September 14, 2015

Hey mom!! 

I hope all is good this week!! Did you get my pictures??? I sent them with the wi fi I had in the hotel in San Luis. This week has been a bit crazy and a lot of fun! I went to San Luis to become legal for the next 2 years which was awesome!! It was weird too.. it was kinda like a vacation to be honest. kinda weird. We woke up and did all the normal eat shower things, went to the place to be legal and sat there while everyone started to do the first part. It took a while because there were 17 of us.. then we ate lunch at a restaurant and studied for a couple of hours.  Then that night we went out in the centro for ALB. then back to the restaurant for dinner really late and to the hotel to sleep. Woke up and pretty much the exact same thing. We had some other missionaries show up that night too  to start their stuff so that morning we did second part while they did the first. Met up, ate at the restaurant again and ate some ice cream then  pack to go home. I was back in Mendoza around 9. Got back with Elder Pinedo then we went back to the pench. Crazy first 3 days. Then on Thursday I had diarrhea... it sucked. It was like straight water. TERRIBLE. But the day after, I was fine. 

Oh yea, Monday and Thursday Elder Pinedo woke up at 2:30 and woke me up too. In the morning we recite the missionary purpose right when we wake up. So, I wake up while he has started the purpose thinking I missed the alarm, which is not normal, but I went with it. I asked after we were done... did I miss the alarm?? He was like yes.... but I thought it was still dark outside from what I could see from my bed through the window so I asked, what time is it?? He was like.... ohhhh it's 2:30. So I Said....good night. So that was a little crazy. 

We had two family nights this week..both with members inviting nonmembers. We have 3 investigators because of it!! It was awesome!!! The first one we talked about families and the importance of families and then gave a historia familiar folleto to them. Sorry family history pamphlet to them. Mind switched to Spanish for a moment there. It was really good. The pamphlet is actually really cool!! The second one we had dinner with the lesson.  It was awesome!! We ate some food that is Peruvian, it was rice, egg, beef, chicken, and some other things but it was good and that's all that matters!! hahaha. Then we taught a quick lesson about the restoration because we didn't have time to talk about what we wanted to. It was already like 9 and we needed to leave. So we taught a quick 20 minutes on nothing we planned and I think we did really well! 

And yesterday I had a talk in church. Manuel who is the secretary and just got home from his mission like 3 months ago so he likes to go to lessons with us. We know him really well. He asked me in Sunday School to give the talk and I said sure, why not. Our church ends with sacrament. The reason he asked me to do so and not the bishop is because our bishop isn't at church very often. He has work a lot so he isn't always there. It's kind of a big problem that we are trying to work out. Anyways, I spoke about enduring to the end. I don't really remember everything I said but I think the Lord was helping me because it didn't feel hard. I just spoke like I speak English. well... a bit slower but more fluid than I normally do. hahaha. 

Oh yea, we have a snake investigator, scratch that. We have a dragon investigator. She only was talking with us because she likes gringos. It was terrible. Before I made my one comment she was looking at me much, but after then she just wouldn't stop staring at me. Like I kid you not. Straight 15 minutes of her staring at me. I tried to talk less and didn't really look at her much but she wouldn't stop staring at me. It was like kinda creepy... I asked Elder Pinedo and he said she was staring at me the whole time. When we were trying to leave she was trying to show off that she was learning English and that she knew it. So she was like.... by friends, good....... bye and all this really bad English. Yeah, it was bad. 

What else happened.. nothing much. It has been a good week other than the dragon. haha. Spanish is coming along really well I feel like my spanish is 10x better than last week. It was after San Luis that I just started speaking better and I don't know why? But I ain't complaining!!! haha. 

It's awesome here. We can see the Andes Mountains from anywhere in our area. I need to take my camera one day and take some pictures for you guys. I don't know if you have googled the Favorita on google maps or not but I'll take some pictures for sure. Well, hope everyone is having an awesome week and I love you all!!!

Con amor,

Elder Hakes