Week 59

Hello Loved Ones-

My birthday with our little christmas tree and our
electric christmas tree on the wall!!

My first week as a 21 year old was...very straining! This week was mentally draining though physically very easy because we worked only on a couple of streets and spoke with every single person that lived or walked on the street while we were there. Though we didn't have much success with getting new investigators or people who wanted to go to church, we only had one.

Today we found out that we will have Christmas conference on the 23rd so I don't think I'll be able to email next p-day...

As of now..I believe Elder Morgan and I will stay together this next transfer! Unless its like last transfer where the email didn't work and the zone leaders had to call everybody. However, I don't think that's the case!! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to watch the Christmas devotional yesterday but I'm sure it was good.

Me sitting on some nice bricks
drinking some soda out of a bag!

This past week we had a cool lesson about actions, words and thoughts and about how powerful our thoughts really are. We are going to judged for all three of these things, which means we need to control them all!

Alma 12:14 says: "Porque nossas palvras no condenarao, sim, todas as nossas obras nos condenarao; nao seremos considerados sem mancha e nossos pensamentos tambem nos condenarao; e nesse terrivel estado nao nos atreveremos a olhar para o nosso Dues; e dar-nos-iamos por felizes se pudessemos ordenar as pedras e montanhas que caissem sobre nos, para cesconder-nos de sua presenca. (look it up in English :) )

We'd rather have mountains on top of us that have to be in front of us if only our thoughts are bad, no need to consider our words or actions!


This store is called ´´Your Face´´

We need to control our mind and our thoughts because that is what governs all other things. One interesting analogy is to think of good and bad as light and dark. The only reason things become dark is absence of light. When the light shows up, the darkness can't do anything against the light, it immediately  leaves.

As we read the scriptures each day we fill our mind with light that forces the darkness to leave our mind. We have better and more Godly thoughts and make progress towards our eternal goals.

I wish you happy holiday wishes and thank you for your support!

Elder Haws






Our Day at the Zoo

Weird bird at Zoo

Week 58

Hello!!

It's already week five of the transfer! This transfer will end next Monday so that all the people going home can get there before Christmas and not ON Christmas! It is weird to think I turned 21 yesterday!! I've become a full adult! In the US, I'd be allowed to enter bars and stuff now, but here in Brazil the law is different and I've been able to for 3 years already!! haha

Wow looks like its been freezing there!! It's been really hot here! Normally hitting 35 every day. Even the people who live here are saying that this is waaaay hotter than it normally is.

This past week flew by! Nothing really special happened, unfortunately. We're having a lot of difficulty getting people to church here. We meet great people and have great lessons with them but they aren't going to church. Something always comes up or they just won't answer the door because they are asleep or something in the mornings. It's super frustrating! If they don't go to church we can't baptize them!

We're trying to work with the members a lot too but it's pretty tough to get them to schedule with us. However, the members are really cool here, they always offer us food and water and ask if we need anything! They are just really busy.

Last night, I made myself a cake for my birthday and it was pretty good. I'll have to send a picture next week. I forgot to bring my camera to the LAN house.

Thanks for all the support and love from you guys.
With love and lots of heat from Brazil,

Elder Haws

Week 57

The mission tour meeting went awesome! The President of the Area of Brazil came and spoke to us. He gave some good training and inspirational messages but I'll get to that later!

Elder Schenewark has two more transfers than I do. He's from...everywhere cause his family always moved a lot because of his dad's work. He's a zone leader in the zone i used to be in, Zona Marilia. Now I'm in Zona Bauru and so haven't seen him for a few weeks.

Did you guys know that if Jesus were to return right now, Claudio R. M. Costa would become the president of Brazil? He's the president of the area of Brazil currently and so he would take the place of the current president! What's more is that he was in Londrina with us giving a training to us. He talked a lot about the spirit and how we need to leave shortly after getting the spirit into the lesson so that people will notice that it left with us and want it in their lives. He also spoke about how we need to speak to everybody!! That's something that i already knew I needed to improve. He also chose 10 missionaries to interview after he was done with his presentation and I was one of them!!

Here's a question for you to think about: if you had an opportunity to be in a room with a member of the presidency of the 70, below only the 12 and the prophet, and he asks you if you have any questions for him, what would you ask?

Before be asked me, I had about a million but when he asked, I just went blank! I stared at the ground for probably a good 20 or 30 seconds before aksing him a little more about the Spirit. After the interview (though it really was just a conversation) was over, about a million questions far better than I had before the interview came into my head. Anyways, it was a really cool day and we learned a lot. It really helped me to get re-motivated and excited for the work.

We are trying hard to meet new people here, we're not working as efficiently as possible though and that's something we will work on while we put into practice what President Costa taught us.

Tchau,
Elder Haws

Week 55/56

Week 55:

This week Elder Morgan and I had a couple of great adventures! First off, when we got here the phone didn't have any credits to call anybody, we didn't know where our house was or how to get there, and we didn't know any members who could help us (and even if we did, we had no way to call them).

Luckily, the Zone leaders helped us out and we got a hold of the 2nd counselor of the bishopric and he came to get us and our bags and then showed us where we live and how to get to the chapel.

Everyday after that has been spent walking the streets with a map in our hands because we need to learn more about the city and where everything is! Luckily this is a much smaller area than Ourinhos! Ourinhos was a whole city to learn, this time it's just one part out of six (cause there are six wards in this city).

There is an entire section of the city that it shows on the map, but when we got there...it was just jungle! There were a couple of dirt roads and we saw one or two houses here and there are these little dirt roads, boy were we surprised! I have a funny video of it but it's too big to send.

We had a lot of possibilities to take to church that we met this past week but nobody was there when we went before church to get them.


A whole bunch of Snails! They are an invasive species so
we're supposed to kill them all! 

We were going to try and confirm a girl, Cheyanne, that had been baptized a few months ago but she didn't want to go that day and we were planning on sacrament being last so we thought we could get here at about 10:40 and she'd only go to sacrament meeting. It turns out that sacrament meeting is first in this ward and so we had no way to help her get confirmed this week.
Hopefully we can convince her to go next week!

The ward members here seem really good and we've even marked with some already to leave with us this week! Hopefully that means our investigators will feel more welcome and want to be baptized even more!

