October 18, 2010 Marones, Libya, Montevideo with Elder Bracho

Hey all,,

Questions first this week, thanks to mom haha:
Do you have a fan or anything in your house? Yes. It's not too hot yet inside our house luckily. Our one fan can reach the whole house at once fortunately, when the heat comes.
Microwave? Yes
Oven? Yes, but it's in a box and they're about to install it. We're kinda upset about it because there's no room for it.
Are the members feeding you? Fwa, are the members feeding me. Yes. A lot. I didn't escape it yet. I've completely stopped eating anything other than breakfast and lunch and I still eat way too much. (Breakfast by the way is still oatmeal, which I am still a huge fan of. Thanks, Dad.)
Laundry? There are several members willing to do the laundry, so no problem there.
Shoes? I was just thinking about that this morning. All of my shoes are still in really good shape. I wouldn't be surprised if I never needed more shoes the whole mission.
Are you staying well and not getting sick? Yes. I get resfriado every once in a while (resfriado=stuffy? That's a funny word.)
What do you do for Halloween? No idea. I'm still waiting to see on that. It doesn't sound like it's really a big deal here.
How are you going to make your house bigger? There's already an outer wall with a patio area thing. They're just gonna put a roof on it and maybe put new flooring on the concrete.
Have you seen more of the Da Silvas? Yes. We just had surprise interviews this last week. Not much has changed. Apparently the missionariesin montevideo see them a lot more, so that will be interesting.
Do you get to go to the temple? YES!!!!! FINALLY!!! We're going November 4th. I'm superpsyched. It's been so long. The whole mission is going some day this change. Our zone is just going that day.
Have you seen the ocean? Once. Barely, while passing in omnibus, while they were playing sweet 80s music.
How is your new companion? he's really funny. Sometimes he's really serious and wants to plan everything down to the last detail and other times he just busts out laughing and is a little kid.
How is it talking Spanish all the time? To be honest, I feel like my spanish has gotten worse because I don't have time to think about why I say stuff. I can speak really fluently now, but sometimes I just hit sentences that I just can't put together. We understand each other really well though. It's fun.

Who am I after 8 months?
I have just completed a third of my mission today. I started thinking about what kinds of things have changed about me in this time. I've come to really love the people. It really makes me sad for the people when they don't to listen or when they don't complete their commitments because I know it's the only way they can progress. I've learned a lot about what my duty is as a member who understands the gospel well. I need to practice what I tell investigators to do...but even more. As a member of 11 (almost 12) years, I've learned through experience and have seen the blessings that come from obedience. I hope everyone is taking advantage of their time in this life. If there's something in your life you should change to bring yourself closer to God, change it today instead of waiting until tomorrow. Another thing I've learned is that the Gospel isn't just one of the things we do, one part of our lives. It should be the central part because every other aspect of our lives is improved by living the gospel. Hope every one is doing the "primary answers" Reading, Praying, and Going to church. Yesterday was the primary program here and it was....awesome. I learned a lot.

Hope everything is going well at home for you all. Sounds like you're busy with the planning for emily's wedding and such. Hope that goes well!

My comp sent you a few pictures from the last few days. One is of the baptism we had on Saturday. I hadn't told you about him yet because I barely knew the guy. His name is gerardo and he was already to get baptized when I got here. That was pretty exciting.
The second picture is the birthday party Bracho and I had. He turned 5 months and I turned 8 months basically together, so we bought ourself a cake and sang to ourselves. It was pretty sweet.

Love, Bryan
p.s. Congratulations to Grandma for finally buying herself her ghost piano. haha