7/22/2012

It’s late at night and we´re still in the office doing everything for transfers!! I don´t think i´ll have time to write on Monday because we´re receiving new missionaries, etc. So President Risso told us we can take little bits of p-day when we need it! Since i´m on the computer a lot i can finally send pictures! 

The first one is of me eating Cuy!! (Guinea Pig) at a member´s house today. YUMMMY

The second is of a sign by the beach, i´m pointing to where it says temple! (must be an Incan temple...) 

The third is me in a different style of mototaxi in a member´s house in Chepen, a city about an hour south of Chiclayo

The fourth is me being spiderman by a sweet river in Laquipampa (where we went a few weeks ago with my old zone) 

Love, Elder Hatch 

7/16/2012

Family,

I don´t know where to start... 

Monday night at 10:15 my companion, elder santos and i were planning for tuesday when the assistants called us on our cell phone. I answered and it was Elder Kirkland, one of the assistants. He said elder Hatch, are you sitting down? I said yes, and he continued to explain to me that in the upcoming days there would be an emergency transfer in our zone.. and that it was me. He said thursday at 10 am i needed to be in the office with my bags packed to receive my new companion. any questions? I said yes, can i know where i´m going? He said no.. After a few days of wondering where i would be going and saying goodbye to the ward that was sad and mad that i was going so soon, i got to the office with my stuff thursday morning. Four other missionaries had emergency transfers too, and president risso interviewed them one by one, and of course i was last. He called me into his office, and i had barely sat down when he said "Elder Hatch, i need you in the office." Elder Kirkland, who was assistant, finishes his mission in a month and president risso sent him to another area to finish his mission, and now i´m the new assistant to president risso. President Risso explained to me what he expects of me, etc. We talked for about 15 minutes and after it all he asked me "How do you feel?" I have never been so without words before. I said "humbled!" I hope i can do everything and be everything president Risso and the Lord need me for!

These last four days have been CRAZY! My companion is Elder Chuiz from Lima, he´s been assistant for a month now, and we get along great. We live on the fifth floor of an apartment building with the other four elders who work in the office. Our room is awesome! It has a terrace and we have a couch on our roof! In these days i´ve picked up a new missionary from the airport, done emergency transfers, received reports from all the zone leaders late friday and sunday night, elder chuiz told me saturday night that we  had talks assigned in sacrament meeting, so i prepared something quick and it turns out that president risso, his wife, and his daughter´s family who´s visiting from uruguay all came to our ward (they live in our ward, San Felipe, but almost never actually attend because pres risso visits other wards) so i was a little nervous for my talk, but it turned out amazing. 

We´re planning things to talk about in the upcoming multizone conferences in the mission, and this week we´re doing transfers, and opening up three new areas. We're going to be traveling three or four days this week to those areas to find houses, laundry, pension, etc and make sure everything´s set for the missionaries who will be there next week. 

i haven´t gotten in bed before 11:45 this whole week, i´m exhausted, but it´s so fun learning new things and being stretched even more in my new assignment!

a little bit about my schedule most days:

from 8-10 personal and companionship study

10-1 plan for conferences, etc. (whatever president risso tells us to do)

1-2 lunch 

2-4 continue planning

4-9.30 work in our area or other missionaries areas

10-11 reports or transferring missionaries

oh and i talked to president Risso about when i´m going to leave.. It´s up to me, but here´s the deal. either way i´m assistant until one transfer before i go home. He thinks it would be better for me to get back and study, but i´m not sure! If you could find out about me getting into byu etc that would help the decision. 

I love you, family! I hope you keep being amazing and that dad gets better! I´m so ridiculously busy, and loving life. In these next few months i´m going to get to go EVERYWHERE in the mission, work with lots of missionaries, and solve lots of problems. :) 

Elder Hatch  

pictures: the new office. elder chuiz is to my right

this is elder kirkland, the assistant i´m replacing, and me in the office.

7/9/2012

FAMILY!

It was a great week :) 

We had a baptism! And broke the 8 month streak of no baptisms in the Cabrera ward. Esther asked me to baptize her, and of course i did, so i got to use my new tie and socks mom and dad sent me, but i had lent my baptismal pants to the bishop of another ward in our stake for a baptism the same day, so i got stuck with some pants that were too small! But it all worked out. I have my camera here and i´m trying to send pictures, but i don´t think the port in the computer for the memory works.. I´ll send pictures next week... 

Next big piece of news (for mom) was that i finally got up the nerves to play the piano in sacrament meeting. I played all four songs and it went perfectly! I think the motivating factor was how terribly people sing here! They´ve never sung the songs with a piano before, so they all have their own beats they sing to, and the apostasy has even entered into the tunes, so with the piano i´m going to gradually bring them back into the light. 

