27 April 2015

Thats cool! I really hope that you don´t need the information for the FAFSA so if you could see about that would be great!  Registration for incoming freshmen is in June, so I don´t really need to worry about it until June.  Thanks so much! When will be girls camp? It will be after I get home?  I was thinking parties Brasilian style, music, pizza and dancing until 4:30 in the morning.  But we could just go until midnight if you want :) It will be a lot of fun though.  I got the phone call today asking me to which airport I would be going home and that was cool to have.  I might be getting home the 30th, I don´t know. It completely depends on the route.  If I go through Miami, then I might get home the 30th, If go through São Paulo then Atlanta, then its the 1st.  We´ll see.  In three weeks they will send my itinerary tell me how I get home.  What are 4 12´s?

  This week was pretty normal.  Tuesday we didn´t have District Meeting b/c the Zone Leaders were off to Manaus.  So we mostly just studied a little bit more and got ready for the day. Nothing too extreme happened Tuesday.  Wednesday we participated in a Family Home Evening with Joelle and Fabio with the Elders Quorum President.  He showed the 3rd film in the Work and the Glory Series and it didn´t seem to go over too well.  Everybody was super tired and nobody was really understanding the film, but oh well.  It was interesting. Saturday night was the ward activity.  There is no word that translates into English for this type of activity  It was really cool.  There would be a question or scrambled word or a task apresented to everyone to complete.  There was a few like, count the number of doors or windows in the chapel, unscramble the word tangerina.  There was so really cool questions in there , it was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed it.  We had invited some of our investigators to come, but it didn´t work out for them.  We had a less active family that we´ve been visiting showed up as well! Sunday morning was a lot of running around trying to get everyone to church.  Lãone came to church for the first time, that was really cool.  We´ve been teaching here for about 2 weeks but this was the first time that she went to church.  That was really awesome.  Kennedy went to church this week and is excited to be baptized this next Saturday! He is the brother of a family of recent converts and it super cool! Sunday afternoon was the baptism of Elymara.  That was cool, her mom and family were all there to watch! Her sister Sabrinha, who is the only member of her family bore testimony at the  baptism! That was super cool! Its been a pretty awesome week! 

  I hope that everything is going great back at home! Have a great week! I miss you all! 

Love

Elder Battraw

27 April 2015

On Monday, I got my new companion, Elder Mackey! He's a fun guy, and matches me pretty well in just about everything. It's really weird- my first companion was 24, and had a vastly, vastly different background than me. Elder Mackey is literally the most similar person to me that I have ever met. We focused on planning for the first day that we were together. With Elder Wilding, who had been in the area for 9.5 months, we didn't plan very well, because he knew the area and the good people to visit. With Mackey, we planned nearly 3 straight days worth of meetings and things in one hour of companion study, on Tuesday. And we're feeling the blessings already- that day we had lunch with a less-active member who accepted a call as ward missionary, and got him to commit to help with that! Then, we visited our entire teaching pool, which keeps slimming down. We talked with a bunch of members to try and get to know the area better, and got a bunch of good information on a bunch of less-actives. That night, Elder Mackey went for a haircut at a member's house in his last area, and I got a taste of what it is like to serve in a YSA ward. It was pretty awesome, because many of the members are missionary age and will hang out with you. 

Wednesday, we had service at Habitat for Humanity again. It's always different, and this one was lots of fun- chipping concrete off the ground with pickaxes and shovels. The workers had sprayed stucco, which is a form of concrete, all over the walls of the houses, but a lot had fallen on the ground. That had to come off. After 2 thrilling hours of that, we cleared it up, then got busier with missionary work. One of our investigators has been investigating on and off since he was fourteen. That wouldn't be such a problem, except that he's nineteen. In thirty seconds on the doorstep, Elder Mackey kicked him into gear, all but literally. Later, we tried to visit a whole bunch of people, then went to the YW fundraiser for this year. It was a spaghetti dinner, with a silent auction for desserts and other various things, like tickets to baseball games, Disneyland tickets, an hour massage from a chiropractor in the ward's business, and a whole bunch of random favors from the youth. The fundraiser was wildly successful, raising nearly twice as much as planned. Then, during planning that night, we made a bunch of appointments with members for power lessons.

