12/19/16 Mountain-less Grove

Hey Team,

I made it to Mountain-less Grove Missouri! There are other cities named Mountain View, and Mountain Home in this stake. I'm not sure why, I haven't seen anything resembling a geographical feature in years. Silly rednecks ;)

I'm here with Elder Walker, and things are good. We definitely had an interesting weekend to kick things off. Lots of weather, which I love. It's cold cold cold and we've had a lot of ice on everything, and even some snow yesterday morning. Church was all but canceled due to weather, we didn't even make it out. Roads were crazy icy, and we had a tiny baby donut spare tire on our car because we got a flat the night before. We were literally 40 minutes from home at a dinner appointment, just leaving in the dark and freezing wind, when we got a text from the mission telling us to head in and bunker down for the night, weather was moving in. At about the same time our tire pressure light came on and I realized we were rolling on a rim. Perfect timing :) We were next to someones house in the woods so we pulled into their driveway and knocked on their door to borrow a flashlight. We should probably put one of those in the car... Luckily they were incredibly nice and let us in out of the cold, and sent their teenage son to open their shop so we could pull in and fix it indoors. She even made us some hot cocoa. Hallelujah. It seemed a little too coincidental, we'll definitely go back with some cookies and a Book of Mormon :) That's about the only way to find new investigators in the bible belt, blow a tire in their yard.

Other great news: played some ball Thursday night when I got here. It's been months since I've played. Felt good. We've got an incredibly nice, new building here for some reason. It even has an atrium courtyard in the middle. Its lovely. So the court was nice and we had fun. Hope to get the games rolling to find new people to teach. Ball is life.

We also had the ward Christmas breakfast/party Saturday morning, got here just in time for that. I was really impressed with the ward in a lot of ways. It's much bigger than I thought, people were friendly and having a good time. They were grabbing my arm and introducing me to nonmember friends they had brought, and pointing out ward members who need extra love and support. I got to meet a lot of people and introduce myself, which was really good because I didn't get to do that at church on Sunday haha. Remember how my last ward had a huge family that accounted for a big part of the membership? Well, this ward is like that, time 4. The Richardsons have 30 children. 30. Children. 20 something of them are adopted. I haven't met them yet but I hear through the grapevine that they are incredible people. Their kid's ages look something like this on the ward roster: 20, 20, 19, 19, 19, 18, 18, 17, 17, 17, 16... it's madness haha. Our ward mission leader Brother Whipple is fired up and knows everything about everyone which is really helpful. We literally have no one to teach right now, but there is so much potential here. I think I've been sent here to help tap into it, I've been blessed to serve in a couple of wards (*cough* *cough* Cleveland) that really know how to pick the low hanging fruit. Hopefully we can make that happen here. Did I mention that I'm a district leader now too? That was weird and surprising, I've been zone leader for so long I forgot what district leaders do. It might be a nice break for awhile... haha.

Well Christmas is somehow upon us again. Rather than blast your ears (or rather eyes via email) with cliche Christmas wishes, I will write you a Haiku. First, let me google how to write a Haiku.

*ahem*

Ice blankets our world
Hearts and minds find new vistas
Light pierces our lives

Happy Christmas to everyone! 🎅

Elder Hakes

Midwest Gospel Specialist 

This is Sister Skye. We helped her quit smoking!

Ben Leavitt family. I'll miss them a ton.

The Barnes! They treated us so good

The legendary Elder Walker in Mtn Grove

12/12/2016 Oh Dear...

Hey Crew,

Sorry I had zero time last week. And today is a weird Wednesday pday again. A lot has happened since I've last updated you. I found out last night that I am being transferred to the Mountain Grove ward in the West Plains Missouri Stake. (My address: 1101 Long St. Apt B7, Mountain Grove, Missouri 65711) Not what I was hoping would happen! Let's say I was on my knees for awhile last night haha. I'll miss Kandie's baptism on Christmas Eve :( And Christmas day with the Leavitt clan.. and another transfer with the coolest companion.. and the best district.. BUT hey at least I had an epic last transfer here. Who knows what's in store?

