The Mission

It's the final Countdown

2011-10-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that this is it. I am done. Just a long bus ride and three flights left.How do i feel? Well, super happy. Really sad. Relieved. Accomplished. Excited. Nervous. Confused. Hungry. Ready. Not nearly prepared. Scared. Wiped out.

Yesterday in my last day in church, we had a really good sacrament meeting. after the sacrament they asked me to bear my testimony, and a lot of feelings that I had been suppressing came up. I had been fighting against myself all week long to stay focused and a couple times I lost the battle so I was feeling bummed out and not very worthy, but when I got up, the Spirit hit me really hard.

The mission has been the greatest thing for my life. I have learned a ton and grown up. God has helped me so many times in so many ways. Really God loves and helps those who follow Him. Basically I got up and rambled about that and then sat down and tried not to cry.

We had a miracle happen this week. We had a lesson planned with S, an investigator for her to come to the church in the evening on Thursday. She lives far away so this was to keep our legs in good shape and so we could bring a member. We waited for her for like half an hour, and nothing. Then I called her and she said she wasn´t coming because her husband was sick. So as we leave the church a guy who we had talked to a few weeks ago stopped me on the street. He said, "are you guys ever gonna come by my house, I have been going through a lot of problems and I really want to talk to you." So right then we invited him into the church and we talked. He has HIV and cancer in his leg. He was recently robbed and is without work. A couple of weeks ago we had given him a pamphlet in the street and he said that he had read it every night since then. He knows that if he follows God, his situation can be fixed. its incredible the faith that he has. He asked how to join the church because he wants to become a part of what we have. So we explained baptism and he is all over it. Then we set up his baptismal date for the 29th of October. Then on Saturday we had another lesson with him and he had started the Book of Mormon. Yesterday he came to church and liked it a lot. Hopefully he can flourish, because if he keeps going and progressing, the Lord will bless him beyond belief.

They are putting sisters here in la Paloma now, so today we have to prepare everything for them. Hopefully they don´t screw up our work, I love these people so much that I would come back and give these sisters a kick in the pants if they mess this area up.

Saying goodbye is hard, but its super weird because I am sad as can be but I can´t wipe the smile off of my face, I get to see my family again! I love you guys so much.

So how does it work to get me released? Does President W know I´m coming home?

This week goes like this. Today, p-day. Therefore, pack and buy alfajores.

Tomorrow early, leave la Paloma for good, get to Montevideo, have lunch in Paso Carrasco with a member family (ca ching) and then go to the temple. Have a family night in the mission home. Then sleep. Then on Wednesday, leave Uruguay :,( its a sad moment. Then go to Santiago Chile, then LA, then SEATTLE!!!! dang. the end is here. its not even trunky anymore, its just reality.

I am looking forward to all Mexican food and real American food. Krispy Kremes would make me cry.

I love youSee you in a few days.ELDER Barry

ps. a dog followed us twice this week. we named him fitty cent. at first he was Heaton, named after our district leader, but then we saw that he has a lot of battle scars on his face, and he wasn´t responding to Heaton, so fitty caught on. its the only thing he responds to now.i HAVE grown up on the mission, i swear. hahahaha.

10-10-11-10 days to go!

2011-10-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

Wow that is so cool that C bore his testimony! He is great! and brave, I also bore my testimony, mostly because we only had 15 people yesterday and there was a huge gap and I was sitting on the stand and I had to fill it.

Sad news. G started refusing to talk to us this week. We think that she got offended because I didn´t sit with her in conference. Along with that we had the suspition that she liked me a little too much, also has mental issues, a little. But we were ignoring that in hopes of her gaining a real testimony of the church. It didn´t get that far. Maybe in the summer the hermanas can help her out.

D said he was going to go to church and that he was going on his motorcycle so we didn´t need to go by his house, but he didn´t make it and we´re not sure why. But he has been going well. Also S is progressing, her son F had a soccer tournament in 33 this sunday so she couldn´t go. Kind of a bummer that we aren´t going to have a baptizm before the end of the change but at least we have good progress.

I´m glad the cougs won, go byu. I had an interchange with Elder A this week, he is from Honduras. It was super funny, it was pouring down rain with very high winds. Both of our umbrellas broke and we were soaked. but we had a super good lesson at night. It was with a family that they had just found. It was really awkward because elder A wasn´t taking control and I had no idea what the situation was, we ended up teaching the plan of salvation and it was really spiritual. The mom dad daughter and cousin all agreed to get baptized after they read and prayed. In the end I said the prayer and when I knelt down to pray, a bunch of water came out of my boots onto their floor. When I got up there was a big puddle where I had knelt down. But honestly like 3 or 4 cups of water came out of my boots! It was really awkward but they had a tile floor so they didn´t get angry jajaja.

Well enjoy your last full week in an empty house.
I love you guys
Elder B

3 October 2011 (never thought this month would get here!)

2011-10-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

Well that was a supergood conference. I enjoyed it a lot. for some random reason the talk about menraising their daughters really hit me, I loved that talk. Also the great talkby Elder Holland about Satan was super powerful, but only the men saw that one. That is awesome that Sam got to be the mascot, I don´t have time to write himnow, but I will write him by hand, hopefully it gets there before I do.

G. went to conference with us on Saturday, but left before it ended, Ididn´t see her because I was in the gringo room, but I was super stoked thatshe came. She is on line for the 15th, which btw is my last saturday in thefield...

This week we didn´t have high numbers, but the few lessons we had werereally good and directly helping investigators to progress. For example, we sawthe family S and talked about baptizm. I asked if D could reallysee himself baptized. He said, baptised yeah, but married no. Then other Dchimed in and said that during the day she had gotten this FEELING that why notget married, what the heck, just do it. So she talked him into it. They aregetting a date this week to get married later in the month. The spirit works inmysterious ways.

I love the gospel and I know its true. I got my fight plansthis week. Super weird, but the idea of leaving is becoming acceptable to me. Iam used to the idea, kinda, and I feel good. Which is saying something.
I love you guys a lot.
chao

26 September 2011 (24 days and counting!)

2011-09-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

Hello family.heck yes i am going to send emails home on the 17th! itmight be lame, but it will be an email. that's cool that you finished the roof, I´m glad that I don´t have to play 14 feet off the ground with you guys.

Anyways, the area. la paloma. how goes la paloma. yesterdayin church we had TWO INVESTIGATORS!!! the one that we are more excited about isnamed G. We have been talking to her for about two weeks, and we almoststopped visiting her because it seemed like she wasn´treally understanding. But the other day we passed by with a member and G.was having issues and she said that she needed the gospel. Then on Saturday wewent by and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith repentance baptism holyghost endure til the end ) and she said that she would get baptized and we setup for the member taxi to pass by her house. It did . She came with her 4 yearold C. The first hour of churchwe were all together for relief society and priesthood. The stake presidencytalked about the correct order of the church and that only leaders can getrevelation for the branch. it was way good, but there was like 90 things thatthey talked about that G had never heard before. She laughed out loud thefirst time they called our group a branch of the church, and then thepriesthood and all that stuff. my oh my. But she seemed pretty enthusiaticabout church and like she is going to continue. But that was basically thelongest hour of my life, just hoping that she didn´t get offended ormisunderstand in a bad way. Tomorrow we are going to set the date with her forthe 15th of October. We´re pretty excited, but the C´s are out of town and thenavy family just got back the other day, hopefully we can stay in contact withthem. Good thing they have member friends.

I love you guys all a lot. keep it real.
elder b
I´ll try to talk to Sister L. at changes to tell her that I will see her bro.(There is a missionary serving in our ward who's sister is serving in Barry's mission! Small world... ~Jenny)

19 Sept. 2011

2011-09-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

Hello.

Sadly, we only had one investigator in church yesterday, agranddaughter of the relief society president. But... we had a member family bemissionaries this week! They had their neighbors over this Tuesday when we cameover. We got to know them the first time, and they accepted to hear more and on Friday night we taught them the restoration and they said that they will getbaptized when they know its true. It was one of the most spiritual charlasever. The best. They couldn´t go to church because he is in the navy with themember guy and he had to work, military work isn´t something you can just skipout on. But we are really pumped to see them, because most of the other peoplewe have we weren´t able to see this week, super frustrating, the C´s were outof town and the S's were visiting family when we tried to go. But we atleast saw them once, we restarted them with the Book of Mormon. but thegreatest part of the week was A and A, they are the friends of themembers. they are so cool, because they are normal, she says that she knows howto make cupcakes so in the next lesson she owes us them. She was sick on Friday, so she wasn´t going to come, but she decided that they weren´t going toditch us. YEAH BABY! This is exactly what we are trying to go for. This familywouldn´t have ever had the chance to talk to missionaries because we aren´tallowed to knock doors on the military base where they live, but if they keepon going in the route they´re going they will be an eternal family (tear drop...) I love teaching normal people.

I´m glad you guys prayed about the roof thing, you better becareful, wait until I get home to have catastrophes, okay?

dang Utes.

Never thought I would say that.

I´m glad C is a menace already I was nervous forher. But she is awesome and rad so there was no reason to worry.

I love you guys a ton my dear family, there aren´t too many of these emailsleft.

I realized this week that when I left on this great journey I wasn´t really ready to be adult. I have been through a lot out here. It hasbeen rough at times, but overall the happiest time of my life. I feel like now I am finally at the point to where I am ready to be a missionary, and its timeto come home. I think I grew up. a little :)

elder b

love ya

12 September 2011 38 days but don't tell Barry

2011-09-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

hi.
That is crazy that C is already gone off tocollege. I'm glad that cw and k could help her out a bit. I have never metk, but she wrote me once and I already feel like we´re best friends.

This week we worked hard, but I feel like we had littlesuccess. Especially since no one went to church. With some of the people wehave its amazing that they didn´t come. S on Saturday said she wouldcome but come Sunday she couldn´t because they had to go to Rocha to be withher sister who just found out she had a lung tumor (its not a tumor! name thatmovie.) {Challenge from Momma Jenny: Name that movie and get a prize!}

Anyways, we set goals to keep the members more informed andto always set real appointments with the people and remind them the nightbefore. I am determined to get baptisms this change, forget it being my last,the branch needs more people and fast.

I have a small trunky thought. My drivers license expiredlast week, and wasn´t it just a paper that you have to turn in to get it renewed? If possible, could you please look that up for me?

We made sloppy joes this week. they were good.

