August 5, 2013

Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your emails I´m glad that you had a good trip to Richfield and that´s really exciting that Stephen got to go through the temple.  I´m sure adjusting to that new life style is going to be fun but he´ll learn quickly how much of a blessing it really is.  I´m glad to know that he´s doing all the things that he needs to in order to be ready to go on his mission.  He´s going to bless the lives of so many people.  

This week was a good time for me but it was rough at the same time.  AhKiong and Barrera both went home this week so it was a little bit of a crazy week.  They were saying goodbye to all of their people and as a result we were all over the place.  Something that I noticed is that they had huge impacts on the lives of the people they served.  No matter where either of them went they were loved by the people whether they were members, investigators, and even non members...I hope that at the end of my mission my companions will be able to see that I had the same effects in my areas.  Tuesday we had leaderships council with all of the Zone Leaders in the mission and it was good.  I felt lonely because I had to conduct the meeting, I was the only Assistant that taught and was in charge of basically the whole meeting haha.  Tuesday in the same meeting President told Elder Laurino that he would be my companion.  You should have seen his face it looked like he got hit by a bucket of cold water!  He came in on Wednesday and then that same night all of the Elders and Sisters that are going home stayed in the temple.  That night was crazy and nobody slept that night...President Carmack stayed there all night doing interviews for them and didn´t leave until 4 in the morning when we had to take them all to the airport.  It was fun being there and getting to say bye but I have a lot of friends that went home in this group.  

My companion´s name is Elder Laurino and he´s from Rosario Argentina.  He´s super awesome and is very different from my two other companions because he is a lot quieter and does a lot more listening than talking.  It´s fun though to get to talk to someone that really listens to and takes your ideas into consideration.  I´m excited and know that we´re going to work really well together.

Thursday after we dropped them off we took some time to go home and take a nap but we had to be right back to work at 12 because we had a meeting with the staff from central services about all the stuff here in the office etc.  We were dead.  Ever since then we´ve been in meetings with President Carmack doing the changes.  It´s hard because he doesn´t know anyone here in the mission and so my companion and I basically did the changes.  It was a really neat experience though because as we did it we would all receive impressions from the spirit to know where the Elders and Sisters need to be assigned.  I loved how at times we wouldn´t know what to do then one of the 3 would feel something and as they mentioned it we would all receive the same good feeling.  It was amazing to watch how God made us instruments in his hands in that moment to help know where people need to go.  

My companion and I will be heading out in the next hour to pick up the new missionaries.  This is one of my favorite things to do with this whole new job because they come so happy and excited but so nervous and innocent at the same time it´s a lot of fun :)  Changes are going to be on Wednesday and as a result we are working our bums off to make sure that everything turns out well and to try and help as many people as possible go where they can be happy, get along with their companions and work hard.  Something that is really true is that if you get along with your companions is that you can be happy and get a lot more work done.  I¨ve been blessed with great companions and wonderful areas which has made it a pleasure to work and have success in the mission.  I love my mission I always tell everyone that it´s been perfect because I really feel like it has been!  I love you all so much and hope that you have a great week and that everything goes well with you guys this week!

Love you all!

Elder Hawks