Hey Family,
Happy Late Thanksgiving! Its sounds like you guys were way busy but had a lot of fun! This week was pretty fun for me too so i cant complain. Last week a few companionships in our Zone decided to have a Thanksgiving celebration last thursday and it actually turned out ot be pretty fun. There were only five duplas there but we still had a blast. We all brought something which was nice because me and Elder Silva didn´t have any money. We ended up showing up late but we still made in time to eat so that was the important thing. The only thing i regret about it was that i forgot to bring my camera so i´ll have to get pictures from one of the other Elders who was there.
Then, last Friday, I went into Lisbon to renew my visa again. I got there on time and we left right away because we thought it would take forever...which it did. We drove to some shopping mail and for some unknown reason, there was a government office like place in there. If you ask me it doesn´t make any sense but then agian i´ve learned that alot of things here dont make sense. For example, one day me and Elder Davis were walking to the bus station and we looked in the windows of the shopping mail near our house and saw the Escalator was broken. That however, was not the strange part. The strange part was the mass of people standing at the bottom of the escalator trying to figure out how to get up to the next floor with the escalator broken. I guess didn´t cross their minds that a broken escalator is just like a normal set of stairs. But whatever. Anyway, we got this goverment type place and it took them 2 or three hours to have four Elders sign our names on a peice of paper or two and then finger print us. It was a prety relaxing experience talking to the other Elders and i got to tell some of my Elder Davis stories so it was a good time. While i was there i learned the full story of my "dissaperance" the last time i went to Lisbon. It turns out Elder Silva had called the Executive secretaries looking for me but they were in a lesson so they couldn´t pick up, so he then called the APs who then called the executive secretaries who then picked up. After that the immediatly stopped their lesson with an investigator and started to call around seeing if anyone knew where i was. Then President called them and tokd them to go to Cascais and look in our house, every shopping mall, every hospital, and the jail looking for me. So immediatly they started speeding in their car towards Cascais when a few minutes later they got a call from President(who was laughing a little) saying they found me. I apologized a lot to the Executive secretaries but they said it wasn´t my fault and that my comp should have go to the house to see if i was there. But now, all missionaries will be given a card that tells them what to do if something like that happens so i guess now the mission will always have something to remember me by.
This week i also gave a talk in Sacrament meeting about obedience and it was probably the best talk i´ve given here in Cascais. I had a lot of scriptures and i told Gemar´s Devil Story and it went great. After me Elder Silva spoke(with 15 minutes notice) and gave a better talk than me. Then, after him the counslor form the stake presidency got up a spoke and made reference to my talk which was cool so i guess he liked it.
Other than that this week was pretty standard. Dont worry about the baking soda thing. I can wait till next week. Besides, i´ll probably be leaving Cascais next week so theres no rush. But also could you ask about baking powder and shorting too. Thanks. And sorry about the money last week. I pulled out more money for lunch and when you pull money out it charges you so i pulled out a little more than i needed but now i can pay myself back with MSF so dont worry about putting a ton of money in my account. But i bought a sweater so there is good news. And "Jovens" are just youth like decons, teachers, laurals, ect. That age group. I didnt send the camera card last week because we were going to have another baptism this week and i was going to take more pictures but thats not going to happen. So this week i´mjust going to send it in a letter to mike and hopefully you guys can pick itup this weekend at the baptism.
Well, I think thats everything. Life here is good and i´m still surviving and working hard. Thanks fopr all the prayers and love. I love you guys!
Élder Haws
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Gettin Wet
Hey Family,
Its still winter here in Portugal but you could never tell because the weather here is so different. It almost always looks beautiful outside but it ALWAYS colder than it looks. Today i took out 20 euros of personal money to buy a sweater (it wont cost that much) though so i should be fine.
This week was awesome. Tuesday night i got a call form the secretaries that said that my visa day got changed so now i do it this Friday instead of last Wednsday which means i dont do visas with anyone i know. Its a little sad but i ´m over it. In other news we had interviews with President Torgan last week with only two days notice. When my visa day was switched they told us that our interview day was switched too. We were a little upset that no one told us before but later we found out it happened to everyone. My interview went well but i´m pretty sure President Torgan knows i´m not the biggest fan of his baptism plans because this time he sat me down and made sure that i knew the only thing he really wants us to do is do the will of the Lord. So all in all it was pretty good.
Then Firday we had the Baptism of one of our investigators and Elder Davis did the baptizing. He had gone his entire mission (he leaves for home next month) without being the person who baptizes the investigor aka "getting wet". He spent a lot of time in this area (7 months) and never saw the fruit of his labor but i thonk this week he saw one of those fruits. He showed up and the baptism was awesome. Everybody was excited to see Elder Davis again and this time our investigator didn´t "almost die". The program went really well too. The speakers were good and Elder Davis sang and played a song he wrote about baptism that was amazing. I was really glad about how well it went because we brought the family we´ve been teaching to the baptism and then to the conformation. After the baptism we all ate a ton of Bolo and sumo (cake and juice) while everybody either crowed around Elder Davis or went down stairs to play Elder Silva in Ping pong. But just as a side note,Elder Grey (Elder Davis´s companion) beat Elder Silva a couple of times :).Then after everybody left we went home and Elder Davis and Elder Grey stayed the night because their area is so far away. We ended up staying up till 4in the morning talking and eating the extra bolo but it was a good time. I mostly talked with Elder Davis while Elder Grey talked with Elder Silva. Me and Davis spent most of the time talking about the mission and our feelings toward it. Then we talked about our interviews that we had and he gave me a lot of advice. Elder Wilson may have been my trainer and a great missionary,but i really see Elder Davis as more of a "Father Figure" than him. He has always given me the advice i´ve needed which makes me said because hes leaving soon. I´ll really miss all his stories and jokes but i´ll move on.The next day we woke up at 11 and went to lunch before the other Elders left. It was a lot of fun but still a little said when they left.
