, 5:32 PM

> Sorry about the delay, we made a
> temple trip today. That is really no excuse, seeing as we
> now live only about 30 minutes away. The real hold up was
> because we finally found a new piso so we have our pday
> back. After the temple we met up with a bunch of
> missionaries in the stake center (it was raining) and played
> some tournament soccer in the gym. While our team was
> sitting out we played settlers of catan. A very successful
> pday. I think my favorite comment from the day was when
> everything was coming to a close and we were hiting the
> climax of our catan, so as you can imagine, everything was
> really intense. Well, one of the missionaries was looking
> around kind of lost-like and when he saw me he said, "oh I
> though Elder Carr had left already, it was really quiet." I
> dont know what he was talking about.
>
> The temple was super fun. I cant wait for you all to get to
> go through. The subway broke down so we had to make some
> detours and ended up missing our session (all the
> missionaries usually go to the same session). No problem, we
> just jumped in the next one. The session was in spanish, we
> prayed in portuguese, and the temple workers were speaking
> french. Portuguese makes me laugh.
>
> As for your question about the accent, i am still very much
> not lispy. It kind of throws people off too. I try to speak
> with no accent. Just clearly. People always try to figure it
> out and it drives them wild. They say i look spaniard, speak
> spanish well enough, but just dont sound like i look like i
> should sound. Foreigners think i am Spaniard. Hmm long
> answer for a short question.
>
> Thank you for writing Gina, she will love it.
>
> So the Lord punished our ward last week. I have no time to
> expound on it, but the chicken that was served was bad.
> Nothing horrible though, just flood breaks down south. I was
> the only missionary who got it. Church was hilarious the day after.
> People tried to show faith and come to chruch but everyone
> just ended up hanging out outside the bathroom and chatting,
> taking turns using the services. It was so much fun because
> everybody was shameless because they knew eveybody had the
> same problem. Very good times.
>
> The talent show yesterday was a blast. I tried to hold
> back, but think it didnt work too well. The assistants
> beforehand were telling us what was going down and told us
> that even though we could have fun we had to remember we are
> representatives of Jesus Christ. I am not sure why, but the
> entire time he was looking right at me. I wrote a song the
> night before to the tunes of Hero, by Enrique Iglesias, In
> the Jungle, from Lion King, and Kiss the Girl, from The
> Little Mermaid. Little excerpts from each one about
> missionary work. It turned out pretty good considering our
> first rehearsal was when we were performing it. And even
> better, there were a few missionaries that didnt have
> talents or get invited to do anything with anyone else so i
> took them on board and made them do various things during
> the song. They had a good time and it limited my performance
> options to just singing, which the assistants were grateful
> for. They recorded a video and said they would get it to us
> so i will se what i can do.
>
> Well, i am out of time. Sorry for the rush every week,
> things are nuts.
>
> Talk to you soon,
>
> Elder Sky
>
> M83

you've got mail

2010-01-04T10:46:00.001-08:00

Wednesday, December 16, 2009, 4:46 PM

> I am sorry, but this will be a quick
> one.
>
> This last week we got a call from the office that we need
> to find a new apartment for 4 missionaries and buy all new
> kitchen and cleaning gear. The timing was almost too
> perfect. I finished unpacking my bags and the phone rang. It
> is almost as if they were waiting for me… It has been a
> lot of fun negotiating in the big city with lawyers and old
> Spaniards, but time consuming to say the least. We have
> spent all day out and about making calls and buying things
> and just barely got a chance to sit down and write some
> quick emails. To spice things up I am starting to go into
> each apartment playing a different character. My current
> favorite is the pampered, teenage millionaire. You should
> see how they treat me. They get all nervous and excited. If
> you have any others I should try, let me know. Tonight I
> think I am gonna try for flamboyant, American artist.
>
> So, Mom, I heard a song and decided that I wanted to
> dedicate it to you. It is called Volveré by Amanda Miguel
> and Diego Verdaguer. Our mission leader is a very large
> Dominican and he wants me to sing it with him for a ward
> activity. We will see if he can get through my manager… I
> don’t even know who my manager is so it will definitely be
> tough.
>
> Gina’s email is ginayromina@hotmail.com.
> She wrote me an email saying hi and I wont have time for a
> while to write her back. Could you write her and tell her
> that I say hi and miss them a ton?
>
> Jason can use my skis if he wants to, just remember that I
> love them.
>
> As for the work, I have been noticing some really funny
> things. First of all, the American accent is beautiful.
> Today we ran into a guy from Denver and it was like music to
> my ears. Next up, I think all the missionaries that have
> served here have all been very reserved because the ward
> doesn’t know what to do with me. There are a ton of
> members and they are all super sweet. The Bishop is really
> excited - his favorite word is valor so I think that
> is why he loves us. He also prays like an evangelist which
> is awesome.
>
> Okay, I am sorry, but I am out of time and my companion is
> hovering over my shoulder.
>
> Im outie,
>
> Well, really, Im an innie, but you get my drift,
>
> Elder Sky

Holy Moly

2010-01-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 11:47 AM

> Okay, I don’t even know where to
> begin. I feel like I just watched the last 10 minutes of
> every episode of Heroes where everything just gets crazy and
> you have no idea what is coming next. Yeah, that is how I
> feel. Well, that would really only work if my assumption
> that Heroes is still continuing the pattern of throwing
> everything into a mess is still true. Maybe you don’t even
> watch Heroes anymore. Maybe Heroes never really existed and
> my subconscious self just created it to entertain me during
> the long hours spent on the train going to district meeting.
> That could so happen!
>
> Don’t you see how crazy everything is!?
>
> Oops, sorry to get you all hyped up. I forgot about the
> weekly business.
>
> CHRISTMAS CALL! I am thinking you can call me at 9:00 at
> night, my time. I will confirm the call time next week. Organize
> yourselves. I want us to use every second of this call efficiently. I
> think my voice has gotten deeper and it will probably take me the
> entire call to convince you that it really has. I am serious
> people, be ready.
>
> As for the Email of Ronny and Gina, I went ahead and gave
> her your email, mom. Hopefully she will email you because
> she said she really wants to talk to you. If not, I will
> give you hers as soon as I get it. It may take me a while
> seeing as I am not in Aranjuez anymore.
>
> AAH! I totally blew the secret! I was emergency
> transferred!!! I hope you can feel the emotion in all the
> exclamation marks I am using!! All last week it was awesome.
> All the members were fighting over when we were going to go
> over to their houses on Christmas day and eve. We had
> everything booked and I was totally banking on having these
> two days, plus the branch Christmas party, to be the needed
> push to get me over my goal of the big 200. That dream is no
> more. As always happens, karma was waiting until the moment
> was perfect to bring the world down on me. We had all these
> huge plans and goals, a bunch of baptismal dates, and at the
> end of it all even joked about how sucky it would be if my
> mission continued its current pattern. I had gone 2 ½
> transfers in Barrio 6, 3 ½ transfers in Talavera, and I was
> coming up on 4 ½ transfers in Aranjuez. Well, I can tell
> you it was just as sucky as we thought it would suck.
> Apparently the stars aligned and here I am. There is another
> frightful pattern, that whole aligning of the stars thing.
> The last time it happened, as we all know, the Titans were
> released and they almost took over Olympus. Okay, that was
> off topic, back to the point at hand. Tuesday morning the
> phone rang and my companion picked up. The zone leaders here
> on the other line and asked how I was doing. Elder Driggs
> told them I was feeling pretty yucky, because I was (better
> now). They then asked if I felt good enough to pack my bags.
> They tried to pass it off on the Driggster, but he also
> feared telling me. Finally they got to me and luckily the
> shock of it all left me in an awkward state of numbness that
> only allowed me to sit down and stare at the wall. And there
> I stared for a good long moment. When I finally came to I
> wasn’t even mad, just impressed. The fates really have a
> sense of humor.
>
> That brings us to almost now. After all the teary goodbyes
> I went off to Madrid. There they informed me of the
> happenings. I have been changed to Barrio 1 located in
> Cuatro Caminos, pretty much the dead center of Madrid. I am
> in a four man piso (weird, but fun), we have a ward (excited
> to see it), there are millions of people (it is madness), my
> companion is a goofball (Elder Wallace, very entertaining
> fellow), there are 4 hermanas in the district (I am scared
> out of my mind), and I still have to unpack (soon, maybe
> right after this).
>
> So that is it. I don’t know how that came across, but I
> hope you could get the feeling of it all. My jaw dropped so
> hard that I think I need a chinstrap to bring it back up.
>
> I will give you a huge updates this coming week. Prepare
> yourselves.
>
> Loves,
>
> Elder Anthony Skyler Carr – Currently somewhere between
> the heart and liver of Madrid.
>
>
>

¡atención!

