November 15, 2010 - Bom Dia!

Hey Family!

How´s everything going? Sounds like you guys are all doing well. I´m doing good also. Thanks for the pictures. Kate is big! Haha thats so awesome. Hope everything is well with them.

 

Rachel - I forgot to tell you that your hair looks great! Its a lot longer now. And nice job on the pumpkin. If i´m right its the beach. Man you´re good. Are you planning on going to the beach this year or something haha? How is tennis? School? What happened with the callbacks? Hope all is well. How´s those scripture mastery coming? Read the scriptures and pray everyday!

 

Dad - How´s work going? and the ward? What else is new?

 

Mom - How´s the calling? and the stake youth committee? Glad to hear that training was good.

 

Questions:

Tell us how many hours a day you walk and how the weather is.  

     The weather is hot! Its wierd how the weather is hot but Christmas is almost here. It has rained a lilttle bit but not too much. From what I understand it will start raining a lot soon. We walk a ton each day. I´ll have to do an experiment where i time myself walking. Its hard to say.

 

Tell us what your favorite Brazilian snack food is. 

     Hmmm...as far as candy goes they have something called bis, which is similar to a kit-kat that is good. They have these oreo-like cookies but like a key lime flavor that i like haha.

 

Tell us how many investigators do you have.  How many lessons a week do you teach? 

      Right now we´re working a lot with our recent converts just helping them to stay active. We are teaching one woman/girl named Vánia. She is 21 and is really good. She is the niece to another investigator (Gilberto) and lives with him. Gilberto is still working on getting married but still wants to be baptized. Vánia wanted to know more and so we taught her. She will hopefully be baptized this week. We´re working with her on the Word of Wisdom a little bit but she liked church a lot this last week. We are looking for more people who have a strong desire to teach right now. We teach close to 30-40 lessons a week (but a lesson doesn´t necessarily mean one of the lessons from PMG). We have to walk a ton and we are struggling in teaching with members. Not a whole lot of involvement with the members right now.

 

 Do you take turns during the lesson teaching?  

   Yup. We normally each teach half of the lesson.

 

Do the people treat you nice or are they rude to you? 

    Most people are pretty nice. Every once in a while you talk to somebody who is mad at the world and there isn´t too much you can do. But for the most part people are nice.

 

 Do they ever talk so fast that you can't keep up?
     Everyonce in a while i have to ask them to repeat or ask my comp, but for the most part I understand well. Sometimes people don´t understand me very well and I have to try again or my companion takes over for a bit. I think its my accent, which will improve with time.

 As far as the letters go, just keep sending emails. I can print them i found out today. Email is better because its FAST haha. But thanks for the concern and ideas.  2 packages for Christmas?!/!? Man am i lucky haha thanks a ton. I´ll look forward to getting them. There´s going to be a mission conference the week of Christmas where the whole mission will be together in Ribeirão Preto. It should be awesome! We have a zone conference this week also. I´m excited for that.  They are always good. Transfers are next week. I could go or stay and the same with Elder D Souza. We will see. Both ways will be good. Today after emailing we are going to hike this hill that overlooks the whole city with a priest in the branch here. There is a statue of Christ there, typical of almost every hill in Brazil haha. But it should be cool and I promise to take some good pictures.

But im doing good. I´m healthy and im still liking the food. I really like beans and rice. Many times they eat "macarrão" with beans and rice. It is just a word for pasta and spaghetti sauce haha. Its really good all mixed together with a piece of fried chicken. The only thing that i´ve eaten thats wierd was "moella". Its some internal part of the chicken. I dont have my dictionary with me otherwise I would look it up. I knew it was different just by looking at it. It was cut up in a mixture of food. I just ate it. It wasnt too bad but i wouldnt choose it. The member told me that she only made it because her husband likes it and that she doesn't even like it. She told me i didnt have to eat more of it if i didnt want to and was super nice. 

I´m proud to represent the Lord every day. I have things I need to do better, but we all do. The important thing is to look to improve and set goals. This week I learned and will continue to learn about diligence. Diligence truly brings a feeling of satisfaction. Its easy to want to do nothing or less important things. But when we do the hard thing or the thing that needs to be done, we will be more happier. The gospel is the plan for our happiness. Keep doing what you guys need to do to be happy (Mosiah 2:41). 

I love you all so much. Thank you for your love and support. I hope you are happy. I am happy. This is the important stuff, the stuff that matters!

 

Elder Hawkley