This week at the baptism i also started taking pictures with the members because i might be leaving this transfer. When i told some of the Jovens that i wanted pictures with them they freaked out and said that i´m not allowed to leave. One of them was mad because when i got here i couldn´t understand him but now we´re just starting to have conversations. Its a little sad to think i might leave Cascais but the more i think about it the more possible it seems. But oh well, it doesn´t really matter because i knowi´ll go where the Lord needs me.
Tell Jenny i´m sorry i didn´t say Happy Birthday last week. I seriously had it in my planner as "thing number one to say" but i still forgot it.So...Happy Birthday Jenny! And also tell Warren Happy Birthday this week too(i think his birthday is this week.) This week i got all your letters soi´ll probably be sending the camera card sometime this week so you should get it either this week or next. As for the swine Flu i dont think anyone is worried about it here. the thing everyone is worried about is something called Flu A. And mom, your cooking is actually not boring because i miss some of the food i used to eat. But luckly i´ve had Mcdonalds twice in the last week to remind me of america. I´m not really sure abou the Holidays here. The last holiday we had was all saints day but i think after that comes Christmas. There are Christmas decrorations everywhere which is so weird because there´s no snow on the ground! Its really weird to think that Christmas is already here but that also means i´ll have 6 months on my mission pretty soon! This week i only have a few questions to ask: Can you guys ask Spencer if they have stuff like baking soda and baking powder in Europe? and if so, could you ask Mikey for the translations?
Well, life here is good. I´m starting to notice how much i´ve learned in Portuguese and it feels good. I´´m still working hard and learind a lot too.Thanks for all the prayers and love.
Com Amor,
Élder Haws
Its still winter here in Portugal but you could never tell because the weather here is so different. It almost always looks beautiful outside but it ALWAYS colder than it looks. Today i took out 20 euros of personal money to buy a sweater (it wont cost that much) though so i should be fine.
This week was awesome. Tuesday night i got a call form the secretaries that said that my visa day got changed so now i do it this Friday instead of last Wednsday which means i dont do visas with anyone i know. Its a little sad but i ´m over it. In other news we had interviews with President Torgan last week with only two days notice. When my visa day was switched they told us that our interview day was switched too. We were a little upset that no one told us before but later we found out it happened to everyone. My interview went well but i´m pretty sure President Torgan knows i´m not the biggest fan of his baptism plans because this time he sat me down and made sure that i knew the only thing he really wants us to do is do the will of the Lord. So all in all it was pretty good.
Then Firday we had the Baptism of one of our investigators and Elder Davis did the baptizing. He had gone his entire mission (he leaves for home next month) without being the person who baptizes the investigor aka "getting wet". He spent a lot of time in this area (7 months) and never saw the fruit of his labor but i thonk this week he saw one of those fruits. He showed up and the baptism was awesome. Everybody was excited to see Elder Davis again and this time our investigator didn´t "almost die". The program went really well too. The speakers were good and Elder Davis sang and played a song he wrote about baptism that was amazing. I was really glad about how well it went because we brought the family we´ve been teaching to the baptism and then to the conformation. After the baptism we all ate a ton of Bolo and sumo (cake and juice) while everybody either crowed around Elder Davis or went down stairs to play Elder Silva in Ping pong. But just as a side note,Elder Grey (Elder Davis´s companion) beat Elder Silva a couple of times :).Then after everybody left we went home and Elder Davis and Elder Grey stayed the night because their area is so far away. We ended up staying up till 4in the morning talking and eating the extra bolo but it was a good time. I mostly talked with Elder Davis while Elder Grey talked with Elder Silva. Me and Davis spent most of the time talking about the mission and our feelings toward it. Then we talked about our interviews that we had and he gave me a lot of advice. Elder Wilson may have been my trainer and a great missionary,but i really see Elder Davis as more of a "Father Figure" than him. He has always given me the advice i´ve needed which makes me said because hes leaving soon. I´ll really miss all his stories and jokes but i´ll move on.The next day we woke up at 11 and went to lunch before the other Elders left. It was a lot of fun but still a little said when they left.
This week at the baptism i also started taking pictures with the members because i might be leaving this transfer. When i told some of the Jovens that i wanted pictures with them they freaked out and said that i´m not allowed to leave. One of them was mad because when i got here i couldn´t understand him but now we´re just starting to have conversations. Its a little sad to think i might leave Cascais but the more i think about it the more possible it seems. But oh well, it doesn´t really matter because i knowi´ll go where the Lord needs me.
Tell Jenny i´m sorry i didn´t say Happy Birthday last week. I seriously had it in my planner as "thing number one to say" but i still forgot it.So...Happy Birthday Jenny! And also tell Warren Happy Birthday this week too(i think his birthday is this week.) This week i got all your letters soi´ll probably be sending the camera card sometime this week so you should get it either this week or next. As for the swine Flu i dont think anyone is worried about it here. the thing everyone is worried about is something called Flu A. And mom, your cooking is actually not boring because i miss some of the food i used to eat. But luckly i´ve had Mcdonalds twice in the last week to remind me of america. I´m not really sure abou the Holidays here. The last holiday we had was all saints day but i think after that comes Christmas. There are Christmas decrorations everywhere which is so weird because there´s no snow on the ground! Its really weird to think that Christmas is already here but that also means i´ll have 6 months on my mission pretty soon! This week i only have a few questions to ask: Can you guys ask Spencer if they have stuff like baking soda and baking powder in Europe? and if so, could you ask Mikey for the translations?
