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
Monday, September 23, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
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
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
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| A Great big Apostasy here in Ourinhos |
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| One of our Zone Leaders, Elder Carrel |
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| Zone Meeting! We're the gladiators of Missao Brazil Londrina |
Thursday, September 12, 2013
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
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
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
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
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
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