2 Dec. 2013

Thanks for the email and pictures!  Thanksgiving here was not really any different than a normal day. We didn´t have a lot of money left over b/c it was getting toward the end of the 2 weeks, but I was resolute on having something to have for Thanksgiving so I walked into the nearest bakery at 9:00pm and payed for some pão doce, which translates to sweet bread, or the brazilian equivalent of donuts.  Not really donuts.  It is more like a sweet roll with a bit of jam and coconut put on top. Not the best thing in the world, but still pretty good.  I will try to add pictures to the email, some of the bread is actually bread with cheese in the middle.  So my breakfast feast on Thanksgiving was pão doce with grape juice and cookies. Really healthy, but it was as close as we could get. We actually had pizza earlier that week as we celebrated my 4 month mark and my companions 7 month mark. Partied for all of 15 minutes and then had to get ready for bed#Life of a missionary.

  Anyway my week was pretty good. Spent Tuesday and the beginning of Wednesday in another area with one of the ZLs. Had District meeting as well. Pretty awesome.  Manaus is a little strange b/c you can be standing in the middle of a neighborhood which has absolutely nothing material wise, walk down the street and be in comparably rich houses. Kinda of random to say the least. We spend a lot more time in the poorer areas working b/c people are much more receptive to the gospel there. Well, got back Wednesday and had a baptism that night and also found out that apparently my companion had baptized someone else the night before with the other ZL.  Thursday was spent going around and trying to find more people to teach and we had a meeting with our ward mission leader. We´re trying to get the ward more involved with our new converts b/c a lot of the time, we will baptize someone and they will come to church a few times and then drop off the face of the earth so we are trying to get the ward more involved to keep them at church.  Friday, was pretty normal till we get a phone call towards the end of the day asking if we could come to another area to do a baptismal interview so we headed out there.  To get into their area though without having to do a huge loop around houses and buildings because their area is down at the base of a small cliff/hill and the roads are all at the top and the only ones that descend down there were pretty far away, we had to navigate this slippery little path in the middle of a patch of jungle which is at a 35-45 degree decline. We both fell, but only once.  Interview as it turns out, fell through, but it was still fun. Saturday had another baptism.  This one was special b/c we baptize really only kids, no one else wants to listen to us and/or change their lives to be in harmony with the gospel and the families don´t usually care to much about them being baptized. But this one, the family of nonmembers rallied around the kid, Anderson, and helped him to be baptized. His mom came with him to church yesterday as well to see him confirmed and really liked it so we are prepping to teach her. Another family we baptized two of the kids and now the mom is also interested in the gospel! Its truly amazing at times. Sunday was exciting b/c we had Anderson and one other person we´ve been waiting for awhile got confirmed and then we get a phone call that we need to return to the other area now to do an interview for a baptism, so we hopped on a bus and headed on out there and did it and got back to our area. Got transfer calls yesterday as well. Staying with my companion in Canaranas. Really happy about that b/c this area is pretty awesome.   Awesome week!

  Thanksgiving sounds like it was a lot of fun. Really weird not to celebrate in the normal way. Thanks for the packages, i don´t know when they will get here, but hopefully quickly!  I heard that putting a tracking number on them as well helps out b/c the secretaries here pick up the packages and they can track it if they have the number and help make sure it doesn´t get lost in the mail.  I am actually keeping a running list of all the films that I am missing while I am on my mission so when I get back, you can expect a two week long film festival!  Hopefully on Christmas we will be able to Skype.  We are trying to find a member with all the equipment for skyping right now. What is your skype name and when would be the best time to call?  Hopefully we will be able to get it working. I´ll try to send all the pictures! Thanks so much and I miss you all!

Love Ben/Elder Battraw