Where am I?‏

Hey Family,

This was a pretty crazy week here in the middle of now where. Coming into the area i new it was going to be a tough first week but i didnt now exactly how it would go. But we survived so i cant complain too much.

So as i mentioned in my email last week, one of the ole missionaries is staying with us till tomorrow because hes going home in the middle of this week. His name´s Elder Miller and i was in the MTC with him, so i´d seen him around the mission a few times. I figured that he would be pretty "dead" and i was right. We spent most the week in trhe house soing little to nothing so if we wver left the house i counted the day as a success whether we taugh anyone or not. Luckly, we left the house everyday, but the purpose of leaving and the time outside varied form day to day. It was a pretty tough week for me because i wanted to push him to work more but i couldn´t figure out how. He did a good job of showing us the area and we got along really well as a tripla but i just felt terrible this whole week because we wasted so much time. And i know the only person i can blame is myself, but i´ve already started the repentance process and am moving on so theres no worries there.

But it was also a really tough week being around somebody so trunkey and ready to go home because that made me realize how close i am to going home. I tried not to focus on it but the only i could do while we were in the house was study the scriptures and read old letters form family and firends, which didnt help much. But i´m glad i got this week out of the way. I kept telling myself i only had to make it through this week and things would get better and now i can finally say i made it.

But as for the new area...I freaking love this place! I dont know if you guys have seen any pictures of Évora put the whole city is built within castle walls. Ourt house is actually a house, and not just an apartment in some apartment complex that all my other mission houses have been. All the streets are tiny nad full of shops, which is always how i had imagined Europe before my mission. I´ve always wanted to serve in a town like this, not just because its really pretty, but also because everybody here is crazy! All the ward members are great but they all have something that makes them a little weird, while other members are just plain crazy. The branch is super small, but really tightly nit. They love having activites and throwing parties and everytime they get together it always turns into a party. For example, yesterday they were doing there Relief Society comemoration Luncheon when it turned to a huge "Festa". They invited the whole branch because there arent that many women here, but after the luch they had we ended up playing games for 4 hours. It was hilarious to see old portuguese people play games that they had learned for the hundreds of missionaries that havce come through here. They really love the elders here, eventhogh the last few missonaries were "Fubecas". I´m actually worried becasue the branch is really attached to Elder Miller. But i´m sure everythign wil be fine.

As for investigators...there are none. I was actually surprised to hear that but then Elder Miller told me they have benn trying to keep the branch together because there is an apostate, active, member(its hard to explain him) who has been driveing members away form the church. As a matter of fact, the branch used to have around 60 people who were active, but now it only has like 24. I know it might not be entirly this members fault, but after talking to him for 45 minutes i saw why he causes so many problems. APOSTACY!

But to answer Mom´s questions...

I actually got an email from Ethan today, so i guess he figured out my address.

about the Trombone...I have no idea what to do. I havent touched, let alone seen a tombonbe for almost 3 and a half years. Plus, i never ws that good anyway, but i´ll think about and let you guys know later. But why does Mikey wasnt me in the band?

Elder Thomas lives in St. George Utah...actually a small town outside of St. George called Hurricane. He´s planning on going to UVU or BYU and says he wants to ahng out when i go down there but thinking about that makes me trunkey, so i dont think about it.

The BYU basketball news made my day. Thanks for the updates family!

I also got both of Jenny´s emails so you guys can let her know that she can save her computer from a beating.

Well, i think thats it for news this week. Thanks for all the love and support. Keep praying for us. Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Élder Haws

Sunday, March 16, 2011‏

Hey Family,

I´m sorry for writing so late today but i just barely found out whats happening to me and Elder Thredgold for transfers. Were getting white washed and i´m heading to the area where i will probably end my mission, while Elder Thredgold is heading to an area up near Lisbon. My new area is Evora. Its the "middle of no where" Portugal where there are few members and the members that are active, are weird. The last three duplas of missionaries that have served there were slackers and the branch there didnt seem to like them much. I´m white washing it with a young Elder named Elder Filrup so we´ll see how it goes. One of the missionaries who was serving there is going home early next week so he´ll be with us for a while to show us around the area. I talked to him a minute ago and he says the area is like the last three areas i´ve had...dead. And he also said the branch is falling apart so these final transfers will be fun.