We had a good week . Overall we did good things, it wasweird not going to changes this week, but we got more work time so its allgood. It is weird not being the dl, and I am not used to the new one, I wasreally liking talking to the zone leaders every night, both elder C (ZL)and I were bummed to not be able to talk every night anymore.

Well hopefully my pictures get to you,

Every week we have been picking a new attribute of Christ tostudy and this week I picked faith, I want to study more about Christ and put Moroni's promise into effect, I know that the Book of Mormon is true already, but I alsoknow that a renewed testimony will not only help me but more importantly theinvestigators.

I love you family. Keep up the good work, and don´t gettrunky, it aint over till its over, and then comes the longest plane ride ofyour life.

chao

elder barry

5 September 2011

2011-09-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

Hellooooo family.
Sorry, that was a Spanish translation about the house. We weren´t planning onliving in the dorms dorms, but in an apartment, you know me, I´m not dishingout dinero for a house. YYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH SSSS!! yes,he is going to RUSSIA! woo yeah russia!

I´m not going to lie, its gonna be a little rough to cheer for my boys up atthe Y, but I´ll catch on. I'm glad they won though. super stoked about the gamewe get to go to too. Go Beavs. thanks for the great package, the Dew was greatand I almost cried when I saw that you fixed the racket. We ate my cake lastnight waiting for change calls, but nothing changed, except President isletting me have my last change free of duty. I am officially just a seniorcompanion on a mission to baptize a million before the 18th of october.

This week for my birthday, the branch threw a little family night party in thehouse of one of the members. It was super fun, well old people fun. We were incharge of games and we played church jeopardy. It was really nice of them andon my bday another sister made me a cake. I felt loved. thanks for the money,its all going towards stuff that is super cheesey that says Uruguay.

We had a really good week. We were not able to talk to the C family because they went out of town but we did set up English classwith F and his friends, and also the nephew of a member and some friendsneed help. Thats like 6 nonmembers in the church. Amazing. It sounds like theyhave a pretty rough English teacher. The S family are kinda iffy. He is superexcited, but she seems less and less interested every time we go, I think wescared her a little with the word of wisdom. darn it.

But we fuound a newfamily, the O's. They weren´t able to go to church, but they want to getbaptized, if all goes well, it will be on the 24th of Septiembre.

We are working or trying to work a lot with the members, and it is way better,we still haven´t gotten it into their heads 100 percent but we´re going aroundto them.

My shoes are trashed, or rather, the tops are fine, but the bottoms are kindamessed up. I love it.

Well this week I start my last change of the mission, so I am going to work myguts out and hopefully we can baptize the 9 people we have with a baptizmaldate.

I love you guys a ton.
Elder B

29 August 2011

2011-08-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

Herro Erryburry!

This week was really good. We had a branch activity on Wednesday to remember the good old days, they played a bunch of old Latino music and food. Then when it was ending and we were helping to clean up the cd switched and they played Elvis and Hotel California, it was like heaven. Then they gave us all the left over sodas. Anyways that's not so much the good part of the week.

We found a killer family. The only problem is that they live really really far away. The members tell us that it is 10 kilometers, or 6 miles away. I doubt it because last night we made the walk in just over an hour, and we had to get 20 contacts on the way. By the way, my shoes are toast. I´m just hoping that my shoes for meetings last until the Seattle airport. Too bad that that is 2 years away. haha

Well anyways, this family is the bees knees. The first time we talked to them we had been knocking doors in the new apartments where everyone says we´ll have no success, but people live there so we go to get our 20 contacts, and we knocked, saw that there was someone there, waited, nobody came, so we left. Then we were like a block away and this kid (F)comes up and asks if we had knocked his door and if so that his mom says to come over because she would like to talk with us. They had a lot of questions about what we do, and how long we´re here and all that, but then we had a killer lesson. All we have been able to talk to is the mom and her four kids. The mom is Sara, and her kids are F he's 13 and G she is 8 and two little ones.

The first lesson we had we talked about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and we left them 3rd Nefi 11. They all read it, G said she read it 5 times. So this time, yesterday, we went back and talked about 3 Nefi 11 and baptism, and they all have a date to be baptized on the 24th of September. The member we took is super cool too, said that she would pass by their house on Sunday to take them to church. Its weird, because they have money, basically all the families I have ever found and or baptized were poor. But I guess Alma is right, blessed are the poor who are humble but even more blessed are the not poor who are humble.

I. and her kids are doing alright we can´t teach them much because it is far, but they are progressing anyways.

The S's, good job on the spelling mom, are doing good. He had to work this Sunday so once again they missed out on church. We taught them the word of wisdom this week and they both smoke and he is a recovering alcoholic. But they want to quit, and tomorrow we are going by their house to set specific goals to get them going.

President taught us that if it is their goal, and not ours, it actually means something to them and we can more fully promise them the blessings they deserve, its an eternal principal, they need to use their agency, we teach them, but they decide to act. We can help them make the goals, but it is valid when they are the ones who set them. Its true.

Thank you a lot for being great parents and teaching me the right way to live and how to do things the right way. You are both great examples to me.

I love you tons
elder hawkobsen

22 August 2011

2011-08-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

Hey family.

You'll have bells on? I might just ask for an extension... eight hours in Chile, that stinks, but I´m sure we´ll find someone to talk to haha.

I´m so jealous that you got to see a free concert in the Seattle Center, I saw Macklemore on that same stage, he is the man. That center is full of great memories, like freaklife festival.

We had zone conference this week. it was really good, but made me feel old. I was the oldest missionary there, and two of the sisters were in their last change, so they had to give their testimony in front of everyone. Next change that will be me. Oh boy. Anyways, Pres talked about working with the members, helping THEM share the gospel, you know, the way missionary work is supposed to be done.

Its super fun, new, but fun, and I really feel like it will work. That and I´m gonna be doing a lot of what we are teaching members when I get home in two years. haha. On that note, I have been thinking a lot about what you said about C, how he has been going to church with you guys. Do the missionaries even know? If you don´t think he is ready to listen, you should at least get him around the missionaries a lot. It makes sense in his situation to be nervous about going all out with him, but it sounds to me like he is pretty prepared. he is a super cool kid anyways.

Our week actually went pretty good. We found a family that the missionaries used to teach back in the day and they are awesome. Its a lady with 10 kids. yeah, 10. The only issue is that they live like 5 miles from the church. It was a long day the day we went out for them.

But it´ll definitely be worth it if they start coming to church. they all want to be baptized too.

D and D couldn´t come to church this week because he has kidney stones. Poor guy worked extra hard Friday and Saturday so he wouldn´t have to on Sunday and then he gets sick. She was also sick on Sunday. rrrgg. But they do have the paper work started for their wedding. So at least one concern is getting taken care of. Keep praying for them, they need all the help they can get.

I´m super jealous that you guys are going to ride in Yellowstone.

Sounds like a blast, they let you right? probably.

Well i love you guys a lot.

No I do not shave 1 leg anymore. Sorry if that disappoints you.

elder B

15 August 2011

2011-08-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

What up thug.What? What up thug. What? What up thug. What? What up gangster.

Hey yáll, in this cyber (Internet place) the guy has been bumpin fitty cent for the last 20 minutes and its killing me. That guy has a mouth on him shoot. I also can´t sit still with out at least nodding my head to the beat.

So the subject of this weeks email. Gays. Remember A, from like 2 weeks ago? We had a good lesson with him, and met some guy that lives with him, at least 20 years older. So we assume he was the father. False. Last Monday night we had a lesson with them, and I asked, so are you guys family? The older, F, responded as non chalantly as can be, no, we´re a couple. You should have seen my face. I had to keep it straight, but on the inside I was DYING. We finished the lesson, turned the corner and I just let it out! WHAT!?!? gays!? hahahahhahahaha. But really, a gay couple. But they had some interest, so we went back on Saturday night and taught them about the Book of Mormon. super spiritual lesson, and they committed themselves to read it. I have NO IDEA how to teach them that they can´t make gay and get baptized, but we´ll have to pray a lot. Cuz being gay isn´t the sin, making gay is. But they definitely felt the Spirit.

Also the family S of awesomeness didn´t make it to church, but they are progressing with the scriptures and really want to get baptized, today we are going with a member and we´ll teach the importance of going to church every Sunday.

I have zero flight plans, I don´t get them till right before I leave.

Maybe you should email the mission office to find out. Lets not pull an RM.

Today I officially turn 22 months old. flip. AAAHHHH I'M LIKE THE CRYPT KEEPER!!!

We gave talks yesterday, it was good. I talked about missionary work with the members. My comp talked about the doctrine of Christ. I was the concluding speaker, I felt pretty cool.
No news from the BYU yet?

I met a guy from Georgia the other day, he is a southern baptist and won´t change, says he, but it was good to do a contact in English with someone who actually speaks it. Southern accent and everything.

Well have a good week.
I love y´all.
elder hakobsen

8 August 2011

2011-08-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hello familia

I got your package last weeek, it was the best ever. And then this week I got email letters from all the kiddos, awesome, I can´t believe what S almost did on high adventure, ps if you don´t know about that story I didn´t say anything. Oh yeah, there is an elder in my zone who lives in Beaverton, Elder W. He plays football and got a scholarship to U of O, but turned it down to play at the Y. He is an oro, and he is super funny.

Anyways, the work. We are focusing on working with the members, helping them share the gospel with their friends, it is starting kind of slow, but we are starting to get it around. On our own this week we found a family. The S's. They are d and d and their 4 kids, N(10), J(7), F(6ish), and L(5ish). They used to listen to the mishaladies, but lost touch this last summer. They talk about how the Spirit comes to their house when we teach them, and how their kids are calmer in the lessons and how even afterwords the kids sleep better. They weren´t able to go to church this week, but they are on track to get baptized soon. They live a hard life, but they are great people please to pray for them.

About the pants, I meant like long john type pants, but if you can´t find any or its too late no worries, you can just give me the late bday present of being at the airport when I get home, oh yeah, did you get the flight plans? Other elders from my group said their parents already have them. Not that I´m trunky, I just don´t want you to pull an RM on me hahaha.

My companion is still wicked awesome, I taught him how to throw cards this morning, and we ate rock hard brownies that I made last night, they hardened overnight and I had to use a knife to get them out of the pan today.