Thursday had yet more going on. We had district meeting in the morning, then helped a realtor in the ward, Sister Lamb, help move one of her clients out. They had lots of stuff that needed to be shifted out to the driveway, including an enormous weight machine that we had to carry down the stairs in one piece. After that, she took us out for ice cream, and talked about how she was being interviewed for the third TV show about one crazy experience she had as a wedding photographer, where one woman arranged for her husband to be killed. Then, we had a meeting with our ward mission leader, and caught Elder Mackey up with most of our investigators and our ward mission plan. After, he showed us the electric bikes he sells, which were surprisingly cheap and lots of fun to ride. Later, we had dinner with Sister Lamb, at a really awesome sushi place. It was called Sushi In Motion, where all the food ran by your table on a conveyor belt, and you pulled off whatever you wanted to eat from it. It was a great idea, and done pretty well. That night, we had a lesson with a member. He is quite a character, whose roommate is trying to get him to write a thesis on all the research he's done on the Bible and some of the stories in it, and collects instruments that he can't play. We tried to teach the Restoration lesson, but ended up listening to him talk for an hour and a half. What's more, he lent us two violins at the end of the lesson. We got to meet their dog, Hairball, too. 

Friday was weekly planning. Then, we tried to visit a bunch of people. Every single person we tried to visit wasn't there, but we still found two new investigators, in the least likely place I would have ever guessed. One of our investigators is dead set on being outside of any particular religion, because he believes they are all right. When we knocked on their door, two of their children, who were 16 years old twins, answered and talked to us for a long while. Both of their parents cycled through at some point, and invited us in. We left their kids with a Book of Mormon, and an invitation to read and pray about it. That night, we had a lesson with Emily again. She is the stake president's son's "friend who is a girl", and knows a lot about our church already. We taught the gospel lesson, and got her to commit to be baptized and set a date! 

Saturday was the biggest service project that I have ever seen. Easily 200 or 300 people showed up to help clear back the brush at an equestrian center. All of them were wearing Mormon Helping Hands t-shirts or vests, and spent four hours with chainsaws, rakes, weed whackers, loppers, and pruning saws. The city had provided two enormous dumpsters, which proved to be wildly optimistic. We filled both of them to overflowing, and left a pile of junk next to them that'll probably fill three more. Someone flew a quadcopter with a camera and filmed it, and I heard that you can see the video on Will Love's Facebook page. Afterward, we tried to visit a bunch more people. 

Sunday was super busy, for a Sunday. We had ward council in the morning, then double attendance at our Gospel Principle class. After church, we learned that somehow we managed to seriously offend the parents of the twins we taught Friday. Exactly how is beyond me, but our former ward mission leader is sorting it out. Later, we visited a bunch more people, and narrowed our teaching pool down to under 10 people, with return appointments with two. At dinner, we taught a full lesson to the family, something that we've been asked to start doing. 

Things are pretty different than home, meal-wise. When I first came out, I thought I'd cook 3 course meals every night. The next day, I thought I'd live off of pop tarts and freezer dinners. The actuality is somewhere in the middle, I cook often, but it's more or less the same stuff- hobo dinners, rice, and spaghetti. It's pretty good! Your guess was right about making divinity, I did make it by hand the first time, and it did hurt my arm. I also started playing tennis in the mornings during exercise time, because my apartment has a court next to it and we got some free racquets from other missionaries. That's been it for this week!

20 April 2015

You could braid Matts hair? Thats different for sure.  I´m not too suprised that he wanted to go to school like that though:)  Wow, Prom has already happened?  Its seems to be getting earlier and earlier every year! It looks like sam had a good time though.  Its weird to think about Prom, so long ago.  Its be a little while. I haven´t gotten any official word about when I go home.  I thought that I would have gotten some official notice or phone call by now, but it looks like it might be a little while more.  We´ll see. I am pretty positive that it will be the 1st of July when my flight touches down in Indianapolis, just no travel itinerary or flight information has been arranged yet.  I´ve heard that they don´t send it towards the end of your mission, like 2-3 weeks beforehand.  I don´t know.  It´ll get here when it gets here.

