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

5/28/2012

Family! 

This week was pretty calm. The phones here in Pomalca haven´t really been working, because they´re redoing the cell phone tower or something like that, so we had four glorious days of basically working like normal missionaries, the others couldn´t even call us :) haha, but i was worried they´d need something and we wouldn´t be able to help them. I feel like a mom! But everything went smoothly until reports last night. The assistants called us like ten times and we called them a million times. We ended up having to report today, a day late, but it was fine. Our zone reached its goal of 15 baptisms this month! That´s the best we´ve done this year so far, so elder Lobato and i are pretty happy. The sad part is that the baptisms are basically all in our ward and Tuman, another ward. A lot of companionships blanked. I was thinking of rewarding the zone for reaching the goal, but we realized that actually pretty much nobody reached their individual goals, and we have no money for a reward, so positive reinforcement will have to wait.. 

We had a multizone conference with President Risso and three other zones of missionaries. That was fun. Pres Risso was a seminary and institute teacher, and every time he teaches us about the scriptures it blows me away. His knowledge is so deep and solid, it makes me want to study ancient scripture at BYU... I love the scriptures. 

This week i had an interesting experience with a family we found through a referral. The lady´s grandma showed us her house, and we got in to teach the lady. Right after we got done getting to know her, she said ¨i know all you want to do is trap me and baptize me,  but i don´t want to be baptized.¨ She had never even listened to the missionaries before and i don´t know why, but it just made me sad and mad to hear her say that. we kind of brushed it off and taught her the law of chastity because she´s not married to her ¨husband¨of 15 years. She told us she doesn´t want to get married to him. When we finished up teaching her that she needed to be married to live God´s commandments she said the same thing about not wanting to be baptized, and we still hadn´t even said a word to her about baptism! Then her 17 year old daughter said the same thing to us, and we both kind of lost patience and explained to them that they aren´t ready for baptism and that it´s good that they don´t want to be baptized because we don´t want to baptize them either! We told them we want to help them to learn and live the commandments, so we´d like to visit them and teach them. They wouldn´t accept a second appointment though.. it was frustrating. Not a very good referral. 

Mom- No, i´m not using sunscreen. I only use it on P-days when we´re outside all the time. I´m fine though, no worries :) And here it´s getting to be winter season! the kids just got into school, and their summer is during our winter, still a long way away. Almost all the schools here are boys only and girls only. I can´t imagine having done that! Apparently they act better that way.. Thanks so much for zach´s address, i´ll write him next week! I´m excited to see how he´s doing. 

This week i started teaching piano lessons in the church! The piano is ghetto and like 5 keys don´t work, but i mostly taught about how to read music to my three students. They really liked it, and i hope more come this week! Elder Kettering, the other gringo here is teaching english while i teach piano. and i´m going to teach how to sing new hymns to some relief society ladies, because they ALWAYS sing the same 10 hymns here and i always mix it up when i choose the songs in meetings, etc. I chose Faith (i don´t know if that´s what it´s called in english) yesterday and basically sung a solo because they´d never heard it before! 

Things are going well, we have a few potential baptisms we´re working with, and i think i´ll only be here two more weeks in pomalca. I´ll be praying and fasting for dad. I hope you can have a quick recovery Dad, I love you and pray for you all the time. 

I know God loves us so much and I love Him so much! I have really learned what he wants me to do, and feel so determined to do it! 

Have a good week :) 

Elder Hatch 

5/21/2012

Family, 

Before i forget, i want to write Zach White and David Cusick.. Could you maybe find out their mission addresses for me? I miss my friends.. 

This week was one of the craziest of my mission! We had a MAJOR problem with one of the missionaries in the zone. His companion was on a work visit with another missionary here in pomalca, and at lunch he said elder hatch, i need to tell you something. The way he said it made me scared, then he told me that his companion has a cell phone. So we called the assistants and they told us to go get it from him. It was so sad sitting down with him and telling him i need him to give me the cell phone he had. His face turned white and he started talking a lot.. But after all, he took it out of its hiding spot and gave it to us. When we got back to our area i felt like i needed to see what was on the phone. I found a lot of terrible stuff.  A member in his ward lent him their cell phone for a few days.. problem number one.. to be able to communicate with a guy from his old area who owed him money.. another problem (we can´t lend or accept money).. long story short, the temptation got to him and he used the cell phone (which had internet on it) to text girls from his area late at night, use facebook, and i found some emails between him and a girl in his area that were terrible. We went straight to the office to talk to president Risso.. the next day this missionary had an interview with president Risso, and we were sure he was going to get sent home. But the outcome is an emergency transfer and he´s going to be junior companion the rest of his mission.. it was so sad. But anyway, trips to this missionary´s area, baptismal interviews, going to the office, etc, Basically took up our week. 

