Almost moved houses January 15, 2018

This week went pretty well we didn't get to move yet because there are not a lot of members here to help us to move our stuff, actually the problem isn't even the man-power, its the transportation, there is only like one member family with a single truck which would have taken all day to move everything and it would have been rather expensive so we are going to plan a little bit better and make some calls, so that we can get this house moving action going.

This week was interesting as we got very close to baptizing a very converted young lady but sadly had to be cancelled because her grandma didn't let her, she turns 18 in a month and a half so she is really looking forward to getting baptized on her birthday. Its really saddening that she had to cancel her baptism which she had already invited a few of her friends/family but she is hopeful for when it finally happens. I like what she said when she "made this decision and can't go back because God told her to;" it was a happy/sad weekend. But we have a for sure baptism this sunday of a members daughter so its really good practice for Elder Carter who is wanting more chances to teach everything. Elder Carter is doing very well, he is really happy and likes playing around with the other missionaries we live with. He's actually doing too well, last night I fell asleep really quick and he put a cracker in my mouth and left it there and took pictures and everything and in the morning he asked if I had found a cracker and I hadn't and apparently it turns out (as it seems) I had eaten the cracker sleeping and I didn't even know it, ha we laughed a lot about that one. Today for P-day we cleaned the house, went to lunch, and spent some time in the mall, looked at ties, bought ice cream cones and just had a good time. Today was pretty good. I think the photos I uploaded are of the first catholic church in petrolina, its nothing too grand, just old.The chocolate cake I made for the baptism that didn't go through, the yakisoba we made for lunch on saturday, and just me.

Lots of Love LOL

XOXO😘

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

This is my beloved son, hear him! January 8

This week has been super awesome! I got to work with my new companion Elder Carter who is from Houston, Texas. We just had the best first week, we had some really cool spiritual experiences, miracles actually. Its funny trying to write all that happens because not any one thing seems sufficiently significant to write. We left for Salvador Monday night and we got there Tuesday morning, and we we waiting to be told were to go from the bus station to get our companions and then the Secretary told me my Uber was here and my response was "my what is here?!" So the mission started using Uber for the transfers that are in the cities (not long distance for obvious reasons) So we got the Uber and went to the church building were we got a training on how to train a new missionary and then we went to lunch and then the new missionaries arrived. We then had a short training together doing contacts paired randomly with the new missionaries and then a classroom training after and then he had the exciting reveal from president on who we would train. So it was pretty fun that day. And from that day on we've been practicing his Portuguese (which he already speaks semi-well) and we've been having some actual success as well from all the extra practices and work we've been doing. he's pretty obedient so we get along fine. Yesterday we had a goal to make one more new investigator with the last 1/2 hr that we had and so we said a prayer and we were guided to a person that was made a new investigtor, he (and I) thought that was so cool that our prayers were answered literally.

I've been teaching, and bettering myself to extact obedience because its really only by this that we achieve our full potential in things physical and spiritual.

As far as things that are going for me, there is not a lot. I sometimes have to talk a lot more because my companion is still learning so I have to really be up to the challenge/responsibility to be basically functioning as a one missionary companionship because of the language sometimes, but I'm studying the language with my companion to help him to take on the most about of responsibility he can bear. Its part of the learning process right? But I'm very happy with Elder Carter he is very funny and is already joking around in his limited vocabulary and its hilarious. 😆 Well I guess I'll write more next week...

Love you guys!

[to my fan club]

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

This week in Bahia 10/30/17

This week was great we worked hard as always and we achieved the results we hoped for. W. was baptized this saturday and on the day of his birthday aswell. He was super prepared and confident in his decision and even studied outside of our lessons, one day we walked in on him reading the teachings of the church presidents book while waiting for us to arrive at our appt. After his baptism, his girlfriend brought out a cake with blue frosting that turned the mouths of everyone who ate it blue. It went really well. We had a "Mission Tour" this week which Élder Joaquin E. Costa of the seventy visited and had a conference with him. It was pretty cool, we got to talk/converse with him and to shake his hand. It was basically a conference with the whole mission with the exception of 2 zones that had their own conference. I forgot to take pictures until the end which was the selfie that I attatched. This week we had a zone T-shirt made with our names and the symbols of baptism and confirmation on the sleeves, they turned out cool but the sizes of brazil are really small, its a good thing I'm slim or it wouldn't have worked out, but for the rest of the zone....good luck. We keep getting urged to read the technology safety booklet and the online course that the church has by the mission, so I've started to wonder if we will be getting tablets or something soon, but I doubt it because theft of anything over the value of $50 is common. I'm pretty good though with my plastic watch and normal looking stuff, if I had any kind of bling or a really nice item it would make me a target for sure. But weel will see. Not much more to say/mention.

