Elder Brent Hakes: December 15, 2014

We no longer can go to the temple....:(

The presidency of the area have banned it, but it looks good from the outside too!!!!

HELLLOOOOOO FAMILIA!

This week are the exchanges.....I will be staying in the same spot:D BUT my companion Elder Anaya is on the move again. He is rolling out to Mendoza en Orizaba. It's another area close by my old area, so he's gonna have fun with some colder weather.

The week was not as great as we would have hoped. We didn't have anybody in church....BUT this next week I'm sure we will have more success. We are gonna get to work and be the most obedient we can. My new companion is Elder Chun......he's from Utah. He is Hawaiin but is living in Utah but I think he is more American than Hawaiian. But I don't know who he is or much about him. Should be fun to get to know him and to start working.

I'm trying to think of something I want to share but nothing is coming to mind..... I think there's only one thing that was super cool this week that I want to share. So there is a woman we are teaching named Rosa. Her husband is a less active member and she has 2 daughters. We have taught her for a while and we had been thinking about what we had to do to help receive an answer to her prayers. So....we taught how to receive revelation using the scriptures of course. So we opened up to 2 Nephi to read a part when Nephi asks the Lord if they truly had to leave from Jerusalem. It talks about the great desire that Nephi had and that "I cried unto the Lord" in his prayers(not sure if that's a correct translation of what it says in Spanish). He then receives an answer and in the next chapter Nephi gives the famous response "I will go and do that which the Lord hath commanded for the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men save he shall prepare the way for them". We explained that she had to do the same thing. The Lord would answer her if she showed the Lord that she truly desired an answer. She did exactly what we asked and just as we promised that she would receive an answer she received it. We got to her home earlier in the week and we asked how her prayers had been going. She looked us in the eyes and said, "I received an answer and I know that I want to be baptized in this church". It was soooooo awesome seeing the teaching go through and that she could receive an answer to her prayers because we taught her how to receive an answer. The teaching is really important and if we explain it well and they apply it they receive answers. I felt great knowing that. Now the only problem with her so that she can be baptized is that she has to get married. We are waiting on her birth certificates so we can go and they can get married and then baptized. It looks like its gonna be until January or late in December. But that was my cool story of the week!

Also I will be calling home on Christmas day not sure what time, first I have to talk with my companion. I'll let you know next week. We will have 40 minutes to talk and that's it. I need to be obedient with that seeing as the last time we went over time a little bit;) but all is well and I'm happy!!!! :D

Love,

Elder Hakes