  This week was fun.  Monday we traveled to Manaus to get Elder Jesus (yes his name is Elder Jesus) and come on back to Manacapuru.  That took up most of the day, lots of time on the bus just traveling.  But it was good. Got back here, emailed home and then let him unpack his bags. Tuesday was district meeting which was good.   It was normal, nothing extraordinary.  Tuesday was a lot of showing the area to Elder Jesus and introducing him to members and investigators.  Wednesday we got to go to the Temple which was super cool.  We had to wake up at 4:15 am to catch the 5:30 bus to Manaus.  The bus ride was super nice.  It was cool to go riding through the Amazon rainforest watching the sun come up.  Kodac moments. Got to Manaus and got on another bus to get to the temple about an hour early.  The trip took a lot less time than we thought. But it was still cool to be at the temple early and just walk around the grounds.  The session was nice, and afterward we got lunch and got on other buses to get back at about 5:30.  Total traveling time: 5.5 hours on buses.  Fun times.  Got back home and were able to do a few visits.  Thursday was normal, nothing super special happened. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were normal.  English and piano class were cool.  I´m teaching both of them now that Elder Sanderson left the area and Elder Jesus doesn´t know how to speak English.  Its fun though.  I´ve been teaching about treble and bass clef.  Its weird to teach something that is so natural for me, like asking which note is this? For me its super simple, but for them its a lot more complicated.  All of our investigators are doing good. Elismara is progressing well and she is excited for her baptism! When found a few new families to teach this week and we are super excited to teach them! They are receiving the lessons well! Joelle and Fabio got confirmed last week and are still super excited about church! Our area is getting interesting.  During this time of the year, the Solomon river floods its banks and floods part of the city, which includes part of our area (but not our house!) The picture that I attached is us on a bridge that when the river is normal, it about 9-10 feet off the ground just to give an idea. 

 I hope that you all have a great week this week! I miss you all! Have an awesome week!

 Love

Elder Battraw

20 April 2015

P-day was epic. At first, we just went to Walmart, then the library. But then we went to Skyzone. That was really awesome, with over 50 missionaries all playing dodgeball and volleyball. We had 1/3 of the whole mission there, and so got a great group discount. That night, I tried to make divinity for the first time. It turned out a little off-white, and kind of lumpy, but still tasted good.

Tuesday, we had Presidential interviews. When I heard about them, I first thought it would be an actual interview. Nope! Basically, we just chatted for a few minutes, then he gave me a bunch of advice, mostly on how to find investigators. Then, we took Elders Pratt and Whaley to the bike shop again, and talked to the woman who worked there again. Afterward, we cleaned out the area book more. 

Wednesday, we had Habitat for Humanity again. It's a lot different every time, and this time it was painting. We had 8 missionaries all painting a block of houses, and got through 3 of them. That took most of the day, until dinner. We went to Pepe's for lunch, and had the most interesting burrito I've ever heard of. It was called the California burrito, and all it had in it was steak, sour cream, and french fries. It was amazing! Literally the best burrito I've ever had, and it was huge. They had some interesting signs, too.

Then, we went back to the apartment, and went out for our first dinner-less than an hour after lunch. Fortunately, it was a to-go dinner, so we weren't too full for our second dinner. It was a pass-off dinner at the stake president's house, with us getting an awesome investigator from P2. She has a mormon boyfriend, and knows almost as much as the missionaries, and has read the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized. Basically, the lessons are a formality. Either way, the lesson went well.

Thursday, we stayed in proselyting clothes for the longest time. We dressed up really early because a member was making us breakfast. We did that, then had district meeting. Afterward, we went to Pick-Up-Stix, an Asian restaurant. I got the best fortune ever there-

At dinner that night, we went to a SWAT team member's house. Last time we went there, he showed us a video of what he'd done earlier- shoot a machine gun out of a helicopter. This time, he told us about his time as a jail guard, and all the fun ways he'd seen inmates make weapons, out of Jolly Ranchers, Styrofoam, and how to get razor blades out of the razors without guards noticing. Then, we learned how to smuggle drugs into jail. All of this probably won't come in handy, but isn't bad to know, just in case. That night, we did more setup for the 10 virgins pageant. Later, we got leadership calls, and learned that Elder Wilding is going to be a zone leader. 

Friday, we finished setting up the pageant. All in all, we were there for four days. After setup, we learned what we were going to be doing the next day. Afterward, we got to see P2's shattered car window. Apparently, someone had gone around in their apartment complex and broke 8 car windows. Nothing was stolen, not even their GPS in plain sight. 

Saturday morning was the much-vaunted 10 virgins pageant, the stake women's conference. We had set up tables for 280 people, and had to set up more by the end. We made 300 salads to start with, and nearly all of them got handed out. 

