Another week!!!

I don´t really know what to say this week... Ummm, it was really hot, and even more humid. I don´t know the numbers but, I honestly felt like I was swimming when I walked. I got sunburned, but it has now turned nicely into my mission tan line. It´s been cloudy and rainy the last 3 days though which I like so much more, I say that now but we´ll see how I feel once July comes around. I forgot to mention my other nicname I got before I left the CTM, and I actually kinda dig this one because I love Spiderman. But, the brazillians that left the same week as I did called me Peter Parker, I will hear that every time I see them, and I´m okay with that. 

The mosquitos have finally started to leave me alone, maybe because I´m becoming a real Brazillian!!! Or, maybe because I´m using repellent, either way I´m happy with it. Too bad about Romney right??? Every time I walk some where I´m told that Obama won, I think because every Brazillian wants to be the first to let me know, but all they do is remind me, it´s nice down here. I love the ward, I had my first and second churrasco this week, the first 1 was for one of the brothers birthday (the same one that I had my first chimarrão), the second one was yesterday for lunch with one of our investigators and her family. (extended family).

Oh, we have 3 investigators with baptism dates now!!! That doesn´t mean they WILL get baptized but, it´s a good start! I think they will, :D December 22nd is the goal!  Though, we think 1 of them will be later this month. 

On Saturday we did a service project, we turned 1 of the nastiest back yards into one of the most organized nasty back yards! I don´t know how much you can see in the photo but hopefully enough to kinda know! 

We had a very very very good week, not just by my standards but also according to our numbers!!! Last week we had 4 people attend church... This week... 12. Ya, in case you were wondering that´s really good for down here! :D 

It´s nice getting an hour to email now but... Now I don´t really know what to say because I haven´t been writing stuff down, this week I will write down everything that I want to share!!!! I am doing pretty well with the language, got great, but better than I was expecting. My goal is to be comfortable with the language by Christmas time, that´s definitely reasonable. I still have a hard time understanding everything. And some people are definitely harder to understand than others. There´s a couple families that I can talk with fine, then others that I just sit there and listen because I have no idea what´s going on. Still drinking a lot of Chimarrão, and Guarará. I´m eating a lot more now too, I don´t know if that´s a good thing or not though, as of now I´ve lost 2 kilos since last P-day but I´m sure it´l start catching up to me. I want to go bowling, that´d be too fun. 

I hope everything is good at home!!! Almost happy tThanksgiving!!! (I actually don´t know what day it is) But while you´re eating a turkey who knows, maybe I´ll hold another one!!!

Te amo!

-Elder Justin Beary

Picture Time

Pictures from the CTM

Pictures from Elder Beary's first area.

First Week in the Mission Field!!!

Well, I don´t even know what to say about the last week in the CTM it seems so long ago but, I liked it a lot. There was a fair amount of tears and happiness... Now, to the field!!!

I woke up at 3:30 to finish packing and leave the CTM by 4:30, got to the airport at about 6, flight left at 8. We arrived in Porto Alegre at about 10, then got to the mission home at about 11. We did some orientation, interviews and then got our trainers!!! The new elders sat on one side, the trainers on the other then they would call our names and we would meet in the middle to hug and sit, we had a little advice given to us, then it was off to the bus station to go to our areas!!! Some of my group stayed in Porto Alegre but... Not me, I took a 3 hour bus ride to the beautiful city of................................................................. Pelotas!!!! I´m in the Pelotas Norte zone, serving in the Fernando Osórlo ward!!! The ward is too good, they´re all really nice and cook really well... That night I had my first experience with chimarrão... Not going to lie, not the best thing I´ve ever tasted, plus it burned my tongue a fair amount. Though now I love it!!! The best way I can think of how to describe it is... WHen you have a lot of original sunflower seeds in your mouth at the same time... But it feels like it´s on fire, ya´ll will have to try it in 22 months!!!  before this though (this was all at the 2nd counselors house) We went into his back yard where he has a bunch of birds and we held his turkeys... Ya, you read that right, I don´t know why but we did. My companion is a native, Elder Viana, I like him a lot, he´s been really helpful, I can´t wait to learn more from him for the next 3 months. He´s from Fortaleza, he´s been here just 7 months, he knows enough english to get by. It was weird being here on halloween because,,, very few people cared about it... The next day though we had a ward activity and it was a halloween party, we couldn´t do much because it was a dance but it was fun to be at! We have a couple investigators ready for baptism!!! But, 1 big problem... Not legally married, I think I´ll be running into this a lot, they´re close though, by the end of the month they should be baptized!!! They´ve been members, all but baptized for months now. 

