Happy in Brasilia

(I decided to ask Matt lots of questions in my last letter to him because of the woefully lack of information in his last week's letter. He delivered! - Mom Barry)

I like having questions to respond to. Because I really don´t know what to talk about. So here we go

My apartment is actually a small house. There are 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms and 4 missionaries. I´m probably being spoiled for my first transfer but it´s awesome. It literally is a house and it´s pretty good. We are only there really in the morning and at night. Then on P day it´s almost all day we are there.

My living conditions are fine. I´m not complaining. It´s simple and basic and I like it that way. I´m pretty sure when I get home that I´ll be fine with anything because being a missionary really helps you learn the basics. It´s like that talk by, I think, President Uchtdorf. Back to the Basics. I´m learning what a basic living standard is and living off it. It´s great and I really love it.

My working area is Sobradinho 1. I think it is that place with the most hills. We walk up and down hills all day and my legs are going to be beasts by the end of this transfer. I do have a picture of some of these things but the computers we email on are unreliable and last time my companion got a virus on his camera card. So I think I´m going to wait until I get a reliable computer.

The food is great, rice and beans usually every meal and it is way good. Every lunch is usually provided by a member or less active and other than that we are on our own. Oh, and P Day´s we need to find our own food. Usually for breakfast I don´t eat or I have a bowl of oatmeal with bananas, milk and chocolate. Just healthy awesome.

We have a washing machine that we throw our clothes into and it does an awesome job. Then we hang clothes out to dry. Just so cool. It shows that you don´t really need a dryer. Actually you don´t really need a washer either but it takes too much time to wash our clothes so we have a machine.

Yes, we are teaching people. We found someone named Ludimar and he is just golden. We taught him everything in four days straight and he´s accepted everything. Then yesterday we started teaching Sebastian and he seems golden too. We don´t have any baptisms yet and I probably would not tell you when I do. Just cause the baptisms don´t matter. What matters is if they stay firm in the church. I really wouldn´t mind getting only 1 baptism and having it be ther strongest member ever. That´s all I really want.

My Companion has been out for about a year and 5 or 6 months. He´s way good at the language and I´m just following him around trying to teach when he tells me to. He´s going to go to BYU Idaho after his mission.

My mission president is awesome. Basically he told me that he is my Dad now. (Sorry, dad just got kicked out for 2 years) He is, from what i´ve heard, the most strict mission president here. We have the missionary handbook which he´s changed some of it for our mission and then we have another page of rules for our mission that we carry around in our little book. But as we follow these we do a lot better. So I´m glad we have them. But I can tell you it will be weird to have a different mission president in a year.

The ward is pretty great. Just a wonderful welcome. Right now we are working on reactivating people. We´re working on the members too.

People always ask how tall I am and I am almost 2 meters tall. Freak, it´s tall and weird to be able to see all the way down a hall with no problems.

The City I am in is a semi-rich area. It´s a wonderful area. I love it and when it rains... is pours, holy cow. If it rains during the day and stops then it´s really, really hot. I don´t know why really.

So I wanted to tell you that there are awesome talks by Elder David A. Bednar. Look up his talk named "Ask in Faith". I´m pretty sure it´s the name. It has one point I want to tell about. It talks about people praying for the missionaries to have people to teach. Well if you are asking in Faith and faith is a principle of action. Then do it. Find those people for the missionaries. I know the mission has changed my view a lot about missionary work. I know it will help us so much and help this church grow if the members start doing the finding. The Missionaries are called to be full time teachers. The members are called to be full-time finders. It´s something that will help this work along. Honestly if people start finding people for the missionaries, we would have so many people in this church because when a friend asks a friend to start learning then the people probably will. If a missionary stops by and asks them about it they probably won't listen because the missionary is someone they don´t know. So like every good missionary I want to invite you to find someone you can share this Gospel with. It really isn´t that hard. Everyone knows at least one non-member and if everyone invited that one friend then we would have so many more people to teach. Please take this and do it. I know before my mission I didn´t think much about missionary work but now I´m realizing how much members have a role. Right now I´m pretty much begging you to help the missionaries.

I love you all.
Endure to the End
Signing Out
Elder Barry