Dear Family,
I recieved a change this week. President Sloan called me as his new assistant. I´ll be in the offices and traveling around the mission giving trainings and stuff. I´m a little nervous but I´m grateful for the opportunity to be able to learn from him. My new companion is Elder Morales from Quayaquil. I love you all!!. My new p-day is on Saturday so I´ll write you then. Thanks for everything.
Love,
Élder Hakes
Monday, August 30, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
August 23, 2010
Dear Family,
This week was really awesome. We have a new family that is really good. It´s the Itaz Family. On the second visit they accepted a baptismal date. They are going to be baptized on September 11th. There are 4 people in the family.
We had an amazing lesson with them on Saturday. We showed up and we were about to start when some other family members were visiting them. Normally when this happens, most investigators just send us away because they don´t want to be embarassed. They invited their family in and we started to teach them too. The brother-in-law who came had a lot of questions and I felt that he was trying to attack the church. I didn´t like it. We were answering questions about the Word of Wisdom, the Law of Chastity, the Book of Mormon, Tithing, etc. I finally answered one of his questions and went right into the Restoration. We were teaching with the Spirit during that lesson. It was really strong. Especially when we repeated the first vision to them (it was probably the 1st time in my whole mission when there wasn´t a distraction when we said it!!!! There is always a loud noise or something when we say the first vision). I know that they felt the Spirit. The brother-in-law changed during that lesson. He stopped attacking and said that our message is really interesting. He felt the Spirit. I told him that he felt the Spirit and he couldn´t deny it. He knows what he felt. It was an amazing lesson.
After that lesson we went to Conocoto (my old sector) because they had 5 baptisms. It was amazing because my convert, Daniel Diaz, baptized his little sister right after getting home from the temple (doing baptisms for the dead). It was an amazing night. It was sweet to see 5 people get baptized at once.
Today we went to a waterfall. It´s the same one that I went to in April. It was a lot funner this time. We got there earlier and we played Ecuavoli (Ecuadorian Volleyball). All of the Latins started throwing each other in the water. They didn´t even risk trying to throw me in. They know what would happen to them :) It helps to be a foot and a half taller than everyone sometimes. Well I love you family. You guys are so awesome.
Love,
Élder Hakes
This week was really awesome. We have a new family that is really good. It´s the Itaz Family. On the second visit they accepted a baptismal date. They are going to be baptized on September 11th. There are 4 people in the family.
We had an amazing lesson with them on Saturday. We showed up and we were about to start when some other family members were visiting them. Normally when this happens, most investigators just send us away because they don´t want to be embarassed. They invited their family in and we started to teach them too. The brother-in-law who came had a lot of questions and I felt that he was trying to attack the church. I didn´t like it. We were answering questions about the Word of Wisdom, the Law of Chastity, the Book of Mormon, Tithing, etc. I finally answered one of his questions and went right into the Restoration. We were teaching with the Spirit during that lesson. It was really strong. Especially when we repeated the first vision to them (it was probably the 1st time in my whole mission when there wasn´t a distraction when we said it!!!! There is always a loud noise or something when we say the first vision). I know that they felt the Spirit. The brother-in-law changed during that lesson. He stopped attacking and said that our message is really interesting. He felt the Spirit. I told him that he felt the Spirit and he couldn´t deny it. He knows what he felt. It was an amazing lesson.
After that lesson we went to Conocoto (my old sector) because they had 5 baptisms. It was amazing because my convert, Daniel Diaz, baptized his little sister right after getting home from the temple (doing baptisms for the dead). It was an amazing night. It was sweet to see 5 people get baptized at once.
Today we went to a waterfall. It´s the same one that I went to in April. It was a lot funner this time. We got there earlier and we played Ecuavoli (Ecuadorian Volleyball). All of the Latins started throwing each other in the water. They didn´t even risk trying to throw me in. They know what would happen to them :) It helps to be a foot and a half taller than everyone sometimes. Well I love you family. You guys are so awesome.
Love,
Élder Hakes
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
August 16, 2010
Well first off about the pictures. The big group is everyone that was there at the baptism. The old guy is a member. He was mad with us after the baptism becasue we didn´t ask him to give his testimony. He figured that since he´s been a member for over 30 years that he´d be able to bear his testimony. He´s way funny. He´s going to bear his testimony this next baptism
Dear Family,
We had another pretty crazy week. We had a few service projects and we had another interesting experience filling up a font (it wasn´t ours this time). On Friday around noon the sisters told us that the needed a propane tank because they ran out of propane and no one in their ward could help them. We called one of our district leaders and we told him to take a propane tank from his chapel to the sister´s chapel. We called him at about 7PM and he told us that the guy wasn´t going to get baptized so he didn´t take the tank. We called the guy that was going to get baptized and he said that everything is all good and that he´s excited to get baptized. We had to cancel the rest of our appointments for the night and take our tank to the sister´s ward. By the time we got there it was already too late to fill up the font and get home on time. We decided to get up early to go fill it up the next day (the baptism was scheduled for 7AM and I don´t know why!!!). We got up at 4 AM on Saturday to go fill up the sister´s font. We got there at about 5:30AM because there weren´t any buses. We waited and waited for it to fill up. It was going so dang slow!!! We started the baptism at 9AM. Not one member came because they didn´t know about the baptism. It was spiritual and all but it was way weird.
