*Elder Hatch returns home from his mission the last week of February and he will report on his mission on March 10th. More details will be posted as it gets closer.

Monday, November 28, 2011

11/28/2011

Family, 

Well, this week was a bummer. We had three people with baptismal dates for saturday, and here´s what happened with all three. Victoria (15 year old girl) was super pumped and ready, but her dad said she has to wait until she´s 18.. We just met him last night, so we´ll see if we can help change his mind in the family home evening we´re going to have with them tonight. So, there´s one of the three down. Friday were Monica and Armando´s interviews for their baptisms. Monica passed her interview fine, she did hers at 6 pm, but her dad, Armando, could only do his at 8, so we had to do a few change ups, plus i had to interview elder Hill and Bohman´s baptism in their area, so i was in their area, and long story short, Armando got nervous and wouldn´t even do his interview. Number two down. We were discouraged, but still excited for monica´s baptism saturday night. Saturday night comes around, a bunch of members were there, we were excited. I had to interview a baptismal candidate for elder Morales and Gonzales and it took a while, and i didn´t finish until like 8:15, so elder Hurst went with elder Morales to pick up monica. Turns out she wasn´t at home.. She bailed last minute and it was a bummer to tell the people who were at the baptism that there wouldn´t be a baptism... yeah it was rough. But Sunday was a great day, we found 7 new investigators, and did a ton of contacts in the streets and the big park in our area, and after all we didn´t feel too bad about our week. We are working with a lot of really good people, some brothers, Mario and Christian, who have a baptismal date for the 10th, and we´ll see how they go. 

My mission has costal desert plains, mountainous areas, and jungle. Where i am now is as flat as can be, and super deserty. The Cajamarca Zone is in the mountains, and the Jaen Zone is in the jungle. I´ll have been in chiclayo my whole first year, and i´m hoping to get out for at least part or all of the second! I hear Cajamarca is really beautiful. 

As for portuguese, I don´t know anybody really who speaks it, but elder Gonzales who lives with us, went through a period where he wanted to learn it and printed a liahona off the internet in portuguese so i read it and was super excited when i could understand everything! 

In a few weeks elder Uceda, a 70, is going to speak to our mission, so today we have to fill out a survey thing so he can help us as a mission with everything. 

Everything is going well, I want to baptize more people, but they´ll come when they come. We just need to keep working hard and loving the Lord´s work! Hope everything is great in Utah, i´m jealous that it´s cold there- it´s changing to summer here and i´m sweating all the time! 

Love you, 

Elder Hatch 

This is a family we´re teaching! The girls are Estefany and Victoria and the little girl is Melanie. The young man is Brayan. 

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My district! I can´t remember if i sent this to you, but i´ll send it again! 

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Renato, Rozana, and Paola (members), Victoria, Melanie, Estefany, Brayan, elder Hurst and I

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elder Juergens and i on the beach. He´s sister wright´s nephew who plays football for byu

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A great glamour shot i took trying to be ugly, but it shows a classic lunch of chicken, rice, some brown things they say are peas or something, and fruit.

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Monday, November 21, 2011

11/21/2011

Family!
It was a good week, even though we postponed our baptisms for another week.. The ward went to the temple in Lima, and we didn´t want to baptize the people if nobody was going to be there for their baptisms or confirmations! Church was interesting. Like 10 members were there at the start of the meeting.. Elder Hurst and I blessed the sacrament, gave the talks, I gave mine on the importance of being an example. I talked about a study we learned about in my college psych class, and gave a few examples, and i played the piano for the rest hymn. It was fun! We also had a lesson in priesthood about the final judgement. There is a scripture in doctrine and covenants that says that the books will be opened. One of the books is our personal memory. It records everything we think, do, and say, and in that moment we will condemn ourselves with our own memory before christ. In a sense we judge ourselves and we´ll know where we deserve to go! What a motivation to keep our thoughts, words, and acts clean! This new knowledge has inspired me to repent better, and i seriously am so scared of ever sinning again in my life! All i want to do is read the scriptures, share the gospel, and have a family :) But i know i have to live a normal life too.
The ward has been helping us out a lot lately, going with us to teach our investigators, inviting them to family home evenings, etc. It´s great!
Today we went to the beach, about 20 minutes from here, and it was SO FUN! Funnest p-day of my mission! One elder has a football and we played on the beach. it was amazing, especially because there are a few college football players in our zone. I had a great time. David Cusick´s roommate from the U is in my zone too, and so we were instant friends!
speaking of.. What i want for christmas is a football. It´s something big, you can send it to me deflated, but just a normal football, please not a ghetto one, but not extremely nice. It´s all i want..
Yes we´ll be here for christmas and i´m super pumped! I´ll try to find out about a business here..
And they have the same movies we have in the US. They come out pirated here as soon as they hit the theaters in the US. The only entertainment they produce here is music, and soap operas. There´s one called Al Fondo Hay Sitio ( there´s a spot in back) that EVERYONE watches.
Oh, and i got super excited lately because i can read and understand portuguese. I don´t know how to pronounce the words, but i can read it perfectly, like 99%! I decided i want to learn it when i get back to BYU, and then i want to learn french or italian. It´s my goal to be solidly trilingual, with a little of a fourth in there.
I am happier right now than i´ve been in my whole mission. I love my area, my companion, our investigators (even if they don´t want to get baptized :) and the progress i´ve made progressing personally in my knowledge, testimony, and drawing nearer to Christ. I know what i´m doing is true, it absolutely blows the people here away when i tell them i left my family, studies, and everything in the US to come here to preach the Gospel and not earn any money. They don´t understand it, and frankly i wouldn´t either if i didn't have this testimony burning inside of me. It´s what gets me up every morning at 6:30 and keeps me knocking doors with a smile on my face. Thank you so much, family, for showing me what to do with my life. I´ve been given so much, i just didn´t really realize it until being here. Thanks for everything, your support, letters, and love. It´s so nice to know my family is in church every week, and being faithful to the gospel. I love you!
Elder Hatch

