6/25/2012

¡Familia!
This week was pretty awesome. I got to do two work visits, and guess which two wards i went to? Campodonico and Jose Balta- my first wards i was in. Campodonico has progressed a TON! The members are giving a ton of awesome referrals to the missionaries, and they´re baptizing a lot. We went to visit one of their converts who lives on a street that i walked down like a million times, she lives right in front of where our laundry lady lived, but i don´t think we ever knocked her door. She´s awesome and was so prepared to receive the gospel. It´s so fun to see people that the gospel has really helped! I only got to be in Campodonico for the morning, and didn´t get to visit any people i know, but then on friday i went to Jose Balta. That was the best. First of all, i got to eat in my old pension with hna Soccorro- she was so happy to see me and we talked for a while. Then later in the day we went to see the Floreano family! They´re all active except one, and Elio (the dad) is working on her. She was sick and he gave her a priesthood blessing, and she got better, so now she´s believing more in everything and coming back bit by bit. Visiting Elio and hearing him speak the gospel lingo, like all the mormon words, and having him talk about giving blessings to his children, how they´re fighting to activate their daughter so they can go to the temple and be sealed was like a dream for me. Afterward my face seriously hurt from smiling for an hour straight. But the coolest part of all is that Elio said he´s going to retire in a few years when his daughters finish studying and he and his wife want to move to Trujillo to be temple workers there!!!! wow. i´m so happy :) And that night we taught a lesson to a lady in their area, that was honestly probably the coolest lesson i´ve ever been in in my whole mission. The spirit was very strong, and this lady is truly trying to find out if the book of mormon is true. She asked amazing questions, and i felt the spirit guiding me to answer them. We all ended up crying, and i know she felt that it´s all true, she´s definitely going to be baptized soon.
Answering questions:
my zone (stake) is called Latina. Almost all the zones here in chiclayo cover one stake.
our ward, Cabrera, is in rough shape. The inactive people we´ve been visiting have no intentions of going back to activity, but we´re trying everything we can with the limited time we have. We went out with a 16 year old guy in our ward who showed us some of his friends, and one listened to the missionaries a few years ago, was going to be baptized, then moved here to chiclayo. He accepted to be baptized in the first lesson we had with him- last night! So we´re excited about that! It would be the first baptism here in the ward in 8 months. Elder Santos and i get along well. We live with two other missionaries too, and we have a lot of fun together.
So far, no bank cards.. here´s the story. I took out money and had my card in a little plastic card holder in my breast pocket of my shirt.. After i took out the money i´m pretty sure i put the card back, but now it and the plastic card holder are missing. If you want you can send me a new card. i´m reluctant to say yes, because i don´t want to find it after you send me a new one.. i´m sorry to be such a hassle! Second time i´ve lost the same card!
That´s nuts that ashley is getting married. it´s kind of sad when i hear people are getting married, but it´s a good thing!
Happy birthday dad, i love you a lot and have been thinking about you a ton in these weeks. I hope everything continues getting better. Here are my two favorite bits of advice you´ve given me that i always try to live by:
Don´t do anything stupid. It sounds funny, but it´s honestly a struggle for lots of missionaries! I haven´t done anything stupid yet, so i hope i can keep that up :)
Be Obedient. I think that´s the most important lesson to learn as a missionary. Obedience not only to the mission rules, but to God´s rules. It´s so simple. Obey- receive blessings, and be happy, forever.
Thanks for your great example to me dad, and i hope you have a fun birthday.
Love,
Elder Hatch 

This is of a baptism in pomalca this week. They´re 9 year old twins named Eliana and Julie that elder Lobato and i found. One of the perks of being a zone leader is that president Risso told me i could go to the baptisms of people i taught in Pomalca, and elder Lobato needed baptismal clothes so i took advantage of the opportunity and went. I gave a message in the baptismal program too! 

6/18/2012

Family,

I´ll start off with the news, I got transfered to the very far away and exotic area of the Latina stake. It´s about 7 hours into the jungle and here the people speak mostly the native language, Quechua. Just kidding. I´m in the latina stake, aka the same stake i started my mission in! It´s four blocks away from the Campodonico ward haha! So, I´m back in Chiclayo, after my four and a half month break (even though i was only ten minutes away in Pomalca). My ward is called Francisco Cabrera, and it´s about four blocks by 12 blocks, tiny! In the transfer meeting after it was all finished, president Risso pulled me aside and told me that in my new ward there hasn´t been a baptism in 6 months, and they´re thinking about dissolving the ward because it´s so weak. When i got to my area i realized the state the work was in. Our area book (where they investigators´ teaching records go, etc) was covered in dust. There are no records of investigators for the last 6 months.. it´s bad. But i´m excited for the challenge. We found a few cool new investigators this week and are still searching for new people. President Risso said he wants us to mainly focus on helping the members.. But i´m definitely going to try to baptize too! Oh yeah, and we´re still zone leaders. I´ll get to visit the people we baptized in Campodonico and Jose Balta over a year ago!!

