The Mission President writes!

Dear Parents,
President Wade and I wanted to write and let you know that your missionary arrived safely. The flight was on time and everyone's luggage arrived. We went directly to the mission home and had a nice lunch. We had a wonderful testimony meeting by the temple. It has been a great day.

We want to express our appreciation to you for the love and support of your missionary. Thank you for your great faith. Elder McCarty is a wonderful young man. We feel blessed to have him serving here in Paraguay. His preparation day will be on Mondays. You can expect to receive an email from him next Monday.
Love,
President and Sister Wade

He's off to Paraguay! 9-29-08

Kyler called from the Airport Monday around 10:30 Am to tell me he was on his way. He loved the MTC experience and talked to me in Spanish with an authentic accent for a few minutes (at my request). I understood a lot of what he said but he was talking fast (like a native) and he had to translate some of it for me.

He was SO excited for the next part of his mission. He felt like he had been preparing for this time for so long to get to this point and he wanted me to let everyone know how much your support, prayers and letters have meant to him.

Elder Kyler McCarty shared with me his testimony and love for the Gospel and how much he has learned about teaching by the spirit, feeling the comfort that can only come through relying on the Lord. He expressed how much he had grown in love for his family and friends in this past week.

We exchanged our mutual admiration and love for each other and talked about the progress he had made from 2 or 3 years ago. He said he could not even imagine going through life without the strength he has found within the walls of the MTC and learning to rely on the Lord. He said he loves how the gospel fits so perfectly in his quest for truth and knowledge. The humbling experiences of his mission, so far, and surely to come, only increase his ability to feel confident and self assured. Interesting how that works.

He told me of his great love for the people he is going to live and teach among for the next 2 years. He felt a certain amount of anxiousness over the unknown. In 21 hours after leaving the airport he would be in Paraguay. As I type this it occurs to me that he should be there now. (They are 2 hours later in Paraguay from Salt lake City, Utah).

This mother's heart is full from having talked to him and shared the feelings of our hearts. I pray for his continued protection, comfort and growth. I also appreciate all your prayers in his behalf.

He may not get to email this week, due to his traveling, but the Rolla Hola will continue next week , if he can get to email in Paraguay. Otherwise he will snail mail them to me and I will type them up for you to enjoy.

As soon as I get a good address for him and the pouch mail address I will send it out to everyone!

This just in email from Paraguay! 3:30PM Tuesday 09-30-08

Hey, so, they let me in. SWEET! Also, they gave me some time to write you and let you know how everything is. I still can't wait to get to work! Looks like we'll be having meetings and other things like that until we meet our trainers tomorrow morning. The mission home is great, the office is nice, and the country is BEAUTIFUL! I sent a Rolla Holla from the Atlanta airport, so that should come in 2 or 3 days. Feel free to include this. Ok, I love you SO much and am ever grateful for all of the support and help. Send my love to everyone! From the land of the Guarani, Yumungaru (feed it, as they say when they want a high five, I'm told), Elder McCarty