Well, life here is good. I´m starting to notice how much i´ve learned in Portuguese and it feels good. I´´m still working hard and learind a lot too.Thanks for all the prayers and love.
Com Amor,
Élder Haws
Lost in Lisbon
Monday, November 16, 2009
Hey Family,
Its definitly winter here in portugal now. Over the couple of days it reallyhasn´t stopped raining which is bad because we haven´t stopped working either. This week we made a lot of really good progress. In the past two weeks we have recieved two referals that turned out to be two great families. One of the referals came from a member that has never given us a referal while i´ve been here but the family that she gave us is turning out great. We´ve been teaching this grandpa and his two grandsons for almost two weeks and the grandpa came to church yesterday so things are looking up. The other family we got was refered to us by a brazilian family. They invited us, two brazilian member couples, a brazilian return missionary, and this family to dinner last friday night and it went great. Thi family had lost a child a while back so the members asked us (Elder Silva) to talk about eternal families. Elder Silva´s message was great and the members afterward keep bearing testimony and sharing experiences. I wanted to bear my testimony too but i couldn´t find room with all the members talking! It was a great visit and the family shows a lot of potencial. This week we also have a baptism planned for a little girl whose been taught by the missionaries for almost a year. She was almost baptized a few months ago but when the Elders asked the mom for permission she said no because her brother was an inactive member. So after that the Elders worked on reactivating the brother and finally got him active about the time i got here. Elder Davis was one ofthe Elders who taught her so he´s coming back to Cascais for a day to baptize her. Its funny though, becasue at the end of last transfer i told Elder Wilson that if one of us stayed we would have to find new people because none of our investigators were pregressing, but with Elder Silva we haven´t really had to work all that hard to find new people because the members are helping us so much. So life is good.
This week me and Elder Silva played some ping pong but things didn´t go so well. Elder Silva is what i would call a professional ping pong player because he makes people who play well, like the members here, look really bad. This is bad because i play terrible and i get really competitive. Well,to make a short story even shorter i lost...alot...and really angery and things were tense between us for a while but we sorted it out and we´re good now.
In other news, last week i had to go and start to renew my visa here so i got to see alot of people from the MTC. It was pretty fun to spend most of the day with them but we had to stand in lines all day wasn´t too exciting. Afterward they droped us off at one of the biggest shopping malls in portuagal so we could eat before going back to our areas and i got to eat lunch with Elder McLean and Elder Rich. President told us not to waste anytime becasue our companions had to stay in our areas with members until we got back but we sat and talked for a while and i dont feel like we wasted a minute. We ended up talking about our mission experiences so far and about how or views of the mission have changed alot since the MTC. I was suprised at how much we had all changed in such a short amount of time. When i got back to my area i went strait to my house because i figured Elder Silva would come back for dinner and get me. Unfortunatly he was waiting for a phone call to tell him that i got back. So, i got to the house at 5 o´clock and he got there at 8. By that time he had called the secretaries and the APs looking for me. So by the time he got home and found me the people inthe office thought i was lost in Lisbon somewhere. The next day i got a call from Elder Wilson asking me what happened because the APs had called him and told him that his greenie was never made it home the night before. By now i´m sure the whole mission thinks i got lost!
Yesterday i added another item to my list of foods that i´ve tried here in portugal. Everyweek we go to a big member family´s house and eat a big lunch after church and the food is usually really good. But this is also the house where i ate cow stomach and last week i ate shrimp (not little shrimp, the big kind with huge tenticals)there. This week though was different. At the end of church yesterday the members told me we would be eating "Arroz doPato". Being an american i had no idea what that was until i got to the house. Mikey could tell you and maybe he already has by now, but arroz dopato is "Duck Rice". I was a little nervous at first, never having eaten duck, but it turned out to be one of best things i´ve eaten since i´ve been here. During the meal one of the members asked me if i new what i was eating because i guess some Elders dont like duck. Almost everytime i eat there they like to tell me i can add one more exotic Portuguese dish to the list of things i´ve eaten on my mission.
Other than that, my week was pretty boring. Everything is going good here. I dont feel like my langauge is getting any better but i´m sure that will change when i get an american companion and i can see my progress. As for mypass i can get another one but doing that right now isn´t worth it so i haveto wait until next month. But at least i can get another one.
I found one last thing to ask to be put in my box, american, food measuring stuff.
Well, i´m still surviving and doing fine! Thanks for all of your prayers! I love you guys!
Élder Haws
Hey Family,
Its definitly winter here in portugal now. Over the couple of days it reallyhasn´t stopped raining which is bad because we haven´t stopped working either. This week we made a lot of really good progress. In the past two weeks we have recieved two referals that turned out to be two great families. One of the referals came from a member that has never given us a referal while i´ve been here but the family that she gave us is turning out great. We´ve been teaching this grandpa and his two grandsons for almost two weeks and the grandpa came to church yesterday so things are looking up. The other family we got was refered to us by a brazilian family. They invited us, two brazilian member couples, a brazilian return missionary, and this family to dinner last friday night and it went great. Thi family had lost a child a while back so the members asked us (Elder Silva) to talk about eternal families. Elder Silva´s message was great and the members afterward keep bearing testimony and sharing experiences. I wanted to bear my testimony too but i couldn´t find room with all the members talking! It was a great visit and the family shows a lot of potencial. This week we also have a baptism planned for a little girl whose been taught by the missionaries for almost a year. She was almost baptized a few months ago but when the Elders asked the mom for permission she said no because her brother was an inactive member. So after that the Elders worked on reactivating the brother and finally got him active about the time i got here. Elder Davis was one ofthe Elders who taught her so he´s coming back to Cascais for a day to baptize her. Its funny though, becasue at the end of last transfer i told Elder Wilson that if one of us stayed we would have to find new people because none of our investigators were pregressing, but with Elder Silva we haven´t really had to work all that hard to find new people because the members are helping us so much. So life is good.
