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