Here´s my embarrasing portuguese story for week 1... While talking to the bishop I told him. ``Eu não falo muito bom, mas eu quero ajudar sua mala`` well, for all you english speakers that don´t know what I said I told him... I don´t speak well, but I want to help your bag.`` Mala is bag... I meant to say ala, which is ward... Oh well, I caught myself right after, not to much harm done! 

Everytime we go to someones house they give us juice, I´ve never had so much in my life, but I´m starting to like it!!! Though, sometimes I would kill for a glass of water. I can´t help a ton in the lessons because I don´t understand it all, but... I can bare my testimony... Plus, my lack of portuguese I think is helpful when we´re making contacts because people think it´s cute... Legit, I think it helps, plus they don´t want to make me feel bad. Mom, please send more afterbite. I hate mosquitos and I don´t think what I have now is going to last very long... Thanks! ÇD

I´m going to start teaching an english class next week!!! It´s an idea we have to get us new investigators and help the ward... I think it has potential!!!

Coolest story of the week time... So, one of the members in the ward is a DJ for a Saturday night radio show... Guess who was on the radio in Pelotas last Saturday!!! This guy... I didn´t say much but Good night Pelotas and I helped the Irmão say ``make fun of`` my name; Oh well, I can say I was on the radio in a different country, beat that Jordan!

I´m so happy to be here, even though it´s a lot of walking it´s worth it! I want you all to know that I have a testimony that Jesus Christ lives! That Joseph Smith restored the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Te amo!!!!

Elder Justin Beary

Week Eight

1st. I learned that I am allowed to play soccer on my mission, I´m very excited about that. Ummm, I get to drink and eat all the things down there, nothing is against the word of wisdom. Winning. I really regret not bringing some sauces for the CTM (A1, Tapito... etc...) But I wouldn´t need it in the field anyways. We sang Ye Elders Of Israel this Sunday and people said we did well, not much more news on that. Sunday, the CTM choir (everyone is in it) Sang Joseph Smiths prayer and the president liked it so much he asked us to do an encore... So that was pretty darn neat, we always do a verse in english, portuguese and spanish because those are the 3 languages peop.e here speak. We have started palying basketball here during gym because the brazillians swarm you when you try to play that, ummmm, Tuesday morning we wooke up and didn´t have any water becasue they were changing the filters, that kind of sucked. Especially since missionaries were leaving they woke up early to shower and catch their planes, the water turned off early on them so 1 kid (elder Shepard) Was all sudded up, the water turned off so he had nothing to do. People worked together and filled up cups of water from the sink ( it took about 5 minutes to fill up the cups) Then gave them to him to throw on himself, it ended up working out so I guess there´s no complaints. Ummm, day light saving sucked, like it wasn´t bad enough waking up at 630 we had to do 530 for a day, and they didn´t let us go to bed earlier... i think we´re 5 hours different from Utah now?  Weird. 

I definitely see an improvemnt in my portuguese, thank goodness to since I leave in just 5 days... Hmmm, ready or not. 
I realized I´ve never talked about my good friends from the week below us, Elder Howard and Elder Huxeford, they´re sick dudes,that´s about it. Oh, google ``Seth Huxeford, Indiana Baseball`` or something like that and see if anything pops up, he´s got a cool article about his mission in a paper. 

Thank you everyone who sent me packages!!! I don´t know where to start, mom for the cookies/cereal/milkshakes Jess and Richard for the Twix. Grandma for the pizza parties... Yes parties (Best grandma ever) Today my district has 4 pizza parties coming so, ya, we´re going to be very fat today... I couldn´t be happier.

Monday we got to go proceliting... I know that word isn´t spelled right, oh well. We had 2 really cool experiences.

