And One‏

Hey Family,

It´s 2010 which means i just started my "Dry Year" as a missionary. We say dry year because every missionary has a full year of being a missionary without seeing family or friends. But if my mission keeps going the way it is, this year will seem more like a month!

Last week was great. We got our investigator baptized and confirmed so that was a big plus. We worried about it all we but finally got it done and she seems to be doing great. She´s pregnant so when we baptized her i told Elder Jones it was kind of like basket ball. Normally we refer to baptism as"dunking" so with her i said we got the basket "And One". We also taught one of our investigators that happens to be a pastor of another church and found out that he beleives in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Needless to say we were really excited and about to mark him for baptism until he said that he didn´t like the fact that our church has to be the ONLY true church on the earth. We were a little disappointed at first but once we can solve that doubt he´ll be ready for baptism. we also taught a brazilian couple that are golden investigators and ran into another doubt there too. They love the Book of Mormon and the church but cant bring themselves to believe that Joseph Smith saw Jesus Chrust and Heavenly Father. They have that belief because of the scripture in exodus that says no man can see God and live.We´ve showed them scriptures that saw other wise and born testimony but they still have a hard time believing. We´re going to keep working with them so it shouldn´t be long before they´re baptized too.

In other news, me and Elder Jones both got sick this week. He got sick early last week and so we spent a lot of time in the house and then i got sick yesterday, for the first time on my mission, so we spent all yesterday in the house. We´re both still a little sick but we´re feeling better so it shouldn´t be long before we´re both at 100%.

This month I also hit seven months which means i need to report on how the language is coming. This week we gave a message in a member´s house and Edlder Jones felt that i should give the message. I shared a scripture and bore testimony and talked a little and it actually went really well.Afterward, one of the memebrs asked me why i dont speak more because i speak almost perfectly. It was a nice confidence booster but my timidness keeps holding me back. I´ll keep working on that too so it shouldn´t be long before i speaking more.

In piano news i´m close to playing the entire tune of "Abide With Me" in a couple of weeks i´ll have it all down and will be able to start putting the pedal in with it. Also this week, we played Ping Pong with some of the members at the News Years Eve party. All the missionaries in the mission got permission to stay out till midnight to attend the church parties so we got to go to party in our branch. I played four games and only lost one. It was pretty fun but in the game i lost Elder Jones was telling me we had to go so i think i can mark that loss up to a distraction. Then a few days later we played Ping pong with a few members and an investigator(Joven) and that time i only lost one game. Afterward i thought that maybe i should´ve let the invetigator win more but i had a reputation to up hold!

Thanks for the Bumble story it was perfect. The hymn book is a great idea too but dont spend too much money because its not a big deal. Also, you guys might want to check what Jenny is feeding Milo cause that kid is getting big! And tell mom to practice wii tenis because when i get back we´re goign to play and i wasn´t bad back in the day...

Well, thats it for news here in Portugal. Thanks for the prayers and support. I love you guys! Fiquem Bem!

Élder Haws