Week 69

This week we confirmed Guilherme. He is a really cool kid. He was so important in helping his mom quit smoking. It's great to have him and his mom at church every week. Also José is showing up at church every week by himslef now! Though he is still leaving after sacrament meeting because his health is still poor.

We got a family that lives right by the church to go yesterday. They had never visited the church before even though they lived on the same street but just two blocks higher.

We havent really taught them yet though. The dad doesnt have any interest at all but the mom and two sons who are 16 and 18 went and seemed to like it a lot.

This week I also did a division in Independencia, another ward on the other side of the city. It went well but divisions always make the week pass by quickly...which is why this week my email is short. It passed so quickly that I don't remember that much stuff!

 

Elder Haws

Week 68

Hello!!!

 

This Sunday was a really good Sunday! José was confirmed finally! His health has been improving lately and he can walk normally and dress himself again! So he came to church and was actually already ready and standing outside his house when we showed up to take him to church!

Everton was not baptized :( He cancelled his appointments with us THREE times last week which was really annoying.



 

However, we had a miracle! We had a lady show up at church last week because she wants to treturn to the church. She was baptized when she was 16 and has like 30-ish now! She has a son who was never baptized because she was baptized when she was still pregnant with him! So when I saw her at church I started talking to her and asking about her and found all this stuff out! We taught him this week and he´s a super awesome kid! His name is Guilherme and he is 13! He was baptized on Sunday and we´ll confirm him this next sunday!

  

 

The bed bugs went away after a good cleaning. I've only been bit twice since last week but they might just be mosquito bites. And no, I never found out if they were for sure bed bugs or not.






 

 

Everything was in the package and it show up the day I went to Londrina. I went on Wednesday night and had quite the adventure with Elder De Los Santos, one of our Zone Leaders. How often are you going to see an American and an Urugayan getting off a bus at midnight in a big bus station in Brazil, they both speak Portuguese because both of their native languages are others and they are both wearing shirts and ties in the crazy heat? We had to walk to the secretaries house, which is only a few blocks for the rodoviária and luckly Elder De Los Santos knew wheer it was. more or less. The only problem we had when we got there is that it is a apartment complex that you cant enter without a key.....The guy at the door was a cool guy though and let us in and we walked into their house and they had already put some little matresses by the front door so finally at about 1:30 we got to sleep! Everything went fine the nexy day and my visa was renewed and I'm legally allowed to be in the country again! It will expire again on the 24th of October so I know I´ll be home before that!

 

 

Well.. I think that is all I have to share for this week! Time sure is flying by! I'll send a bunch of pictures today as well!

 

Elder Haws

 

Week 67

This week we ate with Roberto again he´s the one who made the ´´jokes´´ about eating chicken feet..

He made jokes about chicken feet again!! But we didnt eat chicken feet :) We had beef fried with onions, salad and scrambled eggs with rice and black beans. I love the randomness of Braziian's meals!

Mom, I forgot to respond to your question of valentines day, they DO have valentines day here but its on June 12 rather than February 12th.

On Sunday we confirmed Daniele! She arrived a little late to church so we did it at the end of sacrament meeting rather than the start but it still got done! José wasnt able to go because he has a lot of pain in his back and intestines and such and couldnt change clothes to go to church or get there very well becasue of the pain...but we´ll get him there this next Sunday for sure! Even if we have to get a ride for him for the 50 yards to the church building! And throw his dress shirt on top of his t-shirt if he cant change clothes!

This past week we have been plauged in our house! We got some of what I believe are bed bugs! We called Sister Genaro on Wednesday about it because I thought I was just getting attacked by a crazy lot of mosquitos at night! I started getting bit on Sunday or Monday and it was weird that Elder Morgan wasnt getting bit too. So, on Wednesday morning I went to wash my sheets again and put my little matress in the sun. When I did it I saw the little bugs on the bottom side and so we called Sister(this was Wednesday) she told us that she would look up how to kill them for us. So I washed all my sheets and cleaned everything really well. For the most part they are gone, even though sister Genaro never called us back to let us know how to kill them all........ Elder morgan has been bit a few times as well so we wash our sheets and put our little matresses in the sun basically every day trying to get rid of them. Now we each only get bit by maybe 1 or 2 per night, which is waaay better than the 20-ish that I had on Monday and Tuesday nights! We´ll call her today to ask how to completely kill them all and do it since its p-day and we can stay home all day!

Other than the bed bugs (if they are really bed bugs) we had a pretty good week!

We have a baptism marked for Saturday (Everton, the kid who moved here and lives with his aunt and unlce now). We just need to get his Aunt or uncle to sign the sheet to authorize him to be baptized. They kind of dont think he's ready yet. I´ll let you know how things go next week!

Elder Haws

Week 66

 

Ola!

 

Today we had transfers! Neither Elder Morgan or myself got emails soo.... we´re pretty sure we are both staying! (though it could just be that the secretaries messed up with the emails again and we recieve a call later today telling us that we were transferred. But for now, it seems like we´ll both stay! This will be the first time that I stay with a companion for more than two transfers!

