Hello again?
Wow... time just has been flying. Can you believe that I've already been out for about 6 months... 6 freaking months... that's kind of crazy. The crazy part is that I still have music pop into my mind just by little words like Crazy. That's just crazy. I thought the Music Veil would have taken full effect by now. Man was I wrong.

So P-Day. Basically we do everything. We like to sleep if we have time. Just by happen chance we had time that week. Except I don't like to. So I write letters and today we cleaned the apartment for 4 hours. That was crazy. We shop. But usually not much. Usually if we get hungry we go the the padaria. That doesn't look like the right spelling. Let me try again. Paudaria. Dang... not sure how to spell that. But it's the bread store. It's like a bread store and a gas station convenience store mix. It's pretty great because we have one really, really close to our house. When I tell Brasilians we don't have these in the USA they ask where we buy our bread and basically live. Everyone here uses the Padaria. Everyone.

So we eat (in my area) with members every day except P-Day. So it's pretty nice. We basically don't need to cook anything here. If we do, one of the elders here is a really pretty good cook. We have our own washing machine but we hang our clothes out to dry. If we didn't have a washing machine we would have to wash them by hand on P-Day, but we have a washing machine... and we can throw in anything anytime we want. It's pretty nice.

Companion study. We do everything we really want. Basically we first share what we studied in personal study, study something else really fast together and then do "role-playing". That's a weird word. We say "práticas" which means practises.

Planning sessions here... well the 3 hour one... is not as what I expected. We can try to plan but literally we can't... it's so hard because we could plan a perfect plan, or what we think is perfect and the next day it will be the worst plan. A lesson appointment here with some people is "if you can catch me in my house" lesson appointment. It's pretty crazy. Also we go through Pesquisadores (Investigators) so fast. We pass by there maybe 2 times and they don't want more. We could be teaching 20 people and only keep 2 or 3 of them. It's hard to explain how it goes here. I wish I could explain it. I just had an idea. We can plan things but people have their agency. So they might not be in the house or they will learn at a slower pace or they have work and don't arrive till 8:30 at night. Many different things could happen. So I'll leave that subject with that.

We plan every night for 30 mins. Well we try. Sometimes it's an hour or 10 minutes. Every day is different. Like last night we planned in 5 minutes. It was really easy. But other days we have no idea who to teach... so we sit there for a while. Also my companion is the District Leader so he has other things to do too.

I have something for you... It's called A DESAFIO!!!!! (Challenge)
---Take a habit that you have and try not to do it for 1 day, Then try a week, Then a month.---

It does seem random, but once you try that you'll be closer to feeling how hard it is for someone to overcome bad habits like drinking, smoking, taking drugs and more. I started this and have been trying to not pop my knuckles... wow... it's really hard because I start doing it without noticing. It's really, really crazy. Really Hard too. So try it. Understand a little how it feels to overcome an addiction.

This is a commitment. It's kind of what I studied today. Preach my Gospel says that we always need to invite people to do something to change. To become better. So I have the DESAFIO for you. Also it's a good idea to study the scriptures every day. I wrote a letter to a friend and I asked them about their scripture study. They wrote back and said that they realized they weren't really having a scripture study. It was usually "What I can get in at 12:30 PM after I do all my Homework". They said that they realized they weren't putting God in primeiro lugar (First place). Scripture study is really important. Colocar Deus em primeiro lugar e estudar. (Put God in First Place and Study). So basically I have dois DESAFIOS pra vocês. (two Challenges for you). Estudar as escrituras todo dia antes todo e parar um habito por um dia, uma semana e um mes. (Study the scriptures every day before everything and stop a habit for a day, a week and a month)

Perseverar até o Fim (Endure to the End)

Signing Out
Elder Barry

This is of a baptism we had here. It wasn't me and my companion's baptism. In this area we have 4 missionaries. So it was the other dupla (companionship) baptism. But all four of us baptized 1 person. Also that day when the meeting started, the chapel lost all power. So we did the baptism in the dark. My companion was talking with one of the people being baptized and my companion said something along the lines that it was too bad that we didn't have power. The person then replied along the lines of "We don't have electricity but there is an energy in the building." It was amazing.