We had a pretty good assembly line setup going on, and knocked them all out in half an hour. Then, we had to serve them. Each companionship had to hand out bread, water, and salads to 4 or 5 tables, 40 or 50 people, and be ready to help. That was just a little stressful. After it was all done and everyone had left (we didn't actually see the pageant, we were making the salads at the time), we tore everything down. Despite the 4 days it took to set it all up, it took under two hours to clean it all up. That night, I tried making divinity again. It turned out pretty well this time, largely because I used an electric mixer this time. It actually turned out white, and had no lumps. Afterward, we went to Sonic to await transfer calls. We eventually got ours-Elder Wilding is going to Anaheim singles ward, and I'm staying in Brea 1 with a new companion, Elder Mackey. 

Sunday was interesting. It was Elder Wilding's last full day in the area, after being there for 9 1/2 months. He got loads of goodbyes at church, and then packed for a few hours afterward. Normally, missionaries will accumulate junk until they are transferred, then throw away most of it. He had 6 transfers worth of junk to go through, so that took a while. After that, at Persian, we had 8 missionaries there, mostly to see Wilding off. Their dog was in the middle of a shed, so it looked like it had lost a fight with hair clippers, as an unrelated sidenote. Here are some other funny pictures from this week:

Oh, and this morning, we managed to set the kitchen on fire. It was nothing too serious; one of us had spilled something on the burner earlier, then turned it on this morning. We still managed to fill the kitchen with ash, but that was the extent of the damage.

18 April 2015

While I was at the library, I finally remembered to look up all the
recipes on your blog. I was really surprised to find so many, and
surprised more to find ones I really wanted to try. Right afterward, I
went to the store and bought some special ingredients, and tonight I
started cooking. Out of all the recipes I could have chosen, I picked
the one that looked best while requiring the fewest ingredients:

13 April 2015

That sounds like it was an awesome trip out to Maryland! I am kind of jealous that you all got to go out to Gettysburg this weekend.  That would be super cool to do.  Just another thing that I will need to do when I get back.  I remember that Fort McHenry was super cool as well.  I do remember seeing them raising and flying the flags while we were there.  So why didn´t you buy the new van? Sounds like it is pretty awesome.  Casper is a pretty cool name.  What was the cherry festival like in D.C.? Was it cool, what did you do there? Lots of sandwhiches huh?  Its been a long time since I ate a sandwhich.  

   This week was pretty crazy for us.  Monday was the last p day for Elder Brown on the mission.  Tuesday was District Meeting which was normal.  Nothing super crazy happened during District Meeting.  Pretty normal.  Wednesday was also normal.  Nothing super strange.  Thursday I got to go on exchanges with Elder Pablo. We went around and did some visits in both areas while Elder Brown and Sanderson went to Manaus for a meeting for Elder Brown.  So I got to stay in Manacapuru with Elder Pablo.  It was pretty cool.  We walked quite a bit going from area to area.  Did some basic visits. Friday rolled around and it was the same thing.  Elder Pablo and I were able to submit the intial papers into the offices here to help some of his investigators get married.  It took awhile because some of their papers were not exactly right and so they had to make some phone calls around, but it all worked out in the end.  We had a cool visit later that night with a less active.  He hasn´t gone to church for a little while but we were able to teach him about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the importance of taking the sacrament.  It was a cool lesson. Saturday Elder Brown and Sanderson got back from Manaus about 9:40 in the morning. Saturday was Piano class as well, which I am starting to enjoy being able to teach about music.  Taught about how to figure out which notes are which in treble clef for all you music people.  Pretty simple stuff, but it was still fun nonetheless.  The rest of the day was normal.  Sunday was the baptism of Daniel.  He is the nephew of one of the members and we were able to teach for the last few weeks and Sunday night was his baptism.  It was super cool.  I was able to baptize him which was awesome! We got to visit Joelle and Fabio this week and they are doing great.  We sang Families can be together Forever with them and they started  to cry.  They are super awesome and its awesome that I´ve been able to teach and help them. Transfers have come and gone and my new companion is Elder Jesus from São Paulo Campinas.  He is pretty cool, but I´ve been with him for about 3 hours now.  It will be a fun transfer.  I´ll still be in Manacapuru for now. I´m excited for this next transfer!

 Hope that you all have a great week this week! I miss you all! Have an awesome week!

Love

Elder Battraw

13 April 2015

On Tuesday, we received an unnatural gift from the heavens- rain. That day, we cleaned out our area book a little more, narrowing down our teaching pool to people we are actually teaching. That took until dinner, where we used some gift cards that we had been given. We got some frozen yogurt for dessert, too. There are about ten thousand different yogurt places around here, but I hadn't been until then. 