This last weeks district meeting was awesome, we started by reading about Nefi´s broken bow and we related it to missionary work, having faith, involving the members and having to change plans, we got a lot more out of it than I expected it was a really spiritual moment. Then we talked about the ways members can help and we practiced to talk to the members, it went really smooth, we did it as a counsel not as an Elder Barry lecture, and I liked it a lot.

This week we had a ward counsel meeting, and it was really good, the branch hasn´t had any excitement or even meetings of leaders for a while, so there is a lot of work to do, but it was really good, I was able to speak up in it, voice my opinion and I feel like this place is going to go through some big changes, I just hope they let me stay here to see some results.
Thank you for being such a great family.
I love you a ton.
Elder Barry

1 August 2011

2011-08-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Herro errybody!

How is it hangin?

So I´d like to start this e-mail off with a story. This week we were out doing contacts in a part of the area called la Aguada and I was in a terrible mood. Basically I was ready to bust some faces in. Our awesome investigator D had just ditched us and all of the contacts were jerks. But then as we clapped a door, my comp kinda made a face and he paused before talking to the lady. I thought it was kinda strange, but shook it off. She refused, big surprise, and then he was like ¡dang! I was like... what. He said look! and pointed to his pants. The dog of the last contact had walked past us and in the split second when he brushed against my companion he URINATED all over his pants. Whats more, it was a cold windy day, so he got to freeze his leg off with every gust of wind. And all the dogs for the rest of the day ran up and sniffed his leg. I laughed my fanny off.

Anyways... this week, it was a high stress week. Basically all of our investigators decided that they were too cool for school. We´re stuck almost starting over. We did find an awesome guy, A. His sister recently passed away and we talked about how he can see her again. It was a spiritual lesson, but he didn´t have time to let us into his house, we´re going back today at seven. Nobody came to church, and I think that P and L are avoiding us. But in better news, my scabies is gone! just a couple scars are left. But they´re mission scars so its all good.

My new companion, elder E is awesome. He is from Chile and only has two changes in the mission. He is good and obedient and we get along really well. Today we had steak sandwiches for lunch and cleaned the house like madmen.

Its super weird how old I am getting. Last week hermana K, the one who talked alot when I was her dl, went home. Crazy. Both elder T and elder M from the mtc are the assistants, and everyone else from our district in the mtc is a district leader. I counted the days I have left the other day but I don´t want to say it, its scary and makes me a little sad. I am going to miss this place.

Not that I don´t miss you guys, but I am gonna cry like a baby when they make me go home.

Anyways, we have hope and faith to keep the la Paloma train going, keep up the good work back in m-ville I love you guys a ton.

elder b

25 July 2011

2011-07-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Sup.

So this week we worked our flipping tails off. We had lots of lessons with a member present and have some investigators that are progressing like crazy. Right now it looks like we´re toast for July, because P and L didn´t go to church yesterday, they were out of town visiting their father. Darn it family values! We had a member pass by their house, I called them Saturday night, and left a note for them. The other investigator that we had that could have gotten baptized this Saturday is A, but we found out this weekend that he is living with his girlfriend. They have been together for years but not married. So he has to get married to get baptized. He is awesome. He came to church this Sunday and participated a lot in the class. I had to give the class, and a talk. The class was about family responsabilities, and one of our new converts went on a rant about how we have to be married in order to have kids and live together, I felt so bad for A, he didn´t know he was sinning. I switched the subject quick, he has to know it, but we should be the ones to let him know, not the members in a rant.

We also had two other investigators go to church, they are cool, but don´t want to progress, depressing, but that's life. whats life? a game.

So last night we got change calls. I am staying but my companion is a goner. He is going to be with elder M! The Mexican American that I lived with when I was with C. I am going to be with a Latino who I know nothing about, Elder E, I think. And I am district leader. Just us and one other companionship, but it should be tight. Its been a while since I had an assignment.

I´m glad that girly camp went well, I always loved church camps, except that 50 mile torture. The camping was fun, the walking made me want to punch someone. Not that bad. Maybe I´d do it again. We got close in those trips. I felt a lot of unity, and BO.

You´re right pops, I am officially stinkin old in a month and a half.

I don´t really need anything this year, I loved the cake mix last year, some thermal type pants that are dark colored, to work in (its winter and flippin cold in the beach town), and some contact solution. I need a little bit of money to buy gifts for yáll, The more generously you give me, the cooler stuff you get haha. Plus like a million alfajores and dulce de leche guay style.

Speaking of Guay, they won la Copa America! The soccer cup of South America. Last night was the final, we studied during the game and then there was a huge parade in the main street here. So we did a couple contacts and visited a less active family. Woo. Go Guay. They beat Paraguay 3 to 0.

Oh, with the temple recommend, the one given to a missionary usually just lasts three months after he gets home from the mission. Not sure why, but es lo que hay.

Well, I hope you have a great week.

I love you all a ton.

Elder Barry

18 July 2011

2011-07-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Hey mom, that quote is from I wish that I had duck feet, by Dr Seuss. Man, if I could replace all the unneeded information in my brain with scriptures I swear I´d put Elder Holland to shame.

Me and another gringo elder were talking the other day and we decided that you could put on any EFY song from the last 10 years and we could name the song the year and sing the whole thing. That's what happens when you limit our music selection to anything under 500 songs haha.

So this week we worked HARD. Our baptismal goal for the month is two and this month we have to report to President himself on how we did on our goal. aka, ramp up the stress on Elder B for the whole month. We got to Saturday night with three good investigators who have a baptismal date for the 30th and all promised to go to church, had a transport to get there and everything. Super stoked was I.

False. Nobody went to church. zip zero zilch. Oh boy. We even tried to contact them while we were at church so they could make it to the last hour, but nope. So its gonna take a miracle and a lot of creativity to get that goal completed. si se puede! si se puede! Our branch presidency got changed this week, the president is now named P, his counselor is LN. Both of them are less active members, as far as I have seen, but it should be really great. Big things are going to happen here in la Paloma.

I had an interview with President this week. It was really great. We didn´t have much time, but he started out by saying, Elder, I feel good. I really feel like you have had a change of heart. Wow. That helped me out quite a bit, we hadn´t had too much luck that week, so I was down. But he made my day. Then he renewed my temple recommend. So I´m covered until January 2012.

Woo yeah! So we had a dece week. What a bummer about the flood and the power rangers wedgies, I´ll keep that on my mind, can´t forget the image that put in my head. Love you guys a lot elder B

11 July 2011

2011-07-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

That's so cool that you guys did the STP!!!!

Woo yeah! Congrats, next year I´m in. If you still do it. This week was dece. We worked hard, found some more new people, but had some hard times. Yesterday was quite the day. We left at like 3 something in the afternoon to work and had a bunch of things planned, and everything failed. 100% fail. We walked and walked and walked, somehow we made it out alive. I was so frustrated because I felt like we had worked hard and we had some good prospects, but faaa. What a day.

Also, nobody came to church, but we`ll fix that yet. Our branch (rama) had an attendance of 26 members yesterday, the record for what I've seen so far. Some less actives came.

My scabies is doing a lot better, my little friends didn´t enjoy the creme I had to put on my body, neither did I but I think it has helped. I was itching like a mad man, I couldn´t stop scratching, I´m afraid I´m gonna have scars on my gut from this, oh well, what a great mission story.

This week we went out with the stake presidency, well I guess its the district presidency, since we are not yet a stake, and visited families. It was a really good experience. I was with the 2nd counselor and the secretary. They are both under 30 years old. The secretary got home in 2010 from his mission in Las Vegas. He speaks decent English, but he served a Spanish speaking mission there. They had the spirit really strong, even though they were two goof balls, I have realized that it is important to be obedient, but we have to have our own style. Lots of missionaries are obedient, but they try to copy president, or they lose their personality and instead of polishing themselves they end up flat robot suckups. Its hard to find the balance, sometimes I realize that I haven´t laughed for a couple days, but I have to be elder Barry. Its a lot funner that way, yes funner is a word. And if I stay obedient, the Spirit is even stronger.

The church is true, people have to get baptized to be able to receive the fullness of the blessings of God. Its the door to the path of eternal life, not the end, but the beginning.

have a good semana

I love you all

Elder Barry

We are all NERDS

2011-07-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

I have been in South America for about a year now, but everyday I learn new things about this place. The people are so much different than us Gringos that it is outrageous sometimes. But there are also many things that all humans have in common,

No matter the situation, if somebody is from out of town, we have to add in our two cents about the place where they are from, whether we actually have two cents about the place.

Since everyone thinks that I am from the capital, Washington DC (I usually just let them believe that, I sound way cooler that way.) I get a lot of really uninformed remarks about the government. As far as people down here are concerned, our country is still right in the middle of the racism conflicto, we might as well still have slaves. Also having a black president is kind of something they like to throw in my face, like ¨what now? The negroes beat you¨ Little do they know…

Also they all seem to think that being ¨from the capital¨ I have some connection to government, which is super funny because especially lately with the Osama bin Laden issue, leads them to think that we are blood hungry war lords. you learn pretty fast not to bring up the subject of war.

And almost everybody in Uruguay has some long lost relative in the United States, which they always bring up, as if there was any kind of chance of me knowing them, haha, I had never even talked to a Uruguayan in my life before the mission, but its cool, I get to act as though I own the country, and as though I know where everything is.

I mean I am related to the president, right?

4 July 2011

2011-07-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

Wow way to go djokovic!! Always knew that he was the man... I can´tbelieve that this week is already the STP, this year is flying. Good luck on that, I know you guys will do awesome. Just summon your eagle powers. This week we found some awesome new people. One family, a mom, C, a dad, W, and daughter, L. The daughter is like 25ish, and she is a journalist, we talked a little about that, and the whole family is super awesome, we have a lesson planned with them in the next couple days and it should be amazing, they would help our little branch out a lot. We need priesthood. and younger people.

We had to go down to the doctor the other day for my comps knee, and he has to get a scan on it this week, yay for 3 hours on the bus each way! Also, I have had a weird rash type thing for a while and it itches like crazy so I called the doctor and he says I have scabies. I think that stupid armadillo really did give me leprosy! I had to put creme on my whole body and leave it all night the other night and take all my underwear and sheets to the laundromat so they could get scabie free. What a good mission story, my grandkids are going to tell that one to all of their friends, oh yeah, well my grampa got scabies on the mission!

We walked flipping 90 miles this week, it doesn´t bother me but my poor comp is not used to walking so much and has a bum knee. But it definitely payed off, these people that we found are tight. Plus yesterday in church a member brought a friend, and the friend is super golden. we are visiting her with the member this week. She could get baptized as soon as the 16th.

