26 May 2014

Its already the last week of school! Super cool! When will be graduation? Will it be in a week or two?  Back when I was in Boise, we were on bikes for a month so during that time we got into several bike problems so I was able to pick up a few things on how to do maintenance on a bike.  We had several members of the ward who were avid bike riders as well who helped us out whenever we had a problem with one of the bikes or all three of them at times.  Wow, already out swimming, I agree right now its a little cold, here as well, I´ll explain later.  Super cool that Grandma Young and Spencer are coming on out for graduation.  When is the wedding going to be?

  This week was running back and forth again.  Monday was the normal p day, hanging out relaxing.  Tuesday was Zone Conference which was cool.  Got  to see the whole Zone.  We all had to introduce ourselves to everyone in the front singing everything that we said.  We had someone do their introduction to funky (Brazilian version of rap and pop mixed together), had someone do it to les miserables, primary music, and I did it to singing in the rain. Pretty fun to do one of the sisters was videotaping the whole thing as well:) Wednesday till Friday was running around visiting people.  We´ve  been using the bus a lot these past few weeks to make visits out on the far end of our area.   Its been pretty fun. Saturday the weather did something very weird, it hit 68 degrees, and with wind chill (yes there was wind chill!!!!) it was maybe 64.  It was exactly like Indiana.  I could not believe it.   Cloudy and overcast both Saturday and Sunday and I think the city almost called a state of emergency:).  Lets just say people here are not prepared for temperture below 70 degrees.   Almost everybody we talked to talked about how they didn´t like the cold, and usually they turned to me after saying that and say,  but this is normal for you right?  Definetely interesting.  Saturday we had the baptism of an 18 year old whose family almost entirely are members of the church.  He finally made the choice to be baptized as well and it was super cool to  see.

  Well that was my week in a quick summary.  Hope that you all are doing okay! I miss you all! Have an awesome week!

Love

Elder Battraw

19 May 2014

I always knew that the bass clarinet made the sexiest sound when played correctly.  Prom was this weekend. Super cool!  Its a little weird to think that this is the first year in 3 to not go Prom.  Super cool to see all the pictures of all the people!  Did Stirling not go to Prom?  Shout out to Gabe and Karsten, two pretty awesome people! Who is kutler and gabes date.  Is it Claire Williams? Super cool. I´m really jealous of the Olive Garden. Sam and Nathan are taking piano lessons?  Thats awesome, when did they start? Super cool week. congrats on finishing the class!

  So this week was super crazy, as usual.   Monday p day as normal.   Tuesday was district meeting which was great but was about 45 minutes late b/c the missionaries who are responsible for that building ending up getting there a little bit later than normal. Still great.  Found out that one of the other elders in my zone knows how to play the piano and knows how to speak music geek as well so we spent 15 minutes having fun arranging hark the herald angels sing and angels we have heard on high and it sounded pretty awesome.  Returned to my area and got to work there. Wednesday was pretty normal for us. Thursday was nuts.  We had an appointment in the morning so went to that, went straight to lunch, from lunch caught a bus and headed off into another part of our area and worked there until about 9:00pm and then returned home.  Nuts.  Friday was a bit more normal.   Saturday we ended walking about 4 kilometers to get to an appointment which was a bit nuts.  The conversation was more or less like this.  Oh the next appointment isn´t too far away, lets walk, oh the next isn´t too far away, lets walk.  until we ended up on the other side of our area.  A little bit crazy to say the least but we caught the bus back which was nice. Sunday, church was nice but we have an elevator in our chapel and Sunday right before sacarment meeting ended up getting  stuck with people inside of it which ended up in a 30 minute effort to get the elevator up to the 2nd floor to be able to get the emergency doors open.  Everybody was fine, but this is the 2nd time this has happened so I don´t know what is going to happen with the elevator.  Sunday we ended up getting 4 buses running back and forth from either end of our area.  Whew, we were a little tired yesterday when we stumbled into the house. But its been a good week.  lots of getting on and off the bus.  I think my companion and I are officially experts at riding the bus right now.

 Thanks for the email! Hope that you all have a great week this week. I miss all of you!  Have a great week!

Love

Elder Battraw

5 May 2014

That sounds like a fun birthday!   Cake and pizza always works out pretty well.   Here the pizza is a little bit different, doesn´t have tomato sauce and is covered in vegtables, like corn and tomatoes and olives. Cake is more like really sweet cornbread here those this week I did get to try cupo açou cake  (ask Brother Lopez) and it was super good! Misato got her mission call!  Super exciting!  Sacramento California, super excited for her! Do you know when she will leave? Hopefully the house will come through.  It looks like a pretty good house to have and is still really close to the chapel.  We´ve been doing some house business this week as well but I´ll write about that later. You´re getting married!  Thats exciting.  Its a little weird to think that you´re getting married but okay! Congrats!  Super excited! Ross is coming home in a month!  Probably they´ll go to Manaus which is an hour away from my area by plane so probably no, I won´t be close to them.

This week was a little different as well.  Monday was the normal pday until about 6pm.  The assistents called and said that the elders of Teixarão would be transferred to Manaus and that I was going to recieve my companion that Saturday, elder Acchura from Bolivia. So the next day i went to Mamore, which is in the South Zone of Porto Velho. I stayed there doing visits with the elders there and it was pretty awesome.  That night we got to cross a river in the middle of the night that only had a plank of wood that went out into the middle and then had another that went to the other side as well.  Pretty interesting to do when you don´t have a lot of light to be able to cross. That night I got another phone call from the assistents saying that Wednesday I was to return to my area 6pm and wait there for my companion to arrive.  So Wednesday was packing up my backup with my stuff and returning back to my area.  Got there about 6:15 and found out that President Klein was actually coming as well to drop off my companion as well.  8:40 they got to our house with Sister Klein and one of the assistents along with my companion.  Pres. Klein took a brief look at the house and told us that we needed to repaint the house so you can guess what we did almost all of Thursday.  Buying paint and painting.  We´re still not done yet, but its getting close.   It looks way better now.    Friday we finally got to leave the house and we did some visits with some of our investigators along with showing my companion the area.  Hes pretty cool, but its kinda of funny b/c hes super short  and I´m kinda of tall. We had the elders from Ariquemes stay in our house that night b/c we had the Zone Conference the next day.  Woke up Saturday super early to go to the Conference which lasted from 8-11.  President and Sister Klein were both there and we got to learn a lot about how to use the My Family pamphlets and how to use them with recent converts. That night was also Stake Conference which was super cool.  We had a funny experience happen with my companion as well that day.  One of the American elders that was staying with us recieved a package that was full of packing peanuts along with candy and the such. My companion who had never seen packing peanuts like these thought that they were candy and snagged one and took a bite out of it and promptly spit it back out. Really funny!! Sunday was pretty normal .  One of the families that we´ve been teaching is getting ready to be baptized and we´re super excited for them! Pretty crazy week!

Thanks for the email addresses! I´ll make sure to write the two of them. Congrats on your birthday and engagement! Have a great week!  Miss all of you! What time will you be home this Sunday? I think I´m going to call 4-5pm via skype!  Miss all of you!

Love

Elder Battraw