from Marcelo to The Parents

Hi ,my name is Marcelo,
Your son is serving here in my city.Don´t worrie he is an amazing missionary.I´m sending my daugter´s picture,her name is Anna Laura.she loves him.hope u like it.
Marcelo

Making Brothers‏

Hey Family,

Back to Concordia safe and sound without too much trouble. As we left for the bus station Sunday night we were privileged to walk the 15 minutes in a rain storm. As the bus left town it looked like it might end up flooding again. As cool as that would have been, I wish we could have been there. Once we got to Chapeco nearly three hours later it was a pleasant 30 minute walk in pouring rain before arriving at the Elders’ apartment. 2 hours of sitting, waiting, and swapping stories with the Zone before the biggest disappointment of the trip surfaced. We had a bus with about half as many seats as last time that didn’t have a DVD player. We were more than welcome to watch movies, if anybody had brought a VHS tape. Needless to say, this was one LONG trip with no movies. But no worries, the trip seemed longer but that just provided more opportunity to talk with my brethren.

The Conference at first seemed to be a bust. All the Elders that I had talked to at the conference 6 weeks ago had gotten transferred to other parts of the country. On the bright side, our Zone is still intact for the time being. We have a ridiculously young zone. With the exception of the Zone Leaders and the married couple working in Chapeco, every senior companion is a trainer, and all the juniors are either in their first or second transfer. Another shining bright spot was the chance to talk with Elders Melo, Beraldo, and Gonsalves. These three are the last Elders to start their missions in Concordia. If the three of us are still around here in 6 weeks I’ll make sure to take a picture of us together. It was awesome to talk with these Elders about the area, about members, and about the lunches that the members always prepare. I got sent back to Concordia with about 20 hugs I have to distribute throughout the city. Speaking of hugs, after the Conference I pulled the Assistants to the President to give hugs to the other 4 Elders who came with Elder Bateman and me to the mission. Tomorrow they will all be at the Florianopolis Zone Conference together. After Elder Pinheiro made notes of all their names I reminded him that because I’m so much taller than him, he and the other Assistant (Elder Flores) would have to work together to give hugs that would imitate the one’s my arms would give. Everybody got a chuckle out of that.

The real highlight of Zone Conference is the chance to talk to my brothers. After 2 months in the MTC and using every Zone get together as an excuse to swap stories and good scriptures, Elder Bateman has become as much my brother as anybody in Idaho or Utah cheering on my Cougars. I still love Wo, Moose, and the Penguin Artist (congrats on asking someone to homecoming!) but I’m in the process of adding a couple more brothers to my life. While at the Zone Conference I also got the chance to swap experiences with Elder Pereira. He is serving an hour and a half from Concordia in a city named Joacaba. He was the district leader of the Brazilians in the MTC who arrived with us. During the travel from Sao Paulo to Floripa we talked a lot. Since then every chance we get we sit down and swap some Portuguese. The kid is a freaking stud. We talked to Sister Dansie and got permission to take a picture together. We then took another with Elder Bateman between us. It’s going to be toughed if transfers break the three of us up. Fortunately, when you’re serving the Lord you’ve got the Spirit with you. And when you’ve got the Spirit you remember the friends you’re separated from and make plenty more to fill the temporary void.

Other news: Micael’ s baptism is going to be delayed again. Our teenager friend decided to change his baptism from September 22 to October 6 so while you guys are watching Conference I’ll be doing some good-old-fashioned splashing. No word yet on what Conference I will see, but we’ll have to go all the way to Chapeco if we want to see it. Tell the Young’s and the Abercrombie’s thanks for me. I got their letters and will soon be sending responses but the mail will take a while to be delivered. Thanks for everything in the package, especially the Peanut Butter and the tie. The Idaho book will be fun to show off. I only received the one package, but I was still able to show everyone the 20 letters I received. Thanks everyone. If you don’t know what to send me here are a couple ideas: TIES, POSTCARDS or BOOK MARKS, or OTHER SMALL CHEAP MEMORABILIA WITH THE IDAHO FALLS TEMPLE ON IT. The Abercrombies sent me two bookmarks with the Temple on them and it occurred to me that they could be a great parting gift to friends and companions to remember the big guy from Idaho that is always talking about the potatoes.

I am going to send a letter off to the house on 4th street, but its not going to be for the Haws family. I want to get a letter to the Trombones in the BYU marching band but have no way to get one there myself. If anybody could stop by and take that letter to BYU I would be forever grateful. They should practice in the Marriott Center Parking Lot Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 4:30 to 6PM. If anybody could deliver it to any trombone in the band either there or after a game, I will praise your name for some duration of time significantly longer than day but probably not more than a week.