This week was a pretty good week. we talked to that family we helped but we didnt feel anything too strongly from them. We felt after the lesson that they listened to us because they felt bad about accepting food from the church. we still dont know whats going to happen with them but hopefully the new elders here will get things going for them. The African family we found a few weeks ago wasnt home when we past by them(after marking the appointment) so they too lost some points in my book. Thats 3 or 4 appointments that they´ve skipped out on in a row so i´m not too happy with them.

In other mission news, Elder Thomas, who i served with a year ago, is going home this week. He was my zone Leader these past two transfers and it was good to remember the good times when we had a bunch of baptisms together. But now hes headed home and is planning on seeing me at BYU. He doesnt know if he´s going to BYU or UVU but will be in the same general area. last week we went to the beach as a zone and played football in the sand. It ws fun because 3 of the Elders there were or had been my companions. It was also really fun because the other people on the beach had now idea what we were doing. Then on Friday, the other elders in our district called us because they needed our projector again so we headed over there and spent the entire day with them. They had 4 baptisms that day(one dupla had 3 the other had 1) and afterward they had a dance for the members and recent converts. As missionaries we couldn´t do much much but we made sure to enjoy the food and to laugh at the members. I took a bunch of videos and pictures so i´ll have to send those to you guys another day.

We also didnt have zone Conference this week because the mission´s planning got all screwed up. They´re going to have it this week which will be annoying because its going to be really expensive to go back and forth form my area. So i might have to pull out some more money, even though i promised i wouldn´t, but i dont have much of a choice. Sorry.

I´m glad to hear that BYU is doing better than they were last week. All the missionaries who are BYU fans(and there are a few) were heartbroken all last week. But knowing we did better this week cheered us up a bit, so thanks for the updates dad!

You can also tell Jenny that i got both her emails, even though i forgot to delete some emails. My inbox shouldn´t even be close to being full because we have gmail now and our in boxs are huge, but i´ll delete some stuff just in case.

And i dont mind living with Mikey at all. I´ve actually been looking forward to it(but not too much, because thats trunkey). I thought i might be able to room with Elder Thomas, but he doesnt know where hes going to school so i´ll just plan on chilling with Mikey.

Well, i think thats it for news. I´m really going to need your guys´ prayers in my new area, but i know you guys are always praying for me because i´m always seeing the blessing from those prayers. So thanks again for all the love and support! Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,
Élder Haws

A Quick Note

Hey Family,

We made it through another week here in Vasco, and we only have more more it'll we have transfers. So next week i should have news of whats happening.

But thankfully this week was better than last week. Granted it was much better, but better none the less. We worked hard throughout the week but nothing really seemed to happen. We talked to an investigator who smokes more cigarettes than marboral can produce about everyday this week because he told us he was following the plan to stop smoking that we made for him. But it turned out that he couldnt follow it and gave up near the end of the week. But at about the time that happened, we found a new family to teach. We were knocking doors in a an area that i felt impressed to knock when we found a young family in a small apartment. We said a prayer with them and talked to them a little bit but we didnt think much of them until they called us the next morning. We had left a pamphlet wiht our number on it with them the night before and told them to call us if they needed anything but they told us that everything was alright. BUt the next morning the wife called saying that they had no food and they needed help. We ended up calling our branch president and visited their house to see if we could do anything. The branch President called the stake president and then made a food order for the family that we took by later that day. They were really grateful and wanted to pay the church back some how. Our Branch president told them they could help clean our chapel with his family and also listen to us as the missionaries. They accepted and just like that, we had two new investigators. Our Branch President said he felt skeptical at first about the family, but that after he had talked to them he felt something special about them. We havent taught them yet but we ran into them this morning on the street and set up a lesson for tonight. Hopefully it goes well.

Other than that not much happened this week.

This week we have Zone Conference with President Torgan so that will be good day. It´ll also be interesting because he sometimes tells people where they are going in these meetings when they happen this close to transfers. So we´ll see what happens.

You guys can tell jenny that i got her email with out pictures. I´ll delete some emails and hopefully next week it´ll get through again.

Well, i dont have much time because elder Thredgold has to use the same computer this week. Sorry. I´ll write more next week i promise. Thanks for all the prayers! Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Élder Haws

February 27: Why We´re Here

Hey Family,

Thanks for all the emails and info you sent. I´m not sure if i was supposed to get an email from Jenny this week because i didnt get one. Tell her i´ll pray this week that her email gets through because i really miss getting pictures of the nephews! But anyway, on to business...

