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