Rolla Hola and Pictures 1-26-09

Ok, 4 pics from my comps camera.

Here is a beautifual Paraguayan night.

Here are all of us missionaries eating at a pretty fancy restaurant (much nicer, but costs about the same as McDonalds, 20 Thousand Guarani, or like 4 dollars, which tastes WAY better down here...maybe just because it´s a rarity).

Fondo Verde: My Comp and I sitting in the shade

of some trees in a lesson.

The Baptism of Blasida and Alberto. Awesome!

The words to one of my favorite hymns always sink deeply into my heart: ¨Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here´s my heart o, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.¨ Nobody has ever said missionaries are perfect. Like each of you, there are temptations, and sometimes, also like you, we put our foot in a door that we know we shouldn´t enter as representatives of Jesus Christ. There is a simple, sweet reassurance in the humble recognition that I cannot avoid sin on my own. When we let down the misplaced pretense that we are somehow great or accomplished or powerful, we open the way for the help of the only One who really is.Because, after all, the missionaries that think they are ¨strong,¨ are the ones that end up falling. The parents who think they have mastered the ¨techniques¨ of raising children, are the ones that end up guiding them astray. The ¨noble and great one¨ who thought he KNEW how to save all of mankind and therefore deserved the glory, was the one who ended up being cast into the pit. However BRILLIANT the missionary or the parent or the ¨son of the morning¨ that Satan was, it´s amazing the mountain of difference that can be made by a grain of humility.The scriptures tell us that we can´t even develop good character, and ESPECIALLY the attributes of Christ, on our own. And so, as I write new goals every night for the following day, every monday for the coming week, and every 6 weeks for the new change (I´ll be completing my 3rd change here in a week and a half), I have to remember that through ALL I can do, I am NOTHING if I don´t have the help of a loving Father in Heaven.This last week, I put into action a plan for focusing on EVERY one of the 9 christ like attributes listed in Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel. Most days I focus on 1 and 2 of the days I focus on 2. But I´ve learned that when I give God clear goals, God gives me clear trials - raising the bar so I can learn to jump ever higher. Then, when I give God my focus - perfecting my form, strengthening my muscles, and improving my techniques - God gives me power - suddenly I can jump a bar that, before, and on my own, would have been impossible. How wonderful is the mission!Anyhow, I continued the illustrated journal this week. I drew the instructions to making Patacon Pisado, or squished and then fried Platano, a delicious Colombian treat. I enjoyed pouring out sincere compliments and watching how happy it made my companion that I enjoyed his cooking (not to mention the increased likelihood that he´ll cook for me again, lol).We did a division this week with my Zone Leader, another Colombian, Elder Perez. Rather than just passing the drunks with a thumbs up, he stopped and talked to several of them. They bought us sodas, and asked us ridiculous questions, and we laughed at them. At the end of the day, I don´t think it´s the MOST effective use of our time, but it sure was fun.I also love getting the different perspectives of other missionaries. Elder Perez inspired me by explaining how we are called to OPEN the hearts of the people of Paraguay. To do so, sometimes it´s necessary to show them that we, too, are just people. To laugh, and joke, and express our love. And THEN, to teach, as a humble teacher comparting a small bit of wisdom rather than some sort of accomplished Professor dictating to listening students. I love developing those abilities and seeing the Lord work miracles through me.One day this week, we also found 2 parrots in one day. They climbed onto my shoulders, and one of them spoke Guarani. Elder Agudelo scared me to death when he grabbed my already endangered ear and I yelled in fear that the bird´s deadly beak had latched onto my fragile ear. Luckily I didn´t swat at it.So many exciting and interesting and fun things happen every day. But, those things that strike me most deeply are the people that we help to change. This week we arranged a marriage (we´ll see if it goes down), and helped a nervous young man resolve tension with his mother so that he could come to church with us. We usually teach between 30 and 48 lessons in a week, contact between 100 and 135 people, do service, and various other inspiring and sometimes physically and emotionally tiring missionary activities. But, and the end of the day, we feel the soft, reassuring voice of our Savior that we are doing what is right. I hope to ALWAYS have that feeling in my life. Our mission at whichever point in our life, changes a LOT, but can ALWAYS be dependent on the will of our loving Father in Heaven. If we but learn to find and follow it, he will show us the way to greater and greater happiness. I love you all, and say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.Elder McCarty

