Week 15?

I never know how to start my emails. But I can say that is true that Sierra changed her mission to Pennsylvania, she used to live there so she had a concern about going there and when she bought it up they felt prompted to change it. And you are right, I don´t miss carrying the pruned branches through winter wonderland at our house but glad the missionaries could help, I guess I will have to do some more service here to compensate. I will just do my best to get my own portuguese hymn book because everyone has one and I´m always the one without at meetings so its kind of an essencial. And dont worry about the english book of mormon too because I can probably get one through the mission. I only asked because we´ve encountered now 3 people who speak english that we wanted to teach but didnt have books of mormon to give them; usually we cant teach in english but since my companion speaks english we could, but dont worry about it. This week we had the confirmation of the lady we baptized last week and it was really cool because now their whole family is baptized and confirmed and in 1 year they will all go to the temple to be sealed, its just so cool! And after church they (the family that we are now friends with) invited us to her baby shower, but its funny because the name they have for the party is translated to "diaper tea" or sometimes "baby tea". And they had some good cake and dulce de leite and other treats, so missionary work is really rewarding! (pictures included) :) We had the fantastic experience of getting our apartment reformed for the next mission president who will be arriving in July, so they are just prepping all the houses for missionaries so the new president doesnt have to deal with it, plus its just time for it. So our house got painted, curtains installed, a new sink, new kitchen cabinets, new beds (that feel amazing to sleep on), fixed the doors so that they all can shut properly and the front door to lock right, and best of all a new shower unit with hot water installed which is a huge deal and feels so nice compared to freezing cold showers that we´ve had for the past 8 weeks. Havent seen any cockroaches the past 2 weeks but we´ve seen lots of lizards and one day we saw a huge toad, and because my companion loves harry potter, and I yelled "TREVOR" and attempted to pick it up, lets just say he thought it was hilarious. :) Elder B. Costa got an endoscopy and after he was high on the anestetic and still taught lessons the rest of the day and he was much easier to talk to because he physically wasnt able to talk fast, that was in interesting day. We will keep working here and will make a list of things that happen this week so that I can really share what happened next week. Amo vocês!

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Elder Benjamin Barton

Another baptism this week

Another great week! We´ve been working, praying, studying, walking, fasting, and teaching. We didn´t get to talk with the family that fell through last week, we are giving them more time to read, think, and pray about everything. So we devoted time to visiting other people and we had a baptism this week! We baptized the older sister of the two brothers that we baptized the first week I arrived here; he was the pefect investigator, she kept all the commandments and invitations and read the BOM everyday and she really was an elect because we were able to do it mostly in 1 week. She came to church the first time last week and we baptized her after stake conference yesterday. It makes me so happy to see their whole family baptized and how much happier they are with direction in their lives by finding (and living) the truth. Elder B. Costa did the ordenance and I lead the service (in portuguese :)  We took pictures of inside a bus, the family outside of the stake center, and of our celebratory baptism nutella and chocolate breakfast.

Also I can´t forget Isaac´s Birthday, can´t believe he is 17 and half way through junior year, that was me just last year it seems! If you want to know more, ask more, because now i´m used to most of the stuff here so I don´t remember what was extraordinary this week because everything feels he same now. Amo Vocês! até mais!

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Elder Benjamin Barton

First transfer time. He is staying with his companion!

This week has not much to report but work, work, and more work; but couldnt be happier doing it. We finished our first transfer and found our both of us are going to stay in our area for another transfer, big news for me, not really excited for you guys; its like hot gossip "oh who got transferred? who is leaving? who is ZL?" and so on. No pictures because I didn´t take any because we didnt do anything cool :( but next week I think we will go see all the monumental places in salvador and then i´ll take some cool pics. We had a baptism for saturday that fell through so we are going to work more with them this week, and we have a for sure baptism next week, she is so excited and its going to be great! Greatful for the email this week and excited to have more to say to you for next week :)

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Elder Benjamin Barton