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