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