9/26/11

Answering questions:Yes my hands are all better, they healed up really quick! Extra missionary healing speed! But the day after that i got sick again! it was miserable, the worst of them all, but i worked through it and woke up the next day feeling fine.
La victoria is the city i´m in now.. It´s like an offshoot of chiclayo. And they definitely don´t have the orange road barrells. Their construction here is a bunch of guys with shovels and wheelbarrows, and some kids too, and they put wooden planks across the gaps in the road so you can cross over them.
Brad is a bishop now?! That´s so awesome! Congrats Brad! You´ll be an amazing bishop.
To get to the Trujillo temple from here it will take about three hours.
I had no idea that president Whetten died!? That´s so sad! He was a great president, and i have some cool memories with him. What a great way to go out though, right after being mission president.
I don´t know Jake Lloyd. I heard he´s from Pleasant Grove and moved to timpview to play there..
Our investigator who went with us to the conference wasn´t home the four times we went to look for her, and her oldish mom was getting mad at us, so we decided to give it a rest, and now she´s out of town for a while. We were super bummed, but we´ll see if we can contact her in a few weeks.
Turns out the new missionaries aren´t going to come to our other ward, because not all the missionaries who were scheduled to come into the mission are going to get here. So, it will be another little while until Los Amautas has their own missionaries.
We go to the stake center to watch General Conference this weekend, and i´m SO excited! Honestly, it´s like i´m going on a weekend trip.
As for singing and playing the piano, no.. Since i´ve been in the field i´ve had precious few chances to play the piano, and i only sing in church and district meetings. Which reminds me, I bore my testimony in church yesterday! It´s cool being a missionary and bearing your testimony, because you don´t get nearly as scared.

This week there was a bunch more drama with Genaro, but finally on friday we baptized him, and Sunday was his confirmation. But his cousins who were both baptized by missionaries, got suitcases as gifts from their missionaries after their baptisms, and somehow got it into Genaro´s mind that he is going to get one from us. And now he´s always going to our house during the day and leaves notes with our pensionista begging for a suitcase. What a stinker! But we´ll straighten him out tonight.
Saturday afternoon we knocked on a door and the old man who answered shook his finger at us and walked away, but his middle aged daughter came and talked to us, but said she had to go tend to the guinea pig farm they have. Out of nowhere elder Morales asks to see the guinea pig farm, so she tells us to go around back... I´m expecting like 50 guinea pigs in a little wooden pasture thing, because that´s how most of the peruvians keep their guinea pigs that they raise to eat. But this was a full-blown breeding operation! They have 10,000 guinea pigs! They breed the pure races and everything, it was so cool! The lady gave us a tour of it all and had a TON of knowledge about all the breeding and stuff. There were a lot of words i didn´t understand.. I´ll have to brush up on my animal breeding vocabulary in spanish :)
We fasted to be able to find people that can go to church on sundays and people who are ready to progress, and ended up having an awesome Sunday! A few people we didn´t even know came to church because their family members and friends invited them, so we set up appointments with them and are excited to see them this week. And last night we went to visit a young man who always goes to church and seminary and everything, but for like a year his dad hasn´t given permission for him to be baptized. The problem is that his dad is never there, and it just popped into my mind to go visit him as we were walking back to our room at the end of the night. We went and his dad was there and seemed really happy and easy going.. So a member who was with us sweet talked him for a little bit, and we asked him for the permission and he said yes! so we should have another baptism coming up soon!
I gained a stronger testimony of fasting this week, and we´re starting to have success little by little here in Los Incas and Los Amautas. I know the Lord is doing this work, and all we have to do is keep being diligent and we´ll be blessed with baptisms if it´s His will.
Elder Hatch

Pictures: Genaro´s baptism and us with elder Palacios, our district leader, and his companion, elder Quezada. We did an exchange this week and i worked with elder Quezada for a day in their area, El Imperio

9/19/2011

family!
They broke ground on the Trujillo temple and everyone is really excited! but it won´t be done for like two years..

