Elder Chandler Haws: Food Poisoning and Thanksgiving. Then Birthday

Me and my birthday cake

Week 20 (November 28, 2016)

Well hey there all my good pals from home.

This week has been an interesting one for me.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes this week!! It means so much to me(: Weird... I´m 19....

I GOT MY COMP! His name is Elder Caal, He´s from Guatemala and hes a really really good guy. Im training him and he is 25 years old, so lots of pressure now. He came on Thursday and hes crazy for contacting people. We´ll be rushing to an appointment and he´ll just suddenly stop to talk to someone. What a guy. I have a lot to learn from him!

Food Poisoning...

On Monday night of this week, our pensionista left our food sitting out for who knows how long. And we all (The Zone Leaders and two other Elders) got food poisoning. What a wonderful disease. Let me tell ya. I think I lost about 4 pounds from it. (Which is good because I'm getting fat.) So from that disease I was down and OUT. In bed for 4 days. My comp came and I had to rest. Whoops.

Thanksgiving...

Thursday as you all obviously know was Thanksgiving. The best Holiday of the year. There's a family in my ward that lived in Salt Lake City for 8 years, and they love Thanksgiving. So they invited us over to eat! We shared a nice evening with them and talked about our homes, and what we´re all grateful for. I said I was grateful for health, as I was squirming trying to keep my stomach from exploding. (Don't get food poisoning). Thankfully I was able to choke down a piece of Turkey which didn´t taste like it at all. And some rice. (We had rice for thanksgiving. come on Peru.) But it was a good night to remember what I´m really thankful for; family, friends, and the Gospel. And my dog.

Anyways I love you all so much.

If Im being honest these have the most testing (almost) 5 months of my life. I never thought that I would actually be doing this, until I was actually doing it. Its hard, but it is so rewarding.!

Here is my poem for the week:

Puno is wonderful,

The people are semi-nice.

We are working our tails off.

But people still have agency.

If there's one thing I´ve learned this week its patience and that happiness is a choice. You can either wake up and say, ¨Yeah today sucks, I don't wanna do anything.¨ Or you can wake up and say, ¨Well, What am I gonna experience today?¨ What am I gonna learn today? How can I grow my testimony today? You guys the most important things in life are the things of God. Not your phone, your possessions, or your money. Sure those are important today to us. And SUPER useful. But God can give and take as he pleases. I´ve seen people here who have nothing, and I´ve seen people who´ve got it all (For someone in Peru). But the only happy people in life are the ones who know who they are and where they come from. So put a smile on that face. And don't ever take it off.

Love you all!