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)