Monday we had a zone conference in Bentonville with Elder Gay of the seventy. It was solid. He is definitely an influential man and has quite the repertoire of spiritual knowledge and experiences. He shared a lot for us to adjust to in the mission. Then President smacked us with some dizzying news: The 3 stakes of our mission in Oklahoma, Bartlesville (where I've served more than a year of my mission), Tulsa, and Tulsa East are being swallowed into the Oklahoma City Mission. Their mission only had 5 stakes, we have 13 stakes. And we have the same amount of missionaries serving as they do. So they are finally taking some responsibility and picking up more stakes to work with haha. Now we essentially have none of Oklahoma in our mission. The Oklahoma Tulsa Mission is truly dead. RIP. I've seen some wild changes while I've been out here. It wrenched my heart to think that pretty much all of my favorite families, converts, and friends are no longer within our mission boundaries. No chance of seeing them again till I get home. Ouch! So that will increase our missionary workforce since we have less area to cover with the same amount of people. There will be no more two-area assignments, we'll have enough missionaries for every ward now. Should be a good thing.

The last week leading up to these difficult changes was pretty awesome though, can't complain about that. We had a zone Christmas Sweater party last Monday (check out them pics). Did a lot of good work. Kandie Steelman is progressing like a determined bullet train toward her baptismal date. She has so much faith. She suffers basically every physical affliction you can name, and therefore lives in a nursing home/care facility. But we go teach her literally every day, and she grows every time. She has a hunger for the gospel and healing of Christ that I've rarely seen in many others. She smoked heavily for 43 years and was even more addicted to coffee than she was to cigarettes. She gritted her teeth and batted them aside, eyes fixed on the goal. She's been clean for several weeks. That's the power of worthy goals, they surge you through the battles we face. Her baptism will be sweet. Can't wait to see pictures of it :( haha. She's not the only one who's overcome; Sister Skye Ames is a sweet lady who has an apartment in a little town called Purdy. She's got two little doggies, Cocoa the weenie dog and Buster Brown. We helped her to quit smoking too and she's gained a new light and life in her life! There is nothing more fulfilling than helping others conquer the natural man within them. No greater feeling of success and achievement than that which comes from gaining control of yourself. And I can tell you its certainly impossible without the merits, mercy and grace of Christ.

Wishing you all the merriest of Christmas seasons.

Elder Hakes

Monett Zone Christmas Party '16

This cute lil guy jumped in our car and just didn't want to leave. Wonder who's he was...

Exchanges with APs in Rogers AR

Full truckload of crap we dumped from our apartment. #purge

David Silvers (returning less active) and Kandie Steelman, our golden girl at the ward Christmas social

11/28/16 Gobble till you Wobble

Hey People,

So. Much. To. Report. On. Wish me luck.

This last week was rather eventful. The days preceding the Thanksgiving holiday were pretty great. We actually succeeded in finding several new investigators last Tuesday, despite the holiday rush and family gatherings. They're all pretty promising! To help us reach more people, we had the idea to grab some rakes and start hitting random people's yards as an act of kindness. There are approximately 930 billion leaves on the ground in Monett right now. Give or take several billion. So we strategically targeted smaller yards haha. We actually ended up only doing one yard that day for a part member family that we offered to help. Partially because we had an appointment to get to, and partially because were slightly distracted by the thrill of doing flips into our monster leaf pile. We don't get much exercise, okay? Lucky for you, I always carry a GoPro for just such an occasion. Hey mom, remember when I tried to do a backflip at school off a little rock wall like sophomore year? I landed on my back, people laughed, made a good video. Well don't worry, this time I only landed on my neck. It was only sore for 2 or 3 days, nothing major. I can still look to the left, but not the right. Only minor numbness and tingling in my extremities. JK:) I did land on my neck though. But there were some leaves under me. I'll try to attach some vids.

