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Letters

8-28-12   Sorry, it's hard to write on a plane.

Hi famiy!

Brazil is great. Well, the plane to Brazil. The Brazilian people are very friendly and very helpful.  The other missionaries and I are gonna need help once we land.  This flight would be so easy if I could watch the in flight movies. (Avengers, Hunger games, Lorax)  It's kind of weird thinking I'm going to be gone for 2 years.  I don't know when it'll really hit me.  A lot of funny looks in Atlanta.  Something about 11 well dressed kids I guess.  Though we've also had a lot of well wishes and nice gestures (like the 2 ladies offering all of us to use their phones).  1 of the guys next to me on the plane tried to help me with portuguese...well, he tried.  One of the Elders ran with Spencer at BYU.  Fun fact.  

Well, I'm gonna try to get some sleep.  Elder Tapp is the other to Porto Alegre south.

Love you all!  Deus abencoe!

Elder Beary

9-9-12

Minha Familia! (All is well?)

Tudo bem?  Direct translation.  It means like "Hey, what's up?  Pretty much the 1 must know phrase for living in Brazil.  To answer you say "Tudo bem".  Pretty easy, huh?  Too bad the rest of portuguese isn't that easy.

The MTC is great, it's hard sometimes but there's no where else I'd rather be.  Everyone here is just fantastic.  I'm learning so much every day.  I feel like I'm behind in the language since I don't have a spanish background but when I compare myself to day 1, I feel pretty good.  P days are the best thing in the world though.  I decided on my team for down here, gotta stay with the blue, so I'm going to support Gremul!!

Turns out Porto Alegre is kind of like the San Francisco of Brazil.  OH!!! Porto Alegre will be hosting world cup games, that makes me really happy.  

Stuff is so cheap here.  I bought 6 pounds of snacks for 6 hais (3ish dollars). Electronics are expensive, but I don't need those anyway.  I'm going to buy a Gremul jersey on p-day.  So, by the time you get this I'll already have it. They're 25 hais (13ish bucks).  I don't think they are that authentic but I don't care.  I'll get Brazil t-shirts at some point as well.  We got new roomies and 1 is from fort Eliza? and the other...Porto Alegre.  He helped me declare my Gremul pride.  They have a great team song.

Jordan, you've definitely got to do this whole mission thing.  Best decision ever.

Vos unico viver uma (ves) --- You Only Live Once!  (close enough)

Deus Abencoe!

Love you all!

Elder Beary

9-11-12

Mae,

Thank you for all of your letters!  I haven't had time to read the novel that I just got today but I'll read it at 21:30!!  Mail is nice.  I like getting letters.  It makes me feel good, plus it's a pick me up.  Closest thing to a surprise around here.  Also, I have time to detail letters/personalize them.  30 minutes for 3-mail barely gives me enough time to detail 1 email.

Garments down here are .75 cents.  I'm gonna buy some tomorrow.  I don't like the kind I got.  Plus, there's a top not sold in America.  It's super light and absorbs moisture.

My new roommate (who might be gone by the time you get this) and 1 of my instructors are from Porto Alegre.

I get more and more excited to go everyday!

Eu Ama Voce,  Elder Beary

9-12-12

Irmo Jordan, (not sure if I spelled that right)

1st off, you've definitely got to do 1 of these mission things.  They're great.  Hard sometimes but definitely worth it.

2nd, can you try to get me Kyle, Curtis, and Alex's adress, thanks.

How's school and XC going?  By now you're probably the fastest on the team, if not the state.

Everything besides electronics are so cheap here.  I feel super rich here and the money is way cool.

Keep stron and get out here... well, maybe not here, but on a mission.

Love, Elder Beary

9-12-12

Pa,

Thanks for that letter Dad.  You guys are slacking on the sports updates.  How about USU beating the U?  That news brought joy to my heart.

It's fun here, hard sometimes, especially the portuguese.  But, I'm starting to understand it.