Week 56:
 Dear Family,



Elder Morgan making apple pie/pastel

What a long week It's rained a lot here and the washing machine was broken when we got here so the stuff we've washed by hand still hasn't dried!

Cheyanne didn't get confirmed :( she doesn't even want to go to the church again cause she's going to a different one and he's really rude to us about it so we haven't been working with her anymore. we got a kid, Gabriel (16 years old), to go to church with us but he missed sacrament meeting so in the books we have a zero for this Sunday, again. I don't really know if he liked it cause he really wanted to get out of there quick at the end of the meetings....so...we'll see what happens!

We know a few of the bigger roads in our part of the city. Though we still have to use the map for anywhere we go because all the roads have such weird names!

They do celebrate Christmas here but it's not nearly as big. They still have Santa and a little party and stuff on Christmas Eve. Last year the family I was with, opened their presents on Christmas Eve but it might have just been because we were with them and they wanted us to open our little boxes with a tie in them...I don't really know.

A monkey!! We're going to the zoo next p-day!

This Thursday, we will have our Mission Tour meeting with Elder Claudio R.M. Costa and that will eat up a lot of our time, it will use up three days actually because we have to leave on Wednesday and we might not be back until Friday!

Thanks for the love and support!

Elder Haws

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! We're Wizards! :)

Week 54

I was told by President Genaro that I was going to Maringa. It's a city a little bit south of Londrina. But today...the zone leaders told me I'm going back to Bauru.The zone I was already in but just a different area. My comp will be Elder Morgan (he's from California). He's here in Zone Marilia with me right now. Which means there will be two completely new missionaries there! Just like Ourinhos will receive two new missionaries! Good luck to the missionaries that will go to Ourinhos! They will have a whole city and not even know where their house it!!

I'm actually pretty upset about being transferred because first of all: packing is no fun. Second, I was super excited to work with the new people we had found. And third, I was going to meet Elder Halpin's family..but now...I won't be able to meet them. That's really sad but I guess I can meet them in a a year when i get home.

We did baptize this week. Her name is Gabriele and she's 9. She is the daughter of a memeber who has been inactive for 10 years but now we have been visiting here-she has gone to church every single week! Now the husband just needs to get baptized but I guess that's work for other missionaries.

There was a lady that we had worked with for over two months that we didn't baptize.It was really sad to leave. She used to be a prostitute and did all sorts of bad things but has completely changed her life around because we helped her. She even stopped drinking coffee and everything!She was ready to be baptized but just didn't want to be baptized yet. It was really really hard to leave because she had already worked with other sets of missionaries *at least two other companionships* and never opened up to them and told them what her problems really were, so she FINANLLY did with us after a month of working with her and now we left and I hope she doesn't just give up.

I know I'm here on the mission to learn a lot of things  but two in particular are humility and learning how to follow. Being a leader is important but we also need to learn how to follow.

I have a testimony that the church is true. The Lord knows each one of us individually. The leaders of the church are truly inspired and receive revelation from the Lord. I know that the Lord knows me and I am trying to be who he wants me to be. It's hard. Really hard. But I won't give up!

Elder Haws

Week 52/53

Week 52:
This past week was definitly a crazy one!! Wednesday was one of the worst days I've had on the mission, including really annoying investigators, waiting for hours to be able to eat lunch *obviously working not just sitting down waiting) and having an arguement between our companionship. Everything was resolved though and we're better now!

Friday night we planned and then called the sisters to accompany them *its a rule to do it every night) and they said they needed an interview done. So we replanned and had stuff for after 7 at night because it's a 2 hour bus ride to the city where they work and we figured we could catch the 4 o'clock bus or at the very worst we would have to get the 6:15 bus and just walk straight home after. We never imagined we would be at the church and have finished the interview and have it already be 5:30. We only have 45 minutes to baptize him and ge to the other side of the city!! It's about 30 minutes to walk tot he bus station from the church there in Assis. So we called and got permission to get home late from Sister Genaro. President Genaro didn't annser his phone, nor did the President's assistants nor the Zone leaders!! So she gave us permission and we stayed to baptize him-there were no members who could. After the 6:15 bus, the next bus goes back to Ourinhos at 930!! so we got back to Ourinhos at 11ish( the bus goes faster later at night) and then still had to get all the way across the city to our house!! We didn't get to bed until midnight! It was so weird to be out so late. I haven't done anything after 10:30 for over a year so it was quite the change for me. I was soo tired. But it was all worth it to get him baptized.

The real hard part happened the next morning when we still had to wake up at 6:29 and work alld ay!! Plus we had forgoten that is was the fourth Sunday! Which means we have to give talks in sacrament meeting! So I gave the home teaching message for the month from the church magazine-nobody does their home teaching here and hadn't heard it anyways.

We'll I'm already out of time! Have a great week and I always love hearing from you guys!

-Elder Haws

Week 53:
We cut a lot of people this past week  again. We've been teaching a ton of lessons lately! We're going crazy trying to get a last baptism for Elder Halpin before he goes home (which is next MONDAY!!!) we've taught almost 50 lessons a week this past month and found tons of new investigators and even got like 25 people to church!! But nobody wants to be baptized. It's realy hard because all of our numbers show that we are waaay over due for a baptism.

This past week has gotten me all sorts of trunky!! I've heard imagine dragons (one of my favorite bands) playying three different time plus a macklemore song and at the super market they had a skiing show playing on a tv while we were grabbing some food and it made me miss skiing sooo much! Plus its crazy because once again, this is my companions last week in the field and he always makes comments about it! But its alright cause everybody wants to throw him a churrasco (bbq) since he's leaving. So we've gone to two already and have two more planned this week!

Today we tried to go bowling but th bowling alley was closed and doesn't have hours posted or anything so i probably won't ever try and go again cause its on the opposite side of town than we live or the LAN house is.

This next Sunday we'll be leaving here from Ourinhos on Sunday night to go to the Zone leaders house in Marilia so that Elder Halpin and the Zone leader that is finishing his mission too can catch their bus to Londrina on Monday morning. I'll have to hang out there, with the other zone leader (Elder Schenewark from Boston) until my comp gets there. i'm pretty sure I'll stay here in Ourinhos because its not that common to replace both the missionaries in an area at the same time. But it does happen occassionally. Because if I do get transferred I'll already be in another city without all my stuff! so I really really hope that doesn't happen.

