February 22, 2010

With President and Sister Sloan



Dear Family,
Wow what a crazy week. There were some emergency transfers in the mission. I´m still here with Élder Purnell in Conocoto but we have another elder with us too. We´re in a trio. Élder Purnell, Élder Miranda, and me. I also got called to be a district leader. I´m a little nervous but I´m alright, I´ve got a cell phone now ha ha.

Well we´ve had a lot of fun experiences this week. One was that the electric shower head broke when I was showering. It scared me half to death. I turned around and the wire was on fire. I blew it out and no harm done but it was crazy. We had cold showers for a couple of days but we got it fixed now.

We also had some cool Spiritual Experiences. We have a family of 4 that were teaching and they are way receptive to everything. We talked about baptism date with them. They didn´t accept the date but the said they will definitely read and pray more to know and that´s exactly what we want them to do. It was way sweet. We also had a really cool contact the other day that really shows the power of the Book of Mormon. We were talking to him about the restoration or something and he wasn´t really interested and he wouldn´t give his address. After that we kept talking and I started to share about the Book of Mormon. After that he was really interested and he gave us his address and he´s a sweet reference for another sector. I´m excited to hear about Nate´s call. That´s way exciting. Well I love you all.


Love,
Élder Hakes


P.S. This week Elder Calderon and area 70 is going to be with us on wednesday night. He´s going to teach with us and everything. It will be pretty crazy but I´m excited. Also another funny scripture in 3 Nephi 7:8.

At the Equator



The belt with added holes =)

February 15, 2010

Dear Family,
We had a pretty amazing week here in Conocoto. We´re finally seeing the results of our hard work. We don´t have hardly anyone close to being baptized but we have a ton of new investigators that will definitely get baptized within the next month or two. I had my first interview with President Sloan this week. It was really amazing. He helped me a lot and apparently has a lot of confidence in me. This week we talked with 71 new people during the week and we have 22 new investigators. I can´t believe we actually did that but I´m really happy. I had a really cool experience last night. We went to teach one of our investigators and she told us that she drank on friday. That was after 24 days without alcohol because we taught her about the Word of Wisdom. It was really sad for me when she told us. I literally felt pain for her and her bad decision. During that whole lesson I wasn´t the one talking. Literally everything I said was from the Spirit. I remembered and shared about 5-6 scriptures that I hadn´t used yet in Ecuador. It was pretty amazing. The spirit was so strong during the whole lesson. She really wants to change and I hope that what I said helps her. Well I hope all is well in the States. I love you all!!


Love,
Élder Hakes

The Equator

Dear Family,
Well first off, there is a new e-mail for the missionaries now. It´s supposed to be better and faster so my new e-mail is david.hakes@myldsmail.net It´s not too much different but it had to be changed. This week was pretty amazing. First off we had a baptism. There was an investigator that had been investigating for about 6 months now. We talked with him for 2 weeks and now he´s baptized. He told our district leader in the interview that the other issionaries before us just wanted to be friends and that we actually wanted to help him learn and understand. That´s why he got baptized. I felt really good hearing that because I knew we were friends too.

It was a crazy day the day he got baptized. I don´t know if I´ve ever seen that much rain in my life. I got soaked through my big jacket. We were outside for about and hour because no one would let us in or talk with us. We eventually went to a part-member family's house and taught them and waited out the worst of the storm. It was nuts.


This week was way sweet with the members too. We´ve started passing around a little calender that says when can you help the missionaries and we have almost every hour filled out except Saturday. It´s a lot easier with the members too because there are a lot of returned missionaries in our ward. We can also do splits when we have 2 members with us. It´s been way sweet and we´re getting a lot of things done too.

Today was a sweet day too. We went to the Equator as a district!!!! It´s called La Mitad del Mundo in Spanish. It was a sweet experience. You can balance an egg on a nail and you weigh less and all of that fun stuff. I got some sweet picture of the monument here too. I decided I better celebrate Brent´s and Cody´s birthdays in style here in Ecuador. I´ll send some sweet pictures next week.


Well the work is tough here, but I love it. I´m really losing myself in the work and in Spanish. I don´t understand half of the phrases that my companion says in English anymore. I also can be reading in English and talking in Spanish, I can´t tell if the music on the bus is in English or Spanish sometimes. It´s so sweet!!! Well I love you all. Good luck with all that you do. Remember to say your prayers and read the scriptures everyday.

Love,
Élder Hakes

February 1, 2010

Dear Family,
Sorry this is going to be a very short letter because the internet is being weird. I got a gringo for a companion. He is brand new and he does bot know a ton of Spanish but he is way good. We are working really hard here. He has helped me a lot with my attitude and with the little things that I was lacking before. We have been blessed because of it. We had a contact the other day and we asked if we could teach him (he is 22 years old) and he said yes even though it was the first visit. I did not know what we were going to share but I felt like we should talk about baptism. We taught that he was not baptized with the authority and that he did not make the decision for himself. We asked if he would want to be baptized and he said yes. It was the craziest thing ever. We told him that he needs to be taught more before the baptism and that since he lives in another sector he will be taught by other missionaries. It was an amazing experience. Well I love you all.

Love,
Elder Hakes

January 25, 2009

Wow what a crazy week. Sounds like the weather has been pretty crazy in both Americas. We've had a ton of rain and lightning this week. It was pretty scary yesterday when it started up when we were about half way up a mountain. It was hailing. Well we had transfers, for real, and I'm staying in the same sector. I'm going to be training a new missionary too. Pretty crazy huh. I'm just happy that President Sloan trusts me with this. It's a big resposibility. For today and tomorrow I'm with another Elder from my group and he's going to train too. Tomorrow were taking one of the new missionaries to teach and on wednesday I,ll find out who's my companion. I had a dream last night that a received a companion from California but we'll see what happens.

We had a baptism this week too. We baptized our regalito who is 8 years old and lives with the bishop,s family. This week we also had our mission conference and had interviews with President Montoya (1st counselor in the mission presidency). It was way cool. I learned a ton. I also had exchanges with my District leader this week. I was with Elder Hirschi who's from my group. We were in his sector and it was pretty sweet. That night we ate lasagna from a bag. It's the kind that you take camping where you just put hot water. His family sent it to him and it was pretty good. The first time I had lasagna in a long time. We also had a sweet zone activity on Saturday. We have 4 signs with 2 questions on each sign and we put them in a park in my sector. We contacted a ton of people. We received 62 names with addresses in one day. It was way sweet. Now I just have to find them with my new companion ha ha. Well sounds like the family's doing good. I love you all!!!

Love,
Elder Hakes