Forever Young‏

Hey Family,

We had a crazy general conference weekend, which we just returned from, but we survived and had a great time doing it.

So the first thing you guys need to know is that my companion, Elder Fillerup, is a leper. No, not a real "leper", but he has some skin problems that make it hard for him to work some times. But to explain the situation in a nut shell, he has very sensitive skin that has a tendency to create blisters very, VERY easily. So you can imagine that walking around all day in the hot sun would create large blisters on anyones feet(dont worry mom, mine are fine), but just imagine the blisters on my Companions feet. I even thought about sending some pictures home, but i didnt want anybody to pass out. So thats the situation wh were in. We´ve been trying to work really hard, but part way through last week Elder Fillerup´s feet were looking and feeling, "quite afflicted". But a few weeks ago he bought crutches so that he could give his feet a break, but then he got big blisters on his hands. We told the members what was going on, because they wanted to know why he was on crutches. After explaining the situation, they told us to go home and let him rest. I wasn´t big on the idea, but i realized its better to keep my companion alive, than kill him while trying to save the area. That was Thursday, which meant that our next few days were going to take a hit. We stayed in the house a bit to give Elder Fillerup a break, but i just kept feeling like i was supposed to be out in the street. It killed me at times, but i just had to keep telling myself that i had pushed him really hard over the past few days, maybe a little too hard, and that he really needed a break.

So thats the first part of the story. But before this last week, we had Zone Conference, where Elder Fillerup had the chance to talk to Irmã Torgan about his feet. she said that the mission Doctor was coming to Portugal for a short time and that he would be able to take a look at it to see if he could do anything. So this week, when i called President Torgan to ask where me and Elder Fillerup were supposed to go to see conference, because cant transmit it to Évora, he told us to go to Lisbon on Saturday so that we could watch conference in the office on Sunday, then talk to the Doctor on Monday. That kind of killed our weekend but we were glad that we were able to see conference and to spend time with the other elders. Before heading up, we worked here for a bit and then went and bought a bunch of candy to eat during the conference, then later headed up to Lisbon after watching the first session of conference. So this weekend we stayed with the Office Sectaries, which was a lot of fun because i was in the MTC with 2 of them, was the first district leader of the youngest of them, and shared an area with the other. we had a ton of fun talking, telling mission stories, and watching conference. Alot of other missionaries i knew showed up too so we had a pretty big conference party going on. Our candy was also a huge hit with all the elders(and Irmãs) so we were pretty popular. We got to see almost all of conference, except i think i missed Elder Hales´ talk. Other than that we saw pretty much everything. And on Sunday we went and ate at a senior couple Missionaries house for lunch and it felt like we were back in America. It was awesome!

But the whole time we were there, it seemed like the younger Office secretaries were determined to make us older guys trunky. As a matter of fact, right before i got there they had printed off the picture of my MTC district and the elders that came in with us at the mission home that first night in Portugal and had written at the top of the paper, "Forever Young". And as a funny coincidence, i heard that song twice of the weekend, so imagine that.

But this morning, when Elder Fillerup talked to the doctor, nothing really happened. They talked for about 15 miuntes but nothing was really decided. The Doctor hadnt really seen anything like it before, which Elder Fillerup was a bit surprised and upset about(mainly because he didnt so anything right then). But he said he was going to talk to the Skin doctor/professor at BYU and then let us know what will happen. I imagine this skin thing is really rare so i dont blame the doctor at all for not knowing exactly what to do. But i talked to President Torgan while he was getting checked up and told him about how we were working despite Elder Fillerup´s blisters. He was really proud of Elder Fillerup and said that he was an example to all the missionaries in the mission, but that he wasn´t sure how long a missionary can stay on the mission with a problem like that. But when we finisher up there we headed back to Évora and got back just a little bit ago.

It was a ton of fun being with the other elders, but it was also really trunky. I had to help out with some stuff and even had to go to the Airport this morning which was weird, because i still remember being terrified while getting off the plane. Then when i left, everyone told me the next time they would see me would be when we are going home, which was also really trunkey, but i got over it quick.

