Well, life is good! the church is true.

Hello!

Thanks for the email. I love reading them! sorry if I don’t comment on everything that you say. I really enjoy reading it and please keep me updated on stuff that goes on..I appreciate it!

Mommy, I wish I could have some of those choc chip cookies..they're the best! but I don’t get many goodies here in East London. they call desert "pudding" here and yeah the food has been pretty good. you'd be impressed, I eat a lot of rice now! its not that bad. and I’m not sure what happens for thanksgiving...oh my comp just said" there’s no such thing as thanksgiving." haha. he said some of the American missionaries meet together and have a little party or something. and the mission home is hours and hours away.  I saw Elder Rigby yesterday, but just shook his hand.

No, missionaries here normally don’t perform baptisms, or priesthood blessings. we have someone from the ward baptize them..cuz we'll leave the area, but the person that baptizes them will stay in the ward and be like a support system, ya know! and home teachers and the elders quorum do the blessings.

I have been thinking about stuff for my Christmas package......I would love those 3 missionary books! they come in a pack or something. one of them is written by Elder Ballard or something, and another one is Jesus the Christ by James E Talmage? those would be great to have and study. and I don’t have many pictures of like San Diego or Logan...my boarding looks boring! and i would like a pic of the SPECTRUM! please.  Tell Aunt Julie that I really appreciate her letters, and that I’m not sure how long it takes for a package to get here. just that mail takes like 3 weeks, and i don’t care what you say in the report on fast Sunday, don’t make it too long, but make it good!

It was a pretty good week in the mission field. I went on exchanges twice! so Elder Aires went to the other area and Elder Ruzai came to my area! oh my goodness, Elder Ruzai cracks me up! it was kinda bad, we were trying to have a prayer before planning, but for some reason i had the giggles really bad, and it took like 5 minutes before we could pray cuz I just couldn’t stop laughing! I don’t know what it is about him, he just makes me laugh! the dude is constantly forgetting things! like his belt for church, missionary planner, his name tag, etc. he's awesome! we had a GREAT time together! then the next day I went on exchanges with the Zone Leader! I thought I would go to his area, but they showed up at our boarding and told us I would stay in our area and Elder Aires would go to their area! so I was the senior comp for 2 days in a row..that’s stressful for a greenie missionary! Elder Dillon was super cool, and i learned a lot from him. but I was in charge of comp study and like what we did during the day and calling people and stuff. so we had all these appointments planned, but ALL the appointments fell through. sad. lets just say that i was glad when the day was over! haha

We were in this lesson last week with a family of 10 people..all girls! like the grandma was there, with her 2 daughters and her kids. intimidating. and they didn’t speak or understand English very well. they live in this tiny little room, in a very rough part of town, and it was burning hot in there. but we started the lesson and my comp started talking about the gospel, and after a while I could tell the people were starting to lose interest. the spirit told me to talk about the restoration and BOM and to bear my testimony, and that’s what I did! it was amazing and powerful. they all were interested and asked a few questions. I bore my testimony and told them what I know to be true and gave them a BOM and they said they would read and pray about it. it was a cool experience.

Yesterday we drove to Mdansane (25 min) for a special conference. wow. Mdansane is the 2nd largest township in South Africa. Look it up on Google or something. it is absolutely unbelievable. you just see miles and miles of small little shacks and dirt roads, where people live. it is unreal. so sad.

Elder Watson was there! Elder Watson served for 38 years as the secretary to the first presidency! for 7 PROPHETS! incredible! it was a big conference, 750 people, and missionaries from 4 zones, so lots of elders. but he greeted each one of us. I got to shake his hand! just think how many hands he has shook in his life. I still remember what he said to me. "where are you from Elder Haws?" I told him and then he said "oh that’s a nice place" it was so cool! the conference was great. President Probst was there and gave a nice talk, and of course Elder Watson, the general authority, gave an amazing talk. but I’m not gonna lie, I kinda wish I was in Cape Town, cuz the one and only ELDER HOLLAND was there!! lucky people who got to hear him, but Elder Watson was great.

We've kinda done a lot of tracting recently, we gotta find more people to teach! but we're pretty booked for this week. those 2 girls are getting baptized this weekend! and this weekend we FINALLY get to watch conference! yes! I am soooo excited.  It has been kinda rainy and windy here, and we walk a lot.

We saw some drunk guys wizzin' on the side of the road, for the world to see! haha and got offered drugs by 2 dudes standing on the corner of the street, that was cool.
well, life is good! the church is true.

