Email Received December 29, 2005
It was indeed great to talk to you all on Christmas. 30 mins seems like 5 on the phone. Still it was great and really refreshing to talk to you all on the phone.
Today was a really busy P-day. We had a member take us to the mall with 2 YM from the ward, C**** and C*****. C***** is a young Equadorian kid that joined the church, and doesn’t have a lot of family support. His dad is in Equador, and his mom works all the time. Consequently he gets into a lot of bad things. Today, he was bent on buying some M-rated video games. C**** is a bit older (16) and was a good example to him and showed him some better stuff. Also, the store didn’t let him buy the game and there was no way I was going to do it for him.
Anyway, we went to wal-mart, got the car washed/vacuumed, and ran some errans. Speaking of that, I am sending a package out tomorrow with my sweater, the winter jacket that I took but never have touched, and my stocking. I may also be sending another package with some letters that I have been stockpiling for a while. If you could archive those somewhere, that would be great. I’m not sure if that package will go out this week or next.
Also, I was thinking of buying a tape recorder ($20 at walmart), and sending audio-letters. That would be in addition to the email. What do you think about that? I think that we could use the bubble-mailers for tapes. Plus, it would be faster to dictate than to write. My comp. has a tape player so I’ll try sending one and you can see if you like it or not. Also, I’ll work on a weekly overview and try to send it next week. This P-day was super busy. Next week should be better.
Other than that things are going great. The holidays were fun but it will be nice to have them over since people will have less reason to be busy.
Oh, today will be interesing. I may go on a split with a member from the ward, and I will be teaching a Spanish appointment. The member doesn’t know Spanish, so this will be a real test for me to see if I can hold my own in Spanish. It should be fun, but I’ll definately need the Lord’s help to pull it off. It is cool the interventions that we see from the Lord. For example, sometimes we have investigators at church and some member will say some crazy thing that I am convinced will offend the investigator. However, the investigators never seem to hear it. The Spirit acts as a filter. That much I am certain.
Anyway, next week should be great. It will be fun to have the new year. We have to be in by 6:00 New Years eve, so it will be nice to relax, cook a nice dinner, and maybe take a bath.
Alright, thank you so much for everything. Again I really enjoyed the phone call and the gifts. Don’t tell Grandma that I shipped the sweater home. Oh, and say hi to the Australian exchange student for me. Ask him to say, “Crikey", or “there’s crocidiles in my backyard", or other funny but culturally-insensitive things.
Speaking of cultural insensitivity, my comp. is from Brazil. And, a lot of people here are from various South American countries. However, a lot of the white people here thing that everything south of Texas is Mexico. So, when one says, “I’m from Sao Paulo", you get, “What part of Mexico is that?". So, that has become our joke. We passed a Taco Bell, and I said, “Elder, does seeing that make you home sick?". It was pretty funny. The Brazilians and the Hispanics hate it. Especially the Equadorians, because everyone thinks that they are Mexicans. Brazilians don’t particularly like being called Mexican’s either. So, when you pass people on the street, you need to quickly judge wether you want to say “Hola, como esta” or “Oi, como vai". Anyway, that’s life on Main St. of Danbury.
I really need to go now. It is 5:10 and I still have to do a bunch of stuff and be out the door by 6:00.
Love you all very much.
Love,
Elder Stephen J. Barr




