Email 2/3/09

From: Bryan Barney
Sent: 2/3/09

Hello one and all! It's me again.

I'll kick off with the bad news, I guess. No baptisms this month, and our investigators, one and all, did not come to church this week, utterly foiling our plans to baptize them on Saturday. But we're not entirely doomed yet. We still have Mara, and so long as she shows on Sunday, we can baptize her then. We've almost finished teaching her everything, and she really is accepting it all. The best part is that she's reading the Book of Mormon on her own now, which officially places her about a mile ahead of the rest of the pack.

That said, I am doing well. Serving a mission is an interesting and engaging experience. I don't know, honestly, where some missionaries find the time to sin, I barely have time to eat, haha! (Not true, lunch is huge most every day, and I way approx. 73 K know, which means I need to better utilize my work out time in the morning.) Meals are, for the most part, an adventure here. Sometimes you get really REALLY good food, and then again, the other day, we had chicken feet. I didn't eat it, but I doubt I can really last the whole mission without one time doing that. I may do it just to say I did, you know?

But the people here are all very nice, maybe at times too nice. Some times it is hard to know if someone is interested, or just a nice person. Many people here are willing to give you whatever they've got, even though they don't know you (I'm talking food and drink, anyway).

Speaking of stomachs, Elder Eliason and I are off to McDonald's for lunch here soon. It's a bit pricy, by Real standard, since it's like R$11 for a Big Mac, but since that's only like 5 bucks, it isn.'t really. Dunno. We have to do some shopping today, too, and then I get to open the letter I got from home. It isn't like the day I got 7 letters in one fell swoop, but hey, a letter from home is a letter from home, right?

If you run into Collin Burnham again, ask him for Andy's mission address. I don't have it, and I would like to send him a letter some time, wish him good luck from Brazil. Also, if you run into Whitney, let her know I'm working on a letter, but I have not yet sent one. I think. If I have, it went to Jess.
Speaking of letters, Pres. Tobias says we need to have mail sent directly to our houses. The Mission Office is in fact about the size of the upstairs of our house, from what I can tell, so there isn't a bunch of room for a hundred plus missionaries' mail to stack up every month. To that end, it is probably best not to send anything past this week until my next transfer. Only because I don't know where I'll be, you know? Oh, well, I mean, send EMAIL, but letters probably need to wait after the end of this week until my next area.

And just a note to end on, somebody let Dad know he was a spoiled Missionary. Elder Eliason and I read his account of a bathtub with clawed feet and separate rooms and, if I am not mistaken, an upstairs. We live in a one-story, have no drier (I think that's just a brazillian thing, air-drying) and oh yeah, our bathroom doubles as the shower, haha. It's pretty funny, actually. I'm just saying, American Missionaries are spoiled. Us Brazilians tough it out, yo!

Alright, well, it is about time to finish this. I love everyone and I hope you are all doing well. I am glad you watched Ground Hog's day for me Mom, all I did was see some capebara (I'll maybe get lucky and snap a shot, but I doubt it). I love you all, and hope you're safe. Oh, and I had root beer the other day, yes!

Love,
Bryan.