Hey Family, What a busy week! You guys had all five of the young ones in the same city and I was running all across the city trying to make baptisms happen. We got the 10-year old in the water on Friday. It was great. In the last part of the meeting our ward mission leader called on an active aunt to bear her testimony and then invited the non-member father to bear his testimony. Elder Lacerda and I glanced at each other, a little worried about how he’d react, but everything went fine. Wait. Did I say fine? I mean great! He got up and said how proud he was that his son decided to be baptized into the “Church of Latter-day Saints”. He then explained that he was not a member but that he had attended church plenty of times, had read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, and ended by bearing testimony that this church is the true church of Christ. I could not believe it. He went so far as to say the only thing he was lacking to be baptized was the water. In truth, he doesn’t want to be baptized right now, but accepts that one day he will be. We’re going to start talking to him a little bit more. Keep your fingers crossed. Is it true that Greg is going to be an old man this week? The good old 1-8. That’s a HUGE number. What are the plans for the party? Elder Lacerda said that he wants to get invited. His also hoping that there will be cake and ice cream. However, I’m supposed to inform you that if there’s even a chance of snow that he won’t be coming. As much as I want snow down here, it was nice to get a rain storm last night. About two weeks ago it started to cool off a little bit so every started saying that winter was coming. Lo and behold, after 3 days of cool air summer came back in full force… and then a little bit. We finally had a rainstorm start Saturday evening. The rain continued all day Sunday and stopped before we woke up. Last night as we were coming home from our last appointment, we were walking on the sidewalk in water that reached my knees. It wasn’t quite the same as the flood my first week in Concordia, but it was still thoroughly entertaining. Happy Birthday Greg! Today we went for an hour-long walk to eat lunch with Valmir (investigator) and his wife Joyce (inactive). Normally we don’t eat lunch with the members on P-Day, but he is getting baptized Friday. We decided to make an exception. Unfortunately, lunch wasn’t ready when we showed up. After 30 minutes of waiting for lunch, they handed us a deck of Uno cards. For the next 30 minutes Elder Lacerda and I played about 20 games of Uno, one-on-one. Of those 20 games, Elder Lacerda won the 5th. I won the rest. The entire time Valmir was standing on the side watching. For 20 minutes we were hearing comments like “Wow Lacerda, Haws is owning you”. “What did you do to deserve this?” “Haws, shouldn’t you take it easy one him.” “Come on Haws; let your companion win one game.” I was laughing my head off. Elder Lacerda took it pretty well but was more than happy when lunch was ready. Well. Wednesday is Zone Conference, Friday is Valmir’s Baptism, and Saturday should be Luiza’s baptism. This week will be a little busy but a lot of fun. Thursday I will be doing a division with my district leader, Elder Andrews, to finish up the baptismal interviews. One full day with an Elder from my group. This will be good. Mom, I think 5 pm (Idaho time) would be better. Go Bills! The weather is cooler, the font is filling, and I’m fine so stop worrying about me. Celebrating with Pizza,Elder Haws(mo)
Hey Family, Wow, tomorrow marks 11 months since I left home. 11 months, 3 areas, 5 companions (6 including the MTC), 7 transfers, and 3 baptisms. Wednesday will be 11 months in Brazil, and Friday will be a baptism. Next Friday will be another baptism, and after that we just have a couple things to clear up before more people start falling in the water. The goal the Itajai Stake is to divide the Navegantes Ward at the end of next year. There are currently over 100 people active, which means that I’m going to have a chance to help with the division. We have a pretty ambitious stake presidency. The ultimate goal is to divide and became 2 stakes in 2012. It’s not going to be easy, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s the beauty of it. Tomorrow morning we’ll be waking up a little early so that we can make it to the Stake Center for Interviews with President Dansie. We’ll probably discuss the details for the Mother’s Day Phone Call with Sister Dansie. It will probably be the same protocol, but since this is the last phone call during the Dansies’ mission, they might loosen up on the rules a little bit. I’ll most likely be in Navegantes next transfer so it shouldn’t be too difficult to set up the phone call. We have church here from 8:30-11:30 in the morning. If the time change is how I think it is (3 hours right now) that means 5:30-8:30 in the morning for you guys. If you guys have church from 1-4, that should be 4-7 here. I’ll make sure to clear up the time difference with Sister