January 4, 2010

Dear Family,
This week was pretty tough. New Years is a lot bigger than Christmas. That means that there were more drunks and more investigators and members that broke the Word of Wisdom. It was really tough when we went to talk to a part-member family that we've worked really hard with. The husband is a member and the wife wants to be baptized but they don't have money to get the papers for their wedding. They had been really strong until the holidays. We talked to the husband an the 1st and he was drunk. We cut him down pretty bad so we could get his attention and bring them back up the next day. That was really hard to watch because we visit them daily. The rules for New Years was we had to be in the apartment at 4 PM on 31 and we couldn't leave. That was really boring. On the 1st we couldn't contact people because they were all hungover or drunk. It was a tough 2 days. We couldn't do very much and all we could see is bad things. Almost all of our investigators drank during New Years. We're working with them now and teaching justice and mercy. It works really well when we tell them that they committed a horrible sin and they feel bad and then we tell them that they can repent. All-around it was a really hard week. Not much other news. Sounds like everyone had a great Christmas. For me it didn't feel like Christmas at all but that's ok, I'll give up 2 Christmas's for the Lord anyday :) I'd love to see pictures from all the families (Birtcher's, Gary and Lisa, Farnsworth's, Clark's, etc.) :)
We have really high goals for this month and as of right now there are 11 that I'm about 90% sure will be baptized in this month. We're praying really hard that they'll be able to be prepared for this. We're working like crazy too!!! I can't believe that I have 1 and a half transfers in the mission right now. The time is flying even faster now. Well I love you all Haz Lo Justo (Choose the Right in English).

Love,
Élder Hakes (Jeiks en Español) :)