Hola!

It was way good to talk to everyone on skype on Christmas and I am glad you all look healthy and happy and are doing good things in your lives! I am blessed to be a member of our family!

This week on Christmas eve we had a meeting in Posadas with 3 other zones and each zone did a musical number and Presidente LaPierre gave a talk and so did the assistants and sister LaPierre. It was way good! One of the zones were singing a song super serious and normal and then one of the Elders pulled out a harmonica and they changed it up a bit and it was way sweet! Also, one of the Elders played guitar and a member played the violin and it was so awesome! It was way awesome to experience! And good to talk to a lot of my friends from the MTC and other areas.

This week there was a lot of people at church which was way awesome and we had a meeting with all the adults in the last hour and the branch president talked about the goals for the branch and what he wanted to accomplish this year and one of them is better home teaching. I shared an experience about how we visited a man from a different church who left his church a year ago and told us, close to crying, that not one person from his church had visited him, but that God sent us to help him. It was way cool and I thought about how there are people in our church who go inactive and nobody even notices and how sad that is. So I just bore my testimony on the importance of home teaching, because I actually hadn´t thought about it like that before.

We had four investigators at church Sunday but Ramona was not one of them. We visited her and she actually has some really serious heart issues that prevented her from coming. We gave her a blessing and it was very powerful to be a part of that. She has so much faith! It has been really cool to bless people who are sick on the mission. I have had lots of opportunities and it really is amazing and entirely based on the faith of the person.

Well, i am way excited for this next 6 weeks (or more) in Oberá! The work is not only here but in the whole mission. We actually are creating 4 new zones this transfer and are going to open a lot of areas cause we have so many missions. A lot of young missionaries are being called to do hard things but we are learning so much and the blessings are real! Les quiero!

Con amor, Elder Hawk

PS I sent pictures this week! The one with the hill in the background is the hill I have nick-named "cerro del diablo" hahaha  (hill of the devil)

This picture was on Hermana Crump's blog: They were all in the MTC together

Feliz Navidad!

Feliz Navidad!

This was probably one of the best weeks of my mission so far. We have really been working really hard and searching for the people prepared and trying to get the members and leadership in the church involved and we were very blessed this week.

Ramona came to church this Sunday with the Familia Rivero and we were kind of nervous because she had basically said that if she felt good at the church, she was going to continue and get baptized. So I was nervous but I had no control cause she was sitting away from us (which was actually better) but I prayed she would have a good experience. Today was the week of missionary work in Sacrament meeting so I gave a talk. I talked about the pure love of Christ and how as missionaries we always tell people we have a message of love and that I say it all the time, but when you really think about it everything in this gospel is about love. So I talked about that and the atonement and then read the scripture that says "as I have loved you love one another" and challenged them to show their love for someone in someway before Christmas. And I stressed about forgiving people who have offended you and asking for forgiveness because a problem we have here is that the members can at times be offended pretty easily and can also offend. I was basically finished with the content of my talk that I had planned when I just looked out at the people and felt the strongest love for all of them. I told them that I loved them and that this love comes from Jesus Christ and that I truly want to help them and that the Lord has blessed me with the ability to love. It was pretty powerful and I came pretty close to crying. Afterwards, some people told me that they had cried or were close to crying so I hope they felt the spirit strong enough to where they will act and change for the better.

But back to Ramona. We have an awesome gospel doctrine teacher who is super animated and exciting so I wasn´t worried about that class. But then she went to relief society and we went to priesthood and our meeting went long so we didn´t have a chance to talk with her after. But we talked to some of the members and one lady said that Ramona gave the closing prayer! And we talked to her afterward and she told us she just felt total peace and tranquility and the love of God the whole time. We are so pumped for her! And we are hoping to get the rest of her family to come this next week. We had a good lesson with her and her husband and  he told us as well that if he had a good feeling at the church that he would be baptized. Pretty amazing!

