September 20, 2010

Dear Family,
This week was pretty crazy. We had a lot of trainings to give. On Tuesday and Wednesday we trained all of the zones here in Quito (80 missionaries) and on Saturday we trained 3 more zones (Ambato, Riobamba, and Oriente). It went really well. I feel a lot more comfortable giving all of these trainings now. At first I was nervous and stuff but now it doesn't really matter. It's a lot more natural now. It is really beautiful on the way to Ambato. I didn't take any pictures because we were in the car with President Sloan and Elder Cabrera (of the 70). It was a pretty short trip and I really enjoyed it. That same night we came back to Quito because we had an investigator at church.
This Saturday Norma Simbana is going to get baptized. It is so interesting teaching her. She has some really great friends at church and they are teaching her pretty much everything. The last few lessons we've come and we start talking about a commandment and she tells us that she already had talked about it with her member friends. It makes our job so much easier. We just have to invite the Spirit and talk about what she's already learned from the members. She really understands her purpose now. She knows what she has to do to be able to have happiness in this life. I am almost 100% sure that she'll be in the temple 1 year from this Saturday. She has her own personal conversion already. She's more faithful than some of the members here ha ha :)
Tomorrow I'm going to go to Esmeraldas for the first time and the day after tomorrow I'll be in Santo Domingo again. I'm really excited because these 2 cities are the coast cities in our mission. It'll be really hot but I'm going to like it. I really miss the heat now. I didn't even realize it ha ha. They make really good food in these 2 cities too. I'm really excited for that :)
We were invited to eat with 2 different senior missionary couples this week. I really enjoyed that. On Friday I ate some really good burritos and last night I ate roast and mashed potatoes and gravy!!!! It was so good. It was way different but it was still really good. I'm going to get fat here in the offices :)
Well in the mission we have 2 new norms in the mission now. The first is that every companionship will baptize 2 people (minimum) every week with the focus in families. We had a really cool experience to change this norm. We weren't going to change it but we started talking about it in the Zone Leader Council last week. As the leaders of the mission we changed the norm. President Sloan was so happy to see the faith and hope that we have. It's a norm that will be really difficult for a lot of missionaries, but we now know that 2 baptisms every weekend is what the Lord expects for us in this mission. We're really seeing miracles now. We have set records the last 2 months in a row. This month probably won't be a record but it will be a good month. Well, the second new norm that we have is to make a baptismal invitation in every lesson. This norm will help us to be able to do the other norm. It's been really cool to be able to teach the missionaries why we need these norms. I think that it's helping them to be more connected to their missionary purpose. The mission is a lot different now compared to how it was when I started the mission. When I started the mission there wasn't as much faith. Everyone just kind of complained that the norms are too hard. Now we have leaders that want to raise the norm and make themselves and their stewardships better. That is why we are seeing miracles in this mission. I can now testify of the power of trusting in the Lord. I wasn't trusting him as much before. I depended on myself to find and teach people. Now I trust in the Lord and He does the rest.
Well I love you all. Thank you for everything that you've done and do for me.








Love,
Elder Hakes