Two days until Christmas.

This week has had lots of stuff happening with classes and christmas! Last saturday we went proselyting again but didnt hand out as many books of mormon. We had a 30 min conversation with some JW´s in portuguese so that was interesting. I had to give a talk in portuguese this last sunday and it was stressful because the mtc president and his family and all the administration people came to that sacrament meeting, but it went well, and then after I had to give priesthood lesson (in english thankfully). We got our schedules for christmas eve and day and they look super fun so I´m excited! I looked and we get ice cream 4 different times which is rare in the mtc because ice cream is kinda expensive down here. We also watched a live broadcast to all the missionaries from Provo and Elder Holland was the speaker and it was SOO GOOOD!! He talked about how the book of mormon should be our focus and other stuff, i would rank it as 9/10 on the intensity scale. Our brazillian roomates brought a chess set so we´ve been playing with them so thats fun. I was ironing my clothes the other day and all of a sudden the iron melted a hole in one of my pants! I guess the pants are made of more sinthetic material so they could stand the heat and melted, so i guess learning moment there, but ive got enough pants to be okay, but i dont know what to do with the ones i ruined. We also watched the 1st presidency´s christmas devotional and I really enjoyed the part where someone was saying how we should focus on the gift weve been given, the gift of the holy ghost, and it was really good (so go watch it :)  When it rains here it rains HARD! It pounds on the roof and completly soaks everything in a minute. One day we left our window open and we came back to a huge puddle in our room! My stuff was all fine because I´m not by the window, but my companions had soaked shoes and beds (it was pretty hilarious). They changed our schedules again so Instead of staying a extra week after new years they are sending us out on the 27th, i just found out yesterday and i just hope i know enough portuguese to enter into the real mission field in 4 days!! The MTC has been so fun and I´ve loved getting to know people here! There was one elder who said his friend had been here in september left him a present in the ceiling on my floor, so I went and pushed up on the ceiling and found a big bag of candy and 2 liter soda (just sitting in the ceiling for 4 months!) and so i got it and gave it to him, there are a lot of cool mtc secrets like thta that make this place interesting. I dont have much else that seemed extra ordinary this week in brazil. Christmas down here seems more like just good food and family, they dont seem to do much present wise and I kind of like it more like that, although on a whole most dont seem overly excited as someothers are. But im excited, expecially after that christmas devotional, its such a beautiful time of the year to rememeber the birth and life of the Savior! I will tell more when I get to the field this Tuesday!!! Tchau!

-- 

Elder Benjamin Barton

12/16/16 at MTC

Its has been another fantastic week in brazil! I´m still at the MTC so not much has changed for me other than getting another week in; I made a list of notable stuff that happened this week to tell you all about though. First, I´m hearing about all this snow and am a little jelous but not too much; just missing skiing and snow dont here. I asked around and no one here in Brazil has ever seen snow before in their whole lives! They do use the metric system down here celsuis, liters and all, they even use military time in our schedules in the MTC. I figured out that in portuguese the MTC to translated to the accronym CTM which is just MTC backwards which is just a funny coincidence. Most days we get an hour of physical activity and we end up playing basketball, and since there are so many rules the only things you can do are just shooting or to play "mata-mata" which in the US is "knockout" or whatevery you call it; and we play that with the brazillians most days, its our favorite. The other day I was walking up some stairs with some grape juice in hand and I tripped on the stairs and split it all other my face and some one my arm and tie; my tie was stain proof so it wiped off, but the miracle was that not a single drop landed on my pants, shoes, or my white shirt!! It was so amazing and my compaions couldnt belive it, I got it in everyplace possible on my face and arm but not a drop on my shirt! I guess you guys must be praying for me because there is no way that should of happened! <3 I was waiting for one of my compaions to get a haircut and spent some time looking through bokes of leftover books that they have on the abondoned floor, and I found a sodoku book; I started to solve one and before I knew it My compaions and I solved the whole book in a week, it was a nice way to take breaks that we were given. This week our district made goals to share a testimony everyday, and so on my night I shared how I know that God answers my prayers, and I shared a couple of examples and one of them was getting thoes dreams of going to brazil before I was actually called. I was also rereading my journal to remeber what to include in these emails and I found soume of the initial struggles I was having and it gave me joy to be able to see the improvement I´ve made since I´ve gotten here; I was able to share these experiences with some new missionaries that arrived this week and it seemed to help them so I´m glad I could help. I was also having some challenges with being in a trio of missionaries because in lessons there wasnt quite enough time for everyone to get equal chance to speek, although on the contrary the benefits to that are we never run out of things to say which is worse; so Ive learned to find some of my problems at hidden blessings, so I have to remeber to look. I think I already mentioned that I cant send pictures, but I do have a couple that I would of. Its only 9 more days until Chistmas and Im excited, they have activities and stuff planned so I´m stoked. Love you all and cant wait to read you emails next week!

