Dear Family,
Wow! What a crazy first week as zone leader. There are a lot more things that we have to do that I didn´t know about. I forgot what it was like to be in a new sector. I am adjusting really well though. It was nice to come in and have 2 baptisms in the first week. It was really crazy when one of them asked me to baptize them. Their names are Alejandro Morocho and Rosa Ugsha. It was a really neat experience. We had a pretty amazing day yesterday too. Normally during a day we have about 4 lessons and 2 or 3 new investigators. Yesterday we had 6 lessons and 7 new investigators and our time was a little shorter because of church. It was really cool. We also taught someone who I had contacted on the bus and we had an amazing experience. On Friday we had our Leaders Counsel with all of the leaders in the whole mission. President Sloan talked about taking the fear of contacting out of this mission. I´m not going to lie, I was one of the missionaries that had this fear, just a little bit. When we were going home my companion and I set the goal to have 5 contacts in the 2 buses we had to take. I was really nervous for some reason. Satan didn´t want me to talk with these people. I did 2 contacts on the 1st bus and I had an amazing contact on the last bus. I shared pretty much everything with him. I shared about the Book of Mormon, the First Vision, Baptism, etc. It was an amazing contact. Yesterday we passed by the house of this contact from the 2nd bus. We taught him all of the 1st lesson and he was extremely receptive. He had a couple doubts but we shared some scriptures and he said that it all makes sense and that he likes it. We left a Book of Mormon with him and he asked us if he could read more that the little part that we showed him. We told him of course and he said that he will pray to know as well. I´m really excited to go back on Wednesday to see how he´s doing. I am so grateful that I overcame my little fear of talking because he probably never would have heard of the gospel if I hadn´t talked with him. It was an amazingly spiritual Experience.
This week is going to be really awesome. We have a conference with Elder Nash. He´s the Area President for our area here in Ecuador. I´m really excited to hear him speak. After the conference, all of the Zone Leaders have a special meeting with him afterwards. I´m really excited about that too. It should be a really good experience.
We had a plaza presentation on Saturday. I put some pictures of it in this e-mail. As a zone we all went to a park and we contacted people. We have 4 signs that have a picture and a question on each side. It was really cool to get to know more people. It will really help our missionaries. We are also going to have another one this Saturday. I´m really excited.



I also had a nice surprise yesterday at church. Sacrament meeting had just finished and I was putting my stuff away when I look up and see Brother Sowards with a big smile on his face. I´m not going to lie, I was speechless. It was pretty crazy to see a member from my ward in Ecuador. He was visiting Ecuador and he thought he´d pass by and visit me. He also delivered my new scriptures from my family. I was very grateful for that. I just had one crazy day yesterday. This whole week has been crazy and I love it :)



My new companion´s name is Elder Christopher Rodríguez and he´s from Quayaquil. He´s got 13 months in the mission and has been my Zone leader for about 3 months. Now we´re companions. He´s 5´5" and he likes jogging to keep up with me :) He´s a really good missionary. He teaches from the heart and he knows the scriptures very well. He teaches kind of like me except for he´s smarter. I will learn a lot from him. I´ll be sure to send a picture of us next week.
Well family you got a really good letter this week. I love you all so much. I´m so thankful for all of the letters that I´ve received from each and every one of you. Love you all.



Love,
Élder Hakes