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