It Was a Week of Miracles

It was a week full of miracles for Elder Hoots.  He has been working very hard on being the best missionary he can be and after all the positive things he had happen to him last week, the good times keep coming. 

One of the stories in this letter is in his words "intense."  Amazing experience that he'll never forget.

Read on to hear about all the good things that are happening and don't forget to send him a quick email or leave a quick comment to him.  Even though he can't reply to all of them, he really appreciates it and it helps keep him going.

I cant believe that its already November. The time has gone by so fast but I am not gonna lie, I think it wouldn't hurt if it sped up a little bit. haha.  But I do love my time here and I guess you can only miss what you don't have.  So right now I don't have my family or friends or golf or Lakers and I kind of miss it all.  But in just a short 18 and a half months, my cobras will be back in my hands again hittin' that Titleist NXT down number 1 at Bear Creek. haha.

But I have some good things to tell you. Well one of them isn't really good, but its crazy. So I'll tell you that one first so you can finish feeling good about life.

There is this lady that we baptized a little over a month ago named Anabel. She has some major health problems and has a thingy in her throat because her nose doesn't work and all that. But yesterday at church she couldn't breathe.  She was having a really, really hard time.  There was a man that came to church yesterday that never comes to church.  He is a doctor and if he wasn't there she would not be alive today.  The ambulance here takes like 1 hour to come, so they would have been no help.  She was struggling, but he knew exactly what to do.  That was the first miracle. The rest of the story is where it gets crazy.  She died 3 times during this process.  I was standing by her head and my companion was holding her hand.  I was talking to her and telling her to just relax and breathe calmly and I saw something that I will never forget.  Her head and lips and everything just went limp. Her hand in the hand of Elder Rios went limp.  They didn't feel a pulse and so the doctor started doing CPR.  After about ten seconds she took a big breath.  There was not a doubt in my mind that we lost her at that moment.  She died.  Bishop and I gave her a blessing. Then, five seconds after that, the same thing happened again.  Everything went limp and after about ten seconds a big gasp of  air. Her poor mom was in the room just talking to her daughter begging her to wake up and say something or just move.  It was pretty intense.  But right now she is fine and in her house.  We are actually going to go visit her in a little bit.  But that was an intense moment and many miracles that I saw that I will never forget, I don't know how I could.

Needless to say that was on my mind the rest of the day and I can't really tell you anything else that topped that moment in my week. But I will try because we had a few more miracles this week.

Last night we taught this family.  The only one that is a member is the daughter-in-law and her husband.  His parents and his brother and sister are learning.  We taught them about the plan of salvation and they had a lot of questions, but they listened and sometimes when we said something it was like a light bulb going off in their head.  Like something that they have wondering about for a long time was just answered.  I know that they needed that.  The Spirit was definitely strong.  We asked them to be baptized and they said yes. That was a miracle.

Another miracle is we went to the temple visitors center on Saturday.  We taught the people that we live with that are Jehova's Witness.  As we were walking back to the bus.  They stopped us and simply told us "we want to get baptized, not this Sunday but the next."  That was easy! 

And another....our mission leader sells water that is purified because the regular water here is gross. There is this kid that is 12 that works with him and helps him.  On Friday we gave him a Book of Mormon. By Saturday he read all of 1 Nephi.

I can't believe the patience that God has on me as I am trying to be better and better.  My companion and I have a lot of people that we are teaching that are just awesome.  I can really feel my love growing for them and I never honestly thought that would happen.  But I love it.  I love everything that I am doing here and all the experiences and things that I am learning.  Moooooost of the people are awesome.  My Spanish is also doing much better.  But I got to go.  Hope you guys all have a great week. I love you all and keep working hard.

Love,

Haden