Dec. 8, 2014

This week we found a cool family, the mom is named Maralaya who has a daughter named Natally who is 15, and her other son Nicolas who is 16. They came to church and liked it a lot! Nicolas said that he received an answer that everything was true and so were going to teach him more this week and help be prepared to be baptized this weekend hopefully everything worksout okay. 

The family of Nelson was going to get baptized this last Sunday but Nelson had to leave for another city for work and so we moved their date for baptism this next weekend. 

Also our investigator Nedir stopped smoking to be baptzied but had to go to the hospitlal because his daughter had a bad fever but it will all be good. He´s a great guy and wants to be baptized and loves the church a lot so hopefully the next week it will all work out as well.

With Christmas approaching we had a special conference on Thursday with President and sister wright and the mission reached its goal with 1900 confirmations for the year and we still have more time. The president´s goal is that each area baptizes two people so were working hard and having lots of faith and we know that the lord will bless us with many special people to teach. 

I also got to see my first two companions on the mission. My first two trainers elder Seidmann and Elder Gabaii it was fun to speak with them because when I was with them the last time I didn´t speak andy portuguese so it was fun to be able to speak with them alot better! 

It´s deffinetly awesome being on the mission so many great people and aweosme experiences I 

don´t know where I would be without being here on the mission field! 

Love you guys have a great week!! 

Elder Gabaii and Elder Barrus

Elder Seidmann and Elder Barrus

comprei uma espada (dec.1)

During the week a lot of cool things happened but one of the more interesting things was what the church will be doing for Christmas! On the 7th of December You Tube will only be showing one video on the entire website that will be hosted by the church. Also in times square on the big billboard will be advertisting the video as well so it will be cool to see what people think about the church after it is realesed. Really the gospel is being preached in all times and in all places. The video is called ``He is the gift``   

We found a family super special, they have a son that was having some problems with drugs and so they accepted to hear our message, they ended up going to church and wanting to be baptized but the parents just need to stop smoking. But they are super awesome and I know that God has a special plan for them.

We then found a very poor but humble family, the mom lives alone with her daughter and two sons. We were only able to teach them about the book of mormon and the importance of baptism and they went to church as well! It was cool to see how the lord is helping these wonderful people. 

I´m so thankful for my oppurtunity to be a missionary and to help so many people come unto Christ especially during the Christmas season! 

I love you all and have an awesome week!! 

Nov. 24

haha sounds like your having lots of fun adventures enjoy your trip! Those lemure things would be fun to play with! That fish thing sounds really weird! Have caution with all the spiders! This week a big horse chased after the mexican missionary in our group it was pretty funny!! 

November 17, 2014

So this week was pretty great,

Monday:Pday for lunch we made a bunch of pastels with meat and cheese and sat around and played some cards.

Tuesday: We went and vistited Philipe he wants to be prepared more before he gets baptized and didn´t give any reasons for why or what he wanted to know so it was strange and then on sunday he didn´t show up for church even though we went and knocked on his door and he said he would go so we cut him.

Wednesday: Found this cool bridge and was a super cool view a train passed by underneath us and I think It must have been one kilometer long because I could just barly see from the caboos to the front of the train. We then and visited our investigator named Enrique who is doing well and said that he wanted to get baptized on Sunday. 

Thursday: Taught this cool man named Neri he owns a farm and liked our message alot and ended up saying that he wanted to go to church so that he could be baptized when I had only shared a message about how we can live again because of the resurection of Christ and the importance of church. SO it was way cool to see how the spirit prepared him. We then got to go to his farm because he wanted us to say a prayer for his animals so I got to see a cow that was only 15 days old I thought it was a goat! We also had district meeting and I taught about how to teach investigators effectivly by using 15 different points.

Friday: We ate an ostrich it was good but it made me super sleepy. THen this guy started talking to me in the street and every time I tried to leave he would keep asking me more questions it ended up that we talked to him for an hour and a half and so we hadn´t even talked or taught a single person until 6! And I wasn´t feeling super well probally because of the ostrich!