It´s the anniversary of la victoria, so this whole month they have a carnival on the main street of town, which goes through the heart of our area. they play music all the time, and a lot of it is American music, and surprisingly a lot of the stuff i listened to. it kills me when i hear it! hah but i try to walk fast and get the pain over with.

They´re also doing construction on like all the streets. They´re changing them from dirt roads to paved streets with sidewalks that are actually really nice! But right now basically all the streets are completely torn up and have huge holes everywhere to put in the sewage system. In our pension they´re doing construction too. Covering up the brick walls with cement, and in a week or so elder Morales and i are going to paint! And in two weeks, they´re opening up the other ward, los Amautas, that we´re assigned to, and the other missionaries are going to live and pension where we do too! So we´re excited for that.

A few interesting stories from this week:

Tuesday we were searching for a house of someone we contacted in the street a few days beforehand. When we finally found the house, we went to knock on the door, and elder morales started talking to a little skinny kid. Turns out he lived close by, so we took his address and said we´d visit him after we talked to the people in the house we were looking for. Turns out they weren´t there, so we went to his house like five minutes later. Also turns out that his whole family are members of the church except him- a few inactive, but members. He´s 12 and his name is Genardo. He hadn´t been baptized yet because his grandpa who lives nearby is super catholic and very against him being baptized. After talking to the family for a few minutes, we decided to baptize him saturday and try to sneak under the grandpa´s radar. We didn´t have to wait to baptize him because he´s been going to church forever, but somehow elder morales didn´t know him yet and neither did i! So, we started teaching him, and the next day when we went to his house, his older brother had pulled a Judas Iscariot on us and told his grandpa we were going to their house at that time. So, the grandpa shows up and says right off the bat, thanks for coming but my grandson is catholic and i won´t let this go any further. I tried for a while to speak reason to him.. turns out he has never read anything from the bible, he was just really ignorant and super catholic without even knowing what he believes. So, i gave up and elder Morales got really emotional and bore an awesome testimony to him, and even managed to call him a few names haha it was funny. Then there was a long, awkward silence after and i asked Genardo what he wanted.. He said he wanted to be baptized in the Church and likes the Church and a few other things that i can´t remember now, but his grandpa was speechless. We packed up and left. a few hours later genardo went to a member´s house, had them call us and told us he still wanted to get baptized, so we kept teaching him. Saturday came around, and something happened in the family, it was weird, but long story short, we ended up with the font full, district leader there in the chapel, members, etc. and no baptism. We were super bummed, but he still really wants to get baptized! So, we´re going to baptize him this friday, and he asked me to do it!

Next story. Saturday night elder Morales and i were walking back to our apartment feeling bummed about the day.. baptism falling through, having the district leader waste an hour of his day in our area for an interview that never happened.. not teaching many lessons because of it all.. and a lady walks by, we say hi to her and keep walking. then, from behind us we hear "jovenes!" That means young people but it´s what they call us.. so we both whipped around to see what was happening and the lady was motioning for us to come to her. We obliged, and she asked us if we were willing to go to her house to teach her.. We started freaking out and said of course. She said she´s always in her house because she washes clothes for a living. Her husband is nonexistent, and has three kids. She gave us her name, phone number, and address, and said for us to visit her during the week. That all happened with us saying basically nothing except that we would teach her. Then when we got a chance to talk, morales invited her to stake conference the next morning and she said yes, and that she was going to go home right then and leave everything ready to be able to go with us at 9:30 am. We were freaking out, so excited! Sunday morning we go to her house and she was all ready in a dress and everything. We took a mototaxi to the stake center and were some of the first people there. It was such an amazing conference! it was for all of Peru via satellite. All we knew was that it would be presided over by a member of the first presidency so we were super pumped. Turns out it was President Monson! Elder Gonzales of the 70, Julie B. Beck, and elder Cristofferson all spoke in spanish. Sister beck struggled a bit but did really well! and Elder Cristofferson speaks like perfect spanish! and Pres Monson spoke and a translator did the voice over. I was hoping to hear him talk in spanish! They spoke about the book of Mormon, being good wives, how to have a successful family, and reaching out to those in need aka less active members, respectively. Our investigator really liked it and took three pages of notes! She has a lot of questions for us on Wednesday when we´ll see her again.

