I know this is not the end

 

Hey mom! Happy birthday to you next week! Thank you for being an amazing mom. We are indeed so blessed to have you as a mom! You have taught us how to love and serve others! You are so kind and caring to everyone. You have taught us how to all ways fight and push forward during challenges and hard times. I never have seen you gave up during hard times. Thank you for being a wonderful mom and a great example. 

Oh my goodness, the death of grandpa Hall is so shocking to me. I never thought that would happen, I'm so sorry! He is a great man and did made all of us laugh, I loved hearing his jokes. Grandma hall emailed me right before Christmas and I was telling to elder Pollmann how Healthy they both are and how they do everything on their own. I can't believe this! He is going to be missed by everyone! I am so grateful for the knowledge we have about the plan of salvation. I know this not the end, I know that we will see him some day and be with him.

 

I hope you all are doing well. This past week has been really great. We were able to teach a lot more lessons than the week before. We were also able to get two new investigators. They both sound really nice and welling to learn more about our beliefs. Their names are Mike and Bill. We found Mike while out tracting on Wednesday. Before we knocked on Bill's door, We ran to this guy who is so rude. He just cussed us out. Told us that he is an atheist and how much he hates God. Told us to get off his property as fast as possible or else he will call cops and have us lucked down. He kept yelling at us to walk faster as we were leaving using very colorful words.

Well the scriptures teaches us that there is opposition in all things and I'm so glad that there is opposition in all things. We met Mike right after we walked away from that guy who cussed us out. Nocked on his door and he let us in right away. He is very nice man and has strong relationship with God. We were able to share a short message with him and he loved it. He wanted to learn more and told us to stop by him any time he is home. 

Bill is really great guy as well. He is from Liberia and has lived here for about 6 months. He already knows a lot about the church, he know about Joseph Smith and Book of Mormon. He a lot of questions about the organization of of the church. We were are able to answer that and shared shared the message of restoration. He really enjoyed it and agreed with everything about the needs for the restoration for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We gave him a copy of Book of Mormon and he is way excited to read it and find out the truth on his own. 

We are still teaching Ashley and she is not really progressing very well. This past week we just focused on her and tried resolve all of her concerns. We talked and talked about prayer and repentance and baptism again and how she shouldn't be afraid to talk to our mission president if she needs to. We think that fear is the main thing that's keeping her from progressing quicker. She's afraid of prayer, afraid of the mission president, afraid of confessing her sins, afraid of what her husband might think, afraid of what the members might think, afraid of not knowing enough, afraid of going inactive after baptism, and a million other things. But within the time we talked to her we made it very clear what it is she needs to do to gain a testimony and be baptized. How and when she does it is her choice. So we concluded on that not with her. 

We had an amazing lesson with one of our investigator named William.  He is a former investigator that we found a while ago and we weren't able to meet with him for long time. He had really rough life before and now he really want to turn his life around. He is willing to do whatever it's takes to have personal relationship with God. We also set him with a baptismal date for January 31 and he happily accepted it. We saw him drinking coffee and we briefly went over the word of wisdom to give him a head up. He said that he will give away everything to come closer to Jesus Christ. It was so cool. He want to come to church and he is going to keep Sunday open for church. He is just so ready and prepared. 

We got transfer call on Friday and I found out that I'm leaving Smyrna. I don't know where I'm going or who my new companion is going to be yet. I'm sad that I'm leaving this area but I guys it's time to move on and serve somewhere else. I will let you know next week about my new area and companion. 

May you all have blest week. Thank you for all your love and support!

Love elder Haws! 

This guy below on the picture is brother Klevis! He is really great man. It was hard saying goodbye to him. His whole body from the left side is paralyzed and he is stock in nursing home/hospitality. We've been visiting him twice a week ever since I've been out here and even longer than that. He really loves chess so we always play one game of chess with after sharing a message.