Love your missionary son,

Elder Haws

I have a testimony that the work I'm doing here is true!

Elder Chiromo and Me

Hey! Thanks for the email. normally on P day after we email we go shopping and then just hang out in the afternoon and play soccer or write letters. That's good to hear you guys are pulling the weeds and keeping the car clean. Dad, keep my baby nice for me! haha. Yes, I got my license and credit card. Dang, that picture on my license sucks!! Like a mug shot. I waited 4 hours for that?! All our mail goes to Cape Town and then they send it to the senior couple in the area, and then the senior couple gives it to us every Friday. I haven't gotten any letters from people in our ward yet. It takes like 3 weeks to get mail? I don't know. We stay in Baysville, close to Southernwood. Look up that. We stay right under the bishop, he's really cool. You can see the ocean from the road where we live. its only like 2 miles or so away from the water.

Our laundry machine isn't very nice. So last week I decided to wash my clothes by hand. and we just hang up our clothes to dry.

Soo last week seemed to go by super fast. On Tuesday an RM from the ward came out with us to our appointments. He served in Kenya. we taught a lot of lessons with him. then the next day it was raining. (I got a sweet rain coat from an elder in the MTC who brought too much stuff, so he just gave it to me) soo in the morning it wasn't that bad, but then we decided to walk to this one investigator that we really needed to see. Cuz it wasn't raining that bad. It took like 30 minutes to walk there, and during that time the heavens decided to open and we got DRENCHED. My poor companion, he didn't have a rain coat. He has holes in his shoes. We kinda got lost too. I had one of those missionary moments while I was walking. I thought to myself "I'm cold, wet, hungry, tired, my comp is annoying me, I'm thousands of miles away from all my family and friends...but this is what it's all about! Serving a mission!" After we taught the lesson, we had to walk back in the dark while it still was raining and even though I had a jacket, I still got soaked.

The next day we had Zone Conference. It happens once a transfer. President Probst travels to each of the 8 zones in the mission and gives us instruction. President goes from Namibia to Cape Town, to Port Elizabeth, and here. That's a lot of travel! President Probst is amazing! Everyone says he's gonna be a General Authority soon! He knows EVERYTHING! I cant even describe it. He's the man. We got trained for most of the day then went to some appointments that night. The rest of the week went pretty well.  On Saturday Zinzi (15 years old) and Khayakazi (19 years old) passed their baptismal interviews!!


We got exchanges coming up this week! tomorrow with the other elders in our district, then the next day with the Zone leaders. I'm excited. alright, so Elder Aires is starting to be a little annoying sometimes! haha. We still get along fine, but like some of the things he does bother me. haha. nahh, he's a hard worker and we are good friends and are always joking around and have fun together.

Last night we ate dinner with a Afrikaans family! crazy language. Those Afrikaners talk fast and it sounds like dutch or something. They don't really pronounce the A in hAws. It sounds like HOOZ. haha. They said Haas in Afrikaans means rabbit.

Check it out, guess what I did this morning....went to the Mercedes Benz factory! WOW! What an experience. I wish we could of taken cameras. That place is unbelievable. Soo many robots and other coool things! It was where they make the C-Class, and they ship them to places all over the world. I never knew how much detail and technology goes into making a car. They make about 275 cars a day, and put about 6,000 onto a big boat and ship them off. You have to see this factory to believe it. The assembly line and all the tests they did were awesome. Super cool.

Tracting is hard and scary for me. If we get in to a house, we first BRT (build relationship of trust) for the first few minutes then we open with a prayer and start teaching the Doctrine of Christ. We first introduce the Book of Mormon and read from the Intro and stuff. We flip to 2 Nephi 31, which talks about the Doctrine of Christ. We read verses 4&5, then 7 answers the question why Christ was baptized, then we read verse 10&11 and then invite them to be baptized, right then and there! In the first lesson! Its incredible how many people say yes. Most times the people that say yes don't keep commitments and say they're busy when we come for our appointments...but President Probst said a few months ago in our zone when we weren't using the Doctrine of Christ we had 8 baptismal dates, now we have 24! So it works.

Well, I have a testimony that the work I'm doing here is true. I wouldn't be out here if I didn't believe it. I get to bear my testimony many times every day. I love it! There are so many people here who need the gospel in their life. I feel soo blessed and lucky to have had the gospel in my life and be raised in a loving family where I have SOO many things to be grateful for.

I miss you guys!!

LOVE, Elder Haws

Here are some pictures from the MTC. I haven't taken any yet here in East London...but I will!! (click on picture for larger view)

Elder Chiromo and me!

