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