September 27th

Family!!

Your letters were so good today! I got teary-eyed too many times, thanks for your lovely thoughts and prayers. They keep me going and happy.

First, OH MY GOODNESS!! I didn't recognize half of the grandkids! Troy has blonde hair?? He looks like a real toddler now and not a newborn. I seriously thought he was a neighbor kid. Hailey?? She looked so grown-up!! She's so pretty! Wow, the Hakes/Kohler kids were such a big shock to see! I had no idea they had grown up so much. Josh too looked way slim. And then, Cora in her tutu was soooo adorable! Nice work Cami. She seems to have so much personality! What a doll! David is all tall and and his face has thinned out. So weird! I had thought I had been keeping-up on everyone, but I would not have picked Troy out as my nephew, so sad! I need more pictures! I guess it shows that I really have been gone nor a while now. Weird..... Thanks for sending me all those pictures Cami. You amaze me!

Please tell Emily Thatcher a big congrats on her mission call! That is so cool Mom! She will just love it and please give her a big hug for me. She will be a killer Sister.

Tell Krista that she is so sweet to write and send a package! I just love her! Krista, I'll keep the BYU in May thing in the back of my mind : ) I still have no idea where I need to be yet!

Speaking of which, a lot of people seem to be asking me lately about my plans for when I get home. I don't know yet! I'm not even sure these days what I want to study. I'm not thinking about it too much though, so we'll see. Carrie and Meesa, I love your earnestness haha. I'm not ruling NMSU out, but I'm feeling BYU is a little more likely... we'll see though! It would be dependant on how persuasive your cuddles are, deh!

Dad, thanks for saving my text message. That really meant a lot to hear that. You're so sweet. I'm not teary-eyed or anything....... : )

Mom, thanks for the packages! Maybe this is weird, but I'd like to have Pumpkin Pie filling. Is that too heavy to send? If it is, than you can just get me a Symphony bar : ) I dearly miss pumpkin. You can buy pumpkins here, but they are blue haha. And the members think the idea of pumpkin cookies is really weird, so I'd like to make it for them. Do yo have that recipe by the way? Also, I forgot, I never got the last ensign for general conference, as in like 6 months ago. They never got it here : ( Wow, that's actually asking for a lot. None of that is essential, so please don't stress about it. I mean it! I hope Seminary is going well, and those kids are so lucky to have you as their teacher! The stake too is so lucky to have you as their teacher. Loves!

Well, this last week was so interesting! We had like absolutely nothing work out for us the first half of the week, and by Thursday we were thinking we wouldn't be able to reach a lot of the goals we had set, but come Sunday night, everything had magically worked-out! We don't really know how it happened, but we were able to meet with the people we needed to, get a new baptismal date, and a new investigator! Yay! We saw a lot of little miracles.

In fact, our mission has had 45 baptisms this year. That is a bit less than what we have been striving for. There are only about 45 or 50 missionaries in our mission (about 1/3 sisters!), and so that averages out to about 1 per person or less. I saw a baptism my second transfer in Chili, so I guess that that is about normal. But, just this last week, I was feeling a little down because I was realizing that I only have three more transfers, and I have gone since January 6th without seeing someone get baptised. I haven't really worried or stressed about the need to get baptisms since I've been here, and our Mission President does a really perfect job of keeping us working hard and believing that anything is possible, but not measuring our success by the number of baptisms we get. On Thursday, we had a special "Sisters Training Meeting" at the Mission home for the six sisters serving here in Yekat. Instead of Zone Conferences, we're doing more small, personalized training session with the President like this. It was really cool to be with just sisters! Sis. Allcott made us Borsch and we got to have a nice sit down dinner with her and President. They are so cute. I want Mom and Dad to meet them sometime. Anyways, he talked to us during the training about what it means to be a successful missionary. President Rasband's phrase, "find the good in every good deed you do every day" has really become the motto of our mission. I think that phrase will help me the rest of my life because the small acts of service, as a missionary or a member, that really get the Lord's work done. So, I am just as much accomplishing my purpose as a missionary if I help others strenghten their faith or repent, even if they haven't yet been baptized. Those two principles of the Gospel are just as important, but they are harder to put a number to. Anyways, it just feels got to recognize that the little things really do matter. I already knew that, but sometimes it's hard to work so hard and not see the success "I'd like", which is of course selffish. It's the Lord's work, not mine.

Ok, sorry about my rambling.... I will tell you two stories from this past week.

So, we've been teaching this guy named Vladimer over the phone because he has a really weird work schedule. Anyways, we've been working on extending the baptizmal committment as a companionship, so that we are prepared when the opportunity comes. On the phone, the lesson was going really well, and he told us he had the desire to follow the example of his Savior. So, we shared in 3 Nefi 31 about how can we follow him if we don't keep his commandments, and then read the commandment we need to be baptized. Anyways, Sister Schill has like a perfect Russian accent, and people can understand her better on the phone than me, so I let her do all of the talking. And, she got over her shyness, listened to the Spirit, and committed him to baptizm for the 24th of October. She did such a good job and I was so happy for my "2nd born in the wilderness." That's what I call her, Sister Hanks is my "first born." Anyways, he is a golden contact and he has already read 400 pages of the BoM. He is 60 and somewhat lonely, but a very sincere man. I haven't had time to write about him yet, but yay!

Then, Sunday evening, we had two meetings fall through : ( and hadn't eaten yet, so we decided to run home and eat. When we were home, we got a phone call from a lady we met with twice in probably May named Olga. Sister Hanks and I taught her and she wasn't really interested in the Church. Anyways, I had kind of forgotten about her unfortuantely, but as we were eating dinner, she calls randomly out of nowhere and invites us over to her house for that night. We were shocked, like, what? Somebody is actually asking to meet with us?? Haha, so we hurry over there, and she does the very traditional Russian hospitality thing and gives us herbal tea to drink, etc. She then says, let me minvite my neighbor in to meet you. Her nighbor comes in and he is probably an 18 or 19 year old Christian boy that doesn't believe in the Orthodox Church and has read the New Testament twice. He had heard about Mormonism and had a ton of questions to ask us. He was like, if the Book of Mormon is so important, why hasn't one ever been placed in my hands? So, as he said that, I pulled mine out from my backpack and gave it to him and said, well, now it has. Haha, he said he'd read it. He seems like Ivan a little, very intellectual and not too keen on believeing the Restoration, but he agreed to read it and to pray about it. We'll be meeting with him again! What a crazy night! We were so happy. He was golden. I don't want to lose him.

Oh yeah, Brat Arkadyi is consistently coming to Church now, the older less-active that is really adorable. The Ward just loves him. He's still struggling with alcohol, but he is really trying. Also, another babushka named Raisa has coem to Church two weeks in a row now. Yay! It is such a good feeling to see people swallow their pride and make a return in their old age. They have admitted it is very humbling, but they now it is true and want to return. Our little branch is growing here : )

Love you all,

Sister Hake