Thanksgiving day was really awesome haha. We had breakfast with the Aurora ward elders who are way cool, then we suited up to go play some turkey bowl football at Monett stadium with the ward. We had a pretty decent turnout! The stadium is incredibly nice for a small town football program (which, by the way, they just won the state championship on Saturday. Downtown was literally shut down when the bus came back and the town celebrated with them lol) I dove out and caught a pass. Elder DeGooyer also dove out to catch a pass. (He played wide receiver in high school, his team was tearing us apart.) Unfortunately he landed on his shoulder and it exploded. I saw him limp to the bench. Stake President Leavitt, a doctor, checked him out. We finished the game, by this time Elder DeGooyer had tears in his eyes and a visibly slumping right shoulder. Brother Barnes the ward mission leader offered a medical water-pump ice-wrap from his house. We picked it up, went home to ice him down, and decided immediately to take him to the hospital when we got his shirt off and saw the damage. The ER x-rayed him and determined a sever AC joint separation. Different than a dislocation, google it. Recommended him to a surgeon for further eval :/ All were closed for the holidays. He left in a sling and a bunch of pain, on some strong narcotics. But that didn't stop the man from missing our lunch appointment. He said he could handle it! He got a little glassed over while we were eating, so we skipped out and got him on ice and a nap. After a little bit we were ready for round two! We went out to the Preston's with a bunch of family and ward members. They're the ones we just helped move who have a full-sized sport court dug into their backyard. You bet we hit that up. DeGooyer watched. Ate more food, then went down the road to the Leavitt clan for desert. They all live on farmville, the Mormon-cult-zion-like-community-family of righteousness. They've all lost the desire to sin. Played some games. Ended the night with the Aurora boys on a romantic drive through the light festival in Monett park. We all wished we could trade each other for girls. I've gotten used to hanging out with 2-4 dudes all the time. Not sure I like that too much haha.

The next day we tried to contact surgeon's offices, all still closed. We finally got an appointment set up today for tomorrow morning in Springfield. His right arm is still hanging uselessly from his body. The kid is a work horse, it didn't really slow us down one bit. We taught a ton of lessons this week. He's not even on his painkillers since that first day. The Lord is upholding him, we have no doubt.

Saturday we spent like 4 hours trying to help set up a 27 foot tall Christmas tree in downtown Pierce City that a member cut and donated. It was a sketchy operation haha we barely got that thing standing in a big ole trash can stand that we rigged. Pics to follow. DeGooyer played camera man and was otherwise useless :) 

Umm let's see... sorry I didn't email last week. More good things happened, can't remember what they might have been. Went on another Pday hike with the district. Set up a full-sized fake tree in our apartment. Decked the halls with boughs of holly. What does that even mean? I'll try to include pics chronologically!

Things looking forward are shaping up to be the best December in missionary Christmas history. The church's Christmas initiative #LighttheWorld is a beauty, go look it up and light the world this season! We can be just like Christ. There is no better gift to Him, I think! We have a general authority, Elder Gay coming to the mission for a conference on Dec 12. Then we have a Christmas zone conference the next week. Then our beloved investigator Kandie Steelman is up for baptism on Christmas eve. She's quitting 40 sumthin years of smoking this week, prayers accepted! Then, of course, Christmas. And I GET TO SKYPE MY MOMMA. For the last time.

I love the Spirit that seems to transform hearts and environments this time of year. Let it into you!

Much Love,

Elder Hakes

More Roaring Rive State Park Adventures

Monett in da faaall

Habitat for humanity project with the boys

How many people have a selfie with the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum's actual faces? Possibly 2 people.

Shoved this tree in our car to take home. We'll still be finding needles in July.

More unique selfies

Turkey Bowl '16. Monett team kicked us off the field so they could practice for state.

Look at that slumping shoulder

Strolling out of the ER in nothing but a sling, a hat, and some painkillers in the bloodstream. #MyHero

Lunch feast #1

Some games in the evening

He's in too much pain to sleep in his bed. Recliner it is.

Operation erect Christmas tree.