24 November 2014

Wow so now there are two Battraw boys working at Mcdonalds. Thats got to be interesting.  Lots of Mcdonalds at home then?  Thats super cool! What kind of birds will tom be gettting? Who is going to take care of them during his mission? The new Hunger Games move was good?I heard that they are doing a part1 and part 2.  Still haven´t figured out anything for this Christmas, next week will be interviews with President Castro so I´ll be sure to ask him then! 

  This week was interesting here.Monday we got to spend the day in Manaus.  I got to go back to one of my old areas and have lunch there with one of the members there and then we got to go downtown and did a little sightseeing. We took pictures in front of the theatre there in Manaus which is more than a 100 years old so its super cool.  It was a fun day to go to Manaus. Tuesday was the conference with Elder Adukaitis of the Seventy and it was really good.  We got to be included in the morning session which was really good.  Elder Adukaitis who happens  to be the cousin of President Klein, gave a training on how to approach and teach families, and how to plan better as missionaries.  It was super good and useful. A lot of it talked about the attitudes of missionaries. About how we need to do more than talk, but do and show. Tuesday afternoon we got back on the bus to go to Itacoatiara. It took 4 hours,but we all managed to get back in one piece.  Wednesday,I wasn´t feeling too well, but managed to still work. This week we managed to find one family that is 7th day Adventist who is super cool.  We´ll be able to start teaching them consistently this week. Jucileno is doing well.  His wife is reading the Book of Mormon and is really thinking about being baptized.  They are a super cool family, every time we go there they offer us food!  The new owner of the house where we were living now went to church this week!  His name is Sergio and he served in the Brazilian Navy for 30 years and lives with his wife.  We stopped by his house Friday night and started talking to him and he told us that he wanted to go to church this Sunday and he went! He even took along with him a friend.  Today we had lunch at his home and he barbecued and everything. Super good food!  We are going to start teaching him and his wife tomorrow!  We are super excited for them! 

   Hope that you all have a good week! I miss all of you! This mission has been one of the best choices I have made in my life!  Have a great week everyone!

Love

Elder Battraw

17 November 2014

Thats super cool that Nathan has gotten his braces off and everything!  Tom is now an Elder that is super cool.  He still has a little time then until he has to report to his mission off in India? He is going to which MTC?  Is there a MTC in India?  I don´t know if there is....That sounds like a campout that defeats the purpose of a campout but sounds like it was a lot of fun!  Was it indoors or did they sleep outside?  That sounds like fun to be a nurse for girls camp.  Sounds like something you will like, as long as you don´t have  to treate anyone.  When will be girls camp?  Fun stuff.

So this week in Itacoatiara was pretty cool. Monday, the pday which always goes by super fast.  Tuesday I got to go on exchanges with Elder Silveira who is from the Bahia here in Brasil.  Super cool exchange.  We got to teach a few lessons and on top of that, I got to hold a toucan on my hand. Yes the bird, kinda of like toucan sam, but this toucan doesn't sing or particularly like strangers.  He let me hold him, but wasn´t too happy when I tried to pet him, but he was super cool.  To top off that night, I got to see a monkey as well.  One of the less active families in the area has a monkey,so of course, the elders got to see the monkey, but  he wasn´t wanting to let us hold him so that didn´t end up working out but okay!   Super cool, that next day we got to do a service project cutting grass brasilian style, with a hoe, which means you don´t leave any grass. It was hard work just to get a little area cleaned out but we managed to  get it done.  Everything worked out!  Thursday I got to do a baptismal interview that went super well, but on the way back we started talking to a guy on the side of the road that turned out to be from Denmark and knew about 3 or 4 languages which happened to include english.  Gave me an opportunity to practice my english skills.  That was fun!  You always meet people like that in the weirdest of places!  Sunday we got to sing in church.  We sang Nearer my God to thee in English and Portuguese which was super cool. We had invited some of our investigators to come and watch.  We got to have 4 people there who watched and liked the church so this week we will work with them!  Sunday we also got on a bus at 4:00pm to come to Manaus, with the rest of our Zone.  Took about 4 hours of traveling but we got here!  Today pday is here in Manaus so that is super cool!  We are staying in a house with 8 other elders without an iron so it gets interesting!  Tomorrow will be a conference with Elder Adikuatis of the Seventy. Will be super awesome!

