10/24/11 Email from Jardim Limoeiro

[Adam's email for this week, our questions are in brackets]

I am 1/4 of the way done with my mission. I miss Wednesday [our dog] too, whenever I see little dogs I want to play with them the same way that I play with Wednesday.  I really miss spending time with you all, I miss talking with you all and I can't wait for Christmas to come so that I can talk with you guys. 

[Did your baptism happen?]  We didn't get our baptism this week because her brother broke both of his legs in an accident that day and visiting hours were during the end of church and the time that she would have been baptized.

[Any new investigators this week?]  We have some new investigators, one had been drinking for over 50 years.  We are going to try and mark a baptismal date with him today.  We also have a family that we are teaching, but I don't know how long we are going to be teaching them for because they don't want to get married.  We can't really teach them if they do not want to get married, because without them being married they can't get baptized unless they separate from each other.  As a matter of fact we have 2 families in the same boat.

[Do you have many opportunities to speak English now?]  I can speak in English with the other American living with me in the apartment, and with our  District Leader who has learned English pretty well.

[What was the the most fun you had? What made you laugh?What did you do to make others laugh?]   We mess around with each other, me and the other missionaries.  We make fun of each other all of the time.  I make them laugh just by being me, and with have some really stupid conversations.

[Can you take some pictures of your area so that we can see where you are? Your apartment? Your companion?]  I have taken recent pictures, not many, but I will try to take some pictures of my area and apartment and companion.

[What has been your best Sunday so far?]  My best Sunday so far would have to be the Sunday of General Conference.

[What was your best experience this week?]  My best experience this week was when one of my investigators told us about what her pastor said.  When she started off we were thinking OK what bad thing did a pastor say about us this time.  Then she said, "my pastor said that these young men are true servants of God and that they are truly doing the Lord´s work and we should be doing the same thing."  She said that after he said this she realized that this is the true church and that she wants to be baptized.  This is the first time that I have ever heard of a pastor helping with missionary work.  We are thinking about going and teaching this pastor.

I miss you all and love you all.

Seu Filho

Elder McBarron

10/17/11 Email from Jardim Limoeiro

[Adam's email this week  our questions are in brackets.]

 

The mail strike is officially over now, it has been going on for the past month or so, but it is over now.

 

[How did your baptism go?]  We didn't have our baptism because of complications with the family, but hey what can you do but work through it.

 

[What lessons did you get to teach this week?]  We have pretty much been teaching the first lesson all week or the word of wisdom.  We are trying to help a lady stop smoking, drinking alcohol and drinking coffee.

 

[What was the best thing of the week?]  We had interviews with president this week, that was good.

 

[How do you make tracting fun?  How long do you tract?]  We tract pretty much all day everyday, we are contacting people to and from appointments and also knocking doors when our appointments fall.

 

[How much do you teach?]  I teach quite a bit, I am even able to use my own explanations for somethings now.

 

[Have your people been coming to church?]  We had 2 people come to church this week, which i am grateful for.

 

[What has been your most interesting tracting experience, besides the dogs?]  My most interesting tracting experience has to be with the drunks in the street.  Last night we had a drunk come up to us and ask us who the greatest prophet was, we responded Jesus Christ.  He then said, "and after him?"  We replied Moses (because he doesn't know about Joseph Smith) he said, "exactly, and Adam was not a prophet."  We said, "oh but he was."  Then the drunk just walked off.  Another experience was with this other guy at his door.  He called us over and asked if we were pastors.  We said we were missionaries.  He told us to teach him so we said a little bit of our message and then asked if we could come back and share the rest later.  He said ok and then handed us money because he thought that we were cops.  It was pretty interesting.  We handed the money to his neighbor and asked him to give it back to the guy.  This guy was pretty drunk, he was talking to himself and others under his breath. Both were pretty interesting.

 

[Has your ward mission leader gotten any better?]  Our LMA is getting better, he is getting more and more experience, and the bishop is playing a huge roll in our missionary work as well.  He is helping pretty much reform the missionary work in the ward.

