Week 100

Hello friends and family for the penultimate time on the mission!

I read an interesting scripture this week!

3 John 1:14-15

With love,

Elder Haws

Week 99

This week, to be honest I don't have a lot to say. We´re having a hard time finding new investigators, which means we shouldn't cut our old investigators who arent progressing at all. Since we cant really find too many new investigators, we keep working with them but they aren't progressing and so its kind of frustrating.

Tomorrow will be Mission Tour. That means we´re headed to Marília today! Goodbye p-day! haha Elder Mozart Soares, for the... 8th quorom of 70 I think, will be here. They are doing 2 different meeting for our mission. One for us here in São Paulo and another ofr all the zones that are in Paraná.

Have a great week!
Elder Haws

Week 98

Guilherme wasn't baptized, he didn't even go to church! he´s kind of fleeing a little bit. But we´ll keep after him this week.

I ended up telling everybody here that I was ending my mission a few weeks ago... maybe 5. I dunno. So yeah, everybody knows that I´m leaving for home after this transfer.

This past week was super quick, like they all have been for a while! And it was super hot..About 100 every day and super super humid, even though it hasn't rained here for a long time! The state of São Paulo is in a pretty severe drought and a lot of rivers are drying up and cities without water. Because there is no water, some dams aren't working as well and there are sometimes energy problems. This past... Tuesday, I think, we were told we wouldn't have power that day in an effort to conserve energy and give it to other places. But it was only from 8 to 1:30 which doesn't effect us at all so it didn't matter.

Well... the work is going slowly but its going(kind of).

Have a great week!

Elder Haws

Week 97

Hello!!

I´m bettter now, on Tuesday morning I woke up mostly better and by Tuesday night I was back to normal again!

What did dad get for his birthday that was steelers? And Ali, what did she get that was fun?

Sounds like you guys had a busy weekend,with pajama parties, peach days in bear lake and family parties!

This week we have a good possibility for baptism finally. His name is guilherme and he is dating a member here. He´s 15.

Umm.... it was s uper long week and we didnt get too much accomplished. we had a zone meeting in Tupã on thursday and i got to see Elder Gregory, my comp in the MTC. Also, hes the one we met in the airport in Salt Lake with his family. They live in Fielding.

Sorry that this email is so short, but i dont have much else to say. Do you guys have a few questions for me?

Much love,

Elder Haws

Week 96

Hello,

In Salmourão we ate lunch at a members house. Edimar and Lucy. She just made a meat and a potato salad and juice. but she actually took time and made it good! There is a member here who doesn't really like elders too much and so just gives us a bowl of rice and hot dog slices or something similar. She gives us lunch every Tuesday :(  but that's just part of the mission. and it made lunch in Salmourão THAT much better when we went there! the meat was cooked with cilantro and some other spices that i dunno what they are, and it was delicious!

We're teaching two families in Salmourão. One is a dad, a mom, a daughter and a son. Only the son has gone to the church. He loves it though. The dad can't stop, and doesn't want to stop, drinking coffee. The mom is great and is reading the Book of Mormon every day! But she needs to go to church! She has lots of excuses she uses to not go though.

This week we finally got a few new people at church. The problem is that 2 of them live in Salmourão and we can pretty much only go there on Saturday. So that's tough. The other lives here in the city. So we finally have some new people to work with that can actually be baptized soon.

I also stayed home sick yesterday for the first time in my mission! After church i started feeling really sick. We walked to lunch but by the time we got there I knew I shouldn't eat anything! So i didn't, I laid on their couch while Elder J. Silva ate and then we called sister Genaro. she told me that it was just cause of what I was eating (not that i doubt her but.. i don't think it was) so she said to go home and rest. It's terrible being sick on the mission!!! My first time and hopefully the last. Right at this moment my stomach still kind of hurts and my body aches but other that that I´m fine. The worst was having to throw up! I called the zone leaders to pass our districts numbers and shortly after I passed the numbers to them I went and threw up everything in my stomach! Which was luckily just water! Today for lunch I'll maybe try and eat some crackers cuz I'm starving (I haven't been able to eat since Sunday morning when I ate some crackers and chocolate milk)! 

It's a bummer being sick but it's certainly gonna help me in my competition with Cydnee haha (losing weight)!

Well I hope you all have a great week. I love you all and thank you for your support.

Com Amor

Elder Haws

Week 95

Alright, tansfers were today and I...... will tell you what happens after I tell you about the week!

Wow, I´ve qualified for a home improvement loan? but I´m without a job for 2 years already! That bank is crazy!

I saw the pictures of the Ogden temple on the church website and its look awesome! I´ll miss the open house but I´ll be able to visit it when ever I want afterwards.

This week we went and worked in a little city about 20 minutes from here. Its called Salmourão. We had a good lesson with a family there and there's a lot of potential there as far as new investigators go! The family that invited us over(memebrs) is super cool and she made a super delicious lunch!

On Saturday night there was a gincana da família, basically a family game night here in the branch. It want pretty well even though half the people who were supposed to plan activities and games didn't even show up. 

Irmã selma( sister Selma) made her part extra long to make the activity fun still. She´s a really great member!

This week I also thought I lost my glasses!! I got pretty upset cause I know how much I had to pay to get them! But two days later I was asking the branch presidents wife if she had seen them and I had accidentally left them in her house! So I got a lot happier after that conversation. 

