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Hey Family,

59-0? That’s what I like to hear. My boys are taking care of the PAC-10. Even better: The Power of the Wasatch (BYU Marching Band) now has a home. I home they warm it up nicely for me. Only another year before I claim my permanent place. But hey, there’s no time to think about that now. It’s time to work, work, work.

P-Day today was enjoyable. We got about 20 Elders together at the mission home to play ball. 2 hours of soccer (when I was playing the Brazilians left me in the goal) and around an hour of basketball. Good times. When we got there the president pulled me aside to talk to me… no … it wasn’t an interview… he just wanted to know if I’d heard about the BYU game. When I told him no, he replied that the game was ugly, really ugly. When I asked who played ugly he smiled and answered “Not BYU”. He remembered it being around 60-0, a number that I enjoyed, and openly laughed at UCLA. I was excited until we started playing soccer. That can kill any great feeling. President played with us and made a couple kids look silly. Rumor has it that when he was a kid he was teammates with a current Brazilian legend. I’ll have to do a little more research before we start spreading the rumor so keep it on the down-low.

Once the Brazilians got a little tired we played a “quick” game of basketball. First to 21 by 1. It was me, Elder Burkhardt (Florianopolis Zone Leader) and 3 others against Elder Huber (plays awesome), Elder Peterson (great post player), 2 random Brazilians, and President Queiroz. The president played surprisingly well, and didn’t seem to get as tired as everybody else. They ended up beating us 22-20. President Queiroz hit a deep jump shot to pull away 21-20, and a quick turnover by our team led to the immediate loss. It appears as if we’ll be able to play every other week for a while. Should be good.

Elder Carvalho (my current companion) is a great kid from Sao Paulo. He’s got 6 months on the mission, is in his second area, and was trained by one of our zone leaders. He turns 21 on the 28th of September, but appears to only be 14 or 15. He plays guitar, is a programmer in training, and is anxious to have a baptism on the mission. So far he’s been dry, but we hope to have him in the water a couple times in the next month or so. Work on the island is incredibly different from what I’ve already experienced, but with help from our awesome new ward mission leader we hope to be finding success relatively soon.

Summer seems to be starting up soon, but we’re ready for it. Last week we had around 4 days of rain.That’s no fun when you walk everywhere. Missionary life is never easy, but there’s no use in complaining because it’s not going to end anytime soon.

The sun is hot, the rain has stopped, and I’m fine to stop worrying about me.

Searching for my groove,

Elder Haws(mo)