October 4, 2010

Dear Family,
Well this week was pretty weird. As a lot of you already know, on Thursday the National Police here in Ecuador went on a protest. They weren´t doing anything. They were burning tires, blocking roads, etc. President told us all to go home immediately and we did. On Thursday we were at home from 3 PM until the next day. On Friday and Saturday we were in the house at 6 PM. Sunday we went back to normal. We didn´t get to watch priesthood session and that really stunk. This week is going to be crazy for us. Tomorrow we have ZL Council, Wednesday and Thursday we have Specialized training, and Friday and Saturday we´ll be in Riobamba (my first time!!!). Next week is practically the same because it´s transfer week. Monday night we have dinner with the old missionaries that are going home in the mission home and we have to pick up a new Elder at 9:30 PM. On Tuesday we have a training for the trainers and we pick up 27 missionaries (22 Elders and 5 Sisters) at 1:00 PM. After that we go to the Panecillo (the place where the dedicatory prayer was said for Missionary work in Ecuador, by President Kimball) and then to the mission home for interviews and Visas. On Wednesday of next week we will train the new missionaries and send them off to their sectors with their trainers. On next Thursday we have another specialized training here in Quito and then we´ll finally be done for a week and a half. It will be pretty crazy but we´ll enjoy it and learn a lot.
This week we didn´t hardly go to our sector because we´ve been preparing so many things for these next to weeks and we´ve been locked up in our houses. I really loved conference though. I really enjoyed President Uchtdorf´s talk. We need to follow the living prophets and we need to learn how to use our agency correctly. Those are the 2 major themes that I was able to get out of conference. Sorry that this letter is like a mixture of thoughts. There wasn´t any internet all day and I don´t have very much time. I love you all so much. Thank you for everything that you have done, do and will do for me. Follow the impressions that each of you received during conference.








Love,
Élder Hakes