April 12, 2010

Dear Family,
Wow, this week was really tough. I learned a ton though. It´s been really hard the last couple of weeks. My old companion, Elder Rivas went home. I know a lot of the details but I´m not going to share them. It´s been really hard on me too because I had to take him to Quito and I spent about all of my time sitting. I can only study for so long I found out. I always want to study more during the week but after 2 hours I´m pretty sleepy. Right now I´m with 2 Elders in my district that have problems, Elder Stieber and Elder Lopez. I´m trying to help them and it´s been hard so far. It´s hard also because I have to work in Conocoto but I can only go for a couple of hours during the week. I´m going to lose a lot of investigators and that´s really sad. I did have some good experiences too though. I had some crazy baptism interviews this week. I had 2 interviews with sisters. They were exact opposites. They both have to talk with the mission President and only one is ready to do it. The first interview was really weird. I din´t like it at all because from the moment we started I knew she wasn´t going to pass. She didn´t have a testimony hardly at all. The second sister however was an amazing experience. She is ready to baptized. I also knew it from the beginning. She also has to talk with President SLoan but she´s ready to do it. She is very humble and she has a strong testimony of the church and she has a ton of faith. It was an amazing experience.
This week we were visiting a family of the other Elders and I found someone that reminded me of Cooper. That is one personality that I thought I would never find here in Ecuador. He is about 6 years old and he´s hilarious. We were teaching him and his family and he wasn´t paying attention so we asked him if he understood. After that in the same sing-song voice that Cooper has he said I don´t understand anything. I got a really good laugh out of that one. This little kid is called Galo. It was a pretty funny experience too.
Another bad thing happened this week too. After my companion and I received the news that he´s going home we got on the bus and were an the way home. There was some guy there that had lived in New York before so he was acting like a gangster and he thought he was all cool. I eventually decided that I wasn´t going to talk to him because it was really annoying. He just kept cussing and saying very ina propriate things in English. I was so annoyed and distracted that I left my English scriptures in the bus. I was pretty sad because that´s one of the few things that I really want here in Ecuador. It was also all marked up and had a lot of notes in it. It hurt to lose it. Right now I´m studying from a Book of Mormon that a missionary has here. Luckily he had one in english or I´d be studying everything in Spanish.
Well I´ve had some pretty rough experiences this week. I feel right now like the Lord is preparing me for something. I just hope I´ll be prepared for it. There are transfers on Sunday so we´ll see what happens. I love you all and I´m so grateful for all the blessings that I have received from each and every one of you.



Love,
Élder Hakes


......I almost forgot. I had a baptism this weekend. His name is Luis Olmedo Lopez Mora. He´s a little bit slow and it took some time to get him ready but he did it. He has a really strong testimony and he lives next door to the Bishop and they´ve been helping him a ton. He is all for enduring to the end and not listening to what others tell him about the church. It´s really awesome. I have baptized my 5th person here in the mission. That´s pretty exciting!!!

I don´t know how to explain Quito. It is really high in the mountains and there are mountains on every side. These last feew weeks it has been raining pretty hard. Everyday it rains now. It´s a nice chnge. I think the easiest way to show you what Quito´s like is that you come here when I have to leave. I´ve been growing a lot during the mission. I can´t beleive how skinny I am now. I hadn´t really looked a myself in the mirrior and it kind of hit me this week. I felt like Brent. It was weird :)

April 5, 2010

Dear Family,
Wow this week was pretty crazy. It´s called Semana Santa. It´s really just another reason for people to drink and have vacations. It was really amazing watching the General Conference. It´s a lot different when you know about the scriptures they share. I learned so much. I only took 20 pages of notes this time :) I really liked how the whole conference focuse and families and strengthening the youth and children. It was amazing listening to the prophet´s voice again. It has a power that is very amazing. We´re preparing an investigator to be baptized this weekend. He´s really excited and we are too!!! Today was a really fun day. We had our zone activity and as you can see we went to some cascadas(waterfalls for you non-spanish speakers)!!! It´s about an hour long hike in there after all 20 of us traveled for an hour in the back of a small pick-up. It was way fun. We were literaly walking through the jungle and I took a ton of pictures. Well I love all of you. Can´t wait to write you next week.


