Elder Stephen Hawks: June 30, 2014

Hola Querida Familia,

I love all of you and good ol´ America. Some of the things I learned this week. :) Well I hope you´re enjoying the quiet Mama after many long years of only having rowdy boys for company. Speaking of boys I got a new companion last Monday.

Elder Brewer, from Snowflake Arizona, he´s been on his mission for 7 months, and he served in Gran Canaria (the islands) before he came here. He´s a good elder and we´ve been able to really get some work done here. I´m trying to get him totally preped so that if I go at the end of this transfer he´ll take good care of Segovia. This branch needs it. He played football, he´s a little younger than me, blonde, just shorter than me and now we´re getting even more American comments than before! Haha whenever people see blondes that immediately ask if we´re americans. And I will always say yes. :)

As for Jake I haven´t seen or talked to him for a while. He´s still up north and they hardly ever come down unless they have a leadership position, and even if they did I wouldn´t see him. I´m probs going to call him today and see where he´s at... :)

Roger´s doing well. His family´s progressing really well for their baptism. We changed their date to the 12th of July and I´m not going to change it more if I don´t have to. They´re ready and they want to change and that´s exactly why we´re here. To help them realize that the best way to change is coming unto Christ. Gotta love the atonement.

Other than them we have some people but they aren´t progressing nearly as well. We´re teaching a muslim man who asks us a bunch of really good questions. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he gave us a Koran. He´s trying to teach us but we cracked down on him yesterday and really slammed him with the spirit. We took a member who had turned his life from alcohol, drugs, and basically everything evil and had come unto Christ. We talked about the miracle that was and testified that God is still a God of miracles and that the day He stops, He stops being God. Mormon 9:15. They believe that miracles stopped with Muhammed so BOOM proof that the Book of Mormon answers all questions!

We keep teaching him because the church here needs leaders. The president here is 79 years old and needs glasses and a magnifying glass just to read, and there isn´t anybody who really is capable to take his spot when he goes. So that is litterally what President Jackson has said to us. We are here to find the next President and baptize him, so that the branch will survive. PLEASE PRAY FOR US.

I´m glad that everything is good back home so we can just focus on what we need to do out here. Haha it´s funny to look at how much I´ve changed. I came out here with the, "Well let´s get this over with," attitude, and now it´s the, "What can we be doing right now to help our investigators or ourselves progress?" Funny how a mission gives you the exact push you need to to really appreciate things and start working harder for the things that are more important.

With that said my emotions are stable. We´re working hard, we get along for the most part and we´re helping the people that need it. I was a little humbled last week during transfer calls. I was really hoping for a leadership position or to be sent to a cool area, but neither happened and I´m super grateful that they didn´t. I get to stay in this area to help all of the people that I can. If it´s my companion with his spanish or Roger and his family with all of their financial problems.

Funny story before I go. Last night I got up to go to the bathroom and I sat in bed right before I fell alseep and heard Elder Brewer talking in spanish. I smiled to myself and fell back asleep. Then when we got up Elder Brewer said the exact same thing to me. He got up to go to the bathroom and heard me talking in spanish. Cool huh? :) I love Spanish!

Just like I love all of you!

Love,

Elder Hawks

P.s. Mama I would like another pair of those pants you sent me for Christmas. I´ve lost weight and the other pants I have don´t fit... :)