This week me and Elder Silva played some ping pong but things didn´t go so well. Elder Silva is what i would call a professional ping pong player because he makes people who play well, like the members here, look really bad. This is bad because i play terrible and i get really competitive. Well,to make a short story even shorter i lost...alot...and really angery and things were tense between us for a while but we sorted it out and we´re good now.
In other news, last week i had to go and start to renew my visa here so i got to see alot of people from the MTC. It was pretty fun to spend most of the day with them but we had to stand in lines all day wasn´t too exciting. Afterward they droped us off at one of the biggest shopping malls in portuagal so we could eat before going back to our areas and i got to eat lunch with Elder McLean and Elder Rich. President told us not to waste anytime becasue our companions had to stay in our areas with members until we got back but we sat and talked for a while and i dont feel like we wasted a minute. We ended up talking about our mission experiences so far and about how or views of the mission have changed alot since the MTC. I was suprised at how much we had all changed in such a short amount of time. When i got back to my area i went strait to my house because i figured Elder Silva would come back for dinner and get me. Unfortunatly he was waiting for a phone call to tell him that i got back. So, i got to the house at 5 o´clock and he got there at 8. By that time he had called the secretaries and the APs looking for me. So by the time he got home and found me the people inthe office thought i was lost in Lisbon somewhere. The next day i got a call from Elder Wilson asking me what happened because the APs had called him and told him that his greenie was never made it home the night before. By now i´m sure the whole mission thinks i got lost!
Yesterday i added another item to my list of foods that i´ve tried here in portugal. Everyweek we go to a big member family´s house and eat a big lunch after church and the food is usually really good. But this is also the house where i ate cow stomach and last week i ate shrimp (not little shrimp, the big kind with huge tenticals)there. This week though was different. At the end of church yesterday the members told me we would be eating "Arroz doPato". Being an american i had no idea what that was until i got to the house. Mikey could tell you and maybe he already has by now, but arroz dopato is "Duck Rice". I was a little nervous at first, never having eaten duck, but it turned out to be one of best things i´ve eaten since i´ve been here. During the meal one of the members asked me if i new what i was eating because i guess some Elders dont like duck. Almost everytime i eat there they like to tell me i can add one more exotic Portuguese dish to the list of things i´ve eaten on my mission.
Other than that, my week was pretty boring. Everything is going good here. I dont feel like my langauge is getting any better but i´m sure that will change when i get an american companion and i can see my progress. As for mypass i can get another one but doing that right now isn´t worth it so i haveto wait until next month. But at least i can get another one.
I found one last thing to ask to be put in my box, american, food measuring stuff.
Well, i´m still surviving and doing fine! Thanks for all of your prayers! I love you guys!
Élder Haws
Monday, November 9, 2009
Portugese 24/7
Hey Family,
There was a lot of news in this weeks set of emails. First i read that Dad got released and then i hear that he´s getting a new calling? Life must be crazing back in Idaho! Everything is still good here. But first before i go on, i need to apologize to Bentley for not saying Happy Birthday last week. Normally i write what i want to say in my planner before but last week i forgot to write in his birthday. But anyway, Happy Birthday Bentley!
This week was really good. We taught a lot of lessons here and we´re finding a lot of new people which is really what this area needs. It seems like the Elders here have been teaching the same investigators for a long time now,some for years. Most of these people just like having the Elders over but never fulfill commitments. But because they´ll talk to us and let us teach them the Elders kept going back. But with Elder Silva its different. If people dont change, we find new people.
This week was probably our last week of english classes. I´m not sure if i told you but we teach english classes once a week, or we did. Normally it was one of the older american Elders that taught it but now it just me and Silva and he doesn´t speak english and i dont speak portuguese. So a member has taught the class the last two weeks but this week he said would be hislast so we´ll have to stop giving the classes. But last week the students were learning the ABCs so the member was teaching them the ABC song. Then afterward they had me sing it so they could hear how it went. They ended up liking it so much that they recorded my singing on their phones so they could listen to it out of class and practice. It was a little embarrassing but really funny at the same time.
Last week we also had zone conference with one of the area presidency members of the Western Eurpoe area. He´s a german guy so the whole whenever he spoke (which was most of the time) it was in english. It was a really good conference because he adressed a lot of the problems that i have been having with President Torgans plans. But when he first sstarted to speak i was worried because he backed President Torgan one hundred percent, which is good, but it didn´t help the way i felt. He talked about how he knew President Torgan was asking us to reach for the stars but that he said he would rather have us try and overstep our potencial than always live beneath it. That helped me feel a little better but then later, all my prayers were answered. Normally, President Torgan will tell us that when we dont have baptisms its because we dont have faith and that we need to repent. When the topic of faith came up in the conference Elder Kopisckey(spelled wrong) said that we should never say we didn´t baptize because we didn´t have faith. He even said, "I forbid it!" This was the hardest part of President Torgan´s plan to accept and it felt good to hear that the reason i didn´t baptize every week was because i was unworthy. I felt bad that PResident Torgan was a little wrong but now i´m feeling pretty relieved. And then after the conference i walked over to Elder Wilson with a big smile on my face,remembering our one week baptism failure. We talked about how we knew that we had done everything we could but we felt bad because we felt like we had no faith. But after that conference it felt like a weight had been lifted off our shoulders. It felt great!
