February 29, 2016 -- Drenching Rain

This past week in Oneida has definitely had its memorable moments. Elder Misustin and I had the opportunity to do some service in a soup kitchen. It is located at a Methodist church on the main street in Oneida. It gives us a good opportunity to serve around other good people that have a similar belief in Jesus Christ. I also appreciated serving food to all the wonderful people who came to get a meal. Watching them light up when you hand them the plate of food is what makes it all worth it. 

The weather has been all over the place this week, as usual. Wednesday night Elder Misustin and I  were walking around trying to OYM people, as we missionaries like to call it, when all of a sudden out of nowhere it started pouring rain. Elder Misustin and I started booking it back to our apartment so we would not get soaked but after about a minute it didn't matter. We were drenched!  So we did what we could and enjoyed it. I may have even splashed in a couple of puddles while yelling "I love being a missionary" but that's just me being weird.

Last night Elder Misustin and I were faith walking. We felt like we should start tracting this one random street so we went and knocked on the first door. A guy answered and we asked if we could share a message about Jesus Christ with him. He said yes but was pushed for time. Elder Misustin and I hurried and taught a shortened version of the Restoration. He seemed to like the message so we got his number and will be meeting with him in the future. It goes to show you, that when you are striving to go where the Lord wants you to go as a missionary, He will lead you to His children that are ready to hear the gospel. The Church is true, the sky is getting more blue and life is good.

Love, Elder Carlile

 

 

PS  Here is a random picture from this week

 

 

February 22, 2016 -- Crazy Weather

The weather has been all over the place in the past two weeks. It has ranged from -20 to 50 degrees. It has snowed, rained, frozen over and then melted. The weather just needs to make up its mind.

We were advised to not go out tracting doors and street contacting when it was in the -20's on Sunday, so Elder Misustin and I went to some set appointments, did some area bookwork, and maybe took a little nap. I had the opportunity to speak in Church on obedience. I focused on increasing our love so that we have a greater desire to keep the commandments. I thought love would be the perfect focus since it was Valentines Day.

 

Elder Misustin and I are teaching someone named Tasha.  She is a mom and has 3 wonderful little kids. She has been meeting with the missionaries for about 2 months and she is progressing wonderfully. Unfortunately she broke her wrist and is going to be in a hard cast for 6 weeks. She lives with her grandma and uncle, who are both newer members of the church. Whenever we go over to teach Tasha they always join in. Tasha is recognizing the Spirit when we teach her and when she reads the Book of Mormon. I can't wait to see where her life is going to end up in the next couple of months.

Till next week,

 

Elder Carlile

February 8, 2016 -- New Week in a New Area

This past week has been an eventful one. It was full of goodbyes and new faces but that's part of being a missionary I guess.

I said goodbye to all the members and missionaries in the Binghamton ward. It was hard because it seemed like I just got to the Binghamton ward yesterday. It's weird that you can come to love people so quickly. The hardest part was saying goodbye to Elder Ayre. We became best friends in the past nine weeks. We worked hard and had good time doing it. Really though, I have never laughed so hard or been so tired than this past transfer. He's a good man. I know I made a friendship that is going to last. We said goodbye to each other but we both knew that that goodbye was only temporary.

 

My new companion's name is Elder Misustin. He is from Logan Utah. He has been out one more transfer than I have. He is hard working and has a great desire to do missionary work. I'm super grateful for that. Those things are really the most important things to have in a companionship.

 

Oneida is definitely smaller than Johnson City but I love it! I compare it to Heber City only a little bit smaller. There are many beautiful fields and rolling hills. Our area covers Oneida and the neighboring towns. Our apartment is in the main city of Oneida. I fit pretty well in the apartment except for the basement cellar where the washer and dryer is.  But that's ok, I can live with that. For the first time in my mission I'm in a car area! I can't wait to get working hard to find those ready to accept the gospel in Oneida.

 

Being in a branch is great. I already know most the member's names after one Sunday. I have never been in a branch before in my life so it was a little different at first.  But after sacrament meeting on Sunday, I really felt the branch unity that you don't always get in big wards. I was welcomed with open arms.

 

Until next time,

Elder Carlile

 

 

February 1, 2016 -- Last Week in Johnson City

Well on the newest episode in the life of Elder Carlile.  Jay came to church and he loved it! He said it was a good place to feel relief from the world. It just adds to my testimony that church gives us a rest from our worldly troubles. All the members were super warm and welcoming to him which was great.  There was a good amount of fellowshipping going on.

Transfer calls came in this week and I'm going to..... ONEIDA. It's a super small town in between Syracuse and Utica but only 30 minutes outside of Utica. So I get to look forward to my first rural area of the mission after spending so long in bigger cities. It's a small branch there so that will be a change up from my first two areas where there were pretty big wards. My new companion has been out a transfer longer than I have so we're going to party and find the elect. I'll be sad to say goodbye to Johnson City but more importantly I'll be sad to say goodbye to Elder Ayre. It's been a good nine weeks with Elder Ayre and I have probably never laughed harder in my life. I taught him how to be the most bomb missionary ever and he really just only taught me how to cook barbeque chicken. Just kidding! He taught me a ton about missionary work and I'm grateful from the opportunity to learn from someone who is as knowledgeable and dedicated to the use of missionary skills. I'm really going to miss the missionaries in this unit too because we've all had to help each other pull through. The sisters have been so awesome at serving us and the elders have made preparation day basketball a pretty good competition. This will be my first ward that doesn't have 4 sets of missionaries every Sunday but instead only has one and I'm in it!

