Familia!!!
Can you believe that it's my last week in the MTC. I will be in Ecuador this time next week. Here is my travel itinerary:
LV: Salt Lake City, UT 6:00 AM
AR: Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX 9:35 AM
LV: Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX 11:25 AM
AR: Miami, FL 3:10 PM
LV: Miami, FL 6:00 PM
AR: Quito, Ecuador 9:55 PM
It's not too bad of a schedule. Only 5 hours of lay-over and 10-11 hours in the air. I have to report at the travel office at 3 AM on Monday morning. I can't wait to go. I'm a little bit nervous but I know that the Lord will bless me. I can call you while at the airport. They never said how long but I think I just will call Dad's cell and home. I'll call when I'm in Miami. Not exactly sure what time it will be for you but I'll let you figure it out. It's funny that I got your letter with the calling cards because I had just bought one literally 15 minutes before my District Leader gave me your letter. Oh well. I'll sell one to someone in our district.
My Spanish is going pretty well. I can understand just about everything when it's said slowly and fairly clearly. Well see what it's like in Ecuador. I actually got a letter from a girl in our zone's mom who went to Ecuador. I learned some really cool things. They speak with a shuh sound with the ll in spanish (normally it means a yuh sound) up in the mountains. Down on the coast they cut the ends of words off. They also talk really fast. I just hope that I start off in the mountains because that will be an easier transition, but I know that wherever I go is where I need to be. I just hope that I'm prepared enough and that I'm constantly worthy of the Spirit. Today we have our final teaching appointment and I'm really excited. Both Elder Vogl and I have gotten to know how we teach and we work really well together now. It's going to be hard to leave because I love my district and zone so much.
Elder L. Tom Perry came last night to our devotional. He's the second apostle that has come since I've been here. It was an amazing talk and I took so many notes. He finished like 10 minutes early though so that kind of stunk, but oh well. I've learned so many things since I've been here. I've realized our progression by the way we teach in the referral center. It's amazing how many BoM's we give out now. Well I'm almost out of time so till Monday.
Love,
Élder Hakes
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Planning
Hola familia,
This week was just another week at the MTC. I wish there was more I could tell you, but there's not a lot of interesting things going on here besides studying and Gym. What is crazy is that we're the oldest district in our zone now. It's so weird thinking that. We should get our flight plans tomorrow. That's when they usually come. If I do I'll send a letter tomorrow night and let you know what is going on. Last night we had an amazing devotional on planning. I now realize how important it is. Not only for missionary work but for our whole lives. Read about it in chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel. It's an act of faith to plan! Also, he said a statistic that if you plan for 20 minutes you will increase your productivity by 50%!! Crazy huh. Well I'm kind of sad because I can only go to the temple 1 more time in the next 22 months. We had a great session this morning and hopefully it will be the same next week. That's hilarious that dad wrote to the Pac-10 officials. I can totally see him doing that. It's good to hear that they are doing well. Hopefully they continue. Glad to hear that Brent and West are doing good too. Tell them to keep it up! I'd like a Mnt. View update, but since no one has told me I'm guessing they're not doing so good. You are so lucky that you get to go to Hawaii. I can't believe you're ditching the kids on Halloween. Send me a picture of Franken-Cody please :) From the letters I got this week I think I gave you the impression that I'm discouraged. I'm not at all. I'm more excited about missionary work than I ever have been. I'm just like Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20) and Ammon (Alma 29). I can't wait to get to Quito!! Let me know if Dylan got his package. I hope grandma and grandpa had fun on the east coast. I love you all. HLJ.
Love,
Élder David Hakes
HLJ=CTR in Spanish
This week was just another week at the MTC. I wish there was more I could tell you, but there's not a lot of interesting things going on here besides studying and Gym. What is crazy is that we're the oldest district in our zone now. It's so weird thinking that. We should get our flight plans tomorrow. That's when they usually come. If I do I'll send a letter tomorrow night and let you know what is going on. Last night we had an amazing devotional on planning. I now realize how important it is. Not only for missionary work but for our whole lives. Read about it in chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel. It's an act of faith to plan! Also, he said a statistic that if you plan for 20 minutes you will increase your productivity by 50%!! Crazy huh. Well I'm kind of sad because I can only go to the temple 1 more time in the next 22 months. We had a great session this morning and hopefully it will be the same next week. That's hilarious that dad wrote to the Pac-10 officials. I can totally see him doing that. It's good to hear that they are doing well. Hopefully they continue. Glad to hear that Brent and West are doing good too. Tell them to keep it up! I'd like a Mnt. View update, but since no one has told me I'm guessing they're not doing so good. You are so lucky that you get to go to Hawaii. I can't believe you're ditching the kids on Halloween. Send me a picture of Franken-Cody please :) From the letters I got this week I think I gave you the impression that I'm discouraged. I'm not at all. I'm more excited about missionary work than I ever have been. I'm just like Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20) and Ammon (Alma 29). I can't wait to get to Quito!! Let me know if Dylan got his package. I hope grandma and grandpa had fun on the east coast. I love you all. HLJ.