Dansie and let you know for sure next week. If you guys can find a time to call that works for everyone we’ll just do that. Sundays here in Navegantes are pretty laid back. Chad is already on his way? That’s awesome. Shayla is engaged? So is Brett? Jared already married? Wow. If anybody else gets a mission call to Brazil let me know. Make sure to tell me when they get to the MTC so I can get a letter on the way. Justin Baird is a stud. It seems like everybody in the mission loves him. He was always up here in the northern part of the mission, at least until I came. Now he’s down close to the island. He was in his 2nd area for 3-4 months, and when he left it became a Zone Leader area. I can only imagine the work he was doing up there. He’s in an awkward situation right now because his companion is an elder from his group. I want that kind of companionship but I don’t think it’ll work out. The work here in Navegantes is different from the other areas I’ve encountered. He we have young men who are preparing for mission who want to do visits with us, we have over 100 active members so we get referrals, and investigators actually come to church. Yesterday we had 18 non-members in Sacrament Meeting. Elder Andrews (District Leader) and Elder Flores (Zone Leader) almost cried when I told them last night. The weather is great, the work is coming along, and I’m fine so stop worrying about me. Keeping the Font Full,Elder Haws(mo) P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures. I’ll see if I can’t fix this problem before next week.
Hey Family, For the first time in a year I was able to watch General Conference. Our Zone decided on Saturday that the church MUST be true… our prophet can wiggle his ears. I definitely enjoyed the fact that in the 3 talks I was able to watch he seemed to use 0 scriptures and 20 jokes. I had thought for a moment that he had started a stand-up comedy routine. It was great to laugh so much while still feeling the spirit of the conference. Elder Lacerda and I managed to watch both Sunday Sessions and the Priesthood Session on Saturday. The problem was that conference was only shown at the Stake Center in Itajai. Considering that Priesthood was from 9-11PM, we didn’t get back home until 12:15am. Oops. Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure the President will forgive us. Navegantes is great. I have pictures of our house and some of the members, but I’m having a little trouble with the computers in this lan house so I might not get the pictures sent until next week. We have some awesome investigators (many of whom went to Conference) who are just working to clear some things up in order to get baptized. We have a 16-year old who is ready and willing to jump in the water, but we just found out that this weekend he will be moving to a city that doesn’t have the church. The closest chapel is about an hour away by bus, but no bus runs that route on Sundays. We canceled the baptism for the time being, but still waiting for word from President Dansie to see if we can baptism him anyway under these conditions. Besides him we have a 10-year old who is the son of an inactive member, but who generally goes to church with his uncle and aunt. If the parents (the father isn’t a member) give permission we will probably be splashing him soon. Maybe Saturday. Buffalo? Seriously? That’s awesome. Hey Moose, is it a desk job or will you be on the field like at BYU? Will you be running everywhere or just focused on one position or group? After how you, Harvey and the backfield kept it going after losing all-time leading rusher Curtis Brown, I expect the Bills so start kicking it up a notch. If John Beck is still around in Miami and Spencer is starting the revolution up in Buffalo, those wretched Patriots should finally get what’s coming to them. I’m hoping for at least 3 or 4 Patriot-free playoffs. Got it? Good. Break. I’m sorry this email is so short. This lan house is having problems, so this is the third time I’m typing this. I promise that more info will be coming the future. Thanks for your letters, prayers, and packages. I have an investigator here who loves the LA Lakers. Despite how much I don’t like them, I think he would appreciate a Lakers hat. He didn’t ask me to get him one, and I didn’t tell him I would, but that’s the story. Thanks for the Mrs. Buttersworth. I’ve introduced Elder Lacerda to American Pancakes and the rest of the Zone is upset that they don’t have this syrup. One elder even threatened to call the president and tell him there was a woman living in our apartment if I didn’t share. There is an elder from Navegantes going to the Provo MTC this week. His name is Ronan Soares and he will be serving in the Illinois Chicago North Mission. I have no idea what his address would be in the MTC. Could anyone possibly drop of a box of Krispy Kreme for him? He’s a stud. He always did visits with us. The weather is great, there is work to be done and I’m fine so stop worrying about me.Filling the font,Elder Haws(mo)
