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

Week 47

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

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

A Great big Apostasy here in Ourinhos

One of our Zone Leaders, Elder Carrel

Zone Meeting! We're the gladiators of Missao Brazil Londrina

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

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