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