So all in all it was a really good week. I was surprised that the General Authorities were giving all the young guys "Faca" for not getting married. So tell MIkey I´ll be expecting a wedding invation in the mail here in the next few weeks.

Well, i better get going. Thanks for all the love and support! Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Élder Haws

The White Shirts‏

Hey Family,

This was one crazy week, so i´m really glad its over.

We spent Tuesday night through thurdsay morning in Setúbal for Zone conference, so that took a big chunk out of our week. But we got Elder Miller sent off Tuesday afternoon so that was a big help too. BUt while we were there in Setúbal, we had some down time so i got to surprise the family that surprised me in Vasco. It was way funny because when the lady opened the door and started to freak out a little. My companion is still pretty new and had littlt idea what was going on so it was pretty fun to watch his expressions. I only talked to the wife because the husband was at some church leadership meeting, but they told me to come by the next day to eat dinner with them like "old times". It would have worked because we missed our bus back to Évora so we had to stay in Setúbal but the zone leaders needed our help so i couldnt go. Bu while i was there in Setúbal i got sick, so when we finally got back to Évora i spent the first couple hours sleeping to try and recover. But after that the work picked up a little bit so the week ended well.

In Church yesterday i had to give a talk, play the piano, and teach in Priesthood quorum. The only thing that went well was the lesson in Priesthood, which i got alot of compliments for. The spirit was really strong, which helped quite a bit, so i cant take any credit.

We also talked to the guy that came to church last week and loved the reading that we left with him. He read the chapter 4 times(3 nephi 11) and loved the verses about baptism! how weird is that. So we committed him to baptism when he knows the Book of Mormon is true so he´s our ray of hope right now.

But in other news, i keep forgetting to tell you guys the funny story that happened a few weeks ago in Vasco during Carnival. On that P-day, me and Elder Thredgold were walking home from buying food for the week at 8:30 when we had an interesting experience. Normally we dont go shopping that late at night but we didnt have any food and we had spent the day in Setúbal with the other elders. But on the way home we ran into a group of kids wearing masks and holding sticks that were walking in our direction. IN that moment i remembered the traing that President Torgan gave in our last zone conference talking about how two missionaries had been robbed because they hadn´t returned to their area on time after P-day(which was our case at that moment). So we tried to avoid the group as best we could by staying on the side walk, which put a parked car between them and us. But unfortunately, one kid stayed on the side walk to stop us. We didnt make a scene so we just kept walking until they called after us to stop. So we turned around and started talking to them. The head punk walked up and said, "Give me a card". So i, being the missionary i am, handed him a pass along card. He looked at it, then at his group in a puzzled way, then turned back to us and asked us what it was, while waving it in his face. We explained that it was a card for a free movie about Christ that we were offering and gave a card to one of his friends. They started looking at the card, and then one of them said that his mom would probably want one. They talked a little bit more and then said they´d call us tomorrow and then left. We didnt think much of that conversation until the next day when we had district meeting. We told the other elders that we thought they were going to rob us, as kind of a joke before the meeting started but our District leader, who´s a native of Portugal, wasnt laughing. I asked him what he was thinking when he said, "Elder, they probably weren´t asking for just a card, but your guys´ credit cards". At that moment i was grateful that the Lord blessed us with protection even though we weren't in the right place. But at the same time i thought it was funny that some kids got deterred by a pass along card. I still dont know if they were actually going to rob us, but either way it makes for a good story.

But in some other funny news, we´ve run onto a few American Tourists here in Évora. The other day we ran into a guy from Salmon who was on a trip with some people. He was member and told us it "its good to see the white shirts". We talked to him for a bit, but then he went back to his group. Then, during our first week here, we were walking near the big palace of Évora when some tourist looking people started staring at us. As one of the Ladies saw my name tag, she half asked, half exclaimed(in English),"ARE YOU MORMON MISSIONARIES?" we had to try hard not to laugh but luckily one of her friends told her, "they´re everywhere". It was funny to see Americans in Portugal, but even funnier to see them surprised that WE were here.

Well, i had better get going. Keep praying for us! Eu amo vocês!

Com amor

Élder Haws

P.S. Fubeca is a Brazilian word, so Mikey can explain it better than I.

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