Lord of good ends.

I got my transfer info and I will be transfered to "Senhor Do Bomfim" or in translation means "Lord of good ends". After the 4 months I spent in Serrinha I will be able to take on a new area, its always exciting. I have heard its still a branch there so I'm excited to get to work there. I don't have other news except for this, I don't know who my companion will be but I'm sure it will be great. I left for the bust station in Feria de Santana today because my bus leaves today and apparently its 5 hrs away from here so I'll arrive at almost midnight there. And apparently for district meeting it has a weekly bus ride of 5 hrs aswell to the other area in the district. I've only heard things about there but I'll have to see for myself. I've also heard that it's SUPER HOT and has cool mountians surrouding there, so P-day I will definatly hike there and take some photos "da hora!" (Brazil slang for super cool/awesome). I made pancakes this week with the syrup mom sent me but I worry about traveling with it because I didn't have a bag to put it in and funnily enough it happens to be sitting on top of some white clothes 😓 But I have...faith, that it won't leak... Pray for me. The syrup is in a bulky container and it is literally the only spot I had in my bag to bring it with me. But I'll give the full report next week.

Well my time ran out but have a great week everybody!

⚽🌎🏖😁

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Ingrown toenail surgery!

This week is the last week of the transfer, so its always excited to see the changes and where people will go and what people will do. I don't know if I ever explained the mission slang that everyone uses that is actually funny. But when you start out with your trainer in the first area, if your an elder your trainer is your dad and you are the son, and if you are a sister its the same with mom and daughter. and its funny when you are called to train because you just know your child is coming but dont know yet who it will be and you are all excited that you will be a dad or a mom, like real life. And this week I pass the 9 month mark and so the 'tradition' is that after the 9 months, like a pregnacy, you can be called to train. Its so dumb writing this but it makes training fun to talk about. Transfers really are a big deal because everything can change, and I'm due to go to a new city about now because its already my 4th month is Serrinha, if I stay for one more transfer it will be a full 6 months. But its next week so I can worry about it later.

This week didn't have much interesting other than knocking door and meeting new and interesting people.

My companion Elder J Silva tried to make guava cake this week but we didnt have baking powder so he tried yeast because "its basically the same thing" and it turned out weird, it was not the same thing. The guava was good but the cake itself was eh. He also made homemade bread (with the yeast :) and it turned out good. I took photos but still I'm not able to send them yet.

Last tuesday I got my ingrown toenail cut down to size and it was a unimaginable pain that I was not expecting, I've gone through some uncomfortable procedures but this was the most painful, I think, in my life, I bought new flip flop here and let me say that they are may more comfortable than in the USA and I think its because there is more of a market for good flip flops because everyone uses them all the time, everyday; so I'm enjoying mine. And after the nail was cut I needed to go a day or 2 without shoes (only flip flops) and so I went prosolying with my new pair and it was so funny and strangely comfortable; we should allow this all the time! But my feet burned from the sun because they basically never see sunlight, so I would have to be more accustomed.

I think thats it for this week, tenha uma boa semana gente!

󾓦🤗

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Brazilian Father's Day

This week was great, I think I said last week my companion had his birthday but anyway it happened. We went to Coité to spend the day with the sisters and to play games and stuff like this and it was really fun, we brought my nerf guns and my companion brought his (because he bought one) and we played with that, we played a game called "burned" and we topped the day off with water ballons. Only one of the sisters tweaked her ankle and now has a boot on one foot for the next month, so it was all great except for that 😋

All the prayers worked folks, A. was baptized this last saturday! She recieved the answer she was waiting for and it suprised her a little how real it was. We spent saturday morning cleaning the the baptism font to find the drain doesnt work, so we emptied the little that was in there out by hand/bucket. But then another problem came up, the church ran out of water. We called bishop, he didnt know what to do, called our zone leader, he didnt know what to do, we would have baptized her in the lake if we didnt find the solution (the lake was not a good thing). But we stayed there fixing it until 3pm missing lunch, and we did fix it. And we were hungry after but we had english class not long after and we were really hungry and I told my companion "lets go eat soon!" and he said there is always a way and you just need more faith to get food he said jokingly. So I actually prayed for food and not long after the ward had a little suprise party for my companions belated birthday with cake, soda, and like other salty treats. We looked to eachother and laughed at how literally my prayer worked and I said to him "Ha, I had faith!" It was funny, and a relief for my stomach. And after the little festa was the baptism that everything went all right, it was a fast service but it was special on its own, I got to share the message of the 1st vision during the program and it went well.

And... HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! The fathers day of brazil was yesterday Aug13, I don't know why its different here but it is. And we just need to take a minute to realize how important Dad's are in our world and how greatful I am to have mine! He always says how he wishes he was a better dad, a better example, but you can't have a good kid like me without an example to learn from everyday. I got my courage to try new things from my dad, did you know? I remember one time while riding motocycles in the dunes we came up to this big hill and I got scared that I wouldnt make it and/or fall over and he said "I'll go first and you follow" and in my mind it was still difficult but then I had the thought that has stuck with me since then that "If dad can do it, so can I"  I have never forgotten that and it has helped me with many of my problems. But many long stories short: My Dad is awesome!

Thats all the cool stuff that happened this week, Tchau! 😁

Love You Peoples!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Companion's birthday

please send some photos soon so i can present for the elementary kids here how schools are there in the USA. better photos could be in the classroom of white bluffs, could be photos of JB there, when he was there. Thank you! Love you!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

This week was alright, we did the same work as every week but people weren't home a lot this week so we didn't actually get that much done. We had a zone conference with president and it was really good, they talked about the importance of invitations and keeping the end results in mind, it actually really helped us because we've been having some difficulty here, but all is well in zion right? 😅  Everything is good through, the sun came back this week and it feels like we skipped spring and jumped right into summer, I guess humitidy hits harder than dry weather.

This week we've been working with A., she is currently dating a less active member and met the church and the missionaries (us) through him/his family. She is super willing to follow what God wants for her and she wants to follow in the path that he has set for her. She loves our "lessons" and learning more. We always leave her with a part to read and she does read! Which is a big deal because a lot of people won't read a lot here. And I know that when she recieves the answer from God that she needs she will be baptized. The only other thing stopping her from being baptized now is she is living with the boyfriend, but she already said that she will move out and date "the way it should be" if it means being baptized, she is truly an elect, so we will see this week if she will progress (I think she will😁)

I got my package at the conference this week and I'm super greatful for everything inside. I took some great photos this week with the stuff inside but I need to buy a new memory card adaptor to upload them, so in the future you will be recieving them.

It my companion's birthday today Elder J. Silva is 20 now, I made a cake for him. I also am using that "suprise cream" that I got and its good because the wife of the mission pesident recomended this kind aswell so we will see if it helps 😅

And another development... I don't know if I should say this here... but I got an ingrown toenail! woo-hoo not. I thought it was part of the fungus, but no.... It only started hurting these past few days so now I have to get that taken care of.

But like I said "All is well".

But thats all the juice stuff that happened this week so until next Segunda-feira!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Thanks for all the pictures, they were better than if I had to imagine it. Like when Isaac used the nice basketball shoes to go hiking and walking on the beach :) I miss that kid. And Emma with the mermaid tail made my companion confused, like ...why?...  but I thought it was cool/funny. And seriously, someone needs to cut the hair on that kid, JB is shaggy, he just needs a green shirt and brown pants with a scooby doo to complete the look. but it looks like everyone had a good time.

It sounds like its has been really hot these past days there huh? its been cold for us (being in the low 60´s with rain) but I haven't stopped using short sleve shirts so its not that bad, but being acustomed to the heat that normally hits during the summer (your winter) its relativly cold. My companion is from the south which gets really cold too but their cold is 32 degrees and ice is a big deal because that means its realy cold :)

But all is well 😋 

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

He wrote in Portugese.

Estava pensando que eu devo escrever em português para me ajuda aprender melhor como devo escrever e falar. mas pode usar Google tradutor se você não sabe como ler (se você é americano).

