October 12, 2010

Dear Family,
This week was absolutely crazy. We were so busy with all of the trainings that we had to give. On Tuesday we had the zone leader´s council all day long. It went really well. It started raining really hard when we went outside to play soccer. It was way fun!!!! We had some amazing BBQ chicken the mission home and then my companion and I went home to plan the trainings that we had to give during the week.
On Wednesday and Thursday we had 2 trainings each day for the zones here in Quito. On wednesday President took us and the secretaries out to eat because it´s a tradition that he has every month. We went to a really nice restaurant. It was pretty good :) On Thursday night we finally went to our sector for the first time last week. We taught the Yasig Family (they went to church 2 weeks ago) and they had a lot of problems. They don´t have as many desires and they used to because we hadn´t visited them in so long. We made it very clear what they were losing and they rejected us. We will still go back but we have to help them to keep the committments that we left them. It was a really rough experience that we had.
On Friday at 8:30 AM (President showed up late) we were in President´s car on the way to Ambato. At 10:45 AM (half an hour late) we showed up to the training with the zones there (Ambato and Oriente) and we taught them. President is doing interviews with all of the missionaries this time so it takes a lot longer. At 5:00 PM we left to go to Riobamba and we got there at 6:00 PM. We showed up 3 hours late for that training. It was suposed to start at 3:00 PM. They were all so tired and I think President apologized like 100 times. The training still went very well considering that everyone was pretty much asleep. That night we slept in Riobamba with other missionaries. In Riobamba it is colder than Quito and the missionaries only had one blanket for each of us. I didn´t sleep at all on Friday night.
On Saturday morning we went on divisions (exchanges?) with a companionship in the zone. The division (exchange?) went really well. We put a baptismal date with one guy and commited him to go to the District conference and he accepted. We also taught a family of 5 [only the parents are older than 8 :)]. Everything turned out to be really good. After the division (exchange?) my companion and I were part of another training to all of the district and branch leaders in Riobamba. It went really well too. That afternoon we finally came home!!
Well my life is really busy right now but I love it. I really enjoy helping the missionaries in the entire mission. Today, tomorrow and wednesday is going to be really crazy with all of the new missionaries coming and with transfers. I can´t wait!! :) I love you all so much. Thank you for all that you all have done for me. I know that the gospel that I teach everyday is true. It is such a blessing to be able to have it in my life and with my family. Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. I know it.



Love,
Élder Hakes