About the chicken feet! we thought the member was just joking about feeding us chicken feet for lunch. We were at José´s baptism and they came to clean the chapel. As they were leaving he said that he was going to make chicken feet but was laughing and so we thought it was just a joke. On Sunday he asked us if we liked chicken feet and and joked around some more so we thought he was just continuing the joke. Even when we showed up for lunch at his house after church he said that the chicken feet would be done soon and we STILL thought it was a joke! However when his wife brought the food in from the kitchen, what was it?? CHICKEN FEET!! Just so you know, there is no meat on chicken feet, just skin, nerve endings and tendons. They love chicken feet and I choked one down but didnt like it. its just like eating chicken skin except the bottom of the feet have the little bumps that kinda seem like taste buds.... the texture is horrible! haha

When Elder Morgan came back from his ´´trip´´ to Lençois Paulista, he brought back a beverage called Guaraná Jesus. they have Guearaná everywhere here but this brand is special. originally it was a small company up in Northern Brazil. Coca Cola tried to sell the same type of Soda there but it wouldnt sell because everybody already drank Guaraná Jesus. so Coke bought it and kept the same name and still continues today. This was the first can that I drank. It was pretty good but nothing too different that regular Guaraná soda.

 

José wasnt confirmed this week because it was stake conference. The conference was awesome though and the Saturday night session was extra cool because it was all about missionary work.

José came back from the hospital on Saturday and is fine now. He should be confirmed this Sunday if all goes well.

Daniele

 

 

 

After Stake conference on Sunday we had another BAPTISM! Her name is Daniele and she has a boyfriend in another ward here in Bauru and so because of him, she got baptized!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girl on the right was baptized last week and the other three
were baptized this last weekend!

This past week was a hot one! It was almost 100 every day! I didnt get burned somehow though! the Lord pretects his servants!

There is a really cool family in an other ward that I taught with Elder Hendrix last week but only the daughter was baptized last week. This Sunday the mom and son were baptized as well as the moms niece who lives right by them! It was a great Sunday here because we baptized 9 people in our zone!

This week we still have two good possibilities for baptism but we need to find a lot of new people this week. This past week we didnt find many at all and so this week our teaching pool is already really small.

I love you all and thanks for the support.

Com muita água

 

Élder Haws

Picture Post

 

Week 65

Hello!!

This week was, once again, super fast!

We had two divisions this week! Elder Morgan went with a zone leader to another city for two days and the first day I was in our area with our district leader, Elder Arf. The second day, I stayed with the other zone leader, Elder Hendrix, here in Bauru until our companions got back. They had a really cool investigator family that we taught and gave blessings to the Mom and daughter so they could stop smoking. The assistants also came to Bauru on Saturday and stopped by our chapel. We were there because WE BAPTIZED JOSE!!

He was baptized on Saturday night, everything went great except that not many members were there...there was going to be a birthday party for a girl turning 5 in the ward but the people were there in the chapel were busy setting that up so we only had like 5 people to watch the baptism. I'll send a picture of it next week.

We have another baptismal date marked with Sidinei, he's a kid we've been talking to for a long time but kind given up trying to teach or baptize him because his mom wouldn't let it happen. But now, his mom has warmed up and we have Tuesday night at 8 marked for his baptism. I think it might have to be like on Friday or something though because the chapel will already be used on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, Jose got sick on Saturday night and had to go to the hospital. He stayed there until probably 3 or 4 in the afternoon and couldn't go to church to be confirmed :( We've been trying a lot harder to leave with the members and actually did better this week! We still have a lot of room to improve though.

Next week will be transfers and we have no idea what will happen! Just reminder: send letter to the mission office in case I get transferred.

Thanks for the love and support!

Elder Haws

Week 64

Alright so this past week.... José was not baptized unfortunately. We do know that the biggest problem he has is his family though. Nobody supports him. He´s 63 and lives with his 90-ish year old mom and brother. They are a really interesting family. Everybody always says that the other ones having a problem in the head, like a mental problem but that they themselves don't; it's pretty funny. He really likes church though and went to all three classes this week. The best thing is that he lives about a block from the church and shows up at about 8:35, which is great! Except that all the members here show up at 8:59.... So he sat there alone for a while when we went to go and get more investigators. We did mark a date with him to be baptized this Saturday, though he´s still a little shaky about it. We had our district leader here to help us Sunday night and that is when we finally set a goal for this Saturday

.

We also have another possible baptism this week. He is a cousin of our ward mission leader that just barely moved to Bauru. He wants to be baptized and so we´ve been talking to him about it and will try and help him be baptized this Sunday!

Dad I heard a funny story about teeth pulling this past week that you could do for Ali. Just tell her that you need to tie a string to it for over night so it stays on tight and ten if its still there in the morning she can pull the string and it will come right out! then, as you are tying the string to her tooth you pull it out right then! and its already done! haha

I truly believe that the prayers helped José this week. Everyday when we talked to him he had a reason to quit and give up on everything, however through all these difficulties he still stopped drinking coffee, hasn't drank more alcohol and still went to church! Its been a miracle! Though the miracle isn't over yet because he still hasn't been baptized.

We have a family that we are teaching that are elites as well. They are Adriana(50-ish) and Antonio(53) and their son Gabriel who is 9. They are reading the Book of Mormon, recognize the spirit and have looked for a very long time for the right church but never feel like they found it. They had basically given up searching and then we showed up! The still hadn't been able to go to church but they told us that they wouldn't be able to for 2 weeks the first day we were there so its okay. This Sunday they will go though; I'm really excited for what will happen with them!

The prayers really did help because we had three investigators at church, which for Elder Morgan and I is the most ever(which is sad, we should have more success that that)!

 

Thank you so much for all you do for me. I know for sure that your prayers helped us a lot this week!

I love you all and want you all to know that I have a testimony of this church and this gospel. That Jesus lives and loves each one of us and always sends help to people who are worthy and in need.

Com amor,

Elder Haws