During all this time we were fasting so when we got home we broke our fast and made lunch. I was so dead. After lunch we went to an appointment and then we went to fill up our font for our baptism. Everything worked perfectly this week. Last week the construction workers had cut our water pipe. This week the water was nice and hot and it filled up really fast. The baptism went great. Coraima (15 yrs. old) and Carol (13 yrs. old) Llumiquinga (in english Jew-me-king-uh) were baptized. The spirit was way strong. We had about 25-30 people at the baptism. That is a lot of people for here in Ecuador. After the baptism my companion and I made burritos with them and the Morocho Family (my converts and the family´s neighbors) in their house. It was way fun. My companion and I have been sacrificing a lot for these last few baptisms in the zone and it´s all worth it. I´m still trying to catch up on sleep though :)
On Sunday we had a really cool experience. After lunch we weren´t exactly sure where to go. I just had the thought that we should go to this one part of our sector where I have never gone before. It was kind of weird but we went. The very first door we knocked on , the son of a less-active member came out and was really receptive. He wants to go to church on Sunday and he´s going to read the Book of Mormon that we left him. It was an amazing experience. We were led literally directly to his house. It is such a blessing to have the Spirit!!!
I´m doing really well. I´m now down to 205 lbs. I´m still losing weight!!! I´ve been feeling the Spirit a lot more over the last few weeks. Having baptisms helps, but I think fasting has helped me more. I feel a lot closer to my Father in Heaven. I feel like he´s helping us even more. I know that this is the true church. I feel it everytime that I see someone enter to the waters of baptism. It is such a blessing. The Lord has helped me so much in this sector. I now have 13 active converts in this ward alone. It is such a blessing that the Lord has given me. I love you all. I hope everything is going well with you guys.
Love,
Élder Hakes
This week we did feel a little bit of shaking but it wasn´t hardly anything. If I was standing up I couldn´t feel anything. Only when I stood up. It only lasted about 1 minute. It was a nice reminder that we need to be prepared for emergencies.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Pictures - August 9,2010
Today we had a really fun activity. We decided to hike a mountain that has a huge cross on the top of it. It was a tough hike but I really enjoyed it. I´ve got some sweet pictures. I attatched a few here
Monday, August 9, 2010
August 9, 2010
Dear Family,
This week was pretty weird again. We had more meetings and I got sick again. On tuesday we had our zone leader´s council and we ate pizza for lunch. At about 7 PM my stomach started hurting. It was right in the middle of President Sloan´s doctrine class. I ran to the bathroom but I didn´t throw up. According to everyone else I was very pale and had a tinge of green. It was a fun night. I just slept in the assistant´s house because it´s really close to the church that we had to go to the next day. I was pretty bad and I didn´t sleep very well. The next day we had our zone conference and we had to teach the missionaries. That was pretty fun. It actually wasn´t too bad. It made me trust more in the Savior. President Sloan was very happy with the training we taught. He said it was one of the best ones that he´s seen. We were really happy about that especially because we didn´t have a ton of time to prepare for it and because I was sick. By the end of the zone conference I was feeling a lot better. By the next day I was eating normally again. This weekend we had a baptism, finally!!! It was really good. We started off Saturday with a huge service project. We were moving someone from a 4th floor to a 3rd floor of a different building. It was way tough. We had 6 missionaries there and we didn´t finish until 2 PM (we started at 9 AM). They were nice and took us to lunch but they didn´t give us too much, which is fine, so we went to eat more. By the time we got to the bishop´s house to get the keys to fill up the font we were way tired and way dirty. We got there and he couldn´t find the keys. We just went to the chapel so we could at least fill it up with cold water (you can do that without the keys). There wasn´t any water that came out. All of the outside water spickets didn´t work either. In the janitor´s closet on the inside it worked so we attatched a hose and put it into the font, but it was coming out way too slow. Then we came up with an....interesting idea. In the ceiling in all the churches here in Ecuador there are 2 100-150 gallon water tanks. We decided to pop out the ceiling tiles and start passing buckets of water from the tank in the ceiling down into the font. It was way tough. My companion and the bishop were up in the ceiling and they passed the water down to me (because I´m the tallest). I took the bucket to the font and then threw the bucket back up tp the bishop. It was an interesting process. We were doing that for 2 hours. I was so tired and so dirty and so smelly. It was way bad. I have a sweet video of the process too. We were able to fill it up and clean up the mess right before Katherine Gaybor, the girl that got baptized, showed up. I was still in my dirty service clothes when they showed up. I sent my comp with another missionary to get me some clothes so I could keep getting the buckets out of the ceiling. I changed there in the chapel and then we had the baptism. It was way good. We haven´t had a baptism in so long so it was really nice to have one again. This weekend we´re going to have 2 more. 2 sisters are getting baptized. They want to go to the temple with all of the youth on the following thursday. It will be way cool. Well I had a really interesting week. I hope all is well. I love you all so much.