On the happy side of things we had four baptisms in our area this week! And ten in the zone in one week! Compared to our 6 last month, ten in a week is improvement :) Now elder Lobato and I need to focus in on finding new investigators, because we baptized all our good ones! 

Peruvian chocolate is not very good. Their candy here isn´t nearly as sweet as american candy. The reeses i bought this last week was so so good.

I´m sunburned, it´s still hot here, and i feel like i´m always covered in dirt.. But that´s just part of the fun here in Pomalca. I feel so blessed for all the experiences i´m having here. The people have taught me so much, just from listening to their problems and trying to help them.

On sunday i gave a talk in sacrament meeting based on a talk by pres Uchtdorf called you are important to him (rough translation) from last conference. The microphone wasn´t working, so i had to yell and felt weird! But most of the people were actually paying attention, so i´m counting it as a success. :)

Have a great week!  I love you guys! 

Elder Hatch 

The pictures are of our baptisms in these two weeks! One is of Jorge and Katherine. The other guy in white is our stake president who baptized them. The other is of this last saturday when we baptized Jesus, Anshy, Lesly, and Shirley. The other people are from another ward who did their baptism with us. The other guy in white in that one is Shirley and Lesly´s uncle who baptized them. I baptized Jesus and Anshy.

5/14/2012

family, 

First of all, it was awesome to be able to talk to mom and dad yesterday! It felt weird because we´re so far away but i felt so close and like i haven´t even been away from home. Time is going way too fast and i´m loving life so much! oh, and i got the letter from mom with the swedish fish! Thanks :) I love you

We watched a movie that elder lobato has about daniel the other day with a member family for their family home evening and it inspired me to read the book of Daniel in the old testament. It´s an awesome story, and i really like king (in spanish, i can´t remember how it is in english) Naboconosor´s frame of mind. First he wants to kill anyone who can´t interpret his dream, then anyone who doesn´t worship his golden statue, then anyone who doesn´t worship the true God when he realizes Daniel´s god is the only God of miracles. Then his son gets mad at daniel and decides to throw him in the lion´s den. They were a little blood thirsty.. At least if we don´t like our politicians´ decisions, they´re not THAT bad. :) 

Thanks for all the pictures of the california trip, it looks like you had a great time. I´m sorry that i still can´t send pictures.. I thought i was being smart and put all my pictures on a CD, then i get here to the internet and my computer doesn´t have a place to put in a CD!? oh well, next week. 

The Highlight of the week were Jorge and Katherine´s baptisms on Saturday. Jorge is such an amazing young man. He´s 16 and was the most excited person ever for his baptism. When we would walk by him in church he would say elders! then plug his nose and lean backwards and say the 12th! haha just always reminding us of his baptism. Now that he´s a member we´re going to take him with us to visit some people we´re teaching so his awesome spirit can rub off on them. 

I feel like i already told mom and dad everything.. ooh one fun thing is that today when we were buying groceries i found ginger ale, reeses, and a cookies and cream hershey´s bar in the store!! I haven´t seen american chocolate in 15 months! Even though they were almost 2 dollars a piece i bought them, and i´m really looking forward to eating them. It´ll be a good week with candy and four programmed baptisms! 

I love and miss you lots, 

Elder Hatch 

5/7/2012

Family,

Wow i´m so sad to hear that dad´s leg got infected! I can´t believe all the problems, but i know dad´s going to persevere well through it all. What a bummer that he couldn´t go to disneyland with the family. i wish that would have worked out. It sounds like it´s under control, though and i´ll definitely be praying for you! 

I know last week i said it was an amazing week, but this week was better! When Elder Cox and i were bummed out because none of our investigators were receiving answers about the church or the book of mormon, i couldn´t have imagined the turn around that would happen in just two short weeks! Number one, i got a great new companion. I was nervous for my new companion, because elder cox and i got along perfectly, but Elder Lobato, my new companion, is a champ too. He´s from Lima, really close to where Elder Orcohuaranga lives. He has 3 months left in the mission, and it´s been his first week as a zone leader. It´s been fun showing him the ropes. He always calls me "cholo" which is what the mexicans in my high school used to always call each other- i´m still getting used to it. But it just means dude in a slang way. 