I'm gonna miss Elder Halpin, he's a cool guy and I'm nervous to see what happens in our distric this transfer, anything could happen!!
Well have a great week, I love each of you!!

-Elder Haws

Week 51

We've seriously had soo many people lying to us lately and its getting to me! People 9investigators and people on the street usually) always lie to us cause we're the missionaries but this past week its been out of control! I might develop some major trust issues that i'll have to get over by the time i get hom!

This is a family that gives us lunch once a month.
They aren't even members of the church!

The area I'm in isn't really jungle-y although the areas by the river are, they are really small though. There are just lots of parrots. A lot of people have pet parrots and parakeets and stuff and there are a lot of wild ones too. The wild ones are the most annoying birds ever because their whistle is the exact same and they just sit there making noise all morning while we study.

They kind of celebrate Halloween here but its nothing compated to the united states. They have a thing they do on new year's day though. They go to the houses and say "felize ano novo" and if its a little kid the people are pretty much required to give them something, otherwise everybody gets mad at that house.

I've never gone to primary here. In Ourihos, we always teach the new member class, principles of the gospel and about half the time there is no youth teacher so we teach them as well.



This is my super dialated eye
when I went to the doctor.

President Genaro already told me that this next transfer I won't be killing my companion!

this past week we almost had a baptism but she didn't feel ready. She is a daughter of a less active member who is returning to church. She is returning and knows that her daughter needs to be baptized but the dad isn't a member of the church and is making the daughter feel not-ready. I don't think he means to do bad but he also doesn't really support her being baptized 100% only 80%ish and he's made her fee not-ready.

We've had to cut two families that we were teaching this week because they weren't progressing and don't want anything really. Actually one family its just the husband that isn't interested and so because of him, the wife doesn't want to come to church or be baptized without him. He had been inactive in the Catholic Church for years now and he "wants to return" and so the wife will go there with ihm and their two kids.

The other family is just a waste of time because all they want to do is talk about the U.S. and want their daughters to marry an American and go live in the U.S. So, we're done there.

WE haven't baptized in a while but our numbers are still pretty good. Our mission did really well last month. We got 3rd in all of Brazil last month. That's super good!

-Elder Haws

Week 49/50

Well last week Tyler didn't really write us anything to post! Here's today's letter:

I apologize for last week's letter! That survey we had to do took almost half of my time on the computer!

This past week has been insane!
First off, I didn't really say anything about General Conference last week cause I didn't have time but I liked it a lot and it's easy to tell that at least in the U.S. there are problems with women right's and attitutdes and stuff. We don't seem to be seeing anything like that happening here in Brazil. i really liked President Uchtdorf's comment about "why would anybody want to join your church??" The one where he starts out talking about all of the activities that members of the church are involved with!

We also had zone conference on Friday with President Genaro and that was so great too! We had to leave here on Thursday night like we always do for meetings that start early the next morning. So i left the house Thursday morning and didn't get back until Saturday night! The zone conference ended at 5:30-ish but we got a surprise because we had broken the record of bapisms in a month! We got to watch 17 miracles!! If you haven't seen it, you really need to! But do it in a more comfortable location than on a wooden church pew in a really hot chapel while wearing a suit in Brazil! It was a great movie though and the only one I've seen in a year now! So because of the movie, we missed the only bus that goes to Ourinhos that we can get at nght and had to stay in Marilia for another night. On Saturday morning we found out the sister in our district had an interview and so we were going to catch a bus to Assis, the city that they work in, and then go to Ourinhos after but we already have four appointments marked for Saturday. So i went with one zone leader and Elder Halpin with the other. Elder Halpin went bck to Ourinhos and I went to Assis because I have been in theis district the longest and know the areas the best. We went and did the interview and the lady went in not wanting to be baptized really because of a bunch of Adventista 7th day church people have been going to her house every single day after the sister missionaries to try to have her not get baptized. They felt the spirit really strongly though and still wanted to baptize, so we baptized her that day! I was the one who got to baptize her too!! So that was a great Saturday!

We've done a lot to get the ward to like us here including making cookies and stuff! It really really worked! But the whole purpose of getting them to like us more was to get them to help us more and they still aren't really doing that...but we'll keep at it!

Also, I was walking down the street on..Tuesday, I think, and a parrot said hello to me and said good afternoon! Though it was in Portuguese,  I looked around to see who it was that said something cause it sounded like a regular person but then I saw the parrot in the tree and it was kind of making noises still so I knew it was him! Later that day, anothe rparrot said hello also! That's never happened the whole time I've been here in Brazil and then it happened twice in the same day!

We got five people to church again this week, it is so nice to finally have people go! It's been a while since I've had a lot of people who actually wanted to go to church! One lady (Regina) even gt up and bore her testimony even though it was her first time visiting the church! It was awesome! She was pretty funny up at the pulpit cause she told a baby to shut her mouth during the middle of her testimony and kind of just talked about us the whole time rather than Christ, but we'll help her learn how to do it right!

Well I tried really hard to do a better email this week so I hope it was interesting! Have a great week, everybody!

Com amor e muita agua

Elder Haws

Week 48: Transfer

So Elder Halpin and I will be comps again this next transfer, which means I will kill yet another companion!! The Noah's Ark activity last week was an idea that one of the sister's shared with us in district meeting, she said it ws in some EFY Counselor book.

With Lucas this week, yes there certainly was progress! He got baptized on Saturday night!! ANd then confirmed on Sunday in Sacrament Meeting. But this was the last Sunday of the month and we were really close to our goal for the month and President Genaro had authorized people to be baptized even if they had only gone to church one time if they were living all the commandments. Last week there was a girl, Leticia, who hadn't gone to church yet and didn't that Sunday either, unfortunatley. BUT this Sunday she went and she had agreed that if she liked and felt good at church she would be baptized. Soo..we went by bus and got her because only  like 3 people in the ward here have cars, and that made us get to church pretty late, missing the entire first class. But she still really liked it and got baptized! Plus we had permission to have her confirmed outside of a sacrament meeting as well! So she was confirmed right after! It took us all the way until the last weekend of the transfer but we finally baptized!

