92nd Letter 12-29-14

Pictures: 1-Ruth´s baptism, 2-Christmas Zone Conference, 3-Christmas party with Patricia & Tiago´s kids.

My awesome, adorable, smart, cool, loving, happy, beautiful, faithful, righteous, funny, sweetest MOM! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I am so proud to be the son of such an awesome Mom! You have done so much for me in my life that I will always be in debt to you! You are the best example that I have of a loving worthy mother and I am blessed to be part of our eternal family! If there was a competition of the coolest eternal family I think we would win. I hope you had a great Birthday Mom! :)

So as you guys know, the week went awesome. I was able to Skype my beautiful family and it will be the last time Skyping them on the mission, which is pretty cool! I didn’t have a P-day last week so I’ll tell the most important news. Two weeks ago we had 2 baptisms. They both went very good and they are super glad of the decision they made!

The Skyping on Christmas Day helped strengthen the fire in me and I feel reenergized to keep working hard and finishing strong! It is going to be awesome to finish up the mission and return home to start my next adventure!

I hope all of you had a great Christmas and I hope you all have a great New Years!

Mom, The Christmas video that Amy made is awesome! She is super talented! Sister Lindsey from Colorado wrote me a while ago and told me about the Hauck relation we have too. How cool is that! You guys will love the Lindsey family when we go to meet them! :) Sounds like many exciting things will happen this next year! I am pumped to get home and be present for all these awesome events! That is cool you guys had a Sunday about Joseph Smith. He is the Man! Mom, I love you the most!

Dad, what awesome pictures you shared with me. Ha-ha! Christmas on the mission sure is special! Love you Dad!

I love you guys! Have a great New Year, with many new goals and plans! :)

Love,

Elder Hauck

91st Letter 12-15-14

Photo of Elder Silveira and I on the roof of our house.

O Natal!

WOW, the time is flying! Christmas is already arriving and I have less than 3 months left on the mission! Woohooo! (This is a woohoo half super excited and half sad.) So, we have transfers this week. Elder Silveira and I will stay here as Zone Leaders. It will be another good transfer.  We hope to get some couples married and to baptize a ton!! I hope I will end my mission here. It is likely I will because after this I will only have one more transfer…Holy cow!

So a little about this week…We taught a bunch of people and we found some new investigators. Rute and Gabriel are super close to baptism and it looks like this week it will happen! Gabriel left the hospital Saturday in the afternoon and is doing a lot better now. Laisa will be baptized this week for sure and the following weeks we will have some more for sure. This ward is on fire! :)

We had an awesome lesson with Alex and we brought Bishop to teach with us about marriage. Alex understood well about it all, but I don’t know…he is a little weak. We are super close with him and everything, but when it comes down to doing something more than reading and praying he stops progressing. Tiago and Patricia are doing awesome! They have plans to get married it January!! :) They went to church Sunday and Patricia said, “We are crazy-excited to get baptized, but we have to get married first!” When I heard this I was super excited! They are an elect family! The kids are finally warming up with the members and Victoria, the sweet heart that gave me a flower, is running around the benches with all the other kids during sacrament meeting…ha-ha!

Our Ward Mission Leader is helping out a ton. He even made us chorrasco on Saturday! He is a lawyer and will help us get Alex and his wife and Tiago and Patricia married super fast! 

I am so grateful for the holiday season! I feel a lot more peace and love in my life during this time of year. I am so grateful that I get to spread the true gospel here on the earth! The gospel and my family are the 2 best blessings God has given me! :)

Mom, I will be able to Skype and I think between 9-noon will work perfect! :) I am super excited! I think I will receive your Christmas package next week at our zone conference. Here the Christmas traditions are pretty mild. It is like in the U.S. but with less people celebrating and with less lights, decorations and presents. Christmas Eve they have a big dinner and stay up late and on Christmas morning I don’t think they do too much…Ha-ha! The new Piano Guys Nativity video is awesome!  We are using the Share The Gift project here as a missionary tool! It is working well! I love the pictures! :)

Dad, you are looking like a stud with the new beard and hairstyle! Ha-ha! I love the picture of Millie and Grandma! Tell them both Happy 77^th Birthday from me! :) Sorry to hear about Millie falling apart. She is getting old!

I love you all! 

Elder Hauck

90th Letter 12-8-14

The sun is strong here!

I think I forgot somethings on that list of things I am thankful for. It should include the shade, air conditioner, fans, cold water, and a breeze of air when walking in the street. 