Love,
Élder David Hakes
HLJ=CTR in Spanish
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Only Three More Weeks
Querido familia,
Hola como estan ustedes! This week went by so fast!!! I can't believe that I am leaving in less than 3 weeks! It's gone by so fast. Everything is going really good. We went to a workshop this week and learned how to have a better companionship study. The last 2 days of study have been amazing. My personal study has been amazing too. Did you know that 1 Nephi chapters 1 has things about families, revelation, prophets, apostasy, Jesus Christ, etc. It is amazing. We need to have invetigators just read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon and they'll understand or have questions about so much. If you continue on into the next 3-6 chapters there is even more about obedience to commandments, faith, and feeling the Holy Ghost.
I need some jeans and some basketball pants. Congrats to Brent. He better keep hitting people when I get back or else I won't respect his football talent :) ha ha jk. That's sweet that he can already hit people. I didn't really figure that out until varsity for the first time. Tell Brent and Weston to keep up the good work and to give me updates every week. I'd love to get a play-by-play detailed letter about their game. My spanish is doing really good. I've struggled with speaking all spanish this week. Our district wasn't really doing it and they didn't understand what I was saying most of the time. I'll do better this week though. Well we've learned all of the different tenses so I should be able to speak spanish correctly now. I'm a little nervous about going to Quito. I kind of realized that I'm leaving soon. I'm not doubting anything it's just that it will be hard. It's not hardly on my mind at all. I truly am really excited to get there too! I sent a package today that I need to get to Dylan Beekman. It's a Book of Mormon. Please just send it on to him somehow. I think that I'm allowed to call you for like 5 minutes before I go to the airport but I'm not sure. I think it's just an e-mail to let you know that I made it. I should get my flight plans a week from Thursday and I'll know when I'm leaving and my layovers and such. I'll make sure to let you know as soon as I get them. I haven't gotten a U of A or Mnt. View update in a while. It would be nice to get one at least every couple weeks. Sorry about missing the e-mail that one week. I lost track of time so I didn't have time to e-mail. I was busy writing all of the other letters. Conference was amazing! My favorite talk was Elder Holland's and there's good reason why. I think my second favorite was President Eyring's in priesthood session. That was a great talk about being prepared. I also loved Elder Ballard's in priesthaood. The priesthood session was amazing this year. I got called to be the sacrament coordinators in our branch at the MTC. Elder Vogl and I prepare the sacrament and make the blessing and passing assignments. Well I'm not sure what else to say. I love you all and everything is amazing. Hope all is well. It would be nice to hear from my siblings and Dad more often :) Grandma and Papa have sent me one at least every week. Thank you for raising me right and teaching me to work hard. I'm seeing why you did now ha ha :)
Love,
Elder Hakes
Hola como estan ustedes! This week went by so fast!!! I can't believe that I am leaving in less than 3 weeks! It's gone by so fast. Everything is going really good. We went to a workshop this week and learned how to have a better companionship study. The last 2 days of study have been amazing. My personal study has been amazing too. Did you know that 1 Nephi chapters 1 has things about families, revelation, prophets, apostasy, Jesus Christ, etc. It is amazing. We need to have invetigators just read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon and they'll understand or have questions about so much. If you continue on into the next 3-6 chapters there is even more about obedience to commandments, faith, and feeling the Holy Ghost.