2010-01-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Family!
>
> I got a little surprise from President Watkins… You rock.
> They came to the baptism this weekend and handed it to me
> there. Since I got it in November I figured it was a
> thanksgiving package, you know, like last year´s, so I went
> ahead and tore it open right then and there, and I am very
> pleased. The tie rocks.
>
> Hmm I was going to give you the emails of Ronny and Gina so
> you could congratulate them, but I find myself once again
> deep within the bowels of the Toledo Fortress Library, so
> naturally they are not here with me. Maybe next week, if you
> are willing.
>
> If you desire, you may send the package to the mission,
> which is safer, or straight to me. I would however like to
> request all the hymns I have for the guitar copied and send
> straight here. There are a couple pages I got from the
> class. If you could get those off right away that would be
> grand. There is a mission talent show this year and we are
> running out of time.
>
> Our address is C/ Abdon Bordoy 57, Aranjuez 28300, Spain
> (duh).
>
> If you send the package to the mission, it will guarantee
> me not wreaking havoc on it immediately. I will get it on
> the 22 of Dec during the mission talent show. About that,
> any ideas? There are some high hopes. We are currently
> thinking of writing a song to the accompaniment of guitar
> and bongos.
>
> Okay, the library gives much less time than I thought. We
> gotta run through the happenings. Lots of happenings.
>
> For your information, Missy, we did celebrate thanksgiving.
> Luckily, Elder Driggs has not been entirely forgotten or
> given up on and got some stuffing, mashed potatoes, and
> other goodies in the mail. I bought a chicken. Don’t worry
> though, I gave it a very turkey name: Todd.
>
> Next up, Christian. Christian is the amazing Romanian we
> have been teaching for the past few weeks. We went into his
> house the other day and I was skimming through my B of M
> looking for a scripture to use because he has already read
> almost the whole thing. I looked up and he was just staring
> at me. I stopped and he gave me a little smile. He asked me
> if I wanted him to tell me the big news then or later. I
> said, “now.” So he took a breath and said, “I am
> getting baptized the Saturday after next. You are going to
> baptize me and Driggs will be the witness.” You should of
> seen the look on my face. It must have been good because I
> saw the look on his face that was caused by the look on my
> face. You should have seen the look on his face. He told me
> that while he was working he felt that he needed to get it
> done with. He only has to get married now, which should not
> be a big problem, and we can fulfill his wish. That was a
> good day.
>
> Saturday was even better. This whole last week we have been
> out of minutes on our phone because the office elders kinda
> messed up. It made things a bit troublesome seeing as the
> stake made us change the baptism at the last minute to the
> stake center in Madrid. Luckily, the members came together
> to make all the calls necessary. Only one problem, not
> enough was said in the calls that were made and nobody
> filled the font. We went ahead with the dressing, the
> program, and even the pictures before finally stopping the
> font. It was a little bit low, but all went well. I think
> the most amazing part to me has been Ronny through all of
> this. He has been flying of nothing but faith. He has not
> felt ready the entire time, but he has faith in what he has
> heard and the little that he has felt. Right when we were
> about to take the pictures of his family, he disappeared. I
> didn’t freak, I just slipped away from the group to go and
> search him out. I found him alone in the bathroom with his
> head in his arms leaning up against the wall. I came in and
> put my hand on his shoulder and asked if he was okay. He
> looked at me, and with tears in his eyes said, “I was just
> talking with me Father.” In the testimony he shared
> afterwards he said that he finally felt what he was looking
> for, just minutes before he was baptized. He received the
> testimony because he endured the trial of his faith. A big
> testimony builder for me.
>
> Okay, a red box just popped up to tell me I am out of
> time.
>
> Love you all,
>
> thanks for the good words and the shout outs from the small
> majority of you,
>
> peace be the journey,
>
> Sky

lets do this thing

2010-01-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Kin,
>
> So, you seek enlightening on the sweet district title, do
> you? Well, to be quite honest, I don’t really get it
> either. The only explanation I can make up is that we spend
> a lot of time on trains. A lot of time to think. You know
> how my thought process is. Some may call it ADD. Others may
> make reference to ADHD. I, however, am fixed in my mind with
> the determined resolution that…
>
> I think I am going to start a computer company called
> OFTHE. I am typing on a DELL right now and I think it is
> funny how some Spaniards might be confused by that. “Del,
> ¿del que?” Or, “of the, of the what?”
>
> Congratulation Jation! I changed your name so it
> would rhyme. You can go ahead and think there is more to it.
> Kind of like in the bible when all the people receive new
> names because of there new achieved level of awesomeness.
> You have now achieved the required level of awesomeness.
> Keep rocking the boat. Well done Jation.
>
> Is Tara pregnant? I have a vague recollection of hearing
> something about that a few months ago. If so, keep up the
> good work, Tara! If not, umm… get to work.
>
> Time for updates.
>
> After several special phone calls and 4 hours, Ronny and
> his family successfully passed their baptismal interviews.
> They are set for this Saturday at 7.
>
> Here’s the drift:
>
> On Friday we went over with a couple members to put the
> finishing touches on the family. Ronny was absent. This was
> a bad sign. In all of our battles to successfully overcome
> the vices of the bottle, this was the common occurrence. He
> was strong through the week, but along with the weekend came
> the fall. We went ahead with the lesson and said our
> goodbyes. The next day we made time to go over and have a
> little sit down with Ronny. When we got there he welcomed us
> with a big smile and free banana. I gratefully accepted
> both. I thought he was trying to pay me off, which would
> have worked considering my weakness for the wicked yellow
> hoop fruit, but this time there was no need for bartering.
> He didn’t fall! Well, he fell, but in the more literal
> sense. In his words he said that a polish man at work
> insulted him and his mother and he returned the favor. He
> usually just ignores him, but he said he has been way
> stressed out all week from not seeking worldly relief.
> Then the polish man gave him a fist to the face, and he gave
> him 5. Then his buddies jumped in to back up their fallen
> comrade. So, as he said, his hands were full. Ronny is all
> man. On his baptismal form I marked male twice. He said that
> he had to do a bit of extra work because they were all
> kicked out of work and in no state to work.
>
> Then came Sunday. They were all doing awesome. It was like,
> “yeah, we’re getting baptized!” Then came Monday. It
> was like, “we can’t do it!” We finally had the sit
> down. It was interesting, they wanted so badly to do the
> right thing that they were afraid they might mess up. Common
> occurrence. Then came all the doubts. Then came all the
> insecurities. Then came all the things they didn’t like
> about the branch. I didn’t think too much of it until he
> started saying that he just couldn’t see himself doing it.
> I didn’t really know what to say, I knew he knew it was
> true. It was a delicate moment. He didn’t need doctrine.
> He claimed he didn’t need testimony. When I heard that I
> stopped him. I told him that a long time ago Heavenly Father
> had promised me that if I would freely share my testimony
> with others, then it would reach their heart. For a long
> time I didn’t even have anything to share, but I prayed
> everyday that the very little I had been blessed with would
> be enough. I promised Heavenly Father in return that I would
> do everything I could to give people the chance to feel
> something. I would give everything I had because that is who
> I am. I have given everything before, and at times it
> hasn’t been enough, but I was committed to keep doing it
> anyway, no matter what. So, I gave him everything. He
> started to think a bit more about it. Meanwhile I was hit
> with the very same feeling I had when Micheal’s father
> said no. That feeling where I feel like I have nothing more.
> Like I have nothing else I can give or say. So I started
> praying in my heart that my companion or I would me inspired
> to say something. We didn’t get anything, so we didn’t
> say anything. Finally, as he was trying to figure out his
> feeling I had the thought that maybe he had what needed to
> be said. I asked him if he thought he would pass the
> interview. He said that he could say yes to everything, but
> lacked the revelation. I immediately felt amazing. It was
> like the whole situation was out of my hands. Like i had
> done my part and that was enough. We explained that all the
> testimonies he said had impacted him had come from people
> who had received them after being baptized. The revelations
> we receive are not to get us just to baptism, they are to
> help us complete the last step, the persevering to the end.
> We told him the Elder doing the interview would be
> representing the Lord and then asked him if he had faith in
> that. He said that he knew that whatever he was told there
> would be the will of the Lord.
>
> The Lord told him yes.
>
> The Lord told them all yes.
>
> As always, sorry for the rush of the writing. Time is up.
>
> Love,
>
> Sky

Christmas is in 6 weeks? That's tomorrow!

2010-01-04T10:41:00.001-08:00

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Let’s get to the most important
> things first. This week we were doin' the usual, you know,
> building the kingdom, and I had one of those epiphanies. I
> finally thought of a suitable nickname for each of us. Elder
> Carr and Elder Driggs shall now forever be known (probably
> just for this week) as Sunset and Chipotle Sauce. Elder
> Driggs, I mean Chipotle Sauce, or Chip as I like to call
> him, even helped a bit by showing me a scripture from Alma
> 26. He didn’t show me what he learned from his reading of
> this chapter with the goal of improving our companionship
> title (so he thinks), but what’s done is done. There is a
> line in there that says: peregrinos en una tierra extraña.
> Something like wonderers in a strange land in English. You
> will have to double check that, I haven’t really opened my
> English quad for a while.
>
> Sunset and Chipotle Sauce: Peregrinos en una Tierra
> Extraña.
>
> Okay, moving on.
>
> Elder Driggs just peeked over my shoulder and read what I
> wrote… he laughed in disbelief. I told him that in time he
> would come to realize what is really important in life. He
> said he was going to write about how disobedient I am. Sure,
> I will give him the fact that the white handbook speaks out
> against nicknames, but it says nothing against companionship
> titles.
>
> Companionship unity. What about our new title doesn’t
> scream unity?
>
> Okay, moving on.
>
> Mum, feel free to go with the vitamin c capsules, the
> powder is poison. Sure, the powder may work better, but that
> is only because it scares your body into not ever wanting to
> get sick again. Just thinking about it makes me crave a swig
> of my high fructose corn syrup: the true doctor.
>
> Mum again, feel free to use the ipod. It will probably need
> to be updated if nobody has been using it, which would
> surprise me since you are all a bunch of moochers (smoochers
> if you are Missy and Preston). But if nobody has used it,
> ask Graham to update it for you.
>
> Mum once again, and indirectly Susan. Feel liberated
> (wanted to change things up a bit from free) to use any pics
> you want. If it turns out really good, maybe you could send
> one my way to give to Hermana Watkins… or maybe her
> daughter…
>
> Ooooh that was so inappropriate, Moms gonna kill me! Too
> bad I wont hear about it for another month.
>
> Okay, moving on.
>
> This Saturday was awesome. We cruised on over to the Chapel
> bright and early to build ourselves a font which has now
> popularly come to be known as the blue whale. Isa made it
> through and was ready to go for a swim. Everything was
> amazing. She got baptized along with the daughter of our
> Branch President. The only speed bump this time was
> everything having to do with the baptismal clothes. The
> mission has always gotten clothes from the mission office so
> when the time was closing in I gave them a call and they
> said they would take care of it. They then called me the day
> before to let me know that there is new norm that all the
> wards and branches pertaining to stakes have to get their
> clothes from them and that the office is not supposed to
> take care of it. Having to deal with that made me take a new
> resolve: In my life I am going to always try to do the right
> thing, not just the correct thing. They had the
> clothes, but left us out to dry. The stake didn’t do
> anything either because of the short notice. I didn’t
> appreciate what happened because I am pretty sure Christ
> would have helped us out, but He also wouldn’t have let
> this bug him or stop him, so we didn’t let that happen
> either. Luckily, the members came together and provided
> little Isa with a temple dress, white pants, pretty little
> ties, and all the necessaries. I however realized that we
> didn’t pack my temple clothes so I had to borrow them from
> Elder Driggs. I currently am a tight 36, Elder Driggs is a
> slim 32. That was interesting. I felt like I was getting
> ready to shoot Saturday night fever. Look out John Travolta.
> Not to mention the water was ice cold, which was cool (ha
> ha, pun!). Oh yeah, and seeing as this was my first time
> ever in my life doing this, I never really thought about
> having to bring dry garments, so I clunked around the rest
> of the night moistened with holy water. Maybe in the next
> package you could sneak my pants, tie, shoes, and socks into
> there. I hopefully wont ever have to baptize again, but just
> in case it might be good to have the necessaries. I prefer
> tricking the investigator into choosing a member. I get
> transferred, the member doesn’t. Oh well, we’ll see.
>
> After she was baptized she shared the most amazing
> testimony I have ever heard. It was incredible. She was
> talking about how she knew God lived because she had seen
> him in others. Then she talked about the missionaries and
> said: In them I see the wisdom of an elder, the power of the
> spirit, and an example of a believer: I see my mother. In
> them I see a faithful companion, a true friend, and a
> powerful support: I see my husband. In them I see humility
> and the innocence of a child: I see my son.
>
> It was a really cool experience. I made a CD this week but
> then a member needed to copy some of the pictures so I will
> hopefully be getting that off next week.
>
> Loves, hugs, and high fives,
>
> Elder Anthony Sunset Sky – Wandering strange lands with
> Chipotle Sauce at my side.
>
>
>

