Brutally Awesome Week

This week... ha... this week we worked so hard!! I can't even put it into words how much effort we put in to get the results we did. I know I shouldn't take any pride knowing that God did everything but I wanted to tell of the success we are having now in this area. We were able to put dates for baptism on 12 souls! This is really good because the mission goal was 9 and usually we get 5-6 and now we doubled our numbers! And this is not all of the blessings we had, we also got 10 investigators in the church and 8 of them have a baptism date, when the goal is 6 in the church and 4 with a date. We only use these goals to see the effectiveness of our work, they aren't numbers that we just send to the church, they are people that we are accepting help to complete God's great and eternal purposes. No baptism this week but without a doubt they will come, and maybe this week. Coincidentally (which word doesn't exist), I've been appling the scripture in Alma 38:12 which has some good invitations in becomeing a better missionary and person, as well as Amla 18:35. I know that applying these scriptures helped this work a lot this week.

We also had district meeting this week in which we learned a little more about the power of our calling and the responsibilities that they have to fulfill, so the things I learned there helped me a lot aswell. And as our area of our district are far apart we always have sleepovers the night before to have the meeting in the morning, and as tradition proves strong we buy pizza. And with the 2 pizzas that we bought, we also made pancakes to eat with the rest of my maple syrup, condensed milk, and chocolate fudge leftopver from my birthday. Needless to say I was very happy and full that night. 😋🍕

In terms of things that happened this week, this was all, its fairly normal, I'm 11 months in now, things are good.

Love you!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Week 3 Bonfim

This week was great! A lot of work as usual, but this week our work payed off with the blessing of someone willing to take upon them the name of Christ, or in other words a baptism! I didn't ask permission to share her name, but "B" was baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday, she wanted so much to follow the example of her big sister and her savior, when we asked her what was her desire for her family she said for her mom to come to church with her. B is only 8 years old and she already recognizes that the church is good and that it will help her mom with the problems that she has, it was really sweet. I attatched a photo of her baptism and with the umbrella after church.

I also attached a picture of wild vultures which I thought was cool because you don't normally see vultures just roaming around in the city. They are pretty gross, they tear open trash bags to eat garbage and thrown out meat, and if given the chance they really do eat dead animals; I've only seen them eat dogs and a goat so far.

Thanks to mom for sending my recepies I made cookies today (in the shape of brownies) and they were so good, it was actually funny how difficult it was to hunt down all the ingredients becaue not one store had all of them at the same time. But they turned out so good!

I don't have a lot more to say, but this I what was different that happen this week.

Love y'all!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Bonfim Transfer 2 Week 1

This week was really good we had lots of success with our investigators and their progression. We were able to bring a family to church yesterday which is normally really difficult because 9 o'clock church is "super early" for most people but we got them to church in time for the sacrament which was a huge win considering that half of them were sleeping at 8:30-45am, luckily the church is close to their home. We had district meeting in Jacobina on friday so we left the night before to stay the night and have the meeting the next morning. We bought pizza and açai, so it was pretty awesome. We helped with cleaning the church one day and later I found a photo of us on the bulliton board which is the photo attatched. We borrowed a brasil version of the game Risk from a friend who is a member and we've been playing at the end of the day sometimes, its pretty fun but it could be better with more than 2 people. I finally bought a blender for our appartment so now I will be making some super delicious juice from now on. It was a little bit of a struggle to go and buy the blender I've wanted to buy one for 3 weeks now but my companion didn't want to wate time by goiung to the store and buying one, it was a struggle, but we we did it. Its actually really funny because the scripture I chose for my mission plaque is a scripture that I use a lot here in the feild, I use it to share the capacity that Christ has in our lives to do anything "13 Posso todas as coisas em Cristo que me fortalece." philippians 4:13 KJV "13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." -spiritual thought of the day-

Not much more happened this week but lots of work but it sufficeth me to say all is well, I'm good, the area is really good, I like working here. Hope all is well in the home land. Until next week! <3

___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Bonfim

This week was awesome, we ended the transfer with success! We had a baptism of one the boys we are teaching from the group of friends of one member kid. He was very determined to be baptized, he woke up sick that day with fever and a sore throght on the day of his baptism date and he said "I can do it, lets go!" And because of the fever he was feeling really cold and had a blanket wrapped around him all day but for the baptism when he entered into the water he started to freak out a little because the water was cold and the anticipation to enter completly into the water was a little nerve wracking for him, but he went through with it and it was great! It was special because I got to do the ordenace as well as the confirmation, which was the first confirmation I had done ever and it was good, he was embarassed to be in the front of everyone and then it was over he ran down fromt he front. He's a silly kid but I've come to like him a lot, he's comitted, he bought slacks, shirt, tie, and shoes before his baptism to have something nice to wear at church.

As every wednesday now, we have an activity where we teach a lesson with the boys in the church and after they play futebol (soccer), and they love playing so they sit for the lesson in anticipation to play. It ha been really great for them to get to know the church and such.

