28 April 2014

Thanks for the picture of the new house! I remember that house now!  Pretty nice house, does it have a deck out in the back?  Happy Birthday this week Mom!  Congrats!  Exciting that Marching Band is starting up again!  I  can call a bit later on Mothers Day, I think I´ll probably try and call about 5pm your time, about 6pm here to talk.  I know a few members here who have Skype, but I try to get something arranged. Q and U got married?  Thats a bit different,  I haven´t heard of that before. Mr. Fassold and Mr. Sturgeon, two of the most teachers in the world.   Its been a while since I was in their classes but they were awesome teachers.  I loved both of them. I don´t know if you remember Mr. Fassolds thing with the box .  That the first day of school we all wrote our names on a piece of paper and he put them all inside of a box.  Then on the last day of school he decided who that year had been able to prove that they were able to think out side of the box! I was one of them!   Sturgeon was the biggest star wars nerd ever.  I want to know if he still has the 4ft model of a starship hanging from his ceiling. If you could send their emails to me I want to send an email to them.

  So my week has been a bit different than the usual. Monday was the normal p day.  We did a companion exchange where I went with Elder Alvorado from Bolivia for the day and we ended up buying a whole bunch of junk food and watched the Testaments. We both discovered that we are also both addicted to Sprite (one of the few American drinks that they have here).  Tuesday we had a Zone training which was super good.  Talked a lot of about the Key Indicators that we have and how we need to be using them.  Super good, and afterward we tried to do companionship exchanges, but my companion recieved a phone call from the assistants and was emergency transferred to Manaus, so Tuesday was mainly just staying at home while he packed up his bags to be able to leave. Wednesday morning we dropped him off at the airport super early in the morning and came back home. That day I got to spend the day in Teixarão with some of the other elders.  Fun to be able to go into another area and be able to work there for a day. Thursday, I was able to leave with a member so I was able to do some work in Tancredo Neves.  Right now its mostly just trying to find people to teach. Friday was mainly the  same thing going on.  Left with a member to be able to teach for the  day.  Saturday was the same that day.  We managed to find some really cool people who live pretty far away from us but are super excited to hear our message.  Their names are Isais and Jailson.  They´re neighbors and are excited to hear about the Book of Mormon and our message.  We were able to find them through a reference from some of the other elders here in Porto Velho. Sunday was super exciting.  80 people came to church that day and many were people that its been a long time since they´ve been to church and its super exciting to see them becoming more and more excited.   This branch here in Tancredo Neves is starting to become excited about missionary work and its really cool to see them becoming so.  Pretty awesome day to say the least.

 Thanks for the pictures! Its cool to see whats going on back at home. Hope you all have a great week this week and Happy Birthday one more time Mom! Miss all of you and have an awesome week!

Love
Elder Battraw

21 April 2014

Thats super cool that Uncle Michael and Aunt Becca came out to visit for Easter.  Sounds like a fun Easter, getting to go out play in the park, do easter eggs along with dinner.  Here Easter was pretty normal, but I´ll talk about that later. So its final now that we will have a new house when I come back.  It better be a nice apartment.  I´m thinking along the lines of a 50´tv with surround sound. laptop, you know the basics.:)Cell phone too, that would be cool! Sounds like a super cool week. 

  Here was pretty much the normal week.  Monday, I got to go to the hospital with my companion  because he woke up with a high fever and after talking to Sister Klein, she advised going to the hospital.  The hospital though was completely packed here when we got there with the branch president(who had given us a ride).  Took an half and hour to get admitted and he got a test done to see if he had malaria, but came out negative.  By this time the fever was going down so they let us go back home.  Got home at midnight and still had to wake up 6:30 the next day. Ugh. Tuesday we got a phone call from President Klein telling us that we were not to move houses but the mission would pay to fix up the house we are in now.  Right now we are in the process of buying all the nessecary items like new stove refrigerator to be able to get the house up to code. Fun stuff.  We get new beds and everything.  I hope we get everything down before the transfer so I actually have time to be able use the new stuff. Wednesday was pretyy darn normal, nothing extroadinary We tried to do a visit with a member to be able to visit one of our investigators, but when we got there, they were there. Total time round trip. 1.5 hours. Pretty far away to say the least. Thursday, lets see. Normal as well. Friday, was interesting.  We got to learn some of the traditions of Easter here in Brasil.  One, the friday saturday and sunday, depending on how a religious a person is, depends on how much beef they eat.  Generally people eat only fish and pork those days here.  You can definitely tell in the streets because people had pickup trucks full of fish in the back along with ice and were selling them out in the streets.  I think there is a health code violation in there somewhere. We had fish for lunch as well friday but I decided not to ask where they had bought it. That night I also recieved my first easter egg here in Brasil.  Here they look much more like a present than like an egg.  Made of the same chocolate as crunch bars and they´re hollow, usually with a small little candy inside of it. Saturday, had our meeting with the Ward mission leader for the last time.  He got released Sunday and now we have a new WML.  Sunday, went to church, but was completely normal. Nobody talked about Easter or anything .  When we were walking home from lunch that day though, we went buy a stand that was selling easter eggs. That man that was selling them knew me and ended up giving me a free egg! Pretty awesome!

