It was really cool to be able to talk with all you. It was super cool! I
was able to get a hold of Grandma so it all turned out okay! Christmas
was pretty good here! Sounds like a fun pitch in at your
work though! How did Toms talk go? Was it really short? Everybody at
home with nothing to do.. I remember that! Mission shopping, that will
be fun! Does Tom need anything super weird for his mission to India? I
remembered that I need to have a coat that had you had to be able to
take the liner out. Its been useful at times, but usually its too hot
to use.
This week was pretty cool though! Monday was the normal p day. Tuesday District Meeting. Wednesday
was the really fun day b/c it was Christmas eve. All that night we
spent walking in the streets going and visiting the houses of members.
We got so much food its not even funny. The problem here is that you
are already full and you to visit another member and they say, Elder,
heres some food, eat up. And you are already full but have to keep on
eating. It gets interesting at times . Here in Brasil they like to
drink lots and lots of soda So we drank a ton of soda that night.
every single house that we visited we drank soda. It seems to be the
traditional drink here for holidays or just events in general.
Everybody that thinks that the US we drink a lot of soda, needs to come
down here to the Amazon. But it was cool. Christmas morning we all got
up and opened up the presents! Thanks for the tie and clip. The book
is pretty funny as well! After we were able to go and do a few visits
with people. It was a pretty calm day for us! The rest of the week was
pretty normal for us. We got to go on a few exchanges this week with
some of the members here that went really well. We´ve been able to
start teaching a new family that was a reference of the ward and they
have some potential. Its super cool to be able to be teaching them .
They are very accepting of the gospel! We have another investigator who
is progressing really well. He is name is Richard. Its a little hard
to come into contact with him, but we´ve been able to teach him so far
and this week he came to church. We came into contact with him at a
Church soccer event and he is always playing soccer at church so hes
pretty awesome. Hes reading the Book of Mormon and we are super pumped
for him!
That was our week so far, This week should be pretty interesting with
News Year. Still don´t know what we are going to do for News Year, but
we´ll see. Have a great New Years and I miss all of you!
Love
Elder Battraw
Monday, December 29, 2014
Monday, December 22, 2014
22 December 2014
I actually haven´t opened up the presents yet, I just opened up the
package and then set the presents up on top of a shelf to wait till
Christmas day, so far so good. My companion also has some presents so
we are going to have a real Christmas here. We both will get cold
cereal and everything and we will also have those stockings that you
sent as well so it will be awesome. The package from the ward has not
yet arrived so it probably won´t until next week when the Zone Leaders
go to Manaus and then it´ll be up in the air. Hopefully it´ll get here
soon. Yep, Bishop Jensen had emailed all of us asking for a quote and
that was what I sent him. Just of curiousity, did he read it in english
or português, because I sent it in both. Sounds like it will still be
an interesting week.
The week here in Manacapuru. The week here
was pretty good. Nothing super awesome happened. Tuesday was District
Meeting which was awesome as usual. We did a lot of visiting this
week, meeting with the members and everything. We almost got to go to
an English school and teach a lesson this week but that didn´t work
out. Friday was one of the days that we have walked the most here in
Manacapuru. We got to walk all the way down near the hospital and back,
just to find out the place we were looking for actually was located
really close to where we started out. Fun stuff. Friday night we also go
to participate in the ward Miritis Christmas party. Us 4 elders we all
got together and sang a Christmas hymn. I was on the piano while they
all sang. I´ve noticed that my piano playing has gotten better since
that I´ve been on the mission, which has been awesome. Saturday morning
I woke up not feeling too great, but we headed off to a service
project, but on the way my companion got bit by a dog in the road, so
we had to go off to the hospital to make sure that it was infected. Got
to the hospital and got all checked out, everything fine. Headed back
to the service project, but when we got there, I wasn´t feeling great at
all, the world was spinning around and not feeling too good in the
stomach, so spent 10 minutes there and headed home where I spent the
rest of the day in bed. Sunday I woke up feeling a lot better, so it
was probably just a stomach virus. Sunday I got to have my first
recording session as a professional piano artist:) There is a man in
our ward who is the choir who wanted the individual voices parts for the
hymns so he recorded me playing the individual parts. We got to teach a
new family Sunday that was super cool. We only got to teach for 10
minutes, but it was awesome to get to know them. We have a few
investigators who are progressing well and we are super excited for
them!
Hope that you all have a great week! I can´t wait
for Wednesday night! If I can´t call wednesday I´ll try calling
Thursday. Miss all of you and Have a great week!
Love
Elder Battraw
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Ben's Christmas Letter to the Ward
Elder Battraw:
What I love about serving the Lord during this special season of the year, is that I am taking the same message that Jesus Christ preached to people so long ago. It is this same message that changes the lives of the people in the world, in all places. I have already seen on my mission what the gospel does for the lives of people. It changes them and touches them in ways you can´t even imagine. You can see the changes in their faces, the new spirit in their home, the smile that they have when you enter into their home and the greater love that they have for their families and the Lord Jesus Christ. The happiness that the gospel brings to the world, that unites families and changes somebody for the better, is why I love serving the Lord durning this Christmas Season.
What I love about serving the Lord during this special season of the year, is that I am taking the same message that Jesus Christ preached to people so long ago. It is this same message that changes the lives of the people in the world, in all places. I have already seen on my mission what the gospel does for the lives of people. It changes them and touches them in ways you can´t even imagine. You can see the changes in their faces, the new spirit in their home, the smile that they have when you enter into their home and the greater love that they have for their families and the Lord Jesus Christ. The happiness that the gospel brings to the world, that unites families and changes somebody for the better, is why I love serving the Lord durning this Christmas Season.