Saturday we visited the family of Jean the family that gave me my brasilian pants. They are super awesome and I started my long life carrer of catching chickens. The grandma wants to show me how to kill a chicken so we´ll see how that goes! Also I was using a lighter and I put it near my face cause it felt warm and then my hair caught on fire... 

Sunday Enrique wasn´t able to get baptized because his friend was sick in the hospital so he went and visited him so this next week were going to schedule his baptism again and hopefully it all goes well! Then for dinner we had a barbeque on the other side of the city and so we took a taxi and when we got there there was all kinds of meats it was sweet I ate rabbit, goose, chicken, cow and who knows what eles?! It was awesome and it rocked! Also we found a turtle in the middle of the road and so I put it in my bag and put it in the baptisimal font with lettuce and tomorrow I will put Fred near the river it was pretty funny because it kepts trying to climb out of my bag while we were walking and I didnt want any people to see a missionary with an escaping turtle cause that just wouldn´t be good!

Today is also the day of the transfernece and so tomorrow I will be getting a new companion so that´ll be good me and Elder Hortêncio had some good times! 

Yo - November 10, 2014

So this week was pretty swag we went into the depths of Pantano the world of evanglicas and crazzy old people who yell at you when you get too close!  We found our friend philipe and taught him a few times but didn´t come to the church to get baptized. The family of Elisangela is doing good we are going to their house tonight and it will be fun. The six year old son José is crazzy and filled with energy and its fun to spend time with such a great and special family! 

During the week we visited the couple Valmir and Laine and they want to go to church again this past week but their daughter had an intesnse surgery to get her tonsels taken out. We left a message about how the Lord will strenghthen us throught the commandments, really when we do the simple things through obeidience we are sure to receive the blessings and promises exercised  by our faith.

When traveling throught the city we found a big cemetary and it was cool to walk throught it here the people are buried above the earth! 

So a cool story:

Before I arrived in the area of Rio Pardo the missionaries before me had talked with a guy on the street named Enrique. He had been smoking and told them that he wanted to go to church and needed some help. So it turns out that he is studying English and it happens that I know a little so I went over to his house and translated a whole page for him and then after I started to help him understand the basics of some of the grammer that we use. Then we taught him a lesson and told us he wants to be baptized this Sunday so were going to do our best to help him! Its so cool to find people who need our help and to be there for them each step of the way! 

I loved reading your emails I ran out of time to write a big email because I was coping pictures into a pindrive of 16GB that I will try to send home soon. 

The gospel is awesome and I love being in RIo Pardo so many awesome people in this area!

Lots of Love,

Elder Barrus! 

November 3, 2014

haha thats awesome she called you. elder dickson was super awesome... We got along great together he was the first companion that made me able to teach in portugeuse I wouldn´t be where I am without him. We had alot of fun times together me burning food, lady that wanted me to baptize her dog, the crazzy guy all kinds of fun things. He knew how to teach super well the gospel and now Im am starting to speak portugese alot better than ever before this week I started saying some phrases without any accent! And now I can say the first vision without any accent as well I think at the end of my mission I´ll be able to speak without an american accent but we´ll see!  Elder Dickson was deffinetly one of my more normal companions for sure. I liked him a lot we are still in the same zone for another two weeks and so every thursday we see each other so its fun.  You stay strong mom!

I don´t know what I´ll do today -  mby make some cookies! Its weird because pday is the most busy day for me at least it not super relazing!! I have to write letters, clean the house, cook food for lunch, and I ran out of all my clean clothes that hasn´t happened in awhile but ohh well! I think the next pday we will go to a hisoric site of the area and see canons that had shot at people 200 years ago. Also has the first road of cobble stone in the state of Rio Grande do Sul ( Big river of the south is the name of the state that Im in) 