We're on a bus right now on our way home from the temple.  We're still in Sao Paulo, but we're 45 minutes away from the CTM.  That's how big this city is.  It's really hot here too. (This bus is so shaky)

Oh, the people drive crazy here.  Especially, the motorcyclists.

I've got that letter hanging up in my "closet".  Thanks again.

Love, Elder Beary

Week Four

Another P-day already!!! Time is starting to move! We started the day going to the temple, always a plus. Then we went to Mr. Cheneys cookies/mission ties and got a cookie because they´re honestly the best thing ever. I´ll send pictures of that. Oh, I started reading the bible because I figured with all the catholics down here I should probably do that. So my instructor Irmão Isral printed me off a bible reading plan he used on his mission. By this time next year I´ll have read the old testemant once and the new testemant twice. I might double up though so I can finish in 6 months. We´ll see. Last night when I was laying in bed I realized that I am starting to think in Portogése. That´s big time for me. I´m starting to be able to piece it all together. It makes me feel good if nothing else. Can you believe on Saturday I´ll hit the month mark! Time is starting to fly!

       Yesterday my roommates left, (Elder Amorim e Edler Silva) They´re both going to the São Paulo Norte mission, I´m jealous that they got to leave after just 19 days but happy for them. It was a sad moment, but that´s expected when you lose a friend. I´ll send some pictures home of them today. I don´t really know what to say this week, people weren´t lying when they said the days just start to be the same. Nothing special is really happening. Oh, I get to leave the CTM and get a shot soon, that´ll be different. We started donig P90X ab ripper at night because we´re starting to get fat. Day 1 and I´m sore as could be. It´s sweater weather here in São Paulo so I was finally able to bust that out of the suitcase. We have started to do hand stands on the chairs just for fun, we´re getting better, it´s a good way to wake yourself up. Oh! It finally rained last night! I mean rained, not just sprinkled. We were pounded for about 45 minutes total, just off and on but when it came, it came hard. Volleyball is still the best part of every day!

       It sucks to hear that BYU´s offense is still terrible... Where´s Jake Heaps when you need him? This might be all I have to say today... that´s kinda disappointing... I´ll do better next week. Promise.

     

       Soren is in my prayers.

One more thing!!! I found out POS (Porto Alegre Sul) is one of the least baptising missions in Brazil. I´m planning on changing that in the next 2 years. We´ll be on top.

Week Three

Okay, so lets start off with the most recent crazy thing to happen... So this moring we went to the Sao Paulo temple, after a 45 minute crazy drive through the city (which I slept during) when we got there all was normal through the first half, when suddenly the power went out... onlyl for about 15 seconds but then about 5 minutes later the power went out again. This time for a half hour just sitting in there until they told us to go change and we had to give all the names back so they could be done later. It was pretty cool experience... Oh, and it happened in Brazil so there´s my 1 up story. Oh... Speaking of 1 up stories... I kept forgetting to mention... Have any of you guys ever seen the sunrise? 35,000 feet in the air? Oh, and over the Amazon river? :) That was one of the prettiest things ever.

My weird throat thing is getting a lot smaller, so no worries there. I don´t remember if I ever told you guys that there´s me and 4 others in my district going to Porto Alegre Sul (Elder Russel, Miller, Tapp and Gagnon.) We got a new sister to our district this week, her name is Sister Feddock. She did a couple weeks in the Provo MTC waiting for her Visa... We also got a new roomate this week, Elder Revis, he´s from Argentina, and he´ll only be with us for a week, his district left this last week but he still had a week to do so he´s in a 3 way group with Elder Amorim and Elder Silva.

I sent a couple pictures home last week so they should be arriving in the states the next couple of weeks. You can see a little life of Sao Paulo! Well, behind a gate. The other night we found out that our roomate (Amorim) doesn´t like Taylor Swift SO... Every night Elder Taylor, Simspon, Spencer and I sing him a different Taylor Swift song... I like to think that we´re changing his life for the better.

I think the best part of the CTM is being able to talk about scriptures and deep doctorine with a bunch of 19 year old guys. It´s something else just listening to them speak and knowing there point of views since we´re all from different parts of the country. Oh, if you want to stretch your brain sometime this week try to understand D&C 93:23-24. Good luck with that one.

