A Day Late and a Dollar Short‏

Hey Family,

How was your week? Mine was pretty good. I'm sorry you didn't get an email from me yesterday. I think I forgot to tell you last week that yesterday was going to be Zone Conference. We left at 6am and got back at 6pm and went straight to an FHE with a family that moved here from Florianopolis. The Zone Conference was awesome. Maybe I'm a horrible missionary, but I think my favorite part of the mission is getting to see the other missionaries. To sit down and swap stories, jokes, and crazy investigators really works wonders to relax and "recharge the batteries". Who knows, maybe my favorite part would be baptizing if I was getting in the water often enough to remember the feeling.

Mom, I'm sorry if you feel like I'm not receiving your emails. In reality I didn't receive your email from last week until today. I'll do my best to get some pictures of my houses. I make no promises about the Concordia apartment, but I'll get a picture from Imbituba to you next week. If the pictures I'm sending aren't turning out well just let me know and I'll send a bigger copy. It's no problem at all. As far as companions go, I'll get a better picture of Elder Wright and Martin (I hope) I'm putting one in of Elder Candia, but I'll probably take a better one before I get home, and I sent one of Elder C. Silva and me in front of the beach last week.

I can't even imagine the snow these days. We are generally between 86 and104 degrees Fahrenheit. The humidity from the beach doesn't help the temperature any. The nice thing is that between the sun and the ocean breeze, our clothes dry really fast on the line. That is, when it's no training. Since our clothes dry so fast on the line, I thought that I could try an experiment that would allow me to save time I the morning. Between exercise, breakfast, waiting for the companion to shower, my shower, and getting dressed, it's sometimes difficult to have everything ready when its time to study. As such, sometimes you have to mix up the routine in the morning. You'll have to see the pictures to understand.

As far as items from home, there are a couple things I could use. I would love to have an English copy of Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (The manual from priesthood and relief society, not the big published book), pencils to mark in the scriptures, I would love a little map of the US to show where Idaho is. The same member here who wants to buy a bottle of maple syrup extract (the little glass bottle with that you can mix with water and sugar to make syrup) from me wants a jar of peanut butter from me. Just let me know the prices when you send it and he'll pay me. Oh. I tried to use my Wells Fargo card last week and it didn't work. I'll try it again today and let you know next week if it really isn't working.

Oh. Don't send anything in the letters except the paper. There are workers in the Post Office opening the corners of American letters to look for money or something. It's illegal, but they haven't found out who it is yet.

Celebrating the MWC Championship,
Elder Haws(mo)

no email

Mikey has a zone conference today, so we didn't get an email. If we hear from him tomorrow I'll update the blog.

Rising to the Challenge‏

Hey Family,

This week was a wet one. It has rained everyday for about 10 days straight.There is no one in the street to talk to, and nearly impossible to dryclothes. Life keeps going, because there's no other option at this point.Today is looking to be a bright, sunny day. I just hope this sort of weatherwill endure a couple more days.

This past week we started a REAL service project. A member of our ward has ahouse. This house has an unfinished room on the back that lacks walls, andis just being used to dry clothes. We are now working with the Bishop,almost every morning after study, to build some walls. All we have to workwith is used materials, so I spent about an hour the first day bending usedrebar(?) of various shapes and sizes until it was straight and unbent again.That was not fun. Some pieces appeared to be 100% rust, other pieces didn'twant to bend at all, etc. We only got to actually work two days, because therain puts a stop to everything. It turns out that this member knows JennyCrandall. They were in the same ward in Tubarao and claim to be goodfriends. I'm supposed to pass on word to Jenny that they miss her and wishher the best. Selma has twin sons who will turn 3 this week. These kids areterrors with a capital T. Selma's husband is from Chile, and occasionallyspeaks Spanish to the boys, which means that they try speaking Spanugueuseor Portunish or some other combination to me. It's fun, but definately astruggle, to communicate with them.

Yesterday after church we went to the Bishop's house for lunch, as usual.The change of pace, is that Selma was there with the twins and their 7 year old big brother. Selma decided to help the Bishop's wife and made acasserole of rice, mashed potatoes, and shrimp. She made it for us one day last week and I nearly ate the entire pan. Selma remembered this, and madetwo pans. We got to talking about eating, and Elder C. Silva mentioned how his family always eats once. No one goes back for seconds. You fill your plate, you eat it, and you're done. The topic then switched to me. We all decided that I wouldn't fit in with Elder C. Silva's family, seeing as how I always eat 2, 3, 4, or 5 plates worth of food. Selma was kind enough to take my plate and serve it herself. She filled it to overflowing the first time in an attempt to hold me to only serving once. After finishing the plate,without breaking a sweat, she grabbed my plate and filled it again. A second time I ate without a problem. At this point she started giving ice cream tothe kids and adults, and then loaded a third mountain onto my plate. Selma then offered a challenge to me. She said that there was NO possible way thatI could eat the third plate of "casserole" and then still have room for icecream. I calmly replied that I would not only have room for a cup of icecream, but for an entire tub (400 grams~almost a pound). She then got a defiant look on her face, put a little more casserole on my plate, and thechallenge began. Needless to say, I won without trouble. I had to make sureto represent the Haws family well. When all was said and done, Selma informed me that I ate around 2 kilograms (4.5 lbs) of casserole. For those of you keeping score at home, that comes out to about 5.5 lbs of food and lunch yesterday, and I was still hungry. I might not be baptizing everyweek, but this ward will still remember Elder Haws.

How is life at home? Is BYU really charging me $2700 for being in Brazil? I hope not. Any more mission calls? Any word on Greg's college plans? University? Major? How about Spencer and Brianna?
Life is good, the beach is beautiful, the sun is high in the sky, and I'm fine so stop worrying about me.

Honoring the Family Name,
Elder Haws(mo)

birthday

Silva and Hawsmo on the beach
service

Selma
Gabriel and Pedro