Sorry mom, but i forgot to tell you that we got another phone from the office a few days after Edlr Wilson left, but this week i lost my pass that lets me ride all the buses and trains for free. I dont know if i can get another one but if i cant, money´s going to be tight for awhile so please pray for me! The list for the package seems right except for the rain coat but other than that it sounds perfect. And if you guys could send me some recipes for rice and pasta that would be great too because that stuff is super cheap and i can get it EVERYWHERE. And with a naitve companion i have discovered the wonder of european cheese. So Mom, you were right, its sooo good! As to news with my finger its exactly the same but i forgot to ice it.I talked to Elder McLean about my finger and he said he had the same thing happen to so i´m still hopping its a dislocation. It doesn´t look bad its just a little fat at the joint. Oh, and tell Nick and Mikey to stay away from girls because i dont want to be getting wedding invitations in the mail!
And this week i talked with Elder Davis a few times on the phone because he may come back and baptize one of our investigatirs. He also gave his last testimony in zone conference and told me that he used me in his testimony.
Well, its still all portuguese all the time here and i´m still improving.Thanks for all the prayers and love! Amo-lhes!
Élder Haws
There was a lot of news in this weeks set of emails. First i read that Dad got released and then i hear that he´s getting a new calling? Life must be crazing back in Idaho! Everything is still good here. But first before i go on, i need to apologize to Bentley for not saying Happy Birthday last week. Normally i write what i want to say in my planner before but last week i forgot to write in his birthday. But anyway, Happy Birthday Bentley!
This week was really good. We taught a lot of lessons here and we´re finding a lot of new people which is really what this area needs. It seems like the Elders here have been teaching the same investigators for a long time now,some for years. Most of these people just like having the Elders over but never fulfill commitments. But because they´ll talk to us and let us teach them the Elders kept going back. But with Elder Silva its different. If people dont change, we find new people.
This week was probably our last week of english classes. I´m not sure if i told you but we teach english classes once a week, or we did. Normally it was one of the older american Elders that taught it but now it just me and Silva and he doesn´t speak english and i dont speak portuguese. So a member has taught the class the last two weeks but this week he said would be hislast so we´ll have to stop giving the classes. But last week the students were learning the ABCs so the member was teaching them the ABC song. Then afterward they had me sing it so they could hear how it went. They ended up liking it so much that they recorded my singing on their phones so they could listen to it out of class and practice. It was a little embarrassing but really funny at the same time.
Last week we also had zone conference with one of the area presidency members of the Western Eurpoe area. He´s a german guy so the whole whenever he spoke (which was most of the time) it was in english. It was a really good conference because he adressed a lot of the problems that i have been having with President Torgans plans. But when he first sstarted to speak i was worried because he backed President Torgan one hundred percent, which is good, but it didn´t help the way i felt. He talked about how he knew President Torgan was asking us to reach for the stars but that he said he would rather have us try and overstep our potencial than always live beneath it. That helped me feel a little better but then later, all my prayers were answered. Normally, President Torgan will tell us that when we dont have baptisms its because we dont have faith and that we need to repent. When the topic of faith came up in the conference Elder Kopisckey(spelled wrong) said that we should never say we didn´t baptize because we didn´t have faith. He even said, "I forbid it!" This was the hardest part of President Torgan´s plan to accept and it felt good to hear that the reason i didn´t baptize every week was because i was unworthy. I felt bad that PResident Torgan was a little wrong but now i´m feeling pretty relieved. And then after the conference i walked over to Elder Wilson with a big smile on my face,remembering our one week baptism failure. We talked about how we knew that we had done everything we could but we felt bad because we felt like we had no faith. But after that conference it felt like a weight had been lifted off our shoulders. It felt great!
Sorry mom, but i forgot to tell you that we got another phone from the office a few days after Edlr Wilson left, but this week i lost my pass that lets me ride all the buses and trains for free. I dont know if i can get another one but if i cant, money´s going to be tight for awhile so please pray for me! The list for the package seems right except for the rain coat but other than that it sounds perfect. And if you guys could send me some recipes for rice and pasta that would be great too because that stuff is super cheap and i can get it EVERYWHERE. And with a naitve companion i have discovered the wonder of european cheese. So Mom, you were right, its sooo good! As to news with my finger its exactly the same but i forgot to ice it.I talked to Elder McLean about my finger and he said he had the same thing happen to so i´m still hopping its a dislocation. It doesn´t look bad its just a little fat at the joint. Oh, and tell Nick and Mikey to stay away from girls because i dont want to be getting wedding invitations in the mail!
And this week i talked with Elder Davis a few times on the phone because he may come back and baptize one of our investigatirs. He also gave his last testimony in zone conference and told me that he used me in his testimony.
Well, its still all portuguese all the time here and i´m still improving.Thanks for all the prayers and love! Amo-lhes!
Élder Haws
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Native
Hey Family,
As always thanks for all the E-mails. This week we had transfers but they were a little different than usual. Normally transfer happen the day after P-day because thats when new missionaries come in from the MTC but ealry this transfer President Torgan switched P-day. Because of that, no one new when we were going to hear about transfers and me and Elder Wilson didn´t know if we would ever hear about transfers because we didn´t have a phone.So we just figuered that transfers would be the dame day as they always were, which was thursday. But as always, we were wrong. After P-day, Elder Wislon and I returned to our Apartment to find our Ward mission leader and his younger brother sitting outside our house. They didn´t say much of anything and just dialed a number on the cell phone and handed it to Elder Wilson. I thought something happened and we were going to be yelled at by someone. It turned out that the APs had to call our ward mission leader to tell us about trnasfers. The next day, Elder Wilson would have to leave the house at 8:30 in the morning and travel to one of the most northern areas of the mission to be the new Zone leader there, while the Zone Leader he was replacing was going to come to be district leader here in Cascais and to be my new companion. This came as a bit of a shock because we didn´t expect anyone to leave until thurdsay so that night Elder Wilson spent most of his time packing. I on the other hand spent most my time trying to not have a nervous breakdown because my new companion was going to be Elder Silva, a native. That by itself scared me but then Elder Wilson said that he didn´t speak a whole lot of english and that just made it worse. But i made it through that night and the next day and now i´m wondering why i worried so much.
