The Phone‏

Hey Family,

Thanks for all the advice and support in your emails. This week has been tough with the whole president Torgan thing but i keep telling myself and my companion that i wont worry about it. I just keep telling myself to do my best and thats seems to help alot. So thanks again.

This week was pretty crazy. Everything was almost normal until wednsday rolled around. That morning Elder Wilson woke up very happy, which is strange because we were so depressed because we didnt have a baptism. But that morning he was happy and we went about our day like normal. We caught a bus up to teach a new investigator we had found the week before and we were having trouble finding his houose so after we got off the bus we decided to check our map and call him. The only problem was my companion didn´t have the phone. He had it on the bus but after he got off it dissapeared. I told him not to worry about and we keep working thinking that we would be able to call the bus company later to get the phone back that we thought we left on the bus. After we found and taught our investigator we used his phone to call ours. Somebody answered it, then hung up and turned the phone off. Not a good sign. After we left the investigator´s house, we went to the Bus company building and asked about the phone but it didn´t turn up. At that point Elder Wilson and I decided that the guy who smelled strongly of Marijauna who sat next to Elder Wislon on the bus took the phone when it fell out of his pocket. Over the past few days we have been calling the bus company just in case but it hasn´t turned up. So, we´ve gone almsot an entire week without contact with our leaders or invetigators so you can imagine the fun we had.

In other news... My finger is still getting better! I still cant bend it all the way and make a fist but almost all the pain is gone so thats good. This week i also had a member lady cut my hair because its expensive here and i cant speak well enough to tell someone how short to cut my hair. It came out really good. Its really short but its alot better than what i had before.This week the language got better too. There were times when i understood alot of what people said and my confidence in speaking is starting to grow so i´m prayinig that this progress keeps up.

Tell dad congrats on his teaching skills! And form Jenny´s pictures it looks like Mikey rented a Trombone from somewhere and is doing ok . Thats too bad about BYU but thats ok because i´m in portugal and no one here cares. Tell Nick hey for me and keep the H* girl away from him too.

This week is transfers again. I cant believe it that time already. We have now idea whats going to happen here but its very possible that me and Wilson could both leave because we´re not baptizing. So i dont know if i´ll still be in Cascais next week but i think theres still a good chance that i might stay. With the Whole President Torgan "Baptize Portugal" plan i´ve found a new use for one of my favorite songs from last transfer. "It wont be likt this for long" is now my out look on my mission because so far time has been flying and i only have two years to serve. So i´ve decided i cant focus and President Torgan and his telling me i need to repent and have faith because if i do, i wont be positive and enjoy my mission. So as you can probably guess, i´ve been humming that song alot latly.

Well, this week has been really good even though we didn´t have a baptism but thats ok. Right now my biggest priority is learning the langauge so later on in my mission i can baptize. It sounds like everybody is doing great. Tell Jenny thanks for the pictures and everyone else for the E-mails,support, and prayers. I love you guys!

Élder Haws

Bad Luck‏

Hey Family,

This week was really tough. Everywhere I went i seemed to have bad luck. It started last monday when we went to play basketball with some of the Elders form around the mission. I was pretty excited about it because i hadn´t played basketball in two months and everybody kept talking themselves up soi thought it was going to be fun. When we got there i talked with one of the Zone Leaders and we talked about how everyone that was going to play that day thought they were amazing while we kept telling each other we were terrible. When we got to the church in that area (Cacem) we started bar-b-quing and then started playing. After the first game the Zone leader i talked to turned to Elder Wilson and said i was a shooter. Then we didnt´play for a while but the next game i played in was bad. We got killed and to had to that i messed up my finger. I was playing defense and reached in to steal the ball but missed and hit the Elder and jammed my fingers really bad. I thought i was fine but when i looked down at the ring finger on my left hand the tip was bent in the wrong direction. I didnt touch it but a second later it popped back into place. It hurt a ton but i kept playing and finished the game. People there thought i was crazy. Later that day i looked at my finger and it was really swollen and purple so i got kind of worried so we made a make-shift splint out of stuff from my first aid kit(thanks mom). Then we waited a day and called the Mission President´s wife and talked to her about it. She said she did the same thing when she played vollyball and that i probably just dislocated it and that i would be back to normal in about a month. It already feels really good and i´m even typing with it right now so i´m fine. Dont worry.