 The real blessings have been flowing in with our investigators though! We have 8 people who will be baptized this month now! Two this next saturday, five on the 19th, and 1 on the 26th! I´m honestly just dying with happiness, and can´t wait to see everyone baptized! I feel like i must be getting some tithing blessings, because the windows of heaven are seriously open and the blessings are overflowing! A few other areas are going to have lots of baptisms this month. In Tuman then have five planned for this next saturday! We´re all really excited. 

As for mother´s day, i´m not sure what day i´ll call to set up the appointment. The good news is that i will be able to call on skype! The bad news is that we can only talk for 30 minutes this time. But i´ll call and we can set everything up. I´m thinking sunday at like four in the afternoon my time. Take lots of pictures in california and send me some! I love seeing the family. 

Today for our zone activity we took everyone to a little town called Zaña. It´s like 45 mintues south of chiclayo, and there´s some really cool ruins of monasteries there. We toured around for a bit and took some fun pictures, then came back and ate chinese food in chiclayo before returning to our areas. My p.days now are some of the most stressful days, because i have to be everyone´s mom and plan everything and make sure everyone´s having fun and nobody´s being left out, etc. And there´s a missionary in our zone who´s always flirting with the sister missionaries... But that´s all part of the fun of being zone leader! 

haha that´s so awesome that you guys ended up in a Spanish ward! I´m glad you´re reaching out to other cultures :) But i hope you liked it, it´s my life now! It´s going to be weird to have church in english! I know the scriptures and everything better in spanish now than english! Oh and i totally forgot to wish mom and dad HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! I hope that´s how you spell it. I´m bad with english now. And happy birthday to AARON!! I always think of these things during the week then when i´m in email i forget. But i love you guys and i am so happy and loving every second of life. I just feel ripped off that time is going by way too fast. Tomorrow we have a meeting with all the zone leaders in the mission in Chiclayo and president risso. We have to give an accounting of our responsibilities, it´s kind of scary but fun! love you and have a great week! 

Elder Hatch 

Here´s a picture of the  new zone on a really sketchy hanging bridge (they took the picture from the bridge they actually use) in a place called Zaña!

Inside the monastery, it was a sweet view, this is called the choir room. it had beautiful arches above. 

4/30/2012

We´re in the same stinky internet and i can´t send pictures again. 

FAMILIA

This week was amazing. We had so many blessings come to our area because of our fast. I can´t even explain how big of a turn around our area has had, and we´re so happy! We didn´t change anything about our way of working or anything, but the people just all started progressing! This week we had TWELVE investigators in church and four of our investigators accepted baptismal dates for this month! Katherine and Jorge, two teenagers, will be baptized on the 12th, and we have a lot of other possible baptisms in between and then on the 26th Eugenio, a 78 year old man will be baptized and maybe a lady we´re teaching who needs to get married before she can be baptized. When i saw all our investigators filing into church i almost started crying. For the first three weeks elder Cox was here with me we had a total of one investigator in church, and now it´s so awesome to see the blessings. 

What´s your cell phone number mom? i think i forgot.. I think i´ll probably call a little earlier on sunday because now sunday nights we´re really busy with ward council and reports from the zone. I´ll let you know the info when i call. And as for skype i´m not sure, i´ll have to talk to the assistants to see if we´re allowed to. 

Every tuesday we have zone meetings that are about missionary work. First they have a meeting with their districts for about an hour and a half where the district leader teaches something then they practice teaching for about an hour. Then they all come in with us and we give announcements, teach something usually, and sometimes have testimonies. This last week two missionaries in my zone finished their missions and gave their testimonies. They talked like 15 minutes each, it was killer. 

here it never really gets cold enough to want anything more than a sweater, i´m sure i´ll be fine with just that! 

I have a question that mom reminded me of with what she said about like 99 percent of the spirits accepting the gospel in the next life. We have had the debate in our zone about whether the spirit world is actually two separated physical areas or if it´s spirit prison and paradise based on the state of mind of the person. I don´t know why a person wouldn´t accept the gospel and pass over to paradise if it´s possible! 

This week are changes, and Elder Cox is leaving to another area as a zone leader. I´m sad that he´s going because we´re going to finally have baptisms! But i´m happy that i get to stay in my area and baptize! I´ll have a new companion tomorrow. Everyone in our area (each companionship) has a change and so we´ll have a lot of new missionaries in the zone! I´m excited for everything. Love you family and have a great week!

Elder Hatch

4/23/2012

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