Ok a little description or details on Fuerteventura. It´s a pretty bigish island. From tip to tip in a bus it´s about 3 or 4 hours. The whole island is one mountain that slowly goes down and into the sea. So it´s very rocky, brown and sandy. (hence why I keep referring to it as Africa) The weather here is really nice. Sunny, mid 80´s during the day and high 60´s at night so a decent amount of difference. It´s "rained" once since I´ve been here and apparently that´s the last time it will rain until at least Christmas. The island used to be (according to natives) super green and have a lot of vegitation about 150 years ago but, all of that´s changed due to storms in the Sahara getting more violent and damaging this island and the one right next door, Lanzarote. Yes, when there´s a big dust storm in Africa it usually makes it´s way out to here to say hello. So everything, absolutely everything is covered in dust, sand, and dirt. There are some places that are pretty red like St. George but mostly brown everywhere else. We don´t have a car because the bus system here is super good so we usually take the bus where ever we need to be and if a member accompanies us they usually drive. So we mainly stay in the main port "Puerto del Rosario" and then we go up to the north of the island every now and then "Corralejo." Paradise because I absolutely love it here. I´m praying that I´ll be here for Christmas but we´ll see.
So there´s a little bit of a visualization for you. :)
Oh man this week was yet another super strange one. Nothing is regular here (besides being brown and rocky). Everybody´s either progressing or we´re lossing them. No middle ground. Which is good but sad at the same time. People you think are ready end up dropping everything they´ve learned and deciding that it isn´t true... However there are also a few people who are progressing and want to learn more about the restored gospel. So yeah I agree with you Mom that talk from Elder Bednar will really be able to help us as missionaries, members and future members. We´re pretty excited to use it during lessons.
So Conference was absolutely awesome. It´s so good to receive such strong testimonies of the gospel every six months to kind of kick ourselves into gear. That was such a suprise as well to hear those four talks in Cantanese, two in Spanish and one in Portuguese. We were able to watch all of the sessions here. President Jackson gave us permission to finish them all up this morning during studies and it was super good. Everytime one came on in Spanish we´d change the language on lds.org so that we could hear the original talks. It was a really amazing experience and as you said Dad I really received a testimony of Heavenly Father hastening the work. Not only of missionary work but as in technology and everything else. To be able to see and hear the Prophet speak thousands of miles away is a blessing that we won´t really appreciate 100%. However there was one talk that one guy gave that was pretty... fuerte to say the least. It was during the Saturday Afternoon session by a man named Jörg K. or something who just finished being the mission president of the Keiv, Ukranian mission. Oh man that guy knows how to call all of us to repentance. A good missionary. ;) He invited us to get in shape, spiritually, physically and mentally. Super helpfull, that we need to be really really good at repenting and really really good and forgiving. Oh that talk was directed directly to me. He definitely answered some questions and some little doubts I had. So time to get to work.
Long story short. Next October I would love to be in the conference center... :)
Like I´ve said we´ve been losing contact with people. It´s really sad but we´ve lost contact with Amada. We went over last Tuesday to her store and when we pull up we saw her smoking..... NNNNOOOOOO! However she put it out, then she let us and Pres. Zenón in. We were going to teach about the Plan of Salvation but we felt the need to teach the Word of Wisdom. While we were teaching she decided to just close the door real quick have the lesson then open the store back up, and so we did. We were just finishing up the lesson and testifying of the power and promise of the Word of Wisdom when Amada´s husband starts pounding on the door, she lets him in and let´s just say that he shared a few strong opinions and then went to the back. It´s really sad... :( So if you could put her name on the list that´d be great. Just Amada. We don´t know her last name but the Lord does and he´ll understand!
However not everything´s super depressing. We´ve been teaching this old lady from Colombia who´s less active for a while and while we were teaching her we started teaching her daughter, find out that two of her grandkids are members and that she has two more daughters and their families that live in the same neighborhood.... :O So we´re really excited and we are going to work real hard with them because if we can help them that´s three families of at least 4 or 5 each one. Keep praying people! Here´s proof that they´ll be answered in the form of Colombians!
So on that note I´m motivated to keep working and see if through us God can bless this little island and branch. We´re happy, we don´t get along with everything but we´re both actually learning a lot due to that and that in turn makes us happy. Loves to all and until next time!
Love,
Élder Hawks
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