The Rolla Holla! Monday, 1.19.09

Focus Through the Storm Keep your eye on the ball. Focus on your purpose. Begin with the end in mind. Visualize. We´re given so many words of counsel regarding the importance of FOCUS. In a world of so much change and so little predictability, we need something, ANYTHING to guide us. For that, I am eternally grateful for a loving Father in Heaven, and His gift to us, the guidance of the Holy Ghost in learning to render TRUE service - a lighthouse in a stormy sea of confusion and disarray. THAT is the lesson that I learned this week above all.True service means following the whisperings of the Holy Ghost, especially when we don´t want to. As we taught a 50 year old man named Callo this week, he was READY and WILLING to read and pray, and attend church, to find out if what we had shared was True. After the lesson, and the commitments, he told us that he would want to study it all out VERY well, and that, therefore, the 5th of February was a date a little TOO soon for his Baptism. I wanted to tell him that he didn´t have to know everything and that, at some point, he´d have to take a leap of faith, and...a million important things that I KNOW in my heart to be True. But, the Spirit told me to say the simple words, ¨Don´t worry, it´s just a goal. Is it ok if we help you prepare towards the goal of being baptized for that day.¨ He consented and with every visit more, he is more willing and excited to TAKE that leap of Faith...a leap that he seemed to have discovered and chosen for himself!
True service means loving more than anything else. Especially through the barriers of communication and differences in cultural understandings of how relationships work, it is AMAZING how much good it does for a companionship to simply say the words ¨I love you,¨ or to give a simple compliment, or to express how HAPPY I am to be in this area, at this time, with this companion. I feel like no number of shovels full of sand, or lawns cut, or packages of food delivered (all though those things are important) can brighten the spirit as much as a little bit of love and sincere interest.On the goofier side of the missionary life, I´ve begun drawing ONE picture in my journal (usually with Stick Figures) for the most exciting, interesting, or funny event of the day. This week I drew my Companion and I walking home after a day of work, imitating the different accents of missionaries or investigators, Latino or American alike. We laughed and enjoyed the friendship and brotherhood that is so EASILY found in this most holy and uplifting of works. I drew a picture of a man whose barbecue grill we pass every day, where one day, we passed and he threw on some meet JUST as we told him we didn´t have time to wait. Another day, we ordered up 2 Asaditos (as they call the chunks of meet grilled and seasoned to perfection on a Kabaab-like stick), before realizing we were fasting (DOH!). The third time (and the picture I drew), was of when we finally got to actually TRY the meet, and of how he told us with a smile as we walked up to him in his Paraguayan rocking chair, ¨I´m not going to get up unless you actually plan on buying something.¨I drew us playing a game of volley ball (you´d be AMAZED at how popular the sport is down here - there are as many, if not more, volley ball courts than soccer fields). Or camping out under a flapping tarp of a corner Convenience Tent, where the tarp as well as our chairs eventually blew away and we had to go running after them. I drew the umbrell-impics, which included seeing how many rotations I could throw the umbrella and then catch it while walking from appointment to appointment, or hitting wetted trees to try to make the watter fall on my companion (hey, he started it). I drew a 3 year old boy who speaks ONLY Guarani and LOVES me but hates my companion. He always runs up and hugs me, and then hits Elder Agudelo. We have no idea why, but it´s funny. I drew myself teaching a lesson with visual aids drawn in the sand, and later in a Family Home Evening to a family of 6 daughters all under the age of 11. The Missionary Life is wonderful and I´m loving every minute of it. Nowhere else in the world will I find this many experiences in so little time!
I love you all, and can never express with words my gratitude for your support and love. I apologize if I haven´t written to you personally: each of you deserve a personal letter every week. But, I know you will understand. Let´s plan on making up for lost time some day :-).With all my

Love,Elder McCarty

Picture commentary:

1.Do not try this at home. I was eating a Chupetin (or a lolli-pop, thanks to a package from my cherished and way TOO awesome loved ones at home) while running across pipes for the local plumbing system.