We've got 2 potential families for these next weeks and so that's who we'll be running after these next weeks! Oh and like two or three months ago we beat the old mission record of baptisms with 168 but this month right now (September) we just beat it again and got 182 in the mission!

-Elder Haws

Week 47

Hello Family!

This past week was soooo long. We almost baptized Lucas but he was at his dad's house in Parana (another state in Brazil that Ourinhos is super close to) so it didn't happen.

The talk went well but i didn't look at the clock and accidentally took too long so the guy after me only had like 12-13 minutes instead of 19-20.

On Wednesday, we had the activity at the church and we did a really fun Noah's Arc activity and made everybody act as animals getting into the arc. They chose animals at the beginning of the lesson without knowing why and then later we told them they had to be that animal and enter the arc. One girl even chose a fish! It was great (It's debatable if fish needed to enter the arc or not because maybe fresh water fish needed to have a tank on board because there would only be salt water I guess).

This Wednesday we won't be giving the lesson but we are going to offer an English class before the activity to try and get more people, especially investigators, in one smaller area and have lots to do there. We have a few people but they are all spread out and so we have to choose which area we'll go to each day.

This next week we will be going to Londrina for a dermatologist and I'll go to another eye doctor while we're there to have another opinion other than the terrible on here in Ourinhos.

Also tonight, we're heading to Marilia for our zone meeting tomorrow-we won't be back until tomorrow night. So our numbers will probably be pretty bad this week. The important this is that we won the competition the past two weeks against the sisters and now they will buy us acai!

Have a great week, I'm out of time, I gotta go!

Elder Haws

Week 46

Elder Haws didn't have tons to share this week but we did get three pictures! I'll share the little bit that he wrote about and put the pictures at the end.

This week was hard. We're tyring to find a new area of the city to work in. Nowhere is givng us any success. We did have Lucas, he's the little brother of Luan (who we baptized last month_, say that he wants to be baptized though! He went to church this Sunday and instead of wanting to be baptized in a few years, he wants it in a few months. now we just have to switch that to either days or hours!

This next Sunday we will be giving talks in Sacrament Meeting again (we do it every month) and hte bishop told us our goal is to burn the ward a little bit. But to burn them in a way to get a positive response where they work hard and realize they are slacking and not just an angry at us response. It is hard to know how people will react so I'm going to study a lot and pray to find a way to do what he wants.

Love you guys!
Elder Haws

A Great big Apostasy here in Ourinhos

One of our Zone Leaders, Elder Carrel

Zone Meeting! We're the gladiators of Missao Brazil Londrina

Week 45: Nadinha (Little Nothing)

Dear Family,

We are really struggling to get members to help us. At the ward council next sunday, I'm going to present a few ideas to the bishop to try and get people more involved in the missionary work. Like maybe a competition between the missionaries and the ward to see who can get more nonmembers to church in a month or something like that-we'll see how it goes.

This past week we've decided to stop working in the area we've been working and choose a richer area of the city. In D&C 58:8-12, we see that the Lord needs educated men (who can hold the priesthood), who are realitively well off (who can pay tithing), to build the kingdom on earth and then the poor will be brought in a bit later with a "feast." That's the training we recieved from our zone leaders, who revieved it during the training of leaders in Londrina this month! So that will be our focus from now on!

This Sunday was disappointing with no investigators at church because the family that went last week doesn't want to stop drinking coffee. Actually it's just the mom that is ruining it for everyone. There's nothing else we can do but the members say they are going to try and help-so we'll see how that goes!

My feet are starting to have problems again, and my left knee because we are walking soooo much! It's hard when lunch is on one end of the city but where we have appointment is on the other! There should definitley be more than one dupla (companionship) here. Someday I'm sure there will be.

Everything is great here though. Elder Halpin and I get along great and there's plenty of work to do!

Have a great week! I love you all tons and can't wait to get your letters!

Com Muita Agua (with lots of water) {our boy is so weird sometimes-not sure why he ends his letters like that! haha I'll ask him}

Elder Haws

Week 44

The city is HUGE with over 100,000 people and we're the only missionaries here so wedon't go to all the idfferent parts that often. It takes about 2 hours of straight walking (really quickly-even for missionaries) to get from one side of the city to the other.

Elder Halpin is 6'4" and actually he reminds me of Chandler McMullin a lot! We have a lot of fun and I'll talk more about something we started this week!

So this past week I had an idea to do a competition in our district and talked to my comp (the district leader) about it. We decided to do it. The competition is to see who can have hte most contacts this week. Which is essentially a competition to see who talks to the most people. The sisters (our district is Elder Halpin and I and two companionships of sisters) went crazy, and got 72. We had to go to Marilia on Thurdsay, unfortunately. Which means that we had to leave on Wednesday to be there on time for Thursday morning meeting! We lost almost two complete days of work!! We only have 36 for this past week!! The competition is two weeks long...so this next week we are going to CRAZY and talk to EVERYBODY we see so we can win. If they win we have to make them cookies. Which is a problem because we don't have an oven at our house. If they win they will give us acai and a cake!

On Saturday we found a family resting out in the shad, brazilian style. Which means the dad hooked his hammock up under the trailer of his semi truck and everybody else was sitting in nice plastic chairs in the shade of the truck. We asked them the name of the street and then decided to talk to them about the church and we invited them to come the next day. They came!! Peope ALWAYS accept invites here but rarely follow through. So we were really surprised! We went to their house later that day and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of Wisdom, and Chastity. They are married legally (also rare) and they have been wanting to "segui um caminho" to follow a path-and when we talked to them they took it as a sign that this is where they should go. They haven't been attending any church for a really long time. They are probably about 40 and have 4 kids. Three went to church. The trhee youngest-the oldest (who is 16) didn't go and we haven't been able to talk to him yet. The youngest is only 7 and so can't be baptized but the parents and two middle children liked the message and all have baptismal dates marked for next Sunday!

It's gotten really hot again here and its\'s not even close tot he summer heat yet...

Have nother great week and remember that the Lord always is trying to guide us, we just have to recognize and accept his help. We have to do our part that we know we are responsible for and he will bless us (such as place a family in your path who wants to be baptized!!!)

Com muita agua

Elder Haws

Week 43: Oi!

