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