Dad, in my hed the weather sounds perfect in logan. My body would probably think its too cold though. This area of Brazil is super hot and pretty dry. not uite as dry as Utah though. Both my comp and I are suffering bloody noses almost daily. Its about 90 every day here. and its the winter still!!!! spring is just about to start. Good thing i wont still be here in December!! 

This branch is passing through some difficult times. A few members in particular.  I think thats part of the reason president Genaro decided to leave Elder J. Silva and I here for another transfer! 

I have not been transferred.

WEll.... I hope you all have a great week!

Oh I heard that our mission will have Mission Tour this next month. So that will be pretty cool. Last time it was Elder Costa who came!

Com amor

Elder Haws

Week 94

HELLOOOO!!!!

Mom, I really liked the joke from the high council man about double spacing his talk to make it long!

I also spoke in church this Sunday! However the sacrament meeting started about 15 minutes late :( so I spoke and when I ended.... my companion only had about 4 minutes to talk!!!! haha I took up ALL the time! whoops. He´ll speak next week though with our branch mission leader who was supposed to talk but didn't show up!

This week we didn't have any success at getting people to go to church. We worked a lot on a list of less active and inactive people who he wanted us to try and reactivate but also didn't have any success. This isn't quite how i was expecting the end of my mission going, with absolutely no success! its frustrating.

This next Monday we will have transfers again. Which means I´ll be on my last transfer of them mission! It´s crazy how fast time is flying.

Oh and a few months ago I saw sister Briggs and told her that we were related, though kinda distantly. She didn't know! With her and sister Eliasson I have two not so close relatives in the mission!

The ideas are kind of working. We did a branch activity on Wednesday and got 16 people there, which in this tiny branch is really good! We´ve got another planned for this week and this time we´re GOING TO GET INVESTIGATORS to go!! I´ll go crazy if every single person we talk to rejects us once again this week!

I´m sad that dad will cut his hair before I get home, I wanted an awesome picture with him when I got back before he cut it, but oh well.

Well.. that's how my week went! Love you all and I´ll let you know next week if I´ll die (*his last area..where they send him home) here in Osvaldo Cruz or somewhere else!

Elder Haws

Week 93

This area is being really difficult! nobody wants to be reactivated and no investigators want to go to church! We had 0 people at church AGAIN this week!

The coldest its been for me has been about 70! the coldest!

Dad, you said you liked my house and thought it would be easy to maintain because we dont have any grass. well you didnt see the backyard to our house! its a huge field that we play soccer on during our p-days!

I´ll send photos today of it!

Elder J. Silva and I are friends, we´re having a rough time here in Osvaldo Cruz but we´re trying hard. He´s a pretty picky eater. He wont eat any vegetable except lettuce. Sometimes. even lettuce he won't eat some times. He doesn't like feijoada (a super famous food here) and won't eat it at all EVER. He also can't eat pork (this one is cause of a health issue and so is okay to not eat). And then after all this he sometimes complains about lunch. Not a lot but just occasionally. I don't really feel bad for him going hungry though because he doesn't eat half the stuff cause he doesn't like it... He buys a lot of crackers to always have somehting to eat at home after a lunch that he doesn't like!

Anyways, this week I´ve got a lot of different ideas that we´re going to try and help this branch strengthen and grow!

Until next week!

Elder Haws

Week 91 & 92

Week 91:

HELLLOOO!

Mom, No. there's no shade in the whole city!

Dad, the weather here was really hot when we first got here cause it hadn't rained in a long time! but now its been rainy almost every day for a week! and in the mornings its freezing!! One day it even got down to 15 degrees Celsius... which i know isn't that cold,but I'm used to Brazil heat now so I´m using my sweater in the mornings, and sometimes for the whole day, and I´m sleeping with 2 blankets!

Elder J. Silva is from Maceio Alagoas. In the Northwest of Brasil. He´s 20. He´s brown haha He has 2 sisters, one who will go on a mission soon and the other has 11 years only so won't be able to go for a while.... His dad works with sugar cane and he did for a little before the mission as well. He wants to be an engineer.

(wow i just realized that as i asked Elder j. silva info about him, i wrote in Portuglish..... i´ll just leave it like that though and i think you´ll still understand)

The branch president is a really cool guy. He´s funny and likes to talk about deep doctrine with us sometimes. His wife is cool too. 

We´ve had a little bit of trouble getting people go to church here in Osvaldo Cruz. We had 6 people for this Sunday and nobody went! Just one lady who said she wasn't a member but turns out that she is so... we at least are helping reactivate her!

We´re working a lot here and just waiting for the results to start showing up. The branch president leaves with us a lot and is always encouraging others to do the same! Its a great bracch here.

I love you and hope you all have a great week!

Week 92:

Alright so this week we had district conference. When all of the branches went to the city called Tupã! President Genaro was there and spoke. He´s great at giving talks!

We aren't the first elders to come to Osvaldo Cruz. There were elders a few months ago and then they got taken out and sisters got put here. After about 3 months, they were taken out as well and now me and my comp are here. The branch has about 40 people that go each week and maybe 100 people in the city are baptized.

We haven't had too much success in getting people to church :( the transfer is already half over too! but the members are great and we´re working with them. I just wish we were seeing results for our work as well!

Im sorry that my email is really short this week! 

I love you and will talk to you all next week! Time is flying by too fast just like mom said!

Elder Haws

Week 90

Hello!!

