My Dearest Family,

Thank you so much for your letters! I think I´m enjoying having my P-day saturday a little more because I get to hear from everyone. Thank you so much! =)

Also, thanks Mom for sending that forum about the BYU Endorsment. I completed the brief questions, and now I´ll have to schedule an interview with President. The timing was almost perfect because we actually just had interviews with Presidente Riggins this past Tuesday, but I´m sure he´s used to the proccess. He was a Stake President and a BYU Idaho professor. As far as housing and classes go, I have no idea yet! Emily if you have any helpful tips I would be all ears! From what I´ve heard, I think I would rather try and live in Heritage Halls, so if you guys have to sign me up right now that would be my choice as far as housing goes. Thank you for being so on the ball about that Mom! =)

I was happy to hear that Jacob´s basketball game went a little better than last weeks game. Good job on having the game winning steal Jacob! That´s a real MVP move ;) And I also heard that Isaac is enjoying the Jazz Band! That´s so awesome! I really would have enjoyed playing Jazz clarinet in high school, but I guess the piano part is a little more important than the optional clarinet accompaniment haha. (But don´t tell Kyle I said that.) =)

Also how fun that you get to go see Aunt Marianne´s short play! I still think it´s so incredible that she is working at BYU. She really has a great talent for writing, (Her letters are always so hilarious!) And I´m happy that she´s having some success. 

This week the heavy rains have started at least here in Guayaquil. It rained three times last week! We´re just happy that water hasn´t been entering into the house. Our companion in the office, Elder Buttler, had to go to Quevedo to try and find a new house for the sisters that live there because of all the water damage. It was almost a four hour drive, poor guys! Our Mission president asked us all to buy a three day supply of food just in case the streets get flooded and we can´t leave the house. It sounds like we´ll have some good adventures! =)

This week we´ve been getting ready as a mission for the world wide broadcast to all missionaries on Wednesday. We´ve been trying to contact stake and district presidents to make sure that they get the broadcast up in the stake centers for the missionaries. It´s been a bit of a hassle in some areas because they´re also having their stake conferences tomorrow. But in the end it all got worked out. There are a lot of rumors going around the mission as to what the meeting is going to be about. My personal idea  is that they´re going to come out with Preach my Gospel 2.0 but I guess we´ll just have to wait and see. =)

Tonight the sister missionaries are having a baptism and after our P-day we´re going to bring a couple of families to see the Ordinance. It should be a really spiritual experience and I get to play the piano!  We´re really excited for the progress of a new person we found last Saturday night. His name is Hugo Acosta and he lives a block behind the temple. We invited him to church on Saturday night and he came! Then Elder Call (the passport/ visa/ flights home guy) told us that when they went to the state office building to get missionaries visas renewed they saw him reading the Book of Mormon! We´re really excited and it sounds like he´ll be coming tonight to the baptism as well. 

I hope that the weather starts heating up back there! And I hope that everyone has a great week. No one is allowed to get hurt/injured during sports games ;) 

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Hales =)