Mike says,

Merry Christmas!

He talked to his family this morning.

Here are a few highlights:

It's raining in Brazil today.

He had a baptism on Saturday December 22nd.

He won't be emailing again until January 7th.

Transfers are next week.

Mike is VERY HAPPY with the BYU Bowl Game results.

He wasn't worried about the game, and says,

"That's just how my Cougars do it."

Greg did what?‏

Hey Family,

5-9 inches of snow? Greg had a solo in the concert? Mom is adding text-messaging to the cell phone plan? Greg had 2 solos? Ruby already turned 1? Greg is seriously applying to BYU? The BYU Women’s Basketball team beat UCLA? Greg is talking to girls? What have you people done with my little brother? That is awesome. Now we just have to make sure Greg gets dates for Senior Ball and Homecoming, and then sends an audition tape into the BYU Marching Band. Heck, maybe when he comes back from France/Africa/Korea he might even play intramurals at BYU with me and the rest of the boys.

I’ve officially made my predictions for the Las Vegas Bowl in a letter I wrote this morning. I will try to recreate it here but I don’t have the written documentation with me so I might have a few errors. BYU 31- UCLA 22. Harvey Unga will rush for 117 yards and a touchdown. Manase Tonga will also have a rushing touchdown. Max Hall will go 22-40 with 209 yards, 2 TDs and 2 INTs. Austin Collie will catch 6 passes for 106 yards and a TD. The other TD Pass will be to Dennis Pitta who will finish with 3 catches for 25 yards. On the defensive side: Jan Jorgensen and Bryan Kehl will each get a turn knocking Ben Olson (or whoever else is stupid enough to take a snap with Jan Jorgensen on the opposite side of the line), Poppinga will have 12 tackles, and Ben Criddle will get an INT in his last game of College Football. I don’t think that’s exactly what my predictions were but its close enough to get the point across. All that really matters is that we will be walking away with another trophy. Go Cougars!

Zone Conference was a success yesterday. I spent a LOT of time on a bus, but that’s part of serving out west. At the Zone Conference I got to see Elder Huber for the first time since I left BYU in April. He is doing good and speaking great Portuguese. He speaks better than some of the Americans who are senior companions here in the mission. What’s not fair is that his Zone (Lages) is having a Super P-day today. All the Elders are coming together in Lages to play soccer and basketball. I am jealous. SO jealous. Another little piece of startling news came to my attention Sunday night. Elder Guimaraes is serving in Pato Branco now that Elder Bateman left. He brought out his album of photos to show me and I encountered a couple of surprises. His first picture was of him with 4 missionaries. The 2 that baptized him and the other two that served in that ward. The American in the photo that didn’t baptize him was Jacob Michaelis. I played little league baseball against, and had a number of classes in Junior High with his brother, Andrew Michaelis. Jacob was friends with the seniors I knew in band as a sophomore. The Michaelis family moved to Montana after my freshman year at Gale. It turns out that Elder Guimaraes’s companion, Elder Peterson, also knew Jacob from back home. I then turned about 10 pages in the photo album before coming across a bunch of photos of the Elder who taught Elder Guimaraes the new member lessons about a year and a half ago. You know who it was? Any guesses? Elder Rucks. Elder JARED RUCKS. I could not believe it. Everyone I knew from Idaho Falls who went on a mission to Brazil knows this Elder Guimaraes. Its absurd. I took a picture with him to email to you guys. I’m sorry. I look like an idiot in all my photos. Especially these. Since it was our Christmas Conference everyone was taking pictures of everyone. We always had three or four cameras going and it turns out that I was always looking the other way or making a stupid face when someone took a picture with my camera. I never have liked pictures.

The other two pictures I’m sending are:

(1) a picture of my Christmas package, all that good stuff just waiting to get opened.

(2) a picture of the White Elephant gift I received. It’s a bunch of pieces of metal welded together to make a violin player. I guess the coil is supposed to serve as a pen holder or something. Merry Christmas to me.

I think that’s everything to report form Concordia this week. We will have a baptism on Saturday. We’ll spend New Year’s Eve and Day in Chapeco and I will most likely be catching a bus from Chapeco to Florianopolis (or anywhere else in the mission) on January 2. My P-days the next two weeks will be Christmas and New Years so you won’t be getting any emails. Next week I’ll talk to you on the phone and I’ll write you a letter on New Year’s Day telling you about transfers. I might not include transfers information in the next few emails just so that you have to wait a little.

Patiently Waiting for a Green, Green, Green Christmas,
Elder Haws(mo)

Setting Records‏

Hey Family,

I got mail. The Dansie's were here last Monday so Sister Dansie made a sweep of the new apartment. She likes it but is surprised that we have so little furniture. She said we should go get a table and some chairs so that we have SOMETHING in our front room besides the ironing board. She also informed me that she had a couple letters for me. 46. And two packages. I think I set a record. The next day (Tuesday) we went to Chapeco for a training by the Zone Leaders and interviews with the Dansies. No one believes me that I got 46 letters. It must be some kind of record. Thanks for the love and the letters. I opened up the Christmas package to see how it was going to work, and now have the individually wrapped presents out. Just waiting another 2 weeks. I think I should be able to make it. I've never had a LOT of patience, but I could generally outlast Mindy when it came to gifts.