Wednesday, we spent the whole day doing service. In the morning, we went over to a member's house to help out in their backyard. We dug up some busted sprinkler pipes, and put up a short fence to keep their dog out of their garden. Then, we went to the stake center to help set up for a pageant that the stake is putting on- the 10 virgins. Apparently, it's going to be a huge production. The stage setup was designed and (largely) put together by a Disneyland set manager, using massive 10 foot tall hand-painted panels that we had been given by another stake. The panels showed an impressively painted background of a city and garden from around this time, and had been painted by a member for a different pageant from another stake. They were painted on big slabs of plywood, so we screwed them on to 2x4 frames and started setting them up. The configuration that we put them in has a narrow hall in the back, and rooms on either side that are largely open to view. They look amazing with the painted backgrounds! Then, we got frozen yogurt as a reward for helping.

The next day, we did just as much service, at the same places. We went to the same member's house, and finished up replacing the sprinkler pipes and reburied them, before starting to sand her kitchen that she wants to repaint. That took until dinner again, then we went back to the stake center to finish setting up the pageant. We finished putting up all the frames and securing everything down, so the stage looks just like it will when the pageant is put on. It looks shockingly awesome! We got more frozen yogurt after. That's the weird thing about members feeding you- they all decide what to cook based on the weather or something, because meals come in streaks, like getting Mexican food for a week straight. Not that I mind, but I wouldn't have guessed it. 

On Friday, we went back to the same member's house and finished sanding her kitchen. She wanted to get us lunch, and we weren't about to argue. We walked her dog while she was off getting it, and then had a very early dinner. It was at a really good Hawaiian barbecue restaurant. After that, we just cleaned the apartment. Not a super exciting day.

Saturday was when all the real thrills happened. We went over to the Wade's house. I talked about it two weeks back, but here's the gist of that- really old abandoned house that needs to be refinished and have loads of stuff replaced. Last time, we cleaned up a lot of wreckage around there. That's how we started, but by the end, we got to the fun bit- tearing down the drywall. Do you know the fastest way to look for studs? A double-handed sledgehammer. I used one of those to pound holes in the wall in a line, then a huge crowbar to pry out large chunks of drywall. The only problem is that once you are done wreaking havoc on the bits that aren't directly attached to the frames, you have to remove the bits attached to the frames. That is super hard work. The method I used was simply beating it to death with the sledgehammer, then getting the point of the crowbar under it to scrape off the remnants. It was hot, too, in an unventilated room while wearing heavy painter's masks to avoid white lung disease from all the plaster in the air. It was so totally worth it, though. Unfortunately, the project came to an abrupt end for the day when one of the guys working there, who was 64 years old and tearing down a wall, hung from a beam to try and pull it down, and succeeded too well. He hit his head pretty hard, and got taken to the hospital for stitches. After the project was done for the day, we mostly just rested from all the work there, and gave some other missionaries a ride to a bike shop for repairs. One of the women working there told us how desperate she was for religion in her life, and told us her whole life story, including all her mistakes, right in the middle of the shop. She was very open. 

Sunday was pretty tame. We went to church in the morning, and arranged a few meetings with some investigators who came to church, which was awesome. The lesson we taught in Gospel Principles class was on Faith in Jesus Christ, which for missionaries comes pretty naturally after talking about it with every investigator who'll sit still for the first lesson. After church, there was a meeting for all the new ward missionaries and us at the ward mission leader's house, Brother Grant. He talked to us about our need to formulate a plan to find people, and a little about what we should be doing. We have a whole bunch of really good ward missionaries, so this should work out pretty well. Right after that came dinner, where we talked a lot about education and careers. Right after that came Persian, where we talked yet more about the same sort of thing. All the missionaries I have talked to have said that going on a mission has made them second-guess their plans for the future, but so far I've just had mine get more and more clear. That's probably more because I'm almost never thinking about them than anything else, but I'll take that over uncertainty. Elder Wilding shared an insight that spooked me a bit: after our missions, while we are in college or have jobs, we'll be working 5 days a week, and spending another at church. The last day will be our only leisure day, and we'll still have families to juggle then. That means that if we don't enjoy what we do at work, we won't have much, if any, time to do what we like. That's a powerful incentive to get a job you really, really like.