read it and weep

2010-01-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Distant Caretaker,
>
> As always, business first.
>
> I went through the personal pharmacy you gave me and I will
> need some more Vitamin C, Bromex, Defense Plus, Nasal Spray,
> Garlic, and Flora. Also, some of the super rediculous hair
> wax that I would never in my life have gotten but susan made
> me get it and now I really like it and would greatly desire
> some more. Ask susan about that one. Also, I would like to
> request a new tie tack from Harrison. We were running after
> a family that we had to talk to and I felt the tack go
> flying into the outer darkness of an Aranjuez alleyway where
> there is only weeping, wailing, and the gnashing of teeth. I
> was forced to choose between the pleasure of having my tie
> well secured against my body, flail free, clean and classy,
> or the possibility of suprising this potential hearer of the
> word enough to hear our words. I chose the latter. Now
> Captain Moroni and his metallic title of liberty have been
> layed to rest amongst the autumn leaves that now scatter the
> streets of this death trap and enemy to all things that
> partake in any way of the tacking of ties. Naturally, we
> will be having a funeral this coming week in memory of what
> was lost.
>
> So a new tie tack would be great.
>
> There is also a new deal going on in the letter department
> of the mission. We only get letters during transfers,
> interviews, and zone conferences. So if I take a long time
> to answer any questions, either it was a dumb question, I
> forgot it, or I have not yet read it. For example, this
> transfer we had our zone conference and interviews with
> president take place on the same day during week five. I
> just barely got the letters that were sent during those five
> weeks. Good to hear from you all. The only question I
> remember as of right now was Dads. We do get the liahona,
> but due to the above reason, it may take a while. I think it
> would be awesome to take a waltz with you through the
> Conference talks every week. Please do send them printed of
> with all your comments.
>
> Speaking of conference, we got to watch Elder Hollands talk
> in zone conference because we miss the last session here. He
> is a lion.
>
> Alright, business is done, on to the tootsie rool center.
>
> I love to sing (more of a yell). I also love tone deaf
> south americans. The other day we were having a family night
> with my ecuadorian fan club (all the elderly mothers that
> live in the outlying pueblos) and they asked me if I had
> ever heard of Il Divo. Well, (dont laugh mom) they told me
> my voice sounds exactly like their lead man. (Mom, why are
> you laughing? For all you know I may have finally hit
> puberty.) In connection to this, we have a
> new activity with our Elders Quorum Pres. He has always been
> a difficult man to meet with. He is a colombian artist
> (paint), which makes for a super fun mix. Well, instead of
> trying to teach him, I just told him we wanted to stay after
> and sing with him. He loves music and so he had the
> Driggster play the piano and he and I sang. It worked
> wonderfully because afterwards we got to coordinate with him
> a bit for home teaching. During the singing an interesting
> thing happened. We were singing the first noel and i was
> getting way into it. We hit the chorus and instead of
> following the melody i tood the tenor line for a walk about
> 2 octaves and he just stopped, looked at me, and said: i
> love it. So now we are planning on performing it in
> sacrament next week. Il Divo live in the Aranjuez branch. We
> are hoping to have a sell out crowd of 50. I will keep you
> updated.
>
> Speaking of notes, on a sadder note, we didnt have a
> baptism this last week (I will get to that in a moment.). On
> a higher note, we are planning on having two baptism this
> coming saturday, them being Isa (we will get to her in a
> moment) and Helena, the daughter of the branch president.We
> got to go by and teach her at the request of President
> Jarosz (giant polish man who loves to punch Elder Driggs in
> the sternum) about the plan of salvation. She passed. Super
> smart girl. At the end we had a really cool moment. She was
> wondering if I still remembered my baptism, and i told her
> yes. There i three things i remember. First, getting to fill
> up the font with dad. Second, when i was confirmed all the
> priesthood holders were extremely hesitant to place their
> hands on my head because i was currently sporting the spikey
> hair look. Third, i remember the look on my parents face. I
> had seen it before, but i had never felt what i felt from it
> before. I realized how proud of me they were, but i felt
> like there was something more. I felt like there was another
> set of parents, not of this world, that were even more proud
> of me. It was the first time i remember feeling something
> that familiar from that side of the veil. When we taught her
> it was cool to see how proud everyone one in her family
> already was of her. I was glad i got to be there.
>
> As for the Prince, it was kind of a punch to the emotional
> stomach. He called us the other day and said that his
> parents had forbidden him from doing it, and seeing as they
> live in nigeria, there is very nothing we can do. To make
> things worst, Esther, the mother of Micheal had a dream
> about the church that scared her and wont let either of them
> come to church. It is sad how quickly the devil can make us
> forget. It was tough having so much happen that was out of
> our control. We are just waiting on a miracle right now. It
> was one of those times that i had to remember that i have to
> work as if it all depended on me, but remember that it
> doesnt.
>
> Luckily, we were blessed with a ton of tender mercies, as
> always. Isa was praying to know what she should do and
> received the answer that she needed to be baptized. She is
> moving to Bercelona at the end of the month but wants to be
> baptized here. It has been a ton of fun finishing everthing
> up in just a few days. She had her interview with our
> district leader and he said that it was a bit sketchy at
> first. That didnt surprise me, Isa is a fireball. Apparently
> when he asked her if she believed President Monson to be the
> prophet, seer, and revelator today, she said she wasnt sure.
> That scared him a bit. But then came the following: well,
> the book of mormon is true, so he must be. Thats my girl.
>
> We found her on my first day, and we will get to see her
> baptized on my possibly last day. It would be cool on the
> serendipity scale (a scale i just made up right now), but i
> would be sad to leave. I hope they give me at least one
> more. We shall see...
>
> Well, that does it for right now. We gotta go cruise the
> palace.
>
> Congratulations to 4 out of the 7 family members for
> getting excepted to be constestants on survivor. That is the
> lie i have been telling my sensitive self because it is the
> only excuse good enough for going so long without writing.
>
> Love most of you,
>
> Sky- currently tie tackless in Aranjuez
>
>

a little late, but still good

2009-11-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

November 4, 2009

I hate to say it, and I know you hate to hear it, but I have absolutely no time. Today we went to the mission home to have a zone activity and we just barely got back.

I am happy. I am healthy. I have Total Eclipse of the Sun by Bonnie Tyler stuck in my head.

Things are good.

Really quick, I am doing good on supplements. I am out of life pack, garlic, running low on latero flora, normal flora and could use some sort of muscle soreness lotion or something of the sort. If you believe that the above items should be included in La Carrmacia (mix between Carr and Pharmacia (Pharmacy)) then feel free to include them in the Thanksgiving packages. And yes, I do expect to be receiving something for which I can give much thanks this month.

I have now blown Happy Birthday Kisses to the following people: Isis, Harrison, Preston. It may take a while for them to get there because I had to send them by land, the international kiss blowing rates were a little beyond my price range.

You may be thinking that the following comment was unnecessary and a waste of time. You may be right.

Even quicker now, I got to take part in some pretty cool stuff this week. I got to be part of my first baby blessing. We threw together an awesome BBQ last Saturday which was a blast. At the mission home today President was greeting us at the door as we were walking in and he laughed when he saw me and gave me a hug- not sure yet if this is good or bad. And most importantly I got to be part of a really cool one on one with Ronnie. We were at his house and E. Driggs was helping the family with the food and I was sitting and chatting with Ronnie. He told me he was having a really hard time because of his problems with alcohol and didn’t think he was going to be able to overcome it. Ever since his brother in law died he has been hitting the bottle pretty hard. He is now to the point that he can make it through a whole week, but every weekend he falls. He was so depressed and really didn’t think he could. I got to have a cool experience kind of pumping him back up. I don’t remember hardly anything that I said, but that is just because very little of it was even mine to say. Mostly just told him that I didn’t ever want to hear him say that he couldn’t, because I know, and I know he knows that Christ already did it. Something I have noticed this past week is that in a lot of the places that it mentions faith it almost always mentions hope. And even more impacting to me that it often mentions patience along with it. We must have hope that we can. The faith gets us going, and patience keeps us up fighting. I pretty much told him what I knew: Not very much at all. I am horrible with history, even worse with the future, but I know without a doubt certain things. That is that Joseph Smith saw what he saw. That God answers prayers. That we can because He did.

Sorry if you were totally lost through that. I wanted to try to write as much down as I could because I knew that I would forget how it felt by next week. I think he cried a bit, I couldn’t tell though because someone threw water in my eyes.