This letter is super long, but it was a fun week! It just added to my testimony of hard work bring blessings and that our prayers are heard. Love you and hope it´s a good week of school and work.

Elder Hatch
mom sorry i didn´t answer your questions, i forgot. but i´ll answer them next week because now i don´t have time! just remind me.

pictures:

You can´t see it too well, but the mug i´m holding says te quiero mamá, or I love you mom! Happy birthday this week! I sent you a letter, i hope you get it soon!

The second picture is from the baptism that never happened the people are me, eld.er Morales´ mini missionary companion he had before me who´s in the ward, elder morales, and hno wilder, our ward mission leader.

Third is of most of the elders in our zone, after playing a trivia game where when you lost the other person got to draw something with lipstick on your face. I wanted a mustache really bad, and i even was asking elder bohman to draw one on me, but he just drew something random on my face and i was all befuddled as to why he didn´t draw me a mustache so i asked him, and turns out he didn´t know the spanish word for mustache.. haha

Lastly, wheelbarrow races plus hot basketball court outside = giant blisters on my palms that hurt! But i´m fine.

9/12/2011

Famblie! :)

It´s great to hear that dad´s doing a lot better. Last week elder Morales` mom and sister got sick and were in the hospital too, with some mosquito transmitted disease.

Elder Morales and i get along great! The doctor said his rash was probably because of something he ate, and he hasn´t been getting it anymore. Elder Morales is really good with words and loves talking to people and is really sympathetic with them. Sometimes he even cries when they are going through rough times. He had a pretty rough home life, and his dad died a month before he left on his mission. We´ve met a lot of people that he can help in ways that i never could because of his experiences. We were in the house of a part member family, and the member kid, a 16 year old, had been fighting with his older brother. It ended up coming to blows while we were there. The dad with throat cancer trying to hit the son, a daughter intervening, it was just ugly. The dad yelled at the kid and said "this is what they teach you in your church?" It was like a dagger straight to my heart, because we had hopes of teaching the dad.

I really like the new area, and all the new challenges. It´s amazing how different this area is from my old area, considering they´re about five minutes away from each other. The people let us in to talk to them pretty easily, but don´t progress. We have taught over 50 first lessons in my few weeks here, and maybe ten second lessons. The people more want to hear a pretty message than progress and follow the commandments. I know there are people waiting for us to find them though! We taught two Israelite families this week, they´re an interesting religion. They are really in to the ten commandments, the women don´t cut their hair, nor do the men.. And they pray where the sun is facing at certain times of the day. It´s so cool to get to know so many different types of people with such different lives!  

We´re also trying to get a couple married so we can baptize the mom and a few of her kids, but she has to talk to her boss at the salt factory and try to get sundays off to be able to attend and everything! She said she was going to talk to him today, so we´re anxious to see what the outcome is! Besides them, we´re still struggling to find people who can progress and want to!

Despite the rough few months as far as baptizing goes, i´m still happy, we´re chuggin along, and i´m loving the mission. The church is so true, and i´m super grateful for the knowledge we have of the plan of salvation!

Que todos tengan una semana divertida!
Elder Hatch

The pictures are:

The little sign in front of me says this home is catholic, thank you for respecting our faith! Tons of the houses have them in their windows, basically shooing away missionaries, but i like knocking on those doors even more! Elder Morales bought one of the little signs a while ago and gave it to me! I liked it so i put it in the window of our apartment.

The second one is of us in our new zone shirts! The zone leaders designed them with the smurfs as missionaries! Below it has all our names and on back it says mission peru chiclayo zona la vicky in graffiti. I like it!