I forgot to mention when we were at the temple today the Sao Paulo East Mission was there since today is there transfer day. There were 6 of them going home and they looked so excited to have served the Lord honorably and finally get to see there family. (they also looked exhausted) During the power outage one of them whispered ``If I miss my flight I`m going to punch a baby right in the face. I guess the mission doesn´t completely change a person.

I’m finally figuring out the keyboard! Notice there are a lot less mistakes than my last 2 emails... And there’s actually a body to this one.

This week was a good one, especially with the language... Meu Portoguese e muito bom. Well, not really, but it’s a lot better than it used to be. I can’t wait to start forgetting English words and replacing them with Portuguese. All the elders about to leave were struggling with their English. It’s weird to think that’s going to be me.

Mom, thanks for all the letters, and thanks Jess and Grandma for letters as well.

  I know I’m nowhere near fluent in the language but almost all of my dreams now have at least 1 Portuguese sentence in it so that’s better than it used to be!!!

Love you all!!! See you soon! 

Week Two

Tudo Bem!?!?! Hello everyone! Finally another 30 minutes to try to bust out 100+ hours of information! Well, Elder Spencer and I lost our first set of roomates, which was really sad. I remember there names now. Elder Silva, Elder Marocha (from Chile), Elder Leite, and Elder Juanario... Or something like that. We got new roomates though on Thursday and I like them a lot. Just 2, both natives, the first one is another Elder Silva, Diego Sosa Silva, he speaks 0 English so that’s a little rough. The 2nd one is Elder Amarim... He’s from Porto Alegre!!! So between him and my instructor Israel, I’m learning all sorts of slang words for the area and learning the cultrue. Elder Amarim is fluent in the English so he’s been able to help us a lot with Portoguese. Oh, I’ve declared my pride to Gremu! Gotta go with the blue and black, I was raised right. Stuff is so cheap here, it’s fun. It makes me feel kinda rich, there’s some really good chip things... They’re the texture of chips but in the shape of a ball... Well, thery’re only 1 rais, which is about 50 cents, so I will be buying way too many of those in about 1 hour. We’re also going to get some all you can eat meat today... Tucanos style, but a lot cheaper, and I’m assuming better... If that’s possible. I´ll be going to print off pictures today and send some home, so hopefully in the next couple weeks we can have picture updates! Sao Paulo finally got some rain! It only took 60ish days of no rain. After that long, with 30ish million people living in the city you can only imagine how nasty the air was. Volleyball really makes the CTM better. We have gym time at about 11 so we play for about an hour everyday and it´s easily the best thing in the world. I still stand by the statement that I have the best district in the CTM, everyone is so nice and so cool. (sister Johnson is the sister that for some reasosn I couln´t remember) though we´re getting a new sister today coming from the MTC and she´ll be in our district, I hope she fits in. Did you notice I figured out where ` was on the keyboard... Hopefully it´ll make my emails look a little better. (doubt it). Oh, so, on I think... Sunday we had a really really good fireside, the mission president of Sao Paulo East and his wife spoke, it was really good. Firesides are another one of the highlights here, great speakers, and I write some letters during them (don´t tell anyone). Also on Sunday I realized something weird in the back of my throat, so the next day after gym time (I waited until after so if it was something serious I wouldn´t have to miss gym, don´t worry, I´m being watched out for). Well, turns out it was a tonslic tap... Or something like that, I guess it´s not big deal unless it starts bleeding or hurting... lets hope that doesn´t happen. Went to the temple today!!! Man, the San Paulo one is so pretty... Not as pretty as the Porto Alegre one (look it up) but still pretty. It´s insane how big the city is. It took 45 minutes to get to the temple, on the free way and we didn´t even get close to leaving the city boundries... Not quite as big as Spanish Fork but it´s close §) (that´s supposed to be a winky face but the key is in a different spot and I like it so I´ll just leave it) All the buildings here literally go straight up and from far away look the same. There´s no such thing as down town because there´s just skyscrapers everywhere. The 7 story CTM is really short compared to everything else. P days are so much fun here, we get to walk around the city and buy stuff... What more can I ask for? Oh, Mr. Cheneys cookies, across the street... Probably the best cookies everywhere... I might just be saying that because it´s American. Or maybe just because it is the best... We had Spamburgers 1 night, and spam hot dogs another... As bad as those would normally be, they were some of the best tasting things ever. Dang, out of time and I´m no where near done... also think I might be getting carpo tunel... I know that´s not spelled right but I have no idea how so, oh well.