This past week has been crazy! The first week after getting a new comp always is!! Elder Halpin is from Holladay, Utah! We get along great! I always seem to get really good comps. He hasn't had the same luck with companions!

This past week we met an American here! He's from Indiana and speaks English fluently because he moved here...not that long ago. I think he first came when he was 18 but I think he went back. He's probably about 24 years old. We taught him and his girlfriend..in English! I couldn't even do the first vision part because I never learned it in English! He understands Portuguese pretty well but isn't that good at speaking it. Which is crazy cause he's been here for like two years and I speak way better! The gift of tongues is real! So it was really weird teaching in English for the first time ever but it went really well! Not to bash on Brazil or Brazilians but he is a far more complicated person-in a good way. He understood things on a whole new level. Logically as well as spiritually. His girlfriend (actually fiance) also speaks English fluently. They really liked the lesson about the restoration and then we also taught the word of Wisdom, the law of Chastity and asked them to be baptized and they both to be baptized and they both agreed to everything. They do like to drink alcohol and coffee and he smokes weed but they're going to try to live all the commandments we taught them. We didn't set an exact date with them though because they aren't married and living together and it's a pretty complicated situation but he (his name is Andrew) went to church yesterday already and they are both coming this next week! One part of the lesson was really funny-he compared the church and the plan of God and everything to Star Wars and was kinda convinced George Lucas was a Mormon. There really are a lot of similarities!

This past week it's been over 90 everyday and with the humidity and having to walk out in the sun it's been really hot! I got way tanner because of it too! There was even a lady at an ice cream shop that mentions that we had become brown because of this past week!

We pass by this ice cream shop every time we go to a bairro called Itamaraty. It's a good hour walk from our house! But we're usually even further away and it takes about 1 1/2 hours to walk there. So I buy a milk shake (it's only 2.70 for 500ml! What a deal!) and then it's gone by the time we actually get all the way to the house where our investigator lives. We walked there the other night and I got my shake and then we went to this guys house at the very end of the bairro. After walking for almost 2 hours to get there to our appointment they had promised to make, they weren't home!! So we headed back towards our house and I had to buy myself a second milkshake to make myself feel a little better about waking all the way there for nothing!

Eriton wasn't baptized and hasn't stopped smoking and is fleeing from us a little bit, which is really sad. But we've got other good possibilities now for baptism here shortly!

Elder Haws

Week 41-42: Transfers

Week 41:
This Sunday we confirmed Luan! We also had three other investigators at church and are hoping to baptize at least two people next week!! This is the last week of being a missionary for Elder Havili and so we're going to work exactly the same as always (because we always work hard) to baptize before he goes home! Also Beatriz, Evelyn and Lane went back to Sao Paulo this morning and so we stopped by (in reality we went to talk to Eriton, who is planning on being baptized this next week if he can stop smoking) and said bye to them and it was really awkward cause they were crying and super sad. Elder Havili will probably be talking with them on FB here in less than two weeks though.

We also got attacked by a very large goat in a field this week. It was about 7 o'clock and dark already but we heard it running for us so I just froze and was ready to jump to either side depending on where it went. I think and I won't tell too much of the story so that Elder Havili can keep a little of his pride :) He was scared pretty good though!

We have word from Sister Genaro that we are finally getting a washing machine so we don't have to wash our clothes in little buckets anymore but...we don't know when it will get here. Seeing how it took 5 weeks to have her autorize it..maybe actually getting one will take a while too!

Next week we have stake conference in Marilia so it will probably be hard to get investigators there but we'll see how it goes. Anyway, everything is going great here and I can't believe I've been here 10 already!

I love you all and pray for you always!
Com muita agua
Elder Haws

Week 42: Transfers
So Elder Havili will be going home today to Seattle! Actually he goes to Londrina for two days first but he's no longer my companion! It was a really great transfer and I'm sad to have a new comp but I know he's really cool too! His name is Elder Halpin and he's from Utah-Salt Lake-ish! I'll find out the real city when I talk to him tomorrow. Right now I'm in Marilia with the Zone Leaders and Elder Havili and I'll stay with them over night until Elder Halpin gets here tomorrow.

We did get a washing machine finally!! It's so nice! Well the machine is actually pretty crappy but it's nice to not wash my clothes in a bucket anymore! Plus Elder Havili is leaving so I took the 1 kind of solf matress in the house and I won't have to use the super hard one anymore :)

We had a baptism all set up for Saturday but then he smoked one more time and so we were going to delay it until Sunday night but then he smoked a lot and we're going to try again this week with him. He's really having a hard time stopping smoking-prayers for him would really help. His name is Eriton. He's stopped drinkking alcohol and coffee and everything but just can't quit with cigerettes yet!

The stake conference went really well. President and Sister Genaro spoke and everybody likes them a lot. Also, our bishop from Ourinhos spoke and gave a really good talk too.

I don't want to complain a lot in theis letter but just know I'm sooo glad the sisters here leaving from our district and there are new ones. They were soooo disobedient and were so rude to Elder Havili, I couldn't believe it. It's good that there are only going to be two of us staying in the district and the rest are all in different places.

I hope you all have a great week and, as always, I'm excited to hear from you all next week!

Com muita augua
Elder Haws

Week 40

Elder Haws didn't have a lot to share-he was mostly answering our family email but I did extract a couple things he said:

We did baptize a guy named Luan yesterday! He is the boyfriend of one of the daugters in the family of recent converts! We are really working with them a lot.

I love you all a lot and miss you tons. I had a dream last night that I was home and I was 100% convinced it was real even though it didn't exactly make sense why I only remembered 9ish months of my mission and then I woke up and realized it was just a dream. It's been a long time since I had a dream like that! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Elder Havili will be home pretty soon.

Anyway, have a great week!
Love Elder Haws

Week 39: Three!

Querido Irmaos e Irmas!
This week was a wild one! We went to yet another zone meeting on Tuesday, which meant that we lost part of our p-day because we had to walk to the bus station which takes about an hour and then ride a bus to Marilia that takes about an hour and a half and then walk to the zone leader's house to sleep on the ground because the meeting starts at 9. Normally it's not too big of a deal but after three weeks in a row it was upsetting. Anyway, the meeting was really cool because each of the companionships gave a training rather than the zone leaders (probably because they had already given the training from Leadership Training Meeting twice). We were assigned and taught about making contacts and talking to people. We made a nice lesson and did a cool training and finished with a sweet Nike swoosh. We asked if anybody knew the motto "Just do It," even though it was in English, the did! So it ended up working out nicely and we finished out training.