The Lord really is blessing us so much. Today me and Elder Muñoz listed the blessings we have received these last 5 weeks and then I made a little sign that says "Las Bendiciones Son Reales" and we are going to hit it with our hand every time we leave our apartment. The greatest blessing of all is that we are becoming more like Christ and helping others do the same. It is really amazing to see these blessings and to see that if we exercise our faith, through actions that the Lord will bless us EVERY time. I love you all! Merry Christmas!

Con amor, Elder Hawk

Hijos de Dios

Hola todos!

It has been a pretty crazy week of traveling here for divisions and for Elder Muñoz´s visa, but we were still able to get a lot of good work in and we are excited for this week to come.

This week we did splits with the Zone Leaders and we went to their apartment in Apostoles which is about 2 hours away in the evening on Monday but when we arrived the assistants called and said we all needed to go back to Oberà in the morning for a district meeting with the assistants, so it was kind of a waste of time, but there was a pretty sweet sunset on the way to Apostoles as a birthday present to me and we ate delicious pizza so it was pretty good.

We also had the Christmas Devotional yesterday and it was really good! There were some really good talks! It is weird to hear them translated though because I am so used to the apostles voices and everything. haha. Before the devotional we were trying to get a family to come with us and we were talking with their dad who has been really kind of cold towards us before but we just started talking with him and we really have gained his confidence and we shared a scripture from the Bible about Christ and then one from the Book of Mormòn and he loved it. He is very firm that he won´t change, but if he actually starts to read the Book of Mormon then I know he will feel even more of the Spirit. His daughters and wife are way interested so hopefully we can help keep them progressing.

This week was good, but I have just been feeling like we aren´t accomplishing a whole lot, just kind of working. So I had been praying hard to find an answer and studying in Preach My Gospel and realized that this gospel isn´t just like a cookie cutter for every person. I love creating systems and in my teaching I had created a system and tried to fit everyone inside the system, but that isn´t how the gospel works. We are all individual children of God and he has a specific plan for each of us. And the gospel will bless every aspect of our lives and our specific unique challenges. So we are going to work more on getting to know people better and then teaching based on what they need. And if we can just show them with a small example that the gospel will actually help them with their specific challenges then they will actually be interested in learning more and changing and acting. And we need to start working better with the branch and supporting the bishop. We are going to ask for a list of people he wants us to visit and also if there is anyone in the ward who needs any kind of service. And these ideas are probably obvious to a missionary with experience, but I don´t have a lot of experience. But I have the Lord and he sent me specific revelation to help me out and to help out the people in Oberá. It's pretty incredible that he loves me enough to help me even though he has plenty of other important things to do.

Well I love you all and I am so proud of all you are doing. Special props this week to Parker for his speech and award! Also to Tanner for being a huge part of helping Jamie get baptized. Keep up the good work everyone!

Con amor, Elder Hawk

Feliz cumpleaños a mí‏

¡Hola!

It has been a great birthday today! Elder Tetedoux bought me a delicious cake! Also, Presidente LaPierre called me and sang happy birthday over the phone. He is awesome. For the first time in my life I feel older than I actually am haha I am so glad that the age for missionary service changed. I know that this is where I need to be and I have already learned and grown so mucha and I am so grateful for that! I am grateful that we have a prophet who can receive revelation to guide the church. We are very blessed.

Well, the language is improving at an accelerating rate. Especially, since we started to do language study with the other two elders who are in our house. Elder Tetedoux took like two years of college before the mission and so knows a lot about grammar and also learned some English at the university so he is a huge help. He is helping me to not sound like gringo haha. I hope that when I get back that I will have a Latino accent! We are also starting to teach them more English and they are way excited and motivated to learn. Today I asked them why they wanted to learn and they said that it was because they can use it when they go back home to help continue edifying the church when they get back. I thought that was way awesome that they had that vision because I hadn´t even thought about using my Spanish for church service when I get home but that would be so awesome to be able to do. I want to  keep learning even when I get back home!