The work is great, the Conference was grand, and I’m fine so stop worrying about me.

Shedding Tears of Joy While Eating Peanut Butter,
Elder Hawsmo

(If anybody wants to send more peanut butter, you’re more than welcome. I make no guarantees for how many days a jar will last.)

(If Mom or Dad want to get a picture developed just let me know and I’ll resend a full size file so it looks better.)

Nothing is Guaranteed ...‏

Hey Family,

Another week has come and gone without any more strange food. I’m sorry. It sounds as if you guys like those stories. Life is definitely continuing here in Concordia. No clue as to whether either of us will be transferred in October, but I guess you never really know for sure. However, we are sure of two and a half things. The Sisters up in Xanxere are baptizing nearly every week (which means we get plenty of spontaneous road trips), we will be baptizing our teenager friend Orlando on Saturday, and Micael (who already had a baptism date but got called in to work that day) should be getting baptized the 29th. Things are always fun and exciting down here in Santa Catarina.

Our work has been slowing down here the last couple weeks. At interviews on September 4th Elder Martin caught the flu from President Dansie. That meant one afternoon in the apartment letting him rest and get some health back. Unfortunately he is always stressing about the work, especially when Sister Dansie orders him to stay in bed and rest to try and recover. That stress has weakened his body and the flu came back in full force early last week. We think we got him over that, but only time will tell. The other problem is that this same stressing that he’s been doing has cost him many hours of sleep and night. When he does sleep he tosses, turns, shakes, rolls, and does the hokey pokey. Needless to say the sleep that he gets isn’t too restful. He woke up yesterday morning with a pulled/stressed/aggravated muscle in his neck. Fortunately we have a physical therapist near our apartment that loves the missionaries and happens to be a lifelong inactive member. She cracked his neck a few times last night, again this morning (during our regular email time, sorry this one is 4 hours late) and we will go back after I send this email to get some more cracking done. Everything should work out, we’ve just got to convince him to relax every once in a while.

Next week is Zone Conference, which means I won’t be emailing you until later in the week. Sunday after church we will have lunch with the Relief Society President and her family, try to teach a couple lessons, and then load a bus for Chapeco. We’ll hang out with the 4 Elders there from 7pm until 9pm when the Chapeco Elders will go to sleep in their beds while we chat with the Elders from Pato Branco from when they arrive at around 9 until the mission bus leaves around midnight. Then its 8 hours of bus ride and picking up missionaries until we arrive at Lages for conference. We’ll step off the bus, have 7-8 hours of trainings and testimonies, they’ll hand me a stack of letters and a couple packages, and then its 8 hours back out west before our 2 hour bus ride back to Concordia. A good deal of traveling, a lot of cookies, and some story swapping with Elder Bateman. Life is fun always fun and exciting out west.

Random news. Concordia is the highest priority in the Florianopolis Mission for a new chapel. We are currently just renting a building in the middle of town. With the change in branch leadership and some hurt pride right before I got here, the sacrament meeting attendance has dropped, but the last time we officially submitted numbers we had qualified for our own building. Now we just play the waiting game. As far as our zone in concerned, General Conference will only be shown in Chapeco. No word yet if we’ll be heading there to catch conference or if we will just miss out entirely. Either way, a conference report or a November Ensign in English would be an amazing gift! By the way, keep your fingers crossed that Idaho Falls gets mentioned at some point in the upcoming conference. In April President Hinckley mentioned the sister that did 20,000 sessions in the Idaho Falls Temple and last October Elder Shayne Bowen talked about Freeman Park and the Airport in his talk about how the Atonement reclaims lives. We’ve got to make sure that our beautiful little town keeps getting talked about on a church wide scale. My bets for new apostle are (1) Randy L. Bott, (2) Phillip Allred, (3) Lance D. Toone, or (4) John Bytheway. Then again, I haven’t been right about an apostle in 19 and a half years.

More updates for the mother. I play the piano in sacrament meeting about 50% of the time. Its good practice, I just wish I had some opportunity during the week to really practice for it. I got asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday. The topic of the meeting was missionary work but I tied it into Home Teaching. I’ve officially lost the MTC weight. Last week when we were at a pharmacy buying medicine for Elder Martin I weighed myself on a scale and came in at 213 lbs (with shirt, tie, and the whole package). I was around 216 when I left in May and gained my share of weight in the MTC but I’m definitely on the way back down. Hopefully it keeps dropping, but, as seems to be a recurring theme, nothing is guaranteed in Concordia except for hills and people staring and 6’6” Americans.