a great boat on the beach that says sun and sea, christ lives! I wanted to be an angry seaman
a slightly off centered picture of us at the beach! We went with two zones! Like 36 missionaries or so!
I look so small next to elder Hurst!
There are always a ton of flies in our room, and i LOVE killing them. That sounds morbid, but it´s really super fun! I´ve gotten pretty good. In spanish the fly swatter is called a matamoscas. (kill flies)

This is the street we live on, it´s called Inca Yupanqui. Yes, that dog is eating trash, and the man down the street isn´t wearing a shirt. I´m so glad i captured this classic moment, because this is seriously how it is here. Dogs eating trash and guys with beer bellies not wearing shirts.

Monday, November 14, 2011

11/14/2011

Great experience i just had... i was trying to find the usb port in this computer and bent over and the chair i was on broke and i fell on the floor and everyone laughed at me... but i played it off well. 

Yeah the animals are on the roof. that´s where the laundry dries too. most people have their animals behind their house, but we don´t have a behind part, so they´re on the roof.
Monica came to church this week! We´re pumped about that. We kind of layed off teaching them every day this week, and it worked well. Monica said she wants to get baptized this week. Armando is still kind of indecisive.. But we have some other great investigators. Victoria is so golden, she just needs her mom´s permission! Pray for her! And more than anything, our investigators need to go to church! 

Living with 4 missionaries is super fun! Our house, the family we live with, the ward, just everything is ideal right now! I´m in paradise. It´s so fun having elder Hurst as a companion too! We get along perfectly, and have a great time. 

Bummer that Timpview lost! how´s byu doing? 

Dad´s scooter crash story sounded funny. I hope you´re not getting too bored in bed all the time! you could take advantage of the time and do some arm exercises (totally forgot how to spell that word in english) or something! I´ve been doing tons of pushups and sit ups lately and i´m actually getting stronger! I´ve gotten a bit skinnier too, after fattening up in Campodonico. 

Working as usual and loving life! So good to hear that everything´s good with the family!

Elder Hatch 

pictures: Flashing some gang signs in front of our internet place. apparently they want to legalize marijuana here too.. There is graffiti everywhere! 

Elder Hurst and I made the cookies, it was serious business.. 

Elder Hurst and I floating in front of the museum

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Monday, November 7, 2011

11/7/2011

The story of this week has been Monica and Armando. Monica is 19, she´s super friendly and has accepted everything we teach her. She went to church the first week we taught her and her dad, but since then she hasn´t gone again! She always goes dancing Saturday nights and sleeps through church, it´s really frustrating! She just needs to go to church once more so she can be baptized! But i don´t want to baptize her to be inactive either, so we´ll see. We talked to president risso about Armando, because he lives with the mother of his children but they´re separated as to sleeping together and live in separate rooms, etc. We got the ok to baptize him, and we´ll see what happens in these next few weeks. He has some grandkids that are super fun and i always play around with a little two year old girl who´s so cute, Jocelyn! Now my spanish is to the point where i´m not nervous to joke around with the people and stuff. In this last little while i´ve gotten more personable with the people, and try to be their friend and make them feel comfortable. It´s been really cool, and i´m trying to be a lot more loving,because i read a quote from an apostle.. can´t remember which, that says that if you don´t show your love then you don´t love at all! So, i´m being more loving :) 

Elmer Gonzales Vitarte... There´s an elder vidarte in the mission, but he shouldn´t be using facebook... add him if you feel like it? 

Halloween here was kind of lame. They don´t really celebrate it, more in the city with rich people.. and no, they don´t have daylight savings time here. so now you´re two hours off of my time right? 

Lately a lot of songs we always hear in the street have been getting stuck in my head, and i sing them a lot, like the two lines i know of them. I´m sure elder Hurst loves that.. 

Speaking of him, he´s allergic to all the dirt that´s here, and every once in a while his allergies act up and he explodes during a lesson, and his nose starts running and his eyes get all puffy, it´s funny but i feel bad for him. He´s learning lots. 

Preach my gospel is set up so that we can teach basically anything the spirit tells us to depending on the investigators´ needs and interests. default is the message of the restoration, but we can teach anything that a person needs. the four lessons are the restoration, the plan of salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the commandments: word of wisdom, Sabbath day, tithing, and chastity. 

we had a good time teaching a super duper 7th day Adventist 15 year old kid named Roger. I´ve found that the absolute hardest teaching situation is with a very devout 7th day Adventist. They always just want to argue about how the bible says we have to respect Saturday and not Sunday.. we taught him, but he´ll never change his viewpoint. it was fun though. 

The church is true! The priesthood is real, and the scriptures are amazing! 

Elder Hatch 

Pics: the view from the roof of our house, and me being a gangster on the roof haha, a baby turkey, it looks like one of those pictures you´d see from africa or something.. and a picture from Jakeline’s baptism

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