10/29/12 Email from São Mateus

My week was a crazy week we were running around trying to do a lot of stuff but it was a really good week. We were putting a new teaching pool together so that is why it was crazy.  We aren't riding the bikes anymore, we don't really have a the necessity to use them any more.  For service projects we usually move furniture, weed yards or help build houses. That is the usual service stuff.

 

I can't believe that it is Halloween, they don't really do anything here to celebrate it, but I am thinking up a costume that I can use on the next Halloween which will be great.

 

We saw some really cute puppies this week and I took a picture of them for Megan.  We also saw some burrowing owls and I took some pictures of them as well.

I will probably be staying but I will not know until Saturday, but there is a good chance that I will be staying.  I am starting to get the new guy opened up and get the work going really well.  We did not have our baptisms this last week and we will not have baptisms this week either.  We had our baptisms fall through this week (this means that they are not ready to get baptised or that they don't really have a desire to get baptized).

We are going to work in another part of our area to try and get things rolling again and see if that gets everything back on track.  We found a family that lived in the states for 12 years which is pretty cool. Their son speaks really good English.

I helped make a Brazilian Torta which is like a cake and pie kind of thing, it is hard to describe it, I can pretty much just say that it is food so I am including a picture of it.

My best experience this week was talking with a family that lived in the states for 12 years.  I can't believe that I only have about 5 more months here time flies really fast here. Well, I don't know what else to put.  Miss you and I will be looking forward to the Christmas box.

Elder McBarron

 

 

 

10/22/12 Email from São Mateus

This week we went to a fair type thing and we got a lot of free fruit, that was cool.  We were just talking to a guy and he told us to go and grab a watermelon for free.  We found a kid that wants to be baptized.  He is almost 14, he is really excited about getting baptised and was really excited about church yesterday.  We are working with him to get him baptized on the 2nd of November.  I have an investigator that is going to be getting married soon and then afterwards he can be baptized.  Getting married here is a pain, there are a lot of things that you have to do and then you have to wait for about a month before you can get married.

This week was really crazy, we ran into a lot of investigators at other peoples houses that we had visited. We also visited a different church with an investigator that came with us to church. Yeah, let's just say that I had some experiences that strengthened my testimony that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is really the true church of Christ here on the earth.

I  do not know if I will be going yet, we will find out not this Saturday but the next if I will be going.  I am doing well with my companion.  We play dominoes almost every night.
I am missing the cold weather, it is getting hotter and hotter here every day.

Well, those are the highlights of the week.   Miss you and love you.

 

Elder McBarron

10/15/12 Email From São Mateus

This week was a bust, there were 4 different holidays in just this weekend so everyone has been out partying, or traveling so it was kind of hard to get our visits done.  We did find a really cool family through their son. The son speaks English and the dad does too a little bit.  The dad was a little apprehensive about our first visit thinking about all of the things that he has heard about the church that are negative.  But after we had our first visit he said that from what he saw just from our visit is that we sincerely teach what we believe and act upon it, that we are a lot truer to our faith than some other churches and that a lot of the things that he has heard are not true.  He said that he actually believes that we are doing the Lord´s work.  We will see how things go with the family.  We are also trying to help a kid my age to stop smoking.  We have gotten him down from 30 cigarettes per day to about 16 so far. 

There is a member that works at a bakery and this week he gave us a ton of bread, we don't have to buy anything anymore to eat really, we just have to eat the bread that he gave us.  We brought home 2 garbage bags full of bread, yeah we have a lot of bread to eat.  He keeps trying to give us more, so we are taking a little bit here and a little bit there so that we don't get over loaded with bread.

Ok so the best learning experience this week was that of helping a couple sort out a few things so that their lives will be a little more mellow and so that they can have the spirit with them.  It helped me learn more about what I am going to have to do when I have a family to be taking care of and a wife to be taking care of.

I have less than 200 days left and I am starting to feel it, my body is starting to become a little more tired every day and I am starting to get a little bit more crazy, but I think that that might just be me changing and becoming a little more crazy and not so much quiet.  Well that is pretty much just about it for the fun stuff other than being able to ride bikes here in part of our area, a member is letting us use their bikes, yeah, that is so much fun. Well that is it.

Miss you and love ya
 

Elder McBarron

10/8/12 Email From São Mateus

This week was really good, as for the work on the mission front was good pretty much the same old same old, us helping a lot of people and doing all that we can do. I am getting physically tired, but hey that is what p-day is for -to rest. I am still eating a lot, I have been having the munchies for the last little while. We got to ride some bikes this week during our proselyting time, we borrowed them from a member and we went with him and visited a lot of people. I am a little saddle sore right now but hey that is what happens when you have not riden a bike in over a year, but it saved a lot of time. We did mark 4 more baptismal dates and we will be marking more this coming week.

Conference was really good from what I got to see. I was able to watch the last 2 sessions. I can't believe that they changed the age requirements. We are going to be having a lot of missionaries coming now that are really young and a lot of young women now that will be serving a mission, that will be really weird to see here in a couple of months. The missions are going to be flooded with sisters now and there will be just as many sisters as there will be elders, that is going to be strange. I really enjoyed what I was able to watch of conference, but I didn't get to see too much.

My companion and I are getting along really well and I am getting along really well with the roomies as well. My companion is cool, he is a little quiet, I am a little more crazy than he is. I am trying to help him be a little bit more animated and find his crazy side. I just need to make sure that i am taking good care of my companion and everything will be fine.

Fun and unusual this week would have had to have been the bike riding and eating BBQ, yeah that was good.

We need to do all of our Home Teaching visits because we help support everyone all of the members by doing our visits and also by showing that we care. At least a 1/3 of the members that are inactive will be reactivated by just the visits of members, our visits as members are very important.

The best part about this week was the people that we got to meet and for the things that we are able to do. I am really liking it here in São Mateus and I don't want to leave here, but I have a feeling at the end of this transfer I will be leaving. I will have 7 and a half months here in this area at the end of the transfer, but who knows.

I am missing you and love you.

Elder McBarron

 

10/1/12 Email From São Mateus

This week went really well, I am good but really tired.  This last transfer of walking 20 km every day
 has caught up to me and I am ready to just rest today.  This week we didn't have too much fun stuff, just a good long trip to Vitoria and getting my new companion.  We also got 2 more missionaries in the area as well.  I have a new American from Logan, Utah as my companion.  He has 9 months on the mission and his name is Elder Peterson.  He was trained by a friend here on the mission.  We got back from the transfers around midnight, that was fun, and then I woke up at 5:30 am.  This week I pretty much just showed my companion around and also the other missionaries that are here with us.  We got most of our goals done in about 4 days which was really good.

Having my new companion is good so it helps with not thinking about home.  I am not really thinking too much anyways about home, I still have 6 months to go.

This week we were going to have a baptism but it fell through at that last minute.  His sister came into town and she said that she would not go to his baptism and then gave him a bunch of stuff that she had found on the internet.  He decided to just put the baptism off for a little while instead of canceling.

Oh, we did eat a lot this week, we ate a ton.  I had 2 lunches with a member where they made a ton of food and they kept putting more on our plates and the food was really good.

Well, I don't really have too much else to say.

Miss ya!

Elder McBarron