Love you, until next week!

-- conference baptism shirt

___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Training?

 Sushi! Hooray for sushi!

Its transfer week again and I'm going to train a new missionary! Its exciting and stressful and everything all at once but its going to be great! I don't know who he is yet, just in the moment President will announce it, and he has to interview all the newbies first and its for this I don't know yet. As new year's is today everything was closed so the computer places and stores were closed so we don't have a lot of time to talk today, just this quick message. I will stay in Petrolina and my companion Elder Amorim will go to Salvador. The contracts for our new apartment will be arriving today too so will will hopefully be able to move houses this weekend. I didn't write anything last week because I spent my whole time talking with my family, so if you didn't like that, deal with it, because I liked it.

The Petrolina 2nd ward gave us 4 missionaries lots of goodies for christmas and we've been eating them all week. We even got raisins which you eat during christmas/newyears for luck in the next year, its like a tradition here. We had a christmas week district meeting over sushi thanks to dad for his christmas gift for us four as well! Overall it has been a good christmas/holidays/transfer and everything. On the night of the new year Elder Amorim and I brought cushions on the roof to watch some of the fireworks that went off at the turn of the year and afterwards we just slept up there and we watched the sunrise when the morning came and it was really quiet, I think everyone partied themselves out, it was nice.

So we are going to Salvador tonight, we are using the computer house in the bus station right now and our bus will leave soon, so got to go.

Bye!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Picture of large Book Of Mormon

This was a lone picture he sent. This was made of wood in one of their chapels.

Hey

To

Mom Dad Chad Cobb Matthew VanGorkum Sierra Noelani Sage and 6 more...

12/18/17 at 12:02 PM

So I just wanted to share a quick spiritual thought this week while we are all getting ready for Christmas.

In Matthew 5:16 it says ``Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.``

I love this scripture becuase we learn how important it is to glorify our Heavenly Father. By the service we give to others we can represent our Savior Jesus Christ and we can focus on the love he has for each and every one of us. Also in Mosiah 2:17 we learn that ``when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God``. This Christmas we have the chance to remember the birth of our Savior. Christ was born in a manger and grew up living a humble life. He served, taught, and sacrificed everything just to help us return to live with him and our Heavenly Father. I know that Christ lives and that he loves us. This Christmas season we have to chance to remember him. He is The gift. He is The light of the world. Let him be the focus of our Christmas this year and help a friend or a family member remember this too. 

-- 😁🎄

___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

1 Week until christmas

This week was great, we had divisions, the christmas conference, and finally some success in our area. I guess in the US they are called "splits" but I like the word divisions better because its the word we use in portuguese. I got to be with Elder B Costa (my trainer who is now my Zone Leader) and we got to work really hard that day and after we pooled our money together and went for sushi and it was really good. Actually in Petrolina there are many sushi places compared to the other cities here. Sushi is the perfect way to end the day but its a little expensive for the average missionary so it probably won't happen again for a while.

As I said before, we had our christmas conference on thursday and it was awesome, the Lazenby's tried really hard to make christmas special for all 150ish missionaries that are a part of their family this christmas. We had a normal conference the part in the morning, lunch was amazing with cheesy alfredo, goat/chicken meat, and some other foods I can't remember with a selection of juices. We then sang songs, president wrote a parody with the 12 days of christmas in portuguese and with missionary things, it was great, I took photos and videos of most of it. I will attach a bunch because the internet is fast here in this lan house I'm using :)   We did "secret friend" which is like "secret santa", I bought/gave a dashing blue tie and I got a chocolate bar with an R2-D2 plush toy with a music button that played the theme of star wars. Its pretty sick, my companions are sick of me listening to the music all the time 😅 We also got stockings from the Lazenby's with candy/snickers, popcorn, a dvd (with what I don't know), and a photo album with the christmas card form the Lazenby's and some photos of Christ, and the christmas card from the 1st presidency of the church in portuguese and my companion randomly got one in spanish and english. We then watched the Grinch as a special present from president, and had some special musical presentations (also included). During the movie, President brought our pizza for everyone. The only draw back to the conference was that it was in Feira de Santana which is about 7hrs by bus and the secretaries always put us on the 11:30pm bus which is terrible for sleep. took a few days to recover from that.

Us missionaries are going to be singing christmas songs in the church square tomorrow night (in front of where are new apartment will be) and the next day we will do the same thing but in Juazeiro the neighboring city. we haven't had the chance to practice at all but we will see how it goes.

 We get to call home next monday seeing that it is christmas and its going to be great, christmas in the feild. Its cool that I got to have christmas in the MTC and in the feild and weird to think that I won't have another on the mission, the next one will be at home.

