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

13 June 2011

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

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