9/5/2011

Wow, dad! I can´t believe all the stuff that happened this week with you! I´m so happy that you´re okay though. Really, I know you´re being watched over. I´m glad i´m not home or i would have been freaking out i´m sure. Were you on the top floor of the hospital, in Oncology? Because when i was there there were a bunch of people with Mersa and we had to put on our gowns and everything just to go in their rooms.  I´ll be praying for you a ton, and i hope you get all better this week!
I know i´ve been really bad about answering the questions the family asks me in their emails, but i´ll try to get better. It´s rough because when i go to write an email, myldsmail doesn´t let me open up a new page and sign in agan so i can see the emails while i´m writing and write back at the same time, so i just have to remember.
Mom, No, i still haven´t used my electrical converter! And the weather is nice, it´s pleasant during the day, and gets chilly at night, i use my sweater almost every day. But now i have a blanket for my bed in the new room, so i´m not cold at night.
The package with my shoes came! Thanks so so so so much mom for doing all that for me! The package got sent to the special reject package place because of the shoes i think. they´re weird about clothes coming in packages here. So i had to go the mission office today, get my special id card, and personally go to SerPost, their national post service, and pick up my package. They opened it up there and had to see everything in the package. It was weird, but i got the package!
Lindsey, last week you asked me about the USB and music and stuff. No, there´s none of my a cappella or madrigals music on there, but i´ll see if i can get the music off the usb you sent me and put it on my other one, send the usb back, and yeah.. complicated.. maybe not.. haha.
This week i realized something interesting.. I had been getting bites all around my thighs and legs for the last few weeks in Campodonico, and i just thought they were mosquitos, but never really thought that they weren´t biting me on my arms, which were the only part of my body exposed during the day. plus my companion, elder Insaurralde wasn´t getting bitten. But i didn´t think much of it.. then when i got to Los Incas they stopped biting me and i told my pensionista about it and she told me it was FLEAS!!!! gross. they were so itchy and last way longer than mosquito bites, but i feel honored to say that i had fleas.
A few weeks ago, elder Morales were sitting in our room at lunch time and i was writing in my journal, and the house started to shake. I asked elder Morales what it was and he said they were doing construction in the next neighborhood and it shook the house sometimes... but it turns out that it was an earthquake! It was pretty little, but everyone was talking about it for a few days. Another cool experience in the mish.
This last week i got sick twice. The first time i went to bed feeling normal, but woke up at like five in the morning feeling sicky, and spent basically the whole morning until like 9 in the bathroom. Our pensionista is super nice and bought me some gatorades and those and some soup is all i ate during the day. We went out to work like normal and i had to use the bathrooms of a few investigators haha. Elder Morales gave me a blessing and i got over it quick. then a few days later i started feeling sick after lunch with the same stomach pains and bathroom frequency :) but it passed over quickly and i was back in the groove the next day. Elder Morales has been getting a weird rash lately though and he went to the hospital on friday with the health elder while i went to visit an inactive family in the area of the office elders.
The new news is that you only have to put my name on the packages now, not elder Monzon or anything. Just the address and my name!
Today we played games in a stake center with most of our zone and it was really fun! I´ve been eating the gummies mom sent me and i´m wearing my new shoes right now! Thanks family for all the amazing support. I love you all and am so grateful that i was born into such an exemplary family who truly lives what the gospel teaches. I know that God only gives us commandments to help us be happy. the number one commandment that everyone breaks here is the law of chastity. Everyone is living together with someone, and they´ll just always live together and never even think of getting married! Lots of times the couples are really jealous and suspicious, and abusive. Being a missionary, you get to learn a lot about people´s very personal lives, and it just makes me so grateful for our family. Having parents sealed in the temple, having been taught the gospel since my childhood. We´re so blessed. I love my Savior. I love this work, and i love the people i´m trying to help. We´re chugging along, so far none of our investigators is progressing, but we´re working hard. One of our investigators in Campodónico got baptized last week, that was good news to hear!
Have a great week, and get better fast dad! I want good news next week!
Elder Hatch