Email - 6/16/09

From: Bryan Barney
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 2:10 PM

Well, I still have to send my report off to pres, and I have a few appointments still tonight, so if I don't manage to finish this e-mail, I'll try and send out a new one later this week.

I'm okay that I didn't receive any e-mail this week, because I received a bunch this week, which doesn't make sense, but you all understand what I mean to say.

I was transferred two weeks back, so my companion now is Elder Felippe, from Curitiba. He's not my ideal companion, but recently we were told that if we wanted to have the right companion, we first needed to be him, so I'm really trying my best to smooth out the rough edges of my character.

I use glasses now, and I've taken a few photos, but I don't have my camera with me, so I can't really send any pics at present. I was told this week that I can receive e-mails from my friends, but all responses from me have to go through snail mail still, so I don't know what you all make of that, but okay.

This week we baptized a Peruvian man, named Douglas, who has a fairly interesting story. He's from Peru, but moved to the States, where he met and married Dulce, who is a Brasilian, but in 2001, in the middle of all the craziness following 9/11, Dulce was deported by the Cuban government out of Florida and into Brazil. Which hurts my head to wrap my brain around, but the long story is, we are trying to help her stop smoking so she can get baptized.

The church is pretty well established here in Brazil, and normally things go fairly well. The members are, on the whole, very faithful, and a great lot. Not a single convert to the church lacks a story that is long and interesting. In fact, one of my favorite techniques is, "Sister, could you tell us how you got to know the Church?" I have yet to see one of these stories last less than half an hour.

The thing is, no matter where you are in the world, there will always be a few crazy members. No matter where you go as an ELDER, though, the number of crazy people in and out of the church goes up. The other day we were seated at the bus stop, and I was talking to Elder Felippe in English (he speaks a good number of languages, my comp), and this lady she asked him, "Are you a foreigner?" "No, I'm a Gaucho (from Rio Grande do Sul)" "What brings a Gaucho to these parts?" "I'm here to teach The Gospel."

And the lady went berserk. You don't teach the gospel! You're a cult! Every night I pray that you learn about the truth (funny sister, we do the same for you) and tal and tal and tal and wow, the lady just sat there and attacked us and said all sorts of crazy things. It was not easy to set a bad example of the church, so we just grabbed the bus and disappeared. The lady was literally nuts. She walked off to throw something away, then came back and continued cussing us out.

But on the whole, the mission goes well. I meet more good people than bad. This week we met a young man named Bruno on Saturday, taught him, and brought him to church Sunday. During the week you teach a lot of people who say, "Oh, yep, I'm SO going to church this Sunday." When they realy want to say, "NO WAY JOSE." In fact we went until just about the end of the world to find someone who was a sure bet for Sunday, who didn't show up,and then came back, to find that Bruno was getting ready to go looking for the church on his own.

Time's run out for now, I love you all, and I'll try and send out a note later, but if I don't pull it off, I'll see you all again next week, huh?

Love, Bryan.