Week Thirty Seven - Emergency Transfer

Yo, so I'm getting emergency transferred right now. I need to go home and pack my bags and stuff. I only have a few hours to do it. So yeah, sorry. I didn't get in trouble or do anything wrong so don't worry. I have pictures for you, but I'll have to send them next week.
Love and miss you.
Sorry for the small email.

Elder Batten

Week Thirty Six

I'm feeling better now, I'm back to normal. I was pretty close to normal the last P-Day actually. This week went pretty well, we worked a lot and made some new investigators. I heard that Mom cried the whole time while reading my letters, won't say who told me. It 's really weird now that I'm that missionary out in the field who's parents read his letters from the pulpit. That's really strange for me. I kind of expected that Emily would pick up the language pretty quickly. She's pretty smart and if I remember correctly she studied a bunch of Spanish in high school. That's cool that Cole got a scholarship to Utah State. That's pretty awesome.

This week was a lot of work. We had to recuperate from the week that I was sick. Also I didn't mention but all of our baptisms marked for this past week fell through. We have a problem with un married investigators, and their kids that are progressing have less than 15 years so they have to wait out three months or until their parents can be baptized. We were hoping that some of the older siblings would start to progress but it isn't seeming to happen. We have some potential baptisms outside of Celia and Jose who need to get married. It's only a question of real desire to follow the answers that they have received.

I don't have any pictures. I'll prepare something for next week but I can give a funny story. It's a little raunchy but not that much. So me, my companion and a member were walking to a family home evening and these two women passed by.  One of them just shouted out "Olha ele, que gostoso" which is like, "look at him, so tasty" or something like that, but gostoso has another meaning which signifies wanting. When I looked up at her she just gave me this face and I died with shame. I looked at my companion and Wania the member who was with us. I was like you guys heard that too right? and they just started laughing and giving me crap. Not the first time, but it never stops being awkward and weird, especially when the women has like 35 years.

Also I have a crazy story: when I arrived at church on Sunday there were some Americans sitting in the front of the chapel. I greeted everyone and came by to talk with them. When I started talking one started responding only in English, the other didn't understand. Turns out he served his mission in Brasilia and married a woman from Rio Largo after his mission. They were there with some family visiting her parents. But the crazy part is that they are from Oregon City. One hour from home. I was so shocked that in Rio Largo, in the middle of nowhere I met someone who was from Oregon.  Which is not a common place for any Brazilian to know. It was pretty crazy. So I spoke a little English with them, which was different.

But love and miss you, have a great week!
Elder Batten

Week Thirty Five

So this week was uneventful and kind of blew. I got really sick with high fever, diarrhea, headache and just sore body and a little vomiting. I went to the hospital early in the week to get it solved out and the hospital said I probably had a virus. I took medicine through an IV which is common here, but when I returned home it didn't really help. I actually continued getting worse. And I had a fever of 102 that night. So I had to return to the hospital later in the week and they said that I had an intestinal infection, which is what I had originally thought. So I've been taking medicine for that the past few days and I'm feeling a lot better. I should be able to work normally this week. Because the last week I had to stay basically on my bed. We left a few times later at night to make visits, but I'm hoping to return this week to completely normal. So yeah, I'm feeling good now, the medicine has been working and killing whatever crap is inside of me so nothing to worry about.

I don't really have anything to report about this week since all I did was rest, but church yesterday went well. We had branch conference which was pretty cool and I was writing in my journal but it's been more than a month that I didn't write in it. I know I should but it just got annoying and I forgot about it.

Also, transfers passed and I will be staying here, same companion.

I hope everyone has a good week. Love and miss you.

Elder Batten

Week Thirty Four

This week was great, but our baptism fell through. It was pretty hard, but I'm confident it will happen some day. Something hard to explain here is authority for baptism. A lot of people aren't able to understand this, but we are continuing to go there and teach the entire family. It was for Eugenia and her mom (Maria) to be baptized on 5 of March. The date was made a while ago and when Maria got sick with dengue we were not able to continue visiting them. When we were able to return we discovered that Maria isn't married. Resulting, Eugenia kind of shied away from the baptism. But it's possible that on the 19th and 26th we are going to have anywhere from 4-6 baptisms. Which is gonna be sick. Only the next transfer is going to be March 13th. I don't think I'm going to leave but if I do I will get pretty annoyed.

I'm a little bit sick right now. I've had an upset stomach, fever and headache for the past couple of days so I'm kind of without anything to say. But we worked hard this week, we were able to bring 9 investigators to church this Sunday. The total amount of people there was 48, so things are getting better.

Sorry, I'll try and write more next week.

Elder Batten