Soo this week we did somthing new in the area we left. We found out that there is a whole entire city that never had missionaries! So we left for the city of Pantano and it was interesting usulally people when they see us look away, cross to the oposite side of the street, or start walking super fast when they get close to us haha. But when I arrived in Pantano the people didn´t know what to think of us! We started knocking doors right away and taught a woman named Maria the first lady taught by missionaries in Pantano, she liked our message alot and we will return there on wednesday. We also found a lady who had gone to church in Rio Pardo twenty years ago! Her son Philipe had gone with us to church 3 weeks ago but had been sick so we decided to visit them. His mom Rosari had alot of questions and we ended up teaching her for two hours to answer all her questions about baptism and the book of mormon man it was a long lesson but she agreed to have her son baptized on Sunday. He is 26 but because of his accident lives with his parents but is a fairly normal guy he just seems alot younger like 18 or 20 but is super cool and is very interested in the church. We had the interview with the district leader and he passed and chose me to baptize him the next day. I was super excited but then we got a call from his mom saying that she didn´t want him to be baptized until the following week and becuase it was raining -__-  So we´re going to visit them this week and prepare them as a family for baptism this coming sunday and I hope that they can all go to church together. We also had a couple who went to church for the first time after four weeks of teaching them! They loved church alot and I hope that they can keep going. So this week over all was good Im starting to get alot better at planning and not getting lost anymore which is good!

Halloween: For halloween here in Brazil they don´t carve pumpkins sad right? But don´t worry I carved a watermellon instead it was awesome!! The face glowed red in the dark it was sweet and now we have tons of water melon to eat! 

Crikets: For some reason my mom sent me crickets in a box... And I ended up eating two of them! And the other three missionaries with me also ended up eating some crickets as well! Thank you mom! Haha my companion wasn´t able to eat it and ended up spiting it out and started to cry!

But all in all this was a pretty great week! It was fun to take the bus to another city to teach the gospel. Love you all and hope you all had a great week!

October 27, 2014

haha sounds good! I got your five packages ohh my goodness! I took a picture of me standing next to all the boxes! Early christmas right!

Just finding and following up with people in this area here. I´ve had a ton of people who have accepted us after the first visit. The other missionaries that were here had been baptizing every week so I'm going to keep trying and finding people to teach. The members here are great and love helping the missionaries out a lot so the area is having a lot of success!

can you put in one of the boxes quejo the cheese suace it doesnt exist here in brazil :( only for doritios but its super expensive its like five dollars for one can

yea I got tons of syrup I think it should last until the end of my mission so thanks alot! I also got milky way bites and twix and 27 starburst!! The brazilians liked the starbursts And I still have about 15 or so

Monday went and visited the family of Elisanjela again and so it was fun to see them and have some fun. Joseph the six year old is crazzy and has lots of energy and is always running all over the place! P days always go by super fast! 

Tuesday- Our appointments fell through so we tried to find people to teach but didn´t have any success. It was a super hot day and my arms are dark brown again so I wont get any more sunburned. 

Wednesday: I had made a bunch of contacts with people on the streets, so I got excited so I planned out the day with a bunch of contacts and decided to go to an area where all of these houses would be close together so that we could teach a bunch of lessons in a short amount of time. It would´ve been a super good plan but all the people gave false adresses.... So it was another day of lots of walking but we mananged to have a few lessons with people so that was good.

Thursday: We went and tried to visit Philipe but he was in another city and sick. We went to a section far on the other side of our city and taught some new people and marked appointmets so hopefully it all works out. Then we went to a family that had been baptized a month ago and they gave us food and told us to come back on saturday so that we could make bread together. 

Friday: We had a zone conference with the president and the assistants and it went really great. THey taught about how we need to remember our goals and to continue applying the techniques in the lessons. They did some practises as well and It helped alot. 

Sat we ate bread with the family of Jane and it was alot of fun, it was good to visit them agian they are doing really great and the grandma wants to make me a pair of brazilian pants should be pretty awesome.

Sunday: I gave a short 10 minute talk on my purpouse as a missionary. I used preach my gospel to help me out and the talk went great! After the meeting we received 3 references from the members. After church we went and visited a few more people, then we went to our investigators house. His name is Tiago and he is planning on getting married in January so that he can be baptized. He has been going to church for two years and is super awesome! We made a barbeque together and I learned how to make a barbeque, brazilian styled! It was a good way to end the week. 

Love you guys!

Elder Barrus

The lady is kicking us out! I will return at 5 but I think you will be at the baby shower so have funn!! 

Love Austin!!