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