2. Before the Family home evening with the Villalba Family (with 6 little girls) we played a little on their old, classic swing set (kids at hear).

3. Half of our zone on a Collective, or bus, on the way to eat lunch down town after district meetings!

Pictures and comentary 1-12-09

I like to show off my skills of throwing my keys up in the air and catching them in my pocket (yeah, impressive right), well here I take it to the next level with a pomegranite into my bag...hold the applause.

This is an ACTUAL lesson...well, afterwards we asked to take the picture and we tried to reenact the real life scene...this picture is based on real life events, with real characters, in the real life jungle setting of San Jorge Paraguay.

EVERYBODY and their dog wants to give the gift of Pan Dulce...which has an unseemly similarity to Fruit Cake. So, my companion and I took advantage of the abundance and had a Guerra de Pan Dulce (Fruit Cake Wars). Tune in to the next picture to see the results.

Yep, I think I won. Well, in a sense we both lost, since we had to clean up after.

Climbing a tree....don´t worry, I was very careful to hold on with both hands.

May have already sent this, but I asked this old guy if he´d trade me belts and he said yes. It was awesome. But then that very night, I dropped my new belt after taking it off and it BROKE! Anyhow, I bought a new belt buckle and still have his leather so we´re good to go!

Found this Amigo in a street when we were doing contacts. They have these baskets (usually not held by cool stick figure men) all over town to deposit trash, and then the Basuro (trash man...ok, I made that up) comes by to get it by hand every day. (I know I promised 10 but TIME flies on the internet, 20 minutes gone!).

The Rolla Holla! Monday 1.5.09 A Father who KNOWS You

A new year! Heavenly Father decided to start it off for us here in San Jorge with a miracle. I don´t know if it was from your prayers, or from the goal we set to pray individually for every investigator every day, but this week we were blessed to see some bountiful fruits from our labors. As far as I can tell, we worked the same, and we committed the loving, yet sometimes a little TOO relaxed people in our area to attend church this week. Most of all, we prayed for them, and when all was said and done, the 3 or 4 that we had been picking up from their houses to take them to church (sometimes having to wake them up), turned into 10 that showed up willingly and enjoyed a powerful meeting of many spirit-filled member testimonies. Our Heavenly Father knows EXACTLY what he´s doing in this work. We just have to do our part, and sit back in our Paraguayan rocking chairs (figuratively, of course, although they have some of the most comfortable rocking chairs I´ve EVER sat in in my life) waiting for his will to be brought to pass!
This Saturday, although we still have a few doubts to resolve and hurdles to jump, we hope to have 3 baptisms. Cynthia, who´s father goes back and forth between ¨I´m the law of this house and she´s not going to be baptized,¨ to ¨She has to make her own decisions.¨ We hope the day of the baptismal service falls on the latter. Lucy, who, while 14 years old, takes care of her family, and everything in the house, despite the pressure of drunk brothers and a demanding father. She was able to get permission and to attend church this week (although she´s gone MANY times before, a while ago). Finally, Blasida, the mother of the 2 daughters who we are also teaching. She has a rough past, a CLEAR testimony and and indominable excitement to start over fresh, cleansed by the power of Jesus Christ´s atonement. Thank you all for your prayers. They aren´t in vain. I know that they work and that Heavenly Father smiles as we combine our efforts and our time on our knees for this great cause!
This week, as we set out on the front porch near Poerto Fenix (or, Phoenix Port, a huge port where giant ships drop off containers in our area), loud trucks barreled by carrying their heavy, usually unsecured load (a little scary and dangerous). A gentle, yet hot breeze gave slight relief from the oppressive heat. My companion and I talked with Catalina, Blasida´s daughter, who was also going to be baptized this Saturday, but didn´t feel like she had a strong enough answer. As we taught her, I remembered an experience I had years back where some friends invited me to pray with them, each of them offering a prayer, and then offering one myself to get the answer I was so sincerely seeking. I remembered the FIRE that overwhelmed my body and the momentous knowledge that flooded my mind.
The spirit had brought me this memory, in the subtle way that I´ve come to recognize as a prompting to help somebody else. I suggested that we do this. And as we explained the feelings she could feel and the way she could know (using scriptures and testimony) she interjected that she was afraid - that she had a fear that she couldn´t explain. We explained that the Adversary also tried to stop that Prophet Joseph Smith, back in 1820, and that whenever we are on the verge of doing something important, obstacles come. So we prayed, each of us. Then came her turn. As she prayed, her voice cracked. Trucks passed, and a rooster next door began to crow...distractions through which we still felt that SIMPLE, penetrating peace. As she finished, she explained that the fear had passed COMPLETELY, and that she felt she had her answer.
WHAT A BLESSING TO BE HERE AND NOW IN THE WORK OF MY GOD! I don´t know why it is that I like so much to personalize it. He is your God as much as He is mine, but every day I realize that he is giving me, personally, experiences that ONLY Him, who knows all, could know I need. Seek out those experiences! They are there, whether you recognize them or not. Whether you are choosing the right...or not. Heavenly Father loves you and knows exactly what will bless your life.