This week Elder Santos and I were planning like crazy for our sweet trip we took today as a zone! We went to a place called Laquipampa. It´s a town with a population of about 200 in the middle of nowhere in the mountains! It´s the farthest away from chiclayo i´ve been in my whole mission! We rented a van and met at 6:30 in the morning to take the 2 hour trip on dirt roads to Laquipampa. We went on 2 hikes with a guide to some waterfalls that are pretty cool! It was fun, i got kind of car sick though! I´m not used to motion and altitude anymore! I´ll send pictures of that next week too! The highlight for me was seeing TONS of huge spiders up in the trees with their giant webs, and talking with everyone in the van. I love being a missionary :)   

Now i´m almost done with Genesis, i read the second half last night while i was waiting for the district leaders to report.. Everything i´ve always heard is making sense to me now. 

To answer mom´s question, in the mornings we have 2 hours of study time. From 8 to 9 is personal study, where we can read any of the standard works and preach my gospel and Jesus the Christ. Then we have companionship study where we can study scriptures or teaching, do practices, etc. My companion has some issues with waking up early, so by the time he gets all ready it´s usually time to leave and we haven´t gotten in a good companionship study in a while.. I´m trying to help him with my example, because he only has a month and half left in the mission.. But the result is that i get more personal study time.

Yes i wrote Zach White, i´m waiting for his response, and i´ll write David next week! Thanks for his address :) 

I´m glad to hear the stadium of fire was good! Yes i remember going to the stadium of fire as a kid and hiding under the stadium seats because i was scared of the fireworks! I love the beach boys too, and i remembered you guys were there on the 4th. A sister missionary, sister Case from American Fork in my zone, gave everyone in the zone a little American flag ribbon with a penny glued to it to pin on for the 4th, I felt patriotic. 

I love you and hope everything keeps going well! Get walking dad! 

Elder Hatch

7/2/2012

Family, 

This week was very busy doing things other than working in my own area, but somehow God found ways to bless us with success in the very little time we had. One of the people Jhon gave us as a referral has a baptismal date now. Her name is Tatiana, she´s 16, and her parents are very involved in their Evangelical church. i don´t know why, but she just doesn't want anything to do with their church. But when we teach her she listens so intently and every time we invite her to read something she does it, and understands well too! Yesterday we went to visit her and i asked how her reading went. (i had assigned her Mosiah 3 and the second half of the restoration pamphlet) she said "i read and prayed and i know that the book of Mormon is true" That is my favorite sentence in the world to hear! In moments like that i never know what to say, i just feel so happy for them and get excited to work with them. We taught her about baptism and she accepted a baptismal date for the 28th of July. She really wants to join the church now that she has a testimony, the only problem will be her parents.. I hope they give her permission! 

Our other progressing investigator is Esther. She went to church on Sunday, is also reading her scriptures and praying, and has a baptismal date this Saturday. Her mom has been on vacation for a week though and gets back Tuesday, so she´ll need to talk it over well with her mom so we can get a solid permission from her. 

Wednesday we had a special meeting with president Risso for all the wards in chiclayo that haven´t had baptisms lately. My ward is number one on the list.. There were about 40 missionaries there. We talked about problems and possible solutions in the wards we´re working in. 

Friday, my stake put on a future missionary MTC in the stake center. About 30 future missionaries went. President amd Hermana Risso spoke, i was president Risso´s scribe when he talked, and Elder Santos and I did an example of how to do a contact in the street and teach a principle of the Gospel. That was fun, but we had to leave early to help the sister missionaries with a reactivation activity in their ward!

In the afternoon one of our areas, Picsi, had a baptism in our chapel, the stake center, and president Risso went to that too! (we were there helping set up) Then i had to go work with Elder McAllister while elder Santos sat in their room with Elder McAllister´s companion, Elder Maldonado, because he got surgery on his ingrown toenail and couldn´t walk for two days. 

Saturday the sister missionaries had a baptism, but their font wouldn´t fill up, so we had to have their baptism in our chapel again, and president Risso went to that baptismal service too! Basically every day this week i was with president Risso... life´s different being a zone leader. And in the afternoon it was my turn to sit in the room with Elder Maldonado while our companions worked. I took advantage of the situation and read half of Genesis.. I´ve read all the other scriptures, but never the old testament in its entirety. We´ll see how this attempt goes. 

That was my crazy week. I hope this next week we can have a little more peace! 

I love this work and love the Lord. I hope you have a great week. I love you! 

Elder Hatch 

ps, answers to mom´s questions..

we live with Elder Chub from Guatemala, and Elder Yagual from Ecuador. They´re super funny and crazy. Our house is an apartment with two rooms and a kitchen and an entry room. it´s pretty nice with tile floors. We cook breakfast and dinner, and have a pensionista for lunch. 

David Cusick is in the mission Chile Viña del Mar.

Here it´s cold at night! Elder Santos liked sleeping with the window open, and we both ended up with colds. Mine´s mostly passed but last night i woke up at 2 am and couldn´t stop coughing for about an hour. that was stinky!  But i bought some cough drops and i´m good now :)

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!