Elder Benjamin Barton

Christmas Lights come on

This week has been pretty great! I cant read and respond to the emails i just got so I took pictures of them and can read them throughout the week when I get time, eventhough I keep pretty busy. On p-day last week my district went to get açai bowls and I´ve never had them before but they are SOO GOOD and we are going to get more today with out instructor Irmão Sousa. We got some news at the MTC that because of christmas they arent having transfers for the whole week, which was when I´m supposed to be done with the MTC, so I have to stay for an extra week. I guess this is a very rare thing because no one has ever had to stay for a 7th week, I´m okay with it but others were very mad that they dont get to leave sooner. So because of this change I´ve spent thanksgiving and will spend Christmas and new years in the MTC, which is even more rare. They finally turned on the christmas lights around the mtc and they are so cool and cheerful, December hit and we are singing christmas songs everyday and I´m already sort of tired of them; although they are more enjoyable because I´m not used to them in portuguese. While it is getting into winter back home, we are hiting the summer here with nice and lightly humid 86 degree-ish weather which is very enjoyable. Our brazillian roomates that came the same time we did left this week and we got new ones that will be with us until we leave. And we went proselyting!! They dropped us off in the middle of the city and gave us each 3 books of mormon to hand out and to get contact info, It was such a fun and cool experience (I actually felt like a real missionary). I still havent gotten the letter mom said she sent so it must have gotten lost, had the wrong address, or something else. I´ve gotten fairly good during lessons we teach, we have the 2 "investigators" everyday, we have TRC which is like the lesson missionaries give after a dinner appt, and then we do splits with brazillian missionaries to practice teaching with them; I dont realize how bad my portuguese is until I try to talk with one of them, but its okay because most of them try to learn english anyway so we communicate just fine. Most of the brazil missionaries want to learn english and all the american missionaries want to learn portuguese so we just end up teaching eachother. Again, I dont have to time to read the emials so I look forward to reading them more indepth soon. I love you guys and hope you have a great week! 

-- love,

Elder Benjamin Barton

Week 2.5

I´ve made it another week and let me just say P-day is such a blessing because of the break from the rigorious schedule here; I´m just having the best time though. This week Ive started doing splits with brazillian elders to teach and its amazing how slow they have to talk for me to comprehend half of what they are saying, its all good though and Im not even doing that bad! We also started TRC which is teaching practice for member lessons, like when you go over for dinner and have a lesson after, its pretty easy but again the portuguese is a little challenging. And on top of the splits and TRC we have 2 daily "investigators" that we teach so that is why we are kept super busy plus learning the language. I forgot to mention in my last email that for the first couple nights i didnt sleep that good and my brazillian roomate (elder Dos Santos) noticed after the second day so he asked me about it and I explained in my fabulous portuguese the problem and the next night we offered to give me a blessing to help. I had the thought that we should always accept the opportunity to be blessed, so I agreed, and it was just the coolest experience; we pulled a chair into the hallway and he have me a blessing in portuguese and I just felt the spirit so strongly and just felt the love that he had for me and thought that the spirit has no language and is universal. It was a special experience, and ever since the blessing from someone who was observant and loving enough to offer one to me was able to help me to adjust to this new life style. Im not sure all that he said in his blessing but i know not only did I never have trouble sleeping again but Im learning portuguese much faster than some people here and have way more energy that I did before, its like I said before, the spirit has no language.

That picture at temple square was super cool, it reminds my of the lights they have been hanging up all around the MTC this past week, they are supposed to turn them all on tonight so Im super excited about that. Also the MTC is supposed to take my district proslyting tomorrow in central São Paulo, apparently they just drop us off and gave us a couple book of mormon´s to hand out so we will see how that goes. I´m not sure what I havent mentioned because Ive started to get used to this place and I called it home the other day. But, there are weird small fly looking bugs in the showers, some people leave them alone, some swat them, but they are always there. Also I know why I have to wear shower shoes, somedays the showers smell bad and I can see patches of mold or something growing on the floor and its super gross but I end up using other showers where i cant visibly see the grossness. Its always pretty warm hear, I know its like december but its like a solid 75degrees everyday and its probably so cold at home. I love my short sleeve shirts in this weather so i dont know if I can go back to long sleeves when I come home :) 

Scripturally I havent learned much, apparently they only send seminary grads and people with near perfect health down here, so they arent concerned with my scriptural knowlenge but focus on the portuguese, we truly must be held to a higher standard than before. I did learn that the gift of toungues is real and that it is working with all of us dont here because there is no way I can do all that I´ve done in so short a time. I´m out of time as usual and have to go but I love yáll and hope you stay good.

(Also I use the flashlight JB gave my every night as I finish writing in my journal and it and it makes me smile each time I read his note) <3 

-- 

Elder Benjamin Barton