The trip here to my new area wasn't too long. I left Maringá at 7:15 and got to a city called Presidente Prudente at 12. At 1:45, I left from there and came to Osvaldo Cruz, I got here at 3.

Me and my companion are opening the area. in other words, we got here at the same time and didn't know anybody or where anything is. The members helped us out a bit and since its a small town (with only 30,000 people) we already know how to get pretty much where ever we want.

Our branch here has 5 cities in total. We´ve only been to one other city outside of Osvaldo Cruz so far. It's called Parapuã. 

The branch here has a really great branch president and we´re really excited to work here. Elder J. Silva has about a year on the mission, just a little bit more than a year. He´s from the northwest of Brazil and has a bit of an accent but its not too strong anymore, he´s lost a lot of it on the mission.

It's a lot hotter here than it was in Maringá.. hopefully it cools down a bit. The members however tell us that this is as cold as it gets around here!

I´ve told everybody here that I only have 1 year and a little on the mission, like 3 months... i don't know if its a sin cause it's dishonest or if it´s okay so that people don't just try and make me trunky all the time and talk about home and marriage and end of mission stuff... but I already did it so i guess it doesn't matter. If I stay here until the end I´ll tell them about 2 weeks before I go home that I´m ending my mission!

I´m out of time but I´m having a good time here and I´ll talk to ya'll next week!

Elder Haws

Week 89

Heeellllooo family and friends!

This week i will be transferred!! Elder jackson as well! I´ll leave tomrrow morning at 7:15 and I´ll go to a city called Presidente Prudente. From there I will go to a city called Osvaldo Cruz. That will be my area. I think we´ll be the only missionaries in the city but it seems like a really small city as well! My comp will be Elder J. Silva. I dont know who he is or anything about him yet, but next week you´ll be informed. I do know he is Brazilian, but that's it! Elder Jackson will be going to Marília to finish training another Elder! I told president that Elder Jackson was great and looks like the Lord confirmed it for him, he´ll do great!

This area that I wll be gong to is is the state of São Paulo again. I´ll only have 5 transfers in Parana in the whole mission

Unfortunately, Cleiza wasnt baptized this week. She still has her problems that she wants to work through including a bofriend, ex-husband and her daughter... so hopefully the next elders that arrive will be able to help her more than we did. We are also leaving behind Marcílio. He´s a great guy and one day he too will be baptized, I'm sure of it.

Woah.. DAD HAS A MOTORCYCLE!!??! First off, congratulations, second i´m jealous and third; i also want to upgrade my scooter for a motocycle! How much was it?  i like the pictures a lot! i still cant really believe that you have a motorcycle.........

Well I don't have  alto to say about this area.. it was good but has come to an end. Goodbye shady streets and a few good investigators and friends. I´ve got two more transfers and I´m fairly sure I´ll stay in this new city for both of them! Time is going super quick but i´m trying really hard to stay focused and work hard every day!

Until next week!

Elder Haws

Week 88 (July 7)

Zone conference went great! We didn't get to watch Ephraim's Rescue though :( oh well because president said not to tell! Though im sure everyboudy else already told!

 

This week our investigator Cleiza had an interview! She passed! But she decided not to be baptized. I'm really sad..but I´m really hoping this next week is the week! She has a few concerns about being able to perserverar até o fim.... the 5th step in the gospel of Christ... I cant think of the phrase in english to save my life!

This next week is the last week of the transfer and we´ve got a lot of possible baptisms. I'm afraid I'm going to be transferred and not be here to be able to help them be baptized!

This week we´ve been knocking doors and the same streets as the whole transfer and we´ve knocked just about every single house in the whole neighborhood! We´re going to try a new area this week and see how it goes!

I'm not sure what else i have to say this week...  

 

We´re trying hard to find more elites in our path and this transfer is almost over! I´m pretty sure I´ll get transferred for my last two transfers but we´ll just have to see next week!

Love you,

Elder Haws

Week 87 (June 30)

Once again, a really fast week! But this time it was a week that ended in success!

We baptized a woman named Magda this Saturday night!

Our mission broke our previous record and baptized 192 people this month!

This week we´re going to have zone conference and we´ll probably get to watch the movie ´´Ephraim's Rescue´´. We also got 1 other bonus that can't tell you guys about! But it was really cool!

Elder Jacson and I are just talking to lots of people on the streets and we´ve got a teaching pool of like 7 GREAT people and then like 5-6 others that accept or visits but aren't nearly as interested.

We need to rry and talk to more people each week. It's kind of hard in this area that we are working in. There is nobody on the streets ever. But when we do get find people they are usually pretty good investigators.

I love you all and thank you for our support and love and prayers.

Elder Haws

Week 86 (June 23)

This week went by suuuuper fast. Every week is passing faster than the last! It's getting quite scary!  This week we met quite a  few new people. We spoke to TONS of people had a lot of rejection once again, people that don't even want o hear about our message or even pay a visit at church (here its really common for people who dont want anything to do with you or anything to still do a visit just to appease the Lord and then never want to hear form you again).

But with all this unusually tough rejection we´ve had some successes. The woman who went ot church with her daughter last week are preparing themselves to be baptized this next Saturday!
She is a woman of a lot of faith! She stopped drinking coffee without even knowing why! We didn't have enough time to explain the commandment cause we had to get home by 9:30 (which we did by the way, I havent completely lost my ability to sprint!!). She went 2 days without drinking it while waiting to find out why! That's so awesome!!

