Email - 12/23/08

Mom,
All is well for me, except I washed all my bloodstained stuff, and there is, obviously, no peroxide at the ready disposal of the Elders of Israel, whyever not, I can..t say, but yeah, no chemicals for us. I..m going to try and find something in the market today, since I really, really need to wash this stuff out of a shirt or two.
So here is this week..s report on how I..ve used your money and the Lord..s time, and, considering that, I..m going to feel sheepish with my first item
WEDNESDAY:
We had a paper airplane war in the morning, for reasons I don..t recall, I just know it was hilarious. We all made paper airplanes and paper darts and shot at each other. I think we wound up without a teacher for some reason. Like I said, it is a horrible way to start the report, but it was hilarious enough to make my weekly notesheet
Also, I tried to go that whole day without speaking English, but I kinda failed by about the mid-day, late afternoon mark. But I..ll talk more about English Fasting later
THURSDAY:
Not much worth noting here, except that our room was pronounced the cleanest room in the entire CTM, if you can believe it, and we EARNED it. Elder Scadden mopped the floor the night before, and we went out of our way to clean things up, straighten things out, make the unused beds, and we left out pictures from the Book of Mormon to cement our position. Competition is getting fierce though, and we may have to leave music on next time, too
FRIDAY:
Not much of note, just that we taught our short 3rd lessons this day, and it turned out pretty well. The only thing Irmã Vanessa had to say to me about mine was that I didn..t ask why the investigator put off the next lesson until a week after the coming week
SATURDAY:
We had a Large Group Meeting conducted by Irmão Peçanha, who taught us about how we can better make use of our resources and find people to teach. It was actually really good. We learned that it was important to make the fullest use of the Ward in our area we could, but to always be polite and trustworthy.
SUNDAY:
Sunday we had some changes made, because Elder Farmer, our AP, left this morning, so we needed to prepare. Elder Cook, our District Leader, was called to be the new AP (for all of two weeks) and Elder Ulbrich, my companion, was called to be the new District Leader! I was scared at first, because the Branch Presidency all came and said hello to me and were complimenting me, and we all knew someone was getting a calling.
We set some really amazing goals this week, too. We have proselyting the day after Christmas, and we decided we..re going to get 5 names, addresses, and numbers of people who want the missionaries to come to their homes and teach them. So all the rest of our plans and goals have sort of set themselves into place to prepare for that. We had an English Fast yesterday, we have one Saturday, we won..t be speaking English in class anymore, and next week, we..ll be skipping out on English all together. But we..re really excited to find these 5 people and teach them.
MONDAY:
Monday was our English Fast. We treated it just like a real fast, and opened and closed it with prayers. We spoke só português the whole day! It started hard, but by the day..s end, it became unnatural to hear English words. It was a great day. Once the Brazilians knew we weren..t speaking English, they went out of their way to try and get us to.
Also, one of the other districts in our generation stole our desks. Our lovely big desks, and replaced them with the horrible, small/sloping desks, like we wouldn..t notice. Mark my words, this will be fixed.
Also, we had this amazing activity Monday where Irmã Vanessa passed Christmas Cards to each of us, and then had us pass our cards around and write in each card why we loved the person to whom it belonged. After this we were permitted a brief pause from our fast to tell each person, one after the other, what we loved about them, and why we loved them. It was an incredibly uplifting activity, and it really made the entire English Fast that much easier.
I received a letter postmarked the 9th containing my Patriarchal Blessing, and also a letter from Megan. Thank you so much for sending that. I still would like a copy of my Priesthood Line of Authority and my Call Letter if you can find those, but if not, that..s cool.
Also, Elders Hardisty and Taylor, who came with us from Provo, left this morning. It..s hard to see people from the old Provo crew depart, but I..m happy they have the opportunity to serve.
TUESDAY:
Not much to say, today we went to the São Paulo Temple again, and it..s still every bit as amazing there. Sadly, I almost fell asleep, because there really is no time for breakfast on P-Day. After we got back Elders Ulbrich and Scadden sang for the Christmas Day Talent Show Audition, and, while I am SICK of random musical practices for random performances, I must admit, they really are gifted singers.
After this we..ll be going to buy another new tie, and to the grocery store, to pick up some drastically needed supplies, as well as the post-office (though I..m not going to send any more letters until after I leave the CTM) and the paper store to pick up some other supplies for Elders Ulbrich and Scadden.
Tomorrow will be more or less normal, except we won..t speak English in the morning. In the afternoon, there are no classes, and we will either be watching some manner of movie or having a devotional.
Christmas, well, there will be a lot to talk about. Just in brief, we get to wear P-Day clothes all day, see some kind of movie (I think it..s miracle on 34th street, I..d love it if it was a Disney movie, though, haha), sleep in if we....d like, take pictures all over the CTM, Eat all manner of goods, watch the Christmas Devotional at night, play games, I believe the Elders will be receiving new ties via a random lottery which guarantees a tie, but not which tie. OH, and we get to wear P-Day clothes all day!!!
And then the day after will be Proselyting, for which I am incredibly excited.
I can..t believe the year I go to Brazil, IT SNOWS FOR CHRISTMAS! I MEAN COME ON!! It rains here, and when it doesn..t rain, it..s sunshine or lightning. It gets warmer, and warmer. Curse you laws of planetary physics and or Murphy..s law!!
But honestly, a tropical Christmas will be fun.
You didn..t actually tell me that Megan went to go and see Wendy and Jason, unless its in a letter I just have yet to receive. But I..m glad she made it home safely. I..ll be traveling soon, but some how I don..t think that snow will be a problem. I..ve learned there are alligators in Goias, for all that that is worth. I also hear the people there are nicer than in São Paulo, though we should not say that we are from America, because they..ll pretend they can..t understand our Portuguese.
So now Megan, Katie, Colin, Matt, Miranda, You, and Dad and Chingu are all there. I expect photos mom! Pictures for me! Woo!! I hear Chingu has mellowed and learned to shake? That..s cool.
I am not sure, but I THINK you can send me pictures via e-mail. I have to fork another R$ to pay for the paper, but otherwise, I think it isn..t much. I actually really like Brazillian currency. It..s very beautiful and interesting, as opposed to American currency, which boggles the mind. A pyramid with an eyeball, I mean, what?
Money here has animals on the back. The 1 has a hummingbird, the 2 has turtles, the 5 has macaws, I don..t recall the ten, and the 20 has baboons or something. I..m excited to have a 1 real bill, because normally, you can only get 1 real COINS, and the bill is really an interesting thing to have.
Well, I..m down to my last couple of minutes, and I need to save those for making sure this gets sent, so I love you all, and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Take pictures for me, and encourage my lazy siblings to write me, I love getting mail from them
So you sent a card? I hope I get it soon. I..m holding out hope I get another letter today or tomorrow, just to make Christmas that much better. If not, meh. I will live.
Your son
Bryan Barney