But anyway Love you all, gotta go now, but Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas!  ​

 IMG_1203.JPG

First year down

Wednesday makes one year that I left for the mission, so cool! Its exactly how my dad was telling me how now I know how to work well and speak well I can just work the hardest I can until the end because the end is nigh. And as I will probably be the senior companion in this next transfer I can take more decision in what we do, so hopefully we will have more success. This week was alright, we had a confirmation on sunday, and interviews with President in Petrolina last Tuesday. After the interviews we went for coconut water, as shown in the attached photos. Sunday morning I woke up really early and really sick. I had the worst headache that I've ever had in my life, a fever of 102, pain/aches in my back/spine, stomache pains, and vomiting; yeah, it sucked. My companion made me go to sacrament meeting because he wanted to partake of the sacrament, I suffered😩. I just stayed in bed all sunday; but today I woke up and I'm fine, just hungry because I didn't eat anything yesterday. I downloaded a bunch of christmas music so you already know what I'm going to be doing for the next month (singing very loudly😋) 🎄 Other than this not much else happened this week. I had some dreams about walmart and buying bluewood tickets, but the reality of them will not happen until next year...

Love you people!

-- 

___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Petrolina

This week was the first week working in Petrolina, I'm still getting to know the place, people, companion, and everything. It is confirmed, its VERY HOT here with a low during the night of 77F and a high of 95-100F this week. My new companion, Elder Amorim, is great. He is brazillian, more specifically from "Minas" and he is awesome, he is a little quirky like me which is great. We are serving in the Petrolina 1 ward which was like the first ward here so its the closest to the center of the city, which also takes part of our proselyting area. So this area is more city life with catching buses, dealing with crazy people in the street, and muggings/robberies. We are current living in the house/area of the zone leaders because the house was recently robbed (before I got here) and president didn't authorize that we return, but today they said we can go back to living there after we change the locks; however, we have to start looking for a new house at the same time thats a little more secure because apparently this house has already been robbed several times. But its all good. I had my first district meeting this week too, it was good, I gave a training about how we should use the book of mormon, nothing special. I also got to do my first baptism interview as district leader. I took some pictures of the big catholic church with a big christmas tree of lights that was cool. The members in this ward like to give money for some of our lunches so the pictures of us eating yakisoba was because of them. And the last photo is of my companion :)

I ran out of time to say much more but this is basically how things are going here.

Love you people! 😎🌞

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Petrolina week 3

This week was very normal 😁 Nothing special really happened just life as its going. There was a ward lunch after church yesterday and we ate very well and got left with about 10 mangos that were leftover so you know we are excited to make juice this week. Actually I took some really cool pictures this week but I forgot to bring my adaptor to upload them, just next week...😑 This week was extremely hot (it got up to 102F one day) staying in the sun all day, and the blessing was on sunday when it rained and finally gave the relief I/we needed. We visited the stake patriarch who takes part of the ward we are serving and we visited a recent convert together and he showed us his "Kefir" which is a really funky drink thats super easy to make and this member was explaining all about it and gave us the ..."ahem"... bacteria to make it 😅 We made it at home and it wasn't as good as the kind he offered and made but we are making it again so we will see how it goes. We are trying to make lots of new investigators in our area so we are having to talk to lots of people with ideas that are all over the board and so it has been interesting trying to understand every perspective and bringing them to try to understand how we think. This week we have the Christmas mission conference so I hope it may be a little bit more different than just another zones conference. And I also will have 13 months on the mission this week. Its weird, I've had a few dreams about coming back home, and I've decided stayed on the mission is a better option but now its just a race against the time. So I'll work hard, as usual and I will make it all worth it. About the new house, the contracts aren't finished yet but they said this week for sure they will be done and we will move in probably this weekend and this will help with the work because we are currently living 45min walking distance away from our area boundry.

But all is well, talk more later, Bye!

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Goat meat

This week was pretty good. It was mostly normal, really hot but its getting easier. We went searching for a new house/appartment to live and we weren't able to find a house with the same price for rent in the center of the city so we had to settle with a place a little more expensive and just a little bit smaller because its an appartment. Its a little bit more expensive but its really secure and perfect for missionaries, and it looks brand new (unlike every missionary house that ever existed in this mission) So I'm really excited to be moving there this week once the church approves it, mission president already approved it so they are just finishing the contracts. So we are going to be living in the chic-est appartment in the mission 😎 and its in a great location...in front of the great and spacious catholic church LOL! But its going to be great just not walking 45min to just get to our area from where we are living now. 