Sorry about the whole time thing, I tried to cruise and I still went over what I had.

Love you tons,

Sky

show me heaven

2009-10-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

We talked to a guy yesterday who said that he knew a lot about God. I asked him if he knew God. He thought for a bit and said that he would be willing to listen, but we would have to show him heaven.

I thought that was a cool phrase. Show me heaven.

My hippy side has begun to flourish once again. Mother, feel free to be proud. Father, feel free to be afraid.

I am feeling better from the yuckiness of last week, but i am feeling a new drain: Say hello to the new marathon me! The Driggster and the Romanian love to run. I am willing to follow. Every morning we spend about 40 min. conquering the mountain behind our house. The past few days i have been doing really good on excersices. You know, new motivations. I really want to be able to play with Cal when i get home, and right now i am just not physically capable of such an endeavour.

Me oh my what a week.

We had some really cool things happen with Olga Marzal this last week. For those who do not remember, she is the one who has been kicked in the rear like 500 times by the holy ghost. Her whole life has been leading her to the doors of the chruch of jesus christ, but she has always been unwilling to realize what was right in front of her face. I have good news, she realized. She knows its true. From her first encounter with missionaries 40 years ago all the way to her dialing the wrong number on the phone and ending up with the missionaries, she has been shown heaven bit by bit. This last week we invited her to be baptized and she made a long speal about how she wanted to be totally sure and prepare more and feel it and know it and a bunch of other totally lame excuses. I kind of zoned out during the speal. When she was all done i just told her that is was her date, she could do what she wanted, but God allowed us to feel that this was her date and we knew God wanted her to do it. She looked at us for a bit and started to open her mouth to protest, but she accidentally said yes. Naturally, i immediately called no take backs, double stampies, and no erasies. We got her. She is shooting for the 28th of Nov.

We had to push the prince's date back a bit because we didn't feel he was ready. Yesterday we got to reset it. We felt it finally. He said the closing prayer and prayed to God that He would let him get baptized this time. He said that it was something he knew he needed and wanted and prayed that it would work out this time. Once again, i called no take backs. I even added a no battle. We got him. He is set for the 7th of Nov.

Ronnie and his family and Isa are all doing good. They are still working it for the 28th of Nov. as well.

Oh yeah, another cool thing happened. We ran out of saldo on Sunday. Saldo in Spain is the minutes that we get on the phone. We are charged a certain rate per minute and it subtracts from a monthly allowance of 50€. You could usually expect a solid chew out when you ran out, which i regularly did. Recently, Pres Watkins bumped us up to 70€ so that we would never run out. Well, i ran out. Not sure how, but i did. I called him from a pay phone and he spent the first little while just heaping praise at us for what he saw on Sunday (we will get to that) and then asked what he could do for us. I told him to prepare for an emotion change and told him i ran out. He just asked how much more we would need, 10 or 20. I said that we would be able to do it with 10 and he said, okay, i will give you 20. Then he said, don't ever feel bad for using the tools that the church has given us to further the work of the Lord. He is now going to permanently raise us to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I was pleasantly surprised.

As for what happened on Sunday, we had quite the surprise for Mr Pres Watkins himself. As we were preparing to leave to go pick up some investigators for church, we got a call. It was Watkins telling us he was on his way. We asked to where and he said he was coming to church with us to see what all the fuss was about. We went to church and went through the normal routine. The member all loved Watkins and he even came to our Gospel Principles class. At the end he told us that he had never seen things run so well. Every seat of the church was full, there were several less actives present, and more than 10 investigators to take care of. He said it was amazing. Once again, he began heaping praise we didn't deserve and then went on his way. I still dont agree with the whole praise for the results thing. I have always worked hard on my mission, and my first year i didn't really hear anything because not much happened. Now that things are happening, i realize how undeserved it is because we just have the luck that the timing is right. Nothing to do with me. I blame it all on the driggster.

Well, that does it for me.

Make sure nobody gets to close to Caleb when he is yawning, you may run the risk of falling in. That could cause a bit of a choking hazard if the person is equal to or greater than the size of Harrison.

Love,

Elder Anthony Skyler Oluwa Seun Carr

here you go

2009-10-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Yoddle,

Sorry about the lateness of the email, we have had a pretty packed day. We got invited to go see Las Ventas bull fighting ring with some Elder and then right after caught the tail end of a multi zone bbq…. featuring Aranjuez. All the city zones like to have activities because they are all really close together, but since our zone is the pueblo zone, it is a bit on the impossible side. Luckily, the other missionaries like us, so we get invited... also a small chance we are invited out of pity. No matter, at least people are beginning to hear of Aranjuez.

Las Ventas was cool. According to them it is the most famous bull fighting ring in the world. According to them. I had never heard of it. I found it interesting how the tour guide tried to almost minimize the actual brutality of it all. She kept saying that the bull fighters get extra points if they can kill the bull with the least amount of suffering possible. I for one am indifferent to the sport, but I figure that if you are going to be hanging out in the outlying edges of Babylon, you might as well just go party in the center and quit fooling yourself. No need to cover up. A grown animal is being slaughtered in 20 minutes for the entertainment of others. Admit that the crowd cheers more when the kill is hard. And they cheer even louder when the bull starts to win. All I know is that the whole time I kept having the whole gladiator deal running through my head.

Maximus!

Oh yeah, I also thought it was really funny how they blindfold and armor the horses. I could just imagine a horse chilling there in the dark thinking: its nice of them to dress me up like this, but I would really like to know what is going on out there, everyone sounds like they are having a great time- ooouughgghugoouughg! What the heck was that!? Did I just get hit by a car?

As you can tell, I got a lot out of the tour.

Sorry about the distractedness. This last week a went through a bout of strep throat which was no fun. I didnt want to call the mission nurse because she just loves to drug people up on the cheap medicine. So instead I went downstairs and knocked on our land ladies door. Turns out that she and mom attended the same herbology class at Hogwarts because she is a pro. At the end of the day I came home to a basket full of lemons on my desk and a jar of all natural honey. The instructions were a nice echo of what I maybe should have remembered from my home treatments. I am over the throat issues and now moving through a baby cold which does a nice job of simply draining me completely.

And here I am.

I just hope what I am writing makes sense.

Its okay if it doesn’t make sense. Nothing now a day makes sense. It is like there is something missing. Some link somewhere. For a moment I thought the missing link might be baby Cal, seeing as he is clearly beyond any norm or standard known to us, but then I realized that there is no chain in existence big enough to consider him as a link. I remain in confusion. Sometimes fear. Especially when I look at the pictures of Cal before going to bed.

Something to ponder.

Well, time is almost spent, but I did do missionary work this last week, so I guess I could share something.

We have been teaching this really nice Romanian man and his wife for a couple of weeks now. He is a strict Orthodox and loves to read the bible. We were teaching him the other day about the book of mormon and we ended up reading a chapter with him. About half way through the Chapter I got this funny thought that we should switch it up. Just switch chapters. I thought it would be weird to just cut it short right there, but the more we read the more bored I felt about the topic we were reading. So finally, I just stopped him and told him to switch to 2 Nephi 4. We started reading and I felt way better. I have always loved this chapter. While he was reading he kept pausing and asking us if he should keep going. It was weird because every time we just told him to go ahead and finish the chapter. At the end I started talking and began to ask him a question, but out of nowhere I just went blank. I couldnt think of anything to say. Impossible you may say, but it indeed did happen. So instead of trying to push something out, I just shut up. He stayed there staring at the page. It was totally silent. We were all quiet for about 5 min. Finally, I looked up at him and I saw a tear running down his face. He looked at us and told us that this was word for word how he felt. He said that many times he had thought about these things and he felt a strange burning in his chest. He couldnt describe it. I had one of those cheesy realizations after. We are all trying to teach as the perfect companionship: us and the spirit. Sometimes when we are teaching, we have to give the spirit a chance to teach.

He is not married yet so he will take a bit to get baptized, but he knows how much of a miracle he is.

Sorry, time is gone.

Love you bunches,

Elder Anthony Skyler Oluwa Seun Carr

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

2009-10-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

HheEyYy,

I got the package. I am speechless. It is a good thing emails are typed and not dictated, because I would not be able to express myself in any way, shape or form. Cal is ridiculous. I honestly can’t think of a joke that works. I would say that you should go play basketball with him, but he wouldn’t fit through the hoop. Even saying that you should be careful about letting him sit on your lap because of the high femur shattering danger would be inappropriate because if it were to happen, which it probably will, I would feel horrible. It’s one of those things that is only funny until it happens.

Mom, forget about getting a new love sac before I get home. In a couple weeks I think Caleb will be bigger and more comfortable than the love sac. He even has built in heating.

I think Cal and I are destined to be best friends.

As for the rest of the package, thank you so much for everything. It was all perfect. I’m going to cut out the picture of Bri flipping off the camera and keep it forever. Atta girl.

Some quick baby sized requests. Ah! I can’t use that term anymore! This could be horribly blown out of proportion depending on what baby comes to mind. If it is an Ali type baby, it works. But if Cal comes to mind, you are going to have a serious headache. Any object of such magnitude should be handled with great care, for even the thoughts can cause great harm to insides of one’s head bone.

(Caleb & Ali)

Some quick minimally sized requests that in no way should be thought of as being comparable in smallness to Caleb who is in no way small and minimal. Could you send the recipes for your homemade ranch and salsa? Also, if you can track down the story “the giving tree” it would make a great addition.

Well, I am still a missionary, so I guess I can tell you what’s been going down.

There have been a lot of cool things happening. We have been teaching English classes for the last couple of weeks. I love English classes. We don’t speak English in the mission anymore so it is a nice little way to make sure I don’t forget too much. Plus, they are practically handing their fragile minds to me on a silver platter for me to mold to my pleasing. Last week we were going over how to tell someone how your are feeling. In my circle we had about 8 people and by the end they were really getting it down. I had them go practice on the more advanced students in the Driggsters circle which was very effective. They would go up and tap them on the shoulder and say, “Hello, where is the nearest toilet?” And then suddenly grabbing their stomachs and lurching forward, almost to the ground they yell out, “I’M SICK!” We have been working a lot on talking with your body. They are really getting the hang of it.