Me and the Elders..

Enjoyed going to the temple

View of Cape Town! Nice.. like San Diego

World Cup Stadium

Settling down in East London & getting to work!

Family!!

How is everything?! bummer about the pads and bolts. oh well. thanks for the nice email. those pictures from Hawaii look amazing! I like that picture of mom jumping in the air! ha. I can see the ocean from East London, its nice. I haven't got the package yet. we get mail every Friday, so hopefully I'll get it this Friday! I'll let you know when I get it. and yeah, Mondays are our P days so this is when I'll be emailing. and yes, I workout a little bit in the morning. Its the first thing we do once we wake up, so I normally just stretch for the first 15 minutes and then do push-ups and situps and use the stretchy bands they gave us. I normally sweat a little bit. and this morning I went on a little run. its not the same as the workouts I did at home, but it's better than nothing! and I haven't used the camera at all since I've been here. It seems to be working fine.

That's a funny story about you taking the wrong bag, then later seeing all those missionaries! ha and that's right, Tom Tom leaves on his mission!

Mom, dad, do you guys communicate with each other?? Dad asks if the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are good, and mom asks is there is peanut butter down here?! what the? ha. but yes, I eat peanut butter on toast for breakfast with some cereal, then like a peanut butter sandwich for lunch if we even eat lunch, then normally we get good food at our DA, but then before I go to bed I have a peanut butter sandwich. thats alot of peanut butter.


Our boarding doesn't have any bugs. I guess one night we left the door open and a few bugs came in, but we keep the windows and doors shut at night so we never have a bug problem. are monkeys considered bugs? ha, cuz a few mornings we see them outside and we throw them bananas and they eat them up. I guess one time an elder saw a monkey sitting on the counter in the boarding!


So far the food we've been eating is similar to American food. I'm positive there are other more rural areas where I'll get some native food, but so far it's just been chicken and rice and other basic food.

One thing that I'm still getting used to is the conversion to rand. I spent 175 rand on food last week. we get 325 rand a week so I haven't used any of my personal money, heck I still need to exchange it for rand!
man, what a first week in the mission field! dang. for P day last week we played soccer with the whole zone, that was fun. then Tuesday we had a really good day. we made it to all of our appointments and found some good people to teach. but Wednesday was rough and seemed really long. It seemed like we just walked all day and didn't get much done. My comp said there was gonna be lots of long days like that. but to make that day even worse, we got to our DA at 8pm and they totally forgot that they were feeding us, but they love talking, so we didn't get home till like 9:45, so then we ate peanut butter sandwiches. ha. We normally eat lunch at about 12:30 then don't eat until 8. It makes the afternoon seem really long.

We literally leave our boarding at 10:15am and don't get back till like 9:30pm. sometimes we get back a little bit earlier and we are asleep by 9:30 cuz we are both so tired.  We have 3 investigators with baptismal dates coming up! I'm excited! its fun to teach them and watch them learn and grow. We recently were tracting and found some solid investigators that i can tell the Lord has been preparing to recieve our message.

Here are some of the names of the people we are teaching....Zinzi, Sonwabile, Nompucuko, Sibongwile, Khayakazi, Syvuyele. You try pronouncing those! ha. I haven't picked up on much of the language yet. I'm still trying to be able to make the "click" sound with my mouth! Its hard. its for sure a unique language.
We got a busy busy week coming up this week. Lots of appointments! and we plan to do some tracting and street contact, yikes! Its scary.

Sorry, I'll try and send some pics next week, I promise!

The initials for our mission are SACTM -  
South Africa Cape Town Mission...or Serve Always Christ The Master. I like that.

well, hope you guys have a great week!

LOVE YOU!!
Elder Haws

My first area is EAST LONDON!!

Family!!

Wow, lots has happened since the last time that I emailed! we went to the temple on tuesday for the last time for a long time. we got to do sealings! One of the sister missionaries got sealed to her deceased parents, it was super spiritual. then we had like a big goodbye meeting and everyone bore their testimonies and said their goodbyes. We left the MTC the next morning, the 29th. We got up at like 4:30 and flew to Cape Town. it was sad cuz I had to say goodbye to my comp, who knows if I'll ever see him again.