 

1st, we talked to one kid about the church, he alrdeady had a LDM (Livro de Mormon) Because sisters had talked to him earlier, he was interested in the church so when he saw us he wanted to talk to us again. We basically ended up teaching him the restoration, gave him a pamphlet about it and he said ``I will read this because I want to feel in my heart what you do`` So, I asked him if he knew how to pray, he did because he´s a churchy guy, he reads the bible every day, that kind of stuff. So I challenged him to pray about it and he smiled and agreed to it... That´s that, we´re not allowed to give them info or anything, all we can do is hope they call the number to receive missionaries to there house... I don´t have time for the other one, but it´s in my journal so ya´ll can read it in 2 years!!!!

Dad... Happy Birhday!!!

Love you all, I´m doing great, hope you are too!!!

Eu amo vocas!!!

-Elder Justin Beary

Week Seven

Well, another uneventful week... It must seem like we never do anything here but I swear we do!!! Man, I don´t know where to start, hopefully if I start typing I´ll remember something interesting.... Nope, nothing... Well, last night we had our Tuesday night devotional, and finally got a general authority, now before you get too excited, no, it wasn´t the prophet, or anyone you´ve heard of, Elder Junot from the 70 spoke to us, it was a really good message about missionary work. He told us not to stress on the language becasue it will come through fé. But to study the doctorine more, if we know that God will help us say it in whatever language we need, in my case Portoguêse. All the guys in my district signed up to sing ye elders of israel next tuesday at our last tuesday night devotional, we´ll see how that goes. (I know I didn´t use the right grammar there... Oh well, no time to fix it... Or to put this, but too late.) Ummm, Elder Russell and Spencer are doing a little prank war, last thing that happened Elder Russell sprayed our room with a bunch of Axe... Ya, our room smelled like a Junior High locker room. MOM!!!! Thank you for the cookies and leite today, it´s exactly what I needed... The milk today wasn´t as good as the milk in the states but I´ll take whatever I can get.  Someone please update me on polotics, I´m hearing Romney is making some noise, Obama had some 9-11 scandal? That´s all I have heard so I would love to be given the DL... How are the Cougs doing??? Do I even want to know? Too bad the Cardinals are doing well... Again, down to their final strike again? That blows... I´m hearing all this information from the blue dots coming in every week. But really, politics update would be sweet. I reallyl do have the best insturctors at the CTM. Irmão Israel and Irmã Matos just kill it. Mom, please accept them on Facebook for me, they said they both added me. Ummm, We took a little test that Irmão made for us last week, and besides subjunctives... I did pretty well, I guess. I´m super excited to go into the field. 13 more days!!! I feel confident enough to do it now... Though, these 13 days will be big time.

 

I love you all!!!

-Elder Justin Beary

Week Six

All right, lets try to bust another week of information out in 12 minutes... 1st off before I forget, somebody please ask the Brandons if they know an Elder Vilas Boas... He now works at the CTM and he was part of the baptism for Mikey and for Klint King.

 I´ll try to do the rest in some kind of order unlike usual. Well, nothing happened thursday... But friday morning my district got to be investigators for TRC instead of teaching, it´s a lot less stressful because you don´t have to prepare a lesson and you can have a little bit of fun with the new people. Example, Elder taylor told some kid the word for show off was pudar which is the verb to fart. So they were talking about Kobe and one of the elders said I don´t like him because he shows off, but he said how do you say to show off So Elder Taylor said ``pudar" the kid said ya, ele puda. Which translates to he is a farter. Something along those lines. Elder Spencer told the missionaries his parents were dead and the missionary didn´t understand so his next comment was... ´uhhh, so where´s your sister?. So Friday had a great start, that night during Irmo Israel´s class the power went out, now usually it goes off for about 5-10 minutes, but this time it stayed off for about 2 hours, that was a fun new adventure, anything to mix the days up is a plus.