Love,
Élder Hakes

March 29, 2010

Dear Family,
This week was pretty crazy. We had transfers. I´m still here in Conocoto but I have a new companion. His name is Elder Rivas. He´s from Guatemala and he has 14 months in the mission. It´s kind of weird that I keep getting missionaries that have more time then me. Something actually happened with him and his old companion. He was a zone leader for like 5-6 months. I got a call last monday after I had written you and we went to the office. President Sloan was having an interview with him. Everyone in the office spoke only spanish except Elder Purnell, President Sloan and I. President Sloan told me, "I´m giving you this companion because I trust you. I know that you´ll protect him." President Sloan has a lot of trust in my right now. I didn´t realize it until this transfer. Elder Rivas is an amazing missionary. He has helped me a ton. With Elder Purnell I kind of felt like I was going backwards but with him I learn something new everyday. He teaches very well and I´m really excited to be his companion. This week was a little crazy. I had to do a lot of Baptismal Interviews and none of them passed. It´s pretty crazy thinking that I have the authority to authorize someone to be baptized. I know that it´s not me that does it but it´s still so crazy. Yesterday we had a really cool experience. We had an appointment with a family of 5 and we showed up and they said they had some of their family over. It ended up that we taught about 20 people at one time. It was the craziest thing ever and the Spirit was so strong. We invited all of them to go General Conference this weekend and it sounds like a lot of them will go (about10-12). It was an amazing experience to see all those people and to testify of Christ. I never would have though just 2 years ago that I´d be able to teach the gospel to 20 people in Spanish, but it´s really not hard at all with faith and love for the people. I´m going to miss this ward a lot. THey have helped us a ton and the investigators are really amazing.
This weekend is going to be amazing!! We are so blessed that we have the opportunity to listen to a prophet and 12 apostles called of God. It´s amazing that I can be thousands of miles from Utah and I will be able to listen to conference in English. I hope that we can all be prepared to listen to these words and counsel that we will receive. I love you all family. Good luck with all that you do.


Love,
Élder Hakes

March 22, 2010

Dear Family,

What another crazy week. I don´t think there can be a regular week in the mission field. I guess that´s good because it always keeps us on our toes. This week I went to my first District Leader Meeting. All of the district leaders in the whole mission, there are about 30 of us, went to Quito to learn from President Sloan and the Assistants. It was a pretty amazing day. I learned a lot more about what I´m supposed to be doing and how to do it well. I love listening to President Sloan. He is an amazing mission president. Since I had that meeting all day tuesday we missed out a whole day´s work so that stunk. I´m officially addicted to studying the scriptures. I wish we had more time to study every morning. It would be sweet. Our investigators are progressing really slow here. We´re trying to figure out what we need to do so they can progress faster. Élder Purnell and I set some really good goals to try and help them. We´re excited to do it too! So about a week ago we talked with one of the guards at a gated community where some investigators live and he´s from Haiti. He speaks 4 languages, French, English, Creol, and Spanish. It was pretty weird talking to him because he keeps saying that we should talk in English because he is better at English than Spanish. There´s also some ward members here that want us to speak in English so they can learn English faster. It´s pretty funny to do. Well I can´t think of anything else this week. Sounds like everyone had a fun Spring Break. I love you all!!!


