Just in case‏

Hey Family,

Sounds like everybody is doing fine back there in the US. We´re not doing too bad ourselves here but we are coming off a tough week.

This week we decided that we were going to drop all of our invetigators that weren´t progressing and spen our time looking for new people to teach. I´m not a big fan of "procura" so i wasn´t too excited but things turned out ok. In the first three days of the week we found 7 new people which isn´t too bad. We´ve already gone back to talk to a few of them but the others are proving more difficult to meet with. After those first couple of days though, it kind of slowed down. We had interviews on Saturday so that took that entire day from us so the rest of the week was really slow.

On thursday though, we got to go the same enlgish speaking member family´s house to eat again. So in other words, we got to go to AMERICA again! They made us mashed potatoes and meat loaf...MASHED POTATOES! When they broughtthe potatoes out i could have cryed! We also had a kind of green bean casorole, which i ate two helpings of! Over all, our night in America was amazing. We also had a funny experience on the way there. So, in order to get to this members house we normally have to get on a boring train and ride for 20 minutes before arriving in their city. This week, the train ride was a bit more interesting. In the train station we ran into to a man who just happened to be a preacher from a pentacostal church. At first we thought he was just another crazy evangelical preacher guy so we quickly got away from him. But that wasn´t the end. He decided to sit by us on the 20 mintue train ride to the other city and made a scene on the way. When he sat down he asked what church we were from and then stated that he was, "a reserve preacher for the church, God is Love." Then, when the guy who checks peoples tickets came around, the guy went crazy. At first, the guy checking tickets asked if we were all from the same church and we assured him that we weren´t. Then, out of nowhere, this crazy "reserve" preacher reads the guy John 3:16 and then states that he (the "reserve" preacher) is a prophet. He then began to prophesy that the other man would one day preach the gospel and then precided to prophecy about everyone else on the train. Afterward,while everyone one on the train was laughing to themselves, he started singing some freaky christian song at the top of his lungs. It was the longest train ride of my life, at the time, but looking back on it it actually made the time pass a lot faster. It also makes for a great story too.

There were also a few people that commented on my speaking ability this week too. This week we were teaching a brazilian family and the mom made a cmomment and said that i spoke really well. I didn´t think much of it because everybody says that to the missionaries but then, at interviews this week, President Torgan commented on my language. He said, "Elder Haws, tua português já melhorou muito. Já tas a compreender tudo e tas a falar muitomais. Já melhorou muito mesmo"(not exact quote). basically he said i´ve gotten alot better with the language so i´m not sure if that means i spoke really bad in the past and now i speak ok, or if it means something else.

Interviews thios week were good too. Transfers are this week, so we all found out where we are going in our interviews. We when got there, we all sat down int he chapel with President Torgan and waited for the other missionaries to show up. It was kind of quiet when all of the sudden, President Torgan starts telling everyone where they are going. Me and Elder Thomas are staying together and so are the Zone Leaders so our district was untouched. The other two got hit though and one of them is getting "whitewashed". I was kind of sad that i´m staying because i was hoping for a new area but this i´m still kind of happy.

We also tried to mark our Brazilian couple agian but it didnt work. We even gave them the lesson president Torgan said to give them and it didn´t work. It was a really powerfull lesson and the funny thing was, i was really the one doing all the talking and not my companion. It was really funny because i´ve never talked that much in a lesson in my mission so it was interesting. At times i would be talking and i would think to myself, "I cant believe i´msaying this, this is so not me!" It really felt good to do alot of the talking and Elder Thomas said it was a really good lesson. We were both kind of frustrated but we´re getting over it. Then, yesterday in church the Youngmen´s president was gone so we had to teach the two deacons in the branch. They gave us the manual and again, i took over. I felt bad afterward for not letting Elder Thomas speak more but he said the lesson was good and that he didn´t mind at all. The deacons said it was a good lesson too so i guess i did alright.

Other than that, not much is happening. As for the box i cant really think if anything. But for future boxes, it would be awesome if you guys could send Mormon tabernacle choir CDs or EFY or Kory Kunz CDs because life´s tough with music.

Well, lifes good here in Portugal and I´m starting to realize i´m a missionary. Up to this point it hadn´t really hit me, but slowly, ever so slowly its been dawning on me. Well, i had better get going. I love you guys!

Élder Haws