  Saturday, well, we all know what the big news was here on Saturday, Mission age is now 18... Crazy, I didn´t even know other countries could go at 18 until I got here and met some 18 year olds from Brasil. (How will that effect Jordan?) That really set the spirit of the rest of conference, I loved Elder Andersons talk, he´s 1 of my favorites. It was just a solid day of talksI don´t have my notes on me so I don´t remember what day was what so... I´ll just mix the days... I loved Elder Hollands talk, obviously, so much power in his words, it would be scary if you didn´t feel the spirit at the same time. I especially like how he said he´s going to go away from the scriptures for a little bit, but by doing that, he´s basically making new scripture because you know everything he says is exact. Preisthood was awesome, we watched in Sunday morning at 8 while the sisters watched relief society. President Monson is awesome, I really enjoy how he speaks with love at all times. I liked the air plane reference from Uchtdorf, sorry sisters, you didn´t get to hear it this year. Elder Bednar has so much great doctorine in his talks it´s hard to catch everything, I´m going to need to reread that one. I´m short on time, I´ll write more about conference. P.s. yes we got to watch conference live... at 1 and 5.

Monday... Average day

Tuesday was sick, president Degn gave the devotional and he killed it, also we had a CTM miracle and we´re able to take our coats off during it because he was hot to so he invited us all to follow his example.

P day has been good so far, Mom, everyone loves you and says thanks for the milkshakes, i BOUGHT another  jersey today... I´ll stop eventually, they´re just too cheap not too. I´m good now until I get to the field though.

 

I love you all, remember one thing!!! ``Ask the missionaries, they can help you!!!``

-Elder Justin Beary

PS.  The best part about being in Brazil for conference was nobody posted about it on facebook.  A kid I went to high school with came to the CTM today... Tim Porter, I think he´s going to Sao Paulo east... 

Week Five

Well, a good week, a pretty quick week... and... I´m half way done with my MTC experience! :D D: Saturday was our 1 month point, so technically our half way point. To celebrate this we tied our ties half way, everyone was wearing blue and we did a middle part and during gym time we tucked in our shirts and pulled our shorts up... Before you make fun, we ran the court. For an hour straight we didn´t  lose a game.. Now that´s just as good as a half way point can get. (pictures to come eventually) It was just a good day, we nailed TRC like usual. (TRC is our practice teaching fake investigators) we took pictures, we had a workshop at night which is always good. Fast Sunday was really good, especially the nap part... And the testemants ( I don´t think I spelled that right) in Portuguese. Its hard to remember what we did all week because time is blending.. And I forgot my notebook upstairs with all my notes in it reminding me what to talk about. Today we went to a hamburger place next day for our half way point with the whole district and Irmo Israel. I got a bacon and chedder... it was 6 dollars, huge and had real bacon, not that stuff you get from Wendys. Earlier this week we had Mango at lunch... Pretty sad that that´s a highlight but it was the best mango I´ve ever tasted... Thank goodness they had a lot becasue everyone was just pounding it down. Needless to say the bathrooms were full the whole night after all the Mango. On Friday we get to be investigators for TRC... That means no more preparing lessons, we just show up and follow the lesson the first weeks try to give us in super bad Portuguese. Then, we get to mess with them a little bit... And you can be sure that I will mess with them. Not too much though, I don´t want to make their first week here awful. On Friday I went to some super nice doctors office because Elder Georgianna and I had to get our Hep booster. thank goodness she spoke enlgish but it took from... 2 until 8 because traffic was bad and it was about 30 miles away... Ya, you read that right. On the way we passed some super poor parts of Sao Paulo but we also passed some really nice areas. We saw some really cool street art... Because I don´t remember if I ever told ya´ll this but there´s so much street art here. Not much stupid graffiti, but street art, and it´s pointless for the city to paint over it. The ``artists´ though are super respectful, you never see it on a sign or on a business, just walls, but if there´s a wall, it´ll be painted. We saw a ``space invader`` character too, that was pretty exciting.

Story time. On the way to get shots we stopped at a train station and 2 kids and the instructor got off the bus, then the bus driver who speaks 0 enlgish drove off, Elder Georgianna and I had the most experience in the country so... We weren´t in great hands... We drove for about 5 minutes then just stopped, we sat there for seriously 15 minutes, then the bus turned on and we drove off. We picked those 3 up where we dropped them off... turns out, they had to get their free yellow fever shot there, in some corner store at the train station... I guess we paid the 100 dollars in the states for safety and security.

This letter ended up being longer than I though it would, I´m pretty proud of myself!!!