March 28, 2011 with Elder B and Q

Hey all,

Bryan's companion's blog is "ElderJacobBush.tumblr.net"
More news. More Cambios. More...companions than I've ever had since my first week in the MTC. That's right. We're a trio.

Sunday night, they called and told us what I told you on Monday. That monday night, I left for Melo to travel to Montevideo on Tuesday Morning with other missionaries from Melo. We travelled the 6ish hours to Montevideo, walked into the Malvìn chapel where we do the changes and...one of the assistents told me that they didn't find me a comp because all of the young men preparing to go on a mission are studying, so they just told me to go back to Rio Branco and stay with Bush and Queirolo and now that we're only one companionship, we're not our own district and I'm no longer district leader; Duffy is, so that's actually really exciting. It's been a really different experience. ''The Trio from Rio'' we call ourselves. All the members and investigators when they see us, say, ´´I've never seen in my whole life 3 missionaries together.´´ or ´´Doesn't it say in Doctrine and Covenants that you should go out two by two?" (One thing that's nice is no one calls us ´´huevos´´ anymore.) So we now have all of Rio Branco to work and it's pretty hard. We have to manage all of the investigators from my old part and Bush and Queirolo's part and now we can't use bikes because we only have 2. It's, once again, a really unique experience. It's really fun being with Elder Bush again. Queirolo is a good kid and he's growing on me, but he's quite different from Bush and me, so it's hard sometimes.

The work's going well though. We had 4 in church..but not any of the people who have gone to church before. Adriano and Silvana didn't go...we don't really know why, but we passed by last night and there were a bunch of people in their house, so I think they just didn't come because some guests just showed up out of nowhere. On saturday, they said they're going today to look more into the wedding process. It sounds like it's not that bad at all. It's not expensive and in Rio Branco it doesn't take tons of time like it does in Montevideo. Probably just a few weeks. In general, I think they just don't get married because they don't see the point. The culture is just like that here.

Questions: Yes, I love the food here in Rio Branco. The italian food here is probably better than the italian food in Italy. haha. We eat with members every day without fail. But somehow, I'm managing to lose a little weight. Probably because I don't have extra money for alfajores these days. Yes, I'm filtering my water. Before, we were just buying bottled water because I didn't have my filter, but now I do.

Thanks for the stories, papá! It's fun to hear about your mission. Here in the mission, we're really big on mission stories, as you probably know.

Questions: I am getting better at spanish and I know the ´Guayo culture much better now with our uruguayo comps. Queirolo speaks some english. He speaks with a transylvanian accent. In lessons he talks quite a bit. It's really nice having a latino who's comfortable with cutting people off when they're talking about cualquier cosa. We don't spend tons of time with members, but our new district leader has challenged us to ask for more. I don't really like visiting members much thought, because I can't imagine the missionaries coming to visit us. I feel really lazy if I go to active members´ houses, because I always hear stories of missionaries who just go hang out for hours at members' houses. I have never really had anything to do with the hermanas because Melo is my first zone that has any and there aren't any in Rio Branco. Some times we travel to Montevideo all together as a zone and we talk, but I've never really known any very well. So yeah, looking for forward to seeing you at conference. Thanks for the update on your seating chart. Fortunately, you're in the only part that doesn't get translated, beecause we might be watching conference here in Rio Branco instead of going to Melo and we're watching in spanish. Still really excited though! Talk to you later.