I love you all, Deus abençoe!!!

-Elder Justin Thomas Hart Beary

P.s. If you´re reading this I expect to see a letter from you in about 5 days. Mail really is the best thing. It´s a surprise and a pick me up if you´re having a bad day. Thanks to those who have sent me something, they all cheered me up. Mail has never and will never be this important to me again. 

Picture time

Elder Spencer, Elder Taylor, Elder Simpson, Elder Beary

Week One

What a crazy week, the plane ride here was awful. Too long, hardly anyone to speak Ingles to, hard to understand followed up by what were the longest 2 days of my life. Things have moved a lot better since then, the days are starting to fly and I'm starting to get the language. I'm behind most in my group and that's kinda discouraging but I see my progress from the last week and it makes me happy. The no Spanish background is hurting me, they're about 60% the same and I don' t have that help but I'm trying. I never knew it was possible to love 4 guys so much... Before you laugh here me out. Elder Spencer and I (he's my companion, great guy. From SLC plays LAX at westminster? He's our district leader, just a quality guy.) were lucky enough to have 4 Natvie roomates, well 3 natives and 1 Bolivian, (Elder Silva, Leite... I can't even think of the other 2 right now... That'll happen next week too.)they were awesome. They helped us so much with our Portogese and us with their Ingles. They were a lot of fun but also very spiritual. They left on Tuesday so Monday night was pretty emotional, we cried, hugged, took pictures. All the good stuff, I'll try to send pictures home soon, I can't today, not enough time, amazing how people love you when you're gone. So many emails today. It's awesome, it really is. Well, the food here is really hit or miss, especialy the desserts... Wednesdays for lunch so far, the dessert is awesome, everyother day it's something weird like condensed milk with weird toppings. We've had some great meals, who would have thought that Spamburgers would be so good, it was a nice taste from home. On Monday we had a rice and beans dish, the beans were cooked with pig... not pork, not bacon but pig, there were bones and other weird stuff in it, we have it every Monday, it's better than it sounds you've just got to chew slowly. I had a pretty rough night on Monday just felt really discouraged during language study but I have a great district. They're so fun. Elder Spencer and I have 2 really good friends in Elder taylor (plays LAX at BYU, from southern Cal.) and Elder Simpson (plays Football at SVU from Washington state) Natives call him Bart because of the Simpsons or Hulk because he's huge. Oh, fun fact, people call me Elder Big Bang Theory buecause apparently I look like Sheldon from that show. Brazillians are awesome, they're so fun and loving, it's gonna be great here. The Brazillian national anthem is awesome. I'm running out of time, this stinks. People are trying to distract me, I really want a hamburger, a real one. Today we get to go into te city, I'm excited, it's kinda like prison in here. Next week I'll include my limited Portogese knowlege but again, no time. I love you all and am so happy you're supporting me, it really makes things easier out here. I know there's a lot I'm forgetting but I left my notebook upstairs and don't wanna wasted time to get it. Oh, the drinking fountains here have 2 buttons, 1 for cold water 1 for room temperature. Fun fact. Everything here is so cheap, I'm excited to go get stacks on stacks on stacks of candy. Oh, my district is me, Elder Spencer, Simpson, Taylor, Georgianna, Gagnon, Russel, Tapp, Miller and Sister Maglebey (from the airport) and sister... Ummm, next week, I'm struggling right now. Again love you all, I swear next weeks email will be better!

-Elder Beary