The Rolla Holla!! Tuesday, 9-23-08 Field Ready

Such is life: I've just settled in to the routines of the MTC. Planning is effective and inspiring, study is deep and uplifting, correspondance is consistent and fulfilling. And now I get the opportunity to do it all over again. The challenge for this, the 'Greatest of my Transfers,' is to minimize the time spent in transition and maximize the time spent with my shoulder to the wheel.
SO, for any of you who haven't heard (and I don't know how you would have) I recieved my flight plans! Around here we call that day of the week "Flight Plan Friday." Now I know firsthand, why. So, with only 21 short hours of travel (3 spent in Atlanta Georgia, so I need to give a shout out to my boy Anthonie), and the rest in the smooth-sailing skies to Argentina and then to Paraguay, the land of the Elect.
All I'm saying is if you're going to send me a package, NOW is the time to do it. But seriously, I'm giving you all a challenge: take some picture of yourself with some people or doing something you love, and include it in a letter to me. After next Monday, at 8am, the only thing I'll be getting from you are tri-folded single sheets of paper (I'm not sure whether packages work or not, for more info on Pouch mail, please contact my EVER-selflessly giving mother). At any rate, i want something to remember you all by! And I love you all so much. I've made the commitment to write EVERY person that writes me, so if I haven't yet, you might be next! BUT, let's try to give me a little bit of a challenge this next week, lol.
Well, this week was filled with fun times and spiritual highs as usual. One class with Hno. Perez-Rodriguez, we had a lengthy and interesting discussion (all in Spanish, and I'm proud to say God has helped me to the point of my being a frequent, though far from perfect contributor) about the role, purpose, and components of Prayer. Then, we taught the things we learned, not worrying about the 4 simple steps (open, thank, bless, close) to some other, newer missionaries. We found that we covered all of the components and got at DEEP, human reasons why prayer is so important every day. We left them with a challenge, that was so inspired by the Holy Ghost that we did it ourselves and have seen the blessings: it was, to think of a recurrent difficulty that we have, in ANY thing in life (or the MTC), and think how we could overcome it through prayer. So, I've implemented that and WHAT a blessing it's been!
Anyhow, during that lesson, we also noticed one of the missionaries we were teaching was acting kind of wierd. He would set his hand behind some books on Elder Davis's desk right next to him, then put his hand to his lap, then he would yawn or scratch his nose or his mouth or something. Over and over again. After about 5 times, Elder Criddle asked, "Que esta haciendo usted?" which may or may not be the right way of saying, "what are you doing." Suddenly everybody broke into laughter as the caught-red-handed Elder opened his fist to disclose a Tic-Tac that he had slowly been taking from Elder Davis's plentiful supply on his desk. It was hilarious. I laughed for like 3 minutes. Yes, even that Elder kept the commitment and learned something new about prayer. This week has been SO great! I've tried to improve my journal writing, inspired by having watched "Mountain of the Lord," wherein President Woodruff said he "vowed never to let his head touch his pillow without first having made a record of the days work." I love that idea, and my vow is the same. I also strive to do it beautifully. My journal has been a great blessing in my life! Well, i love you all! no time left!
Have a great week! Elder McCarty!

Rolla Holla!! Tuesday, 9-16-08 LOL: 2 Weeks Left

If a scientist did a study, I wonder how much of our life they'd find was spent in "waiting." As I wrote the Subject line above, I thought of a similar line I'd read somewhere, and lo and behold, it was in last weeks Holla..."only 3 weeks left."
cannot tell a lie: I am anxious to get into the field. And YES, I still have a lot to learn. But, so often, our heart jumps ahead of our level of preparation and, as Thomas S. Monson is fond of quoting: we find ourselves always waiting for tomorrow, and so ending up with a lot of empty yesterdays today. I suppose it's a life theme of sorts for me: BE HERE! FOCUS ON THE NOW! So, I'm sorry if it's recurrent in my letters, but, maybe it's something we can ALL do better at.


Well, this week I've learned a lot. Apparantly I'm now house-bread because Sunday, while we were studying, what is probably the HUGEST fly I've ever seen flew right into my leg...and I FREAKED out. My companions broke out laughing at me, and I went back to study. A few seconds later, it dive bombed my ear and scared me half to death and that was it, something had to be done. So, in Indiana Jones-like fashion, I opened the door and tried to chase the fly out of the room but it wouldn't have it. After maybe 3 minutes of jumping around and dodging every time it came at me, Elder Prettyman went to the fly, grabbed it and threw it out the door. I've never felt more womanly in my life--can you say, READY FOR PARAGUAY? Hopefully I'll readjust quickly since bugs and I go way back, having done yard-work before the mission and everything. Anyhow, the MTC is great. As a district we have been setting ever-clearer weekly goals, and we started reading them after EVERY meal in class so we don't forget before the end of the week, as we had so many times before. Since I started doing this personally like 6 months ago, the fidelity between my plans and my actions has gotten SO much closer and therefore, my growth so much faster. I recomend it to EVERYONE: write goals every week, plan for them, and then READ them every day. One author talks about BHAGS: Big Hairy Audatious Goals. Something that catches your vision and inspires your soul. Imagine reading those every day and seeing where you can be in one week, one month, or two years, if you just WORK hard enough for them! It's very exciting.



