Week Sixty Three - 21

The next transfer is this next week. My companion is doing great but he needs to talk more and interact more with people to better his language abilities. I think that I will maybe stay here with him a third transfer but I'm not too sure. I like this area for the most part. 

So I totally forgot it was my birthday this week. I don't know how but I just like spaced. I had planned a small get together with the Bishops family and their neighbors (an awesome investigator family who we are teaching). My birthday and the daughter of the family were on the same day and the Bishop on the 22nd. But I completely forgot and we had splits that day and I didn't remember about the "party" and I split off to the other area with another missionary. In the middle of the division like 4:30 or so the bishops wife called a little frustrated that I had forgotten. I apologized and remembered but it was too late. I was already in the other area. But they brought the cake home and I ate it the next day. So yeah. I'm 21. 

We had a bunch of new investigators at church on Sunday. It was good because they got to see the baptism of the other area after church. They all got excited. We've got some good things going in this area. 

We HAD a baptism on Saturday. Me and my companion cleaned and prepared the font the last time we had a baptism on the same day as the other elders. So it was their turn to prepare the baptismal font. The baptism was marked for 6 hours. I got there at 5. The font wasn't even filled. It was still emptying water from their baptism from last week that they didn't drain and when it got to the bottom it didn't empty 100%. It left like 2 inches of nasty fish smelling water that had bugs in it and we couldn't get it to drain it out to clean it.  Also literally no one came out for the baptism. So we cancelled it and put it off for next week. Yeah it was annoying. My leaders wanted me to put it off for Sunday morning because it was the last day of the month to hit our zone goal. But I still marked the baptism for next week. And it WILL happen next week without problems. 

So yeah that was our week. We've got some good families and good investigators progressing here. So yeah I'm happy.

Have a good week. 

Elder Batten

Week Sixty Two

Sorry I didn't take any pictures this week. I'll try better to take some this week. Also I got the package this week. I had to go to Maceió on Wednesday to get it. I had to pay for it because the mail system here is corrupt. But whatever. Some packages get taxed and you have to pay to unlock them. And if you wait too long the tax gets bigger and eventually sent back. But I loved the package. The shirt is sweet and I like the jump rope.

I got some cool letters/ pictures from 2 kids in the primary yesterday at church. They designed my hair pretty awesome in the picture. 

This week a boy named João Vitor is going to get baptized. He´s been waiting for 3 months now. Since he is younger than 15 and his parents aren´t members. He is friends of the bishops son. He goes to church with them. I´ve tried teaching his parents but they aren't really interested. They go to the church Universal. 

It's started to get hot here. Summer has officially started and it is heating up. 

We had a new investigator at church yesterday. Her name is Sandra. She is pretty cool. She´s very quiet and timid, but she talks openly with us. She feels a lot of guilt because her two sons who have 22 and 25 years are alcoholics. We found her by making a contact with her son in the street and he passed his address. His name is Rodolfo. He sells hippie bracelets in the street, has enormous dreadlocks, and plays guitar. He seems pretty cool but he is never home. The other son is always working. He works at home with his dad doing reforming to trailers.

But yeah

Have a good week.

love and miss you, Elder Batten

Week Sixty One - Zone Conference

We had a zone conference this week. But zone conference is different than zone meeting. Zone conference includes all of the zones of the state of Alagoas which is 6 zones. It was good. I got to see some of my old companions. The mission president talked a lot about teaching repentence to our investigators and the importance of that. It was good. I liked the training. We returned Tuesday night. I spent monday night there in Maceió with my old companion Elder Christensen. 

Vinicius was baptized this week, I'll put in the picture. We are making some progress in working better with the members. We're getting some references now and then. We are going to be teaching some incomplete families this week. So Hopefully we will see some more progressing members.

Also we played a joke with some of the members writing in english on the chalkboard. They tried to use google translate but it didn't work out too well. 

Have a good week, take care.

Elder Batten

Week Sixty

This week was extremely frustrating I'm not going to lie. Pretty much all of our investigators that were progressing have stopped. Except one, who will be baptised on Saturday which will be cool. But a lot of annoying things left my angry and frustrated. One day we had designated a street to go and make contacts. The day had started off badly, and the first contact was with a preacher of an apostate church who wanted to argue about the doctrine of having a pre existence. Instead of arguing I ended the contact and continued. The next was a couple who heavily rejected us. When I introduced us they immediately said they were from another apostate church. (All other churches are considered apostate to me incase you were wondering). They stopped in the middle of the road and told us to go our way and they would go for theirs. Unluckily for them we were going in the same direction. So they stopped and waited and we continued. But we stopped again to make another contact. Then the couple came up in the middle of the contact, interrupted and started asking what we were trying to do to them. They accused us of trying to decieve them. The word decieve in Portuguese is a little stronger though. And I instantly filled with anger and lost control completely.

What would Jesus Do? well.... Mathew 21:12

No I'm just kidding, I really shouldn't have done that but I kind of lost it that day. Right after that we went to Luzinete to find her living once again with the guy who was beating her 2 months ago... they´re not married. So that was just swell. 

But some references opened up this week with a lot of potential. Just that they didn't go to church yesterday. 

Francielle has been rethinking being baptised because she has problems with the law of chastity. I left Alma 34 with her to read. Lets just say she has been re thinking things after reading. 

We are in Maceió right now. We have a zone conference tomorrow. This week will be better.

Take Care,

Elder Batten