The other bad luck came at Interviews. As i may have told you, President Torgan very serious about baptism. He tells us that we should be baptizing every week and when we dont he comes down on us and tells us we dont have enough faith. I really have a hard time going with this plan because its really hard to baptize people and i also dont like feeling like a failure at the end of every week but this week he just told everyone that he doesn´t really care about baptizisms but doing the Lord´s will. He said that as long as we pray and find out the Lords will and do it thats whats important but he still really pushing baptism. I felt a little better after that but when he interviewed me and Elder Wilson on thursday night he said if we had enough faith we would find someone to baptize that weekend. The only probablem was we had no one marked for baptism. Both our interviews were good so we were really excited and motivated but as the days went along nothing happened. We did everything we could think of: fasted, prayed, had our members and other missionaries pray for us and worked really hard and nothing happened this weekend. We worked on three people we felt were the people we were supposed to work on and good things happened but no baptism.So today me and Elder Wilson feel pretty down and i´m not looking forward to my next interview with President Torgan. I just dont understand why President is pushing us so hard and i´m really finding it hard to go with him on this. But I´ll keep working so I´ll be alright.

In other news. I got the box this week and it was awesome ! The syrup and peanut butter and candy were a surprise but they´re amazing! Thanks for the recipes too. The only problem is we dont ever have a long time to cook except at nights but i´m still going to make very good use of these recipes so thank you soooo much! I also got a letter from Will this week and he sounded really excited to head out to the MTC. Thats crazy about Nick. He lost a TON of weight!

I also want to apologoze to mom because i forgot to wish her a happy Birthday last week. But Happy late Birthday mom! Also this week we ate at a members house that we hadn´t eaten at in a long time. The food we had was weird but my companion didn´t ask what it was until after we were done. I told him to never ask before we eat because i can eat it as long as i dont know what it is. Afterward i was informed that the very chewy meat that i had been eating was cow stomach! Apparently thats a regular dish up north near Porto. But the most surprising thing was i actually liked it! One of the member that made it for us also asked me to ask you to send beef jerky.He served with a lot of american companions when he served here in this mission (he´s form Porto) and feel in love with it. you dont have to send but i told him i would ask.

I also have a project for Mikey. If he has time i would like him to email me the lyrics to Kory Kumz´s first CD. I´ll have more requests for lyrics from the Liken movies but that will do for now.

Well, it sounds like everybody is doing well. Thanks for all the letters and emails! Keep praying for me and tell everyone i love them!

Élder Haws

My First Skin Walker‏

Hey Family

Life´s good here in Portugal. This week we taught some really good lessons and got some good work done. Earlier last week we had FILLED our weekend with appointments but as any other missionary can tell you, almost every single one fell through. It was tough but we surrvived. Yesterday we also confirmed the lady we almost killed a week ago as a member of the church and this time everything went fine.

Mom was right about my rain jacket. Last week it rained really hard and the jacket really didn´t do anything. It works well against light rain but the heavy rain last week killed it so that other coat might be a good idea. That day it rained really hard we were working with the jovens and had met the mat the local Staples. When we got there it was just cloudy with no rain but when we came out of staples about sixty seconds later it was pooring outside. Our jovens wouldn´t leave Staples because it was raining so hard so we left them there and just keep working. Luckly the rained stopped not long afterward but i still got soaked.

