What Really Counts?‏

Hey Family,

The temperature is still unbearably hot here but life is still good. We had a pretty good but uneventful week here in Satarém, which seems to be a normal thing around here.

The week went pretty normal, as i had expected. Everything worked out with the baptism so there were no problems there. We taught her everything then had one of the zone leaders interview her. We had a lot of member help with tht ebaptism so that was great too. It was really strange though because it didnt feel like the baptisms i´ve had in the past. I think i felt differently about because i didn´t have as big a part in the baptism as i usually do. I really noticed that a baptism means more when you really know and love the people you are working with. In the past, that wasn´t a problem because i was part of the dupla that taught everything or resolved doubts or answered questions and gave support, but this time, the other Elders had pretty much already done that. I still felt good about the baptism but it wasn´t the same. I guess that just gave me more motivation to have a baptism of my own now.

I also had another good experiece this week when i got a phone call from Elder Dalton. He called me up right before our baptism on saturday to tell me how Setúbal was doing. He talked about how the two people we had marked were still doing well and also said that he marked one more of our investigators for baptism too. I already knew he was a better missionary than me but i have to admit that it surprised me when he told me that he had marked someone else already. That day was a little tough on me because i was really home sick for Setúbal. I started looking back and seeing all the opportunities that i hadn´t taken advantage of and started to regret some things. I also felt pretty down because i wasnt going to see those people get baptized but after awhile i felt a little better. I´m trying to tell myself that baptisms dont matter as much as working hard does but sometimes its hard to believe that. Its also hard to believe that i´m going to see more baptisms here in São Domingos because there isn´t much going on here right now. No investigators come to church, we not really teaching anybody who´s doing anything, and we cant seem to find anybody new to teach. I think i have to say that this area is probably the most dificult area i have served in by far, but i´ll survive. I think the key is to just stay positive. But the good news is, living in a four Elder house makes styaing happy and staying positive a lot easier.

Living with four Elders is alot of fun, but can also cause few problems. We have a lot of fun talking and telling jokes but sometimes those jokes go too far and sometimes we stay up too late just talking. So alot of the time we wake up a little bit slower than usual, which causes more problems so we obviously have some things to work on. Our taste in music is questionable as well so thats another thing we have to work on. But other than that we have a lot of good clean fun. Earlier in the transfer, when we spent alot more time in the house, i one of the zone leaders taught me how to do a rubix cube so add that to my list of things i learned on my mission. In our spare time at night we will sometimes play a board game . Risk, that we found in our old house. One of the Zone leaders also has one of Warrens favorite games, settlers of catan, in portuguses so we have played that some time too. All in all we have a lot of fun but there are still a few things we need to improve.

We also spend a lot of time talking about transfers, which is pointless because they are so far away. Everyone says i´m going to train next transfer because we have about 20 greenies coming in. I dont really want to train in this area because nothing is really going on, which would make thigns a lot harder. I would love to train right at the end of my mission but the Zone leaders dont think thats possible. So now i spend most of my time joking with zone leaders but asking them what things i have to do to not train next transfer. But the outlook doesn´t look good.

Other than that life is good. We working hard and trying to do our best. I just hope that "our best" will brign us some sucess or at least someone to teach!

Well i had better get going. Thanks for everything! Keep praying for me! Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,
Élder Haws
(or Élder Hauns as the people of Santarém say)