Panama Week 9

Family!!!

Wow sounds like the weather is warming up finally and you are all marching into the spring season!   What news for alex!  The phillipines.  That´s super cool!!  And Kevin going to the same mission as Landon Lowry and Ryan Curletti. 

So another week down in the life of the Elder Andrew Hawks.  It´s funny how long, sweaty and hot the days can feel and then all of a sudden it´s sunday and the week is ending.  This week was a bit of a down week because we´re in the phase of finding new investigators and so obviously we have to do a lot of finding and contacting and unfortunately this week was not super productive.  We did however set a date for one of the girls that we´ve been teaching to be baptized on April 7th.  Unfortunately she failed to come to church yesterday so we´re going to have to push her date back at least a week.  But pray for her.  Her name is Elisabel and she is soooooo busy all the time.  She is at school, working full time, and taking care of an old man to make some more money on the side.  Her dedication is pretty impressive because she has a young son to provide for so on top of everything else that she does she has to take care of this little guy. 

Something that has been pretty common the past couple of weeks has been the reaction that people give us when we come to their doors. We get a lot of We already no the word of god go away, We´re 100percent Catholics in this house, or your church is the same as all the other churches in the world.  Man if only they realized how many blessings that they can have if they accept this message!!!  But patience is a virtue and i know that with faith and a lot of hard work the Lord will bless us in ways we can hardly even imagine. 

So mom I´m getting fat...I´ve officially gained 15 pounds and the members are starting to tell me my cheecks are getting a little pudgy...Yeah I know I walk and sweat all day and still gain weight?  Haha it´s definately because of all the stinking rice that we eat but it´s ok what can I do? haha  So mom if you would like to send a package I would love CD´s of some good church music, um books in English, maybe a joseph smith ring size 7 and a half, pictures of the fam especially my nieces, and whatever else.  To be honest none of our investigators need anything so I don´t know.  To be honest I really don´t need anything I´m doing well on everything. 

Hey well keep praying for us.  Especially that we can find the poeple who are ready for the Gospel.  I know that they are here in this area now it´s just up to us to keep looking and find them.  I know that this gospel is true and that every single aspect of the church is perfect.  Sometimes the members are imperfect and make mistakes but I tell you all that the church and it´s teachings are perfect in every way.  Keep up the good work with the fam Mom and Dad you two are so awesome,  Stephen keep killing it with the ladies and your SBO ambitions.  Mom make sure to give Courtney a huge hug for me because I know right now is really tough for her.  Well everyone have an excellent week and know that I´m always praying for you all!!

Elder Hawks

Panama Week 8

Buenas!

 

Hello everyone what a great week.  Mom the answer to all your questions with Elder Nielson is that he came here to Panama before I was here so I did not have the chance to meet him or anything.  In respects to packages...I want music.  The mail system is really pretty safe to be honest it just takes a long time.  But don´t worry about it I have all the things I need so I´m doing ok.  That´s fun news about the new stake presidency and weird to think that I´ll come home and for what seems like the first time in my life it won´t be president pew! 

 

So this week in my life was the Baptism.  The whole Family Tascon was baptized yesterday at 3 and set a date to go through the temple to be sealed one year from yesterday!  What an experience.  I baptized both of the parents, Giovani the father and Lucalena the mother.  Enjoy the pictures!

 

So Vanessa who was going to be baptized this Saturday got into a car crash on Friday night after her interview and was unable to be baptized because she had to go to the hospital and is a little banged up.  I hope that she can be baptized this next week but she told us that she needs time to recover and get recuperated a little bit.

 

This morning we went to the canal and the museum and it was fun and I took a ton of pictures!  This next week is back to work because we have virtually no investigators but that´s ok contacting is fun and I´ve learned that being really direct with the people here is the way that we have to do it here otherwise they never progress.

 

Sorry to be super short but know that I love you all and am praying for you!!

 

Elder Andrew Hawks

Picture!

Hello,

Here is a photo taken last Sunday of Elder Hawks and his companion with our friend Raul Barnett, a member in their ward.  Looks like he is getting a good Panama sun tan!

Best wishes,

Mike Duffin

Panama Week 7

Buenas Tardes familia y amigos!

Toda aqui in la tierra prometida de panama es bien bien chevere!

Ok so first of all wow what a week to get into the myldsmail and have 17 emails...I love life today!! 

 

Grandma Cline happy birthday I love you so much and pray for you all the time!!

Ok so transfers...here's the big news...whos ready?

I stayed and so did my companion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wahoo!!!!

So now that we're off that subject to the week with the investigadors. This family from Colombia se llaman Sergio, Lucalena, Giovani, Sabella, and katalina, and Juan! So here's what happened with them this week. The mom, lucalena had read all kinds of anti mormon things on the internet and had a load of questions...But thank heavans here nephew who lives in Texas and gave us the reference called her and they talked until 2 in the morning this last monday and as a result he was able to help her resolve her doubts. The result was that now she believes everything and the family is going to be baptized this Saturday!!! It's so incredible I can hardly believe it. The first family that we taught all the way through and I'm going to be baptizing a few of them and will be sure to send pictures this next week! We finished teaching them all of the commandments and they had no problem with any of them so they are absolute ready to be baptized in this coming week I can't wait!

La familia Martinez...Wow this week was wild with them. We taught them on wednesday and decided to go for it and put a specific date for baptism. The second the invitation was out of my mouth the house caught fire...Wow they were not happy about that. They went to town telling us that we can't make them do anything and all this other stuff and then out of nowhere the wife speaks up and announces that they aren't married. So as a result i tried to think like Ammon when the men come to attack King Lamohni's sheep. I tried to look for the good out of this and now I'm thinking that if we can help to get married after 40 years of living together with many many kids in the church that it could hopefully open their hearts to be baptized. So pray for them that they will want to be married because otherwise baptism is not even an option for the parents!! Ahh it was super crazy I'm not going to lie to you all!!