The language was alot better this week. I´ve noticed that when my morning studies are good, I speak better portuguese. In fact, the other day, me and Elder Wilson had to go to another Area to do a baptismal interview for some other Elders because the Zone leaders couldn´t do it. When we got there, Elder Wilson went in to do the interview and i was left by myself with a brazilian Elder and an american who refuses to speak english. I was freaking out because i was sure i wouldn´t be able to comunicate and thought it would be really embarrassing but i talked with them the whole time and understood almost everything! It was so cool! The American is from Rigby and his last name is Hinckly. I dont think we know him though. Also, the brazilian Elders last companion was from IF, his name is Elder Craig. I dont think we know him either. Then, in some of our other lessons this week i´ve started to say more than just my testimony and i´ve started to ask really good questions to our investigators. I´m starting to become more confident but i still dont think i speak well. The real test will be in interviews this week because i think that President Torgan will do the entire interview in portuguese.This Friday i should get your package at interviews so i´m really excited.

Last week we had lunch with our Elders Qurom president for the first time in a long time. Almost every part of the meal was fish. Their were fillets, shrimp things, and cod fish balls. It was SO good! Fish is amazing! Also about a week ago, i got bit by a dog but i´m fine. The dog was about the size of Cloe so its teeth did´nt even get through my paints. Elder Davis would have called it a "Skin Walker". Also about two weeks ago, i almost got arrested. Here in portugal public transportation has tight security. One time when i was on a division with Elder Anson, we were riding a bus we watched a guy get a ticket because he had the wrong ticket and wouldn´t get off the bus. Well, the trains here are even worse. When we ride the trains we use a special ID to get the little gates to open for us so we can get onthe train. Well, one day i walke up to the side of one of these gates and used my ID and the get opened. The only problem was Elder Wilson wasn´t thinking and just walked through. This is a problem because you can only use your pass once over a period of time so now my pass wouldnt open the gate. So, Elder Wilson handed me his pass over the gate and i used it and got through. Then, as we were walking, one of the train-guard/cop guys came and yelled at us and made me go all the way back to the gate and scan my card again. The guy wasn´t happy and i was sure i was going to get a ticket or get arrested. After i scanned my card and he found out it worked he got after us and let us go. I thought i was going to kill Elder Wilson.

This week i kind of have some bad news. I´ve talked with some missionaries about shoes and i may have some problems with my shoes in the future. ElderDavis had a pair of Rockports just like mine but he said they only lasted six months because his toe came throught the top of his shoe. His toenail had worn it down and eventually the roof of the shoe gave out. So this weeki took a look at my shoes and sure enough, i felt the roof of my shoe and it was already worn down. I´m really mad because these shoes were $150 a pair and are supposed to last me my whole mission but now i´m praying they last me another transfer. If you guys have any ideas of what i can do to save my shoes let me know. The only thing i can think of is buying a 30 euro pari of shoes and wearing those till they die to try and help these shoes last longer but in the end i´m not sure how much that would help.

Tell Jenny thanks for all the photos! Her kids are growing up so fast! Especially Milo. That kid is getting big. It sounds like BYU is doing good but my Lions are struggling. At least some of there games are close and they seemed to stay pretty close to the Superbowel champs. It also sounds like Spencer´s going to have a long year since but hopefully something will click for the Bills later. But at least the Vikings are tearing it up.

Can you guys send me Will´s MTC Address and maybe his Email address too? i sent him a letter before his farewell but i´m not sure if he got it. Today me and Elder Wilson are headed up North to a Zone bar-B-que where i´ll get to play some basketball so today should be a really good day.

Well, I think thats it for news here in Portugal. Thanks for all the Emails and prayers. Tell Dad to keep up the good work at school! Tell everyone i love them!

Élder Haws

The Slam Dunk‏

Hey Family,

Week 2 of trnsfer 2 just ended and i´m stil alive. We had a crazy week last week between Zone Conference and General Conference. Last tuesday we jumped on a train really early in the morning to get into Lisbon on time to get us on the right bus that would drop us off near the mission office. There was almost nobody there when we showed up but eventually everybody got there. I thought that three Elders from my MTC district would all be there but one ended up going to the other Zone conference thats happening tomorow. It was a lot of fun to talk with the other two Elders though and there was also another Elder form the other MTC district there too. We had fun swapping mission stories and laughing but after the conference i felt really discouraged because i didn´t feel like i was doing as well with the language as everyone else. But that night i had some good experiences with talking with members so that helped and last night i was laughing and having fun with one of the jovens from our ward so i´m feel a little better. Elder Uctdorfs Talk in the priesthood session helped me a lot too. I liked how he said not to compare yourself to others and once i started thinking that way i felt better.

This week we learned in Zone conference about the new rules from president torgan. There are a lot of new phone rules because one Elder had a 200euro($300) phone bill. Tell Mom not to worry, if it was my companionship it wasn´t my fault because i never touch the phone. There are also a lot of new rules about divisions and leaving areas and stuff so the mission leadership Elders are having alot of fun now. President also said that we couldn´t leave our areas to watch conference and that IF we were to watch it it would have ot be with members or investigators. That made it fun for us because almost everyone with internet in our area wasn´t planning on staying homeand watching it so we had to find the few people who were. Fortunantly we say every talk in conference except for Richard G. Scott´s talk. I saw the first and last sessions in portuguese and the middle three in english. The portuguese was tough to follow but the English was awesome. I never realized how much i loved general conference until i was wacthing it in portuguese and dying inside because i couldn´t understand it. But we watched two sessions with an inactive member and he really seemed to like it so that was good.

last wendsday we also had a baptism! We really did do much to get the investigator ready for baptism because she was the friend of a memeber and she pretty much did everything. But the Baptismal service was interesting.The Talks were all good but when the bapstim came around it got tense. Elder Wilson was doing the Baptism and had practiced with the lady before but things didn´t go as planned. She got in the water just fine but when Elder Wilson put her under the water she took a HUGE gulp of water! She came up and started choking and everybody freaked out! She couldn´t breath for a awhile and i seriously thought she was going to die but the first thoughtthat ran through my head was, "If she dies, at least she´ll go to the Celestial Kingdom". After a while our Elders qurom president got her breathing and everything was alright. I ended up singning in a musical group later in the program and everybody eventually calmed down so it was ok.Afterward the Lady wnted to try again because she thought she could do better but we had to tell her that we couldn´t. It was a fun experience buti dont think Elder Wilson will be baptizing anyone anytime soon.

Last week after i got Mom´s email i went out to our HUGE shopping mail and bought a 5 euro rain jacket that should work. It rained today so i got to try it out and it works just fine. I got mike´s email it was really great so tell him thanks. I really hope i learn portuguese as well as he did because it looks like he learned REALLY well. I also wanted to ask if you guys could send my CTR ring to me in my next box too. Sorry for all the requests. I got all of dads letters at Zone Conference and since its a new set of Zones i´m now probably famous in both regions of portugal as the missionary who gets thousands of letters. And it you were wondering, it looks like letters take about seven days to get to the mission home so if packages are anything similar i should get the package on the 15th. The language is still really tough but my personal and language studies have really been bad lately so i klicked myself in the but and now i already feel like i´m doing better.

Well, it sounds like everybodys doing well there. Its turning into winter here so now theres thick fog and overcast skies all day. Its also way humid!I was reading letters on our patio and by the time i was done reading a letter the paper would be moist. Well, i better get back to work. Tell everyone i´m still alive and that i love them. GO LIONS!

Élder Haws

The Champ‏

Hey Family,

Thanks for all the emails! I had know idea there was that much sports news that could happen in a few weeks! My Lions won! Who would´ve guessed it. I feel bad for BYU but i think we´re all used to dissapointment after last season. Thank Jenny for all the photos. I´ve only been gone a few months and her kids have grown up so fast! Milo looks completly different! What happened? Ruby´s hair does look a little funny but here in a few weeks i have to get a haircut so my hair will look really funny too.

