Sunday, July 25, 2010‏

Hey Family,

I made it through one more week in the furnace that is Santarém, and whats better, i made it through without injuries.

This week was another uneventful week here in Portugal for me and Elder Bradshaw. As always, we spent m ost of our week looking for new people to teach, yet failed miserablly. I have to say that this may be one of the toughest areas i have yet to serve in, which sometimes make me wonder why i got put here. We´re working hard but sometimes it really seems hard to see the fruits of our labors. But even though this was a pretty tough week, we saw some hope yesterday at church. I say that because we finally had a new investigator in church! Well, he´s not an investigator yet, but he will be...we hope. He´s actually the grandson of a member thats been inactive for about 20 years. He seems like a pretty cool kid, considering he´s about 12. I figured he´d be really hyperactive and out of control but he´s a pretty calm kid. We found him last week after changing our focuses.

Normally we try to go out and knock doors to try and find new people to teach, but recently, that hasn´t been working. So one day we were walking down the street and we ran into a member who gave us some really good advice. We talked to her about how the work was going and how we were trying to find new people. She then suggested that we try visiting inactive members in our area because there are a bunch of them. We thought that was a good idea so we started visting the inactive people from our ward list. Nothing was going well when we started, but we did manage to mark an appointment with one member. When we went back, her visiting teachers were just leaving, and they told us they had a taught her a lesson and that she had promissed to come to church on sunday. We thought that was great but decided that we should still go up and talk to her. When we got to the door she seemed a little surprised to get two sets of visitors in less than an hour, but seemed happy to see us. She told us she wanted to come back to church, but that her work schedule makes it hard, but that her visiting teachers would come everyweek to get her grandson to take him to to church, even if she couldn´t go. At the time we didn´t think much of it, but as we walked down the stairs of her apartment building me and Elder Bradshaw looked at each other and thought for a second. Then we quickly pulled out the ward member list and found that her grandsons name was circled because he hasn´t been baptized yet. It was like a miracle. We already talked to him at church and it looks like he has some promise. We´re pretty sure he´ll get baptized here soon but we´re still not a hundred percent sure. So we´ll see what happens.

In other news this week, i discovered EFY music on the IPOD we have in our house so now thats pretty much all we listen to now. Well, that and the soundtrack from the "Best Two Years". The music kind of makes me trunkey but its better than nothing.

This week we also ran out of money so today we had to use our own personal money to buy food. But dont worry because i just used the left over money that i pulled out last week. I shouldn´t have to pull out money for a while now so you can rest at ease.

This week is also the week we have Zone Conference, but this time its different. Not only am i now a district leader, but Elder Teixeira is also coming. That may sound really awesome at first, but then when you consider the fact that Elder Teixeira is known for giving faca, that "awesomeness" disappears. I´m not too worried because i think that faca has stopped phasing me like it used to.

It sounds like everybody travled quite a bit this week, except for me. I would have liked to take a break from the 114 degree weather but i shouldn´t complain too much because the Zone leaders we live with have to deal with the temperature AND they have to baptize more than anybody else because they´re zone leaders (haha). I´m just counting my blessings right now.

Well, i think thats it for news. But i almost forgot...Remind Mikey that Portugal barely lost to the team that won the World cup, while Brazil lost to the team that took 2nd. I just thought he would like to know. Well, thanks for everything. Eu amo vocês!

Seu penguim no forno,
Élder Haws
(Portugal é o melhor!)