Elder Silva was born in Mozambique, a country in southern Africa, and eventually moved to portugal. Before the Mission he played academic soccor(which i think is a big deal) for Quimbra(probably not spelled right).It turns out that Elder Wilson was wrong about his english. He´s actually learned alot of english on the mission and probably speaks better english than i do portuguese. But i dont know for sure. As far as i can tell, his two favorite english words are "freak" and "trippin" which just happen to be my favorite english words too so right off the bat i new we would get along.He´s a great missionary and contacts a ton of people, and he´s good at it too. He also pushes me a lot harder than Elder Wilson did. Most of the time Elder Wilson would do all the contacts and most of the lessons but now, with Elder Silva, i do a lot more. He will stop people and the street and say hi to them and then turn and smile at me, meaning that i had to do the contact.Also in lessons, he will just turn to me and expect me to take over.Sometimes when we arrive at a house he will turn to me and ask me what i´m going to teach. I even taught a whole/very short lesson almost completly by myself. So as you can tell these past few days have taken some adjustment but i´m doing great. Elder Silva is hilarious and we´re working hard and having a good time. He´s been here less than a week and has already boosted our number of lessons and marked an investigator for baptism. So i´m going to be learing alot form him over these next six weeks.
Everything else is really good too. I cant believe that i´ve been a set apart missionary for 5 months now. It´s crazy! And now that i´m serving with a native companion my language should get a lot better too. When the members here first met him they turned to me and said, "Elder Haws, you´re going to speak VERY well!" I already feel like my confidence and ability to speak and understand have improved and its only been six days. He understands english pretty well but i still find myself speaking mostly portuguese to him and i´m not sure why.
Tell Jenny thanks for the pictures! Everybody looked great in their costumes but i most say that Mikey had the best! And to be honest, i was actually going to ask that you send another camera card because none of the computers here are fast enough to upload pictures so thats a great idea Mom. And I think my finger still has some swelling because i still cant make a full fist but i´m going to ice it so more so it should be fine in a week or two.
So, life is still good here in Cascais. Tell every thanks for all the love and prayers! I love you guys!
Élder Haws
As always thanks for all the E-mails. This week we had transfers but they were a little different than usual. Normally transfer happen the day after P-day because thats when new missionaries come in from the MTC but ealry this transfer President Torgan switched P-day. Because of that, no one new when we were going to hear about transfers and me and Elder Wilson didn´t know if we would ever hear about transfers because we didn´t have a phone.So we just figuered that transfers would be the dame day as they always were, which was thursday. But as always, we were wrong. After P-day, Elder Wislon and I returned to our Apartment to find our Ward mission leader and his younger brother sitting outside our house. They didn´t say much of anything and just dialed a number on the cell phone and handed it to Elder Wilson. I thought something happened and we were going to be yelled at by someone. It turned out that the APs had to call our ward mission leader to tell us about trnasfers. The next day, Elder Wilson would have to leave the house at 8:30 in the morning and travel to one of the most northern areas of the mission to be the new Zone leader there, while the Zone Leader he was replacing was going to come to be district leader here in Cascais and to be my new companion. This came as a bit of a shock because we didn´t expect anyone to leave until thurdsay so that night Elder Wilson spent most of his time packing. I on the other hand spent most my time trying to not have a nervous breakdown because my new companion was going to be Elder Silva, a native. That by itself scared me but then Elder Wilson said that he didn´t speak a whole lot of english and that just made it worse. But i made it through that night and the next day and now i´m wondering why i worried so much.
Elder Silva was born in Mozambique, a country in southern Africa, and eventually moved to portugal. Before the Mission he played academic soccor(which i think is a big deal) for Quimbra(probably not spelled right).It turns out that Elder Wilson was wrong about his english. He´s actually learned alot of english on the mission and probably speaks better english than i do portuguese. But i dont know for sure. As far as i can tell, his two favorite english words are "freak" and "trippin" which just happen to be my favorite english words too so right off the bat i new we would get along.He´s a great missionary and contacts a ton of people, and he´s good at it too. He also pushes me a lot harder than Elder Wilson did. Most of the time Elder Wilson would do all the contacts and most of the lessons but now, with Elder Silva, i do a lot more. He will stop people and the street and say hi to them and then turn and smile at me, meaning that i had to do the contact.Also in lessons, he will just turn to me and expect me to take over.Sometimes when we arrive at a house he will turn to me and ask me what i´m going to teach. I even taught a whole/very short lesson almost completly by myself. So as you can tell these past few days have taken some adjustment but i´m doing great. Elder Silva is hilarious and we´re working hard and having a good time. He´s been here less than a week and has already boosted our number of lessons and marked an investigator for baptism. So i´m going to be learing alot form him over these next six weeks.
