4/9/2012

Family!
It was a great Easter weekend. Well, here it's called the Holy Week. They celebrate holy Thursday and Friday, and Sunday of glory. I can't remember what Saturday is called. The only special things they do for Easter here is eat fish every day and the Catholics actually go to church! and the Jehovah's witnesses had a HUGE meeting last week I ate fried octopus and fish together, and actually liked it. I ate cow stomach and hated it.. it's so chewy and looks hideous! and today i ate a handful of raw onions on my chicken and didn't even flinch. it still makes me laugh to think how much my tastes have changed. For a special Easter message elder Cox and i downloaded a few Mormon messages and the new bible video called he is risen and burned it onto a dvd and are showing it to some of our investigators and tomorrow we're going to get the stake projector from the stake president and watch it with the zone in our zone meeting. I also read the chapters in Jesus the Christ and the parts in the Bible that talk about what Christ went through this weekend. I love and have run over time and time again in my mind the amazing moment when the angel told Mary Magdelene that Christ wasn't there because He was risen. I truly know that he conquered death and because He went through everything, He can help us through anything. I love what President Monson said. Something like, He taught us how to live, he taught us how to die, he secured our salvation. This was probably the first Easter where I've actually celebrated it how it should be celebrated, and it was incredible. A whole family of five came to church on Sunday, and we're more than excited for them. We have a lot of investigators who are progressing well, but the Tellos, who had a baptismal date for this Saturday, say they want more time because they don't feel ready yet. Sometimes i just wish i could make the people know that baptism is the right thing to do! But then i remember that's more like satan's plan... haha.
Oh and yes i got the easter package!!  Thanks so much! I loved the jelly beans :)
We had to do a lot of things for the zone this week; we went to Chiclayo twice, Chongoyape for a work visit, patapo to pick up baptismal clothes and find out about a massive wedding for the sister missionaries. We planned a p-day activity today to go to an awesome ecological reserve called Chaparri, but 6 people in our zone didn't want to go because it was going to be kind of expensive, so the cost of renting mobility would have been way too much divided between less people and we couldn't do it :( so we ended up going to the Huaca Rajada- a huge pyramid where they found the Señor de Sipan. Look that up on Google or something, it'll probably have some cool pictures! The toughest part about being a zone leader is planning all the p day activities because somebody is always complaining or doesn't want to participate, but after the fact everyone is always happy they came. missionaries...
I'm so happy and so tired, loving life. Everything sounds great at home. I'm glad to hear dad could finally go back to church! Now whenever i see people without legs here i feel more compassion toward them, knowing my dad is going through similar feelings. I love you guys!
Elder Hatch

Elder Cox chickened out and bent his legs on our floating picture.. we did it again and it worked, but elder Marker cut my head off in the picture, so just imagine that it looks cool :)
There are owls here!! i never saw one in Utah…