We got to have couple more awesome family nights with Ronnie and his family. The last one we had we watched the testaments and at the end they had tons of questions. I felt like it would be good to read from the 3 Nephi 11 so they all opened up and we started reading. I thought at first we would only read the first page, but then I felt really strongly that we should keep going just a little bit more. Then when we went a little bit more, I felt that a few more bits would hurt. After about 8 bits we finished the chapter. At the end they all were really pensive and we ended up talking about the focus at the end of the chapter thanks to the spirit the first part brought in. The focus at the end is baptism. He has been challenged about 10 times and started saying the same excuses. Then his family kicked in saying they wanted to be baptized. We then shared something different, and to be honest, I don’t even remember exactly what we said. He then looked at us and said, okay. We are planning on the 28th of November and if everything goes well we should be able to move it up.

They need lots of prayers.

Well, our hostess is kicking us out.

Love you tons and bunches,

Don’t drop Cal, he may make a hole in the floor and kill Mamina if you are at our house,

Love,

Sky

the Lord did say he would raise a peculiar people

2009-10-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

09/30/2009

Good things are happening.

Business first.

I have not bought a guitar yet, and might not ever be able to. We are way too busy right now trying to fit everyone in, which is a good thing. I did however buy myself a new suit for my birthday seeing as the chubbyness of my bum completely massacred my other pants. Thank you for the suit. I may be spending a bit more to get it all tailored up. Maybe some shoes too. All the sales are happening right now.

Speaking of shoes, thank you for getting that all figured out. I will wait a bit and then send some pictures, mostly of the inside. You can just give them to Jason if he likes them, they are very good quality.

We did end up visiting the thug man, and he was really cool. His name is Rodrigo and he is from Brazil. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and then asked him to read a bit and pray. His answer was, “Thank you so much for this.” He is cool. We will keep him.

Still waiting on the nigerian name. Dont worry though, Oluwa Damilola Adesipo Prince Olekokun wont let us down. I mean, come on, he is royalty.

We did not eat any of the fish. Seeing as we are fishers of men, we didnt want to start any bad habits.

Done, now for news.

Some good stuff and some better stuff, I will let you be the judge.

We went to visit our bombshell, peruvian, old, less active member the other day in the day care center. She always has me laughing up a storm. She is always complaining about all the other old hags in the center. She says that she ended up in one of the nicest rooms, even though she is new, just because her roommate is black. It was cool, she said that everyone else was missing out on this ladies awesome culture, but then it was cooler because she said that seeing as she is a peruvian mountain woman they now have so much culture in that room it is coming out of their ears! Pretty sure I did see something coming out of her ears, didnt know you call that culture. I love sassy old women.

Elder Driggs has made some new strides in his personal development. He is now cursing fluently in spanish. I am hoping the next step in his progression will at least be that he becomes aware of the cursing. It has made for some very funny moments. For example: We were in the kitchen eating lunch, and in walked our new roommate, Juan Carlos, from Andalucia. We were eating egg sandwiches and the Driggster took a bite of his, and of course, the yoke exploded out the other end all over his hand. Well, he ment to say MIRA, but since he cant speak in tu form, it has to be MIRE. Sadly, all he could remember was that he was supposed to have an E somewhere in there. So, with food in his mouth, he screamed out MIERA. This is dangerously close to the equivalent of the shiz word. With food in mouth, it is exact. Juan Carlos stopped, smiled, and said, “Now there is a word I can understand, atta boy.”

Hmm. This has been rather worldly. Maybe we can try to edify a bit in the remaining seconds.

Well, at church we had an amazing turnout. We had so many people show up that we had to add an extra row. As we were shifting over to the last block of priesthood, things were crazy. Everybody loves everybody, which is awesome. Sadly, it lasted really long. We were already 30 min into the class and nobody was teaching. I will go ahead and say it now, it turned out to be a growing experience for me. I had to mature enough tear myself away from the way fun chatting to go see what was going on. I asked the Mission Leader what was going on and he said the the Branch President was going to teach. Only problem was that the Branch President was in an interview. I didnt want the investigators to just sit there for an hour so i asked him what he was going to do. He just looked at me and said this Sunday was the presidency message and it was presidents turn. I asked a few more leaders, but nothing was working. Finally, i just told i would do it. He said okay and got things started. I have had to do this two weeks in a row now. It has been a really cool experience. Both times that we have ended up with no teacher, i have felt really strongly that there needs to be a class. This alone was huge because i love just chatting with everyone and usually never care about shedules. Then when i was teaching, some really cool things happened. Lessons came out that i knew werent mine. Things i have never thought of. Stuff, that when i thought about it later, the investigators there really needed to hear, but i never knew at the time. Kind of a humbling experience, for me at least.

Sorry, time is spent.

Love you bunches,

A big wet kiss everyone,

Sky

the happenings‏

2009-09-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

09/16/09

Hi,

Some quick requests, if I may: Could you (anyone who feels that this could apply to them or who could contribute in any way) send me some short, children’s stories. I want to get a bunch of stories together that could be used as a sort of “family night parables” thing. I was thinking of things along the lines of “the giving tree” or things like that. Stories that can be easily tied back into the gospel. Since the people here don’t have the same children’s literature we do, people will think I am so creative and awesome. This is a good thing.

Funny story for Isis. There were two missionaries teaching a lesson to a family not too long ago. One was missionary of about a year, I think, and the other was being trained. To make a long story short, the new missionary made a mistake in is Spanish. It was a very warm day and, since he doesn’t know how to say much else, he decided to comment on the temperature. Weather talk, always a winner. Well, except this time. He commented to the father of the family, “¡estoy caliente!” The father, of course, reacted as any good father would by screaming to the kids, “Run, children! To your rooms! Grab the dogs! Hurry, now, go!”

(“estoy caliente” is the equivalent to expressing that one is currently in heat)

Great family.

Now, on to the main event. Elder Teixeira.

Elder Teixeira is a native from Portugal. He speaks perfect Spanish, but is Spanish is a mix between Spanish and Portuguese… Spatuguese? So anyway, he is a member of the first quorum of the seventy and also a member of the Europe area presidency. With this information in mind, you will now understand the following statement which I would like to make:

I was publicly reprimanded by a member of the first quorum of the seventy.

It was awesome.

During the conference, Elder Teixeira left the pulpit and came down to stand in front of us and use the whiteboard. We just happened to be on the second row in the very corner where the whiteboard was situated. He then proceeded to ask how many of the missionaries had progressing investigators (took us a while to understand it because he said it in Spatuguese: inspesquitadoras). We were fortunate enough to be able to raise our hands. He then asked how many of the missionaries had more than two. We were still able to keep our hands up. He then saw us and, due to our phenomenal positioning right in front of his face, asked us to come up so he could make an example out of us, I mean, use us as an example. He asked us for two of our investigators. We told him Isa and Ronnie. We then wrote their names on the board. He then asked us to give some background info on them. We were speaking Spanish at this point, so the majority of the attention slowly shifted to me, as far as the answering the questions spoken in Spatuguese was concerned. We then told about each of them and he was very happy about it. He then asked if they had baptismal dates. I told him that we have invited them, but they are both still not to that point. He asked the same question again. I tried to word it differently, but gave the same answer. Apparently, it was still the wrong answer. This was when it got awesome. He told us that there is no excuse under the sun for a progressing investigator not to have a baptismal date. He then told us that we were going to go in to the lesson with Isa and her husband Miguel Angel and tell him that his wife wants to be baptized and we want to invite him to be baptized with her, otherwise she will have to be baptized without him and progress alone. Miguel Angel is the reason Isa is not baptized yet. He wants nothing to do with us. He is one of those sinners who is comfortable with is lifestyle. Elder Teixeira said that we would alse make sure Ronnie set a date. Worthy of note: Ronnie has been challenged by many missionaries, and always says he will get baptized when he is ready. So after Elder Teixeira man handled me a little bit more, he let me sit down. I talked to him after, mostly because I wanted to shake the hand that so powerfully slapped my pride. He thanked me for being a missionary he knew could handle a teaching opportunity like that (i am not sure why this keeps happening to me). Then he said he wanted me to tell him what ended up happening with Isa and Ronnie.

Well, we did what he said. First with Miguel Angel. He was very much the same in the lesson, but when we went ahead and told him what was up he was silent for like 2 minutes. Then he said that this was serious. He would have to change a lot and told us he would have to think a lot about it, but he thinks he is ready to change. Amazing.

Then we did it with Ronnie. We had an awesome lesson and ended up just asking him when he was going to be baptized. He delayed a little bit and said that when he felt he was ready, he would do it. We then read the requirements for a baptismal candidate in Doctrine and Covenants 20:37 (I think, it is in the second column in the middle in Spanish). I then took off my tag, handed it to him and said that we would change roles for a bit. I then asked him, “Elder Carr, what do I need to do to feel ready?” He paused for a bit and said, “Repent of your sins, pray, read the scriptures, and go to church.” I then asked him, as myself again, “Are you willing to do that?” He accepted and said that the next time he would have an answer for us. Later, as we were walking to the station to catch the train back home, he pulled up next to us in his car. He said that he had been looking all over for us. After the lesson, he felt so amazing inside that he wanted to thank us in some way, so he tracked us down and gave us a ride to the station.

Time is spent, but I will for sure keep the updates coming on them.

Love you bunches,

Elder Sky

Hala madrid‏

2009-09-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

09/09/09

Sorry about the delay, even though your are probably just waking up. Today we cruised up to Madrid and toured the number one religious gathering place in spain: the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home to Real Madrid.

It was amazing. We got to sit in the stands, see the trophy room, walk through the locker room (even saw the toilet where countless legends have, well, you know…), and even sit in the players’ box. When we were down by the field, I even flirted my way into getting a blade of grass from the field, a blade of turf from the players’ box, and a dirt clod (should sell for millions on ebay). At first it proved to be a worthy challenge, seeing as the security guard on duty was a 40 year old Spaniard man. But in the end, victory was achieved, a heart was won, and a blade of grass acquired. I regret nothing.