This may have been one of the worst weeks i´ve had on my mission statistically, because our numbers were awful. But it made me feel better that we had two great excuses as to why we sucked so bad this week. The first reason is interviews. We got a call for the zone Leaders last Monday night saying that we were going to have interviews on Thursday, which meant that we would be in Setúbal all day. The second reason our numbers were bad was because we got a call on Friday from the other elders in our district saying that they needed us to bring the projector from our chapel to theirs. They were having a big activity with a bunch of investigators and members but had trouble getting a hold of a projector so they could show the movie they wanted. So we had to someone of the branch presidency to give us permission to take it to the other elders. They gave us permission but only on the condition that we had to bring it right back. So we had to stay for the entire activity and ended up getting home at 10:30. But according to President Torgan, "There are no pretty excuses, only repentance". So this week i´m determined to improve our numbers, but also the amount of time we dedicate to the work. Hopefully things turn out better.

But the work we DID do this week had good results. We only taught a few lessons but we got a chance to talk to that family and had a great lesson. We had planned on teaching the third lesson, about the gospel of Jesus Christ, which includes baptism. I had known we were going to have to teach this lesson since last week and i knew we had to invite them in some way to be baptized. I was really worried about how we were going to do it, but then i remembered something that a lot of Elders have used and also that is taught in Preach My Gospel. Its something i call "The Soft Invite" or in Portuguese, "O Convite Fofo" (that actually doesnt make much sense in Portuguese). It were we invite the investigators to be baptized when they receive a testimony of what we have taught. Its nothing new to missionary work, but i just barely discovered it and thought it would be good to use on this family. So going into that lesson i was extremely nervous, even to the point to where i prayed about half a dosent times asking for help and comfort. And not surprisingly, all those prayers were answered. When we went into the lesson i made sure to reexplain the Great Apostasy and the need for the restoration of the priesthood, because that always seems to be everyone´s doubt about our message. So after explaining that, i explained about Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. They accepted everything we said so at the end i left the invite with them to be baptized when they know these things are true. They all paused for a second...then said yes! I dont think i´ve ever felt so much relief from anxiety in my life than i did in that moment. And i know its not a sure thing, but at least now they know why we´re here. So now i´m praying everything works out with this family.

The day after that lesson, we had interviews with President Torgan. I didnt think my interview was going to be anything special, but this time it was. When he sat me down he started talking about how i was ending my mission and how he remembered me when i was a new missionary. I almost wanted to stop him because he was reminding me of how trunkey i COULD be, but i let him go. He then told me that i need to trust more in the Lord. But he didnt spend much time on what i needed to work on because he had some other things he wanted me to know. He said that he knows i´m a good missionary and that i deserve to see alot of baptisms and miracles from here until the end of my mission. He also explained to me that i´m serving where i am because i need to prepare my companion to be a leader. President Torgan said he needs to learn how to be a missionary and be a leader so the Lord put me with him so i could help him out. During the interview he almost started crying when he talked about my mission. He told me he really wanted me to finish my mission strong, with alot of baptisms and i think that one of the reasons he got all teary eyed is because he wants that to happen so bad. It was a great interview and it left me feeling great, but it was hard to keep those good feelings up after a tough week.

If i understand correctly, Mom is going to so some kind of rap this week. My only request is that a recording is made so that i can see it when i get home.

Well, I think thats it for news. Thanks for all the love and prayers! Eu amo vocês!

Com Amor,

Élder Haws

Finally! A Family!

Hey Family,

I happy to say that this week was a big improvement from last week. We still had a few trials that came up here and there but over all i´m actually really happy with the work we´ve done this week. Hopefully we can keep it up.

