September 25, 2010

Dear Family,
This week was absolutely nuts!!!!! I felt like I was out of town the whole time :) On Tuesday I went to Esmeraldas for the first time. Esmeraldas is on the coast of Ecuador it has beaches and everything. It was pretty hot there. I thought I might enjoy it and I did at first. Trying to go to sleep covered in sweat isn´t too fun though :) On the way there we had a little problem with a tire. It went flat. That was really fun that we got under the car in our church clothes to get out the spare and change it. We got our hands pretty dirty, but the shirts weren´t too bad. When we had our suits on you couldn´t see any stains or anything :) The training went really well there. I got to see a lot of missionaries that I know and my trainer is one of the zone leaders there. It was nice to see Élder Estrada again. He´s a really funny guy. That night we slept in Élder Estrada´s house and we left early the next morning to Santo Domingo. I really liked being in Santo Domingo again. It wasn´t nearly as hot as Esmeraldas. It was nice to see some of the places that I got to know when I started the mission. Santo Domingo doesn´t look weird to me anymore. It looks....normal. I remember when I first got there that I was amazed by all of the buildings and the store, but everything is just normal now :) It´s kind of funny ha ha. The training went really well in Santo Domingo as well. I felt that I was following the Spirit best in that training. I really enjoyed my time there,
Well this week we had a baptism as well. Norma Simbaña was baptized today!!!! It was a really neat experience. There were a lot of people there because she has a lot of friends in the church now. Her whole family came too!!!! The Spirit was so strong there. She told us after that she felt so good. She thought she was going to be nervous to give her testimony in front of everyone, but she wasn´t. She told us that she just felt soooo good. She also told us that she had already felt the Spirit a lot because she has been living the Gospel, but that by getting baptized she felt that she was pleasing our Heavenly Father. She is an amazing person. I don´t ever see her falling away from the church. She´s already planning on going to the temple to do baptisms and to have someone get baptized for her dad. The Gospel has changed her life, and it will continue to do so :)
I can not wait for General Conference this next weekend. I can´t believe that we´re already at another one. I fell like I was just watching it there in Los Chillos Valley. I can´t wait to be able to listen to the prophet´s voice in English!!!!! I love hearing their voices. President Sloan shared something interesting with one of the zones that I really liked. He said that as he is watching General Conference, he doesn´t take notes about what they say. He isn´t writing down the doctrine that they say. What he does is he writes the impressions that come to his mind as he´s listening. I thought that that is a really good idea. In November we´re going to have the Ensign and we can study doctrine there. I´m going to apply it this Conference and I thought I´d share it with you guys too :)
Well I love you all so much. Thank you for being so great to me. I´m so grateful for you guys, my family and friends. In my Patriarchal Blessing it says that i´m am blessed to be surrounded by good and honorable people. Thank you for being those people :)




Love,
Élder Hakes