This week we had divisions with the zone leaders, partly because we had some baptismal interviews to be done, and all three interviews went great! They were all three baptized on Friday! It was so great to finally baptize people again, we hadn't baptized anyone here yet and were already halfway through the transfer!

Elder Havili only has three weeks left on his mission! It's pretty hard being the companion of somebody who is dying. It makes you want to go home with them too but at the same time not. And I'm super excited cause I still have over a year here.

Our washing machine is still broken and it's been a whole week of cold showers still. We haven't been able to get a new shower-head yet. Our ward mission leader tried to fix it for us but it broke the same day :( This past week was supposedly the coldest week of the year here. I even wore my sweater a few days! One big difference with houses here and houses in the U.S. is that when it's cold outside, it is the exact same temperature inside!

Our ward mission leader is super great and we even ate dinner one time this week because he needed to talk to us--we had, wouldn't ya guess, rice and beans with chicken! It was super typical but sitll good and it was weird to eat at night! It's been a few months since I've eaten dinner, I don't think I ever did in Cambe!

Well things are great here and I miss you all a lot but love hearing how you are doing! Have a great week and remember that miracles are real!

Com Amor,
Elder Haws

Week 38

Elder Haws didn't have tons to say this week but here it is:

The house is...the same. The shower works most the time now, we don't know what happened but we're not complaining! Our washing machine is broken but we did have a guy come by about it. He told us he couldn't fix it but somebody else could. So basically he just didn't want to do it. Hopefully we can get it taken care of this week.

We had zone conference and it was all the same things as last time! We went to Assis twice for baptismal interviews, there are two duplas of sisteres there. We got the cousins of some recent converts to come to church and had five people there because our ward mission leader brought two of his neightbor kids with him.

There's a ton of work to be done here in Ourinhos and it's a lot further from Marilia than I realized when I finally saw a map. We're practically in Parana still! Right on the border of Sao Paulo and Parana.

I'm already out of time because I've had a lot of computer problems today and it's suuper slow, that I wasted time waiting for it to load.

Love you guys!
Tchau
Elder Haws

Week 37: Ourinhos

Hello!

Alright Ourinhos is a pretty small city, only 100,000 people but its really spread out. There's hardly any tall buildings here, just a few apartment buildings with maybe 20 floors. So we've been doing a lot of walking!!

Our house is huge. It has two rooms. A bedroom and a kitchen/dining/closet/living/study room. Oh and I guess there's three rooms cause there's a bathroom too. But as a trade off fo rbeing stmall, everything is really high quality! Except that the washing machine doesn't work, the shower head that is suppose to ehat the water is broken so it's always cold, as well as teh water tank on top of the house has  hole in it and the whole house stinks like mold and its growing on some of the walls :)

Elder Havili

Alright, I apologize for complaining but I had to get that out of my system! It's not so hard to deal with. Elder Havili is great!I forot to tell you last week but this will be his last transfer before he goes back to Seattle! His dad is Tongan and his mom is from the U.S. I have only taken one picture so far so I will try and do better this next week.

We're gonna have Zone conference tomorrow AGAIN!! Tha's three for me in three weeks! It's awesome! They hadn't done the conference in this zone yet (Zone: Marilia) and so I was at the one in Zone Tiradentes and get to be at this one too! Marilia is about an hour and twenty minute bus ride if we can catch the 7:00 bus at night, and during the day it's about a three hour bus ride at any other time. We've already had to go there for a zone meeting and during transfers and we'll go there tonight because we need to be at zone conference at 7:30 tomorrow morning.

We only had two people at church and that was pretty disappointing. If we don't have at least 8 we have to leave and invite people to come in. It's really unproductive to try and invite people to church cause when we tell that that it's happening right at that moment nobody wants to go. But Sunday night we talked to a family! It was the parents of a girl that works at a restaurant in the center of the city.The missionaries eat there a lot cause the member has an account there that it gets charged to whenever it's his day to give us lunch. The missionaries have never talked to them about the church until this past week when Elder Havili and I went there. The daughter ended up not being home but we taught both her parents and I thought it went really well.

Augusto and his family in Cambe the day I left

Elder Havili and I get along really well and I like it here a lot too, just like all my areas so far! (except for the house..but we're working on getting these things fixed soon).

The first week after being transferred always passes sooo fast! I feel like so much has happened since last pday but at the same time it's mostly just riding busses and so I don't hae a lot to say about the work that has been happening.

That's all I've got today!

I know that this is the work of God. I know that He still revels His will through prophets in these later days and they will help us on our jouney back to Him. The Book of Mormon is a book of sacred scriptures that was protected by God and delivered to be translated by Joseph Smith! I'm so glad to have the Church and the Gospel in my life!

Elder Haws

Week 36

Hello!!



HERBIE!!!

We have President Genaro as our mission President now! We had another zone conference in Londrina that was super great! He emphasized that Brazilians need to learn English because God chose it as the language of the restoration! I had never heard it said in that way before and thought that was neat. He's super excited and animated about the work here. We broke the record for most baptisms in the mission tis past month! We got 168!! Our goal was 200.

President Genaro raised the goal for coming months to 231 and eventually wants upwards of 4 to 5 hundred! I gotta admit...I'm lacking faith in his vision of 500 right now, but maybe in a year we can get there!

I don't really have a lot else to say here about Cambe. Except that I'm leaving! I'm going to Marilia. It's a city back in Sao Paulo again. Not quite as far away as Bauru is though. My companion will be Elder Havili. he's from...i'll give you two guesses! If you guessed Brazil, you were wrong. But from good 'ole Washington again! That makes three from Washington for me! I already know Elder Havili a little from when I was in Bauru-he was in a city nearby and I saw him 3-4 times. I'll send you a picture next week!

 

This is a box of cereal that is
basically cocoa puffs.
Elder Haws and Elder Abreu
each got a toy in their box!