We had interviews with President and they went well and after he bought lunch for everyone (his family and all the missionaries in the zone) at a place thats known for their goat meat. Everyone tried it and it is good, very meaty. Sister Lazenby wanted everyone to sit in sifferent places at the table to talk to new people so, as she doesn't know how to speak well, I played translator between the brzillian elders and sister lazenby; I liked it , it was fun. They also bought the cashew soda to drink with lunch! Its a soda that is only made in Petrolina and its made with the fruit of the cashew nut which is very interesting, it has a flavor all its own, not everyone likes it but I do.

 P-day we haven't had the time to go and do something fun in the center because we arent living there yet but we played monopoly and a game called "dobble" thats super fun.

President says he's planning something fun for the christmas conference that we will be having next week, so we have that to look forward to. We are also propoganding the "be the light of the world" as found on "www.mormon.org" I encourage everyone to take a look and participate, there are some really good ideas on there.

But all is well in the land were one can buy a coconut for less than US$0.50

Thats thats basically it.. Tchau! 🐏

Stereotypical week! Dog bite

I can say that this week was the most sterotypical week of my mission. This isn't a bad thing, actually its super funny and I'm glad for all that happened because it was super sterotypical. So it started off with being sick on sunday as I wrote last week and during the week we worked a lot knocking doors and marking appointments and as we went to visit them they weren't home or didn't have time or weren't interested even after marking an appointment with us. So we had the sterotypical door closing in our faces experiences this week. I also passed the actual day of 1 year on the 15th of Nov. So benchmark... On Friday we went to visit a member who had recently moved and we had marked with them to eat cuzcuz that night, when we got there the mother of the member went to hold the dog to not bother us as we passed by but she lost hold and the dog bit my leg. It was funny because my companion freaked out a little half-screaming and throwing the member in front of him to protect himself from harm. It didn't hurt too much the teeth that met with the level of my sock didn't penetrate but one good looking tooth hole was left in my leg because it was above the sock and only had the pant leg protecting it. (Photo attatched) So funnily enough to add to the sterotypical missionary life, I was bitten by a dog. SO the week was pretty wild... We also took a different route this week going to an appointment after lunch going along the train tracks so we took some cool pictures (as attatched).

Tomorrow is the transfer, and suprisingly I will be transfered! Everyone thought that my companion would be the one to leave because he has more time int he area but president moved me instead and my companion will stay and train a new missionary. So I will be transfered to Petrolina, which as I'm told (and I've experienced), is one of the hottest cities in the mission and not in a good way. It gets up to, as I try to change from C to F, 90F-110F which is really hot considering the slightly increased humidity and we are arriving into summer here so it will really get hot. I'm 99% sure that I'll burn, I bought sunscreen but even if I don't burn it will be real dang hot. Also with this change I will be Senior companion and district leader. Also my zone leader will be the trainer that I had Elder B Costa. I'm excited, maybe nervous, but I'm sure everything will turn out great, I will just have to work hard with diligance. I will travel there today, early, because by compánion has to leave for Salvador to pick up his new missionary.

Well thats all I have time for,

Love you!

🌞🌡😋🚌                  😣🐕

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton

Double Success

This week was awesome 👏 We tag-teamed it this week and the both of us baptized a person, or in other words, 2 young men were baptized by us. One of them was addicted to coffee and was drinking 3 big bottles a day alone, but it was amazing the moment we taught about the word of wisdom because he stopped altogether and switched to cevada, which is like the mormon coffee that isn't coffee that almost all the members drink. Now he is so careful not to drink anymore, if he isn't sure he makes someone taste it to make sure its not coffee. And the other young man has been wanting to be baptized for over 4 months but his mom hasn't been letting him but we've been working with him diligently to show to his mom that he is learning and becoming a better man the more he goes to church and learns about Christ, we were even doing Duty to God with him and he was'nt even a member then; but regardless his mom saw the difference and his desire over the space of 4ish months and let him be baptized. It is so cool being a missionary and being able to help/see the progress that people make as they follow christ.

We had district meeting in Jacobina (2.5hrs by bus) and we had a little fun the night before and had the meeting the next morning, I took some pictures of the city. It looks like utah a bit with the mountians so close, I like it and think its a pretty area. It was funny because after the meeting we went for lunch in the house of a member in Jacobina and after lunch our Zone leader and his companion started to sleep and one of them even snored! It was too funny, so I took a photo. :) I also took a photo of a (I think the translation is right) Freemasonry building, here in Bahia there are many of them, they are not very secret other than I don't know what happens inside; normally they are bule buildings with the symbol out in front, I find it interesting.

Other than this my week was normal, I bought sun screen because wow the sun is hot/strong already, summer is definety setteling in here. I was suprised to hear about snow at home, it seems like it snowed just last month but its more likely that the year just flew by and its winter again already.

Not much more, Love you people! 

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___________________

Elder Benjamin Barton