Otherwise, it was a pretty good week and I'll be sad to say goodbye to all of our investigators but I know that the work will still progress with them. It'll be exciting to see what happens this upcoming week. In the meantime the church is true, the sky is blue and life is good. Speaking of weather - it's been a little chilly lately. Last week got down to below zero with windchill but this week it is bumping back up to 60.

Keep on keepin' on,
Elder Joshua Carlile

January 25, 2016 -- Worldwide Missionary Training

Today for fun I overstacked my froyo. It was so overstacked that the person behind the counter asked if she could take a picture and I just might be on her facebook page now. This also helped the sisters since they are trying to teach her and pick her up as an investigator. 

 

Now onto a more hyped note for this week.  Our investigator J... (we call him Jay for short) continues to amaze us every lesson. We've had two lessons with him this week and the Spirit continues to manifest itself strongly through his desire to find a better life. He is one of the most giving people I've ever met and he tries to help everyone around him through his actions. I'm excited to see him progress to his baptism date because we know that will be such a life changing progression for him.

 

We watched the world wide missionary broadcast this week. It was the first one they've done in over a decade and it was pretty sweet. The focus of the whole meeting was the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance in our investigators lives. Afterward I felt a little drained spiritually but that's always a good feeling because you know that your spiritual knowledge is progressing. 

 

The Church is true, the sky is blue and life is good.

Love, Elder Carlile 

January 18, 2016 -- Snow Can't Stop The Work

It's actually been snowing this week and yeah, it's been cold!  Don't worry though, I only slipped twice on my bike.  It was a graceful fall... but on to more important things this week; we had our second lesson with our new investigator JB.  He's my black homie like a brother from another mother. The lesson went really well. His focus is unbelievable! We taught him about the Book of Mormon and how this book can literally change his life. He kept the commitment last time to read it and continues to do just that. It's amazing to see how the Lord will put people in your path so long as you're out doing His work as a missionary. 

 

We had another investigator this week who we've been teaching for a month and a half.  He finished the Book of Mormon and finally committed to baptism, which is such a blessing.  The thing that got him to commit was being able to do temple work for his deceased wife.  Every lesson we have the Spirit is so strong and we know that his wife is waiting for him to do that work. His experience was that he was thinking about it all night and finally at midnight it came to him, he had this epiphany that his wife and mom were waiting for their work to be done so that they could get into Spirit paradise. So we asked him what the next step was for him and he said "baptism." He's committed to February 27th. 

On Sunday we had two of our investigators and they brought one of their friends. We've been praying for each of these investigators for the past 2 months and it just goes to show you what the Lord does for His missionaries as they ask him. We are so grateful to be a part of their progression and to know that the Lord is blessing us so we could have this experience. We were also able to have a potluck on Sunday which is where after third hour of church we get to eat and enjoy each others company as a ward. Our investigators who came just loved it and want to continue to come to church. Josh, our recent convert, seems like a member already - he's just got that vibe about him. 

It's been a blast this week and the sky is blue, the Church is true and life is good. We even topped it off today with all you could get in a 12oz cup of froyo.

 

Love, Elder Carlile

January 11, 2016 -- New Bikes!!

This week has been been full of unique experiences.  First off, Elder Ayre and I got some more bikes from the mission because our last bikes were stolen. Don't worry though, we made sure to get a chain lock this time so nobody can break through it. Having the bikes cuts down travel time and I'm very grateful for that.

On Saturday, Elder Ayre and I went to meet a lady we met on the street the other night. We pulled up to McDonald's (because she wanted to meet there) and, as Elder Ayre and I walked in, we saw our investigator and two other people sitting with her. We went and introduced ourselves to them. One was an older guy and he introduced himself as Pastor Ralph. The other person was his wife. Pastor Ralph wanted to come with this lady that we had met the other night and find out what we were all about.

As the discussion started, we were able to resolve some misconceptions that Pastor Ralph had about the Mormon church. As we each told one another what we believed, we were able to find similarities in each religion. Pastor Ralph is a non-denominational Christian and has a great love for the Bible. We both had a central belief in Christ and we both believed the bible to be the word of God. However, he did believe in the trinity... that was one of the differences that we have.  It was still okay because we were just trying to build bridges of understanding between the religions. After about an hour of this discussion, while trying to balance talking with Pastor Ralph and talking with our investigator, we were able to end on a good note --  leaving the Book of Mormon with our investigator and bearing testimony that she shouldn't just take our word that this was true but instead pray to God to know if the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Elder Ayre and I were PUMPED coming out of the lesson and can't wait to meet with our investigator again and also have good discussions with Pastor Ralph. Hopefully we'll be able to meet with him separately though so that there isn't so much confusion. 

One other miracle, and cooler experience we had, was coming out of a lesson on Friday.  We were getting ready to head to our next appointment when we received a call from a number that we didn't recognize. We answered the phone and the man introduced himself as Jay.  He said that he didn't know who else to call and that we had left a card with him when we met him on the streets a couple of months earlier. He expressed that he felt as though he had hit rock bottom, so we offered to meet with him the following Sunday. We went over to his house on Sunday night to meet him which resulted in an amazing lesson. We got to know him and he just expressed how badly he wanted to change his life and find that hope that had been missing. He had a rough childhood and is now just trying to find work again. He feels like he has nobody to count on right now. We left him with a Book of Mormon and bore strong testimony that this book could change his life and bring him closer to God. Elder Ayre and I look forward to meeting with him in the next couple of weeks.

 

I know that the Lord puts his missionaries in the right place at the right time. I have seen that throughout this whole week and I'm glad the Lord trusts Elder Ayre and I enough to put these people in our path.

Love, Elder Calile