I love you all! Thank you so much for all your support and love.
Elder McCarty



14.1 Here I climbed a latter of the HUGE stove (Tatacua in Guarani) where they cook the bricks at the brickyard.
14.2 Another classic, beautiful, Paraguayan sunset!
14.3 (with lady & baby) Elder in training.
14.4 (flip) Working on the tricks so I can keep up with my 2 flippin (haha, a pun, because they actually DO flips) brothers.
14.5 Had to put this in (even though I came out looking kind of goofy) with Elder Silvia, a member of the 70. (finally a normal smile)
14.6 We cleaned up the yard of the Bishop´s Mom´s house, and I find this SWEET old war hat in the shed.
14.7 And, this super old printer where you actually put in the letters. Yeah, it´s cool.
14.8 If you are from Paraguay, you have to drink Tedede, ALWAYS be relaxed, and cook some Sopa Paraguaya for Christmas, NO MATTER WHAT. Here is an Amigo doing the last of those three. (picture with the fire)
14.9 How you all love me! I got the package from my Mom and from Barb and am told one is on the way from my Dad. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!
14.10 I finally broke down and actually ate some McDonalds. I know. The funny thing is, here it is a fancy restaurant and is EXPENSIVE! But, it was really good, I´ll be honest.

And there were SO many more but don´t have time. Next week, 10 more! I love you all!
(text in red from Kyler's mom- Becky)

The Rolla Holla! Monday 12.29.08 Faith to Follow Him!

A beloved friend and mentor once shared with me that the journey of life is like a slow, difficult path through a dense forest. You move forward, trusting the map or compass, or whatever instrument it might be that is guiding you. You trust that you are actually heading towards your goal. And occasionally, the trees part and the forest opens into a beautiful meadow or a soaring mountain view, and you know, because you can see clearly, that you are on the right track. But, as he taught me, FAITH--the source and power behind all that we can do in this life--is in the forest. I´m realizing that the longer and more dense the forest, the more beautiful and awe-inspiring those occasional, brief glimpses.

This week I had the priviledge of talking with my family by telephone. It left me grateful, and excited, maybe a LITTLE homesick, but most of all, rejuvinated with an understanding of WHY we do what we do as missionaries. I was able to learn about their lives and about the blessing brought to them by the gospel in their families and jobs and relationship. I was able to feel those deep, unbreakable bonds of love and happiness that continue in spite of difficulty or sorrow, or 2 years of being a world apart. A loving family, arms latched in cooperation toward a common goal, and heads bowed in respect toward a mutually loving and infinitely blessing God, has blessed my life and my mission and certainly, my eternity. So, I want to thank you, my family and friends, and hope that you can all continue doing those little things that add REAL depth to any relationship: Family Home Evening, family prayer, family scripture study. Or, if the family situation isn´t perfect (I know mine wasn´t), do the best you can in whatever situation with which God has blessed you.