Elder Jackson is a great companion! We always have a lot of fun. He talks a lot more than Elder Helms and so I feel like I've gotten to know him a lot better already.

Our mission is really close to beating our record for baptism this month! The old record was set before the new rules for baptism were made (meaning it was easier back then) but even with the new rules we only need 40-ish baptism this next week and we´ll break it! The mission took over 300 people to church this past week, which was also record breaking and so our baptism outlook for next week is looking pretty good! We´re trying to beat 186 (the most in 1 month ever) but really going for 231(our goal as a mission).

I'm really excited to try and do better contact this week and have more success and we knock doors and talk to everybody we see on the streets.

Hope you all have a good week.

Miss you all and hope you all have a good experiece this week to strengthen your testimony of the restored gospel!

Elder Haws

Week 85

This week did also have a lot of rejection. However, unlike last week with almost complete rejection, this week we had a bit of sucess amongst the rejection.

 

We got 4 people at church and we are running after them this week to help them pregress towards baptism.

 

We only go home early on days that brazil has games. Which was last week on Thursday, Tomorrow and next Monday. We have to be in our house by 3pm on game days and we leave again at 7:30. Since brazil won there was still a bunch of people driving with loud music and celebrating, people in the streets beats pots and pans or anything else to make as much annoying noise as possible. But this all happens mostly near the avenues and bigger areas, once you get out of that into the quieter neighborhoods its a lot better. Everything is decorated green and yellow and sometimes blue though! They paint the curb in front of their house and put streamers along lots of the roads!

During the game on Thursday we did our weekly planning session which is normally done on Friday, and then left early on Friday so we hardly missed our time to proselyte.

We´ve got a few good investigators this week and they are super interested in the church.

On sunday I was able to baptize Erilson. He´s from Haiti and I was able to teach him a few times with our zl´s. He has been in Brazil for about 20 days!! He speaks creole, and spanish and is now learning portuguese. I can understand what he says(mostly) and he can understand what I say but he speaks in spanish and I in portuguese! It's great! He´s a really humble guy and is working to earn money to bring his wife to Brazil as well!

The power went out for about 20 minutes while I was here a the lan house because of a sudden rain storm! Hope you all have a good week and I love and miss you all. Your trip seemed fun and I like the pictures I recieved!

 

Elder Haws

Week 84

So this week we finished up with getting a new house. We had a lot more problems including not having electricity for a day but it was alright cause we bought some candles and studies by candle light. It was pretty weird and Elder Lima pretended to be translating the Book of Mormon. I´ll send you pictures next week.

 

We got rejected a lot this week!! A lot! Nobody even went to church with us this week. It was pretty tough and by the end of the week I had just about had it. But today is p-day and I can rest and relax and this next week I´ll change some things and we´ll have more success.

 

Well..... it was a super long week and all we did was visit some members and knock on a whole bunch of doors. I'm not sure what else I have to say!

 

I love you and thank you for your emails. I miss you all a lot and hope you have a great week.

There will be rules for the world cup but I dont know what they will all be yet. One is that we have to return to the house by 3 o´clock which means I will be reading A LOT of scriptures! Though I don't know if thats only on the day that Brazil has games or what exactly.. I'll let you konw next week! The first game for Brazil is on the 12th!

 

Tchau

 

Elder Haws

Week 83

So this week was an absolute mess! We only got to work a few days in our area because we were going crazy trying to get a new house! The good news is that we did find one! I had to talk to the guy and do a bunch of paperwork that I dont understand how everything works here cause the laws are different and had to come with him to the center to have his signature authorized and all these weird things. Everything happened to try and prohibit us from getting the house rented. The secretaries called after I had gone to a lan house to print out the contract and they called be back and said that the lawyer had sent a new one and so I had to find a new lan house in a new part of town but it was closed so I went to a member's but their printer had broken this same week so I went to another but they had just sold their's to buy a new one and hadn't bought it yet. So I went to the bishop but his was super slow and didnt want to print it but after about half an hour finally did and then I had to go find Samuel, the owner of the house and get him to go to the center with me. I went with him and we were in the car and he told me that he didnt have money to pay for the signature authentification so I´d have to pay and I agreed just cause I want a new house so bad, then we got there and it was just after 5:30 so they had closed!! Actually they were still closing but the lady was reallllly nice and still allowed us to do it real quick. But then the post office was closed and so I couldnt sent it to the secretarios that day to let President Genaro sign and finish the contract so I had to do it on Saturday. On saturday, the post office is open until 12:30 and we had a baptism scheduled for 10:30!

The baptism went perfect and the bishop gave us a ride into the center (there is no post office in or near our area of the city) and I get it sent at 12:25! There were other problems as well but im just going to finish with the fact that everything ended up alright and everything is done. Except that we are supposed to move today and we have no car to help us and the house might not have light or water yet..... but its a new house!!

hahah Like I said, it was a super crazy week. Rute was baptized on Saturday and then both she as well as Antonio our baptism from last week were confirmed in church!

Elder Helms is being rafnsferred to Foz do Iguaçu. Elder Jackson will be my new comp but I dont know who he is or what he looks like yet. I´ll have to tell you about him next week!

 

Com Amor,

Elder Haws

Week 82

Antonio

Well this week weas real fast! Just like all the rest of them are real fast! This next week is the last week of the transfer and then I only have three more tranfers! Time is going super fast! That means 18 weeks!!!!