Anyways, like 21 of us all went to Cape Town. man, what a beautiful place! It reminds me al ot of San Diego. palm trees, sunny weather, right near the ocean etc. but there are more mountains around there. the first place we went was the mission office. They told us lots of info and like gave us out MSF (my sacred fund) credit card and stuff. Then we all drove to the mission home. Dang, it is way nice! As soon as we got there we unloaded our stuff then went to this place that reminded me a little bit of the gliders port/that mountain in Hawaii. It over looked the Indian Ocean and all of Cape Town! sooo pretty! You could see the famous Table Mountain! I could see on of the arenas where they played a world cup game! I took some great pictures. Cape Town is thousands of times better than Jo-burg! Jo-burg is the ghetto and not nice. it really is true that every where in South Africa is like a different country. there's more white people in Cape Town, and everything is just nicer and more clean.

We went back to the mission home and they told us more stuff about the mission, and we ate and President Probst interviewed all of us. he said he sent that picture to you guys. he is a stud. everyone says he's gonna be a general authority some day! so that night we all piled into his small office and he has this big board with all the companionship on it! we all were super super excited!! i found my picture and my companion! then we all went to bed and then had a nice breakfast and pretty much loaded up in the cars and said our goodbyes!
soooo, I am in EAST LONDON!! My first area! there are 4 zones in the mission, Cape Town, Namibia, Port Elizabeth, and East London. So 9 of us flew to East London, it was like and hour and 15 minute flight. We landed in this tiny airport right next to the beach. There was a group of missionaries there to greet us, but my comp wasn't there, he was out working!

So I drove with the ZL's (zone leaders) and they brought me to by boarding (where I live) and I met my companion!! Elder Aires!! he's from Mozambique!! He was born near Russia, and looks Mexican! haha. His first language is Portuguese, so his english isnt perfect. He's been out 16 months and is super nice. He has been in this area for 6 weeks. We stay at one of the nicer places in the zone, right under the Bishop.

So I unpacked my stuff and the first thing we did was planned for over 2 hours! then, we had an appointment! ah! It went better than I thought. then after that we went to a DA (dinner appointment). We went back and I was tired and slept like a baby. One day we drove like 30 minutes to this members house. She is crazy! She lives on a farm and has sooo many animals! like 10 dogs, 21 cats, tons of chickens, an owl, swans, goats, donkeys, emus, parrots, etc. You have to see it to believe it. and she fed us...it wasn't very good! haha and like her cat was eyeballing my food the whole time, and there were tons of fly's buzzing around us, but I was hungry.


The next day we taught like 5 lessons and tracked a lot and talked to soo many people. its crazy! So much has happened its hard to remember everything. but its weird, most people are really receptive to us, like they invite us right in to talk to them, or we set up a return appointment.my comp does most of the talking, but I'm getting better.

Church was pretty good on Sunday. We started our fast the afternoon before, so we didnt eat dinner saturday night or breakfast on sunday. but I bore my testimony, and in their ward, they all flock up to the pulipt, unlike the PQ2! Sacrament meeting went like 15 minutes over, but it was super good. After church we had 2 long appointments then a DA. This was is super nice cuz we have a DA every night!

East London is nice. I'm in the 3rd ward. there is another set of elders in our ward, cuz the ward covers a large area. They get to use the car, but they give us rides most of the time, but we do alot of walking. Its mostly black people that we're teaching, but they are very humble. There's lots of trash in the streets and the houses are small and run down.

Well, we gotta go shopping, cuz we hardly have any food in our boarding! I have a feeling I'm gonna be eating lots of peanut better sandwiches!

I'll send some pics next week!  Missionary work is hard.

Love,
Elder Haws

Arrival in Cape Town and the Mission Home

We are writing to let you know that your missionary has arrived here in Cape Town. Sister Probst and I have had a wonderful time meeting and getting to know him. He is a wonderful young man and we are so grateful to have him here and feel the strength he brings. We wanted you to know he is here safely. We enjoy having him spend his first night here in our home as he prepares to begin his missionary service. Attached is a picture we took on his arrival.

Thank you for sharing him with us for a time. We will care for him as we would hope our own precious sons would be cared for. Please feel free to let us know of questions or concerns. We pray for your well being in his absence.

Here is the mailing address if you wish to write him... Both Letters or packages should be sent to this address and then we will forward them to the area in which he is serving. Just a note on packages. There is no charge to receive letters or items in the manila mailing packages but there is a R25 fee (about $3 US) the post charges to release boxes from the post for which the elder is responsible. Each elder is also responsible for the additional postage depending on weight of the package to have it mailed to his area.

P.O. Box 181
Observatory 7935
Republic of South Africa

Sincerely,
President Randall and Sister Deanna Probst
South Africa Cape Town Mission