I guess the biggest new this week is that we found a new family to teach. In all we found 4 new investigators, which is a big improvement from 0. But out of all of them i think the family was the real high point of the week. We found them by knocking doors but that doesnt describe the whole story. IN my third or fourth week here in this area we started knocking in a area of the city where the Elders had previously knocked a few transfers back, hoping we would find somebody to teach, because at the time(and presently) our investigator count isnt very good. But we ended up knocking into Fernanda, a non practicing catholic who wanted nothing to do with us but said we could come by the house she was moving to to say a prayer with her family. I didnt think much of it at the time because she didnt seem interested at all. But at the end of the transfer we went by her new apartment and ended up talking with her husband, who seemed more interested than Fernanda. But even so, we still didnt make a big effort to go back. But this Wednesday night, all of our plans had fallen through, so we decided to head over to this family´s house to see if we could set up an appointment to go by another day. But this time, when we knocked on their door, Fernanda´s sister who has already had some contact with the church answered the door. She asked if they could start "the studying" immediately, as in the next day when the whole family would be home. I thought it was kind of strange that she asked us to come back, especially when her sister seemed uninterested, but when went back the next day despite my doubts. But to my surprise the family was there and they were ready to listen. We found out too that they have a mother and sister who are already members of the church and that they went to church a few times back in the 90´s. We ended up talking to them for quite some time then marked an appointment to come back to he next day to teach Vanda´s(Fernanda´s sister) daughter too. When we left their house i was already day dreaming about bringing this family to church and getting them baptized, but the second lesson we had with them humbled me a little bit. I say that because when we invited them to church they gave us the answer that i´ve heard many times on my mission..."We´ll go someday". But some other elders in this mission have come to a conclusion that i completely agree with. It is as follows...There are two things that NEVER happen:1)I will call you & 2) we´ll go to church next Sunday(or another day).

But fell that they also have put a little but more importance on us helping the daughter with her english homework than the gospel. But i´m sure that if we keep praying and stay positive everything will work out.

The other two people we found this week was a single mother with a lot of problems and a crazy guy. I´m more excited about the mother than the crazy dude because the crazy guy didnt really accept what we said and only seems to want to get food or other stuff form the church. He also wouldn´t let us prayer, but made me recite some weird prayer with him instead that kind of sounded like the Lord´s prayer. So i´m not too excited to go back to his house but we´ll see what happens.

I´m glad you guys liked the pictures i sent last week. I know it had been a while since i sent some but lately i´ve only served in areas with really slow computers so its been tough.

And i guess Jenny´s email didnt get through because i didnt get one from her this week. Its not a problem i´m just worried Jenny is going to bust her computer. Thats all.

In other news, the Transfer is half over now. Is kind of hard to believe that because this has been one of the slowest transfers i´ve had in a while. Time just seems to drag by but i guess thats good because it makes my mission seem longer. :)

Well, I cant think of anything else new to tell you guys this week. Thanks for everything! Keep praying for us!

Eu amo Vocês!

Com amor,

Élder Haws

Surprise!

Hey Family,

Thanks for all the updates on everybody this week. Its nice to know that everybody is doing fine. We´re doing alright here but we just came off a pretty tough week.All in all, things were pretty normal this week. We went about working like we normally do but this week President Torgan gave the mission a few challenges that took a tole on us.

It all started on Tuesday night when we got a phone call from the zone leaders telling us that President Torgan had prayed and felt that he should challenge every area in the mission to find 20 new investigators this week. That wasn´t all that unexpected because we get challenges like that all the time from PT(President Torgan). But later in the week he prayed again and felt that every area in the mission had someone they could baptize before the end of the week. So he then challenged everyone to not only find 20 investigators but also to baptize before Sunday night. The first invite i readily accepted, even though our average new investigator count per week is 2. But i felt that having a bigger vision would push us and help us to improve. The second invite was a bit harder to accept because we have no one that is progressing quickly, if at all, towards baptism. But we accepted the challenge and prayed to see who the Lord wanted us to baptize. Unfortunately, no one came to mind that met all the requirements for baptism so we did our best to work hard and hope the Lord would show us who he wanted us to baptize this week. But, when Sunday came around, nobody had been baptized and we had found 0 new investigators. I took it pretty well at first but after i talked to our District leader i got to feeling pretty down. But i´ve decided i cant focus on it too much. I just have to get back to work and do better this week.

But in happier news we have two investigators that "showed signs of life" this week. One is a teenage kid that said he felt good when he read in the Book of Mormon for the first time and the other is an evangelical guy who got really interested in what we had to say when we started talking about life after death. We didnt have a lot of time to talk to either of them because they were both kind of busy but this week will be able to check up on them a little better. We also didnt get a chance to talk to Ofélia this week but we should hopefully be able to talk to her this week.