Elder Helms and I baptized Antonio this week. He´s a little crazy but really funny. He didn't really open up too much at the beginning and I was ready to drop him from our teaching pool. But we finally spoke with him and his mom(he´s 53 and she´s about 82-she doesnt remember when she was born exactly and it was in the middle of nowhere os apparently she doesnt have a form?? I dunno exactly, she is missing a lot of teeth and talks and mumbled plus never went to school for a day in her life and talks with poor grammer) and convinced him to go to church. He liked it and we tried to teach him about how coffee is bad but he never believed us so we took his coffee anyways because the mom let us. He (Antonio) said that he wasn't addicted to coffee but that there was no way he would be able to go without it. He couldnt stop drinking it but wasn't addicted.... I dont know how that makes sense but it's his story. So we took it away and he didnt have money to buy more! when we asked him if it was hard to be without coffee he said no. He isn't drinking it cause we took it away and that gave us a good laugh. in his interview he still insisted that the doctor told him that coffee is good for him. he doesnt have a testimony of it yet, but he isnt drinking it and so could be baptized! he has tim eto adquire a testimony about it now!

Other than the baptism not a lot happened this week. We have waay too much fun in our house with Our zl´s and we looked a lot for house this week but the rules of the church about renting and paying up front and all that astuff are complicated so we havent found one that works with all the rules yet!

I love you all and am sorry I dont have too much else to say about this week. Next week are transfers again and i´m 50% sure that Elder Helms wont be staying here, so I´ll be getting a new comp that day probably!

Até mais!

Elder Haws

Week 80-81

Week 80:
Sorry there wasn't an blog post this week, we talked on Skype for Mother's Day. Tyler is doing very well!! :)

Week 81:

It was an absolutely crazy p-day with no rest and lots of crazy things. There was an emergency transfer and Elder Bispo the zone leader here was transferred to Apucarana, another elder was showing uup to take his place and we went with the zone leader so he wouldnt stay alone in the bus station. Elder Bispo left at 8, which was bad because we had a family night planned on the other side of the city with an investigator who is only available on monday nights, on the other side of the city. So we had to run to every corner of the city using the city bus, our super quick  speed walking skills and help from the members. The other Elder showed up at 12 o´clock at night and we got a ride back to our house and I finally got to bed at 1 o´clock in the morning! Today I plan on catching up on my sleep because p-day is our only change to catch up on these things!

Now our zone leaders are Elder Lima, who was trained by my old comp. Elder Havili, and Elder Diaz. He´s from Peru!

We had a good noite de integração on Wednesday, a ward activity and had a decent turnout. Unfortunately, it lacked investigators.

We still haven't got our baptism that we are looking for but we have a few really good investigators! Including a family that we found on Saturday night!

This past week went really well. We had our interviews with President Genaro and I liked mine a lot!

Our investigator, Rute, is still trying to stop smoking but she has a very strong desire to be baptized so we´re trying everything we can to help her!

Elder Helms was orded by the president to eat more. So i´m halping with that! Every meal I make him get 1 moire plate than he wants of food and in about a week and a hlaf he´s already gained over a kilogram!

Well I love you all, congrats Cydnee on your test that you passed! And I pray for you all always!

Elder Haws

Week 79

Hello,

Transfers are happening today and both Elder Helms and I will be staying here! This will be his fourth transfer! And my second here in Mandacarú B. Elder Baker is going to a new zone, Zona Tupã and Elder Bispo will stay with a new Zone leader, Elder Lima.

Umm... I dont really know what to say about this week. It went by really quickly and I can't believe that it will already be May soon! I am more than a little disappointed in this last transfer, we didn't baptize and only got a total of 6 people to church. Though things are definitely better here in the area than when I got here. We have a few good investigators and even have a baptism marked for this Sunday after church. It´ll be a challenging week because he needs to stop smoking by Wednesday for everything to work out and have him baptized on Sunday.

Umm... I think tha'ts about all I have to say this week. Have some questions ready for when we Skype here in a few weeks. and I´ll be like mom and try and have something cool happen this week so I have something interesting to tell you guys about.

I love you all and thank you for your love and support. I know that the church is true and will never be taken off the face of the earth

With love
Elder Haws

Week 78

Transfers are happening today and both Elder Helms and I will be staying here! This will be his fourth transfer! And my second here in Mandacarú B. Elder Baker is going to a new zone, Zona Tupã and Elder bispo will stay with a new Zone leader, Elder Lima.

Umm... i dont really know what to say about this week. It went be really quickly and I cant believe that it will already be May soon! I am more than a little disappointed in this last transfer, we didnt baptize and only got a total of 6 people to church. Though things are definitely better here in the area than when I got here. we have a few good investigators and even have a baptism marked for this Sunday after church. It´ll be a challenging week becaue he needs to stop smoking by Wednesday for everything to work out and have him baptized on Sunday.

I love you all and thnak you for your love and support. I know that the church is true and will never be taken off the face of the earth

With love
Elder Haws

Week 77: Late

Some cake we don't know about...but it looks cool!

Hello Everybody!

I´ll start off by telling you why we didn't email yesterday! It´s unfortunately not for a cool reason. It was a holiday and everythying was closed. Everything closed of Friday because it was Holy Friday and then saturday about half the places opened because it wasnt technically a holiday, but really it was because Sunday and Monday were also holidays because of Easter and then ´post easter holiday´ day because nobody wanted to work yet. And thats why!