That is the message we take to between 100 and 135 Paraguayans that we contact every week. Right now, we are teaching 5 of them that have a Baptismal date and many others that are working towards that goal. Cynthia is 14 years old, and very sweet and humble. Her father is strict, though loving, and as a result she is disciplined, studious, and considerate. Every morning, everyone in their family rises at 6:30 to study or do chores, a pretty stark contrast from the majority of Paraguayan´s that sleep until 9 or 10 and then again during the Siesta after lunch. Anyhow, we found her father sitting out in the front yard drinking Tedede (like Mate but cold...I think that´s how you spell it) about 3 weeks ago and talked to him about the gospel and how it blesses families. Convinced that it was too late for him (one of Satan´s greatest and most effective lies), he told us that perhaps we could teach his daughter, since it was about time for her to start forming her own concepts and beliefs. We excitedly told him that we thought it was a great idea, and explained the youth groups and programs of the church, among other blessings. Now she has come to church with us twice and has a goal to baptized the 10th of December.We were clapping houses during another hot summer afternoon (yeah, you don´t knock here, you clap), and met Gabriela. She introduced us to her Mother and Sister and we have been teaching the 3 of them for about 4 weeks now. Gabriela has lost interest, and her sister and mother are progressing rapidly. They also have come to church with us twice. This last week, after Sacrament meeting, Blasida, Gabriela´s mother told us that she suddenly remembered a dream she had the night before as she reached out her hand to partake of the bread. In the dream, she was in that very room, and was taking the sacrement, although she didn´t understand why, or what it meant. It is so amazing to me how God gives us these tender mercies: both to Blasida as a sincere investigator of His true church, and to us missionaries, who have the privilidge to see miracles like this on a regular basis.

Another contact, Rosio, seemed promising, since she was searching for the true church, and for some very specific blessings regarding her health and well being. After 2 or 3 weeks of teaching her, we met her husband who forbade her from going to church. All the while, her sweet, quiet daughter Alejandra had been listening to our lessons, and apparantly felt the spirit, since she expressed her sincere desire to come to church with us, even though her mother couldn´t. She did, and loved it. She too has set a goal to be baptized and cleansed of her sins.

It seems the theme of this week has been that God will work in unexpected ways. The unlikely, stubborn man, introduced us to his willing, well-prepared daughter. The teenage girl who quickly lost interest, led us to her mother and sister, clearly prepared and chosen by God. And the restricted mother gave permission to a daughter close enough to the spirit to know truth when it was taught to her. I am so thankful for all of these blessing and know that they are from God. I´ll keep you updated on these and other people that are learning about and seeking the Truth. Pray for them.

I also had the opportunity to give a talk in Sacrament meeting. The bishop called us in the morning as we were furiously running about our area to gather our investigators, so we had literally no time to prepare. I chose the subject of families, and shared a few scriptures, even told a joke that made everybody laugh (referring to how the congregation should listen more to the spirit and less to me, because not only does it know EXACTLY what they need, but it also has much better Spanish than me...hahaha, I crack me up). I talked about my family and how much I love you all, and miss the snow that you have up to your knees (true or not, it always impresses the Paraguayans when I say it, lol). But most of all, I felt the Spirit as I testified of the Savior and His influence in EVERY part of our life. Isn´t that just so simple andamazing? We can say so many wise things and in the most brilliant of ways but at the end of the day, a simple, heartfelt testimony of He who gave His life that we might live, is what invites the Spirit. I know that He lives and that He loves me. I feel it powerfully and it penetrates me to my very soul. A feeling hard to forget in the deepest, darkest forests of life, and joyous to remember in those occasional and beautiful glimpses of eternity. I pray that you feel it, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Elder McCarty