My companion is Elder Santos (elder saints), from Lima. He finishes his mission in two months. they keep giving me companions that are finishing their missions! I guess i need to keep them obedient and working :)

bad news, i still can´t find my debit card. i´ll give it one more week, and if it doesn´t turn up we may have to cancel it again. dang it.

I didn´t get to go to the stake conference in Pomalca, because i got transferred, and i´m not sure about the baptisms in Pomalca either. We delayed them one week, so they should be getting baptized this saturday. President Risso gave me permission to go to their baptisms if i want to, so i´ll have to call elder Lobato and find out what´s going on with them.
Today we went to the beach again, this time to a new beach called santa rosa, it was really fun! Our zone is big, with 22 missionaries, so it´s a lot of responsibility! I´m sure these next few months will be challenging, but that´s why i´m here! I love your letters and support. I hope everything is going great at home, because i´m as happy as can be here. I love you so much!

Elder Hatch

PS, i gave a talk in my new ward about being truly converted. The bishop called and asked me to do it in the morning, oh, our meetings on sundays start at 2 PM!! Proselyting sunday morning was really weird. But it was nice to be able to prepare a bit and give a good talk. 

 picture number one, HAPPY FATHER´S DAY DAD!!

this is the campos family, minus their step mom. Shirley , danny, estrella (their cousin), and lesly are seated, and in the middle standing is their dad, Rudecindo. (shirley and lesly got baptized a few weeks ago)

this is Jesus and anshy´s family, (they just got baptized too)   

6/11/2012

Family,

Well, i´m done here in Pomalca. Last night after we reported to the assistants they told us the transfers in our zone.. There are only two, a sister missionary is going to a different area in our same zone, and i´m leaving the zone.. This time they didn´t tell us what our assignment is.. aka i don´t know if this next transfer i´ll be zone leader still, or any other assignation.. So i´m nervous and excited for what i´ll find out tomorrow morning in the transfer meeting! Elder Lobato stays here and will finish his mission in 6 weeks! Elder Cox too, but he´s in Jaen, the jungle zone here in the mission. I feel like i´ll end up in Chiclayo again, because it´s pretty set that i´ll be going as a zone leader, and almost all the zones are in Chiclayo. We´ll see! So today i´ve been packing up my stuff, and now that everything´s in there i realized i can´t find my bank card.. But don´t worry, i took out money a week ago like mom said, but now i have to unpack everything until i can find it! I´ll let you know if i still can´t find it next week. Remember when i thought i lost it in the MTC in lima? haha that was the worst. But yes, i got a CTR ring in spanish. all those little ones mom sent me made me want one :) But i took out a lot because it has a charge every time you withdraw, so i take out a lot at a time to not waste money!
This week we were busy with stuff in the zone! Monday we were at the beach all day, Tuesday we had our zone leader meeting with the president. I played the piano again (now they all know i play the piano, so i´m stuck with it), and ate really greasey chicken and french fries after. wednesday we had our zone meeting then went to the mission office in Chiclayo like we do every week, bought our food, and came back for an hour of looking for people to teach before our movie night as a ward activity. Thursday we didn´t have water, so we had to go shower in the other missionaries´room, and while we were there the assistants called us and told us they´re opening up a new area in our zone for sister missionaries in Tuman, so we had to go look for a room and a pensionista.. there went thursday. Friday we did a work visit with the elders in Chongoyape (an hour and a half away) so i traveled there with my companion and back with elder Chicas (elder girls :) and worked here friday with him. Saturday i went do drop him back off in chongoyape, and Elder Lobato and i had to go to La Cria to borrow a baptismal tunic for a little girl, drop it off in Patapo, then go eat lunch, then go back to Tuman to clean the room for the new sister missionaries! We were in every area in the zone  that day except one- pucala. We taught a few lessons saturday afternoon. And in one of them one of our investigators told us he doesn´t believe the book of mormon is true because in the bible it doesn´t say the book of mormon is true.. We spent half an hour explaining to him what the bible is and inviting him to find out if the book of mormon is true for himself, and after all he said he´s just going to keep reading his bible and see if he finds something that tells him the book of mormon is true, or that there´s a prophet today, then he´ll join the church. AHH it was so frustrating, and he´s only 15 years old! The problem is that he has very heavy Jehova´s Witness influences. Sunday we went to church with 6 investigators, had lunch, and went to the hospital in chiclayo to give a blessing to an investigator of ours who has leukemia, and by the time we got back we only had a few hours to teach before sunday night reports. It was a BUSY week. We got a lot done, but not much for our investigators.