We still havent talked to Paulo, its not looking like were ever going to be able to.And the girl who is afraid of falling away fromthe church is still meeting with us but is becoming an ´eternal´ investigator because she STILL doesnt want to be baptized for the next little while.

For the competition, Elder Helms and I are in 2nd place still and JUST BARELY didnt get into 1st. there was a little..... technically not cheating, but complaining from another dupla that they should have earned points for a certin thing they did and so they got bonus points so they wouldnt complain and its because of those points that we arent in first place! its alright though, Elder Helms and I will have the best numbers this week again and win the competition!

What they do for easter here is chocolate eggs, which they pay tons and tons of money for!! Everybody has to have a chocolate egg or their easter was terrible. and all the catholics go to church on easter.

Tyler's Zone!

The weekend wa almost normal here except that nobody had to work and eveybody was drunk so it was almost impossible to find new people to teach. But thats about how every holiday is here in Brazil.

We got Milton and Silvia at church. and I cant believe that in two days I´ll have 1 year and 6 months on the mission!! This transfer will end next p-day and I feel like I just got here!! Time is going too fast!

I love and miss you all, thatnks for the love and support.

Elder Haws

Week 76

Hello Family and Friends!

The investiator that never got picked up, who's name is Pablo, said he only is home when it rains. SO, it was raining one day and we went to visit him. He wasnt home. It took like 40 minutes to walk to his house and then we had to go back. So we STILL havent had an opprtunity to talk to him again.

We thought this was a hill but it is a chuch!

Summer just ended a bit ago and winter is coming soon. That means its getting really chilly! Maringá is a lot colder than Bauru. There it only got down to 50´s on reeeeeeally cold days. Here it gets all the way to 49! just kidding. I dunno how cold it gets here. I'm assuming it will be the same as last year in Cambé because that's only like an hour or two away from here. This morning was about 70-75 and I had to turn off the fan when I was studying because it was a little chilly!

Elder Helms and I are getting along fine! We´ve been working a lot on our contacts. This week we found lots of new investigators but the quality was a little low. They wanted to hear the messages but not act and follow. So this week we´re looking to raise the quality of our new investigators.

 

 

Another view of the hill chuch

We almost had a baptism this week but she is afraid of falling away from the church afterwards. She says ´´I know I will fall away´´ and I really wanted to sya ´´well you have to be baptized before you can fall away!´´ cause I know she needs to be baptied but I didn´t say it and she will pray every morning and night to know WHEN she should be baptized. She already knows that she needs to be.

I had a pretty trunky dream last night that I was already home. It was like the second or third day that I was back and I was trying to get on Facebook or Twitter or just anything in my phone and it wasnt working cause everything had changed and I didnt know how to do it. so I tried watching the tv or a movie but it wouldnt work either. Then dad came down stairs and got mad at me for waking up so early (it was about 2 in the morning) but I tried to explain that it was because my internal clock was used to Brazilian time and it was about the time to wake up and since I couldnt sleep I wanted to do something. He didnt understand me (possibly because I could only speak in portuguese) I woke up confused for a second about where I was and then I realized it was all a dream.

Well... this next week I hope will be full of miracles and new investigators. Elder Helms and I are now 2nd in the competition of our zone, and only 100 points behind 1st place! I´ll forward the journal of the zone to you guys and you can see us in 2nd place! (though Elder Bispo spelt Elder Helms name wrong because he cant say it right and there is the brand helmans mayonaise and when people say his name is sounds like that brand)

 

1° - Elder Rafael e Elder Beltrani – 3487 pts

2° - Elder Haws e Elder Helmans - 3334 pts

3º - Elder F.Batista e Elder Morón –3089 pts

4° - Elder Bishop e Elder Padeiro - 3027 pts

5º - Sister Corrêa e Sister Jientara –2447 pts
6º - Elder Graff e Elder Gomez – 1689 pts

Elder Haws

Wee 74-75

Week 74

This week we saw another tarantula but this time it was alive!! It was a little bigger too.

Its rained another day or two but the shade here has been super nice and i like it a lot.

I´m having trouble combining with the members to leave and teach with them. President told me in my letter this week that I need to do better. He also expressed his diappointment that we only talked to like 35 people that first week, this week we talked to 52 but next week we need to do even better so he doesnt burn me!

Everything this week was gong great until Saturday and then everything fell through! Sunday morning we had 15 people who had committed to go to church! That's a lot! Especially after last week only having 1 person who said they would go.

But on Saturday morning the family of 5 called us and said they didnt want to go anymore and they would stay in their own church. Then the other family of 3 decided they wouldnt promise they would go but if they were up to it on Sunday morning they would show up. They are really soft investigators, we had a lesson with them and invited them to be baptized and I invited them all 5 times, 5! And they wouldn't commit so they might be cut this week, well.. the guy, Eduardo for sure will cause he doesnt really want anything. But the mom, Vera, we´re going to keep at it for 1 more week with her.

Anyway we only had 1 person at church again but she is a really good possibility for baptism this week.

Well... we´re just working here and everything is fine. Hope you all have a great week. I miss you all and Love you.