Everything else is really good too. I cant believe that i´ve been a set apart missionary for 5 months now. It´s crazy! And now that i´m serving with a native companion my language should get a lot better too. When the members here first met him they turned to me and said, "Elder Haws, you´re going to speak VERY well!" I already feel like my confidence and ability to speak and understand have improved and its only been six days. He understands english pretty well but i still find myself speaking mostly portuguese to him and i´m not sure why.
Tell Jenny thanks for the pictures! Everybody looked great in their costumes but i most say that Mikey had the best! And to be honest, i was actually going to ask that you send another camera card because none of the computers here are fast enough to upload pictures so thats a great idea Mom. And I think my finger still has some swelling because i still cant make a full fist but i´m going to ice it so more so it should be fine in a week or two.
So, life is still good here in Cascais. Tell every thanks for all the love and prayers! I love you guys!
Élder Haws
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Phone
Hey Family,
Thanks for all the advice and support in your emails. This week has been tough with the whole president Torgan thing but i keep telling myself and my companion that i wont worry about it. I just keep telling myself to do my best and thats seems to help alot. So thanks again.
This week was pretty crazy. Everything was almost normal until wednsday rolled around. That morning Elder Wilson woke up very happy, which is strange because we were so depressed because we didnt have a baptism. But that morning he was happy and we went about our day like normal. We caught a bus up to teach a new investigator we had found the week before and we were having trouble finding his houose so after we got off the bus we decided to check our map and call him. The only problem was my companion didn´t have the phone. He had it on the bus but after he got off it dissapeared. I told him not to worry about and we keep working thinking that we would be able to call the bus company later to get the phone back that we thought we left on the bus. After we found and taught our investigator we used his phone to call ours. Somebody answered it, then hung up and turned the phone off. Not a good sign. After we left the investigator´s house, we went to the Bus company building and asked about the phone but it didn´t turn up. At that point Elder Wilson and I decided that the guy who smelled strongly of Marijauna who sat next to Elder Wislon on the bus took the phone when it fell out of his pocket. Over the past few days we have been calling the bus company just in case but it hasn´t turned up. So, we´ve gone almsot an entire week without contact with our leaders or invetigators so you can imagine the fun we had.
In other news... My finger is still getting better! I still cant bend it all the way and make a fist but almost all the pain is gone so thats good. This week i also had a member lady cut my hair because its expensive here and i cant speak well enough to tell someone how short to cut my hair. It came out really good. Its really short but its alot better than what i had before.This week the language got better too. There were times when i understood alot of what people said and my confidence in speaking is starting to grow so i´m prayinig that this progress keeps up.
Tell dad congrats on his teaching skills! And form Jenny´s pictures it looks like Mikey rented a Trombone from somewhere and is doing ok . Thats too bad about BYU but thats ok because i´m in portugal and no one here cares. Tell Nick hey for me and keep the H* girl away from him too.
This week is transfers again. I cant believe it that time already. We have now idea whats going to happen here but its very possible that me and Wilson could both leave because we´re not baptizing. So i dont know if i´ll still be in Cascais next week but i think theres still a good chance that i might stay. With the Whole President Torgan "Baptize Portugal" plan i´ve found a new use for one of my favorite songs from last transfer. "It wont be likt this for long" is now my out look on my mission because so far time has been flying and i only have two years to serve. So i´ve decided i cant focus and President Torgan and his telling me i need to repent and have faith because if i do, i wont be positive and enjoy my mission. So as you can probably guess, i´ve been humming that song alot latly.
Well, this week has been really good even though we didn´t have a baptism but thats ok. Right now my biggest priority is learning the langauge so later on in my mission i can baptize. It sounds like everybody is doing great. Tell Jenny thanks for the pictures and everyone else for the E-mails,support, and prayers. I love you guys!
Élder Haws
Monday, October 19, 2009
Bad Luck
Hey Family,
This week was really tough. Everywhere I went i seemed to have bad luck. It started last monday when we went to play basketball with some of the Elders form around the mission. I was pretty excited about it because i hadn´t played basketball in two months and everybody kept talking themselves up soi thought it was going to be fun. When we got there i talked with one of the Zone Leaders and we talked about how everyone that was going to play that day thought they were amazing while we kept telling each other we were terrible. When we got to the church in that area (Cacem) we started bar-b-quing and then started playing. After the first game the Zone leader i talked to turned to Elder Wilson and said i was a shooter. Then we didnt´play for a while but the next game i played in was bad. We got killed and to had to that i messed up my finger. I was playing defense and reached in to steal the ball but missed and hit the Elder and jammed my fingers really bad. I thought i was fine but when i looked down at the ring finger on my left hand the tip was bent in the wrong direction. I didnt touch it but a second later it popped back into place. It hurt a ton but i kept playing and finished the game. People there thought i was crazy. Later that day i looked at my finger and it was really swollen and purple so i got kind of worried so we made a make-shift splint out of stuff from my first aid kit(thanks mom). Then we waited a day and called the Mission President´s wife and talked to her about it. She said she did the same thing when she played vollyball and that i probably just dislocated it and that i would be back to normal in about a month. It already feels really good and i´m even typing with it right now so i´m fine. Dont worry.
The other bad luck came at Interviews. As i may have told you, President Torgan very serious about baptism. He tells us that we should be baptizing every week and when we dont he comes down on us and tells us we dont have enough faith. I really have a hard time going with this plan because its really hard to baptize people and i also dont like feeling like a failure at the end of every week but this week he just told everyone that he doesn´t really care about baptizisms but doing the Lord´s will. He said that as long as we pray and find out the Lords will and do it thats whats important but he still really pushing baptism. I felt a little better after that but when he interviewed me and Elder Wilson on thursday night he said if we had enough faith we would find someone to baptize that weekend. The only probablem was we had no one marked for baptism. Both our interviews were good so we were really excited and motivated but as the days went along nothing happened. We did everything we could think of: fasted, prayed, had our members and other missionaries pray for us and worked really hard and nothing happened this weekend. We worked on three people we felt were the people we were supposed to work on and good things happened but no baptism.So today me and Elder Wilson feel pretty down and i´m not looking forward to my next interview with President Torgan. I just dont understand why President is pushing us so hard and i´m really finding it hard to go with him on this. But I´ll keep working so I´ll be alright.
