12/17/12 Email from São Mateus

This week I was the chorister for church and I gave a talk yesterday so that was pretty cool and strange. This week I have been learning about a lot of stuff. I have learned about forgiveness and missionary work and how they are linked even more than I thought. We help others know how to treat each other and how we need to forgive them. We need help others learn to forgive. We need to share the gospel and, as we do, we will as well be forgiven and that as we learn to share the gospel we will know how to forgive. We need to forgive ourselves, which is often times, the hardest part. We had an investigator that has struggled with this. I have also learned that if we do not share the message of the restored gospel we can not receive the salvation, this church and gospel is one of work, we can not just sit there and do nothing.

I will be getting transferred this week on Tuesday, which is tomorrow.  I am excited, but also not, I want to leave but I also don't want to leave.  I will have to get to know a whole new area and figure out what I am going to do for my Christmas call home, that will be fun.  This is going to be a strange week after 9 months here I will be going to another area.   I hope that I go back to an area that I have already been in, but who knows what will happen, I will find out tonight. We didn't find out until last night if I was leaving or if I was staying. My baptism is setup for the 29th, but I guess now it is not my baptism.

I come home in 4 1/2 months to be exact.  I  am not really sure what I will be doing when I get home.  I want to work for a while and do some online classes and I think that I might go to BYUI, but I am not sure.  I will have to get home first to really decide.  I am thinking that I will study psychology as my major and exercise as my minor.

Happy anniversary Mom and Dad!  So, I am 22 and you two have been together for 25 years, that is pretty cool.  As I get older you do too!  I am sending a picture of a dog doing something weird, he is trying to watch everyone from underneath a door.  So we are going to have our mission party for Christmas.  I am going to be leaving after nine months of being here in São Mateus and going to be going to another area that I may not know and that is a little nerve racking.  I am ready for Christmas and for in 4 1/2 months to get home.  Miss you and love ya!

Elder McBarron