Elder Haws

Week 75

Conference was good. I liked a lot of the talks! I missed pretty much all of the first session on Saturday because our investigaor, Josiane had a baptismal interview. Though she drank coffee earleir and so couldnt be baptized. She won't drink it again though! We only got three people to conference, which is really disapointing. People ALWAYS say that they will go to church if there were more hours available (though I know its just an excuse) and so finally that there are more opportunities to go, nobody goes! And this just proves it once again cause this is already my 3rd general conference as a missionary!

The only session of conference that we aren't allowed to watch is priesthood because when it happens its alreay 9 at night here and we have to be at home. I will be able to download the talks from the church website as soon as they get them up though.

This week we talked to more people but not the 70 that I wanted.... just 61 so... we´ll improve again this week.

 

They dont really have tortillas here. You can buy them in quite a few stores actually, but nobody here buys or eats them or even kows what they are. When you ask for them they usally end up confused and then asking if you mean pita bread and they say they dont have it (though about half the time they do) haha.

So as for this week.. we knocked a lot of doors, which isn't going to continue to happen. It's soo ineffective and we´re not really having any real progress in the ward here. All of our 8 people who had commited to go to conference fell trough! All except 1, who it was the memebr that fell through and called us at the exact time he was supposed to pick up our investigator, that he wouldnt be able to do it, it was only 30 minutes before conference started and so we scrambled and scrambled but couldnt find anybody who could help us and so nobody went there. Soo... if he had been wanting to go still, he didnt get to. We can only pass by on weekends so we´ll have to wait until this next weekend to figure out if he was there and ready just waiting for a ride...

We also had Zone conference last week but I forgot to tell you guys about it. I'll forward the photos that they sent to us!

Sorry that not a lot of cool things happened this week. I love hearing from you all though and love you all so much.

Com amor,

Elder Haws

Week 73

Elder Helms is from Virginia, though he has lived in tons of different places int he U.S. because of his dad. His dad is a chaplin for the government, so he does some sort of religious something with the military, I guess.

Maringá is nice because there are a lot of trees. It's a pretty rich city, I think it's the richest in all of southern Brazil per capita. Our area is way on the edge of the city and just has houses in it! It's really weird to have just houses and houses! normally there are tons of bars and randoms stores all over the place.

 

 

 

 

 

The Church!

Elder Helms has 5 months on the mission. He just got done being trained by Elder Baker, who is still living in the same house he just went to the other half of the ward and is in Mandacaru. While Elder Helms and I are Mandacaru B. We live with Elder Baker and Elder Bispo who are the zone leaders. this zone is a lot smaller than Bauru and only has 1 district for the whole zone! There are six companionships here.

Inside the church

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our ward recently left the stake center where they were meeting inthe center of the city and has a place rented thats a lot closer to where everybody lives.

Big trees that provide shade! I've never had an trees
like this before in any area!

I'm still a little bummed that I left Bauru because we were really starting to baptize a lot there, but Maringá is supposed to be a great place as well. It did rain for the first three days I was here! Yesterday it was a little drizzly at times and today is looking like the first day that will be a nice sunny day (by nice I mean only about 90 degrees, which before was suuper hot to me, but now its comfortable). I think it got down to about 70 last night because of all the rain we´ve had and I was really cold!

Well things are going fine here, I need to get to know the members so we can start working better with them. This week we only had 1 lesson with member... really bad!! I´ll send you our zone letter, we´re having a competition for the whole transfer and Elder Helms and I are currently in 4th place :(  We´ll do better this next week!

Also I finished reading the Book of Mormon for the second time in portuguese this week! That was

A tarantula! It was already dead but its the first one I´ve seen here!

pretty cool and I´ve already started my third and I understand so much more now, I think it's Heavenly Father rewarding me for having read it and because of my effort I'm blessed with much more understanding as I read now.

Thanks for all the love and support!

Elder Haws

Week 72: Transferred!!

Felipe is the guy on the left, he is our ward mission leader.
Everton, his cousin, is the one on the right.

This week was great and a super quick one once again! Everton was baptized on Saturday at about 3:30 cause everybody showed up late at the stake center. But Everton had his interview about 20 minutes before the baptism and passed, just like we knew he would. He was confirmed on Sunday as well by a member of the ward here. There were about 30 people there; probably 10 or so of them were from other cities near by.

Im getting tranferred!! Im going to a city called Maringá. It´s just a little south of Londrina. All of my areas are still going to be really near all the others. I´ll be with Elder Helms, I dont know who he is, yet. I´ll let you know next week when I´ve already been living with him for almost a week and actually meet him and get to know him real well, ALL IN ONE WEEK! haha the mission is crazy.

Three transfers is the longest I've been witha companion. i´ve never stayed in an area for more than three transfers. My new area is called Mandacarú B, which means there are two companionships in the same ward.

I'm pretty sad to be leaving the area. I really really wanted to stay. We´re finally having success in the area after such a slow start. Elder morgan and I also became really good friends. Luckily he is staying and will be able to let me know when our investigators get baptized!

Looking at the website, it looks like Elder Helms just got done being trained, so this will be his 3rd transfer and my 12th! That makes it seem like I´ve been ont the mission for forever!

Im finally going to be senior comp. it took a while but I guess the Lord has his purposes for it, I'm not upset by it.

Thanks for all your lopve and prayers. I love you all. I'm so greatful for the opportunity that I have to be a missionary. I know that its coming to a close really soon, in like 7 months and I'm trying to take full advantage of every opportunity that I have while I'm here because I know I cant do this again.

Com muita água,

Élder Haws!