Well, I'm to the point now where I can pretty much get by SOLELY in Spanish. All the lessons are in Spanish and as a companionship, we try our darndest (haha, that's an old word) to speak only in Spanish. It's hard at times, and has caused some frustration and misunderstanding in our companionship, but I'd rather have those problems here than while I'm aclimatizing to the wonders of Paraguay. On top of that, I think a little tension and strife is healthy, even NECESSARY for growth in EVERY area! We had the priviledge of hearing from President Uchtdorf last Tuesday. He told us that the First Presidency is praying every day for the missionaries AND THOSE THAT WE PRAY FOR! That's you! What a blessing. God and His angels are truly watching over you and I. Your support means the WORLD to me: it IS the world to me! Every day that mail comes I anxiously await those tidbits of love and learning from your lives. I love you all! Thank you for your support. Elder Kyler James Rolla McCarty

New Pictures 9-10-08 with Kyler's commentary

There's where I sit. Me & Elder Prettyman (E. Davis took the pic, he sits on my right)
Great Times!


The big surprise party! A Corbat Carnival, of Tie Party! Revelation came to make streamers out of ties. It was AWESOME!

The first night! E Davis, Me, E. Prettyman!

The disrtict:
Left to right top: E Criddle, E. Palmer, Me, E. Hermansen, H. Strasser
Bottom: E. Davis, E. Prettyman, E. Urry

Preparing for the jungles of Paraguay. E. Davis's mom sent ALL of us dart guns. We've only played with them once & then "back to work"!

The Comps: Me, E. Davis, E. Prettyman

Rolla Holla!! YIKES, only 3 weeks left!

