Family,
Wow, i feel so humbled that they asked mom to give a talk about my mission! I´ve never heard of parents giving talks about their missionaries before. I loved being able to see what the talk said too. It´s been an amazing year here in the mission field. Elder Cox goes home in three months. Sometimes he gets me thinking about post-mission life and i get scared! I realized how much i prefer the mission to college when he was telling me about the schedule his mom signed him up for.. yuck.
This week was pretty crazy. Today we had a big zone activity that i had to use all my activity planning skills to bring about. I came up with a bunch of competitions. we had a saltine eating contest, pop chugging, one where they had to eat a super hot pepper and see which person could wait longest before drinking their water, egg toss (i lost that), water balloon duel (lost that, too), a game where someone starts reading a scripture and then a companionship races against each other to see who can start reading along fastest (i beat elder cox :) and the winner got to smear shaving cream in his companion´s face, there were arm wrestles, push up contests, and the finale was a huge relay race where everyone had to put on missionary clothes and walk across the soccer court with an egg on a spoon in their mouth. It was so fun!
We have been having major problems helping people to get baptized here. We have an amazing set of investigators, but we are trying to get everyone to pray to have a testimony of the Church and the Book of Mormon. The main problem is that they DON¨T PRAY! It´s so frustrating! But we just have to keep inviting them and encouraging them and finding new ways to help them. So, finally Elder Cox and i decided to fast. It was on wednesday and it just so happened that that day i went on a visit to Pucalá with elder Yauri. We walked to his branch president´s house that´s a 35 minute walk one way, and we ended up almost running back from there to get to an appointment. I should have counted, but im pretty sure elder yauri drank at least 5 water bottles while i was fasting. Elder cox and i got back together at the end of the 24 hours absolutely drained. Then we went to visit our investigators with a lot of faith, and.. nothing. It was so hard to not be more frustrated. I think i know a little bit of how parents feel with a rebelious child. You keep trying to help them but they just don´t respond!
We went to Jean pierre´s house like 10 times and he was never there. We went to the campos family´s house like 5 times and never could teach them, david was always out with his friends...
We found a family who had been taught for years by the missionaries and never baptized. We also began focusing on helping them get a testimony of the book of mormon, but they were last on our list of people to visit this week- on saturday. The mom of the family, Mari, is awesome. The first time we taught her i told her i wasn´t sure how her answer from the Holy Ghost would come, but to be on the lookout for it. The second time we taught them Mari had a really bad pain in her side and her mom who´s a member asked us to give her a blessing. I gave her the blessing and at the time everything seemed normal and we left. So, this last saturday when we went to visit them, Mari told us about what happened when we gave her the blessing. She said she felt like her back went all tingley and she felt a warm sensation. She recognized it as the spirit, and teared up when she told us about it. She has gone to church twice now and is going to ask the specific question in her prayers if the book of mormon is true. I know she´ll get the answer!
Today we were walking down the street and a lady from another ward here in Pomalca came up to us and said she was going to sign a girl up for seminary and they realized she was never baptized- she thought she was. She´s been less active but now has been to church three times, and the miracle is that she lives in our area! and this lady told us to baptize her because she´s all ready!
A few other people are all ready for baptism and just want to wait a few weeks more. It has been awesome to watch little by little as the blessings of our fast come in. I heard a quote from elder Holland this week and it´s come to be very true for me. He said something like this. Sometimes the blessings come sooner and sometimes they come later, and sometimes they don´t come until heaven. But for those who live according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they will come. Don´t you give up, keep on trying. The blessings will come.
I love being a missionary. I can´t even express how amazing it is. When everything is going wrong and you just feel discouraged, the Lord knows exactly what to do to keep you going and tell you to not give up, to keep on trying. I know this Gospel we preach is the only true gospel in the world. I just want everyone to accept it and see how God can bless them!
Disneyland and the price is right and other shows, wow that sounds so fun! Have a blast there next week!
I love you,
Elder Hatch
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