I need some jeans and some basketball pants. Congrats to Brent. He better keep hitting people when I get back or else I won't respect his football talent :) ha ha jk. That's sweet that he can already hit people. I didn't really figure that out until varsity for the first time. Tell Brent and Weston to keep up the good work and to give me updates every week. I'd love to get a play-by-play detailed letter about their game. My spanish is doing really good. I've struggled with speaking all spanish this week. Our district wasn't really doing it and they didn't understand what I was saying most of the time. I'll do better this week though. Well we've learned all of the different tenses so I should be able to speak spanish correctly now. I'm a little nervous about going to Quito. I kind of realized that I'm leaving soon. I'm not doubting anything it's just that it will be hard. It's not hardly on my mind at all. I truly am really excited to get there too! I sent a package today that I need to get to Dylan Beekman. It's a Book of Mormon. Please just send it on to him somehow. I think that I'm allowed to call you for like 5 minutes before I go to the airport but I'm not sure. I think it's just an e-mail to let you know that I made it. I should get my flight plans a week from Thursday and I'll know when I'm leaving and my layovers and such. I'll make sure to let you know as soon as I get them. I haven't gotten a U of A or Mnt. View update in a while. It would be nice to get one at least every couple weeks. Sorry about missing the e-mail that one week. I lost track of time so I didn't have time to e-mail. I was busy writing all of the other letters. Conference was amazing! My favorite talk was Elder Holland's and there's good reason why. I think my second favorite was President Eyring's in priesthood session. That was a great talk about being prepared. I also loved Elder Ballard's in priesthaood. The priesthood session was amazing this year. I got called to be the sacrament coordinators in our branch at the MTC. Elder Vogl and I prepare the sacrament and make the blessing and passing assignments. Well I'm not sure what else to say. I love you all and everything is amazing. Hope all is well. It would be nice to hear from my siblings and Dad more often :) Grandma and Papa have sent me one at least every week. Thank you for raising me right and teaching me to work hard. I'm seeing why you did now ha ha :)
Love,
Elder Hakes
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Conference
Familia!!!
Sorry I didn't send an e-mail last week. I couldn't think about what to say. The MTC is all the same every week. Well my district is the 2nd oldest in the zone now. This sunday we'll get zone leaders and a new district leader. I'm excited. Conference was amazing this year. It helps when you're prepared and excited for it. ha ha. I took 27 pages of notes and I've heard the Elder Holland talk more than once. That was the most bold and amazing talk I have ever heard. I loved it. I also wanted to tell you to follow the theme that was in every talk. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! It was crazy seeing how much it was in there. Also, Dad, Brent, Ryan, and Cody. Make sure you follow the words of Elder Ballard in priesthood session about relationships between fathers and sons. It was amazing!!! If you don't have the 3 things that he said to each of the fathers and sons then tell me and I'll send it in the next letter. I hope that next time we have conference that we prepare for it. It's so much better when you're ready and taking notes. The MTC is amazing. I taught my first complete lesson in Spanish. It was really hard but he understood us. It will take time but we're getting better. I love Spanish and I can't wait until I can finally truly speak it, but I know that won't be for a long time. It's great to hear that U of A is doing so good. Hopefully that continues. I haven't been able to get a hold of Anthony Johnson since the last e-mail I sent. I'm not sure what to do. I'll keep trying to call and hopefully he'll answer. It's getting cold here. I think it might snow before we leave. Elder Swanson is in the field now!! So weird. I've got less that 4 weeks left too and that's even weirder! Thanks for the chips and queso. It was gone in like 2 days. I didn't share very much either ha ha. I'm so ready to leave right now. I love the MTC but I want to be in the field!! Tell Brent and West to keep their heads up. They'll do just fine.I did get the picture of the Gila Valley Temple. They're so sweet. Send everyone my love. Hagan lo justo!!
Love,
Élder Hakes
Sorry I didn't send an e-mail last week. I couldn't think about what to say. The MTC is all the same every week. Well my district is the 2nd oldest in the zone now. This sunday we'll get zone leaders and a new district leader. I'm excited. Conference was amazing this year. It helps when you're prepared and excited for it. ha ha. I took 27 pages of notes and I've heard the Elder Holland talk more than once. That was the most bold and amazing talk I have ever heard. I loved it. I also wanted to tell you to follow the theme that was in every talk. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! It was crazy seeing how much it was in there. Also, Dad, Brent, Ryan, and Cody. Make sure you follow the words of Elder Ballard in priesthood session about relationships between fathers and sons. It was amazing!!! If you don't have the 3 things that he said to each of the fathers and sons then tell me and I'll send it in the next letter. I hope that next time we have conference that we prepare for it. It's so much better when you're ready and taking notes. The MTC is amazing. I taught my first complete lesson in Spanish. It was really hard but he understood us. It will take time but we're getting better. I love Spanish and I can't wait until I can finally truly speak it, but I know that won't be for a long time. It's great to hear that U of A is doing so good. Hopefully that continues. I haven't been able to get a hold of Anthony Johnson since the last e-mail I sent. I'm not sure what to do. I'll keep trying to call and hopefully he'll answer. It's getting cold here. I think it might snow before we leave. Elder Swanson is in the field now!! So weird. I've got less that 4 weeks left too and that's even weirder! Thanks for the chips and queso. It was gone in like 2 days. I didn't share very much either ha ha. I'm so ready to leave right now. I love the MTC but I want to be in the field!! Tell Brent and West to keep their heads up. They'll do just fine.I did get the picture of the Gila Valley Temple. They're so sweet. Send everyone my love. Hagan lo justo!!
Love,
Élder Hakes
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