Email - 5_25_10

Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 8:13 AM

Well, I think maybe the postal code we have is wrong. I´m still looking into it. What I think happened is that, because the postal code is wrong, it got shipped somewhere else, and from there it has to be shipped here. I don´t honestly like the theory, much, since right on the front it ought to say "ANAPOLIS GO" And yet who knows where they sent it. Oh, silly Brazilian mailing system. My companion insists that the postal code I have is wrong, so we´ll settle this at the post office this week.

It´s good to hear you´re doing better. I´ve got a sore throat these days, but that´s because it´s been really dry here. It hasn´t rained real rain in Anapolis since before General Conference. The air is dry and full of dust. Oh, fun. But it´s nothing that enables me to work, so I don´t care. It´s not pain so much as annoyance.

You have no idea how much I actually miss yard-work. Funny, huh? But I actually miss the smell of fresh cut grass, dying from sweat in the Saturday Morning Sun as we roto-till, plant, weed-whack, mow, and all the rest of that fun. I´m sure just one summer at home and I´ll return to the regular laziness on Saturday Morning, but at the moment, I really miss taking care of the lawn. Probably because I miss having a lawn. Usually, only rich folks have good grass in front of their house in Anapolis. Poor folk have dirt or cement.

Yeah, well ALMOST whatever you cook will not solicit a complaint from me. Unfortunately if you make green beans or mushrooms, I´ll probably continue the same. The best part of the last year and six months is that I almost haven´t even SEEN a green bean. And may the Lord permit that I so continue, haha. But outside that, I won´t complain in the slightest. Because, well, like we always say here in the Mission, "The only bad lunch is the lunch that didn´t happen."

Ah, well, I suppose Elder Webber probably isn´t a relative, then. Who knows. His dad is a convert, but he was baptized in New Zealand a little more than just 5 years ago.

I´m really excited about watching conference in the new stake center. I hope it´s not very long from our house. Oh wait, I don´t have to walk there, yes!


And before I forget, here are a few other pictures that you might have been wanting to see:



The first is when Elder Nelson visited the mission. I´m sort of far back, but let´s see if you can find me. The other is a plane that is in the middle of town.


I gotta split now, but I love you, and take care until we meet again!

-Bryan

Email - 5/18/10

Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 8:17 AM

Well, bad news first, huh? My package still hasn´t come. Maybe it´ll get here this afternoon, but in all honesty, dunno. I´m a tad impatient about this, as I´ve yet to get any answers to my letters these days, too. Who knows, maybe the mail-men don´t like me too much, huh?

I´m sorry to hear you´re not doing so well. If it helps I´ve done lots of walking around town these days for you. It seems that, while I´m in Anapolis, there´s some sort of goal for me to accomplish here, in order to free myself from the city. So, in other words, we´ve gone exploring. We went to the very limits of Anapolis this week to give a blessing to a woman who lives there, we went all the way down town to the end of our area yesterday, and then the Bishop called us out walking all the way to the end of town again to visit a few families we´ll be taking to church this Sunday.

I find food very exciting given I´ve forgotten how to make just about everything. Plus money rarely allows, haha.



We have an Elder here in our district whose name is Webber, I wonder if he´s a relative? But it´s always good to have little get togethers. After all, what fun is it, being a member of the covenant people, if all we do is sit around in church on Sunday? We learned this last week that, after baptism, no one in this church is "american, brazilian, african, etc." but that we are all Latter-Day Saints, that our nation is the Kingdom of God, with a President, Pres. Monson, with Judges, and all the manner of organization God deems necessary.

Good to hear that you´ve been receiving and reading my letters. I know the news maybe isn´t all that new, but I´m trying to do my best, haha. I hope at least you´re all excited to get letters from Brazil, however tiny.

You can bet Matt´s in my prayers, and my hopes go with him. I´m sure things will go well sooner or later for him. Hopefully sooner. Back home is there a Church Job Resources system? We have one here in Brazil, and it´s an excellent resource. Maybe not the best way to find what he wants, but on the other hand, it helps find work.