As always, I took pictures of everything. I will hopefully be getting those off soon.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day. We get a surprise mission tour from Elder Teixeira and then a spiritual cuddle with President Watkins. I will let you know how that goes.

Yesterday was really cool. We taught Michael and of course he was stellar. Earlier in the week we had invited him to pray about things he can do better to stay strong. He told us that he prayed for an answer and then opened the book of mormon. After opening the book, he realized his thumb was pointing to verse 1 of chapter 16 of Alma. He handed it to me to read and told me that it was his answer. It is one of the peace/war chapters. I read it and paused for a moment. I then went ahead and took another moment. Then two or three more moments. Still nothing. I had no idea what he found. But of course, our miracle, Nigerian, bombshell pulled through. He said that he too was at peace right now. More peace than ever before. He then said that he also knew now that he needed to be ready and prepared for when the devil would make his cries of war against him. He did not want to hear even the faintest rumor of war inside of him.

I no longer skim over the boring war history versus straight to the fighting parts… as much.

Day before yesterday was fun. I went on exchanges with a really cool missionary who has been out for a long time. I learned something really cool from him. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I have always read/heard about how we are never supposed to compare ourselves to other missionaries to measure our own personal level of achievement. I had always thought that this meant that we were not supposed to compare ourselves to really successful missionaries so we don’t get depressed. I realized a bit more. Also got to avoid comparing oneself to the poor missionaries. It was sad to see how frustrated he got with people when they wouldn’t listen, even to the point of condemning them. I honestly wasn’t surprised every time he was turned away, I wouldn’t want to talk to someone I could tell didn’t like me. At the end of the day I was feeling pretty good about myself and how far I had come, but then I realized that I still had a long way to go. I don’t want to put myself on a scale with missionaries like that. It was sad, but educational.

Day before the aforementioned day was really sweet. We were walking out of the train station after arriving in one of our pueblos and a bus pulled up. It is a bus we don’t usually take and actually takes us in the opposite direction of the person we were planning to visit. I didn’t know why at the time, but it seemed perfect, so we jumped on. About a minute after jumping on I realized I had no idea what I was doing on this bus. It was clearly my fault. My companion is a trainee, he can push old ladies into bushes and it would be my fault. About a minute after this realization the phone rang. It was one of our members asking us if we could pass by the hospital in one of the far away pueblos. Her niece was there and needed a blessing. The pueblo she needed us to pass by was actually the pueblo we were in at that very moment. The hospital where her niece was was actually at the end of the bus line we were on. Very cool experience. We ended up going in, singing a hymn for her, and giving her a blessing. Yep, I sang for someone. Yes, it was to put her out of her misery. Didn’t work though, so we just gave her a blessing and left.

Well, time is spent.

Loves and kisses,

Sky

the columbian receptionist just winked at me... eek.‏

2009-09-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

Alright, let’s roll.

Time to hear about the Driggster. Elder Driggs is from Provo, Utah. He went to Timpview high school and BYU a year before coming out. He is super excited about everything, really really really bad at Spanish, and loves my cooking. The excitement is growing, the Spanish is improving, and the cooking really is that good. Believe it. I think my favorite part is that I am finally not the only one that leaves every contact thinking they are going to be baptized. It is nice to have a companion as innocent as me.

Alright, time for some updates.

This last week at church was explosive. Explosive because my old bubble problem has been acting up again. We called up Michael on Saturday to see if his mom was planning on coming so we could set up a ride from the train station to the church. She has a bit of arthritis in her hip and is really diabetic so her feet are not doing too hot. Well, Michael told us that she had something come up and she wasn’t going to make it. That was acceptable. Of course, that is not how it turned out. Apparently she woke up that morning feeling like she really needed to go to church. She fixed her schedule and decided she could fit it in. I got a call about 10 minutes before church started from an annoyed Michael who was going to be late to church for the first time and was heartbroken about it. He said his mother had decided to come to church and asked if we could find a ride. I called around but no one was going to pass by there. I had to call her back and tell her that we were really sorry but there was no way we could make it. It was just too late and we couldn’t ask a member to miss a whole meeting to get them. She understood and apologized as well. An hour later the door swung open and in rolled three very sweaty Nigerians. Michael, his mother Esther, and his little brother Samson. It was a huge surprise. I talked to her after she got a drink and had a chance to rest and she told me that she felt like this was her chance to show God her faith. She told God that she wanted to go and that with his help she knew she could make it, but she was going with that help or not. In her own words, “weh mede dee trek wid feht.”

The other day we taught Michael about the priesthood and we were reading about the Aaronic priesthood and the ministry of angels. He had an interesting take on it. He said that it make sense. If the priesthood is the power of god, then it makes sense that we get the power of the angels to prepare us. I thought that was cool.

I am kind of experiencing a bit of writers block this week… sorry. It doesn’t help that I have an old Bulgarian women talking on the phone behind me. The noise doesn’t bother me at all, I just get distracted really easily because I start pretending I know what she is saying and making up funny conversations in my head. I cant help it.

She just told the person on the other line about a Bulgarian holiday called pushageezerfest. According to her, it is where everyone runs around all day in funny costumes and push old people into bushes.

See, it’s a serious problem.

We had a funny lesson the other day with one of the bus drivers here. We talked to him all the time when we would take is bus and we finally got to go over and teach him. His name is Angel and he is a 49 year old Spaniard bachelor. He is also a less active Jehovah’s Witness. The lesson was a lot of fun. It was like teaching a broken insult machine. He kept trying to use is old JW tricks, but he couldn’t remember most of them, and he kept remembering that he likes us. I had a way good time. We taught him about Joseph Smith and he got frustrated because he promised us that it wasn’t supposed to make that much sense, so he made us promised to come back later so he could prepare. We accepted and should be teaching him again later this week.
Well, I am sorry for the shortness of the letter, but it is hard to write when laughing. The woman just told the person now that she is going to build her house upside-down so that she won’t feel as overweight. Logical.

Love you all tons and bunches,

Hugs and kisses,

High fives and winks,

Anthony Skyler Carr

if you see smoke, dont worry, its just my fingers burning up this keyboard‏

2009-08-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

Intro? There’s not time for an intro! We have to get moving, now!

I will categorize all that I have to fit in. This is done in order to streamline this process, because it’s gonna be huge!

Things of minimal importance, but still worthy of note:

I found out this really cool way to get this new style of garments, and you don’t even have to go to the distribution center. All you have to do is come here to Aranjuez, throw your garments into the wash, and then accidentally throw a white shirt with a big red print in. It is really cool. They come out in this beautiful, pink hue. I often feel like a flower. A pretty, pink one.

Jason. I heard some songs that I think you will love. They are by Shawn Mcdonald called “take my hand” and “all I need.” You should listen to them, get pumped, and use the extra energy you receive to maybe put them, and others similar to them, on a cd and send them my way.

Karston. Last week I was over at a house teaching this family and something notable happened. We were chatting with the 25ish year old and then I noticed his shirt was a capoeira championships of brazil shirt. Of course we got onto the topic immediately. He then flew out of the room and came back carrying a Berimbou. He let me play it. He said I am horrible. I thought I sounded nice. While I was serenading my companion to some PARANAWEH he slipped silently out of the room and returned with a memory card, which I slipped stealthily into the dvd player. He had downloaded home videos of the street performers in Bahia onto this very memory card. They were awesome. I think they gave me whiplash, you know, from not watching them…

Aaron. I went on exchanges last week with a missionary from Arizona named Elder Hinton. It turns out his brother is the bass singer for Inside-out. I got all the inside scoop, and some free cds. Very successful exchange.

Graham. I want you to know we had our first Zone Conference with the new president and one of the most amazing things happened. He actually fed us during the designated lunch time. Potato bar, very delicious. Much better then the previous roll and apple. I am not sure what this has to do with you, but I figured it has been a while since a made a shout out. Consider this yours.

Mom. I am good on cytolize and down to 2 jars of peanut butter. I have been rationing it all pretty well. As for the magic tricks, I am not really sure how you expect me to see the video, but cute idea. Maybe just explanations or something of really easy tricks with coins, strings, etc.

Tara. It’s a boy. I was really going to guess that, but mom spoiled it.

Everyone. Wait, mom first. I love the idea with the guitar. I talked to president about it and he loved it. He asked me to write up ideas and a game plan for it. Now to everyone. I want more ideas. Ideas of things that we could do to get people involved in classes or anything of the sort. For example: there is an elder in Madrid who is ranked in Europe for martial arts and is teaching self defense. Some sisters are teaching American dance classes and cooking classes. President is really cool with just about anything. Consider me, my talents, and what would be fun. I need your creative juices. Ready, set, go.

As for your question about what the leadership thought of my translating… I think they have given up on me. Whenever I do anything they just laugh and shake their heads and say, “of course.” In fact, I think they may have even taken to heart the phrase “if you can’t beat them, join them.” They do smile more because of it, but that bring me to another category…

Things of maximum importance, so good I suggest you restrain from blinking the entire time:

I got a call that I was to report to transfers but that my companion would be coming in the day after, so I would have to stay with another missionary for the night. I got to stay with Elder Read which was way fun reminiscing of the old days. Well, turns out they want more little Elder Carrs running around, because he is hot off the press. His name is Elder Driggs from Provo, Utah. He is so so so sweet and almost as green as I am. There was a total of 4 missionaries coming in this transfer from the MTC so all of us showed up together to the mission home yesterday. There we got some training, ate some killer burritos, and hung out. Funny moment real quick: I was talking to the new missionaries about the rap guitar cd I want to come out with, and giving them samples from said cd, when Presidents daughter showed up. She flew in Monday and was super jet lagged still. She is about 18 and very tired, well, that is all I found out about her. She walked past and into another room and Hermana Watkinds said, “well there’s Emma, you can get to know her later.” This was said in general to everyone in the room, but of course, I figured it was directed at me, just like everything else. I responded at a high volume level (so they say) “are you taking crazy pills? I don’t know how to talk to teenage girls anymore!” She laughed and said, “Its okay Elder Carr, she will be good practice.” Naturally, I assume the worst. I now have free reign to flirt it up with the president’s daughter. So back to the main agenda, we continued on with everything smoothly. We got to the end, which is when they announce the companionships. I got up, told everyone about how sweet the area none of them have ever heard about is, and them jumped up and down screaming when they told me I got the Driggster… the Driggster, I have never thought of that before. I wonder what he thinks of it. Let me ask him really quick….