We spent all day Friday in Xanxere for Elder Wright to do a baptismal interview. The Sisters will baptize again this weekend so we'll be spending another Friday in Xanxere this week. Then Sunday we head to Chapeco before the midnight bus to Lages for Zone conference. Elder Wright is convinced I will get transfered to the beach after New Year's so he says I should enjoy my last long bus ride to conference. I am beginning to suspect that I might be sticking around one more but we will definately see what happens. As far as Xanxere last week: it was a LONG trip. We always get up at around 5:30 to shower and catch the 6:30 bus to Xanxere. Once we're there we have a District Meeting, eat lunch and do visits/baptismal interviews until our bus home that is scheduled for 10:10 PM. As luck would have it, the bus didn't pull into the station until 11PM which meant we were walking through the door of our apartment at 1:30AM. 5 Hours before Saturday started. It was a hard weekend of work in the sun, but despite our lack of sleep, we've got a few more souls ready for the water. Technically we could have two baptisms this Saturday but we're going to wait a week to do a little more preparation with them. We've got a few other groups of investigators practically in the water but they still need a little time to resolve some stuff.

Let's see if we can work out this phone call business. To simplify matters I think we'll just have you call our cell phone, but you have to promise to never call us again at that number. You understand me? Sister Dansie informed me that we are 5 hours ahead of Idaho time, which means a 10AM call from you guys will be 3PM here. I'm good with that if you are. You guys are more than welsome to call me earlier if you give me a little notice in an email, or you can call MUCH later. Elder Wright is planning on his parents calling at 11:30AM Utah time, 4:30PM Brazil Time. If you guys want to wait to call in the afternoon, it would be ok. If you decide to call at 1:30PM Idaho (6:30PM Brazil) that would work too. Our plans for Christmas will be visiting every house a little bit and eating as much as we can. You guys can pick one of the aforementioned times or make up your own schedule, just let me know in the email next week. I NEED TO KNOW YOUR PLAN NEXT WEEK. You guys will have more stuff to worry about on Christmas so just fit me in whenever you guys will have 30-40 minutes free. To call me here it will be ***-**-**-****-****. That includes Brazil's international code and everything. I think. The **-****-**** is the area code and phone number for our phone. The ***-** should handle the Brazil and international stuff. Good luck.

Because of Zone Conference next Monday I won't be emailing until Tuesday. The next week I'll talk to you guys on the phone, and then the next week is Transfers. This is where things should get interesting. Elder Huber, my friend from BYU (Moose: The blonde Brock that was on our basketball team) is currently serving in the Lages Zone so I'll get to see him next Moday for the first time in 8 months. Next Sunday marks 7 months. Only 17 more to go.

The sun is hot, the stack of letters is huge, the work is moving, and I'm fine so stop worrying about me.

In the shadow of 7 months,
Elder Haws(mo)

The Absence of Jack Frost‏

Hey Family,

December is upon us here in Concordia. It makes me sick to think that you guys have snow. Lots of cold, white snow. Saturday we were eating lunch with Roberto and Elizete in deadly heat. They have a clock that tells the temperature as well as other things. It was placed directly in front of a fan that was on high and the temperature still read 90 Fahrenheit. This is only the beginning of a Brazilian summer. I WANT SNOW!!!

The days seem to be getting longer. Fasting this last weekend was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. 24 hours without food wasn’t hard at all. It was the burning sun combined with constant hills that made my soul yearn for the sensation of cool water coursing down my dry, burning throat. As soon as Sacrament Meeting was over we ran to another classroom, said a prayer to end our fast, and made QUICK work of a 2 Liter Grape soda that we had bought on Saturday. I drank more water, juice, and pop in the first two hours after the fast than I ever drank in an entire week back home. This is good to be a good, hot summer. Everyone tells me I haven’t felt anything yet. Mindy used to complain that when the family didn’t pray she had to eat fish. I think that you guys should all say a couple extra prayers in my behalf to see if we can’t get some SNOW in Concordia. Please?

Our new apartment is NEW. Brand new. Just built. The only problem is that is located on top of a hill. A GOOD hill. There was nothing available near the flat, center of the city. Our apartment is a little smaller than the old one, we have a little less furniture, and the Dansie’s are coming by tonight to check it out which means we get to do some extra sweeping and mopping. Plus we have to drill some holes and get some curtains up. Sister Dansie doesn’t like having any windows that people can see into. We even had blinds on all our windows at the old apartment… that was on the fourth floor of the building. Ah well, sometimes you have to make sacrifices to keep the Mission President’s wife happy.

I keep hearing all these little pieces of information about my Cougars. I want to get my letters so I can read EVERYTHING about what has been happening. Football ranked #17, Volleyball going to the Regional Semis; everybody decides to make national headlines when I leave. Just make sure that my Cougars keep winning next year so that when I get back I can push them into a REAL Bowl Game. Maybe by my senior year we’ll be bringing home the championship! Yes, I know that is quite a big dream. Leave me be. I have the faith.

The work is just as difficult as ever. We’ve had some ministers from other churches telling people that it costs $15 to get any item from our pass-along cards. We have a bunch of people that are ready to jump in the water; we just have to get them to church another time. In nearly 5 months here it’s still the same people that seem to be ready for baptism. We just have to get to work and finish the job now.

Other info: I can’t open the picture of the band that Mom sent November 18th, the powder Gatorade mix would be a great thing to put in a package, peanut butter, as of right now we don’t have any concrete plans for where we will be on Christmas but you can probably call me at around 10 AM (Idaho Time). I will be getting the information about HOW to call Brazil today. I hope to have all the Phone Call stuff figured out by next week. I figure 10 AM would let Dad sleep in until 9 before opening presents and then after an hour (and before scones) you could give me a call. Just let me know if that won’t work out.

The work is good, the sun is hot, and I’m fine so stop worrying about me.

Praying for a Blizzard,
Elder Haws(mo)