In other news. I got the box this week and it was awesome ! The syrup and peanut butter and candy were a surprise but they´re amazing! Thanks for the recipes too. The only problem is we dont ever have a long time to cook except at nights but i´m still going to make very good use of these recipes so thank you soooo much! I also got a letter from Will this week and he sounded really excited to head out to the MTC. Thats crazy about Nick. He lost a TON of weight!
I also want to apologoze to mom because i forgot to wish her a happy Birthday last week. But Happy late Birthday mom! Also this week we ate at a members house that we hadn´t eaten at in a long time. The food we had was weird but my companion didn´t ask what it was until after we were done. I told him to never ask before we eat because i can eat it as long as i dont know what it is. Afterward i was informed that the very chewy meat that i had been eating was cow stomach! Apparently thats a regular dish up north near Porto. But the most surprising thing was i actually liked it! One of the member that made it for us also asked me to ask you to send beef jerky.He served with a lot of american companions when he served here in this mission (he´s form Porto) and feel in love with it. you dont have to send but i told him i would ask.
I also have a project for Mikey. If he has time i would like him to email me the lyrics to Kory Kumz´s first CD. I´ll have more requests for lyrics from the Liken movies but that will do for now.
Well, it sounds like everybody is doing well. Thanks for all the letters and emails! Keep praying for me and tell everyone i love them!
Élder Haws
This week was really tough. Everywhere I went i seemed to have bad luck. It started last monday when we went to play basketball with some of the Elders form around the mission. I was pretty excited about it because i hadn´t played basketball in two months and everybody kept talking themselves up soi thought it was going to be fun. When we got there i talked with one of the Zone Leaders and we talked about how everyone that was going to play that day thought they were amazing while we kept telling each other we were terrible. When we got to the church in that area (Cacem) we started bar-b-quing and then started playing. After the first game the Zone leader i talked to turned to Elder Wilson and said i was a shooter. Then we didnt´play for a while but the next game i played in was bad. We got killed and to had to that i messed up my finger. I was playing defense and reached in to steal the ball but missed and hit the Elder and jammed my fingers really bad. I thought i was fine but when i looked down at the ring finger on my left hand the tip was bent in the wrong direction. I didnt touch it but a second later it popped back into place. It hurt a ton but i kept playing and finished the game. People there thought i was crazy. Later that day i looked at my finger and it was really swollen and purple so i got kind of worried so we made a make-shift splint out of stuff from my first aid kit(thanks mom). Then we waited a day and called the Mission President´s wife and talked to her about it. She said she did the same thing when she played vollyball and that i probably just dislocated it and that i would be back to normal in about a month. It already feels really good and i´m even typing with it right now so i´m fine. Dont worry.
The other bad luck came at Interviews. As i may have told you, President Torgan very serious about baptism. He tells us that we should be baptizing every week and when we dont he comes down on us and tells us we dont have enough faith. I really have a hard time going with this plan because its really hard to baptize people and i also dont like feeling like a failure at the end of every week but this week he just told everyone that he doesn´t really care about baptizisms but doing the Lord´s will. He said that as long as we pray and find out the Lords will and do it thats whats important but he still really pushing baptism. I felt a little better after that but when he interviewed me and Elder Wilson on thursday night he said if we had enough faith we would find someone to baptize that weekend. The only probablem was we had no one marked for baptism. Both our interviews were good so we were really excited and motivated but as the days went along nothing happened. We did everything we could think of: fasted, prayed, had our members and other missionaries pray for us and worked really hard and nothing happened this weekend. We worked on three people we felt were the people we were supposed to work on and good things happened but no baptism.So today me and Elder Wilson feel pretty down and i´m not looking forward to my next interview with President Torgan. I just dont understand why President is pushing us so hard and i´m really finding it hard to go with him on this. But I´ll keep working so I´ll be alright.
In other news. I got the box this week and it was awesome ! The syrup and peanut butter and candy were a surprise but they´re amazing! Thanks for the recipes too. The only problem is we dont ever have a long time to cook except at nights but i´m still going to make very good use of these recipes so thank you soooo much! I also got a letter from Will this week and he sounded really excited to head out to the MTC. Thats crazy about Nick. He lost a TON of weight!
I also want to apologoze to mom because i forgot to wish her a happy Birthday last week. But Happy late Birthday mom! Also this week we ate at a members house that we hadn´t eaten at in a long time. The food we had was weird but my companion didn´t ask what it was until after we were done. I told him to never ask before we eat because i can eat it as long as i dont know what it is. Afterward i was informed that the very chewy meat that i had been eating was cow stomach! Apparently thats a regular dish up north near Porto. But the most surprising thing was i actually liked it! One of the member that made it for us also asked me to ask you to send beef jerky.He served with a lot of american companions when he served here in this mission (he´s form Porto) and feel in love with it. you dont have to send but i told him i would ask.
I also have a project for Mikey. If he has time i would like him to email me the lyrics to Kory Kumz´s first CD. I´ll have more requests for lyrics from the Liken movies but that will do for now.
Well, it sounds like everybody is doing well. Thanks for all the letters and emails! Keep praying for me and tell everyone i love them!
Élder Haws
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