Love,
Élder Hakes
This week was pretty weird again. We had more meetings and I got sick again. On tuesday we had our zone leader´s council and we ate pizza for lunch. At about 7 PM my stomach started hurting. It was right in the middle of President Sloan´s doctrine class. I ran to the bathroom but I didn´t throw up. According to everyone else I was very pale and had a tinge of green. It was a fun night. I just slept in the assistant´s house because it´s really close to the church that we had to go to the next day. I was pretty bad and I didn´t sleep very well. The next day we had our zone conference and we had to teach the missionaries. That was pretty fun. It actually wasn´t too bad. It made me trust more in the Savior. President Sloan was very happy with the training we taught. He said it was one of the best ones that he´s seen. We were really happy about that especially because we didn´t have a ton of time to prepare for it and because I was sick. By the end of the zone conference I was feeling a lot better. By the next day I was eating normally again. This weekend we had a baptism, finally!!! It was really good. We started off Saturday with a huge service project. We were moving someone from a 4th floor to a 3rd floor of a different building. It was way tough. We had 6 missionaries there and we didn´t finish until 2 PM (we started at 9 AM). They were nice and took us to lunch but they didn´t give us too much, which is fine, so we went to eat more. By the time we got to the bishop´s house to get the keys to fill up the font we were way tired and way dirty. We got there and he couldn´t find the keys. We just went to the chapel so we could at least fill it up with cold water (you can do that without the keys). There wasn´t any water that came out. All of the outside water spickets didn´t work either. In the janitor´s closet on the inside it worked so we attatched a hose and put it into the font, but it was coming out way too slow. Then we came up with an....interesting idea. In the ceiling in all the churches here in Ecuador there are 2 100-150 gallon water tanks. We decided to pop out the ceiling tiles and start passing buckets of water from the tank in the ceiling down into the font. It was way tough. My companion and the bishop were up in the ceiling and they passed the water down to me (because I´m the tallest). I took the bucket to the font and then threw the bucket back up tp the bishop. It was an interesting process. We were doing that for 2 hours. I was so tired and so dirty and so smelly. It was way bad. I have a sweet video of the process too. We were able to fill it up and clean up the mess right before Katherine Gaybor, the girl that got baptized, showed up. I was still in my dirty service clothes when they showed up. I sent my comp with another missionary to get me some clothes so I could keep getting the buckets out of the ceiling. I changed there in the chapel and then we had the baptism. It was way good. We haven´t had a baptism in so long so it was really nice to have one again. This weekend we´re going to have 2 more. 2 sisters are getting baptized. They want to go to the temple with all of the youth on the following thursday. It will be way cool. Well I had a really interesting week. I hope all is well. I love you all so much.
Love,
Élder Hakes
August 2, 2010
Dear Family,
This week was absolutely ridiculous. We had way too many meetings. We were in Quito from 8AM-5PM on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday we were there from 9AM-1PM and on Saturday we had to give a training to our missionaries about everything that we learned. It was absolutely nuts. My brain was so dead the whole week. We learned so many new things. My teaching skills have improved by about 1000%. THe stuff we learned comes directly from the Prophet and the quorum of the 12. They just showed us how to be good teachers. I finally figured out what I was missing.The Spirit is so much stronger in our lessons now. We actually know how to teach now!!!! It´s kind of crazy that it took so long to learn it. I have read the same words every time but they had videos of other missionaries and to actually see it in action changed my view of everything. I know what it means to ask questions now. I know what it means to resolve doubts. It is amazing!!!! This week we found 4 new families and they´re all way good. A new couple went to church and they liked it a lot. In the investigator´s class I had to teach this week and I had everyone present themselves and tell everyone their favorite food. The husband of this couple that went to church for the first time said, "Chaulafan (It´s kind of like fried rice or Chinese food) and a nice beer to wash it down." It was kind of funny. He didn´t know that we don´t drink. We all got a good laugh out of it. The other families that we found are all so good. They were just on vacation this weekend. Yesterday we went to an appointment that we had planned but there wasn´t anyone there so we were walking back to another place. I felt like we shouldn´t leave yet so I asked Johan Cedeño, a priest in our ward, where we should go. He said he didn´t know so we said a prayer. We knocked on one door and no one answered. I felt like we should go to a contact that we had done about a week ago. We knocked on the door and said were missionaries and we asked if we could go in and share a message with their family. They said yes. That really surprised us. We got in and I felt like we should share about the Book of Mormon. That morning before we contacted him, the sisters in our stake had said something to him about us being the "Mormons" and he was confused. We didn´t tell him that we´re the "Mormons", but I felt like we should share about the Book of Mormon. We were able to answer the question that he had without knowing beforehand that he had a question. It was a really cool experience. The Spirit was really strong during the whole lesson and they´re going to read and pray. We´re really excited for them. This Saturday we should have 1 baptism and next Saturday 2 more. We´re really excited for that and we´re going to keep working hard. Tomorrow is another full day of meetings 8AM-8PM. It should be fun :) I love you all. Thanks for everything.
Love,
Élder Hakes
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