Flight NEWS!!!

  MISSIONARY TRAVEL
  SOUTH AFRICA CAPETOWN MISSION

SERVICE               DATE  FROM           TO             DEPART  ARRIVE

_____________________ _____ ______________ ______________ _______ ______

BRITISH AIRWAYS       13SEP CAPE TOWN      LONDON         815P    645A

BA 58              THURSDAY CAPE TOWN INTL HEATHROW               14SEP
S ECONOMY                                  TERMINAL 5

           NON SMOKING      MEAL                          NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         11:30 DURATION
                  AIRCRAFT: BOEING 747-400

BRITISH AIRWAYS       14SEP LONDON         SAN DIEGO CA   305P    615P

BA 273               FRIDAY HEATHROW       LINDBERG FLD
N ECONOMY                   TERMINAL 5     TERMINAL 2    
           NON SMOKING      MEAL                          NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         11:10 DURATION

                  AIRCRAFT: BOEING 777-200/300

RESERVATION NUMBER(S)

HAWS/DUSTIN BENJAMIN  202298-R

Postcard from NAM

ONDIKUHOLE

Hi family!

Daddy you're the best! And mommy, you're awesome. Your emails always make me smile. Even though I’ve been gone for quite a while now, I still look forward to them every Monday morning. But I’ve really missed the last 2 weeks emails from my one and only sister.

Sister Koppa

I have no clue where I wanna stay up at USU. and heck yeah you should buy a condo up there. Or even better yet. A CABIN! That would be sweet. Man, life is going to be sweet when I get home, I hope! It will. And it sounds like everyone wants a piece of Connie Haws at their dental office! My teeth need a cleaning, but you'd be proud of how I’ve taken care of them.

Let’s see, time to report on my week. It seemed to me like the theme of the week was going to the temple! Taught it a few times throughout the week, and all it did was make me miss the temple even more than I already do. But it was wonderful to see the excitement and desire for these faithful Namibian saints to so to Jo-burg and attend the temple. I wish it was more convenient for them.

We did lots of service this week. We were in Katutura and all these small kids after school came over and were watching these 4 white boys out in the sun in the middle of the day, digging in the dirt. They must have thought we were crazy. These older ladies even came up to us and asked what in the world we were doing. Normally, when you see like a construction place, all the black people are working and slaving away while the 1 or 2 white people supervise. ha-ha.

We took Lukas fellowshipping this past week, which was cool. It makes a missionary feel good when you see someone you taught bear testimony and say that 'he knows' something about the restored gospel is true. It’s a good feeling. Also, Francoise the other recently baptized member, taught gospel principles. Even though he has a PhD, he still was learning how to teach about the gospel, cuz it’s different than normal things at school. He did a great job though.

This past Saturday morning we played soccer at the Windhoek chapel with the elders quorum. Man, I am SO out of shape it’s not even funny. I could barely breathe. We played in the smaller cultural hall and had a blast. My legs are still sore.

The NAM CLAN!! See the shape of Namibia

We set 2 solid baptism dates for the month of august, so we're excited for them. Yesterday I gave a talk in church! It was for 10 minutes about, what else, missionary work! I think it went very well. I focused on how important it is to do member missionary work and a spoke directly to those who wanted to serve missions, and those people who were not thinking about serving. I rebuked the entire congregation! haha jk. I just bore my testimony of the importance of missionary work and deciding to serve full time for 2 years and how epically awesome and rewarding it is. The branch has a lot of potential to just pump out elders and even sisters. A sister is leaving soon for Jacksonville Florida. Heck, the next talk I’ll probably give is my homecoming! Ahh.

I saw a cool thing this week. We walked past this shack, and instead of using a normal washer for the screw, they used a freakin bottle cap! haha it was funny, but I guess kinda smart. They sure do have plenty laying around  haha.  A classic Namibian thing to drink is a thing called Oshikandela! Basically, it’s yogurt, but really tasty and people here love it!

Rich people are soo poor all they have is money!  Sister Smith told us that she saw people during "opening exercises" doing literally exercises! Like stretching and stuff haha.

Today is Elder Farley’s b-day, tomorrow is Elder Sheppard’s and Wednesday is Elder Morris's! partyyyyyy. The Smiths are taking us out to a buffet later today. Have I told you how much I love the Smiths! They are like the best senior couple ever! Even though they young and not very seniorly haha

Scriptures - Alma 34:32-33 and Mormon 7:8-9

Nothing more to report from here in Windhoek, Namibia! All is well, all is well.

Miss you all! It’s been tooooo long since I’ve seen you guys.

ONDIKUHOLE!! (I love you, in Oshiwambo)

Love,

Elder D. Haws

Thats Ohamisa! Cutest girl everrr

Mission life is the good life.



WHATS UP SAN DIEGO STREET!

Dear family,

Shame to hear that Independence Day was cloudy. Bummer. Here is was a perfect day! haha that’s funny what happened on the barges. How embarrassing. Sure, I’d be honored to give a talk on my wonderful sister’s birthday! If she emails me! haha yeah that’s fine. Could you maybe tell me the topic so I can brew over it and make some plans hahaand I have no clue what classes I’m going to take or what my major is going to be? And how and why do you have 3 cars parked in the driveway now?!  Don’t get any ideas about me being a choir singer. Come on now. Don’t push your luck haha

Man it sounds like you guys had a party at the house! Wish I coulda been there, wait, missionary work is the best. Glad you had a wonderful anniversary at the Hotel Del Cornado. Wanna know something weird...I was in the shower and I saw the travel shampoo elder Morris uses, and you won’t believe what it said...HOTEL DEL CORONADO!! hahah I laughed. He’s been there before. Recently his family has been down to San Diego from Valencia.

Thats what we ate on the 4th! NAM style

I guess you can record some of the good stuff of the Olympics for me? It’s going to sit on that TV for a long time, and I don’t plan to be a couch potato when I get home. I got places to be and people to see haha.  Mommy I’m glad your procedure went well. I knew it would!!

This week was fantastic as usual. The 4th of July was great here in Namibia! it actually was very busy with teaching appointments. We started at the library again sorting newspapers and the lady called us angels for helping her out so much. We taught and taught and taught from 2pm to almost 9pm. a solid day.  and in every one of our lessons, I made certain that they knew it was America's birthday! haha. Not many people knew, but now they do! We capped it off at the De Sousa home and ate goat head. I've eaten it before back in Cape Town, and this time it was just as good. I ate the eyeball, nose, and tongue. It’s not as bad as it seems. yumm.


The Baptism!

I went on exchanges with my former companion, Elder Giles! It was SO fun! We stayed up wayyy too late, which seems to happen a lot on exchanges, talking about Meadowridge! Man, good times. It brought back great memories and we talked about like every member in the ward and the fun times we had.

We did some nice service for the former relief society president. She was, and is soo faithful, I’m glad we could lend her a hand. She lives just with her son, so she really appreciated our help and was always like okay that's enough for today haha and we just ignored her and kept going and serving. at church, our 2 recent converts, Lukas and François got ordained to the Aaronic priesthood. It was fun to be able to teach them about the duties and responsibilities of their new assignment. François is teaching gospel principles class this Sunday. He’s going to rock it up there.
ohh, last night a member from the Windhoek branch invited all 6 of us elders over for supper and guess what, there were 2 American girls there! AHH! They are here to like study or something, from BYU, and it was weird to see them and hear their accents and stuff haha. But the food was great and I cleaned all the dishes. Nice.

Do you know what today marks?? 22 MONTHS AS A FULL TIME MISSIONARY. It’s my click day. Wait a minute, if my math is correct, I have 2 months, or round about 60 days, till I come home! AH! noo. haha. I’m proud of myself cuz I don’t think about home too much. Poor Elder Morris. He dreams about it every day! Haha

Well, thanks again for the wonderful email. i still look forward to it every Monday morning.
Scriptures = Alma 31:5, 34-35 and D&C 93:1

Things here are great! Loving the work and the people. Mission life is the good life.
LOVE,
Elder Haws

Clean up helpers

Zone Conference

Zone Conference

Our FHE last Monday..that girl is soo cute!

I never knew I would have to be singing soo much

Dear Family,

Powerful email! I got and responded to the Lew’s email last week. But it was a bummer, we never got around to sock wrestling, oh well. And heck yeah I’ll work at NuFLow haha or ZeroREZ with brother Holland. I just need to make some money so I can pay my tithing and get some much needed blessings haha. Mommy, you’re funny. Salty lemonade sounds good hahah

This week has flown by!  It was busy busy. Last Monday we decided to go to china town to get some matching ties for the upcoming zone conference. It was soo weird to see soo many Asians in Namibia. We finally found a store that sold ties and bought ‘em. They were only N10, so like only a dollar back in the states. They were not the best quality, but they did the job. We bought one for each of us, and one from President Wood and Elder Smith. I saw a cool thing there though, these guys used a shopping cart to have like a braai (bbq). They had like a rack over the top, and were just on the side of the road selling food to people haha.

So the assistants came up on Tuesday night and stayed in our boarding the entire time they were up here. Elder Doxey from Las Vegas and Elder Lebala, from Botswana, and proud of it haha. They are both sweet and powerful missionaries. President Wood decided to do something new. Last month Elder Morris and I flew to Cape Town to meet up with all of the other zone leaders for zone leader council and we talked about certain things, and that normally happens 4 times a year. But president decided to instead of having all of us fly to Cape Town, we could just have a zone leader council via Skype! So that’s what we did. We came here to the Smiths and had like a conference call with all of the zone leaders. There was no video, just audio, but it was cool! It lasted over an hour and we got all the things done and discussed that president wanted. But in the beginning of August, I will fly to Cape Town again to have a real zone leader council. That’ll be sweet.

We call them COW LADIES

So exchanges was fun with the assistants. Elder Lebala is hilarious. The next day president and sister wood flew up and then on Friday we had our zone conference. It was powerful! As a zone leader, we had to come up with a creative thing called a zone report…where you just summarize the people and things that have gone on in your zone. Some zone leaders get really creative and use like scriptures or other themes to make the report entertaining and funny. Throughout my mission, there have been some really funny zone reports. So Elder Morris and I had to come up with one. After much deliberation and thought, to sing to the theme of Mulan ‘I’ll make a man out of you’ so we just replaced words and put our own spin on it. It was epic! It started out “Let’s get down to business to report this zone. When we came to Nam, it was little known” you know that song! Haha we had another cool line “time is racing towards us, till we give up the ghost. Then we will get sent back, to the Cali coast” hahahaha good huh?! Each companionship sang a part, then we all sang the chorus together. Sister Wood filmed it, it was so good! But heck it took lots of preparation. Later at zone conference we sang the song from Zion’s Camp “Hark listen to the trumpeters” and I even sang like the first line solo, then one by one the other people in the zone sang along. Man, I never knew I would have to be singing soo much haha.

Elder Lebala and I

But overall, zone conference was very nice. President said that missionaries are really good at teaching about faith and baptism, but not repentance. So that was a topic at the conference, as well as gossip and how we shouldn’t do it as elders. Haha. I learned lots and took good notes. President Wood is powerful! So that was one day. And oh yeah, we ate delicious chicken enchiladas for lunch!! Yummmm. But listen to this. So we were all here, just about to eat lunch, but then I heard like water coming from the bathroom, I was like huh, who is taking a shower right now, wait, there’s no showers in that bathroom, but out comes Elder Farley with OLE FAITHFUL behind him!!! One of the urinals exploded and water was bursting up to the ceiling! Ah, you shoulda seen it. It was insane. All hands on deck! Elder Smith rushed to close the tap and shut off the water, but it was no use. Literally, I kid you not; there was 2 inches of water in the entire bathroom, and in the hall and kitchen! It was soo bad. Oh man.  For some reason, the water never shut of until like an hour had passed and thousands of liters of water wasted. And get this, the next day there was a baptism! But long story short, eventually the water stopped and things dried up, but the damage had been done. I was just starving and wanted to eat haha. It was defiantly something to remember.

Then after zone conference, President Wood took us all out to eat at a restaurant called Spur. It was nice. And then the next day us zone leaders had to do training while president interviewed each elder. Things were so hectic that Elder Morris and I had to finishing up the planning for what we were going to present the morning of haha. It went very well though. But I also sat down with the man himself and interviewed me for my temple recommend, because mine expired in August. It was the best interview ever. How could I not be worthy of going to the temple, I'm a full time missionary. I eat sleep and breathe the gospel haha. But he said he knew he could just sign it right then and there without the interview, but he gave me the privilege to declare my worthiness to him and the Lord.

Like I mentioned, there was a baptism! 5 in total got baptized, and 2 from our area. Fransois and Lukas! Lots of people were there, and things went smooth. It was good timing for President Wood to be there. I was so happy for each person that got baptized. The next day at church they were confirmed, and bore their testimony! They actually spoke for a long time. I find it so rewarding to listen to recent converts bear their testimonies. It’s so rewarding. Just to see them progress and learn and grow. Awesome. But Brother Francois stated his full name and then testified about the truthfulness of the church and Book of Mormon, it was powerful.  But the only bad thing right now is that I don’t have the pictures, so I’ll send ‘em home next week for sure.

But now, things have settled down and are back to normal. Back to the grind!  The fellas were talking about school and what they’re studying and stuff, and I realized, dang, I have no clue! Haha I know the Lord will take care of me, but I’ve got to come up with some of the decisions and get like registered and stuff? I don’t know. Haha I guess you could look into things?

I may have forgotten to type about father’s day, and I’m sorry, but I shall not forget your upcoming anniversary!! On the 5^th of July, eh?! I hope you plan to do something fun and memorable. Isn’t it like 25 years or something like that. Haha. I’ll be thinking about you 2 on that day.  But no big plans for the 4^th of July here.

Look up Alma 10:6 (end of the verse). HahaThe 2 scriptures are Alma 17:2-3,11 and D&C 64:29 (Agent Haws)  I heard that the word “elder” means ‘defender of the faith’ and that’s what I’m doin’  Things are great here in Namibia! No place I’d rather be.

Good luck mommy! You’ll be just fine. Miss you lots. Love you even more!
Have a great week!

LOVE,
ELDER HAWS

I think I will always remember that example of love.

FAMILY!

First off, I need to apologize to my daddy! Daddy, last week I was soo rushed I totally forgot to wish you a happy father’s day last week! I realized it like 10 minutes after I finished emailing. you know I was thinking about you all that day and how many thousands of sacrificed, seen and unseen that you've done for me, and will continue to do for me, throughout my 21 years on this earth. You better have kept that list of fun things we're going to do! Plan it out for when I get home. If you fail to plan, plan to fail hahah. Sorry about not wishing you a happy father’s day last week. You’re still the world’s greatest daddy!!!!

By the way, if my memory serves me right, that scripture is Mosiah 28:3. Am I right?! I love that scripture, that’s why. Yeah I wanna do some yoga when I go home. Yoga and lots of other things! And I’m not too sure about thanksgiving quite yet, but you know me, I’m not fussy.  That’s funny you saw a drunk guy passed out on the street...sadly I see that quite often. Either passed out or wandering/staggering in and out of the street. sooo dangerous.

Lots of things to report on this week! We played basketball at the Windhoek chapel last week, which was fun. We did service again at the library, but this time the librarian had us sort through German newspaper. I guess the Germans first settled this area back in the day. One of our investigators who is famous got married. He’s like a singer and a performer. I love that guy. We were too busy so we didn’t get a chance to attend.

Sister Smith made a wonderful lunch of meatloaf! It was good. The Smiths are the best. My old bishop from Mowbray came up. He works for the church as the seminary and institute coordinator, so it was good to see him.

Driving our fellowshippers around

I interviewed a nice somewhat quite girl for baptism, and she passed with flying colors, but then it was funny, later that night I saw her at her branch talent show and she was up there singing her heart out and dancing like Beyoncé and the small audience went wild ha-ha it was funny.  We’re working a lot with this family that is preparing to go to the temple! It’s been sweet to see their progress and growth!

The branch watched the movie Saints and Soldiers, nice movie! I think I’ve seen it before. We finished going through the branch list, and it's finally complete. We went through each person and now it’s more accurate and up to date.

Guess what, I finished reading Jesus the Christ, yeah all 800 pages! I knew, but now I really know, that Jesus is the Christ, the immortal son of God that reins from all eternity to all eternity.

I saw a great example of true love this week. A mother was baptized in February and her year old daughter went into the hospital all last week because she was sick. And this dear mother stayed with her the entire week in that small room, in an unreal African hospital without a bed for the first few days and chose to sleep in the tiny crib with her child. Eventually she got a small blanket to "sleep" on but she said she didn't sleep much because she was too busy just staring at her baby and making sure she was okay. It was nice to see her Book of Mormon there as well. When we visited her, she looked exhausted, but still was so caring for her baby. I think I will always remember that example of love. And plus, her baby is the cutest little thing on the planet! I’m taking her back with me on the plane. I’ll send a picture home of her soon.

This upcoming week is going to be epic! The assistants are coming up tomorrow to go on exchanges, then later in the week President and Sister Wood are coming up for zone conference and interviews! It’s going to be great. Round 2 of sock wrestling! Ha-ha we'll even invite President ha-ha. I told President I need to renew my temple recommend. Nice!

Alma 13:24, 27-29

That’s all for today! Lots of love from here in Namibia!
Love,
Elder Haws

yeah we had some extra matresses....

Old picture, but we were bored on the plane

Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven

YO family!

Normally we email from the smiths home, for free, but yesterday they drove out to Swokomound and now they're somewhere in the north, so we're at an email shop. I have like 20 minutes left, so let’s see what i can pound out in that time. That sand dune is too far for us to go, but not super far from here in Windhoek. and so far on mission I’ve only gotten food stuck like 2 or 3 times, and I deserved it cuz I was super-duper hungry, and didn’t chew enough, So no problems there. And those darn people in Texas, they just wish they had as many animals as here in Africa. Or maybe sweet 'ole grandpa heard wrong ha-ha. A famous Namibian is Sam Nojouma or something like that. And no this place was too fancy for rice and black beans ha-ha nahh I’m sure they had it there, but I didn’t order that.   Gosh dang it Padres! Come on!!! And I’ll send like a postcard home when I get around to it. And since when do you have a stamp collection?! ha-ha and yeah not in cape town so much, but in Durban there are lots of people from India and yeah I did hear that they did have slave colonies there back in the day. And I guess that's why Durban is known for its good curries!!!

Guess what, my week was awesome as usual! Any surprise there?! Ha-ha brother Shegena, the same guy who took us to that Portuguese restaurant, took us to Joe's beer house and he got the kabob with all the cool meats on it, but Elder Morris and I got the zebra stake!! ahhhh soooo gooood!! yummmm. It was so nice of him to do that. He’s going to the celestial kingdom!

A family in Windhoek from Angola

We also did some sweet service/volunteer work at the National Library of Namibia!! Basically we just sorted newspaper for 2 1/2 hours! Man, it was hard work and labor. And I pretty much know all the top headlines of Namibia and the world since January. I think we were inspired to go there cuz they desperately needed someone to do what we did. Their poor cabinets were overflowing! They were soo appreciative for what we did. We plan to go back sometime. I love to serve!

The baptism of Monika

We taught lots of people this week. Had some powerful lessons. We also have 2 more baptisms coming up. President Wood will be here to witness them, so that will be sweet. Each companionship will have some; it’s going to be a nice day.

Tell Alex I say hi when you see him. Most weeks we email back and forth. Sometimes I’ve been slow though. I love that guy!  I guess I’ll be home for conference in October. How about you score some tickets?!  That would be sweet.

Look up Mosiah 23:21 and D&C 76: 22-24 there was a lesson on sacrifice in church yesterday. They pointed out how big a sacrifice it is to go on a mission for 2 years. I’ve never really thought about it like that before. I’m just having the time of my life over here; I don’t see it as much of a sacrifice! I’ve learned more this side of the world that I ever could have in the USA! I guess it's true though, sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. The more we sacrifice, the more He'll bless us! Nice!

Days are just flying by over here! Loving it!! Miss you all very much.
LOVE,
Elder Dusty Haws

Windhoek area.