Hello Family,
Yes Mom, I have been getting your emails. I just wish I was getting more information from you guys. Today has gone pretty good. We went to the Campinas Temple for the 4th and final time. From here on out we will be at the São PauloTemple on Tuesday mornings. The ride home on the bus nearly got dramatic. The two districts who went with us (who arrived two and three weeks after my batch) would not stop talking. And it wasn't just "talking". They were bashing on each other, on the people, and on just about everything else they'd seen in Brazil. Me and another Elder had to restrain ourselves from "knocking some heads together". It could have gotten ugly and I could be on my way home right now, but all is well.
We went proselyting last friday on the "wall street" of Brazil. Nobody would look at me. At least twice I made eye contact with men about 25 years old and they immediately turned around, and doubled their walking pace as they left in the opposite direction. It was kind of amusing, but I don't really want it to happen again. The sisters in my district managed to had out 6 Book of Mormons (or Books of Mormon) in our three hours there. They also disposed of nearly 10 pass along cards. Between the other 8 of us in the district we passed out 8Books of Mormon and 15 or so pass-along cards. We might not have accounted for as many souls reaching salvation, but at least we didn't have creepy men flirting with us for a few hours.
The real shocker of this past week came Saturday morning. We were sitting in class studying when at 9 AM our teacher walked in and informed us we were going to do the Teaching Resource Center at 11. The TRC is a fun little set-up where members in the area come in and we practice teaching them the 1st lesson. Completely in Portugese. With no translators, teachers, or help of any kind. Normally wouldn't be a problem, but we weren't supposed to participate until the16th. Unfortunately we found out that the extra week of work we would have going into wasn't going to happen. Elder Bateman and I taught 5 boys between the ages of 10 and 18. It was a really good experience, but would have been a lot less humiliating if we spoke Portugese. We tried our best to communicate and answer their questions, but fell a little short. The funny thing is we spent just under half of our lesson time answering questions, when we had been assured we wouldn't be asked any. It was a thoroughly humiliating experience, but we cameout of it ok. I have no idea if they'll put us back on the schedule that we're supposed to be on, but either way, we'll be better prepared next time.
Besides that, life is going as usual. Our Schedule is more or less as follows.
6:30 Wake up
7:00 Personal Study
7:30 Breakfast
8:00 Companionship Study
8:30 Class with Irmã Melo
12:15 Lunch
1:15 Class with Irmã Manuela
4:45 Dinner
5:45 Missionary-Directed Study Time (We do what we think we need to work on)
9:30 Get ready for bed
10:00 In rooms
10:30 In bed
*Irmã= Sister
*Mon, Wed, Fri we have gym from 8-9 pm.
*We have big devotional/fireside meetings Sunday, Tues, and Saturday Evenings.
*Irmã Manuela is pregnant so we usually have a substitute teacher twice a week.
*That schedle works for Monday-Saturday.
Life is going great. I can't wait to know the language. I love you all. Everything is fine so stop worrying about me.
With Love,Elder Haws(mo)
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