Worn Right Through

So I'm sending two pictures so you can see how I look different now. One is of my and Elder Santo, my old companion. But I'm sending it so you can see the hair. I literally buzzed my hair. It feels so nice not needing to worry about it and just go.
Well, That wasn't going to be the intro but I guess it can be...
Wait let me start with is again
Hello my dear family,
Well my shoes are worn through but the Spirit is Strong. Here let me send a picture of my shoes too. (Mom if you could get new shoes and send them to me that'd be great. Help the people is Provo understand what to do :D) Worn Shoes. Yeah. That all the new stuff here.
Ok so let me tell you that I bought a new watch cause the other one fell and broke on the floor, It was a tragic ending. He now lies in my desk drawer waiting for the ressurection... or when I actually remember to take him to a watch place to get fix. For now, I have a replacement that costed 23 Reais (about 13 Dollars) It's been working fine.
I'm staying in the land of dust, or also know as Planaltina de Goias. But I'm still getting transfered. Basically it's like moving from Provo to Orem. Or from one bedroom in the house to the other bedroom, in the same house. It's the same thing. Same place. Just walking with different people. My companions is amazing. I have lived with him for 3 months and now we are companions. How crazy. He loves cuzcuz. It's a type of rice that they eat a lot in the northern part of brazil. He basically makes it everyday. It's not all that bad. I learned how to make it and what to do and different ways. Now as companions, I'm sure we'll eat it every day.
Well, I'm doing great. I love the mission. It's definately the right place for me right now. Growing and learning and becoming who I need to be. Changing and having fun doing it.
I love a scripture that in 3 Nephi. It really helped me focus on the mission and not worry about the future because I was really worried about the future. Who I was going to marry, how would me kids be, what would I do, where will i live, what will I study and who will I met. These were many of my questions I had. It was driving me insane. But now I learned something. 3 Nephi 13:24. I don't have it in English here... so I'll type in in Portugues
"Portanto não vos preocupeis com o dia de amanhã, porque o dia de amanhã se preocupará come suas próprias coisas..."
It says don't worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. I learned that we need to work today to get what we want tomorrow. So I stopped worrying about the future and started worrying about today. What would I do? How can I do it? What can I do today to help me in the future? It's just easier to think about it that way.
Also I have been learning a lot about the Christ like attributes and what I need to do to be better. All the things that I though I was good at really are not the things I'm good at. I'm learning on how to be a better person and more well rounded (In more ways than one).
I love you.
This has been brought to you by me.
Endure to the End
Signing OutElder Barry

Good Planners

Minha Querida família, I don't know if I spelled that right but anyways... continue. I love you so much. Can you believe that I've been on a mission for 8 months already. I can't believe it. It's so amazing. Everything just is moving so fast. I don't know what to do... I'm learning and growing and you all probably won't believe it when I get home but I'm changing so much here in the mission. Wow. I think back to before the mission and into my senior year in High School and I am not the same person. Brasil is amazing... have I told you that? I love this place. Me and my companion have decided to change how we work and how we do things because we are not getting results in this area right now. We need to change. I have a quote a friend sent me that I love. "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten." It's so true. If you want to change anything in your life for the better. The time to change was yesterday. I'm starting to learn the importance of using the Area Book here. For the past 4 weeks we haven't had any papers to update anything so we just left the area book to the side. But now we realize that the reason why we don't have results is because we are being grateful for the things we already have and the people we have already found. So we have started making all the records of all the people that we have taught in the past 4 weeks. This is where I learned that I need to keep a good planner. I'm glad that I write down those things in the planner. It has made this process so much easier. I love you all. This week has been really fast, before you know it this letter will be coming again. Endure to the End Signing OutElder Barry

Fasting

So, this isn't transfers week. Transfers are at the end of this month... I think. I don't know when.Yes mom. That was really the church and church ground... So I'm so very sorry for this short email but I'm trying to keep this under an hour... for my companions sake... because I usually spend a lot of time sending emails to everyone... So if you haven't had a response yet... I'm sorry. I just want to share something I learned about fasting.Fasting is such an amazing tool we have to get blessed. Something I learned is that when we fast we grow but we might not grow in the way we want to. The Lord knows what we want and what we need. He will never give us a rock when we as for food. But if we ask for a rock, he usually wont give it to us. He'll give us what we need and when we need it. So for conference, our mission had a goal to take 500 people to church, each dupla needed to take 7 people for this to happen. Elder Santos and I accepted the challenge and went to it. We were fasting and working to make it happen. We had people are ready to go and they were firm to go. The day before and the morning of conference... everyone fell... we had no one firm to go conference. So we worked so hard to get more poeple. Conference was about 45 mins away by bus. So... we walked around town inviting everyone to go then we took a bus there and literally talked with everyone on the bus. It is something that I've never done... We just did it. We got to conference and we had 2 people going. They were two people that members had brought. We still had the blessings from God after we worked our hardest. Only after. I learned that our fast for people in church we didn't get people in church... but we did grow in knowledge about how to work and help this area. Endure to the End Signing Out Elder Barry