Well, happy fourth of july family, hope you have a great day. say hello to america for me.
Elder B

27 June 2011

2011-06-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hey fam

How goes it. I am your son Elder Barry, I am serving in La Paloma Uruguay, and it is suuuuper windy. Gotta love it. It is actually not that cold, it is pretty cold, and will get colder, but by the way people talked about it here you´d think it was like negative 90 outside. That is so cool that CJ got a job, or rather two jobs. you might need to take advantage of that discount while she is there, that is incredible.

My companion hits four months on the mission this next week, he started in march, this is still his first area. Back when we were allowed to use bikes, he crashed pretty hard, and his knee still hurts, so we are going downtown to the Deo to get him checked out mañana. He should be fine, I hope.

I know how you feel about it being weird for me to be in a new area, you have no idea how hard it is for me to not call paso carrasco and ask about my people, but for obedience we get blessings, right? We had a pretty good week though, we had very few set lessons, but we found six new people and set some baptismal dates. Two of the guys we found are amazing, they are named L and P. They just let us in the other day like it was nothing. We had a great lesson about the restoration and L said that he would get baptized. So golden.

I am still lost in the area so I have to follow my comp, but once we get into the lessons its like the elder B show. I thought that knowing the language meant you always know what to say, but it looks like even native speakers don´t know what to say at the beginning. So I have to do it right so he gets good habits. I like him though. I found a jump rope in the house and lately I have been jumping quite a bit, its fun and I sweat my guts out. My calves hurt like heck, hopefully my endurance will get better for cycling in two years when I get home ;).

We had stake conference yesterday, and I learned so much, about the temple and what I need to do to be better. I love the spirit. I have a notebook where I write my impressions and it is filling up really fast lately haha.

well I love you guys.
have a killer week.
Elder Barry
ps. its all true.
go to the temple lots, I only get to go once a year, so go for me

20 June 2011

2011-06-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, hey fam! What a week that yáll had! Sounds like you all had a good time growing up and being famous. Too bad Mr C didn´t read off danger in C´s name, that would have been classic. My new companion, Elder C, is from Peru, from the ghetto of Peru. He speaks Spanish and Spanish. He is hard to understand. He speaks flipping fast and like under his breath or something, but a few prayers and a lot of practice later and I usually understand now. The area is amazing. the work has been going rather slow, but the scenery is amazing. We are way close to the water and it just feels like a beach town. There are very few members, but the ones that I know are awesome. Like the Elders quorum president is a guy named RB, he just has two stubs for legs, from diabetes, but he is great. He is really strong in the church and despite his, issues, he is super happy all the time. He has a dog named Sheriff, but with a latino accent, so when i said sheriff like its supposed to be said, my companion corrected me. My companion is pretty cool, he is just learning how to do everything right, but he wants to be 100% obedient and get baptisms. He will push me to be better. I have been getting a lot better at obedience to small stupid rules, and I always feel good about it.

I can´t believe how close the stp is, that is like right around the corner. Speaking of bikes, this is a really big area, and before they had bikes, but thanks to the recent change of rules, we walk. and walk and walk, aaaaaand waaaaalk. We are pioneer children, and I love it. I am used to it, but my companion is suffering, it is like kilometers and kilometers everyday. We have found a few really great people lately, so I think this is a good place to be.

Mama, the profeta had a really good talk about temples in the last conference, you probably already knew that, but good luck! Hope everyone has a stellar week, hopefully I´ll be able to get some good pics of the lighthouse.

love you
elder barry

13 June 2011

2011-06-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

hey fam.
We finally had a baptism go through this week!!! yay!! C, the soccer kid. I got to baptize him, hopefully my pictures can get through, these computers are pretty ghetto. But its only 5 pesos (25 cents) per hour, so no complaints. The first picture is from last week´s almost baptism, and then from this weeks success.

Yesterday in church my companion and i both gave talks in sacrament meeting, and the new ward mission leader gave a talk too. Bet you´ll never guess the subject, missionary work. But instead of talking about giving us referrals and helping us, I talked about the doctrine of Christ, or, baptism and its importance. I have learned a lot about the subject in these last few months, and so I talked about the absolute necessity of the ordinance and the great blessings we all have received for being baptized, I was nervous, but when I got up there, I felt pretty good, and I was even able to freestyle for a bit. talks are a lot more fun when you look up and don´t just read the whole time.

That is cool that you have been doing a lot of yard work, I bet that mom is having a blast. and that ride with Dad must have kicked his heinie, that guy a maniac.

Yesterday at church we had three investigators. It was less than we expected, but still cool. D and S were there and I. She came alone to church, I was so impressed. Maybe someday she will be able to get baptized. For now, she fell back into smoking, unfortunately, and I think the issue still exists with her son, darn it.

So i put some more pictures on here. The first three are baptism slash fail. Then the other two are me with D and S, and me with Laura´s dog. They named it hacobsen, hahaha. It is going to be really sad to leave this area. There are a lot of people I have become really close to.

This week we had a really cool zone conference with a member of the 70, Elder Foster. He showed us the importance of working with members, and taught us some really shveet doctrine on prayer, it was impressive. The Spirit was sooooo strong. We are actually doing really well with the members in this area. They always want to help, and so we almost always have a member with us in important lessons, it is so much more effective, now we just need to level up one more and get them to share with their friends so we don´t have to proselyte hahaha. But now I am gone to a new area, so hopefully we can win over the members there.

I got A's first letter, it was super good. I can´t believe he is with elder H, that's nuts.

I got sick this week. Ralphed in a members bathroom during lunch. Super embarrassing. but hey, thats life. whats life? a game...

I love you guys a ton. peace
elder barry

6 June 2011

2011-06-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

So. This Saturday was the baptism day of I and C.

Awesome. Almost.

Both of them had their interviews and passed and everything was super awesome. But then on Saturday we go to find I, like a half hour before her baptism and after frantically searching around for a while we found her walking with E, her friend, and we were like I lets goooo! she said that she wasn´t gonna get baptized, no way. Turns out that her son told her that if she got baptized with los mormones that she could forget about him. This son is like the only one she has left who talks to her, her husband died and she is rather alone. Translation, she absolutely refuses to get baptized. We have worked so hard with her trying to help her get there and now her heathen son ruins it. We want to try to talk to him but we haven´t had the chance yet.

But there is still C right? False, the black bear. He had family members get sick so we have to push it farther back, bummer. But he does want to have it this Saturday, his mom wanted to wait more so his dad could reactivate and baptize him, but C says that he prayed about it and said that he knows it has to be now. Not sure what is going to happen, but this kid is on fire. He picked me to baptize him. Obviously it would be cooler to get his dad to, but we are afraid that he has word of wisdom issues. Either way, if we don´t get a baptism this week I am going to be really bummed. But the church is true.

In other news, D and S are way cool, they came to church again this week and had an interview with the bishop and he was able to explain to them how the church welfare program works and help them out quite a bit. This week we want to get them a date to get married so they can get baptized sometime soon. They gave us lunch today, we felt terrible, but they insisted and said they really want to share the little that they have. They are really poor, he has found a couple small jobs, and has hope for a big 2 year contract at a construction company. I really hope he gets it.

We got a new ward mission leader, brother J M, he is amazing, he was the young mens president before, and he is a hard worker. He has just over a year in the church, Elder B, from my group, baptized him in his second change in the mission. Their whole family is great, and I know that he will do his job and make us do better at ours.

Also, we got an interesting call the the day, we are no longer allowed to use bikes, ever. So we walked our hoo ha´s off this week. We need to completely change our technique now so we can still get in the number of lessons we had. But every commandment comes from on high, right? Should be fun.

On Tuesday we were able to see the S family, they are doing well, but the parents work on Sundays so we are going to have to have some killer lessons with them to get them to want to change, but they remember their glory days with the church, it seems like every inactive family had glory days, and they all look back on them like something special, its our job to get them to relive those days and come back to the blessings.

Its going to be a good week, tell the green water pool swimmers that they are nasty. I can´t believe that A left already and that J is on his way out the door, go Perkins cousins!

It was a rough weekend but I learned a lot. How to handle offended people, how to keep your chin up, a little church doctrine about prayer, and a whole lot about trials. I was told in my PB that in my mission I would face problems and that I would gain strength from their solutions, that not all the mission would be easy, but overall I would be filled with joy. I have been thinking about that a lot lately, and Saturday I tried to think of that joy I have felt, and even though we were walking to the chapel to tell a bunch of members that there wasn´t going to be a baptism, I couldn´t help from smiling. I love it out here, I have had so much fun being a servant of the Lord, failing, succeeding (a little), and overall helping his children. Its true, dang it.

I really love you family.
Thank you for being so great
Elder Barry

30 May 2011

2011-05-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

Hey before i forget here are some pictures, its us at the Ws, the temple, us at L´s house, With G.

enjoy.

Well this week was really good. The baptizm of I, is this coming Saturday, she came to church yesterday, also C is getting baptized.

C is the 11 year old kid I told you about. He has a great story, his mom was inactive but we found her knocking doors a couple of weeks ago, she said that she wanted to return and bring C with her. So they came. But C is really into soccer, and he is good. The only issue is that his team almost always played on Sundays (sound like another kid you know?). We explained that it is important for him to always go to church, and I shared my story about me keeping the sabbath day holy and they shared the this could be his career, and that he would always try to come, but soccer was his thing. That was Saturday. I was like, its your choice, but he needs to take the sacrament, and with my testimony left them.

On Sunday he came, and stayed all of church. At the end we talked to his mom and were like, doesn't he have a game? She was like, yeah, but HE made the decision to keep the sabbath day holy, if coach needs a new player, he´ll have to find someone else. Wow. I was so proud, and felt kind of bad about it. I told him that soccer was not a Sabbath thing, and he didn´t go. I have been cheering for him ever since. That 11 year old kid is a great example for me. I prayed pretty hard that everything would go okay for him, I don´t want this to ruin his soccer career. But I know he made the right choice. God will bless him.

D and S still haven´t found jobs, but they are trying. They are so great and as soon as we marry them they are getting baptized, they said that they want us to be their witnesses. Its hard to be around them a lot because they ask for help, and we can´t really help that much, but we are going to involve the ward.

Also we met this awesome family yesterday. The parents are members, but none of the kids are. All are over 8, but most important, they want to return, and asked for our help. They are the best, they are the Santana family, and yes I did see a guitar in their house, must be relatives.