This week was super warm and I am almost black again. I don’t know if I have ever explained to you guys how much we walk here. So we get to walk about 30 minutes just to get to our area and our area is a good-sized area. It is pretty funny how we walk in zigzags looking for the patches of shade in the street so we can at least pass 2 or 3 steps in the shade. What a tender mercy of the Lord! :) Ha-ha!

So the week went pretty good! The baptism didn´t happen because Gabriel got pneumonia and was in the hospital all week. We passed by there 3 times this week to visit him and gave him a blessing. He is doing a lot better now. We are praying that they can be baptized this week! :)

We also are teaching Laisa, Gostavo, and Gabriel II, who want to be baptized next week! We taught them a lot of things this past week and talked with their parents and they want their kids to be baptized! Laisa is Luisa´s (a recent convert) sister and she used to be very shy and never wanted to talk with us, but now she has changed a ton. She is going to activities in the church and now she wants to be baptized. It has been very cool to see here change and be a lot happier! The gospel is very powerful! 

On Wednesday we did companion exchanges again and I stayed in our area with another American. The day went very well and we taught a lot of people. The best lesson of the day was with Alex, a husband of a member, who asked an awesome question, “What do I need to do to be baptized in the church?”

We explained that it would be too difficult and that he wouldn´t be able to do it. Ha-ha just playin’! What a beautiful question! What we really did was explain that he needs to live the gospel and keep the commandments (which he just needs to get married). He said he wants to be baptized and got to the temple with his wife! :) Hallelujah!!

We will see how fast we can get them married and him baptized!

So Saturday we had a zone fast that went very good! I will admit that it was probably the hardest fast I have done in my life. Because of the heat and an act of service that killed my companion and me. So at like 4 o´clock we were walking to a lesson and there was a lady carrying 5 huge bags of pop bottles to recycle, usually the poor here will gather trash to get very little money from the recycling, but she was a little lady and the bottles were falling out of the big heavy bags. So we helped her gather the bottles and offered to help. She was very resistant to accept, but there was no way she could do it alone. We asked her where she needed to go and she didn´t know. So we walked for a good 10 minutes carrying the heavy bags. We then asked a guy in the street if he knew where this little lady lived and he explained. I will just say that it was a trip after this. By the time we got to where she needed to be we were totally sweaty and tired. Remember that this was during our fast as well, so it was 10 times worse. But it was awesome to help her out. There was no way she could have done it alone.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the Lord! What a great feeling we get in our chest when we help others!

Mom, that is awesome about your new friend at work! I will pray that she will have an open heart for the gospel! My companion is well and the zone is awesome! When do you want me to Skype you guys on christmas? Sounds like you are doing awesome, Mom! You are a SUPER MOM!! :) I love you so very much!

Dad, the world’s biggest nativity in Provo that Hudson was baby Jesus in looks super cool! I want to see the video after! 

I Love all of you so very much!

Love,

Elder Hauck

89th Letter 12-1-14

Photos: 1- Our zone meeting. 2- Vivi (Patricia and Tiago´s daughter) and I after church…She gave me a flower. 3- Elder Lapray and I helping out with the dedication of the new chapel.

As semanas passam rápido!

Another great week here in Uruguaiana. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving week with a lot of food and Football! I didn´t miss out on the a lot of food part, but I did miss out on the Football... ha-ha

All right so this week we taught a good amount of people and we ended up having 7 investigators at church! These 7 are progressing awesomely and I think many of them will be baptized this month! Here in Brazil we are having the “Natal de fé” which means the Christmas of Faith. We have a goal of every missionary will bring one soul to Christ in this month! We and the other missionaries are very excited! We also have a new little card the talks about how He is the present; I think they are doing it there in the US as well. The card has a website/link that takes you to a beautiful video of the birth of Christ! It is super cool and I am excited to use the card.

One crazy thing that happened is when we went to teach Carlos this week. When we got there he wasn´t crying or even sad... and I am sorry to say that it´s not normal for him. Ha-ha! He was Normal and was talking with us normally... He got a new medicine that is helping out and now he is a lot happier. We are working with him a lot and we hope to get him in the church so he can get baptized. 

One day this week I went on comp. exchanges with one of the District leader and it went very good. We learned a lot of new things together. His name is Elder Molina and he arrived with Elder Gois (my son). Oh I don´t think I told you guys. That Elder Gois and Elder Contrim are already training new missionaries. Usually President won’t call a trainer until 1 year on the mission! So I was very proud of my two sons being trainers! :) Ha-ha!