 

[How hot is it now?]  It is pretty hot here, I don't know the exact temperature.

 

[How does your new companion help you be a better missionary?]  He helps we with the language and is helping me to mess around a little more.

 

[How are your feet doing, are you taking care of them?]  I am taking care of my feet as best as I can down here, as soon as I get into the apartment my shoes come off right away, so that my feet can breath and relax.

[What was your best experience this week?]  My best experience is about a lady and we pretty much told her she is not doing her part to see if the church is true.  She has received answers plenty already that it is.  She was at church this week which is good.  I also had an experience with an investigator that is having problems accepting that she needs to join the church.  She hasn't been coming to church (until this last Sunday) and she has had many dreams about the church telling her that she needs to join.   We were pretty straight forward with her, speaking with the spirit, we pretty much told her, "you are ready for baptism, you have received answers to your prayers that very few people receive."  I told here that she needs to be following the voice that she is hearing, the voice of Christ and do the right things, and that He loves her and wants her to do those things that are right, and as she does this she will receive blessings and knowledge.

 

I miss you all and hope you are doing well.

 

Elder McBarron

10/10/11 Email from Jardim Limoeiro

[Adam's email for this week, our questions are in brackets.]

[How are those you are working with?]  This week was so much better than last week, we had 2 investigators at church, that is a huge change from zero.  We also have a baptism this week! She is a mother of a member and we found her the first day that we were here, but we didn't know what her pace for accepting the gospel would be and all that because their family had already been taught before about a year ago.  We ended up having to quit going to see an investigator.  She hasn't been to church in 5 weeks and we asked her to talk with her "husband" about getting legally married the first week that we were in the area, and she still has not done it.  We are trying to find new people to work with because the ones that we are working with are progressing slowly and we need new people in our teaching pool.

 

[How is the new companion?]  My new companion is pretty cool.

 

[How is the new area?  Are you still walking 10-15 miles a day or do you have a transit system to get you around?]  The new area is huge, and yes we are still walking about 10 miles a day.  We have a transit system here, but it is pretty expensive for what little distance we are going.

 

[How is the language coming?]  The language is still coming, I can speak more but I still don't have a very large vocabulary to use, I still have a lot to learn.

 

[Are you taking advantage of daily study?]  I love my daily study, I wish that it was longer.

 

[What did you do to have fun last week?]  For fun we mess around in the apartment with the other elders before we go to bed and after we wake up. We spend a lot of time with the other set of missionaries.  Me and my companion also do a little radio recording with our cellphone in the streets every day, that is pretty fun.

 

[How is the food situation?]  Oh, I forgot to tell you that I have had chicken heart, chicken foot, and liver here.  The chicken heart and the liver were pretty good, the chicken foot was just weird.
[What was you best spiritual experience last week?]  My most spiritual experience this week was when we were teaching this guy that we had knocked at his door.  He started talking about authority that everyone has the authority to do things in the Lord's name and have the power to do so, and that all we had to do is to read the bible and accept Christ into our lives to receive this power.  My companion started showing him scriptures and talking with him about it for a good amount of time.  I was getting bored because I couldn't really help him and it was getting way off topic of the lesson.  Then I got a pretty strong prompting to ask the guy if we could finish our message.  I had to say irmão 3 times before he would listen to me, but after I asked the question he pretty much just stopped talking.  That was a pretty big demonstration of the power of the Holy Ghost to me.

[What was your best experience this week?]  My best experience this week was having a baptism interview with one of our investigators and also having her pass, her baptism is next week.

[Do you need or want anything?]  At this moment I don't need anything, but anything that you would like to send would be appreciated.

 

Elder McBarron

 

10/3/11 Email from Jardim Limoeiro

[Adam's email for this week, our questions are in brackets.  I emailed him that Sister Litchfield, one of the moms on the missionary mom email group, said that her son just got out of the CTM and his first companion is Elder Turley in Serra Sede which is Adam's last companion and area.]



