Seeing Stars‏

Hey Family,

It sounds like everyone surrvived the 4th of July and is enjoying cool weather. I on the other hand, cant say the same. I survived, but the weather right now is killing me. Some places in portugal are already reaching temperatures of 112 degrees...fun.

Well, this week is transfers and seeing as how i´m emailing so late, i already know whats happening. I figured i could wait to tell mom till the end of the email but i could imagine her strangling me all the way from Idaho. We got the call early this morning and i was actually one of the first people in our zone to get "the phone call". We probably got our call first because Elder Dalton is going to train next transfer here in Setúbal. He has been out in the feild for about 4 months and is already training. I´m excited for him but he´s really nervous. He´s training a native so it wont be too dificult but he´s still freaking out. But it seems like a lot of young elders are traing this transfer. In fact, one elder is traning in his second transfer. I on the other hand, am not. I feel a little sad about that because training is the only thing i really want to do as far as leadership goes but it looks like i´ll have to wait a little bit longer. But i guess you guys probably care more about where i´m going so i´ll get to the point. I´m headed to São Domingos, an area in the middle of Portugal. Its north of Lisbon and is actually a part of the city of Santarem. I´m also going to be the district leader there. The zone were i´m going is known for being "a little" tough. From what i hear there aren´t alot of members there and the people are a little more closed but i´m praying everything goes alright.

IN other news, we didnt baptize our investigator this week. When we went there to talk to him about his date he gave us a bunch of excuses why he couldn´t be baptized this week so we had a short lesson with his wife´s visiting teachers and them to talk about it. We taught him about fasting and commited him to fast about a new date and he agreed. Then, on saturday we got a call from the Zone Leaders and they gave us some advice on how to get him baptized in the near future. They told us to have him interviewedf for baptism so that the only thing he has to do is pick a day to get in the water. We liked that idea, so Elder Dalton had the idea of talking to him that nbight and setting up the interview, but then i decided to call our district leader so he could come and interview him that night instead of later, so that he could be baptized the next day. So later that day, our district leader took Elder Dalton to our investigators house while i went with another elder. When they got to his house, he had already started his fast and had recieved his answer as to which day he should be baptized. Unfortunantly that day is the first of August. They couldnt tell him that that wasn´t his answer so they just went with it. It was kind of hard on me, because i knew that i was going to leave this area, but i didnt want to leave this area without baptizing anyone. We already talked to some members today at our P-day get together, and they both said that i did a great job and that i did exactly what this area needed. This was the same member that tried cheering me up a bunch in the past. I feel sad that i have to leave this area somewhat empty handed but i know Elder Dalton and his greenie will see a lot of baptisms from the work that i did here.

With all that stuff that happened this week i feel like i´m seeing stars right now, and thats not just because we brought an american flag to our P-day party today. The party was pretty good. Last night the elders from the other side of Setúbal came and stayed the night at our house so we ended up playing a bunch of card games and we also tried to decide where people were going for transfers. I won the game of Texas Hold´em that we played and also our game of BullSh#$. Then today we all went to our chapel with alot of the missionaries from this zone and played basketball and ping pong. I did pretty well in both surprisingly. Every team i played on in basketball won, and i beat a bunch of people in the Ping pong tournament we had. I didnt take 1st place but i did make it pretty far so i´m happy with that. I haven´t played too much lately but thats no excuse. And right now we´re just doing internet before we go and get ready to go do goodbye visits to some people.

This week has been crazy but its been good too. I´m nervous about my next area but i´m trying not to worry about it. Keep praying for me.

Well i better get going...

Hopefully all goes well. Thanks for all the emails and love that you guys keep sending. Eu amo vocês!

Élder Haws