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

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