I love you guysa lot. have a great week.
good job on your bike rides ´rents.
don´t get senioritis C
don´t be trunky family, cuz I´m working until they force me to stop.
elder barry

23 May 2011

2011-05-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

We had a killer week this week. We had further lessons with D, and also his lady E. They both have a date for the 11th of Junio. But we found out that they are not married :(. We´ll have to help them with that. They said that they have been waiting to find the right church to get married in it. So hopefully we can get them hitched before the 11th. The 2 baptisms were going to be E and I, but E isn't going to the interview and I got kinda sick day on the baptism and the bishop said we should wait. We were kinda ticked we thought it would be fine, but as I have been through before, its better to not fight with the leaders, so we are hoping for the 4th of June for them.

C came to church, he had to leave early, but he came with his mom so we are pretty excited. We actually saw quite the miraculous day yesterday in church. We had 7 investigators in church. only 6 for sacrament, but that is a ton. We are pretty stoked. When D and S came in I was so excited! They came in right before the sacrament. We sat next to them in the back row, and it was way cool. They were reverent and honestly payed attention. The ward was way excited too. But I have a nasty cough so I had to leave in the middle of the last song. And I yakked in the baño as they sang and prayed. When I came out, d and e were being greeted by a number of members, it was so cool. I guess the trick to getting the members help is bringing families to church, not disruptive 25 year olds haha. About them, we had a little chat. She said church was boring, we said that your salvation is worth being bored once a week, and that it is usually better and she missed the fun class where we teach. but she didn´t come anyways, for some lame excuse that today she starts work so she was busy and distracted. Whatever. but its all good.
One of them was this guy named G he is the cousin of the ex-bishops wife. He is staying here for a while to do photography, and I think he is trying to find himself. We talked to him afterwords and he seems genuinely interested, also he speaks fluent English :). I am pretty excited for where this guy will go.
All in all I am pretty excited about life. love you guys a lot.
elder b

ps I just got moms email, iIam not the organist, we have a member, I try to play hymns while we wait for stuff, one hand only for now, but sometimes two notes at a time ;). we got a new bishop this week too.

18 May 2011

2011-05-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

We received an amazing email today, it was from the Bishop of the ward Barry is currently serving in. He thanked us for our son and said that he is doing much good. He said, "you have an exemplary son, very devoted to missionary work and is always happy and joking, he is beloved in the neighborhood." He shared his testimony of Jesus Christ and stated that he knows Barry will be greatly blessed for having served a mission.

With Pictures!

We wrote a reply in English, put it in Google Translate and sent it in Spanish. It really made me wish I knew Spanish. I would love to be able to communicate better. But, I felt very blessed and so thankful that Bishop would take the time to send us pictures and share his feelings both for our son as well as Jesus Christ.

16 May 2011

2011-05-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

~After sharing the armadillo pictures with some friends, Barry's dad was told that eating too much armadillo can give you leprosy. He shared that information with Barry and this is his response:
You know, I did notice that my skin was kinda falling off the other day, darn leprosy haha. I read about that in Jesus the Christ (the book) the other day, and did you know that it is not contagious? Everyone ran away because it was written in the Law of Moses that a leper was unclean and they were to be shunned. Fact of the day.

So yesterday we had a little surprise in Sacrament meeting. Right after the sacrement, in walks L, the investigator, the cool lady who is the mom of E, and three of her sisters. so of course I got up, ran across the chapel, and sat with them in the back. Apparently they all found out that the primary kids were singing to the moms. And yes I still have a little Barry left in me, the chapel has tile floor so I slid for like the last 7 feet before the door. They came in, we sat down. They made some racket, then the kids got up to sing. It was really cool, didn´t sound that bad , and at the end the whole row I´m sitting in starts CLAPPING. Yes, full on applause. most of the members understood, yeah they're new, but L´s sisters, the ones who have been members for like 2 years, laughed out loud. I love havoc. Then they turned to me during a talk and said, not that quietly, hey hockobsen, isn´t it supposed to be over? There was still a half hour left. Then, not that quietly, they were like, its boring! Then they told me they had to leave to throw a party for their mom, got up and left. Oh boy. we will do 2 things about that this week. 1: congratulate them for coming, and two: drop massive cane on them about using their church voices and not being punks. Its gonna be weird to parent grown women, but I guess the mission is the place where you do everything...

Also we are going to have the baptism this week, the two ladies had a little more left to learn. and we found two miracles. One is C, he is 11 his mom is a member, less active who wants to come back and he really wants to get baptized, found them knocking doors. And two is D. He is very religious, but disappointed in his current church, so our message is veerrrrrrrrrryyyy interesting to him. He told us he wants to find a church that he can stay with, not have to leave because of false doctrine or bad principles. I almost hugged him. So we invited him to get baptized and he was like, of course!
I love life
love yall fam
have a spankin week
elder b

9 May 2011

2011-05-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

We got to talk to Barry on the phone on Mothers Day! It was really great to talk to him. He sounded like he had a cold and said its pretty much a way of life for him there.

He also told us about the pictures you are about to see here. A man they know killed an armadillo and fed it to them for dinner! Yikes. Here's the armadillo ready to be served.Face to face with dinner!

Armadillo tongue. Ugh.

It was awesome to talk to you guys yesterday, the time went by way too fast, but we´re only 5.5 months away from having no time restrictions. haha. Today I feel kinda like garbage but we are pdayin it up anyways, my comp is a little sick too. We be illin.

Well we kinda already talked about everything yesterday, loved the pics you emailed me, its hard to believe that the little kids are now the seniors about to graduate. that bike ride sounded painful, but really fun, I´m super excited to get out there to pound up mountains with yáll.
This week we started to talk with a kid named I, he is the cousin of a recent convert kid. He is really disruptive, but when we talk to him he is reverent and controlled, its crazy. He actually listened. we are a little nervous, because in the past his mother has been rather antimormon, but hopefully this can help her out. We have yet to find her at home, so we haven´t even been able to ask permission yet, but if all goes well, he should be baptized by the end of the month. We also have E, I and L the mom of E. I think L is one of my favorite people here, but its really frustrating because she doesn´t go to church. Her family whenever we leave always say, adios mundo cruel, or goodbye, cruel world. So we always say that with them, so I decided that that would be my last words as I am in the plane leaving Uruguay. hahaEnjoy the pics, have a great week.
Be excellent to each other
love elder barry
adios mundo cruel.

2 May 2011

2011-05-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hi there face here.
This week was alright, Sunday it was raining buckets and the investigators we went to go pick up couldn´t come, so we were bummed. But after the first hour of church I went over to the Relief Society to check, just for the sake of having a hope, and two of our investigators, E and I were there. They are two older ladies that we have been teaching for a while. They have had multiple dates to get baptized, but had only come to sacrament one time so they have had to wait, but yesterday they came! So the 14th they have their baptism, at 6 in the afternoon, if you guys would like to come. I was super pumped, I looked through the window and I saw them, I literally jumped in the air for excitement. Then we had a really good Sunday school class that me and "the G" team taught. The stake president came, not sure why, but he made some really good comments and the Spirit was super strong. It was good to have a lesson about Christ. often times investigators don´t understand that Christ is the cabeza (head) of the church, so it was about the life of Christ. Perfect.

We are trying to visit the members more and Ireally like it, we gain their trust, have fun, and they often give us food. Last week a family was like, you have no idea how long its been since the missionaries have visited us. Their little eight year old daughter is way cool too, we are going to trade stickers, and bracelets. She is super excited because I have high school musical stickers hahaha.

Well I am super excited to talk to you guys this week, hope you have a great week, enjoy prom beaner.
I love yáll tons.
elder b

25 April 2011

2011-04-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hey fam.
This week was a decent week, we didn´t have bikes, because my chain full on broke while I was riding, so we did a lot of walking around. Two investigators came to church, N, who´s son and boyfriend are members, they just are waiting to get married so she can get baptized. They said they were going to put a date today at the judge place. And the other person was D, yeah, his name is Sunday, you´d think he would be better at keeping the sabbath day holy hahaha. The meetings were pretty good, me and my companion had to give the gospel doctrine class so we watched the movie Lamb of God, being Easter I thought it was appropriate.

Lets see, this week we ate pizza, had some really great lessons with our peeps and saw some miracles. One was an investigator named N. She had told us that she didn´t feel ready to get baptized because she didn´t want to obey some rules, and it was hard to make the change and get in the habit of going to church. But then later in the week we visited her again, because we thought that maybe we could still visit her kids and get them wet. But something had changed. She was always good for listening to us and had wanted to keep listening, but baptism freaked her out. But this time we went back over the first lesson, The Restoration. It was really nice to go back over the basics, and she sincerely said that she would pray to know if it was true, we could tell she hadn´t done that before, she had prayed, just not for a testimony. But she said that thanks to us she had started praying and that she had received answers. Her 15 year old son had been in drugs and he had quit them and was even trying to quit smoking, and the father of her baby had come to visit like three times. It had been months since she had seen him, and she had been praying that the baby could have a father figure. I was so happy to hear that she realized that these things came as an answer to her prayers, all we can do now is wait for an even better answer to come, one telling her that its all true. Then she shouldn´t have too many issues changing. Things change when you have a real testimony.

So here is a scripture I read today in my scripture study, 2 Pedro 1:3-8.

3. According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

5. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

6. And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

7. And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

8. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was a suggested scripture in the Preach My Gospel section about virtue. I decided that I want to memorize it in Spanish so that whenever I have a bad thought come to my head I can recite it. It's pretty long so I´m sure the bad thought will be loooong gone by the time I finish hahaha.

So I don´t know if you remember but in the April 2010 conference there was a talk about a kid who had cancer or something like that and died, and they showed a picture of him and his brother who had recently received his mission call. Well, my companion is that brother. Yeah i have a Mormon celeb as a companion.

So Easter Sunday. Here they don´t have the Easter bunny, but some of the parents wrap up chocolate eggs and hide them for the kids to find. They eat a lot of chocolate eggs, and pretty much everyone gets the whole week before Easter off of work and school. They call it many things, originally the holy week (semana santa), but also tourism (turismo), la semana criolla, which is like the week to celebrate country folk, and even la semana de la cervesa, beer week, hahaha. Don´t you love how commercialized the holidays become. From holy week to beer week.