We have three baptisms coming up in two weeks (we postponed them a week more because this weekend is stake conference), so the new missionary who comes here tomorrow better be grateful :) But i´m excited to go to a new area, it´ll be my fourth in my whole mission!

On sunday i taught the sunday school lesson about testimony, and it was really cool talking about how i got my testimony. I´ve thought a lot about when i first had a testimony, and i could never figure out when i realized everything was true. But lately i´ve come to a conclusion. As a kid i believed everything, and the more i learned the more i felt it was all true. The first time i can recall feeling a testimony for myself by the spirit was when i was about 14 and i prayed to know if Joseph Smith was really a prophet. I felt so strongly that he was, and since then i´ve never wondered if it was true, because i knew by the spirit that he was a prohpet. I had a lot of similar experiences through the years until my mission, but here i´ve felt that same spirit teaching me about all the principles and doctrines i teach. One thing i´ve really gained a testimony of through experience is fasting. I used to hate fasting, but now i love it! I feel so strongly that the church is true. It´s amazing, and there´s no way any man could have made it up.

I love you family!

Elder Hatch

I can´t remember if i already sent this picture of our baptism.. sorry if i did.. but if i didn´t, the four in back are Jesus, Anshy, Shirley and Lesly!

Some pelicans at the beach

A cool picture with a ghetto old tie from mervyns a missionary gave to me!

6/4/2012

Family,
Today we went to the beach as a zone, it was awesome! We went to the same beach i went to in November, and this time i enjoyed it even more. I took my football mom and dad gave me for Christmas, and we had a good time with that, we played some baseball with a volleyball and a stick we found on the beach, and soccer too. There were a ton of crabs, beached boats, huge cliffs and a pier we walked out on where people were fishing, a lot like the one in Newport minus the restaurant on the end. I got my gymnastics going again.. It had been a good six months since I've done a backflip, and i wasn't sure if i would be able to do it anymore because I'm fat and old now and haven't even exercised in a few months, but it was easy! We had a great time, and basically nobody else was there on the beach but us!
This week Elder Lobato and I had a good week. We found three new people who want to be baptized, and now we have four with baptismal dates for the 16th.. The sad part is that I'm pretty sure i won't be here to see them be baptized, but i get to do all the fun teaching at least! I had another really interesting baptismal interview.. Maybe someday I'll share the details in private.. But in the end he passed the interview and got baptized! And we found a couple who was really interesting to teach for the first time. They run an internet cafe place in their house, so they attended us outside in the noisy street...  But the man had some very interesting points of view. One thing he said was that he's heard that in the years of Jesus' life that the bible doesn't talk about he may have gone and learned from Buddha!! I seriously had to gag to not burst out laughing!
Piano lessons are going well not too many people go.. Everyone always gets excited when we tell them about the lessons, but then in the moment they don't show up! But the few that have gone are doing well. I've been teaching how to read music. And no, i don't play in church because we always get there late with investigators and this week we didn't even get to take the sacrament :( But in meetings with missionaries, yes i play. I got the package too! It came really fast! And thanks so much for everything in it, the perfect package! I love the BYU pens and stickers:)
That's awesome that school's out and finally mom gets to relax a bit, that's a bummer that the deer ate all the flowers though! Here the cockroaches eat all my food.. just kidding, but i did find a few in my dresser one night. I killed one with a fly swatter, but the other got away.
Today when we were in Chiclayo going to the terminal to go to the beach, i ran into one of my converts, and last week i ran into one too!! It's been so cool! The best part is that both of them are still active :) Last week i saw and talked to Elio Floreano, and today i saw Luz Leiva!! They both reach the year mark this month! Fastest year in history! But seeing them was so surreal, and i got way happy and giddy. I can't imagine what it will be like to see them in the Celestial Kingdom :)
Take care and have an amazing week. I love you all so much!
Elder Hatch