I'm really not excited to pack up again and then unpack the next day in another city but...that's the life of a missionary!
I really liked Cambe and wanted to stay, but that's why I got transferred!
There are some pictures below:

Until next week!!
Elder Haws






"This one shows that I´m super qualified as a missionary
and have done lots of training! :)" -Elder Haws

 

Again sorry this one will not let me format it!! This is Ginga a fruit that grows in a pod on trees.

Week 35: Rain

Hello!!

After 8 days of raining we finally saw the sun again on Thrusday! but...then it rained again that night and has been raining ever since!

Every week I'm getting tested; and I'm sad when I fail!
Such as this past week: on Sunday (yesterday) we had a list of 11 people who said they would go to church. So we woke up early and started walking to every single house and...like usual most of them were not there. I was getting a bit upset. But after every house, I was still okay because I knew we for sure had the last two people who would for sure go. Gabriel and his little brother Mateus. We talked to them Saturday night at 8 to double check that they were planning on going still. They said they would and we planned to stop by there at 8:50 and get to church at 9 cause they live really close. We went to every single house on the list and nobody was home or they had decided not to go anymore. Wehn we finally got to Gabriel and Mateus' I htought "at the very least we'll have these two!" Their mom came out and said that they didn't want to go anymore and had left for their aunt's hous. One last night and the other that morning...I was super upset!! After all that work and a whole week of talking to people, we had zero people to take to church! Church is really important! If they don't go tot church they can't be baptized and that means we have zero possibilities this next week.

So I got upset and I know I shouldn't get mad cause it  drives away the spirit.

The best pizza he's eaten in Brazil!

And so after all this, we show up at church and 1 of the people we had gone to pick up had already gone to the church!! Her husband and grandson didn't go but she did! (Unfortunately she can't be baptized cause she isn't married) so I was a little bit happier but not much. We didn't get to church until about 10:45 cause we had no reason to be there without investigators. We also got asked about the other couple that was there. We weren't aware of another couple. We had probably four or five people say, "who is the other couple that are investigating today?" so we went to talk to them and it turns out they were wanting to visit the church on another day but it was closed. So they saw the sign that says the meetings are at 9 on Sundays and they came back to make a visit and know what's it's like! We got their address and we scheduled a visit at their house on Tuesday at 4! We're gonna see how they liked it and talk about the restoration and baptism and stuff!! I'm super excited for it!

Not sure what these masks are for...
they are kind of creepy though!

People don't do that here. Nobody just wants to pay a visit and will return a second time on a Sunday, early in the morning, to know about a church here! It's a miracle here in Cambe!
And so...after all this, I wanted to be mad at myself for getting mad but that wouldn't be productive and also wouldn't show that I'm learning anything. So I got a little sad that I had gotten mad and know I'm going to do a lot better in the future. We weren't taking investigators to church but He had already sent two to the church and were already there enjoying it while I was getting mad walking on the street!


I cannot get this picture to go
the other direction! I'm sorry..

And other than that...it rained sooo hard as we were walking home last night. I could wring out my garments when I got home! Soaked to the bone! I have a cool video but it's too big to email and so you'll have to wait a year and half to see it!

Well that's all I have this week! Love you all!!

Tchau
Elder Haws

Week 34

Hey Family!

Woah..I'm in Brazil and speaking Portuguese! And have been here for 8 months!! That still seems crazy to me! Good news! I got the package!! IT got here monday and the lady called us saying she had a paper so we could go pick it up from the correios. So we went there on Tuesday after we got back to Cambe from our district meeting. It only cost 60% to get it! :/ which was 76.50! so..i paid it! TThe insoles seem to be helping a lot! Elder Abreu also enjoyed the pop rocks! I gave some to a little girl, I think she's five, a granddaughter of a recent convert and she cried! So that didn't go exactly as I was hoping, but oh well!

It's a small world! We were going through a list of names that we have a nd met a kid named Enzo. he's pretty cool and we've taught him twice this past week. He knows Joey Burt from when he served here! It's weird to think that in a small-ish city in Brazil I can bump into people that know the same people as me from Logan!
I can't believe it's been a week since I last emailed, It feels like it's been a year!

The world wide training thing wsa awesome! We went to the stake center in Londrina to watch it. It's crazy to think that missionaries will be chatting with people online to teach the gospel too. I don't think any of the things will change here in Brazil though, at least not for a really long time. Computers are way more expensive here and stuff but...we'll see what happens!

The training that they gave there was really good too! I thought it was kind of funny the way President Packer gavehis training on teaching though. He basically juast said 'do it' just decide to teach and do it! At lesat that's what I understood of it all because it was only in Portuguese here.

This week was incredibly long! Probably because it rained all week and we have no way to dry our clothes after we wash them except for a clothes line. Clothelines don't work when it is raining. So it's always frustrating when that happens but maybe this week it'll clear up.

We taught a lot of lessons this week and worked really hard to get people to church. But nobody goes to church when it rains. Plus it was really cold so there were even less people than during a regular rainy Sunday! We only got 1 person to church and the other 9 that committed were either
'not home' or straight up told us that they weren't going anymore cause it was cold and rainy and we couldn't convince them to come!

We have quite a few young men that we are teaching right now that are definitely candidates for baptism here in two weeks! They ahve to go to church at least once and then after the second time they can be baptized.

I love you all and you're always in my prayers!

Elder Haws

Week 33

Hello Family!!!

Another week! We're already half-way through the transfer!
Teaching English to Elder Abreu is pretty fun. He never remebers to say the 'r' right though! I think its because he has such a strong northern accent and doesn't even say his r's in Portuguese either!

We had a baptism on Saturday!! And a confirmation on Sunday! Her name is Amanda and she's the granddaughter of one of the longest time members of the area, Natal. Most of her family was already members but she never had been baptized or really gone to any church.

I'll try to send pictures afterwards.

We had a surprise zone conference on Thursday. It was half the length of a regular conference, only from 7:30 til about 2 and had five zones there. About half the mission. 91 companionships! It was super great! I love zone conferences. It was in Ward 1 building in Londrina where there's an institute and everything. It's the biggest chapel around here. It was our last conference with President Tavares because he leaves at the end of the month and President Genaro will come in June.

