Transfer!

I've finished 4 months here in Abrantes and 5 months in mission and now we have a transfer and I'm going. I'm being transfered to Feira de Santana and I leave tomorrow. I will miss Abrantes because of the people, the members, I spent a lot of time remembering places, schedules of everyone, and I finally learned our own phone number! (not that it matters anymore😅) I will also miss the giant Pastel of Abrantes which is soooo delicious! 😋 Also, funny enough, this last week Elder Barros and I are together we finally found out to get along and now we are good friends!  We went to the dunes of Jauá last week for P-day which I already sent pictures for, and today I will be packing my bags in preperation for tomorrow. The person I think will miss me the most here will be Victor, the boy we baptized the first week I arrived, we've had 4 months of playing together and reading scriptures and stuff like this and we are good friends. We were practicing our articles of faith the other day, him to learn what they are and me to learn them in portuguese, so we will spend the afternoon today in their house saying goodbye and such. I will miss their whole family, they have come so far from not knowing the gospel to receiving callings and started saving money to go to the temple in a year, its so cool to the lives of their family change and they all are so happy and talk about how greatful they are for the knowledge of the truth. I'm so happy for them and the peace and happiness they were looking for in their lives. I'm sad to leave, but happy experiences like this happened. And I'm excited for more in my next area! The pictures are of the minion USB that a member gave Elder B. Costa and I a few weeks back. Also the portable speaker I bought to play the music that the secreterys of mission filled my usb with music. And also me at my english class; I didn't realize how much portuguese you have to know to explain english to portuguese speakers, but I did it! The elder that will replace me is american so he can continue the class if he wants. And lastly, a picture of the sunset because... why not? and its beautiful, but way more beautiful in person. I think thats all for now, Love you people, and keep up the good work!

--

Elder Benjamin Barton

Some pictures

Some pictures Benjamin sent, without an accompanying explanation as to what they are.

Pascoa (Easter)

This week was not great in terms of progress of the people, but it was a holiday weekend! We had sexta-feira-santa on friday which starts the holidays but people are traveling days before to be with family, and sunday was Pascoa or Easter. Even though the sexta feira santa is a catholic holiday most people still celebrate it culturally, and part of the tradition is eating fish and especially eating no red-meat. Other than this, I don't see the reason for holiday because a lot of people just drink also. I took some more photos, but yet again we are at a different lan-house that doesn't have a port for my sd card (I think I need to invest in a converter for usb...) so I can't send photos now.😑 

Easter was not that much different than other days for us, sacrament meeting wasn't even easter themed.! But the part that made our day was the Relief Society, they are so good to us missionaries, they all contributed to a big easter basket for us with lots of chocolates🍫. I was so greatful for the gift because otherwise easter would have not have seemed even a little bit like easter (even it is only in the candy sense). I've been told from the president of the mission that the ward I'm serving in (Abrantes) is the best ward of the mission because of how great the members are and the willingness to help the missionaries too, and now I can really testify of this.🙂 

We are spending P-day in Camaçari with 4 other companionships, so there are 10 of us, and we are going to play basketball and also we played Uno last night. They stayed up all night, but I was too tired so I went to bed like a reasonable person.😴

One day we were going to lunch at the house of a member in another town that I don't know too well and we walked forever trying to find it and was probably more than a couple miles.

I made a list of all the things I wanted to say but of course I also left the list at home, so also I will have more to say next week. Also this week is the last week of the transfer, and everyone is saying that I've spent a lot of time in my first area and that its probably time for me to go this round; I've liked serving here, its very homely because its not in the city which is most of the areas here, yeah its just different so I like it.

Em fim: I want people to remember the meaning of easter because, like here, people just celebrate because its custom and an excuse to drink and stuff, but what is the purpose of a holiday other than to remember what the day is for? In other words, celebrating in vain is stupid. Please remember we have a Savior that defeated death for himself and for all of us, and he offers the only true peace in our lives. I loved the video the church did for easter, we had passing cards (was legit), and it truly illistrates the importance of this real peace in our lives; because we will all have hard-ships and we don't have to suffer through them if we choose to. Video here:  https://www.mormon.org/ 

Love you all and hope you will have one this week! 😉🐤

-- 

Elder Benjamin Barton

Transfer 3 Week 3

This week was a little weird, almost all of our appointments and investigators we are visiting fell through and we were left doing a lot of walking. The only thing consistent in this place is the sun and the lunches from the sisters :) Again I'm at a different Lan house and can't send pictures, so next week will be a lot. We were invited to another "baby shower" which here is called "chá de fraldas" and lets just say the desserts don't ever really disappoint. There isn't a lot to talk about really... another normal week. We had district meeting on friday and the zone leaders wore dress shirts and basketball shorts, still don't know why, but I took a picture! We are having zone conference tomorrow in Salvador and so we have to leave early to get there in time. It was a little sad with all the stuff falling through, especially when I prepared a lesson for english class and no one came :( We just joined mutual after and helped with the young men but it was still disappointing. But I did get the satisfaction of being able to teach the principles of the gospel class by myself (last-minute) when the teacher didn't come and also the ward missionary class aswell. With all this practice in portuguese I'm REALLY improving and am speaking/understanding well. So I have that going for me.😅 Like I said, not much this week, hopefully more next week. Love you all!! 😋󾓦 

-- 

Elder Benjamin Barton

Conference Week

This week was alright, nothing really exciting happened, just another week of many really. The Lan house we usually go to is closed today for some reason so we are at another one and this computer doesn't have the capability to upload photos, so I will send lots next week. We worked normally this week until friday which was district meeting in Camaçari and afterwords we had the wedding of Terezinha, who is the mom of our recent convert family that we baptized and have been fortifying since I've arrived here. It was really cool to be a part of because they were living together but to get baptized they can't be living together, so he moved out until their wedding, its so cool to see the commitment of someone who is striving to do whats right. Pictures to come. And also Elder B. Costa was given permission to some to see aswell so it was fun talking with him. Saturday we missed the morning session of conference because we didnt leave soon enough to catch the bus, so we ate lunch, visited another recent convert and went to the sunday afternoon session in Camaçari, which is like 45min bus ride depending on if its direct or not. Conference was okay except it was only in portuguese. I'm actually really improving at understanding and could understand some translators, but its really tiring on the brain to focus for that long. So I had to choose which ones I was going to actively listen because its too tiring to focus on everything. Interesting thing! =Elder Christofferson does his own translations for his talks! I didn't know that before conference he records his talks in portuguese and they play the translation at the same time as his english one, his portuguese is easier for me to understand because its so white .😁 But I would still like the conference engisn in english some time in the next 5-6 months ❤please.

Love you and have a fantastic week in the home land! 

--

Elder Benjamin Barton