This week was good. Elder Davis still calls me on my cell phone(our area has two until tomorow) every once in a while which suprises me because he always has a half-dozen people calling him. His new house is terrible. Last week he got shocked and this week he tried to put in a new light socket and almost died. There are two wires that hang out of the ceiling that the socket connects to in the room where Elder Davis studies. There was no light in that room so he decided to put the socket and fixture back up(they had fallen off a long time ago). So, remembering the experience he had with the light switch, he stood on a chair and had his companion stand next to him with a broom. He was holding a broom because Elder Davis told him that if he started getting shocked to knock him down. So, before touching anything they flipped all the light swicths to what they thought were the "off" position.Then, just to be even more careful, Elder Davis took a screw driver and used it to connect the wires to test it like you would with jumper cables. But as soon as they connected there was an explosion that blew the fuses in the house. And the explosion was so big that it blew plastic all over Elder Davis. Luckly, he´s still alive but I´m sure that house is trying to kill him.

This week was really slow and we didn´t teach a whole lot of lessons but we have a lot of hope for this upcoming week. Its hard having low numbers but we´re hoping to have a few baptisms really soon.

In sports news, the rookie ping pong player of the year (for the Portugal,Lisbon Mission) took to the table and destroyed his companion. He beat me once but after that i killed him. I´ve also found that my backhand is getting better. Then, after that we went and played horse out back behind that church and i won both times. I also bought a new sling bag that is perfect and i feel like a girl because i love it so much.

Tomorrow we have a huge zone conference with half the zones in the mission again so that will be fun but my district from the MTC should all be there.

I think i´ve also lost some weight. A couple weeks ago i walked into a room in our house with out a shirt on and one of my companions(who took steriods before the mission) said, "Dude, you´re buff!?" So i guess all the walking in the hot sun has done me some good. I also got some shirts from Elder Davis that are size 16 and are fitted so when i where them i look GOOD.

I only have a few questions. Could you guys email me my mission plaque scripture reference? And also, in the next box you guys send(not this one)could you guys send my seminary books? They have alot of good examples that i can use in lessons. I´m not sure about the coat. There are ALOT of places to shop around here but i´m sure what it would cost to get a coat. I´ll look around today a see what i can find and i´ll let you know. I sent mike a letter so he should be getting it sometime this week our next. Make sure to tell him not to make fun of my bad portuguese too much. I might send pictures with this E-mail but i might not so dont get your hopes up.

Well, I´m doing good and I think i´m finally starting to get comfortable here in Portugal. Yesterday was stake conference and a lady got up to speak and i had an interesting experience. I could understand alot of what she was saying but she spoke really funny. I just thought she was speaking with a weird accent or maybe she just spoke really bad portuguese because she was me feel good about my portuguese. Then i realized she was speaking Spanish...she was the wife of the Madrid Temple President.

Life´s good here and Cascais. I hope everybody´s doing well because i´m doing fine. Tell everyone i love them.

Élder Haws

1 down, 15 to Go...‏

Hey Family,

Its been a pretty good this week despite all the changes. We spent last thursday moving Elder Davis to his new area in Setúbal so that was a fun road trip. He and his new companion decided to meet half way in Lisbon so we didn´t have to take him far but it still ended up taking up a good part of our day. He´s called us a few times this week and he sounds ok. His house there is terrible and last night he called me and told me that it almost killed him. He was walking onto the bathroom to take a shower and turned on the light switch and ended up getting electricuted. Afterward he said his foot was stuck to the floor and his heart hurt. He´s alright but i dont think he´s going to be touching any light switchs any time soon.

the work this week has been pretty slow. With just two of us(and me being a greenie) we cant do as many divisions so our lessons went down a bit. Our companionship is doing good. There have been times when i have wanted to kill Elder Wislon but everything always works out. Right now we´re teaching our jovens how to teach the missionary lessons because they want to be ward missionaries. We call it our member missionary training center(MMTC). So far its been really good and we´ve already sent them a couple of times to go and teach some people.

I sent Will a letter this monday so hopefully he gets it before he goes into the MTC. He´s going in really soon. Although maybe it just seems that way because time is flying out here in Portugal. I´m in my second transfer in the field already! How crazy is that! That means i only have...15 more to go! I still dont feel good about my language skills but I try not to worry about that too much.

This week President Torgan has made more changes to the mission. P-day will no longer be on Wendsdays but will now be on mondays. This starts this week so this monday wil be P~day again.

