March 29, 2010

Dear Family,
This week was pretty crazy. We had transfers. I´m still here in Conocoto but I have a new companion. His name is Elder Rivas. He´s from Guatemala and he has 14 months in the mission. It´s kind of weird that I keep getting missionaries that have more time then me. Something actually happened with him and his old companion. He was a zone leader for like 5-6 months. I got a call last monday after I had written you and we went to the office. President Sloan was having an interview with him. Everyone in the office spoke only spanish except Elder Purnell, President Sloan and I. President Sloan told me, "I´m giving you this companion because I trust you. I know that you´ll protect him." President Sloan has a lot of trust in my right now. I didn´t realize it until this transfer. Elder Rivas is an amazing missionary. He has helped me a ton. With Elder Purnell I kind of felt like I was going backwards but with him I learn something new everyday. He teaches very well and I´m really excited to be his companion. This week was a little crazy. I had to do a lot of Baptismal Interviews and none of them passed. It´s pretty crazy thinking that I have the authority to authorize someone to be baptized. I know that it´s not me that does it but it´s still so crazy. Yesterday we had a really cool experience. We had an appointment with a family of 5 and we showed up and they said they had some of their family over. It ended up that we taught about 20 people at one time. It was the craziest thing ever and the Spirit was so strong. We invited all of them to go General Conference this weekend and it sounds like a lot of them will go (about10-12). It was an amazing experience to see all those people and to testify of Christ. I never would have though just 2 years ago that I´d be able to teach the gospel to 20 people in Spanish, but it´s really not hard at all with faith and love for the people. I´m going to miss this ward a lot. THey have helped us a ton and the investigators are really amazing.
This weekend is going to be amazing!! We are so blessed that we have the opportunity to listen to a prophet and 12 apostles called of God. It´s amazing that I can be thousands of miles from Utah and I will be able to listen to conference in English. I hope that we can all be prepared to listen to these words and counsel that we will receive. I love you all family. Good luck with all that you do.


Love,
Élder Hakes