September 21, 2015

Glad you guys are having fun! Its awesome here in the Favorita! 

Where should I start.. we had ward conference yesterday that no one knew about until the day before. We had lunch with a counselor of the stake presidency who is in our ward Brother Pinto. He is an awesome guy. His wife knows English and when I don't understand something, she helps me out haha. It's kinda nice. Lets see... We had priesthood with the stake presidency. And it was awesome! We had people who never show up, show up this week!! We had 62 people in our ward!! I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but for here it is a lot so it was awesome! Also, during gospel principles we eat bread and listen to Hermano Chandia speak. It's pretty chill. We had an investigator show up for sacrament meeting but the only problem....it is the snake, the girl who goes after American missionaries. She wanted help with her English homework and was asking if I could come over to help her. Elder Pinedo told her that if we had time during the week we would try to come and pass by her house to try and be nice. And then Elder Pinedo was like we need to go talk to people real quick but we'll see if we can pass by this week. Bye. So we walked away. I felt kinda bad because it was kinda mean.. Had sacrament meeting. It was good... and then she wanted to talk to us again. She was telling me that there were 2 other missionaries a long time ago who would talk to her in English and she would talk back in English or Spanish. And my companion left to go talk with someone else right before this to set up a family night with them and left me standing in chapel alone with her. Well.... he was in the chapel too and there were tons of people in there too but he wasn't there to help me leave. So I told her that there is a rule for missionaries to talk only in their mission language and I could not talk in English. She didn't like that too much but it is true. I told her that there are institute classes that can help her with English but she didn't like that either. But hey, What Else Am I Supposed To Do??? I tried to help her but she denied it.. I don't think we will pass by her house again because she isn't progressing at all and is lying to us about different things too. So there's the crazy story for the week hahaha. 

Now a better one. So we went to visit this inactive family on Saturday. The Martinez family. They were there with their daughter and husband who live in Guaymiyen (they are inactive too) so we taught like their whole family. We taught about how to keep the Sabbath day holy. We were talking and usually I don't understand everything, but I could understand what they were saying. pretty much every word. And usually I don't talk more than Elder Pinedo, but I could talk and I talked probably more than he did. And honestly I don't remember every word I said. Actually, I can't remember half of what I said but what I do remember is that when I was speaking, I could feel the Holy Ghost and the spirit was strong. My words didn't feel timid but they felt powerful. It is amazing what we can do if we have faith in the Lord and that he will put the words we need to say into our mouths. I don't remember the scripture that says that but it is true. I can bear testimony that the gift of tongues is real because without it I would still be speaking my "Italiano Spanish" that Brent told me I had before my mission and I wouldn't be able to speak Spanish. It's kinda funny. When I started this letter, I started in Spanish and was trying to translate to English for the first couple sentences. Moral of the story, put everything you have into the Lord and he will Multiply your blessings and your abilities. Faith isn't easy though, it's work. James 2:17-18. 

I love you guys and I know you guys are doing great things over there in the US. Love you guys and I challenge you guys to try to strengthen you faith in Jesus Christ. Also, look for the blessings that God gives you every week. Because there are way too many to count. Just take a moment to pause and think about it. Its an awesome feeling to feel blessed and all of us are. 

Love you guys and see you next week! :)

Elder Hakes


**** When asked about the earthquake in Chile.....

We were in a lesson and we didn't feel it at all. It is a really old house too and so I believe that there were some angels there protecting us because every other person told us that there lights were swinging and it was a really really bad one. There were people like 4 houses down that were outside in case the house fell down. I guess it happened at the end of our lesson because when we were outside everyone else was too. But yeah, we didn't feel anything. There were a couple replicas that night but it wasn't bad. I only felt one and it was like when you'd hit a kind of  bumpy spot on a quad. Nothing bad. Elder Pinedo couldn't sleep well though. He woke up at every replica. haha.