First Baptism!

So, this week was pretty unreal! we worked really hard and now its starting to pay off. As you can see I had my first baptism! Her name is Tania Guevara Bravo, shes 43 years old. we found her, taught her, and baptized her! she honestly didn´t have to change like anything in her life. she was already living the word of wisdom etc. and totally ate up all the commandments and lessons.  it was such a cool experience, especially saying the baptismal prayer in spanish, and we have two more this sunday coming up, and one more the next sunday. Just for the record, i still totally dont feel old enough to be on a mission and baptizing people! This week also had a few other firsts. Im sorry Kelsey Berges, you might want to shield your eyes, slash dont let her see this, but I ate Cui (guinea pig)... that was quite the experience. we were sitting in an investigators house, waiting for them to al come in and the lady starts getting in her fridge and i was like oh no what are we going to eat... and then she asks us if we like cui... haha i was so scared! she said she just killed them earlier that morning. and the way it went was that I got tails and elder orcohuaranga got heads... they still had the legs on there and all. all fried and crispy. and his still had the head. yuck. but honestly, the meat was good! it was better than that rabbit i had at scout camp. Then the next day we had working visits, so i spent 24 hours with one of the zone leaders, elder rigby, in his area. That was really fun and we talked a lot in English which wasnt the best, but it was really good for my morale haha. And that night for dinner he took me out for anticuchos, which are cow heart kabobs! and im dead serious, they were the best meat ive had here so far. that next morning while i was still on exchanges we did some service for a member family. first of all we shoveled a big pile of dirt from in front of their house, which was confusing because i didnt really know where the pile ended and the street began... but we moved it in a wheelbarrow down the street and filled in divots that were made by mototaxis driving through the street after it rained. then we went into his house and shoveled like a billion pounds worth of dirt out from his house. in this huge room there used to be an oven, and this pile of dirt was the size of his house once we got it all out, it was crazy and my hands got all blistered. blisters are a big part of my life these days haha.

i figured i´d tell you a little about what ive done on pdays, i always forget to! we always wake up at 6 and go play futsal with a bunch of missionaries and a few members in the mornings for a few hours, then go back and shower and shop for stuff we need, do laundry, etc. then email. last week we had a zone activity where we all went out to a chifu, aka a chinese restaurant. that was really fun! today elder orco and i walked around for like an hour looking for some soccer shoes for him to no avail. but i love pdays, its always a nice rest. last night when we were eating dinner at the pension, american idol was on in english. i cant even explain how hard it was to not watch it! but i mostly succeeded. like we were sitting on a couch waiting for dinner and it was just on in front of me! so to avert my attention i got out my little white handbook and read the rules about not watching tv. what a good missionary i am :) their tv is always on and elder orcohuaranga always watches it in the mirror because he faces away from it. its so funny! he has a few little trunkie things he does like that, but hes still going strong! I love it here so much and im having a great time! if im ever down i just remind myself that im living in nacho libre and i start laughing immediately. and on a more serious note, i know that what im doing is the Lord´s work. Everything we do in the church is so right, and makes so much sense just to the intellectual mind. Elder Orco is pretty good at burning people with baptismal doctrine and last night he did an awesome one. he always gets them to realize they werent baptized like christ and asks them if they would follow christ, then asks them if they would be baptized like christ if they had the opportunity and they start freaking out when they realize theyve never thought of it and get mad at us and shut the door in our face haha. its great. I feel Christ´s love so strongly, and im starting to feel like a real missionary more and more every day as i align my life more and more with His will. Have a great week and write me letters! Love you

Elder Hatch

His first baptism.  My little brother is all grown up, sniffle, sniffle.

Jacob’s sister, Kristen sent him this cute banner