10/10/2011

What? I´m going to be 20?! haha that´s so weird.. I seriously feel like i jumped from 16 to 20 wayyyy too fast. But yes i got the package from mom and dad today! Thanks so much! I still haven´t opened the cards in it or anything, i just saw that there´s a bunch of candy because they open it before you can take it home.. Oh, and on packages now you only have to put my name and the address, not the other missionary´s name. And I can´t believe you remembered that i love red velvet cake! I didn´t even remember that!!!! But i´m so excited, and for the cookies too. Goodness, mom you´re the best. My birthday should be really fun, a member told me she´s going to give me some evangelical music that i actually really like, and i´m sure i´ll get a few eggs smashed over my head (that´s the peruvian tradition) and i wanted to baptize someone on my birthday, but i felt like that was a little too self-righteous, so we´re not going to. But we are baptizing Cesar, a 16 year old, tomorrow! And on saturday we are baptizing Yeiner and his little brother Jorge. I hope everything works out! We wanted to baptize Yeiner´s mom too, but we found out she´s living together with a guy who only shows up to their house at night... so we have a little more work to do there.
All the news about the stake is awesome! lots of changes in the ward and stake lately! I´ll have my homecoming interviews with my old bishop and someone i don´t even know.. And david cusick told me that Ben Teng is gonig to Taiwan on his mission! The same mission as taylor larson. I´m so jealous i might explode. It would be so awesome to have a friend from home in the mission. A guy from my byu ward who was in my quorum is in the Piura mission now.. bummer haha.
Oh, and our zone leaders told elder Morales that we´re going to be split up in two weeks.. There is going to be a mini transfer and a few more missionaries are coming in to the mission. It´s almost for sure that i´m going to be training, and maybe elder morales too, and they´re going to open up Los Amautas, so we´ll both get half of the area we have now. Exciting! I´m just trying to get used to being district leader now. Teaching the class in district meeting is fun, and i like motivating the mishies too.
Sunday in church we went to pick up investigators, and so we got there like five minutes late.. And when they were announcing the talks in church they announced the missionaries. For a second i was like oh, it was a mistake, then i realized that it wasn´t because the bishop just looked at me with no expression haha. So, luckily they announced elder morales first and he went up and talked with no preparation. I had like five minutes to gather my thoughts, and talked for 10  minutes! Proof that prayer works, and the progress i´ve made on my mission! It´s super exciting that we´re starting to have some success here and i´m loving every second of the mish! Thanks so much family for the birthday wishes! I love you! and hope you´re all loving life and the gospel, because it´s so amazing! Elder Uchtdorf said the gospel is life, so true! Oh, and something that i really liked from general conference. When president monson said to a member of the 70, why are you looking down? it´s better to look up. (rough translation into english) I´ve really learned to be positive and just laugh when it´s rough. I´m working hard but i´m going to work even harder this week, i need to get ready to be a trainer! :/
Elder Hatch