25 July 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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