January 29, 2011

Dear Family,
This week was way too crazy!!!! We had a lot of trainings and 2 nights we had to take a missionary to the hospital past midnight. So about 2 weeks ago a missionary had to have his appendix removed and he has been staying with the secretaries and us until he is well enough to go back to work. So this week we had to go to the hospital 2 times, both for the same reason. On Tuesday I was with Elder Falconi (the one that had surgery) teaching a lesson. On the way back he told me that his stomach was hurting a little bit more and when we were right outside of the house he stopped because he had a blood/pus/infection stain on his shirt. We took him straight to the hospital and waited. They had to open the incision a little bit to get the infection out because there was a lot of it. The same thing happened on Thursday night. They had to clean him out again. On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning we got home at 2:30AM and on Thursday night/Friday morning we got home at 1:30AM. I´ve never been so tired. He´s doing fine now but he has to go to the hospital everyday to get the infection drained. What a crazy week!!!!!
Well on Wednesday, right after being in the hospital, we had another training with 2 other zones and the same thing yesterday, Friday, morning. This time around we´ve been teaching about the importance of following-up with our investigators. President Sloan, Elder Arellano, and I came up with a paper that we leave with the investigators so they can see their own progress and so they can be better prepared. We´ve been teaching that and we´ve had a fun little activity that we do with them. We give each of them a piece of paper and then we tell them to just watch us. We then teach them how to make a swan. During the whole time we tell them that we´ll be there to help them and that we´ll show them how to do it. After we finish showing them, we leave the room and say that we´ll be right back. After about 3-4 minutes we come back and we start teaching about another thing, that isn´t the oragami. Almost everyone has been really confused at that part. After teaching for another 5 minutes we ask them. How many of you were excited to make a swan? (almost everyone raises their hand). Then we ask, "How did you feel after we left you to do it on your own?". We have gotten a lot of different answers. The typicals are lost, needing help, wanting to finish, they did something that wasn´t a swan, etc. After that we relate their feelings that they had to the feelings of an investigator when we don´t follow-up with them. A lot of the time they feel the same way. It was a really fun round of trainings. We really enjoyed that activity :)
This next week is going to be pretty fun too :) We´re going to have ZL Council on Monday and Tuesday and we´ll travel to the coast Wednesday-Friday for Zone Conferences. This month is Zone Conference month so we have more stuff to do :) We get to plan out how to feed the missionaries at the conferences for lunch. I´m excited though :) So this month, January, we all had interviews with President Sloan. In my interview President told me that I should prepare myself to go back out into the field. He told me that he didn´t know when he would change me but he wants me to be prepared if he´s going to do it. That could mean that in 2 weeks I could be back in the field!!! I´m excited to see what happens :)
Well I love you all. Thank you for all that you do for me. Each and every one of you is special to me. Thank you!!!!!!!!



Love,
Élder Hakes

PS....You reminded me of something. On Wednesday during the training we saw 2 General Authorities, Rafael Pino and Marcus B. Nash, and David Beck, the Young Men´s general president. They all came for some training here in Quito. It was a nice surprise :)
Well, the Taco family didn´t get baptized yet. They didn´t go to church again so we´re waiting until next week. I´m not 100% sure about them anymore. They say they want to but they aren´t doing anything so their desires will turn into action. The hardest part is that the dad is going to be working out of town. For 3 years he will work 15 days out of town and then have 1 day to come back to his family. I´m not sure if we should baptize him unless he´s really converted. A lot of the times we baptize people when they have a testimony because we know that by receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost they will be able to obtain a personal conversion. In the Taco family´s case, they wouldn´t have the support that they need because the dad won´t ever be at home. I guess we´ll see what happens.


PPS.....I forgot to tell you about a cool experience that I had in the hospital. It was about 11:00 PM when he decided that he needed to go to the hospital. I said ok let´s go, but my companion suggested that we send the secretaries so we could sleep before the training that we were going to have the next day. I thought it was a good idea but I said no we´ll go anyways. I just felt like we had to go and not the secretaries. I said a quick prayer and I felt the same so my companion and I went with him. When we got there and he was with the doctor he wouldn´t let her help him. He knew what they were going to do because he had done it 2 days earlier. He sent the doctor out and told us that we were going home again. We were a little bit frustrated and we started talking to him. We told him that he had to do it and he kind of broke down. He said that he couldn´t take the pain anymore and he started questioning why he had to suffer so much and why he was getting worse. We offered to give him a blessing and we did. We left him in the room alone and told him to make his decision and to pray. After about 10 minutes the doctor went back in and did what she needed to do. I honestly believe that we had to be there because he could have gotten a lot worse if we wouldn´t have made him stay. The secretaries aren´t as direct as we are and they most likely would have let him go home. I felt the Spirit so strong during the whole time when we were talking to him and when we gave him the blessing. It was an awesome experience.