Another baptism!

Haha honestly I didn´t even know yesterday was easter... I kind of figured it was, because this last week was the semana santa here in Peru. which means holy week, but they dont even celebrate easter really. all they do is eat fish and something weird, i didnt really understand it.. And no i didn´t get my easter package yet! the only package ive gotten was on the first day i got here to the field from megan! but im anxiously awaiting. When packages arrive to the mission home the office elders pick them up and put them on a bus to the different areas then the zone leaders pick them up and bring them to zone conference. Church here is nutso. We´re always trying to pick up investigators last minute, trying to figure out who is attending, and greeting everybody at the same time. The chapel we´re in has like six rows and this week was so funny, at the start of the jose balta ward like three cell phones went off and the bishop was so mad, he asked everyone to turn off their cell phones, then later that day he was welcoming our claudia (my second baptism!) into the ward and his cell phone went off! technology these days ruining the spirit... Yeah Elder orcohuaranga and i are over two wards, jose balta and campodónico. Oh my goodness i hadnt heard any of those mission calls yet, that is SO AWESOME!!! AHHH there´s nothing i love more than hearing where all my friends are going on their missions! Ah congrats everyone. and yeah im pretty sure the zach´s and cameron freeman are in the same mission! mom haha no i dont need work gloves, i just need to work up some callouses. and yeah i use my soccer shoes every pday. We play soccer a ton here and its really fun except im so exhausted all the time i dont feel like running haha. Elder orcohuaranga has been on his mission for 22 months, and he reminds me every hour basically that hes going home in two months. but tomorrow is my three month anniversary! The time is going by so fast i cant even believe it. Se va bolando! Mom youre going to be disgusted, but no, we cook absolutely nothing for ourselves, we dont do our own laundry either. we go to the pensionista every meal except lunch on saturday and sunday when we go to members houses, and we give our laundry to a member in the ward who does it and irons everything too. but at least i know how to do all that stuff, dont worry mom you prepared me well :). And yes i get to call home for mothers day! im so excited, i dont think ill be able to talk fast enough to tell you everything and answer all your questions though! David, i just got your letter that you wrote on april 5th, that should give you a little time range. im going to send letters to david and brielle and zoe tomorrow, because thats who ive gotten letters from recently, i hope you get them before the end of the summer... goodness. Im still freaking out about everyone and their mission calls!

okay a little bit about our investigators. Jefferson, a 14 year old in a part member inactive family was supposed to be baptized this last sunday but in the middle of the week he got dissanimated and decided not to, but now hes doing a lot better and will probably be baptized the 8th. Maria, an 18 year old whos whole family but her is members, has a date for the first, but she has an extreme fear of leaving her house, so going to church is really tough for her, but she really wants to get baptized, so we´ll see what happens. she has a date for the first of may. Anderson´s date is the 15th of may, he set it himself and im super pumped for him, but the biggest most awesome thing that happened was with Fernando. He is the father of two teenage member kids and his pareja, or unmarried wife is a member too. we´ve been working with them trying to get them married and everything was looking good until when we went to visit them and he wasnt there yet but his ¨wife¨said he didnt want to get married anymore. we were super bummed but when Fernando came from work we gave him an awesome lesson on why we need baptism to arrive in the celestial kingdom as a whole family, and then orco challenged him and he accepted! They are planning on getting married on the 30th, the city of chiclayo has its anniversary that day and they do massive weddings for 50 soles, or like 20 bucks! so then he´ll probably get baptized the 8th! Ah its so fun to be working with all these great people as they work to change their lives and follow christ. Also, yesterday i had my second baptism, Claudia. it doesnt feel like we did that much because shes been going to church most of her life but her parents are inactive and she didnt get baptized at 8 and now shes 9 so we had the easiest baptism of a lifetime! Her uncle, Rudy, baptized her and it was a great service.

Yesterday Elder Orcohuaranga and i were knocking doors and he makes me take the lead every once in a while. This one door where i took the lead was a really interesting guy whos catholic but thinks praying to saints is idol worship but still thinks the catholic church is right, it just needs to be reformed... i wonder if he knows theres like a million reformed catholic churches... haha. but anyway i ended up explaining baptism to him and we had a good discussion slash arguement, but i tried to keep it calm, and we have an appointment with him this next weekend. I love hearing from everyone and thank you so much for all your support and prayers. When i run into rough times its nice to think that i have a whole bunch of people pulling for me, and of course i have the Lord with me always. Today we went to a place called Túcume, where there are some incan pyramids... haha if you can call them that. theyre more like pronouned dirt mounds, but it was really cool! it was super green there and lots of rice patties if thats how you spell that word.. and we hiked a huge mountain too, and im super sunburned now! but we were there like all day. we played soccer on a super ghetto field, but it was great. Love you!

Elder Hatch