  Thanks for the letter! Hope you all have a great week this week!  I do have a few questions for you though about this doctor working with the national guard.  do you know how much a cardiac surgeon makes in a year, how long is the schooling, what hours do you work every week, just the details about being a cardiac surgeon and if you could be really awesome, what schools offer this type of degree or certification and is there someway of doing this like that doctor was doing with the National Guard?  Thanks, I was thinking a lot about it this week. Thanks for the letter and I miss you all!

Love

Elder Battraw

14 April 2014

Way to go for Tom, thats a pretty good idea to use for prom!  Too bad you didn´t find all of the eggs.  You´ll probably find it in about five months!  What does the house look like? Could you send pictures?  Thats weird to think that I´ll be returning to a different house. Everybody here is taking really good care of me.  Our branch president said to us one time that nobody in the church will only go hungry if they chose to. People here are always ready to help us here so its pretty awesome. Marching is starting up again soon? Thats super cool.  Tell Sam to send me all the details and pictures especially.  National Guard?  I´ll put it under consideration right now.  Theres a lot of things that I want to do right now!

  So this week, where to begin.  Monday, the normal pday.  The new elders of Teixarão got here this week, Elder Gardner and Elder Alvorado.  They´re pretty cool and we spent a lot of p day showing them around the area.  Tuesday was District Meeting!  Super cool as usual. Had one of the assistants there and was fun to have him there.  Had a cool little miracle that night.  We´d stopped by the Relief Society presidents house that night to find out who would be giving lunch the next day (was 8:00pm)  and she didn´t know.  She started to cool people trying to see who could give lunch the next day for four elders and after an hour, somebody agreed.  The only problem was that it would be fairly complicated to be able to get to her house.  We´d have catch a bus that passes only once an hour to be able to descend at a location that we didn´t know. Her husband(who is very less active and doesn´t like the missionaries for some reason) butted in and said, Èlders this is really complicated.  Heres some money to buy lunch tomorrow.  And that was that.First time that hes spoken to us in the 3 months I´ve been here. Super cool.  Wednesday was normal, rained a lot. Thursday was pretty darn awesome. We got to teach an investigator whose name is Jehovah, and hes super cool and is interested in the church.  Friday, normal.  Saturday that night we had a baptism of  22 year old who is currently serving in the Brazilian Army as an engineer. Super humble and super prepared to hear our message.  We also found a new house that we can move into now! Don´t know if I´d mentioned it before,but we are moving from the house that we are in now and we´ve finally found a house that we can move into!  Its an apartment that is actually in the same apartments as the Branch President and is right across the street from the Relief Society President with the chapel less than 100 ft from our house.  Perfect. Sunday was normal.  Had church as normal and lunch was really good.  The wife gave us all advice on how to find a spouse after our missions.  People here really like to talk to elders about how to find a wife. It´ll be awhile before I use the advice. 

   Thanks for the email and all the pictures!  Hope that you all have a great week this week! Miss all of you! 

Love

Elder Battraw

7 April 2014

Exciting for Tom that he is getting ready for to start his mission paperwork.  Thats super cool that the Bishop took them out for the priesthood session this year and helped them out!   Priesthood session here was pretty cool, went out for Subway (I know that you are all jealous).

  Here this week has been pretty cool.  Monday, the pday norm, just só de boa.  Tuesday we got to have our District meeting here in Tancredo Neves which went awesome.  District Meetings here are always a bunch of fun.  Tuesday I got to spend the day in the Zone Leaders area as we did splits,so I didn´t end up spending my birthday in our area.  I did end up eating lunch in my area before we split up and ended up getting a birthday present.  One of the daughters there when I told her that it was my birthday got really excited .  After lunch when we were preparing to share a quick message with the family, she asked my companion how to spell my name and then emerged quickly after with a present and card.  Super nice of her, but the present was a large bottle of womens perfume.  Water and breezes if you translate  the name. I don´t really know what I´m going to do with it. Wednesday, we got to leave with a member of another ward to do visits and they´re going great.  We have one investigator who is super prepped to hear our message.  He went to church this past week, I guess two weeks ago now, just because his friend in another STATE told him that he should.  Didn´t get a chance to teach him this week but super exciting. One of the investigators made a cake for me as well and had a quick party (Brasilians are super awesome). Thursday was normal, just working and going and teaching everyone.  Friday didn´t get to leave the house b/c my companion was sick.  Saturday was General Conference! Which was super awesome!  We all went to the Stake Center here and I got to watch it in English with all the other American missionaries.  Super cool.  Before priesthood session Saturday night, all the elders went out to Subway.  Only american restaurant here in Porto Velho except Mcdonalds which is all the way downtown in the shopping mall ( which we´re not allowed to enter).  Sunday was General Conference and transfers! My companion and I are staying here in Porto Velho, but we´re going to be getting another companionship in our house so we need to get everything ready!

  Hope that you all will have a great week! I miss all of you!  See Ya!

Love

Elder Battraw