Elder Litchfield is my brother from the mission because we had that same father or trainer.  I have added some pictures, one is of my District in Serra Sede.  One is of me and Elder Turley, what is funny about the picture is that I am the goofy one in the picture but he was the goofy companion and I was the more serious companion.  One of my hand healing, and the last one is of my last baptism in Serra Sede.

      

Serra Sede District Missionaries           

Elder McBarron & Elder Turley

Last person Adam baptized in Serra Sede

Adam's healing hand

[If you got to hear conference, anything specific you liked? (I really liked the one talk about missionaries from the Seventy from Japan, it also made me think about you a lot.)]  I really liked the talk by Elder Callister about the Book of Mormon a lot!!!!!!!

 

[What cool things have you found out about your new companion and other missionary roommates?]  I found out that I was at BYUH at the same time as the other American missionary in the apartment, his name is Elder Buttars and my companion and his companion are from the same city.



[Any net places to see in your new area?]  There really aren't many neat places to see here that I know of right now.

 

[Did you find anyone new to teach this week?]  This week was kind of a crudy week for me, blues of the mission is more like it.  We taught our investigators as best we could this week, and invited them all to come to General Conference, but none came.  We even tried to bring a few of them, but they were either sick or not home or just didn't want to go with us.  Just pray for me and my companion to know what is required of us and how best to act now.

 

[What was your best experience this week?]  My best experience this week was watching conference.  I got to watch conference in the church building and also in English which was a blessing.  Conference was amazing!! Could you get a copy for me in English to read after the mission, I will probably be getting it in Portuguese here.

 

I love you all and miss you all.  I hope all is going well for you all.

Elder McBarron

9/26/11 Email from Jardim Limoeiro

[Adam's email this week, our questions are in brackets.  I sent him this joke that was going around the missionary moms email groups:  A blond is watching the news and hears that 2 Brazilian men died in a skydiving accident.  She cries and says, "Oh my gosh, how many is a Brazilian?"]

Mom I really liked that joke!  Tell grandpa that I hope everything goes well with his surgery and that I will be praying for him the whole time.  Mom keep working on trying to do your best [I've been keeping him updated on my weight loss], it will all pay off in the end.  I have put on about 11 pounds here, but I also haven't really been working out.  I need to figure out what I can do for exercises and then I know that I will be exercising every day.  I am really enjoying my mission here and can't wait to share stories in person with everyone, but I still have about 19 or so months to go before I am able to do that, so I will have to get some good stories in that time frame.  I have had my first mission blues, but they haven't been that bad as of yet.  Life in general right now is pretty great.

[Where did you get transferred too? What is it like?]  I got transferred to Jardim Limoeiro, it is about an hour away from my last area by bus so it is probably about 20 minutes by car.  It is kind of like Serra Sede, but we do a lot more walking in this area.  I have the neighborhoods of Cidade Contenetail (I think that is how you spell that) in my area which is a long ways away from where we live.

[Who is your new companion?]   My companion is Elder Espinosa, he is from Brazil, Curitiba I think.  I am learning a lot more now that I am with a Brazilian companion and I have to speak Portuguese to communicate.  We are finding a lot of people to teach, we will see how that goes.  We are still trying to get to know the area as both of us got transferred into this area this transfer.

[What is your new apartment like?]  My new apartment is kind of a cruddy little hole, but it works and I am not complaining about it.

[What is your new ward like? And the people?]  The new ward is really cool, I  really like it.  It is the ward Jardim Limoeiro.  We don't really have a ward mission leader helping us right now, he was just called to be the ward mission leader about one month ago and so he doesn't really know what he is doing.  Plus he works Sundays so things aren't really going too fast with him right now.

[What was your best experience this week?]  My best experience this week has been hanging out with the other elders that are in the area next to us that live in the same apartment as me and my companion.

I miss you all and love you.

Elder Adam McBarron