Love,
Élder Hakes

March 15, 2010

Dear family,
Wow I feel like I haven´t really written to you in like 2 weeks. I´ve been really busy doing other things on Monday with my new responsibilities as District leader. I´m still adjusting to it. Well I´m doing really good. This week was way crazy. We started it off on last monday when we were in the bus terminal for 2 hours waiting for another Elder in our district to show up. We didn´t get home untill like 10 that night. I wasn´t very happy that we were late. During the next few days we did really good but on Thursday one companionship didn´t show up to the District Meeting so I had to go to there house. That took about an hour of our time to stop by there house and put a post-it on their door. Saturday was the craziest day of them all. We started it off with a service project at 8 am. We were filling up bags of dirt and making a wall with it so the members house won´t fall when there is rain. Their house is literally on the side of a hill. The bags of dirt will keep the dirt up higher so the house doesn´t slide. We finished that project at about 2 pm and then we had another service from 4 pm - 6 30 pm. We did service literally the whole day. It was nuts. I´m so tired right now from those services. Tomorrow I get to go to a District leader meeting. All the district leaders are going to Quito and President Sloan will teach us how we can do our assignments better. I´m really excited because President Sloan teaches in a way that really pumps me up for the work. I also learn a ton every time he teaches us. Well I´m doing really good. I finally started leveling off my weight. I weighed 213 lbs. again when I went to Quito. Hermana Rose, the mission nurse, was very happy that I didn´t lose more.
We had something pretty crazy happen last Sunday (8 days ago). We were in a lesson and I got a call and I felt like I should answer it. I did and a member told me that the mom of one of our investigators (a member) had been asaulted and that the other members had already given her a blessing. We finished the lesson and we went to visit them. When we got there it ended up being that our investigator was the one that had been asaulted. I didn´t hear right. We know that he has a problem with drinking so we know what caused it. We talked to him for a bit and talked about prayer and repentance. The spirit was so strong during the lesson. He told us that he wanted to leave the alcohol and everything behind him. We left an Ensign with him and told him to read it. The sad thing is that just 2 days ago we stopped by again and he was drunk laying in his bed. It´s really sad because it could affect his brain if he´s drinking right now. He has a really bad addiction and we´re trying to help him.
Last friday (10 days ago) I did my second baptisimal interview. It was an amazing experience. At the end of it she said that she wanted me to baptize her. I was surprised but I said yes. The next day we had the baptism and it was a really amazing experience. The sisters that taught this investigator were really happy too because one of them finished the mission the next week. It would be way cool to finish the mission with a baptism. I was really happy for her. That´s the 5th person I´ve baptized in my life. Emily Hakes, Miller Mina, Diana Nieto, Carlos Quishpe and Aidil Diaz. That´s pretty crazy that I´ve been able to do that in my life. It´s really a blessing. This week we also gave a ton of priesthood blessings. I would say about 10 of them at least. It´s a blessing that I´m able to use the priesthood almost everyday here in the mission. I love it.
Well family, my time´s almost up. I just feel like I should end this letter with my testimony. I know that I am exactly where I need to be right now. I love sharing the Book of Mormon with the people here. It´s a blessing that I can say, ¨This book was written by your ancestors and they wrote it for you.¨ I love telling the people that because then they get really interested and they listen. My testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown so much in this short time here in the mission. I also testify of the promise that the Book of Mormon carries. That anyone that reads this book, meditates in its words, and prays to God asking if it is true will know for a surety that this book was written by prophets called by God and that Joseph Smith translated this book. I believe that this challenge can be used by every person everyday, member or non-member. We all must read, meditate and pray about the Book of Mormon everyday so that our testimonies will be strong enough. One of my MTC teachers said, ¨Your testimony today is not strong enough for tomorrow´s challenges.¨ We must strengthen our testimonies everyday and we must know without a doubt in our mind that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, other scriptures written for our day that help and protect us when we choose to use them. My challenge to everyone is that you read the Book of Mormon again. 1 Nephi 1:1 - Moroni 10:34. You will all be strengthened and renewed and will have more success in everything that you do. I love you all and I hope you can all do these things with¨...un corazón quebrantado y espíritu contritu¨(3 nefi 9:20).



Love,
Élder Hakes

March 8, 2010

Well I don´t really have any time this week. I have to go to the bus terminal to pick up a companion of someone in my district. Right now it´s just Élder Purnell and me in COnocoto. Elder Miranda went to a different sector in our district so I´ll still be able to see him. THat´s sweet to hear about Nate´s call. I bet he was way surprised to hear that he´s Spanish speaking but it´ll be fun for family reunions after the mission. I love you all. I´ll try to write more later if there´s time.


Love,
Élder Hakes

March 1, 2010

Dear Family,
Well what a crazy week. We had some amazing experiences. Élder Miranda is a really good Élder and has been helping a lot. We´re teaching a lot more because when we have members with us we can divide 2 and 2 and teach more lessons. We´ve been doing that a lot this week it has been way fun. We had some sweet experiences last night too. I was with Élder Miranda and we didn´t really have any set appointments. We were walking by the house of a member and she wasn´t at church so we were just going to see what happened. There are 2 houses in the gate where she lives and her dad answered the door. He told us that the daughter of the member was in the hospital. We left the house and called the member. We told her that were going to go today and talked about prayer a little bit. After that we had a pretty funny experience but I know that it was a spiritual prompting. We said a quick prayer and I thought "I need to go to the bathroom let´s go knock on the door again." The member´s brother let us in this time and we went to the members house (not the houe of the brother and father) and the member´s son was there. He was really sad. We had talked to him before about the gospel but he wasn´t really interested. This time he was really open and we taught him about prayer and the experience of Joseph Smith in D&C 121. It was a really spiritual experience. At the end he told us that he was up in his room sad and thinking I hope the Elders come by and right after that we showed up. It was a really amazing experience. We´re going to start teachin him now.
I learned 2 things from this experience. 1, the Lord ca put promptings in your head through any way that he wants. We may think that we´re just thinking normally but it really is a spiritual prompting. 2, there is always a reason why we have trials. Hermana Amparo (she´the mom of the girl in the hospital) has been having a really hard time because her daughter has cancer and her kids aren´t members and don´t want to listen to us. She´s also a single mom trying to take care of her kids. It´s been really hard on her. Right now, because her daughter is sick her son will start listening to us. I believe that he will become a great missionary some day. These were just a bunch of thoughts I had after this experience. What I learned is that we always need to follow the Spirit. If we feel like we need to do something and that something is good. It is from God. Well I hope all is going good for everyone. I love you all.


Love,
Élder Hakes