By the way HHHAAPPPYYYYYYY BBBBIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRTTTTTHHHHDDDAAYY MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!! you are the best mother on the face of the planet I hope you realize that I love you a buttload. On the 30th I´ll buy you an alfajor, then eat it because its illegal to send it to you and it would go bad in six months. But anyways, happy 44? holy cow. you are not that old. yet.

I love you all, have a great week.
Elder Barry
ps. i hit myself in the face with my phone today, i think Jim is responsable.
pps. my fingers are dying from having no guitar, its been a whole month now :(

18 April 2011

2011-04-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

hey folks.

So to start off this email I would like to ask a question, why is pink lemonade pink? We were trying to figure it out and we honestly have no idea.

Can I just say now that C is a genius, I never would have thought of borrowing a prom dress, perfect.

Then, the bad news. No one came to church. there was a big rain storm on Sunday morning, and there was only like half of the usual attendance in the chapel. It's hard for the people here sometimes, because hardly anyone has a car, so they have to rough it like the 10 blocks to church. I personally arrived all muddy and nasty because we went all around ghettoland trying to get investigators to go to church. Also another Uruguayan tradition is to sleep when it rains. So everyone heard the rain on their tin roofs and decided to turn the alarms off and sleep til noon. Sometimes I think it would be really great to live here. But because of rain and other nonsense we have no baptizm this week.

It sounds like dads talk was pretty good, I'm super happy that G came to church again, way to go elders!

I do have a good story to tell you. The other day we doing contacts and we were in this pretty ghetto neighborhood and this kid invited us in. He was like 16 or 17. I talked to him, just saying we were missionaries, and he was like yeah, uh huh, and then I asked if he would be interested he said yeah. Then I asked if we could come in he said yeah. What?!?!?! teenage kids are supposed to make fun of us! He so directly and without emotion just said yes, come in, that I didn´t know if it was real. Then as we had the lesson with him we asked if there was anyone else in the house that would be interested, he said his mom, and went and got her, then his sister came in then a neighbor came in and then another random guy. In the end, we had five people we were teaching. It was way cool. we had another lesson with them later in the week and we set a baptizmal date with two of the teenagers, the original kid wasn´t home the second time, and then tonight we are going to go talk with them. Pretty stoked. I´m just a little worried about getting them to church, but we´ll pray hard ;) haha.

Bueno, I think that is all,
peace
love you guys
Elder Barry
ps. the pictures are the cooked head of the rabbit G made for us. Then the one with me eating is its tongue, yes sam, I ate rabbit tongue, and then the one of just me is me on my 18 month day. I didn´t do anything to celebrate. It was lame. also it was flipping cold so I wore my underarmor all day and had beanie hair.

11 April 2011

2011-04-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

Hey fam. I can´t believe that Bishop W. was released! holy cow. I am really glad that my letter finally got to him. That was a long time coming. He was a great bishop I really love that guy. also T.A. will do a great job. hopefully bishop W will now get his dream calling in the primary.

Well S got baptized, it was an awesome service, her nonmember mom came so we watched the Restauración movie while they changed, my comp baptized her. Hardly any members came, but those who did really made it good. One hermana who was supposed to give a talk about baptism couldn´t show, so I ended up giving the talk, it went alright, I wasn´t even scared or anything, being a missionary is a blessing, I had two scriptures I could just turn to and badabing I had a talk prepared. She is so golden though, she volunteered to give her testimony at the end of the service and she remembered both of our names and said that she was willing to always follow Christ. Super spiritual. its pretty amazing, because this week she told us that in high school she smoked pot. Her boyfriend said that he isn´t going to ever smoke any more because he knows he can´t keep the Spirit with him if he does. What a guy. this week we are going by and watching the Joseph Smith movie with them, should be pretty good.

As for your talk, Dad, talk about how members don´t always have to teach doctrine to be good missionaries, that is the missionaries job, but they need to be good members and not pharisees. Lots of people either leave the church or don´t get baptized thanks to the bad example of the members, but... many more get baptized because of the good example of great members. I like the cycling explanation.

That's cool that C was able to find an apartment, who is she going to be rooming with? I might have to do the same thing in October with elder P, I am kinda nervous we won´t find anything. No worries I could sleep in the streets, couldn´t be much worse than the apartments we have here.

This week me and elder G kicked butt. We had like a million lessons, found some new investigators, and still had time to clean out the nasty font for the baptism on Saturday. The water from last baptism hadn´t drained all the way and there was nasty brown stuff in the water at the bottom of the font. So I got in there with a broom and a bucket and had some fun, luckily we had a window in the room so we just chucked the water out that window. Hopefully the pictures get to you. This week we don´t have any planned because no one was able to make it to church :´(, we were depressed, but we will work that depression out this week.

Thank you all for being great parents slash sisters slash brother, I am very thankful for being in our family.
Love you Elder B

4 April 2011

2011-04-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

We got to be in the gringo room for this conference, but the stake president forbade us from eating during the sessions, I wanted to cry. But in the end it turned out to be one of the best conferences ever. I learned so much about how to better myself and what I need to do to prepare for the future. I loved the talk about to be and to do and the talk about being prepared to meet the Lord. I did a thing I had never done before, I drew a line down the middle of the paper and on the left side I wrote things they said and on the right things I felt, it was really great I sometimes even had more things I felt than things I heard. Then I heard in another talk an hermana lent me that you forget a big portion of what you learned if you don´t take notes, and then read them again within 24 hours after. So I did that for personal study yesterday and today. I took notes on my notes, it was really good and I was able to remember more and take it at my own pace this time. Plus we have been reading the chapters that Pres Uchtdorf asked us to read from the Doctrine and Covenants.

This week was pretty good for the work. S. the girlfriend of a member we are reactivating, or rather that he has reactivated himself, she has been going to church and her baptism is this Saturday. She went to 3 sessions of conference, wow. In between the sessions on Saturday we ate with them a little picanic at the stake center. It is really cool to have solid investigators. Also we have an investigator named N. who is way cool. Last week she went to church with 3 of her kids and her baby, and this week they accepted the date for the 23rd to be baptized, she smokes, so hopefully we can get her off that quick, but she is really interested and always has questions. I love it when people come to a lesson prepared with questions.

haha I loved banjo tooie, that was a blast. How did the big dance go? I decided to be a mariners fan when I get home, get some hometown loyalty going down.

Hey Dad I have a question, we are right next to the airport and we always see a bunch of planes fly over our heads, do you recognize any of these companies? TAM, Pluna, Aerolineas Argentina, or American airlines? Hopefully you recognize the last one haha. Sorry you have had to work so much, but I guess when you are important that's what happens.

The Burger King sign in Spanish means, english spanish or spanglish ask for it in your way, or have it your way I guess. What a clever choice for dinner Sam, classy.

Well I love you guys a ton.
Elder B

28 March 2011

2011-04-04T07:48:00.000-07:00

Whattup
This week was pretty cool, my new comp is a stud muffin. He reigns from American Fork Utah and went to the same high school as and Elder P. He speaks really well and has experience. We found nine new investigators and had a giant miracle in church. We had 7 investigators come to sacrament. It was really cool because this one lady we found this week, N, showed up right as sacrament was about to start with three kids and her baby. That was a huge miracle. we have a lesson with her today. It almost never happens that someone comes to church the same week that you find them. Also we had this lady who has come for the last three weeks to church and yesterday she asked us what she has to do to be a member of the church, hello golden investigator. Unfortunately, we have not been able to talk to her in her house yet. This last week we passed by and set an appointment with her, but then she wasn´t home. Her name is S, and shortly she will be baptized.

HAPPYYYYY BIRTHDAY S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elder B was telling me about a thing his mom had him do called a date scrapbook. every date he has to take a couple pictures and write who he was with and what they did. The challenge is to do 100 dates before he gets married 50 before the mission and 50 after. He should definitely do it. I decided to do it for the 50 after college.

I got the package it was awesome, I loved the brownish greenish pants, way cool and last night we ate the licorice. delish.

But yeah, we had a great week, I am excited to keep working here. I haven´t decided what to do for 18 months, any suggestions?

ps I have moments when I have missed all of you guys, usually one at a time, but sometimes I just miss chillin as a family. But I am not homesick. just love the fam.

Thank you for taking care of me.

The church is true.
Elder B

21 Mar. 2011

2011-03-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

Hey Pops
Transfers are tomorrow. Elder B is leaving :(. He is going even more in to Montevideo with a Latino companion. I am staying here with a guy named Elder G. I knew him in the MTC, he is from the group 6 weeks younger than me, if we stay together for two changes we will both hit 18 months together. I am kinda excited to be with him we are going to blow the area up. Although it was already blown up by me and B this change. It is kinda gonna be weird to be with someone who knows the language well, this will be the first time in 6 months.

HAPPY BIIRTHDDDDAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!!! C and dad woo! I am so jealous, that she got a dora the explorer beach towel, lucky... happy 29 dad, I can´t believe you´re getting so old. 29 is like a grampa.
I can´t believe that S is that tall. He is definitely gonna be taller than me when I get home. dang it. I think i have grown, but not very much.

Well this week went pretty well, school just started , and for some reason it has been ridiculously hard to find people at home. Like half of our superstar investigators we couldn´t even get a lesson with this week. But with L we had like 3 or 4. but then she didn´t come to church. she is the mom of E, the 9 year old that just got baptized. She is so awesome. she always has us over and makes us cakes, she is learning a ton and wants to get baptized, but has yet to come to church on a Sunday. she came to the baptism of her daughter, but on Sunday, nothing. also her sister in law has been listening in too, she seems super interested, she still smokes, but she really is learning and pays better attention than L sometimes.

We only saw C once this week, she had to work sooo much. The problem is that she never knows when she is going to work so we just have to guess when to come. I think we went by at least 6 times this week and her kids told us she was gone. kind of a bummer.

hahaha Yesterday in church there was this lady in sacrament meeting, right as we were all coming in that just started yelling at this guy. He is kinda messed up and apparently had either threatened or said something bad to one of the young women in the ward and she just let him have it. I was impressed. I have not seen a freak-out of that caliber in a long time. I gave her a 9.3 out of 10. she got the nine because of the crowd size and the nice, "I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!!" she threw in, good touch. but lost the .7 because she didn´t do physical damage to anyone or anything. But as for good clean flip-out, one of the best I´ve seen. She even had the crowd with her for part of it. My poor comp didn´t understand her, so he was just sitting there trying as hard as he could to not laugh. Imagine, a lady yelling in church in Spanish. a year and a half ago i would have been rolling on the floor crying.

