December 28, 2009

Dear family,
Wow this week was really weird. On Thursday we had to be in the house after 4 pm, except for 1 planned 1 hr dinner with a member family. On friday we had to be in the house at 6 PM and we couldn´t leave. Finally got to call home on friday too. It doesn´t feel like Christmas at all down here because it´s still around 80 degrees and humid. We had a baptism this week of a 9 year old boy. He´s the son of a recent convert so we found him taught him and baptized him. Diligence pays off :) We have another 10 year old for next week. This week I don't really have a whole lot to say because we didn't teach very much. We only had 7 lessons the whole week. I got to study a lot and I've got my scriptures marked how I want finally. There not complete but it's got what I need for right now. I really liked the 12 days of Christmas that you sent me. It was hilarious. It really brightened my day. It's been really rainy for the past few weeks. Yesterday was nuts. It started pouring when we were teaching a inactive and all the roofs here are metal. It was really loud so we were speaking very loud, but the Spirit was really strong. Right as we were ending the lesson the rain stopped. We walked to about 2 houses trying to set appointments and then we went to another appointment. Literally less than a minute inside the house it started pouring again. Yet again we had a really amazing lesson and we were talking really loud too. Yet again the rain stopped and we walked to the house. It rained for the rest of the night. There are 2 things that I learned from this experience. 1 we can still feel the Spirit when there are distractions that we can't avoid, 2 Heavenly Father blesses His missionaries so they don't have to be wet. It was a cool experience.
I kept the tradition alive of someone eating mexican food on Christmas. I made tacos and ate it with a jalepeño sauce that I found in the store here. It was amazing. I also made omlets for Christmas morning. They were awesome. I also made omlets this morning for us and the zone leaders. One of the Zone leaders is from mexico and he found jalapeños in a jar and we had those with the omlets. It was amazing. I'm having a great time here and thank you to all that sent me CHristmas e-mails. Sorry I can't write to everyone individually, but I really do appreciate it. Thanks for all that you do for me. Have fun in the dunes :)

Love,
Élder Hakes

P.S.
I should get my package on friday, finally.