All goes well down south for me. The Sisters in my group are going home. The end of next month Pres. Tobias goes home, and well, soon after everyone who is "my age" on the mission will be going home as well. This week we baptized Julie, Eliana´s cousin. We also went and played a bit in the waterfalls. I´m going to send home a few shots of our recent adventures here in Brazil.

Love you all, and take care!

-Bryan

Email - 5/11/10

Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 9:16 AM

It keeps on pretending to rain here, and then doesn´t. Which more or less means it gets freaking hot, then freaking hotter. And then it cools off at night, instead of raining.

Oh, and just so everyone back home knows, no, I was not transferred. Which means, as of June, I´ll have 9 months here in the city. I can´t say I´m surprised, but I also don´t want to make any negative comments about the fact that I stayed. If the Lord has need of me here, it means I haven´t yet finished everything He wants me to finish here. I rather expect I´ll be in Anapolis when Pres. Tobias ends his mission (he´ll be returning to working in Church Education System in Paraná.) I´m more or less the Authority on Anapolis at the moment, as no one in the city has more time here than I do, and with this group going home, I think I´m one of the older members of the Council of Leaders, which is funny, because last year, I´d have been considered a newbie still.

The plus side is that I´ll be here when my package arrives, right? Even though now I´ll have seen Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Ground Hog´s, Valentine´s (US), Valentine´s (BRASIL), St. Patrick´s, Carnivale, April Fool´s, Easter, and who knows how many other holidays here, haha.

I hope all is going well back home. Pray for us, as I´m praying for you. Send my love to everybody, and take care!

-Bryan

Email - 5/4/10

Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 9:13 AM

It´s funny here, with respects to temperature. The other day it was 84 outside and there was a slight breeze and I thought the temperature was just fine. The next day it got up to 93 and, well, yeah, it hurt. It hardly ever rains these days. Which is good and bad. Bad because the dryness is really irritating, but good because the mud wreaks havoc with our clothes.

The good part about not having a girlfriend is this, that you don´t have to worry about any of the after or during the mission drama. I´d be rich if I had a dollar for every time I heard some scandal of one missionary getting home and he and his girlfriend ending the relationship, or of Dear Johns, or any of another million things. The downside is that, many a day you say, "I don´t have anyone waiting for me back home," and some of the girls say, "I´m your next ticket out of town," or "You should totally wait for me to come back and marry you." and the many horror stories of Elders dating, getting engaged, or committing to girls while on their missions.

For this reason the plot continues as the following: At any given moment, any girl whose photo I have is liable to be called my girlfriend. The badluck falls on Sharelle, as Jess sent a lot of photos of her once, I think it was Easter 2009, and now the shots of her outnumber Kelsey, Jess, and the few Sisters I know. I know, I know, it´s lying, but hey, Abraham said Sarah was his sister to protect himself, right?

Hey, our ward has newsletters? Wow, it´s been a while since last I saw one of those. There´s a lot of work to do as a missionary in Brazil, in organizing the members and teaching them what to do, and in saving non-members and turning them into happy, healthy, active members. A wonderful example of how we´re going to have to improve in our ward. Our Relief Society is always doing activities, I believe Saturday will be the 3rd since I was transferred, and the 7th since I arrived in Anapolis. But the problem is that few sisters show up. Friday they had a cake activity, and, well, as you can guess, where there´s food, there´s elders, and yet, I think a fourth of the RS even came.

We had a blessing of a child here, too! Rafael and Juliana (Prof. of Gospel Principles, as ALWAYS, on my mission, ALWAYS, the Gospel Principles teacher is a young woman who is at some phase in the baby-having processes. ) and little Benjamim (yes, that´s how you spell Benjamin in português). It was funny to watch the whole process, as Rafael, who is one of our ward´s RMs, asked for my manual (which contains, among other things, a how-to on baby blessings) not because he didn´t know how, but because everyone thought he didn´t, and he therefore wanted to make sure. After the blessing, Irmão João our Ward Mission Leader, went talking loudly (he´s kinda deaf) about how Rafael had cried during the blessing.

Yeesh, my time ran out, and we´re in the midst of cleaning up our zone and being 100% in the rules, so I have to split. I´ll talk with you on Sunday, and I hope to have a lot of Good News. Please wait for my letters, too, and read them to the whole family.

Love,

Bryan