The other day we met the family Vazquez. The sisters who are in the area next to us found them because they were in our area and didn´t know it haha So we stole them back and they are awesome. They have been through a lot of missionaries and we had our first lesson with them (they have 6 kids so it was a bit wild, but we brought them suckers to get on their good side and also so they would be good) and during the first lesson we asked about their beliefs of the church and everything. Oscar (the dad) said that they believed in basically everything and really loved the church but didn´t feel like they needed to be baptized because they were baptized in a different church already. He was very strong about this. And so we taught about the Restoration of the gospel and I am not sure exactly when it happened, but he was touched by the Spirit and now the family has a baptismal date for the 4th of January! He may have changed his mind when we asked that if he believed it all was true then "wouldn't you want to be a member of Christ´s church". It was pretty awesome! Though the problem is that they aren´t very committed, and so they did not come to church Sunday. But we are going to start working on that to help them out.

Also, we had branch conference and president LaPierre was there and he started his talk by calling all the missionaries up (there are 4 elders and 2 sisters in total) and we sang Silent Night, Holy Night. It was pretty cool. He gave an awesome talk and a really cool training to the leaders. He and Sister LaPierre bore powerful testimonies of Jesus Christ during the first meeting and in the second Pres. LaPierre introduced a challenge that I am giving to you all. In Elder Ballard´s talk in conference he gave the challenge to reach out to one person about the gospel before Christmas. The challenge is to receive 4 "no"s before Christmas. Which means that if you ask four people to somehow act on the gospel (invitation to church, sharing a Book of Mormon, etc) and they all say "no" then you are successful. And if someone says yes then you have to keep asking until 4 people say no. It is kind of changing the measurement of success. So I am giving that challenge to all of you and I would like you to report to me your progress. But what a great present that would be to the Savior before His birthday. I promise that if you really try to do this and pray for opportunities the Lord will help you and he will open your mouth.

Well, I love you all and thank you for your birthday wishes! I am way excited top continue the work here in Oberá and to keep building the church here. I love this work and I am so happy to be a missionary!

"Abrid vuestra boca y será llena" D&C 33:8

Con amor, Elder Hawk

Happy, Happy Birthday Elder Hawk

Buenos tardes!

It has been a challenging week but I have been learning a lot. Elder Muñoz and I worked like crazy and had a lot of lessons. We had lots of people who said they would be going to church and we even woke up early on Sunday morning to go find two investigators and come with them to church. We walked for like a half hour and when we got there another person answered the door and said they weren´t there. So we walked back and I was hoping someone would show up to sacrament meeting but nobody did. It was pretty rough and I was feeling down and frustrated and prayed for help. I was pretty upset because we had worked so hard and there were so many people who really needed to be at church to show their faith and solve the trials in their lives. I prayed to have the wisdom to know what to do and how to do better the next week but I was really just feeling pretty down. After sacrament one of the members came up to me and talked about his mission where he didn´t have any baptisms for 3 months in an area that  hadn´t baptized for 2 years. He said I just needed to be patient and not lose my hope and excitement for the work. This helped me a lot to realize that I just need to be patient and do my best. I also realized that I need to just focus less on myself and how I measure my success and focus on the people.

Afterwards, the Lord sent me the wisdom I had asked for. One of the members came up to me and said that we had passed her house a few times and gave us her cell phone number and offered to help us with lessons or things if we needed it. It was a blessing and also a reminder that we need to start working with the members more. And today the assistants showed up and taught us how we can get people to come to church and had some really good ideas. So I was blessed with what I needed, but in the Lord´s time.

This week I really saw a lot of my weaknesses but the Lord has said "Wherefore, I call upon the weak things of the world, those who are unlearned and despised, to thrash the nations by the power of my Spirit;" (D&C 35:13).  I am weak and I am not going to be perfect ever. But the Lord can still use me to do great things. I just need to be patient and improve little by little every day.

I love you all so much and am so thankful for your examples and your prayers. I am ready to have an awesome week!

Ether 2:27 "I will make weak things strong unto them"

Con amor, Elder Hawk