Week Ninety Eight

Hey, sorry I didn't send a long email last week. I wanted to play basketball so I didn't have much time. I'm really sorry.

This week we had tonnss of rain, like more rain than Maceió has had in a really really long time. Like a lot of the streets got flooded and a lot of the stop lights broke down, and the rain caused the road to break and there are a lot of holes in the street because of the rain. The city is not that well built for rain. We had some buckets in our house catching water that was pinging from the ceiling. We had quite a few spots of droppage and a lot of the ceiling got wet and paint started to fall from the ceiling. But it was cool. We spent repeated days wet and the house smells like wet clothes, and wet elder.

We had a stake conference here at the church this weekend. It was great. The president of the Recife temple came and talked. He and the stake president both gave very powerful talks. The conference was really spiritual. I enjoyed it a lot. 

We are going to start working with this lady named Neide this week. She came to the conference because she felt inspired that she needed to be there. She has quite a few doubts and questions about religion and such. We visited her house once, she lives in a favela in a really humble house, but I'm excited to work with her this last week.

I don't know If I'm gonna be able to send email next Monday, there are lot of things scheduled for me to do and dinner with the president so I don't know, if not, see you soon!

Elder Batten  

Week Ninety Six - Mother's Day Edition

It was good to talk with everyone on Mother's Day. I forgot to show my planner that a sister in my district made for me. On the front is my plane passage to go home, and on the back she made like a collage with things for after the mission, it has the law of chastity, a picture of the temple, a cut out of a girl, and a little baby. It was pretty funny.

We spent some time this week finding new investigators. We found quite a few, but a lot couldn't come to church this Sunday "because of mother´s day". But we had Jadiel at church with his little daughter this week. I'll try and take some more pictures this week, I haven't taken any in a while. Where going to have a family home evening with the members tonight so I'll take a picture with everyone. 

3 more weeks. It feels like so much time but it is also so little time. Confliction. 

sorry I can't think of much else to say

have a good week ,

Elder Batten

Week Ninety Five

Sorry I didn't send an email last week, we were kind of pressed with time because we had to do it on Tuesday since Monday was labour day. But last week me and my companion helped a member to slaughter a pig. My companion wanted to kill it. He had to give it the blow with a hatchet. He kind of looked like a clown doing it because he was too scared to hit it hard and ended up just kind of hurting the pig. This other guy who was there had to end up grabbing the axe and killed it. I helped skin it and do a few things. I also gave the pigs baths and put out food for them.

This week we are spent a lot of time trying to help Jadiel's family because the members got really excited to see a complete family go to church. It's been a while that missionaries have brought a complete family to church here. We helped them move their house on Tuesday and when we got there they were totally unprepared to move and we just started putting things on a cart and wheeling them to the new house which was like a 5 minute walk. They eventually called their "friend" who had a small truck who helped out. He was this 70 year old guy who surprisingly had a lot of strength and energy who just spent his time chewing people out. Except me and my companion who were actually helping. And we ended up getting a lot of rain. But I kind of liked that part. That entire day I was having reflux and I ended up spending the night throwing up at 1 in the morning. I think it was vinegar that I ate at lunch. But I slept the entire next day so it was cool and I feel better now.

Have a good week!

Elder Batten

Week Ninety Four - Itinerary

No email this week. Monday was a holiday and Tuesday he ran out of time.

But we got travel itinerary!

Elder Batten will be home on Wednesday, June 7th!