Tomorrow is transfer and I will be staying in "Senhor Do Bonfim" with Elder Cueto still, we are super excited to keep working with the investigators that we have. President changed the zones in our area so which means he's preparing to send more missionaries here to help with the area of our district because its a really good area. Our district literally became a zone all by itself but its really small with 3 companionships; one area is zone leader and the other two areas are district leaders. Its strange because one district is 4 missionaries and the other just has 2! But I think this is in preperation for more missionaries, setting up the leadership beforehand. But my companion is now district leader and I'm still a junior (for 1 year straight😅) Its all good and I'm excited to see how it all works out.

Thats basically all that happened, Love you people and have a great week!

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More pictures from Bonfim

Birthday surprise package

September 25

I had a great week! :) Tuesday we worked normal but had to leave at 11pm by bus to Salvador to renew ny visa, normally during the day its a 7hr bus ride but because not many people drive at night we got there in 5hrs, normally its a good thing to get there early but not for us because we got to the bus station at 4:30 in the morning. And there was nobody out because it was so early, we didn't get hardly any sleep; so we walked to the mission office and got there about 5am and we waited until the missionary secrateries got there at 9am, 4 hrs of lying on the floor outside the door sucked. But they arrived and let us in. We talked about our house and how it needs to be fixed with the sewage problem, so hopfully they will do something soon. I was also suprised with a unknown package addressed to me, and it was an awesome suprise becaue I didn't know it was coming and it arrived and I was able to pick it up before my birthday. I opened it in the office and shared some of the fruit snacks and dried apircots with the missionaries there and they said they liked them. (Ha! Brazil has many fruits but apircots are not one of them) I resealed the box and brought it back to our area. I renewed my visa at the federal police and did divisions with the secrateries until our return bus at 11:55pm, equally terrible sleep. But Saturday rolled around and we worked during the morning, had lunch, and then had a little party at the home of a recent convert were we made cake with frosting from the mix I got in the box. It was fun. The mission presidents wife called and wished me a happy birthday and even sung with a few other sisters the song in english, it was sweet. Mom sent cute napkins and plates to use but when the people saw them they said they wouldn't use them because they were too special and didn't want to dirty them because here they don't have anything like them, and if they do they are expensive. We used the plates because I had already put cake on them but they washed the paper/plastic plates after to use again, No one used the napkin but me... But I loved it and it was fun, also the only oreo flavors here are chocolate and regular so birthday cake seemed super strange for my companion and the last time when I got mint my companion had never even heard of other flavors and when he tried it he thought it tasted like toothpaste. Its just interesting about the differences. I'm also excited to make the cookies I got in mixes. As far as birthday stuff, thats all that happened, but I still have all the food to eat during the week. And a thank you to all who wrote birthday notes for me, I read them all and enjoyed them. ALSO, hahaha, my companion sat in his cake!!! It was so hilarious, he forgot where he put it and sat in it. 😂

This week we've been working with this one 12yr old boy and he decided for himself that he wanted to be baptized but his mom didn't let him because he needs to "learn more", he was so sad when he had to move his date for later, but he has been a huge help in the missionary work because he introduced us to all of his friends and we talked with them and they said that they all want to be baptized if their parent will let them. Normally the problem for all investigators is going to church, but with this determined kid and with our help we passed by all of their houses early and brought them to church! They all liked it and are excited to go next week, I almost couldn't believe it. I'm super excited to work with them and to see what becomes of it. The feild is white, all ready to harvest.

This is all I have time for; but, it was a good week. Love you people at home!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Pictures of Petrolina

Some pics of Petrolina (the city we went to for zone conference) and me :)

General Conference Weekend

I don't remeber if I said this last week but we had a zone conference in Petrolina, which is the only city outside of the state that takes part of our mission. We had some training and talks given by leaders and the mission president and his wife. One talk that I liked from this conference was the 1% differences that seem insignificant actually add up in the end. It went along with the "line upon line, precept upon precept" where the small changes will help us. It was given in context of health and the small changes to our habits that will increase out health overall but the principal can be applied to anything we do. For example, If I'm not doing excercises and I decide just to do 10 pushups everyday it seems like nothing, but if executed it makes a difference because you are actually doing something other than sitting around thinking I don't want to do a big workout routine, but 10 pushups I can do; setting 1% goals will help us to start big changes. And during the zone conferences they always announce birthdays and from my zone I was the only person with a birthday, so everyone sang to only me...😂I also got M&Ms. As far as general conference, I got to watch saturday afternoon and both of the sunday sessions, I didn't get to watch preisthood because, just as all sessions, they are broadcasted live and in this time zone would start the conference at 9pm and go until 11pm, so it didn't work out with the missionary schedule, but I was informed that some did go to the session. president didn't give any counsel to this subject. We also had interviews with president but because my area is far and is a branch still president travelled to us to do the interview and to converse with president of the branch. It went well, he also went visited our apartment to see how it is and he saw the big hole in the ceiling with sweage dripping down into the shower so now I think something will happen to terms to reforming the house a little. President also talked about the upcoming tansfer and said that our companionship will probably stay the way it is.

Inways of news, thats most of it. I was way suprised how well I understood general conference in portuguese in ways of progress from the last conference when I understood almost nothing but I was happy to see the improvement.

Tchau, Love you

Photos of general conference and the kids we went with, one of them will be baptized tomorrow!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton