Dear Family,
Things are going great here. I'm really loving being on the field. I'm in Dover Delaware area in this small town called Smyrna. I am really liking it here. People in the ward are really friendly and welcoming. My companion name is Elder Mackay. He is from Rupert Idaho. He is super nice and funny.
We have about eight investigators but it is really hard to get hold of them. Sometimes they set appointment with us and cancel it when the day comes. Other people in the area are interesting. Some people are really nice and some are rude. When we knock on their door, some people tell us that they don't even want to talk to us.
On Friday we knocked on this guy's house. After he opened the door we said to him, "Hi! We are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Our purpose is to share the message about the gospel of Jesus Chris with people. How is your relationship with Jesus Christ?" He told us that he doesn't want to hear our message. He said, "I've got my bible and my family. I don't want anything to do with church." It's kind of sad to me how people don't want to go to church and how some people don't want to know anything about God. That made me to appreciate Idaho even more. We are so blessed to live in Rexburg with all that nice people everywhere.
Yesterday after church, we had a great lesson with this guy named Vance. We didn't had a set appointment but we stopped by with Brother Thompson. Vance was home so we went in and had a great lesson and taught him about the Restoration. As we discussed certain points,Vance was really listening and answering the questions we had for him. Brother Thompson also shared his testimony about his conversion and really helped Vance out on seeing the importance of this gospel. At the end of the lesson we taught him about the Book of Mormon and prayer. We committed him to read it and pray to know if it's true. He said the closing prayer and did such a great job. We also committed him to a soft baptismal date on September 13 and he said "yes" he would be baptized. Brother Thompson is a convert to the church, he has been in church for about 15 years now. He has really strong testimony about his conversion. He is in his 60s.
Funny story---so since people usually don't talk to us when we tell them that we are missionaries, we decided to ask them on door approach if they would be baptized. Yesterday we went knocked on this guy's door. After he opened the door, I said to him, "Hi! We are a missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Our purpose is to share the message about the gospel of Jesus Chris with people. When you come to know this message is true, will you be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?" That didn't went really good, we had this awkward pause of silence for about 15 seconds. He finally said have good day and went back in. Elder Mackay started dying with laugh after we went back to car.
Another funny story. After we met our mission president in airport he asked me about my finger. And I told him "a sister missionary accidentally touched fingers. I explained to the MTC President the situation and he told me that I either have to go home or my finger have to be amputated. So I choose to lose my fingers to come here." He laughed at me and said that I owe him an explanation when we get to the mission home. (Here is the real story: Mubarek put his fingers in the space between the door and the door frame. Another Elder closed the door pinching his fingers badly. He needed stitches and lost a few of his fingernails. It was his last night at the MTC. He was at the ER till 2:30 am---he had to be up at 3:30 to leave to the airport at 4am.)
I hope everything is going great for you guys. Thank you for everything. Please say hi for me to everyone.
Love Elder Haws.