I also got a surprise visit yesterday at church from some people i knew. Mario, the guy i almost baptized in Setúbal but got baptized right after i left, showed up at our chapel yesterday because he found out i was serving near by. He and his wife Sandra showed up out of now where because they wanted to surprise me. I couldnt believe it when i saw them there in the chapel but it was great seeing them. They told me they missed me and that they haven´t quite enjoyed the other Elders like they enjoyed me and Elder Dalton. They also made sure to tell the Branch President that i was a great Elder and told them how i helped Mario get baptized. I felt a little embarrassed but i felt good that i had made a difference in somebody´s life. They also gave us a box full of cakes and gave us a ride home from church, which gave us time to talk. They´re doing really well, and Elder Thredgold told me later that he was surprised they are new members because they seemed like they were already really strong. Mario is the Young Mens president and has been helping the Elders. Since i´ve been gone they´ve baptized a bunch of youth so i guess he´s been helping out a bit. But it was strange because when they dropped us off after church i felt great but later i started feeling pretty down because i was home sick for Setúbal and because our week didnt go very well. But seeing and talking to that family really made me feel great. Recently i had been doubting my success and worth as a missionary, but it seems that Heavenly Father knew exactly what to do answer my doubts. Its actually kind of funny because he did the same thing when was doubting myself in Tavira. During that time we had a district conference and i got to see the members i baptized there too. So i guess it seems Heaven Father had been looking out for me all along!

So i see Mike is wearing glasses again. Is that an attempt and being fashionable to get more girls or did just get bored with contacts?

Well, today is Valetine´s day, which means my comp might get depressed.They have decorations and advertisements up of couples so it might make him homesick for his girlfriend. I pray it doenst. So this could be a long day and a long week but i´ll survive.

Well, i think thats it for news this week. Thanks for all the prayers and love. Dont stop praying for us! Eu amo vocês!

Com Amor,

Élder Haws

Big Changes

Hey Family,

The first week February and of this transfer are gone but i shouldn´t say i´m counting. In fact, Elder Torgersen(my old companion) called me this morning and told me we only had 17 weeks left in the mission. It was a strange feeling i got when i heard it because i finally realized my mission is winding down. But those thought s and feelings will disappear quickly as soon as we get back to work here. So you guys dont have to worry about me being trunkey!

But more important news, this week went pretty well for us. It seemed to last for an eternity but thats normal for the first week of a new transfer. We weren´t able to talk to the investigators we wanted to meet with(Ana Paula and Tiago), but we marked an appointment with Tiago´s entire family for tonight. I´m a little nervous for the lesson because i´m still not a hundred percent sure what we are going to say to them and because this lesson could determine if we will be able to baptize Tiago in the near future. But i know the Lord will help us out.

We also had a really neat experience last night that lead to us finding a new investigator. Lately its been tough to find new people to teach so when it comes time to start knocking doors, its hard to stay pumped. But President Torgan has given the mission lots of ideas on finding new people that have helped alot of missionaries out. One of those ideas is to offer prayers on homes and families which has given me alot of success on my mission. So last night we were knocking doors and offering these prayers trying to find someone who would talk to us. No one was really interested in anything we had to say, which is normal, that was until we found Ofélia. We knocked on her door and for some reason she seemed different from the other people we had talked to up to that point. She stood and listened to my entire contact and invitation and didnt interrupt me once!(which happens alot) But she accepted the prayer and told us a little about herself. She said that she was having some problems in her life so in the prayer i tried to follow the spirit and pray for the things she needed most. Then as we ended the prayer, i looked up and she was crying. I´m guessing that the spirit touched her because when we gave her a pamphlet and asked to come back she didnt hesitate in saying yes. And though this may not seem like a huge miracle, to me it was the exact blessing that i needed at that moment. So guess you could call that one of my "Little Wonders".

I also forgot to tell you guys something that we heard in the Zone conference two weeks ago. With such big news wouldn't think i would forget but i did. But as on July 1, 2011 the Portugal Lisbon Mission and the Portugal Porto mission will be combined to form the Portugal Mission. The general authority that announced it was very excited for the change because he said that it means the work in Portugal is improving greatly. President Torgan will be the Mission President of the newly created misison but i wont be here to see. it. Unfortunately i go home 3 weeks before. But at least i can feel satisfied knowing that i helped at least in some small way.

I heard that Jenny had to have surgery? What happened and is she going to be alright? I figured something was up when i didnt get an email form her because she only doesn't write when something disastrous happens(like the breaking of a camera :) ).

Well, i think thats about it for news. Thanks for all the love and support! Keep praying for us! Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Élder Haws