Rute and Gabriel are doing awesome. We are working with them closely for this week to be their baptism. I have faith that it will work out! They are both super awesome and ready for baptism!

Patricia and Tiago are doing awesome too! They went to church and they loved it! We helped them out with somethings in their home and we talked more about marriage. We are praying for them a lot so they will set a date here soon...They are elect!

I am loving the work and I am praying that we will find more milagres! We have some difficulties with the members here, but we are working it out. 

Mom, sadly I didn´t eat turkey or potatoes this past week. But I did eat rice and beans! ;) I am glad the Thanksgiving dinner went so well and I am sure you all ate great! Hudson, Amy and Grandma Hirschi are so beautiful! Thanks for the pictures!

Dad, my words of wisdom for “Building the Kingdom of God” are what President Hinckley said, “Forget your self and got to work!” I think about this phrase a lot. Ha-ha! That is super cool about Hudson being baby Jesus in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir & Piano Guys nativity at BYU! Ha-ha! I want to see a lot of pictures!

I love all of you so MUCH!! Vós Amo!! 

Elder Hauck

88th Letter 11-24-14

 

 Photo: Hudson Shaye Scott (Elder Hauck's new nephew.)

Dia de gratidão

What a studly addition to the family! Hudson Shaye Scott will be such a beast out on the football and mission field here in a few years! :) Ha-ha....I am so grateful for Heavenly Father blessing us with another angel from heaven. Amanda and Shaye you deserve the best blessings because of your love, worthiness, and obedience to the Lord…add others.

So...here in Brazil they don´t have Thanksgiving so unfortunately it will be a normal Thursday for us. Also, with me being the only American I don’t think I well have much of a celebration at home either. Maybe I will make a little turkey and mashed potatoes! ; )

This week was a pretty crazy week! A new chapel was dedicated and we got to help out throughout the week. We passed out hundreds of invitations, gave tours of the chapel, and posted up in a busy road with big picture frames on stands and talked with a bunch of people. It was very hot and I got fried with there being no shade where we put up the picture stands. But blessings! :) Ha-ha!

Another crazy thing and a blessing is that I don’t work in the area were the new chapel was opened because 2 of the 3 days we were there 2 people were murdered in the near by neighborhood...one was a knife fight and another was a 12 gauge in the stomach.

So on a better note...or a more spiritual note. Monday we had a lesson with Tiago and Patricia and we taught the law of chastity and eternal marriage to them. The spirit was so strong and they are progressing awesomely! We are even starting to organize some wedding plans in the chapel. Pray for them that everything will go well! They truly are a family very special!

Another awesome experience was with Rute and Gabriel. So Rute is Gabriel’s Mom and they live alone and have been investigating the church for a good 4 months now. We went there Saturday night and had a great lesson with them. We asked them how they felt about the church, the things we have taught and about baptism and Rute replied like this, “Alright, I will be honest with you guys.... (At this moment hearts stopped beating and wind left our lungs)... I don’t have any doubts about the church. I want to be baptized!”

Woohoooo!! The spirit testified to all four of us and Gabriel said, “I think baptism is cool!” Ha-ha...So we marked the 6th of December for their baptism! :) Looks like Christmas arrived early here in Brazil!

With it being Thanksgiving week I want to talk about the many things that I am grateful for! So here is a list with no specific order! :)

-My Heavenly Father

-My Savior, Jesus Christ, His plan and His Gospel

-The Atonement

-My Mom

-My Dad

-My brother and sisters

-My whole awesome family

-The Book of Mormon

-My mission and the people I have met

-The true and living church of Jesus Christ (the restoration)

- Opportunities to learn and grow

-My friends

-Food and sleeping

-Comfortable shoes

-The US and the English language…Ha-ha!

-Sports 

-Rain when it is super hot here in Brazil

-Churrasco

Well there are some things! :) 

Mom, I want to tell you how much I love you and how thankful I am for you! Also, thanks for the pretty pictures! :) Dad, I am thankful for you too man! Ha-ha…just playing! I love you! I didn’t know that Brother Reber served here in my mission!! Great to hear about Dixie High taking state but sad to hear about University of Utah’s loss.

Have a great Thanksgiving! :)

Love,

Elder Hauck