Hope that everything is going good at home!  I miss all of you!  Have a great week everyone!

Love

Elder Battraw

10 November 2014

That is really cool! India?  When does he leave for the MTC?  is he going to Provo or another MTC?  That sounds really cool! Super excited for him!
  This week here was pretty good.  We managed to find a lot of families, but it was a lot of knocking on doors.   Elder Brock and I would pick a street, pray, and then go down the streets knocking on the doors that we felt that we should knock.  Lots of work, but we did find some people to teach and we did hear a few funny excuses on why people couldn´t talk to us.  We did find one family that was really cool and were pretty rich and started to teach them.  It was a pretty cool lessson, but in the end, the man started talking about how he thought that Joesph Smith and Ellen White were both prophets and we when were leaving he handed us both our own personal copy of translated from Portuguese, The Only Hope, which is just a book that justifies the 7th day Adventist church.  But we invited him to read the Book of Mormon and so I hope he reads it!  We found a lot of potentials this week so hopefully this week will be super busy.   Sunday was interesting b/c we all woke up and it was absolutely pouring outside, so we all suited up and left, out of the 4 missionaries, only I had a jacket to wear (Thanks Opa!) , but needless to say, we all arrived to church dripping from head to toe.  Made life a little bit interesting for that day!  This week will be really cool though.  We´ll get to teach everybody that we found and Sunday we all get to go to Manaus! It´ll be pretty awesome!

  Hope that everything is going okay at home! Have a great week! Miss you all!

Love

Elder Battraw

Tom's Call

3 November, 2014

That sounds like an interesting week for sure!  Wow that sounds like a really cold Halloween for sure! 30 degrees and raining and then it snowed to top it off!  That picture actually has an interesting story behind that picture.   My companion were in church yesterday and we were walking down the hall when we saw the parents of a missionary who was going home but had wanted to see one of his areas, so they were there for sacrament meeting.  The funniest part of that was the moment that they saw us they walked up and said Hi I´m Brother Witt, and I remember just kinda of staring at them for a second trying to remember my english and how to respond.  Its super weird to speak in english, b/c even when my companion and I speak english one with another, its not real english, its a mixture and we switch in and out of the language quite frequently.  But they wanted to take a picture of us and send it to you so they did!   Super cool, they had also brought some american candy to give to the missionaries here in brasil, which included sweet tarts and reeses with a small can of root beer!  Super good!  Thats no fun that the marching band didn´t get to move on this year! Well, maybe next year they´ll be able to get through to State!  Sis. Barret, I do remember her, thats cool that she is home now!  Congrats to her!

 This week here in Itacoatiara was good.  Monday was transfers and so we got a new elder in our house, Elder Sidrão from São Paulo, hes pretty cool and is super funny and enerjetic so its been fun to have him.  The rest of the week was a pretty normal week.  Tuesday, District Meeting, and Wednesday we helped the sisters here move houses.  The house they were living in will be used for the new elders who arrived friday here, and so they needed some help getting everything moved so we and another set of missionaries went over there and helped get all the stuff moved out.  It didn´t take too long and it was one trip to get everything moved over to their new house, the only hard part was the 3 floors of extremely steep steps. Everything went well though.  This week we were able to find a few more people to teach and so we are going to be teaching this next week. We are super excited for them.  We are still teaching Jucileno and his family right now, and they went to church again this week.  They are a really awesome famliy but they have some doubts right now and we are helping them out right now with some of these doubts.  This week we also had Sergio and Amanda, had the oppoturnity to go to the temple and we were super pumped for them!  Amanda was confrimed this last week and b/c they had a caravan she was able to go the temple with her husband. Its was super awesome to see them to be able to go!  This next week looks like it will be pretty normal and pretty calm though. It´ll be an awesome week though!

  hope that you all have a great week this week!  Thanks for sending the money! I´ll make sure to get good shoes!  Have fun Zach at Camp Tecumseh!  Have a great week and miss all of you!

Love

Elder Battraw

27 Oct. 2014

Happy Birthday Zach, congrats on officially being a teenager now!  Thats super cool!  The pumpkin patch is closed now?  Thats super weird.  You´ve still got a little bit of time left so you should go get one.  They acutally do have pumpkins here in the middle of the Amazon, but they are green and not orange, so its a little bit different.  But they are still cool.  Just super expensive. Thanks for the socks!  Shoes here or as they are called here in Brasil, sapatos sociais, usually run at 150.00 reais so in dollars they would be about ...70-80 dollar, just depending on the exchange rate at the time.  Next week can you send me a total of what I still have on my card, I´ve been trying to not use it too much, but I don´t know how much I still have on it.  Thanks!

