Awesomest week of ALL time!!!

Well, things here are GREAT!!!!!! This last week was the most awesomest week of ALL time. If you paid attention last week you will know that i got the greatest news of all time and that Mauricio and his family were getting sealed, I´ll get to that!

But first....A few months ago, we heard a legend of an Indian chief. He said that his Grandfather had told him a story of a white god that came to visit them and that promised to come back. This story had been passed down from generation to generation. Well, supposedly a missionary way back met this guy, and told him about the book of Mormon. He said that if they could get 500 copies of the Book of Mormon that the whole village would be baptised... Great legend eh? Well, now years later we heard this story from the genealogy director of Costa Rica, and we decided to go check it out, seeing how missionaries could never get out there, so we got all ready, loaded as many Book of Mormons as we could, and got on a bus with the missionaries from the area where the Indian village is. We ended up having to pay a taxi to get out there. So once we get there, we looked and asked everyone if they knew Juan Quiros, and NO ONE knew him. We found the oldest man in the village, and he had never even heard of that last name. Well, i guess we wasted some time, but at least we have closure, and we actually taught the old man about the BOM (he already had one).

OK so that was Wednesday....

Thursday we had devisions for a baptismal interview of Treicy.

Friday, we got on a bus headed to San Jose for the sealing on Saturday. We picked up three pineapples on the way, and when we got there we made pineapple smoothies... They were delicious.

OK, so Saturday morning we woke up at five in order to get to the temple in time. We got there, and then Mauricio and his family showed up. The sealing was at 12:30, so we did initiatory work for almost 2 hours while we waited... That in its self was AWESOME!!!

OK so finally it was time for the sealing. We get in there, and guess who decided to seal them...... Did you guess?.... The Temple President President Haws(great great grandson of William Wallace haws... like 3rd cousin once removed and return missionary 52 years ago who served also in Costa Rica)

He had met the family, and Mauricio asked him if we were related. I had met him before and i guess he remembered me cause he said yes, and Mauricio gave him an enormous hug and told him all about his story and conversion and our relationship. Well, President Haws decided to seal them. He said some wonderful words, and as Mormon would put it..."Manny wonderful words he spake which the tongue cannot speak"

Mauricio chose me as a witness, and as i sat there listening to what the President said, i looked into there eyes and remembered all the troubles we had. I remembered ever single step of their conversion and all the wonderful decisions they had made that got them to that point. Then i thought about the future and all of the wonderful things they are going to do as a family FOREVER!!! Literally, words cannot describe how i felt. I now truly understand the meaning of Doctrine and covenants section 18. HOW GREAT IS MY JOY

So Saturday after the sealing we had to book it to the bus stop or we wouldn´t make it for church on Sunday.

We arrived home at about 11 pm and went right to sleep. five hours later, at 4 am, we woke up and went to the church to fill the font for the Baptism seeing how we had Had NO time to fill it earlier. Church was interesting, cause our Branch Pres. didn´t show up. He was sick, so i had to run everything. Our baptism was supposed to be at 8 am before church, but treicy didn´t show up. We sent a member with a CAR TO GO LOOK FOR THEM, AND 15 MINUTES LATER I CALLED HER TO SEE WHAT WAS UP. sHE SAID THAT THEY WEREN´T COMING. i TOLD HER TO GET THEM (OOPS... CAPS LOCK) so she went back, and got them ready and brought them to the church. They arrived at nine thirty in the middle of my talk about the importance of temples, and when we were supposed to have Sunday school (i hadn´t had time to plan the lesson) we baptised Treicy and confirmed her immediately after.

I am not sure if what we did was kosher, but i feel OK about it. in the baptismal photo you will see a mom, and three daughters. The Mom is named Elizabeth, and she should be getting baptised any day now. The oldest daughter is Gabriela. She had been a hard investigator, but she will definitely be baptised with her mom. The next daughter(not pictured) is Daniela. She was baptised about a year ago, and since then we have been fighting with the rest to get them baptised. The Next daughter is Treicy in the Pucca shirt(red) and the youngest is Juliana. She is crazy and she said i was "guapo".

OK so Sunday night after the longest day of my life, we got home tired and did the numbers for the zone. After we were done with the phone calls, the phone rang again. It was Mauricio. He said that on Sunday the counselor to the mission president showed up and interviewed him, called him, and set him apart as the Branch President. I WAS SO EXITED!!

Well, i would say that is a pretty event full week wouldn´t you? Oh also Thursday night i dreamed Emily had her baby... I guess i was a few days late(congests Emily and johnny)

Well, thats that.

The mission is AWESOME!!!!

Love Elder Haws

Peaks and Valleys

Dear all,
so i still have no idea who amber is marrying... Thats weird, i thought she was getting married in december. Well, tell her good luck getting married.
So all is well here. We can´t help but talk about how little time we have left in the mission, but we are trying as hard as we can to stay animated(excited) we had a really good week this lasyt week in which two girls tols us they want to be baptised. One will be baptised this friday. We normally do it on saturdays, but i got a call last week from mauricio. I don´t know if i told you, but last week in transfers the mission president asked me to stand up, so i did. He said, "(in spanish) Elder Haws, i have good news. Mauricio Odio and his family are getting sealed on the 26th of october and you will be there¨
Well, i was about the most excited anyone has ever been. Mauricio called me the next day, and i was so excited to talk to him. Itr has been about a year since i talked to him. Well, long story short, we will be going to san jose on friday afternoon to be in the sealing on satureday moprning, so we are going to have the baptism on friday morning.
Other than that, all is well. Having lived in this house here for six months, i kindof lost interest in cleaning it. It got a bit messy, and so now that nay got here, we cleaned up A LOT. Good news is the house is clean.
This week elder nay let me read his book called "Peaks and valleys" It is awesome and i would recommend it to anyone that need to be inspired. Well, after reading it, i decided we should go climb a montain, so we went to the nearest one in our area. We knocked doors on the way and then knocked to door at the very top. We found a lot of great people that we are going to visit tomorrow. After reading the book, i have had a desire to do awesome things, so today for pday we decided to follow this river(actually rio claro) up towards the mountain, so we went with our district. It was hard, and a few of the missionarries were acting like laman and lemuel, but elder nay and i just telling them to keep following us. Luckily, then it started raining. Well, we got soaked, but we fiunally got to the road we were looking for. It was very satisfying to explore like that. Anyway, thats about all for now. I am very excited for these next four months. We are working like crazy, and i truly have become the missionarry of my dreams. I look forward to golfing with everyone when i get home, but i am definately not good.
Thanks for all,
Love Elder Haws

fix

katchup

I think this is a turkey... it pooped on my hand
This frog was mad cause his house fell down(see next foto)

This tree fell on our cooks house. You may recognize it, because i climbed it once.... Remember when i climbes the tree?

They were lucky and it didn't really hit there house, only barely.

This is a baptism from a few weeks ago... Remember the wedding?

left to right... Elder Martinez, Sarai Mylie July Zailin, Didier Naomi(in his arms), Mosiah Helaman(squatting) Nefi, and elder haws.

Yep, they are all now members.