4 April 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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