Also in one of our lessons yesterday this old lady, like the grandma of the house came in as we were singing and really got into it. She was putting her hands up in the air and kinda doing her own praise thang. it was just like the old granny in the proposal when she was praising mother nature dancing around the fire. a complete riot
love you guys
elder B

14 March 2011

2011-03-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hey Fam,

So i have some bad news. The area president sent an email out to the mission president saying that from ow on missionaries are not allowed to have musical instruments in the house. Soooo.... I´ll probably give it away to a member or someone. but what a bummer. I just feel sorry for other missionaries who spent good money on their instruments. Mine was cheap, luckily. But no worries.

In other news, we went around missioning this week like two loco fools. We ended the week with 6 people who have a baptismal date. Only one lady came to church, it was stake conference and so hardly any members even came. It is a 25 peso ($1.25) bus ticket each way to get there, and some of these people are really poor. Other wards chartered a bus to get there but for some reason our ward didn´t have the budget. Oh well, we´ll get them next time. One lady we are teaching is named C, she is so nice, she has had a rough past, she said she always seems to get put with people with major problems and she helps them out, but the only thing is that she gets personally involved, or rather, their problems start to bum her out and become part of her life. But she is way cool, and when she can we have lessons with her. Her date is the 9th of april. She accepted the date on terms that only if she know for sure that the Book of Mormon is true. But we are way stoked. We have a lesson with her tonight at 8.

So this week my compy and I got along pretty well, I went to a leadership conference, hmm, and we had the time change back. flip. We had stake conference so we got all ready to go and met a member guy and his nonmember friend at the bus stop, at like nine we left for conference that started at ten, but…. Little did the four of us know that it was really only eight in the morning. We stood outside of the chapel for an hour before anyone CAME to open it up. Hahaha. But we got GREAT seats. Well its my companions turn, have a good one!
Love you
Elder B

7 March 2011

2011-03-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

Wattup folks.

This week was pretty killer, we worked our rumps off and found seven new investigators. We surpassed our goals for lessons with an investigator and less active members, and met the goals for lessons with a member present and new investigators, keep in mind that we didn´t have high hopes for this week seeing that we baptized the sources of most of our lessons the weeks before.

We set a baptismal date with E and E, two older ladies who are super cool, and with S, a guy who we met this week, E and E were able to come to church, but S no. We have a lesson with him and his wife tonight, we are taking a sister from the primary presidency with us so it should be really good (they have a toddler and the sister is about their age.) We were kinda surprised that this sister is coming, she just volunteered out of nowhere yesterday in ward counsel. We were asking for help with specific investigators and all of the men kinda twittered for a sec and she was like, I´ll go! not too shabby.

Yes we do have senior missionaries that come to our ward. They live on the block of the temple like 15 minutes away from our ward boundaries, but they have the assignment of coming here to our troubled ward. Today we went to their house and ate lunch. It was awesome they are like grandparents. We talked in English, ate burgers and had ice cream. and to make it even better I got a letter from grandma and grandpa P and J today, it was a cool card with a pic of the cousins at thanksgiving.

Yeah on Wednesday me and my compy wore matching black ties and I rocked the argyle. We get a pizza that is pretty American with pepperoni or ham and sometimes like peppers or something. delishus. I have called it business time since my first few weeks of being in Guay.

Well thanks for the letters. I love you guys a ton.
elder B

28 Feb 2011

2011-03-07T06:24:00.000-08:00

Hey fam hows things? We had our baptisms on Saturday, they were tight. Our ward mission leader is a stud, he kinda just fit everything together at the end for us. Because one lady who was going to speak said she couldn´t because she had a headache and the piano player never showed. It helps a lot to have him be a returned missionary, he knows wassup.

We had a pretty good week this week. except for the fact that we lost almost all of our investigators, 2 got baptized, 2 gave up on investigating, and well that is really all of the real active investigators we had. Its good to be back in the city hahaha. Basically we have got to work more with the families of E and J, the kids who were just baptized. Also, we have a guy, D. He came to church yesterday and today invited us to a bbq at his house with a friend of his who might be interested in the church. Should be delish. He is a cool guy, he is gaining a testimony, but doesn´t want to be baptized until he fixes his domestic problemitas.

I can´t believe how many kids are going to Brazil, that is insane! And K and J will definitely end up as comps, and they will like it.

Did it really snow!? lucky... it rained a few days this week and overall the weather was pretty lame, but we are out here having fun. We decided that Wednesdays stink so now we have now coronated Wednesday as pizza night, and we order a pizza. should help, also, Wednesday is business time, so i wear my glasses and business (argyle) socks. In my ward with the beaner like 6 months ago, the whole ward knew that I celebrated Wednesday, so i think I´ll bring it back out here. Now Wednesday is a day to look forward to. I like you guys a lot. Congrats to D for royalty.

Have a great week.
elder B

21 Feb. 2011

2011-03-07T06:14:00.000-08:00

Hey Fam,
Man I miss A. All those kids are awesome. I just got a letter today from C that she sent from Australia in early December. Man it went through the mill before getting here, it had gotten wet, opened and repackaged by the time I got it 3 and a half months later.

This week was really good. We had a zone conference this week so I got to see presidente, it was a good moment when I got to talk to him for a sec. He asked how I was doing. I could really feel his love and then we went on to have a killer week.

My comp is a stud. We had a good week, and he doesn't stress me out. The only issue is that we have a few people who laugh or correct him on his Spanish so he gets frustrated. I remember those days, they sucked. but he is really trying and talks a lot in the lessons. He´ll get it faster than he thinks.

WE HAVE TWO BAPTISMS THIS WEEK!!!!!! Their names are E and J. They are 9 and 8 years old. They both live on the same street and on that street lives 2 member families. E is cousins with one of them and J is friends with the others. And they are friends, so we have their lessons together. Teaching kids is completely different than adults, but easy because they just accept the things we say. The baptism is on Saturday at 7, you are all invited hehe.

Well, I hope you all have a good day and week. love you.
peace in the east.
elder barry

Valentines Day 2011

2011-02-14T07:58:00.000-08:00

Way to go C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And way to go A WOOOOOOOOOO JAPAN!!!!!!!!!
That is so exciting. my comp right now goes to byu-i. He loved it. He is Elder B, and he is awesome. We are way good friends, and he wants to work hard, so we should be great here. The only problem is that we might get along too well, but we made a goal to always have the light off at 1030 because with the light off we only make it like 5 minutes before we fall asleep. He is from Utah, and started the mission almost exactly a year after me, he is my first 2010 graduation companion. He has some work to do on his Spanish, but overall, I'm stoked. And I am a lot less stressed out.

We did a lot of meeting people this week. They had eight baptisms this last few weeks, so they ran out of investigators. We have a few ideas for working with members and doing activities, so I am not worried. Being back close to Montevideo its hard to find new people though. Sadly, we didn't find a single new investigator this week, a few potentials, but nobody solidly taking the lessons. But they did have one investigator named D, and he is awesome, he has come to church like 50 times, or at least thats what he said, and believes in everything, but he doesn't want to get baptized until after his divorce because his wife doesn't believe and sometimes he gets mad and says unchristianlike things to her. we want to work on that a bit.

I still have my guitar, its a little rough to move with, but its worth it. I have been working on some primary songs, they are simple and really fun and a good way to practice reading normal notes. But i haven't played that much lately, except for the time when my companion was sick.
There is this cool couple that work in the temple, the W's, they come to our ward every week, and they hold an English class once a week, Sister W said she would call you guys, I don't know if she has, but they are awesome. My companion was super sick yesterday and so was Sister W, so we had a brother go to stay with my comp in church and me and Elder W were companions at church. Then came the duties. I had to teach the investigators/new members class, bless the sacrament and introduce myself in sacrament meeting. The lesson was only three pages long in the manual, so I had to freestyle, but I think it went alright, it was about the Savior, so its not hard for a missionary to freestyle.

Peace
elder b

7 Feb 2011

2011-02-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

hey fam,

Sorry, pday changed back to Monday this week. We still have changes tomorrow, but they gave us pday, woopee. I am out of san jose, goodbye loriders and cholos. i am going back into Montevideo. I am in the same zone as the office elders, but not the same district, but luckily I get to see them every week. I am a district leader over a 4 companionship district, but one of the companionships is the zls. One of the elders in the district is elder W, remember him from the CCM? My new comp is only in his second change, so its a continuation of no Spanish-fest. His name is elder B and I don´t know where the heck in the states he is from, probly utah. I also am in the same zone as president d. cool beans.

You like the blackeyed peas at the super bowl? They were pretty fun when I saw them live. I heard that the packers won, I loved the packers as a kid.

But anyways. this week actually turned out to be really good. There was no murders, and we got two people to go to church. We had good lessons, and we have a bunch of people with baptismal dates. I feel like the area is doing a lot better than when I got here and all we had was T.

We found some awesome new investigators this week, one is named Z and she lives right next to one other investigator, has lived there for 40 years and the missionaries have never talked to her. Its half a block from the church building. She accepted to get baptized on the 5th of march and she came to church. Her 20 year old daughter listens too, but she is super shy and might be afraid of us. That's what happens when you are two flipping attractive elders.

Well we´ll see how the new area goes, I am pretty stoked, they just had like 10 baptisms. But my comp is younger than elder h in the mission, so we might be lost for a while. pray hard. I fasted for C this week. poor kid has to get out now.

Well its late, have a great week i love you guys a ton.

31 Jan 2011

2011-02-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

Hey. We had a pretty good week, we found 11 new investigators, which should be some kind of record for this area. But we were short on lessons with member and no one came to church :(. But whatevs, can´t win them all, or was it at all? Next week are changes, so I won´t write until Tuesday, I am thinking that I am gone, but there is also a chance they switch out my comp, that's what they did to the beaner(elder P) when he trained. As for my reading, I am in Exodus 5 or 6, but I am also reading Doctrine and Covenants and I am in section 40.

