Weathering the Storm

Hey!

     Life is good in the hood. Can't believe it's Pday again. This week was another great one! We got to go to the Oklahoma City temple on Friday!!! Woot!! The only time we are allowed to attend the temple is with recent converts who are going to perform ordinances for the first time. So we went with Harold and Sally Moore (two of the finest Oklahomans you will ever meet) to go and do baptisms for the first time. They were baptized in February and are just some of the greatest, most honest people around. We have been teaching them all of the new member lessons, which is essentially reteaching all the convert lessons and then throwing in things like the priesthood, callings, the temple, patriarchal blessings and the like. We have loved getting to teach them, Harold is a huge jokester and is always poking fun and laughing his head off. We all crammed in Bishop Ogden's suburban with another couple in the ward and drove down on Fridayevening. I think it was about two hours away. The OKC temple is so tiny! It was the smallest I've been in, it felt like a little portable temple almost haha. But of course it was beautiful and the spirit there soothes the soul. I wanted to do a session so badly... I can't even tell you! But we helped the Moore's do confirmations and watched a youth group doing baptisms and we got to explain all about it. I met a man from Jenks, OK who recognized my last name and said he had a relative from like Sweetwater New Mexico or something who was named.... shoot I forgot... something Hakes. Annett? Alissa? A-Sumthin. Anwyay I was pretty sure we were related since Grandpa is from NM. Small world. Oh! Also in the temple I found out that there is a member in our ward named Richard Torrie from Alberta Canada. He is Tyler Torrie's (my BYU roommate) great uncle! Small world? Yeesh.

      Anyway that was a sweet experience, I was dying to go the temple and I hope I get to in the future again. We didn't get home till about 1 in the morning and we almost died the next day, soo tired! Anyway President Shumway announced some huge mission news on Monday... They are changing the mission name, and moving the mission home to Bentonville, Arkansas. You're looking at the first missionary to be serving in the Arkansas Bentonville Mission! The mission boundaries itself are not changing at all, but they moved mission headquarters to Bentonville because it is way more centrally located I guess. The change will be effective July 1 when the new mission president arrives. The Oklahoma Tulsa Mission will no longer exist :( I was initially super bummed with the news (I still kind of am), I was just starting to feel like an OTM missionary. I wrote Oklahoma Tulsa Mission in my scriptures, what am I supposed to do?! Haha but at the same token it will be a sweet experience to get to open a new mission, every month we will be setting new records! And when I am an old senior missionary about to go home, I can tell all the fresh youngens about the OTM mission days. So there's some silver linings I guess. My companion has prophesied that I will see the mission split in my day too, its been growing really large (4 new stakes since President Shumway has been here) and that's why they had to move the mission home/office I suppose. So effective July I will be serving in the ABM, guess you better update the blog haha.

      Well the work this week was great, we have a sweet lady named Marla set to be baptized this Saturday! She was interviewed this last Saturday and it went well. We will be helping and praying for her to make this date! Her husband is not very supportive which makes it really tough, but her faith is so strong and I think she can pull through. I am still a huge (fat) missionary but the weights are helping convert it to a good huge and not a bad huge. Haha. OH I just remembered, in the new issue of the Ensign the Holland family is smack dab on page 40. I was flipping through and it blew my mind haha. Looks like they went to conference! Well I think that's about the majority of my update. I am doing so well and every week I am more and more the missionary that the Lord wants me to be. Sometimes it just hits me how real this all is.. the gospel, the plan of salvation, God... growing up hearing it all your life makes it culture, but it is so real. There are no doubts in my mind of the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ and our Eternal Father in Heaven. Its also been dawning on me just how privileged I am to be who I am, where I am, when I am. To have been born in this dispensation of the fulness of times, not only that, but during the hastening of the work. Into a loving Christ centered home, with an incredible family to support me to new heights. Into a physical body that allows me to do everything that I enjoy doing, and to work tirelessly. I have literally been given everything in the world to do this work! I have no right do otherwise, and no right to complain or look inwardly. Anyway those are the thoughts of Elder Hakes this past week! I love you all, and read your blessed scriptures for goodness sake! Alma 33:12-14

Elder Hakes

      Oh, also I just realized why I called this letter "weathering the storm". There was a massive storm on Saturday night... I was honestly a little afraid haha all of the tornado horror stories are starting to get to me. But we went to bed while was sprinkling, and I woke up and hour later when the zone leaders called to see if we were alive. Elder Durrant had his mattress on the floor across the room because he didn't want to be right under the window. The lightening was unbelievable! It looked like a strobe light was going off in our room, that's how frequent the flashes were. The room was lit up more often than it was dark. I looked outside and I couldn't see anything, just sheets of rain and dark sky that seemed only yards away. The zone leaders said two tornadoes had touched down in Tulsa. That was kind of freaky, we are so close to Tulsa haha. I laid there and tried to ignore the fact that suddenly our apartment could be ripped to bits and we wouldn't really have anywhere to go. There may have been some praying going on too. But I was comforted and passed out an hour later and awoke to a calm Sunday morning. It was exciting to say the least!