He likes it too.

Now, for the other happenings that were lost in the terrible misfortunes of last week.

Michael’s baptism was planned for 1 on Saturday. We got there bright and early that morning to set up the font. Everything was going smoothly until the font was full. When it was at full capacity, we found a small hole in the back. No problem, I took my finger and saved the day. I called Elder Castro over to come help. Sadly, just as I was calling him is when the added pressure of my finger caused the font, which neither of us had ever set up anymore, to realize it was tire of holding up all that water with its un-tightened metal joints. So it fell. Luckily, with my free, un-wedged fingered hand I was able to reach up and catch it, while at the same time letting out a earsplitting scream. The scream was enough to get Elder Castro to come and see what was happening, and to get a member to run back to see what had happened to his daughter… she wasn’t there. It was me. They helped me hoist it back up and into place and all was good. Well, good for about 30 more minutes. By the time it was about 1230 we decided in would be good to call Michael. We called him up to see where he was and he said that he hadn’t left yet. That was bad. Then we told him to hurry and he said that his father had forbidden him from going. That was worse. We told him to stay put and that we would be over immediately. We grabbed a member and he took us to the outlying pueblo and dropped us off at the door. I rang up to his apartment, but the dad wouldn’t let us come up. Finally, I asked him to just meet us in the stairwell, and he agreed. As soon as he saw us he started yelling. He yelled that we didn’t know what baptism was, that his son was in no way ready, and that he would never be baptized. Then, because the volume levels weren’t high enough, the wife decided to join in to reach the desired levels. We tired everything we could. On the way over I had offered a prayer in my heart telling God that I would do everything I could, but I knew if would never work if He left it up to me. We tried to explain to him what was going on, telling him that we loved his son and just wanted to help, but he didn’t want to hear it. Finally, I just told him not to worry, the baptism was off. We would not be baptizing is son, but at the very least he could do is to let his son come and bare his testimony so he could know that he had learned something. He told us that he did not want to hear the words from the sweet tongue of a babe. I felt lost. I had tried everything I could. He just kept yelling and nothing would calm him down. We told him we would go but asked to talk to Michael before we left. Michael came out and Elder Castro told him not to worry, we would always be here for him no matter what. I was so confused. I had felt peace when we were going over, but this was not what God wanted to happen, I just knew it. As we were about to leave I looked at the father with such mixed emotions. I felt like punching in the head, but I was also grateful that he loved his son enough to try to fight for what he thought was right. I thanked him for it and then immediately felt very strongly that the least we could do is pray with them as a family before we go. It was weird, I couldn’t think of anything else. I asked him if we could pray with him, and he agreed. I asked if we could go inside, he said that was okay. I asked if we could kneel, he agreed. I asked if I could say the prayer, and he said that would be fine. After we prayed with them Michael was crying because he really wanted to be baptized. The mother then looked up at her husband and said something in Ebo (their language). Then she said it again. He argued a bit, but she said it again. He looked over at Michael and told him that when the time came to stand up for God you will not cry, go, get ready quickly, you are going to get baptized. He left and the mother asked us if she could come. All of us cruised over to the church an hour and a half late. Luckily the members were all there still and ready to get things started. Everything went perfectly. At the end I thanked Michael’s mother and she said to thank god. She said that God touched her heart during the prayer and she knew that her son needed to be baptized. She didn’t understand why until she was there. She has now been coming to church and has loved it.

I am sorry, but I am well out of time.

Hugs and kisses,

Elder Anthony Sky

2009-08-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

This was a small birthday celebration we had. We made a yogurt cake in a bread pan which turned out really good (I have really enjoyed learning how to cook). Then we had some non-alcoholic manzana and topped it all off with some good old wholesome dominos.

2009-08-19T10:16:00.000-07:00

Sunflower fields from the train.

2009-08-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Ping pong heroics with Amador. As usual "Shauna" dominated (Shauna is the racket Harrison and Susan made for him)

2009-08-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

We took a bus up to the look out with the Toledo Elders, who are so cool. We had way too much fun being Cris Angel, Ironman, High School Musical and others. The big square building is where we got to do internet-SO COOL!

2009-08-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Awesome Toledo sword shop-I am preparing for glory.

2009-08-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

No explanation needed-This one should be receiving a spot on the wall at home.

2009-08-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

View of and from the Roman bridge in Talavera. President Watkins saw this and said, "Pure joy", then he whispered, "I like that".

2009-08-19T09:34:00.000-07:00

Me and Elder Moeai doing some proselyting in the walls of Talavera...just in case.

2009-08-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

"Me during weekly planning. As you can see, it is not one of my favorite things and I am often distracted."

currently writing on a keyboard with no letters...

2009-08-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009

Big week this week. I mean, we are talking big, sweaty Romanian big. I say this because there is one sweating next to me. He is big. Like this week. This week was big.

I think to properly express the enormity of this week, I will be starting a new segment. The following will be called: frolicking through the happy thoughts of my daily planner.

There is this thing we do in this mission at the end of everyday that has allowed this segment to take life. After a long day of working we put down numbers and choose a happy thought, usually just little funny things that happen. I, however, have fallen behind a bit in my journal writing. So, at the end of every day, I write down my happy thought which is usually a happy paragraph. As you may have deducted, this has now become my journal… at least until I get caught up… maybe on the plane ride home.

Let’s frolic.

Wednesday night we bought a basketball to celebrate the rebirth of the sports rule.

Thursday we played with said basketball during morning exercises. We rode extra buses to get around due to the fact that I have not played sports for almost a year, which makes pulling every muscle in the body very likely, which I did. When we taught Michael we asked him what he was planning on doing for the night. He said, “Watching kite rider of course.” Elder Castro said, “Cool, what’s that?” He answered, “You know, the show with the really cool car that drives around and saves people. Elder Castro responded, “Oh, you mean knight rider.” Michael then proved him clearly wrong by adding, “No, kite rider, the one with the car. Look, it starts with a K.” Elder Castro was then forced to apologize for his ignorance of the obvious.

Friday: Elder Castro ate yogurt that smelled like a pretty girl.

Saturday we taught Olga Marzal, one of our epic referrals, and she was amazing. She was a referral from the Bilbao mission. Apparently she was making calls for work, entered the number in wrong, and ended up calling the missionaries. The church is true.

Sunday: Michael passed his baptismal interview!

Monday: Awesome. We went to Valdemoro, a pueblo that is about 30 minutes away by train, to teach a lesson. We got there and the second coming almost started. The craziest storm I have ever seen almost completely destroyed Valdemoro. Lightning was striking all over the place, the wind was wild, and the rain fell for a solid hour and a half. I knew that if I died mom would make dad resurrect me so that she could kill me again for having the nerve to die, so I decided we would wait it out by watching the testaments (the storm was very similar to the storm in the testaments after the crucifixion, ironic). The movie ended, as well as most of the storm, so we headed out. It was pretty late so we went to the bus stop right around the corner and right as we got there a bus pulled up. Not a normal bus, though. We were waiting for the #7 which is a normal city bus. What came was a huge cross country bus with a piece of paper taped on to it that said #7. Peculiar. The driver, which was a 30ish year old Spaniard asked us where we were going. We told him the train station and he said in essence, “Well, it may take us a while, but I will get you there, saddle up!” This was when it got cool. Apparently, the storm dominated the pueblo. Almost all the streets were closed because there were rivers and floods everywhere. All the other buses had stopped running because it was unsafe, but this driver wasn’t going to leave people out there on their own, so he took his bus, left his route, and went in search of people. There were about 5 people on the bus. One of them was some girl who was freaking out and calling her family to make sure everyone was okay and she was sitting at the front. We wanted a better view so we sat in the middle. We took a loop on the edge of the city to take one of the riders to his house when we passed a round about. On one end there was a really big puddle and something dark in the middle. When we got closer I realized the dark thing was the roof of a car that had sunk. Everyone was freaking out because there was no way to get through. The driver wasn’t about to let this beat him. He took his kind size bus and plowed it over the median, through some dudes lawn, and back around to the road. That was when the really loud, over dramatic girl got off. The bus driver then said, “Hey, you boys with the white shirts and name tags, come up here and talk to me.” We obeyed. He asked us, “Did you call your mission president to tell him you are going to be home late?” Then we asked him how he knew that, and he asked back, “how do you think?” My companion remembered that a member a couple weeks ago had told us he had a son that drove buses for Spain. He asked him, “maybe you are Leonardo’s son.” Then he said, “maybe.” So we said, “nice to meet you Mario.” We chatted for a bit while he was trying to find a path through the city, but everything was closed or flooded. He told us that he would need to take us out of the city, to the freeway, and then back in because it was probably the only way. Well, it worked. We got the train station, but there were even some trains that were flooded out. He parked his bus and came in with us to make sure we could catch a train. We asked around and found out there was one more train coming. He told us to get his number just in case it didn’t work out and he would take us home or let us sleep at his house. We then thanked him profusely, jumped the tracks because the tunnel was flooded, and caught the last train home. In my missionary opinion, it all worked out too perfectly for it not to have been an answer to one of mom’s prayers of protection.

Tuesday I got a call before zone conference started asking me if I would be willing to translate for the meeting. They had a big mike they gave me and all the natives wore headphones for the English to Spanish, and all the new missionaries wear them for the Spanish to English. Well, I don’t think they are ever going to ask me again. Apparently they didn’t expect me to sing the hymns into the mike, which I did. Then I got bored after a few minutes and started adding my own commentary and various accents to the missionaries. By the end there were a lot of missionaries wearing headphones. Probably a good thing the missionary leadership didn’t approve, translating is tiring. Sometimes it is hard to match the right accent to each individual missionary.