So one more piece of gold that fell into our hands this week. Her name is Vannessa and she's 28 and truth be told she was ready to be baptized before she even met us. She has come to church two times and in fast and testimony meeting she bore her testimony to the whole congregation that she knows this church is true. WOW!!! Well long story short she told us she wants to get baptized, be a missionary, she's gonna pay to go to General Conference in October and oh yeah she won't let us get baptismal clothes for her because she wants to buy her own so she can show her kids!! Judas priest we are seeing miracles right now...

Moral of the week work hard no matter what and good things happen. Because guess what none of our investigators that we have contacted have come to church or are progressing but when we work in some way in his own time the Lord will bless us and we will see miracles and receive blessings from even the most unexpected of places!!

I love all of you and pray for you every night and day have a great weeek and Stephen buddy know that I love you. Keep your head up and look for all the good things that you possibly can cause I'm sure right now is not an easy time for you at all but know that i'm praying for you and thinking about you!!

Hasta esta proxima semana

Elder Andrew Hawks

Pictures!

Familia Iglesias with their first computer

 Kids teaching me Spanish

Me and my best little friend Diego (a son of member family we eat with)

Panama Week 6

Dear Family,

Thank you so much for the updates on life it´s always so much fun to hear from you and it makes my week!! 

So this week in the life of Elder Hawks.  Wow changes are on Wednesday and I can hardly believe it.  It looks like I´m going to be staying here in the area but get a new companion.  It´s a bummer because Elder Barrera and I get a long really really well and the area is progressing!  This was our best Sunday and who would´ve guessed we had 9 investigators in the chapel yesterday!!  The best is that the parents in the Family Martinez were able to come after a lot of planning and paying for a taxi.  I guess sometimes you have to help make miracles happen right?  They had a great experience and we´re hoping to get more of them this next week!

We received a reference from Salt Lake like I told you last week and they´re a family from Colombia.  Freak they are so ready for the gospel I can hardly believe it.  They have come to church twice now and are really loving what we´re teaching.  But we ran into a road block this week while teaching them.  The mom is very inquisitive and wanted to research the church so the first thing she did was go to the internet.  Unfortunately there are all kinds of ugly and anti mormon things on the internet these days.  She read all kinds of stuff and sincerely thought that we practice polygamy, worship Joseph Smith and all kinds of other lies.  We did our best to clear up her doubts and help her understand our true beliefs but she insisted that she would never believe in Joseph Smith as a prophet of God.  We talked to her for a long time and finally told her if she wanted to know the truth she has to study the Book of Mormon and then ask God because he´s the one in this world that knows everything.  The thing is that she loves us so much it´s crazy!! We visited them two times this week and both times she fixed us Colombian food and it was sooooooo good to have something other than Rice and Chicken!! She always tells us that we can come and sleep at her house if we need to and that she wants to take us on trips with them and all kinds of things. Oh these people how I love them they´re so awesome!!!!  Pray for her to stop reading these lies about the church and that she can feel the love that our Savior has for us!

This week was awesome because we were in lessons and appointments all this week.  After 6 weeks of work I think we´ve brought a dead area back to life.  It´s awesome and something that I have learned is that with a good attitude and a lot of hard work we can accomplish pretty amazing things.

I love you all and thank you so much for the addresses!  Now I can write my family some real letters!!

Tengan buena semana todos!

Elder Hawks

Panama Week 5

Hola familia!

Ok so sounds like things are going really well in the USA and everyone is safe and well.  Thanks for sending me korbans email and when you get his address please send it to me i would love to write him some letters from good ol panama.

Wow this week was super weird...Everybody and their dog were out of town.  The Carnavals concluded on Tuesday but most everyone in the world takes wednesday to recover from their 5 day hangover.  The carnavals are more wild here then i knew.  I saw a few pictures and needless to say it is the epitomy of what Jacob talks about in Chapter 2 of Jacob.  Haha Im such a nerd quoting scriptures.  

Well Im glad to hear that people are impressed with my Spanish i guess that means that my hard work is paying off.  I have made goals to study each day something new and i have found that it´s a way that we can keep our days from melting all together dad.  To set small goals every single day and to reach them will help us gain our maximum potential.  

So this week we had a grand total of 60 contacts and like 16 lessons.  Not to good but we worked and honestly it´s because nobody was here.  But La familia Martinez.  There are 12 of them they all work in construction and there are like 7 boys and 5 girls.  It´s actually two families that are living together right now and sharing the house.  They continue to progress and we are going to try and give them a specific date for baptism this week.  They still didn´t come to church and we feel like they´re afraid or something so we´re trying to figure that out for them.  We taught them more from the Book of Mormon and then showed them a film Together Forever.  It talks about how the family can be together forever and they loved it so much.  Afterwards all we had to do was stand up and testify and then leave while the spirit was most strong.  Pray for them please to have the desires to attend church because it´s the only thing that they lack.  

Something crazy happened this week and we received a referal from utah.  The bishop received the referal, contacted the family, and then had them over for a family night lesson on Friday.  We couldn´t go because we had an appointment with the family martinez but they had an rm go over and teach them.  Eveything went well and they came to church yesterday which in this area is a miracle.  So we taught them more and they are very positive as well.  We get to go teach them this week and I will certainly be sure to let you know what happens with them.

If you could send me all of my married siblings address I would love that ever so much so that I can write them letters because i have time in the night to write them!

I love you all so much and miss you lots but it´s crazy to think that this is the last week of my first change!  Keep up the prayers and love and support for me it means so much.  I pray for you all every day!

Les amo,

Elder Jalcone haha that´s what the people have resorted to calling me!