Mas esta semana foi muita boa, tivemos 3 atividade na capela, tivemos: noite de integração, aula de inglês, e noite familiar da ala serrinha. Noite de Integração foi muito legal, é só tinha talvez 10 pessoas mas tudo mundo lá tinha muito divertido com uma mensagem e brincadeiras. Aula de inglês é super legal, só tem pessoas que não são membros mas muitos deles nós já marcamos umas datas para visitar eles, eles são interessados para saber porque eu ia ensinar uma boa aula de inglês de graça só não fosse por um bom motivo. As pessoas da aula de inglês também gostam de ler as citações dos profetas que estão na capela. Noite Familiar da ala não tivemos porque ninguém foi, só tive 2 pessoas outro que a gente, mas semana que vem nós vamos trabalhar melhor com os membros para conseguir esta atividade.

Eu estou bem, meu pé não está; ele tem um fungo eu acho, mas está melhorando. Élder J. Silva e Eu encontramos uma eleita! Ela já foi na igreja algumas vezes e está gostando o que ela está aprendendo e sentindo. Começamos ensinando ela em sua casa e ela está super animada para realmente saber para ela mesma se estas coisas do evangelho são verdadeiras. Ore para ela!

Esta semana, na sexta-feira, temos uma conferencia, então eu posso pegar minha caixa que mãe enviou porque chegou já. Estou animado!

Eu me sinto como eu esqueci algo mas eu acho que não. Amo vocês e tem uma ótima semana!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

More pictures

Pictures

A letter that came at night. Unusual.

I died again, dang it... We had P-day in Feira de Santana but didn't get back until late and all the computer places were closed, so that sucked. But, we had a great week of work meeting new people and several families, so we are excited to be working with them here. I don't think I mentioned but just in the month of march we had 113 baptisms in our mission and it was the most baptisms than any other mission in the world, so that was really cool the amount of work we are doing.

I took a bunch of photos this week because I realized I wasn't hardly taking any, my adaptor broke so I can't send any today but I will in the future. I started just taking pictures of normal things because normal here is not normal at home and I want to show/remember how things are here.

Something that is super popular in all of Brasil, it seems like, is Lanchenetes; which are like small food shops. They have like savory treats you can buy or meals but I think the meals are really small so they are more like snacks to me, like something you eat real quick to kill hunger until you can get home. Also they normally make fresh juice right them when you order it and its soooo goooood; I think my favorite juice is either Maracuja (which is pasion fruit) or Acerola (which doesn't have an english nome or equivilent).

We finally got a new washing machine and its glorious beyond description, way better than washing by hand (I have a great photo and video of this). Washing machines are a blessing 😇

Also we had a transfer! How could I forget?! But its okay, nothing happened, I'm staying in Serrinha for another 6 weeks (until the end august) with the same companion (Elder J. Silva) and now we know how to work together well so we will have more success. We are doing so many activities to strengthen the ward here and to get people to at least vist the church; we organized integration night full of games and fun on thursday, english class saturday, and ward family night tuesday; so of course we are keeping busy with these and normal missionary work. This would normally be really stressful for most people to do but we are having so much fun doing it because of the purpose behind it. We are also trying to get approval for church soccer with the feild that the chapel has and so we will be organizing that for probably wednesday. So with all these activities the church is open almost everyday, which was our goal because lots of people just think our church is closed all the time, so hopefully this will help.

Love you peoples!  🤗

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

No letter

I didn't get to email this week because I ran out of time, but I sneeked some time just to say that I'm fine, sorry for not being able to talk much, we just have activities P-day and by the time I have time to email all the lan houses are closed. I just thought it was super unjust to wait another week without nothing. I love you!!

We had a transfer but I will stay here with my same companion so nothing will change. We had a p-day with the other elders in the main city which is like over an hour away but when you are using the bus station it always takes longer waiting for the bus and maybe it is late and maybe there is lots of traffic; and its primarily because of this traffic that I didn't get to email monday. I tried ice cream of tapioca but I didnt like it too much, weird texture. I found out  the fruit "goiaba" is guava and its good, when people make the juice its a little thick but its good. These were just somethings that I did/tried this week just to not leave you with nothing.

LOVE YOU

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Elder Benjamin Barton