Happy Birthday to Me‏

Hey Family,

Its transfer week which means that i still have 6 more weeks to be a missionary so do get trunkey...at least not too much.

I found out last night that i´m staying here in Évora to end my mission, but i´m getting a new companion. Elder Fillerup is going to Lisbon to serve with an elder i came into the misison with, while i´m getting his companion, Elder Smith. I´m really excited because he only has about a year in the mission buit he speaks really well. I´ve served with really young guys for so long i dont know how i´m going to handle this next transfer. But i´m excited to see what happens.

This week to be very honest, was a very hard week for me and Elder Fillerup. On Tuesday we went to Beja, another city in the Alentejo to have a district meeting with some other duplas. I saw district meeting because i had the vane hope that we would actually have one, but as i figured, the missionary whos going home today just wanted to go around the city and talk to people. He served there about a year ago and wanted to say goodbye to some people so we ended up just following him around. I kind of figured something like that would happen, but we went anyway and we regreted it the whole week. Thats the first step of repentance so i guess we´re are making progress in the right direction.

The week was also really tough because José dropped off the face of the earth. We had talked to him a few times on the phone, and he was sounding great. He was doing amazingly well with the plan we made with him to stop smoking and he seemed happy. But later in the week we dropped some stuff off at his house for him to read. We had to do that because we cant talk to him during the week because of his work schedule. But we wanted to get him the baptismal interview questions so we could baptize him this week. But after dropping the stuff off with lady who owns the house, he just dissappeared. We kept calling him and he never answered, and then he didnt come to church. So we dont know what has happened to him. Hopefully we can find him and get him back to church. So please pray for us!

But in happier news, my Birthday was great. The members here LOVE the Elders because most of them are old and either dont have children, or their kids live far away, so instead of spoiling them, they spoil us! So everytime an elder has a birthday here in this area the lady´s in the branch all make cakes and bring them to church so they can celebrate. So this week the members made 3 or 4 cakes for us. After church yesterday they sang to me twice, once in the chapel, then a member family sang to me later at our lunch appointment. I think i gained 10 pounds from all the cake, but i´m not complaining. Then after church, we went to the branch president´s house to eat lunch like we always do. Since it was Easter, or Pascoa in Portuguese, they made us a special Portuguese lunch that you only find in the Alentejo. The whole meal was made from a lamb that the branch president bought from an inactive member last week. The member cut it up for our branch president, then they stuck in our freezer for a week. The meal was amazing, which made me glad that i was here in Évora for Easter. Then they brought out a big cake and sang happy birthday to me for the second time. It was a great day for food, which just happened to be on my Birthday, which made it even better. Happy Birthday to me!

I´m glad to know that Bubba made here safely. I was also very impressed that mom got the pictures to send in the email. Way to go Mom!

Oh, and before i forget, the members here want to do an activity about the pioneers and they want to knwo what kind of music, games and dances they had. I would tell them about the stuff they told on the Martin Handcart treke but that was a long time ago. So if you guys could hepl me out that would be great thanks!

Well, i think thats about it for this week. Thanks for all the love and prayers! And thanks MIndy for the email! Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Élder Haws