6/18/12 email from São Mateus

[How are things going?]  We are finding a lot of good people.  We have 2 more baptisms marked for the 30th, they are both really good.  One is a guy and he has a hard time with reading but he really wants to follow Christ and the other is a young girl.  The guy we have been teaching for the past 2 weeks.  We have been trying to help him build a testimony, he has a lot of faith, he wants to serve Christ and do all he can.  Yesterday he walked about a mile to 2 miles just to come to church and he got there before many of the members including many of the leaders.

[Did you find anything about transfers yet?]  My companion does not go home this week, he has this week and the next and then he goes home.  I still do not know what I want here because I want to stay, but I also wouldn't mind going.  I have been feeling like this is my area, but also that it is not.  I am still in a triple and it will stay that way until the transfers.

[Who would you consider your "golden contacts?"]   Our last baptism, he is awesome, he was one of my Golden Contacts, and also Michelle, these were and are my Golden Contacts.

[What are you thinking you want to do when you first get home?]  I would like to just get home and meet you guys at the airport.  I was thinking that if there is time after I get back that I would like to go and do a session in the temple.  I also want to go and eat some good old American food and watch some movies.

Something I have been thinking about is that it is hard for us members to remember what we are really doing, there are many times that we will just go to church and sit there and listen, we forget that we are there to learn and grow and help others.  We need to help others and we need to help the missionaries if we can and be humble.  We can help the missionaries by sitting with their investigators or inviting their investigators to sit with us.  We need the missionaries, we need to be humble enough to see this.  We also need to get to church early no matter what, by doing this we are showing our respect for our Father in Heaven.  We need to do all that we can to help the Lord´s work move along, as we do this we will be able to help more our brothers and sisters.  We will also receive more of the help that we need for ourselves.  I have to say that here on the mission we not only learn how to help others, but also what we need to do to help the church grow so that when we get back we can help with this. 

I am trying to give it all I have and I want to do that until the end.

Elder McBarron