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.