Monday, December 15, 2014
15 December, 2014
Thanks for the pictures. I have gotten the Christmas package that you
sent to me and the one that Grandma sent to me as well! Thanks for the
socks! I´ll try to see if I can skype at about 6:00pm,
we still have to find a computer to be able to use to be able to skype,
but I´m sure that we´ll find one. What is your skype name again just to
make sure that I call right person. Sounds like a cool christmas
party. Brother Mcdonald is married again, thats awesome! Thats cool
the Zach wants to do marching band! Got for it Zach! The Band is going
to Philly? since when! Sounds like there is going to be a lot of new
people for me to meet when I get back from the mission! That will be
cool to do.
So, the week.The area/city where I´m at is
called Manacapuru( Ma-na-kaw-per-u) where it just me and my companion
and the zone leaders who are here in the city. Its a smaller city but
its super cool here. The ward here is awesome and I am loving serving
here. All of the members have references for the missionaries, talk
about a ward who is on fire for missionary work. Everybody is always
saying, elders, I have a reference for you guys, its pretty awesome. My
new companion is Elder Sanderson, who is also American who is from DC.
Hes got a little bit less time than I do on the mission and is super
cool. He is also going to do ROTC at BYU, but he will be Air Force.
Its been an awesome week with him so far. I guess the only down side
would be the house. It has some problems leaking (a lot) when it
rains and the showers don´t work so we use buckets, and the power likes
to go out at times. It makes life interesting to say the least. But is
super cool here. We got here last Sunday at night and Monday
we got to move into our new house. Spent a good 3 hours getting it up
to code and then relaxed and did the normal p day things. Spent an
hour and a half that night trying to find the house of the bishop and
managed to find it on the way back. But it all wored out! The rest of
the week was pretty busy. Tuesday until Thursday
was working in our area and trying to find all the old investigators,
get to know the members and everything. It went really well, we are
finding people to teach and it was awesome. Friday
we got to travel to Manaus by bus, which only takes 2 hours for the
annual Mission christmas conference. It was a lot of fun to be able to
see all the other missionaries and celebrate Christmas with them. We
had a talent show as well when we there and our district did an
arrangement of Angels we Have Heard on High. It went really well. The
rest of the show was really good as well, lots of theatre and skits
which were really funny. Pretty cool. Fun experience trying to catch
the bus to get back home. We got to Bus Station at 10:55 for the bus that was scheduled to leave at 11pm
and tried to see if the bus we still there. The ticket salesmen said
that it wasn´t, but we managed to go back and found out the bus we in
fact still there so we caught the bus and managed to get home. Saturday
night was the baptism of Milena. She is the daughter of a recent
convert who still hadn´t been baptised. We helped get the baptism
organized and it was super cool! Pretty awsome night. Sunday was meeting with the Ward Mission Leader and the Ward Council. This next week will be pretty fun!
Hope that everything is going great at home. I wish I could have some
of the chocolates! Merry Christmas for everybody and I miss you all!
Love
Elder Battraw
Monday, December 1, 2014
1 December 2014
That sounds like a fun Thanksgiving! Thats no fun that the oven
stopped working though,so wednesday there will be a new oven in the
house! Thats cool! How is getting all the mission papers in for Tom
going? Everything getting in on time? Is it hard to get in to india or
is it pretty easy? I don´t know. Brasil seems to be pretty easy if you
are not a missionary. Wow you are already getting more and more
snow! Thats seems like its going to be a lot of snow coming your way.
Thats cool the 2 new parakeets. So Sam will take care of them while Tom
is off on his mission. That will be prettyfun for tom and Sam.
This week was pretty difficult here. Monday was pretty normal,
Tuesday was a zone training which was pretty cool. The Zone Leaders
talked a lot about what Elder Adiukatis taught the mission and
reemphasized a lot of it as well. Itwas pretty good. The rest of
Tuesday was spent in exchanges with the Zone Leaders in their area
helping them get everything ready for their trip to Maués. They left
tuesday night at 11:20
and spent 13 hours on the ship to get to the city. This week was the
week when everything fell through. It was a little bt frustrating at
times, but it went okay. We´ve managed to find some new people to begin
teaching. The man who moved into our house monday did a barbeque for us
that was super good, and Wednesday we got to teach him and his wife for
the first time. They seemed to heave some interest in our message and
had lots of questions. That was pretty cool. We´ve also managed to
start teaching a family of 7th day adventists that have some interest in
our message as well. Thursday was our Brasilisan Thanksgiving. My
companion and I got the pancake mixes and made pancakes for
Thanksgiving. We don´t have maple syrup here so we put butter and whats
called milk sweet on top of them and it was super good. Brasilians
don´t celebrate Thanksgiving so thats what we did! We also have started
teaching a family that we found looking for another family´s house.
They listened to us talk about the Restoration and they seemed to be
interested, but weren´t able to go to church Sunday, but they said that next week they will go. We are excited for them. Sunday at night we got a phone call at 6:50
asking us if we could go to the hospital and give a priesthood blessing
for a member who had been hospitalized earlier that day. We were able
to walk across town (here you can walk across the entire city in an hour
and a half max) and give her a blessing. She´d been feeling pain in
her chest and had to be hospitalized, but when we got there she was
starting to feel a little bit better. Everything will turn out alright
with her. It was an interesting week.
Hope that you all have a great week! I got two of the packages! Thanks! I miss all of you! Have an awesome week!
Love
Elder Battraw
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