Week 71

Eduardo and Adrian

Update on the baptism from this week: I already emailed photos of the two from two weeks ago now and also the one that we had on this Saturday and confirmed yesterday. Eduardo and Adrian are the first two. Gabriel is the other photo. He´s 18 and lives just above the chapel (three houses). Everton didnt end up getting baptized this week but we remarked his baptism for this saturday in 6 days. He went to FSY (the same thing as EFY but they changed the name a little bit, and this was the first time they ever had FSY here in Brazil) and he came back super excited. All the youth in our ward are super excited and all shared their testimonies this Sunday. Its was soooo cool to see some of them who never had a testimony before and they get up there and talk about how they felt the spirit while they were there and they want to help get people to join the church and how they want to serve missions and everything. The parents were all crying seeing their children up at the pulpit and saying all this. It was a good Sunday. Plus this Sunday I got to confirm Gabriel. I dont remember if I´ve actually confirmed somebody before, but as I was confirming him I got an impression to tell him something along the lines of how he´d be a good example for his family and stuff. so I said it but then I waited for what would come next and it was the same thing! So I said basically the same thing but in a different way to try and say what i was supposed to say. Afterwards I got the SAME impression again and I was surprised! I guess I'm not good at discerning exactly what I'm supposed to say during a blessing! After the third time of the same idea coming to my head I said the same idea but tried to do it in a different way once again and then ended the blessing.

Gabriel

So like I said Everton came back from FSY really excited and he´s going to be baptized thie next Saturday at 3 in the stake center. He invited all his friends from other cities to come to his baptism. It's going to be a really big meeting!

We had Sebastião and Conceicão at church yesterday and she really liked it. Sebastião is still a little bit harder to understand. I think he liked it but we havent had a chance to visit them since church. The thing that he needs the most is a friend.

I´ll have to let you know about my testimony building experience next week as well, I´ll take some time and write it all out and then type it to email to you next week. I´ve got a topics in my head such as exact obedience obedience and the power of prayer but to share specific examples I´ll need some time to think.

Well..... I dont have much else to say. this week went by really fast! J

Edler Morgan at the dentist...again!

ust like all the others.

This week we found out that almost nobody will be transferred this next transfer(next monday) only a few who will go home and a few who wil train. so it looks like Elder Morgan and I will be staying a fourth transfer together! Though we dont know for sure yet.

Until next week when i send you photos of Evertons baptism!

Elder Haws

Week 70

Hello-

 

So this weekend has been and is Carnival. Everything is closed and has been since Saturday at about noon. It´ll all open back up at about noon on Wednesday. We were really lucky to find a LAN house that is open today! Because of Carnival, the chrurch was practically empty yesterday! We had our four investigators there and there were probably 15, MAYBE 20 members. Plus all the youth went on a trip/camp thing out of the city for the week of Carnival like usual and so it was only older people.

 

We´ve been having difficulty with several of our investtigators lately. They were all becoming eternal investigators. One of them always has an excuse why they couldn't go to church that week. This last week one of them actually had a valid excuse though. They were at the bar, of course (everybody has a bar within like 100 feet of their house) and some sort of problem happened between a random person and the bar owner because he wasnt paying for his drinks. A friend/neighbor of our investigators went to help the bar owner get this guy out of the bar and he got stabbed by a big knife right in the hip! This all happened Saturday night. So our investigator took him to the hospital and were helping him out and that's why they didnt go to church!

 

Also, we thought that some of our investigators, this ´´couple´´, were boyfriend and girlfriend cause they look a lot different but live together and stuff. But when were found out they werent dating we were only a little surprised cause he acts kinda gay. Turns out that they are just tbest friends and he had family problems and needed help so she let him move in with her and her family. I dont think they can be baptized while he continues to live there but we´ll see if they ever actually go to church before we worry about that problem.

 

This week we baptized two of Guilherme´s cousins! Adrian and Eduardo! It was great! I don't have any photos to send because I dont have my camera.

 

This next week we already have two more baptisms marked. One of Saturday, Everton, who we´ve been tryingt o baptize for forever! The other is Gabriel. He lives just three houses away from the church and really is excited to be baptized. He already has invited a lot of people to come and see it!

 

On Sunday, it was pretty cool after church; we had THREE different people call us over to talk to them. One of them said that her mother in law does voodoo and took dirt from the cemetary into her house and apparently thats a really bad thing to do if you ´´cursed´´ it or whatever and so we walked back to the church while she drove near us (there was no man in the car and so we couldnt enter, luckily we were only leaving the church after the baptisms and were only about 2 blocks away) and talked with her and the bishop and stuff and then we gave her a blessing. She promised to go to church next week and we´re going to pass by this week to tell her about the restoration fo the gospel!

Plus there was a lady that lives in our area but went to the church in the center of the city and she really really liked it. We taught her and her husband. He´s got sooooooooooooo many doubts but she already went to the church and loved it and wants to go again in our ward and take him with so he can see what its like. He used to be Catholic but after doing a whole bunch of research he realizes how wrong the Catholic church is and also discovered that there are tons and tons of churches and he says that he lost all of is faith because so many people teach so many false things and false doctrine. I know that he´s going to love church next Sunday and we will be prepared with answers to every doubt that he has.

Lots of miracles this week and its easy to tell the the Lord repares people for us to teach. He is hastening His work!

And I think thats about all I have to share this week!

Love you all

Elder Haws