That is so cool that nopster is in band and that Ms. V is still there, I miss those days. Of course D would play flute, either flute or tuba, hahaha. C has an awesome schedule, you are a lucky dog to get C and S in the same day, I only got that when I visited debate class senior year. Although it is a bummer that she never got Kromillionaire, that would be the bomb. Sam has my sophomore pe teacher, and make sure he knows that the choir teacher is like a pro ultimate player. I am so jealous of dad and his gang, doing the stp, I wish I could be there. we have bikes right now but they are garbage, my front brake doesn´t even exist and the back one rubs when you want to go fast and doesn´t do anything when you want to stop. good thing i bought construction worker shoes, they make excellent brakes...

so this week we talked a lot with C. he is a guy who has come to church quite a few times already and had a few lessons. The only problem is that his work schedule is suuuuper hectic. We set a date to baptize him this Saturday, but he wasn´t able to come to church yesterday so we are moving it back a week. Quite the bummer, but at least he still wants to get baptized. Basically, we are going to do a rehaul of the area this week. our old investigators aren´t really progressing, So, we´ll have frank discussions with them, and see if they want to get it together, and start up with our new investigators, we have a lot of hope in a few of them. this could be a great week.

haha my comp bought these doctrine and covenants dvds at the distribution center and the guy that plays Heber C Kimball looks just like Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords, I don´t know if you remember that show, but its hard for me not to laugh, he even has the goofy big sideburns. haha there is a missionary that just got home this week who served in cuerna vaca mexico, him getting home makes me SO TRUNKY its ridiculous. we had lunch with his family today and he shared some grasshoppers with us, que rico.

hey is kessin putting in his papers soon? I hope he comes here, then I could train him, that would be tight.

well have a good week

love ya

elder b

24 January 2011

2011-02-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

Good old Ms. V. I laughed my head off reading about the concert, but ps, I was never told that D was in band, what instrument does she play, does Ms. V remember little squirt elder b? does she call her her last name!!! when she talks to her? She has to stick with it so I can come visit her band class and see concerts. I assume that the dairy queen tradition is just something that has always happened, but we might have started it. haha I loved band concerts, she stopped us in the middle of a song once, and the tempest was my fave.

Pops you are so lucky to have gone to Reno. Did you go off of the rainbow box? Someday I have to conquer that beast to prove my manliness. I didn't realize that grandpa is 78 years old, that is up on the charts, I bet that there are not that many people out there that old. he has had the discount for a while now. my comp is telling me that I have to learn to ski so i can go to Alta, apparently its the best place in the US to ski, but no boarders allowed. we'll see.

C got rearended, rrrrggh. Dang, I have a feeling that dear old henry is not going to make it til October. Poor guy has been through the mill since I left. Just wait to bury him until I get home.

Well, this week. yeah. this week. hahaha this week was one for the ages. We are doing decently well with the members, like they want to help and we are using them, but I have learned something recently. You have to have people to teach in order to have lessons with members. We have started to challenge the members to share the gospel in different ways, but so far we have no visible results. They always have a person in mind, and they go, and wimp out. I guess we're going to have to take them by the hand and talk to the people. But we did find two people from a reference from the ward grandma the other day. We went over to the house right after she gave us the reference, had a cool lesson, and then set a day to go back. Then the second time we went gramma was gonna go with us, but she refused when we got to the house, because she has issues with the son and he was home. well guess what, the son is cooler than the mom, and more interested in the church. but we still love gramma.

N kinda lost his faith in quitting smoking, he smokes less, but still smokes. He said he won't come to church until he feels ready, and wants to know absolutely everything before his baptism. Basically, he is toast for now. I think he saw the light and then got scared of it. L was sick in bed all week and even had to go to the hospital, but she is doing better now. Wasn't able to go to church. but a guy named C went to church. The Hermanas had been teaching him, but he moved to our area. Today we have our first lesson with him, we are going to challenge him to baptism, we want to have it this Saturday. that would be awesome.

Well, I love you guys a ton, thank you for your emails. have a great week

elder b

17 Jan 2011

2011-01-17T18:47:00.000-08:00

hey fam.

This week was really good. It all started out on like Wednesday or Tuesday we had an amazing lesson with an investigator named N. We have been talking to him for a while. He is a famous painter and his work is amazing. He is really intelligent and has even traveled to Israel. A while back he told us that he was never going to get baptized, and even for a little bit we had dropped him. But on new years day we went back and watched the Restoration with him. Then we watched a video about the right baptism another day. But he was still just kinda interested. But this week we went and we were talking about the Holy Ghost, and that the peace that he felt is an answer from the Holy Ghost, and then he said he feels good often and we talked about the gift of the Holy Ghost, and as I explained he pointed at me and said that I will be the one to baptize him, because I am the son of Jacob. We put a date with him then for the 5th of February. One problem, he smokes, a lot. so a couple day later we went to his house with a member and talked about the word of wisdom. We had already talked to him about it, but this time we went in with the purpose of him never smoking again. He said that he can´t do it. He has tried, but just can´t. So we read Ether 12:27, (And if men come unto me I will show unto them their ^aweakness. I ^bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my ^cgrace is sufficient for all men that ^dhumble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make ^eweak things become strong unto them.) and explained that if we realize that we can´t do it and put it all in the Lords hands, He can do it. He accepted. we gave him a priesthood blessing and he was really grateful and willing to do it. Then on Sunday he didn´t come to church. So at 10 my companion and I went to go get him and he said he couldn´t because his friends had called him and said they were coming over so he was stuck. But, he hadn´t smoked anything at all. He also thanked us for the blessing and said he was praying to stay away from the temptation. I am super excited. If he does really well, he can still get baptized the 5th, I really hope so, because changes are the 8th and I really want to see him in white.

The rest of the week went really well. we are working more with the members, and they are getting excited about it. We are going to their houses and giving them challenges too, its exciting, and fun because we do practices with them. Plus with our purification, we have the Spirit more than ever, so our lessons are going much better.

As for goals this year, I want to read the whole missionary library, the whole standard works, our heritage, our search for happiness and true to the faith, and Jesus the Christ. and I want to feel at peace when I finish my mish. But other than that I don´t have any set goals. Maybe something with guitar, like learn a cool rendition of a hymn.

Well, that's about all I got for yáll this week, have fun at mount rose dad, say hi to the rainbow box for me, haha.

love ya

elder B

I can´t believe that quizz is going to the draft!! the beavs are toast this year. Is he supposed to go high? I didn´t think he had much of a future in the nfl, but I only saw like 1 season of him. I got the inserts, they are great, I feel like I am walking on pillows.

10 Jan 2011

2011-01-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

Hey its elder Barry,

Wow that's nuts. I can't believe GB and DK are going to missions right next to each other. I guess I had better start learning Portuguese, half my friends are in Brasil. that is so cool that they leave only a week apart. Do they go to the same mtc?

So Uruguay is super flat, there are a couple big hills and one large valley, but other than that there is flatness, with some rolling hills, great for cycling all day long.

It is super humid.

The weather moves in and out suuuuper fast, like it can be hot then poring down rain, then hot in like an hour. But that only really happens in the summer.

This week we did an activity as a district called purificándonos, purifying ourselves. It is an activity that starts with a fast for 24 hours and then at the end you write down all of the things you do that keep the Spirit from being with you, or that keep you from having the Spirit strong with you. And then you make a promise not to do any of them for 40 days, and then it becomes a habit. The people who did it first had amazing successes thanks to this, so we decided to do it. Saturday/ Sunday we did the fast and made our lists. Mine was rather long, some of the stuff is kinda stupid, but I think it will help a lot. Some of my things are, sing inappropriate songs, speak English when I am around Latinos, and sarcasm. I decided to take the activity one step further and came up with a positive activity to put in the place of each of the things I was getting rid of. We'll see how this goes. But already in this last week as we were preparing for the activity and starting to make changes we had the Spirit a lot stronger, and we even got along better. I love this stuff. I feel super happy and pumped to work now.

I thought about it and I think I will be cheering for Auburn today too. I don't hate the Ducks, but it's just wrong. I got the package this week the one with the contact solution and water bottle, I love not having to use glasses, its amazing.

Yesterday we set another date with a guy named D, he is a cool dude, like 45 and he always shows us this random classical music that puts us to sleep like turkey and 'It's a Wonderful Life' do. But he accepted the date to be baptized the 5th of February. no one came to church this week, we were kinda sad, so all of our people before who had dates will have to move them back. But I still have hope. We talked to L Saturday night and she said she would come, I am not sure what happened cuz she didn't show up, last week either, I think next week we need to drag her by the ear. She so wants to be baptized but just needs to do the stuff.

love you guys,

elder b

January 3, 2011

2011-01-04T13:14:00.000-08:00

From Jenny: I know that I'm a few weeks behind on posting Barry's letters so I'll start with the latest and work backwards. We got to talk to him for about an hour on Christmas. He sounded great. Same old Barry. I thought he might have an accent or forget words in English but he really didn't except for the time he said, "Como? er What?"

Hey fam how goes it? Today we had a district funtivity here in SJ, we made tie die and went on the bridge of death. The new hermana is a doozy. Her comp is K, and K had been calling me a lot this last week, and now today I understand why. The two of them are exact opposites, but I think in the end it will work out because the oro completely respects K and they are both really nice, just different. Me and my comp had a good week. We got along well and worked our tails off. One day was super rough though. we walked around for hours and no one was home and we only ended up with one lesson the whole day. The ZL kinda let me hear it for that one, so the next day I studied on how to plan better and we have been working on it lots as a companionship. I have actually learned. At first planning was rough because I was used to having the other comp either be in charge of it or at least help out a lot, but now I am 100 percent in charge and that was hard to get used to.

But then after that we had a great week. we set four baptismal dates, only one of them came to church, but we are progressing, I can finally see a change in the area, a small one, but a change. we even have two ladies who had a date for the 22. One of them is............... L!!!!!! Yes. we went over and talked about the law of chastity. She said her and her man candy are through, so we talked about how she can´t go back if she wants to get baptized. We´ll see, but I am super excited for her, thanks for telling us to go back.

This week I had lunch with P because I had to go back to the obelisko 2 area for a meeting. it was awesome to see her again, and we joked around about old times. My comp just kinda sat there, but whatevs, someday he will be senior comp. I never really participated in small talk until I was like 8 months in. It is way way harder than teaching, mostly because it is a whole new vocabulary, but once you can small talk, it is really fun to get to know the members a lot better and actually make friends. Once i got to Pesqueira the mission became a lot funner because I had a whole grasp on small talk and we could enjoy member visits together.

Oh yeah, that new hermana likes Neil Diamond...

Well, that's about it, I am pretty stoked about life right now, this week is leadership meeting so I get to see buddies and sit in a superspiritual meeting.

Love you tons fam.
elder B

ps. tell T happy belated birthday and that a letter is on the way.