Another beautiful P-DAY! Well, here we are again. Another week has come and gone: funny how time has a tendency to do that. I don't know how the time has passed out there in your little part of the world, but here on the MTC campus, it feels like the blink of an eye! My beloved Sister Calley wrote me and asked if I could believe I'm almost done here...I can't! I think the MTC has been a lot like every other part of life, only CRAMMED into a tiny package that explodes in your face when you open it. It takes at least a little while to recognize what just happened, and then comes the work of making it a good experience. But boy has it been. Some more good times this past week: last night our District sponsored a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening), to accomplish one of our goals of serving other members in the zone. So, we invited all of the members of the zone, and I conducted the meeting, and we had various lessons and games and scripture chases from members of my district. It was AWESOME! Some people in our zone are fluent, native Spanish speakers. So, they broke out in laughter when, while conducting in my 70% fluent Spanish, I said things like "Nunca Mente," literally translated as "Never Mind" but makes NO sense in Spanish, or "Ahora, nosotros comenzamos la campion-ship round!" Anyhow, it was a blast! We played catch phrase in Spanish and ALL of us struggled to describe words in Spanish, using ONLY Spanish. It was a GREAT language learning excercise. At the end of the night, the whole zone was feeling CLOSE and excited to work, and maybe MOST importantly, happy to be HERE, in THIS zone, at THIS time. Nothing brings people closer, in a more lasting way, than feeling the spirit together. Well, we got our new teachers, and things have been interesting with them. One is a bit of a hard-liner, and the first day did a pretty good job of offending EVERYONE in the District that was offendable (some people have determined to respect and love our Teachers NO MATTER WHAT they do, and how much happier they are because of it). But, they had us pick up our books off the floor by our desks and straighten everything up, and straighten the shelves, and generally do what we usually do on Monday nights before cleaning checks, but at NO other time. Though he was a little overbearing, I generally agree that the cleaner the room is, the more the spirit can be felt. Most importantly, I appreciated the loving attitutde with which he gave the correction. I guess some people will choose to be offended no MATTER how small the offense, while other will love regardless. It was a great opportunity to ask myself: "Kyler, which are you?" A substitute teacher that we had, Hermana Ampun(y)o, was a very funny Hna from Ecuador. She is TINY and "pun(y)o" means fist, so we'd always joke about how she rules the class with an iron fist (which was only part true). But, one day she came back from the Technology Assisted Language Learning Lab, which we all call TALL Lab, here, and announced she had just come from the Tall lab. Elder Hermansen turned to Elder Palmer and was like, under his breath, "Did you hear that....hehehe, TALL lab...Hna Ampun(y)o," and then immediately, EVERYBODY, including the Hna broke out in laughter, at what could possibly have been the least funny joke of my life: and I laughed to tears...again. It is amazing how quickly we come to love eachother here at the MTC. Hna Ampun(y)o was a sub for maybe two days, and my district and her have a bund that will last for the rest of our stay here and who knows how long after. Other than the hardliner, we got another teacher who is so sweet and caring that everybody loves her. Last night, actually, she told us the story, in SPanish (so I may have some details wrong), of a 90-something year old woman that had like 8 grand-children on missions. She couldn't read, her eyeseight was blurred and unclear. So, Hermana Smith, our teacher, would go read her letters from her gradn-kids and write them back as the old woman dictated. Well, after a few months, the woman's condition got worse and worse, and the night before she died, Hna Smith was with her. The Elderly woman told Hna Smith about her husband who had been a Violin maker, who had studied ALL his life about the art of crafting violins. He'd study WEEKS about the formation of the bridge or the width of the neck. After her near century of life, the woman told the Hna, "We need to learn EVERYTHING we can about WHATEVER it is that we're doing." We only have so much time. Here in the MTC, I plan EVERY minute and still feel like I come up short. But I'm learning...we ALL should be. I love that story! A wise friend of mine told me before I came out here, "Kyler, you're very mature," (and my head swelled a little) "and you're going to have to deal with a lot of KNUCKLEHEADED 19 year olds out there in the mission field." Well, guess what? Because I came out with the expectation to do exactly that, I did! Yep, I've been able to see a lot of immaturity and high-school-like behavior here, because I've been looking for it. THEN, my beloved brother, Josiah, in his HFL form (which, if you haven't filled out, you'd better! ;-) told me about how important it is to FOCUS on loving people. You see, the fact is that, sometimes, I get so caught up in what I'm doing that I don't LOOK for things to love. But, I've started the change. I have chosen to FIND things in each missionary that I can FIXATE on and admire. I love this Elder for his giving heart, and this one for his Quick, to-the-point nature. The simple fact is, both of these men were right. The world is full of knuckleheads....but also of heroicism. WE get to choose which we will view. It's as simple as that! And so, my challenge to you all is to do that today! Find something to love in EVERYONE! It helps me to pray and thank God for that thing every night or to give a compliment. I know that as you do that, YOU...not them...will be SO much happier in you life. I love you all! Thanks for your love and support! Eldre McCarty