Its still hot here in Portugal(as always) but pretty soon it will be raining everyday and i cant wait. Next week I´ll be sending pictures for sure so you guys can have a better idea of where i´m serving and i´ll also send you guys pictures of our apartment that costs 600 euros($900) a month.

Has dad been sending letters to the mission home or to my house in Cascais because I´ve been checking the mail box and I haven´t gotten any and i´m worried that the address doesn´t work. And i still haven´t sent that letter to Mike yet. I keep forgeting but hopefully i get it sent off this week. How are my Lions doing? I haven´t heard any sports news in forever. And whats Mike´s relationship status? I thought i would have recieved a wedding invatation by now. But i guess there´s still hope as long as the M*girl and and A* F* are single.

Well, I know this was probably a boring E-mail but with Elder Davis gone life here in Cascais is a little dull. Thanks for keeping me updated on everything and thanks for all the prayers. I love you guys.

Élder Haws
(People still can´t pronounce my name)

Transfers, Baptisms, and Ping Pong Balls...

Hey Family,

Its been another crazy week here in Cascais. After i got done writing you guys last week our tripla taught 9 lessons...on P-day! We tore it up this week! When we gave our numbers to the Zone Leaders they were really suprised. Our numbers were as follows...

0 baptized and confirmed
2 marked for baptism
3 investigators in church
27 lessons with a member present
3 lessons to investigators w
ithout a member
3 progressing investigators
2 refrences
6 contated refrences
7 new investigators
20 lessons to members
9 potential investigators

All week Elder Davis has been saying, "We tore it up!" After the APs got our numbers they called our Zone leaders to check and make sure the numbers were right. It was a great week.

This week was also transfers and our district got hit pretty hard. Our Zone leaders got transfered and now the sisters from our district work that area and now we are part of a new zone.One sister left but we got a new one too.Me and Elder Wilson are staying here but Elder Davis unfortunatly was transfered to Setubal. I´m pretty sad that Davis is leaving because he´smade these last few weeks bearable. He´s a really great Elder and he works really hard but he has a fun loving attitude that makes people think he is a slacker but in reality he´s the best Elder i´ve met here. I´ve learned alot from him so i´m really bumbed that he´s leaving. I´ve started to get really annoyed with Elder Wilson and i´ve thought about killing him a few times soi dont know how this next transfer will go. Elder Davis has felt the same way about Elder Wilson and even offered to call president for me and tell him to transfer me our Wilson. WIlson isn´t a bad Elder, he just gets really annoying after awhile, plus he´s really messy and doesn´t think a whole alot about others or what might happen in the future sometimes. He works hard buti might kill him this next transfer so pray that the Lord with bless me with patience over these next 6 weeks.

To make things worse our baptisms fell threw this week. We had one schelduled for today but the girl called a half hour before the baptism and canceled. We just talked with her and found outwhy. She still wants to be baptized but she needs more time. It was tough but we all feel better now. The other baptism was scheduled for saturday but the girls parents freaked because we had a lesson with her in her bedroom with two Elders, two members, her, and some small children so she wont begetting baptized this week either. Theres been a lot of sad news this week but i´m doing good. I just keep singing the words from hootie´s song, "It wont be like this for long". I think those words are going to get me through this next transfer.

In happier news, i discovered my mad skills in Ping Pong. We have a Ping Pong table in our Church(dont ask why, i dont know) and while we were setting up for the baptism yesterday we played a little. At first i was aweful but after a few games i did alright. Then, today while the font was filling up we played some more and I TORE IT UP! I lost a few games here and there but i think i have the best record of any greenie in the mission! I dont want to brag but i am pretty good.

About the Torgan plan, every week president calls us and tells us a new way of baptizing someone that weekend. Most of the time we take an investigator whose been to church a few times and try and baptize them in a week. We´ve tried it but it hasn´t worked yet and the stress kills us.

Thanks for all the Info on the family and my friends. I´ll keep you guys posted on this next transfer. I love you guys!

Élder Haws