May 16, 2011

Dear Family,
Well this week went really well. We had some really amazing experiences and we´re starting to see some more progrss here. This week we found a new family called the Aulla family. It was so cool when we found them. We were on our way to an appointment and it was raining really hard. We were going pretty fast so we could go inside. When we came to the corner where we needed to turn I noticed that the light was on and I just thought warmth. It was kind of weird so I decided to knock on the door. The family let us in and we shared with them. It was a really cool experience. I´m glad that we followed the Spirit and that we were able to find that new family.
Last night we had an even better experience. We went to visit Helena Colcha and her family. She has 5 daughters (4 of the 5 are members) and her husband (non-member). She has been listening to the missionaries for a year now and she hasn´t gotten baptized. The last few times that we´ve gone we´ve talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is faith, repentance, baptism, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. The last time we visited her we also invited her to start reading the Book of Mormon more frecuently. She did it and she´s changed a lot. In the last visits she told us, jokingly, that she would get baptized next year. This time I asked her if she´d get baptized before I go home and she said yes. She told us that she made a promise with the Lord. She didn´t tell what she promised but she said that she will be baptized very soon. It was such a cool experience because she has changed so much. The Lord is softening her heart through the Book of Mormon. I love the Spirit.
Well yesterday I had an interesting lunch (look at the pictures). In Spanish it´s called caldo de pata or in English foot soup. In the caldo de pata that they gave us it had a big foot in it. It wasn´t as bad as I thought but it was pretty weird. The soup was good but the foot was weird.




I´ve eaten some weird stuff these last few weeks. I killed and ate the cuy (guinea pig) that is in the pictures too : ) On Saturday we had the branch Mother´s Day party. They went big. They hired a band and a Mariachi (it´s basically like the Mexican music that they have in Mexican restaurants). The picture of the rice is one of the huge pots that they had of rice for everyone. There´s also a picture of us with the Mariachi. It was a fun party and we had like 7 investigators at the party but none went to church.




I love you all so much. Thank you for your support and for everything that you do for me. I love you all!!!!!!!!!

My comp´s name is Elder Alcívar and he´s from Guayaquil, Ecuador. He has 23 months in the mission and he´s with me in the Mariachi picture that I sent in the family letter. He goes home June 7th.






Love,
Élder Hakes