I’m loving the work, we’re having another baptism, and I’m perfectly fine so stop worrying about me.

Laughing While My Companion Gets His Neck Cracked,
Elder Haws(mo)

Another Trek Through the Barn‏

Hey Family,

What the deal?! Greg not only gets to go to an away game at UCLA, but he gets to work in the locker room? Where was the love for the son that wanted to go to BYU? Let me guess, he’s going to get to go through warm-up drills with the team before the Utah game? Play for 4 minutes in the first half of the BYU Basketball Team’s first home game? Where were the hook-ups for HAWSMO?

Anyway, life is still good in Concordia. I think some people back home might be a little confused. Last Tuesday we went to Chapeco (2 ½ hours by bus) for Interviews with the President. Zone Conference isn’t until the 24th. Between talking with the President Dansie, Sister Dansie, and a couple trainings from the Zone Leaders it was off to lunch, and then back home to finish working that day. Unfortunately we got to lunch at 12:30 and our bus was scheduled to leave at 12:45. Needless to say, we didn’t catch that bus. All-You-Can-Eat Brazilian Buffet doesn’t end in 15 minutes. We waited and caught the bus at 4:30, after I made use of the buffet. This unfortunate change of events lost us 4 hours of work on Tuesday, which really starts cutting into your numbers. Add to that the fact that we spent Wednesday afternoon in the apartment when Elder Martin was sick, and numbers start getting hard to come by. Friday was a national holiday so nearly everyone left town traveling, except the missionaries. Despite all the setbacks, and only managing 12 lessons with members present, we were still able to teach 44 lessons without members with us.

With regards to Friday, it was essentially Brazil’s Independence Day…kind of. September 7 marks the day when Brazil was freed from the rule of Portugal, and began to be led instead by a king. Colonies to monarchy isn’t exactly what I consider a day of independence, but it gives everyone a chance to skip out on work and get drunk. That morning they had a little parade through the middle of town. The city of Concordia has (according to its inhabitants) nearly 80,000 people in the city and nearby country. Idaho Falls (as I remember) has a little over 55,000. The parade here was a lot of fun, and good for everybody, but it definitely didn’t compare with what usually happened in my front yard. Afterwards it was off to a local elementary school for the Branch Service Project. We raked leaves, cleaned fences, washed the basketball area, and “mowed” the grass with a trimmer. Wearing our fun smocks we had pictures taken of us and we even made the paper. “Um feriado de trabahlo para os ‘Mãos que Ajudam’” was the headline in the paper this weekend. In case Mom is wondering, that translates to “A holiday of work for the ‘Hands that Help’”. Hands that help is a program they have here in Brazil where branches and wards help to clean and maintain elementary schools. Is the same sort of thing going on in the States?

After lunch it was off to a barbecue for lunch. You might ask what was on the menu. Beef, sausage, rice, potato salad, grilled onions, and 4.4 pounds of chicken hearts. (a)Is he joking? (b)Could he possibly be serious? (c)Did he have to eat nearly four and a half pounds of hearts by himself? The answers: (a)=NO (b)=YES (c)=NO, there were 5 of us to share the load. They actually weren’t too bad. I wouldn’t have chosen to eat them on my own, will never request that someone cook some for me, but it was a good experience and a good warm-up to other unknowns the future might hold for me. Though, I’m sure nothing I will eat here will come close to comparing with what Mindy had to eat. Fish? I can’t imagine the horror. Don’t fear. Saturday it was back to the Elder’s Quorum’s President’s house at we had turkey for lunch. It was good. That was the first time I’ve head turkey since leaving the homeland. This same man (Adão, the Portuguese equivalent of Adam) was our neighbor (lived on the floor of apartments below us and is moving tomorrow) and the last time he fed us he had cooked fish for us. He will still be in the branch after the move (which we will be helping with) but will be a little bit longer of a walk to his house.

Other news: I didn’t receive a package or “envelope” at Interviews. If one has been sent I will get it the 24th. You can keep sending the “envelopes” if you want, but they’re not necessary anymore. Now that I’m out of the MTC, the mission office will accept any box or package you decide to send. If the envelopes are convenient and you like them, then by all means, keep ‘em coming. We will have at least one baptism on the 22nd, and depending on whether grandmothers give their permission, we could have as many as 6 kids between 10 and 16 years of age getting baptized. Was the Quadrangular church really big with lots of members in Mexico, Canada, Italy, or any other country where readers might have served? Nearly everybody here that isn’t Catholic is a Quadrangular. Four-Squares are everywhere.