Oh! Father's and Mother's day...I have no idea if they exist here, I imagine they do though because they DO have children's day! And this past week was dia de namorados! Which is Valentines Day.

I hope hyou have a great week!

Com Amor,
Elder Haws

Week 32

Ola Familia!

I'm missing you all a lot right now. This week was suuper long and really hot, except for the mornings are really cold. They're actually about 15 which isn't cold but I've become a whimp here. My feet are a bit better after a week with running shoes on but still hurting. I'm excited to try the insoles and hoping they're gonna work great.

Nothing much to tell about this week. We only got three people to church, even though we had about 10 who committed.We worked all through church until sacrament meeting to get them there. We had Geronimo (Jeronimo?) who is one of our new investigators there. He is addicted to cigerettes and coffee but we're helping him to stop. He's pretty committed. He already stopped drinking acohol a long time ago. He looks about 40 but we found out he's 60 as we walked to church with him.

Amanda went again and she's going to be baptized this weekend. She's planning on Sunday but we're going to talk to her tomorrow when we go there if it can be Saturday so she can be confirmed on Sunday. It's way better to do it that way, less time for stuff to happen and them end up not getting confirmed, which happens quite a bit here.

I had a picture to send but I think I left my cable here int he LAN House last week and its not here anymore so I can't connect my camera to the computer.

You should all send more letters, more often, they get here fast!!
Love you lots. Stay safe ad know how much I care about each of you.

Com Amor
Elder Haws

Week 31

Helloooo!

Glad you all had a good week. My week was a roller coaster which is upsetting. I like when everything is just fine and the week goes by normally, not having really crappy days and then good and all craziness.

We baptized gabriel! He had the bishop actually baptize him There were so many people there! Usually there's five or six people at each baptism but there was at least 20 there! Cause he's been waiting to get baptized for a long time and had already been going to church for a few months so everybody new him.

A missionary just got back here in this ward. I think he was serving in Sao Paulo so we're going to talk to him and get him to help us out we need to have a lot more lessons with members. We're lucky to get 3 in a week here and we're suppose to have 15-20!

My feet have been hurting lately so I finally called the mission doctor once I realized it wasn't just soreness and wouldn't go away. He said I've got Plantat Fisciitis, which is pretty common for missionaries to get. It's when the tendons on the bottom of your feet begin to tear from over use. So I have permission to use my tennis shoes that I brough cause they ahve better arch support and should help my feet heal as I do some different excercises and ice my feet at night. It's only been three days that I've used the shoes but it's already helped a lot.

It was raining on Sunday and so we only had two of our investigators at church which was a bummer. But we've made the 16 as a baptismal date for one of them. Her name is Amanda and she's 17 and her grandpa is a member of the ward here. His name is Natal and he really really likes to talk for a looong time haha. The only problem with teaching Amanda is that it takes an hour to walk to her house. She couldn't live further away and still be in Cambe. She lives on the last street before the nothingness that stretches until Riviera and Londrina. And since she lives so far away we can only teach 1 or 2 days per week cause it uses so much of our day to get there.


This is the coke factory that we walk past on our way to Amanda's house! Too bad we're not allowed to drink Coke...

Wendrel is our other investigator that was at churhc. We haven't marked a date with him yet because we won't go there until tonight. He lives on the opposite side of teh city from Amanda. On the other side where the nothingness stretches until I don't know what. His house is also an hour long walk from our house. We're not doing very well at working in a specific area. BUT...we're baptizing peopel so that is okay.

We also got two kids. Gabriel and Rian to stop drinking coffee and their dad Edgar too. And we're going to try and naptize them this Sunday! THe kids that is, the dad needs to actually marry his "wife" before he could be baptized. And..that's what's happening here in Cambe!

"I love you" is "Eu te amo" or "Eu amo voce"

Eu Amo Voces
Tchau

Elder Haws

More Picutres!!

These two are of the sidewalk. This is why Tyler can't ride a bike everywhere because all of the sidewalks are like this-random dips that are from a few inches to a few feet deep!

This store decided not to put a sidewalk in front of their building!

I didn't know what I had bough. It wasn't bad though. A hardboiled egg and ground beef all fried together. Sounds gross!

These are most of the youth of the ward. This is the house of Havelin, where I skyped on Mother's Day!

Pictures

A really tiny and gross bathroom in an icecream shop. I couldn't even walk through the door cause my shoulders hit the walls!

A view from the edge of the city. Those houses are built by the government and then basically given to people for free. They are called a cohab (pronounced qwabi in English). I'm not sure why they are way out there away from everything else.

This is how I get my protein!! I don't do this often.

I didn't actually buy this watch...but it's a cool clock!

This is the cockroach and the rusty knige I used to get rid of it!

Week 30

Hello Family!
I love you sooo much!
This week was super short. It was the end of the transfer and today starts my fifth already!! Looks like Elder Abreu and I will be staying here in Cambe for another transfer together! Which I'm really happy about cause it's hard to switch to a new area. Plus we already have a baptism scheduled for Saturday! His name is Gabriel and his uncle is a member. I don't remember if I already told you about him. He didn't want to be baptized until his uncle got back. And...now I remember that I already said this! So ya, he'll be baptized on Saturday and then confirmed on Sunday! Also that girl Kauane still hasn't been baptized because she wants her friend from here in Cambe to be there and other friends and it is hard for them all to schedule a time when everybody can be there. I'm pretty sure everything will be figured out this week though!

Well, I already have 7 months on the mission! That's crazy. Time is going by so quickly!
I killed my first...wait for it...cockroach! Actually it wasn't the first I have killed but it was the first I killed inside my own house. They are super gross and I'm glad it happened last night because this morning we cleaned the house. I felt like the house was super gross after I found and killed it. But it's not too big of a deal, I mean it wasn't in a place I considered sanitary...just the fridge!! I have no idea how it got in there.
I bought a watch that I was talking about...I'll send a picture of it (kind of)!

This week I've been trying really hard to pay attention to the spirit and understand it. It's hard. I've read a lot of conference talks about prayer and revelation and inspiration and once somebody get's really good at recognizing and recieving help, it seems like they'll basically have a super power! Able to detect things before they happen because they are so in tune to be protected both spiritually and physically.

It's always great to hear from you guys. Love you!!

Elder Haws