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)