Other, Other News: My entire life I assumed I would end up in a career based on numbers. Math was always pretty easy for me and the classes I took at BYU set me up for majors in Accounting, Statistics, Corporate Finance, or whatever other calculator job I would ever want. At interviews President Dansie said he enjoyed reading the weekly reports I send. He went so far as to suggest that if my heart wasn’t already set on a major, I should consider journalism. That had never crossed my mind before. Writing is what Mindy does… when she’s not mixing drinks.

Requests: Ideas for entertaining kids. If the siblings or anybody has little ideas of stuff I could carry (or be sent) that I could use to entertain children, I would be greatly appreciative. Nearly everyone has little kids running around the house, and it’s hard to communicate with the small ones in Portuguese so any little help would be great.

Thanks for the letters, thanks for the emails. Life is good, the work is being done, and I’m fine so you can stop worrying about me.

Terrorizing the Countryside like a True Haws,

Elder Haws(mo)

Less Talk, More Pictures‏

Hey Family,

Hawsmo here, safe and sound after one transfer and one week. Our Zone (Chapeco) got three new American Missionaries in the last transfer. This brings our proselyting missionaries in the Chapeco Zone to 7 Americans and 5 Brazilians. We’ve even got an Elder from Wyoming training another American missionary after only 3 transfers in the field. The mission itself is around 60% native Brazilians, but you’d never know it from out west.

This last week was pretty relaxed, as such I’ll type as little as possible and get you a lot of pictures from our outdoor expedition two weeks ago.

The only real event this past week was when we got a call at 10PM Thursday night from the Sisters telling us that they had a baptism scheduled for Saturday and we needed to come to and interview the next day. A few phone calls, 5 postponed appointments, and 7 hours later we were awake and running to catch the bus. Our day in Xanxere was different from all our other ones there because Sister Soares got transferred. Usually she spends the entire day talking Portuguese at me, reaching speeds that cannot be measured. In her absence we had Sister York, a brand new sister from Alabama. After she spent the entire morning practically silent, she spent the afternoon asking me questions about the field, about how much I knew when I left the MTC, how much I learned in the first transfer, etc. She is somewhat worried about the language because the only English word that Sister Tavares (her trainer) knows is “Wow” which, conveniently enough, is also a Portuguese word. After a fun and exciting day in the rain in Xanxere, it was back home.

Tomorrow is interviews in Chapeco with the President. This means: (1) Letters, (2) Possibly Package, (3) Opportunity to talk with Elder Bateman and Elders De Jong and Siler our other 2 greenies, (4) Waking up at 5AM again. In our current situation we end up traveling at least once a week, which means paying money that will later get reimbursed onto our mission cards. Since I haven’t had much opportunity to build up extra on my mission card, I’ve been having to buy bus tickets with my Wells Fargo card, and that money gets reimbursed on my other card. As such, don’t be surprised if I randomly lose $10-20 American. It’s getting reimbursed to another source.

Now the fun stuff. When we were in Xanxere two weeks ago a friendly sister in the Branch there took us to this nature outdoor place with a river, waterfalls, and forest paths. The interesting part was that she brought along her 7 year old son Jared and he was running and having a blast the entire day. As such I would entitle these first pictures “The Adventures of Jared”. After that I’ll throw on a couple pictures I took of the river and the nearby scenes. I took a lot more pictures but will save them for a time to get them really developed. Just for your information, all the pictures I send home will be a reduced quality from the actual pictures I take so that the emails aren’t huge. If we can find out a better way, without taking a whole lot of time to load, I will get you the original photos.

The last photo is for Warren to pass on to Real Salt Lake. I realize that the team might not be doing to great, and by nature, Brazilians are all better at soccer than Americans. As such, we have been training a young goalie that might be ready to step in and ply for Real Salt Lake. This kid isn’t amazing yet (by Brazilian standards), but before too long he’ll be the best player on Salt Lake’s team.

I’m great, the work is coming along, the people love staring at six and a half foot tall Americans, Cougar Football is living without me, and I’m doing fine so stop worrying about me.

Spending my P-Days training recruits for Real Salt Lake ,
Elder Haws(mo)