  This week in Itacoatiara, so monday was pretty normal.  Nothing extremely special happened.  Tuesday we got to District Meeting and the heavens opened and it began to rain like there was no tomorrow. We were fine, but the other elders in our district didn´t happen to make it out unscathed.   Fun stuff. Wednesday was  normal.  Saturday was cool b/c that night we got to have a Stake activity with the young single adults and they invited all of their friends to come over and we had 8 missionaries give a combined lesson on the Restoration.  Super cool! The next day as well we got to leave and do a visit and managed to find a new family to teach that are super cool.  Its a mom and she has 5 daughters and she runs a bakery and she is a woman of great faith.  Super strong and we are so excited that we will be able to teach her.  Sunday night we got to help out with a baptism with the other elders which was cool.  This week we got to talk with Jucileno and his wife for the first time, that is teaching them together and we left an invite to read the Book of Mormon with her.  We came back Saturday to visit them and she  had already read all of the Introduction, and up to 1 Nephi 12 and was still reading.  She is super cool.  Jucileno is also going really well and it is super cool to teach them.  This week we got to get Amanda confirmed and was super awesome.  I´m really starting to appreciate those piano lessons that I got, b/c now i play the organ for sacrament meeting every week in our branch here.  Sunday night I served as an emergency pianist for the district choir as well for a few minutes.  Really thankful that I know how to play piano now!  Today was transfers, but Elder Brock and I will stay here in Itacoatiara for this next transfers and we are super excited!  Its going to be an awesome week!  

  Hope that you all have a great week this week! Thanks for the packages and socks!   Have an awesome week! Good Luck Marching Tiger Band!  Miss all of you!

Love 

Elder Battraw

20 Oct. 2014

 That sounds like an interesting week! Congrats Sam on making it to Semi State!  Yep, every year the Semi State Competition is at Ben Davis, but the band has never passed semi state so good luck to them this year!  Toms papers have been submitted!  My guess is the Berlin Germany mission.  That would be a super cool mission.  I think that he won´t leave until after new years, b/c one of my friends put in her papers with her availibility date for january 1st and is now going to leave in March for Finland.  But I don´t really know, we´ll see. About Christmas day, i can see if I can call a little bit later or maybe do it the day before.  It really depends on where I am in the mission and what is going on. I´ll see what i can do.  That package is in the mission office so I won´t get it until next week.  Things that I want would SOCKS.   Thick american black socks. They just have to last 9 more months but the socks here aren´t that great to walk in, they tend to get holes. If you can put in a pair of shoes, that would be great, but if not I´ll try to find something.  Brasilian shoes are not thick heeled and wear out quickly.  Thanks! 

So this week in Itacoatiara was pretty good.  Monday we got to move houses.   We woke up early, did excercises and then finished up all the nessecary packing.  We had a truck to help us out and after three trip we managed to move all the stuff to our new house.  Its really nice and we all like it!  This week we got to have the baptism of Amanda this Saturday which was super cool.  It was super awesome to be able to see her finally get baptized and so we are super excited for her! We are still working with Jucileno as wel.  Thursday we got to go over to his house and participate in his sons birthday party.  We actually didn´t know about the party, but Jucileno marked it for that time for us to give an English class for his son but when we got there, it turned out to be a birthday party.  Still was super cool, we got to eat lots of birthday cake sing happy birthday.  Before the actual birthday, we got to share a spiritual message with his family  and for part of it we sang families can be together forever in english for his family and it was so cool to see how strong the spirit entered into the room afterwards, the mom(who we haven´t had much contact with) felt the spirit so strongly.  Pretty awesome night.  Sunday we got to do something fun!  We had an apple pie recipe that we wanted to try with a family of investigators that we managed to make with them.  We didn´t end up having enough dough to cover the top, but it still turned out really good!    Transfers are coming up at the end of this week and I don´t know if I will be transferred or not.  We´ll see. 

  Thanks for the letter!  Have an awesome week!  I miss all of you! Thanks for the packages! Have an awesome week!

Love

Elder Battraw