Rolla Holla!! Tuesday, 9-2-08

Hello All!! Some somewhat urgent business: 1. My e-mail was full, so apparantly I got NONE of your e-mails this last week. So, if you get the chance, family, please send them again! 2. I also wanted to ask, if I send you a letter or some pictures, I don't have the ability to make enough copies to keep all the correspondence, so if you'd keep them and I could copy them when I get home, that would be awesome! Just wanna preserve those memories. 3. Oh, also, apparantly I can't get attachements. So, Josiah, that means i need the Lineage mailed or imbedded if that's possible. For everyone else, Shylo's pics somehow get through to me, so ask her how. Ok, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I'm trying to write things down throughout the week that I need to tell you all. We had a storm this week! I'm sure most of you know about it, but it was BEAUTIFUL! I always thought that STRICT planning and rigid structure would kill my spontanaity and enjoyment of the little things. BUT since they are simply MORE unique and LESS common, I LOVE every bit of the few that I get more than I ever loved them when they were mine to have in abundance. What a lesson, from such a small thing! Here at the MTC EVERYBODY loves to Testify. Elders and Sisters go around and randomly walk up to you, pretend like you're an investigator and expect you to go along with them. I've heard Mandarin, lots of Spanish, and even some Non-Native English Speakers in English. It is SO touching to hear so much testifying of this great Truth! One sister from Fiji came up to us, and in slow, measured, perfectly pronounced but still uncertain English bore the sweetest, most simple testimony I think I've ever heard. Often, when I'm doing that in Spanish, I think that I, like her, am nervous and fear that I'm butchering the language. BUT, the truth is, we are ALL so patient and lenient with people who are trying to learn our language. It gave me added confidence and excitement when my turn came around. And that's how I think it is generally in life: we are our toughest critics. I think Psychology calls it the Spotlight affect, where we are so self-centered (as most of us are) that we think EVERYBODY is looking at US and what WE are doing. Truth is, they're not. They're probably wondering what YOU'RE thinking about their reaction, or about whether YOU'LL ask for their number, or about whether THEY look stupid. It's surprisingly easy to get over when I see it in those terms. Well, things are just coming along smoothly. The first day here, the MTC President said that most missionaries hit a Trimester slump after the first third, then see how unprepared they are after 2/3s, and then work hard for the rest. I think I'm avoiding that. The stereotypes about everything in life, I think, should ONLY ever be used as information to prepare for, not circumstances to expect! Family and friends, the language is still coming along! I love learning it. We are having another Teacher Swap because the Semester is starting at BYU, so that'll take some adjustment. But I'm getting used to taking uncertainty and making it into a still-effective plan: an edge I think I'll have because of all of this confusion, since that will be so vital in the mission field. Before the mission, some friends and I had been doing a 'sweets only on Wednesday and Sunday,' diet, or should I say, "lifestyle," lol. Anyhow, I stopped it when I saw all the delicious deserts here. But, now I've resumed it again and I LOVE it. I have another reason for looking forward to those days, AND I love sweets SO much more. Last Wednesday I got some great letters from you all and so at 9:30 I went home, laid on my bed, slowly letting the chocolate from a Snickers bar melt in my mouth and reading your letters. With one arm behind my head, I let out a sigh and though..."LIFE is good!" And it really is. It's funny that we get distracted by trying to make it better sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I ALWAYS want to be growing! I heard a quote once that said "God is easy to please but difficult to satisfy." I think that's how we should be in OUR lives! Pleased, every moment of it...but NEVER, EVER satisfied! There is always so much in my heart to tell you all. Sometimes, the words aren't equal to the task. But, that is one of my favorite things about this gospel: it is UNIVERSAL! My faith originates in my heart, and courses through my veins, manifesting itself through the fingers that type the words into this keyboard: ALL of which are blessing from a Heavenly Father who loves me. But at the end of the day, the words are just that: They are mine. And it is up to EACH of you out there to gain the same burning in YOUR hearts. As you do, remember that most EVERYTHING that people say means SO much TO THEM! Try to find out why. Try to see what they mean, not just what they are saying, because words are a poor substitute for passion. I love you all! I look forward EVERY day to your letters with GREAT anticipation. Thank you to those that write frequently and consistently. You are blessing THIS missionaries hearts, and hopefully, the lives of MANY MANY people thereby. Have a great week! Make it one! Elder McCarty
Picture dialog: (on the back of his pictures he sent me)
1: I think I look in miniature in this pic for some reason. But here's my district: L to R
Hma Strasser, Hma Beltran, Elder Davis, Elder McCarty, Elder Urry, Elder Criddle, Elder Hermansen, Elder Prettyman, Eler Palmer
2:Surporise Fiesta for Hma Beltran
3: Elder Prttyman caught off guard
4:using the bhoky powerroter
5:In the email xwnter: "Jedi Emailer"