I've expended my time playing ball today. Yup, my new companion is a baller. Elder Anderson is tight and we've had a bunch of fun since transfers already! I'm so psyched for this next transfer, I can feel good things in the making and I'm ready to just tear it up. The longer I'm out here the more capacity and energy I have for the work. It's just become who I am.
Anywho it was bittersweet as Elder Horsley said goodbye to the ward and the people we teach. People like him alot! Transfers went great and I didn't realize till I saw Elder Anderson that I actually did know who he was, I'd met him a couple of times. We got back to the area and took a high dive into the work, he's got a lot to catch up on but it feels good to be senior companion again and conduct the work the way I want to haha! Forgot how much I had missed that. Being with Horsley as I went zone leader was the first time in like 7 months I hadn't been senior comp. Elder A. is great though, he's been out 9 months, was just serving with one of my last comps, Elder Henderson, and he's a great missionary and friend. He's going zl for the first time but is going to do great.
Gotta go, but had to tell you how awesome my temple trip this weekend was! We drove 4 hours to Owasso OK and met with my former Bishop Ogden to ride with him and his wife the next 2 hours to OKC for the Kress's sealing. We got right into the endowment session before it began. As I settled into my seat and let the familiar peace of the Lord rest over me, it really began to hit me what I was there for. I shed tears and marveled at what the Lord had accomplished through me in the lives of two blessed people. Let me tell you, baptizing a convert is great, but seeing them in the temple making covenants tops every experience of my life. That's when it gets real. That's when you feel like they're actually going to make it, when you feel like all your sacrifices paid off. It changed me, and the way I view my work. It was just beautiful :) I got to meet them in the celestial room and hug them and see their beaming smiles and bright eyes. I thought back on when I had first met them, when as a brand spanking new missionary I went to my first ever discussion in their apartment downstairs from us and I was so nervous haha! I thought of how they received us, how they learned, how Brother Kress almost turned us away... how we prayed our hearts out for a miracle, and then how we saw it take place and hearts were softened. I have seen the hand of the Lord over these people, and over me. Their sealing was perfect, and the first that Elder Anderson and I had ever attended. I sat looking into those mirrors through teary eyes and thought just for a moment that I could see eternity, and felt that everything in the world would be alright. Hallelujah!
We met up with the Cox's from Cleveland Ward in Tulsa and they fed us a killer sushi dinner before we hit the long road back. Can't tell you how good it was to see them, like a day hadn't gone by.
Played ball for hours on base at the fitness center with soldiers, felt so good to play again. Guess that's a good way to celebrate memorial day on a military installation!
Love you guys.
Elder T. Hakes
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