The Week of Firsts‏

Hey Family,

It sounds like you all had a really exciting week! Its funny that Bentley was dunked 3 times but at leat he didn´t almost die like my first investigator we baptized here!

This week was great here too. We worked really hard and we taught a lot of lessons. In fact, we taught 31. Its not the 50 lessons i taught with Elder Davis and Elder Wilson but this time around i felt like i helped out a lot more so i feel more comfortable saying "we" taught 31 lessons. We also had a person we contacted on the street come to church when we had never taught him a lesson before so that was really cool too. And with all that we only had a few "things" happen.

The first misshap occured after district meeting tuesday where me and Elder Silva somehow took the Irmã´s phone without knowing it. We then traveled back to our area, and then had to travel back to the Irmãs area to try and find them. We never did so we just gave their phone to their bishop but in the process of all that we lost a fews hours of time. Then later in the week we were looking for someone to teach in an area of apartments and we figured we could go visit a less active member girl. This turned out to be a bad idea because this 18 year old black girl came to the door not wearing any pants...needless to say i looked at the ceiling while Elder Silva told her we´d come back later.

This week also was a week of firsts for me. This week i made my first complete phone call in portuguese. It wasn´t a long conversation but the information was passed and understod so thats the important part. This week i also taught and directed a lesson by myself, normally Elder Silva does most of the teaching and i say a little and testify but this time I did most of the teaching and he spoke a little and testified. It was really cool but really nerve racking too. Also, this week i was approached by a drunk man for the first time. Me and Elder Silva were waiting for a train and he decided to use the bathroom so we went to a local café so he could. While he was waiting insode i waited outside because its a little rude to go in a store or café and not buy something. While i was waiting a very, very drunk man came up behind me and asked me if i knew who Jesus was. Being a missionary i was more than happy to testify that Jesus was our redeemer, but this man had more to say. He was a spainard so he spoke slow so i got all of what he said, but none of it really made sense. He just kept saying that Jesus was his God and me, being nice agreed. Then after finishing his"speech" he said that he wasn´t Christian, but was "for Christ". It was an interesting experience that i admit i kind of enjoyed and now, i have another story to tell!

This week was also my six month mark so i decided i had to burn a tie. But ididn´t burn one in the normal way. I decided that i would give a tie to a member here who needed it and who had helped me a lot here. His name´s Fabioand he´s a huge black kid who´s hiliarious. He gave me a picture a while back to put on the back of my name tag but i decided it would be better to put it in my photo album. He´s helped me a lot since i´ve been here and he doesn´t have a tie to wear to church so i gave to him as an early Christmas present. So i guess in a way i "burned" a tie.

Today is transfers and anything could happen so me and Elder Silva are waiting for the phone call form the ZLs saying whats going to happen. We already know that a lot of areas will be closing because in the next two months we go from 115 missionaries(or so) to around 90. Also, Three entire districts of missionaries all became Junior companions again and had their temple recommends taken away because they broke a mission rule by traveling across the mission for thanksgiving and spend the night without permission.So we already know these transfers are going to be fun.

Also, i need you guys to send one of the pictures from the camera card to the office here as soon as possible. Our mission is making a photo album ofall the baptisms that are happening this month and sending them to prophet.If you guys could send the one of me with the investigor that would be great. Just adress it the same but put Elder Mateer´s name on the envelope instead of mine. I dont know if you guys go the card yet because noboady said anything so i´m a little worried, but hopefully it´ll work out. I´m praying that it does.

Well, thats it for news this week. Thanks for all the emails, love, and support!
Com Amor
Élder Haws