Well, there you have it.
My happy thoughts, with commentary done by me speaking like Walter Cronkite. Feel free to go back and read it again with that in mind.
Loves, hugs, and kisses for the girls,
Elder Anthony Skyler Carr
The Half-Blood Prince

keep on rollin'

2009-08-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

This week has been wicked climax. Wicked, I say. Well, before I get into that, I will sweep the weekly business out of the way.

I heard wind of a blog all for me… I like it. I do not understand why more of you have not had this desire, but, Susan, you always pull through for me. (This is Susan, since I am posting this, I must interject and say that the blog was Tara's idea. I just helped make it.) According to the natives here, you are the celebrity that was photo shopped into my picture book… something I have yet to deny… I’m not even sure about it… alright… I’m done abusing the dot dot dot… oops, that one slipped.

Okay, so that is all I can remember, I am sure there is more, but all the Elders that are here are already talking about the big news and I cant think of anything else. WE GÖT SPORTS BACK! Alright, I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. You can just let the enormity of that sink in while I do the lead in.

So Sunday was fast Sunday as I am sure you all recall. Michael was in the meeting so we explained what it was and told him that people who want to share their testimonies can get up and share them. The meeting then began to roll and things when incredibly smoothly. Some good testimonies, a complainemony here and there, your usual miracle story that happened 30 years ago but is still good, and of course, what I like to call, the weekly agenda. All in all, nothing too radical. Then it happened. Michael got up and went to the stand. He turned, and pretty much just let Heavenly Father play puppet with him because he blew everyone away. After he came up to me and apologized which was preposterous. He actually had the nerve to admit his wrong. He said Heavenly Father told him to go share his little testimony, even though it wasn’t much, but Michael felt bad because he said he should have gone first. He should have. We were very disappointed. We expect a lot more out of the elect. Especially those who have never even seen a testimony meeting. Tisk tisk tisk. That day went smoothly. Monday we received 4 referrals. That was a huge deal because that never happens. At this point my bubble levels had reached about a 6, what with the ever-approaching baptism and all. Tuesday we got a CD from a member by a group called TOA. I think the album is called silence. Jason, you might wanna check it out, super sweet. Imagine boys 2 men meets reggae Polynesian hymnal. After this we met with Michael and we helped him pick a member that he wanted to baptize him. He picked Amador, a semi-recent convert who freaked out when we asked him if he would. He freaked out, which made us freak out. Bubble levels had now easily reached a low 8. Then the call came. We were taking care of the interview details and amidst the chaos came the light. The call that sports are back. A moment of silence please…. Yeah right! HAH! I cant stop singing. Bubble levels then surpassed measurable limits.

Well, sorry, this one is not too long. We are in sol right now just cruising around and we got a bit more cruising to do, as you can imagine.

Michael is still cruising for the 15th and all is going well.

Loves, Elder Anthony Sky

just in case

2009-08-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

July 30, 2009

Hi everyone, mainly mom, it’s me, skyler,

Due to technical difficulties I was unable to email yesterday. I have no idea why, but every single church website was down. nothing was working. I tried to hop on my google so I could write you a sentence saying all was good, but the spirit gave me a stupor of thought on what my password was for my sinful ways.... I didnt really care, I figured a mothers joy was more important than what email engine we use...

So here I am. This works because today is planning day. Planning day works because i hate planning. So, we streamline it and are super efficient and finish the 3 hours in about 35 min. Now we have all sorts of free time on our hands. You’re welcome.

Now, for my list of demands. Jason, listen up (or open your eyes really wide if you are reading this), this one is for you. You are the only one in the family that mom and dad could afford to enlist in Hogwarts: school of witchcraft and wizardry. Could you look back on you magical education and send me a few very simple magic tricks I could use to impress the natives? President says he wants me to be creative, so I’m gonna run with it.

Now to mom. The picture can be any size. Whatever is easiest to send and would still be easy for me to travel with. Nothing bigger than bum’s. Also, the pictures you took at powell, I think the easiest way would be to just print them off at Costco. Don’t be afraid to print all of them. This allows me to reminisce over and over again on my own time. Those are my thoughts on the subject.

I think you would be interested to know what President Watkins has already done in his first month as the reigning force. Well, he is really taking the focus off of everything we have done. The focus before was all on street contacts. I enjoy them, but they never work with the Spaniards. The mission was very much a south American oriented mission, which is hard, because there are really not very many, and the ones that are here are really only here to work. P. Watkins has made everyone start searching for ways to get creative. Simple things like having family nights with the members outside in the middle of the parks. Things to get publicity going because there is absolutely nothing going on at the moment. It is super weird talking to people everyday that have no idea who we are. He also got pretty fed up with people calling him for permission to do service, which was the old rule, so that is no longer in existence. I have so far been very content with everything.

Michael is still progressing really nicely towards his baptismal date. He has now gotten to the point that he will not allow us to pray because he wants to say both the opening and the closing prayer. No complaints. His prayers rock. For example:“Oh fadda, king of glory, we raiss ower voices to dee in dee name of da fadda, and of dee sun, and of dee oly ghoost. Fill our bohdies, oh Lode, fill our bohdies wit dye puhfect wuhrd. Let dye gloree rest oopun us, oh Lode. Guide our lives dat we mey consume dee evils of dee world wit ower pehsonaal rightcheousness. In dye suns oly neme, even Jesus Christ, amen.”That’s just a sample.

Well, time is spent once again. Thank you for commemorating my day of birth in such an appropriate way.

Love you bunches,Elder Anthony Sky

Ping Pong Activity

2009-07-29T07:29:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures that Elder Carr sent a few weeks ago. They were taken at a ping pong activity.

Here is Skyler with his companion and a part member family

Sky with Antonio, Christian, and Amador. According to Skyler, "they are really cool." :)

Pictures of our favorite Missionary

2009-07-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some picture that Elder Carr sent us. Isn't he just the most handsome missionary you've ever seen? Remember...feel free to comment on the pictures and/or the letters he writes. I know he will love being able to read all the comments when he comes home. And for those girls out there that are hoping for a date from Elder Carr when he gets home, I'm pretty sure the more you comment the more likely it is he'll take you out. That's why as his sister-in-law I am going to comment a lot in hopes of getting a date with Skyler!!!! :) Enjoy the pictures!

Entrance to Toledo

More Toledo (He is pointing in most pictures. Not sure why...just being Skyler. :) )

Sky and companions went to a Star Wars exhibit.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Bridge and basilica

Double arch

Talavera Capital building

This picture is not one from his mission, but I have to include it because it's one of my favorites. This is Skyler playing for his family right before entering the MTC. Don't you love it?

Happy Birthday Aunt Nina

2009-07-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

July 22, 2009

Lake Powell? Did you honestly think that would make me jealous? Hah! I am such a bigger man than that (no I’m not). I am not even the tinsiest bit jealous (yes I am). I will just keep hanging out here in SPAIN! (I thought that would make me feel better, it didn’t) I had better be getting a bijillion pictures as soon as you get back.

Your attempts to end my continuing bubbliness have been in vane. Too many bubbles. I can even continuing the careening that I was unable to let loose last time.

I did get your packages. Wicked. They both came like 2 weeks ago during interviews, which was perfect- it allowed me to rub even more faces in the fact that my family loves me materially, but regrettably, my heart has grown a bit, so I ended up sharing everything anyways. Well, let me be more specific, I shared almost everything… the ping pong paddle is clearly mine. I have named her Shauna. She is good to me. Thank you.

You may have noticed that I have been spending money lately, but if not, mom, I have been spending money lately. Nothing cool, just train tickets and food. They kind of messed up our money, and since we are in a pueblo, the home account takes a hit. I honestly could have gotten away with not digging into the home fundage for food, but decided a long time ago that I would never be a hungry missionary when I have control over it. Good news, I do have control over it.

Oh yeah, when you send that huge package with all the pictures you took at lake powell could you also throw in that one picture that was in karstons room so many years ago of Christ hugging the sad man. Preferably a new one, unless it would cause you to delay too much, then by all means, go a head a rip that thing off of bum’s wall, he said it was okay (this works because I am pretty sure nobody hears from karston anymore, I know I haven`t (a burn)).

We are now living with two Romanians. The new one got here yesterday and he is a 300 lbs man named Francisco. The reason I am adding this is because his musk smells an awful lot like dad`s French toast. Could you send me the recipe for that? I have a craving now.

Oh yeah! I have more bubbles. I received an email last week from Juan Carlos, the lass active member we were able to help reactivate in Talavera when I was there and he is getting married! This is a miracle. They are both illegal, wanted by the government, from Nicaragua, and have false birth certificate papers, but somehow everything has just fallen perfectly into place (miracle) and they are getting married at the end of this month (miracle). Then I just found out that they have finished their temple prep classes and are getting sealed a couple months later (miracle). I freaking love eternal families!

We have been given two more ballin’ (my companion is still giving me gangster lessons) investialligators. It is kind of an extended finding experience. We were riding the train to Madrid for a zone conference a few weeks ago and it was filling up a lot. We had seats since we started from the furthest spot possible. We sitting, enjoying the morning hustle when two ladies stepped on and stood next to us. We got up and offered them our seats and they were amazed. We were still about 45 minutes away from Madrid so it was a semi big deal. We started talking to them and they were blown away that I knew how to speak Spanish (when I stand next to my companion I look really white). We talked to them for a while and they were way cool but had to run off when their stop appeared out of nowhere because satan made the trains run early. We were pretty bummed we didn`t their info. Well, lo and behold, Heavenly Father gave us a second chance because he loves us and we ran into the girl who was the most interested of the two in one of our areas. This wasn’t just any little coincidence, she was carrying a book of mormon (miracle) and she was walking with another non member friend who happens to be the son of a long lost less active father (miracle). She was borrowing the book from her friend and freaked when we told her she could have one of her own. Her family is way against us for the time being, just because they don’t know us, but its okay because she is a teenage girl, and when they say no, she says yes even louder. Works in our favor for the time being. Her name is Estefani and her friend is Joan.

Well, im spent.
Hope you all get burned.

I love you.
Elder Anthony Sky
Defender of the Faith