7/25/2011

Elder Hatch has issued the following statistical report:
As of July 25th, 2011, he had served in two missions, the Perú Piura mission, and the Perú Chiclayo missions, respectively. He has been assigned to a total of one area, and two wards, Campódonico and José Balta. The number of people contacted and taught a mini lesson was 260, lessons with members, 99. Other lessons 177, with the total number of new investigators being 174. A total of 10 converts were baptized and confirmed.
(I modeled that after the statistical report they do every conference, and i actually added up all the numbers today, hope you enjoyed it :)
I can´t believe a fourth of my mission is already in the books. Lately the days seem more like hours, and the weeks like days. I guess it´s a blessing, because it would be miserable if the days dragged on, but i don´t want it to go by too fast!
The new glasses are great, and mom thanks so much for getting the shoe stuff all figured out! The work here in Campodónico is great. The stake mission leader is getting on the ball and working a lot with our ward mission leaders, because we have had absolutely no member support, and there are no ward missionaries in either ward. But we´re chuggin along. We have seven people with baptismal dates now, and five of them will probably actually do it. Two of them have to get married, and there are no massive marriages coming up, so it would be pretty rough for it to happen.
This morning we played water balloon volleyball with towels with our zone, and soccer too, it was really fun. i´ve gotten to be really good friends with the other gringos who have been here for a while with me, it will be tough to leave here in a month (i think i´ll be transferred in a month), and elder rigby is going home at the end of this transfer.
Not too much happened this week, just a solid week of work! we had liver and intestines again.. intestines for lunch today, yum. but i didn´t eat them, because i want to send the message that i don´t like them! it´s so gross.
I gave my talk on sunday on a talk by president monson in the fall 2009 conference called have i done any good. it went really well! We were nervous because the night before they told us elder Hooker, an area 70 was going to be there, but he didn´t end up coming. Oh, and saturday night was a ward party that they invited us to with a bunch of typical peruvian dishes and i tried all of them! they´re all good, but they have these super bitter purple olives that are hideous. Other than that it´s all great.

Last night we taught a little lesson to the Floreano family, the family with four people i´ve baptized. We watched a video about sharing the gospel, and after we talked about it. I was sharing my testimony about missionary work with them and all of a sudden i just felt really overwhelmingly happy for having shared the gospel with them, and that they are all members now. They are such a special family, and i got a little taste of what it would be like having joy with them in the presence of our Father, like it says in D and C 18.
Repentance is real, and the Savior is always there waiting for us to come back to Him. I love this Gospel and the change is makes in people´s lives.
Elder Hatch

I took a glamour shot of myself with my new glasses, i hope you enjoy it.
The second picture is of a plaza by the stake center in Latina. This week they´re celebrating peru´s independence day and there were tons of schools with marching bands, etc there.

7/18/2011

Mi querido familia, 

I´m doing super great! I´m starting to feel like Campodónico is my home now, i´ve been here for so long! And i know all the members by name pretty much, and they all call me elder hhhhhhhhach. 

This week has been a lot warmer, i don´t know what´s going on with the weather.. but no, i don´t have a blanket or a sweatshirt. i took one with me on the mission, but i left it in the mtc in provo with elder pritchett!  

As for the yucca, you eat the roots. They´re huge and super dry and basically like a potato. I´m used to it now though, it is normal to have chicken for breakfast, etc. luckily no intestines this week though. I´m so glad that i loved rice and chicken before the mission because that is seriously all you eat for lunch 100 percent of the time, and like 50 percent of the time for dinner! Elder insaurralde is struggling with it, but i love it! 

My shoes that are wearing out are the propet ones. They´re even worse now, the plastic inside is starting to chip off! 

The heber camp out sounds super fun! I loved the obstacle course stuff last year. And ben´s two years went by so fast, i still remember his farewell really well. And holy cow, i´ve almost been out six months, i still feel like a baby in the mission. 

This week our numbers were horrible, it was sad but we worked and did everything we could, it was just one of those weeks. For example, on saturday we had six appointments throughout the day and all six of them fell through. Two of our people with baptismal dates coming up didn´t go to church this week, so they can´t get baptized until they go twice, so the earliest we can have baptisms now is in three weeks. But, we had two baptisms yesterday! Pierinna and Kathia, Elio´s daughter and granddaughter. And the coolest part was that Elio baptized them! he´s a priest already and it was so cool to have one of my baptisms baptizing! so now their whole family are members and it´s so satisfying to see them so happy, and finally be united as a family. 

Elder insaurralde talked about faith and repentance in the baptism and i talked about baptism, per request of the ward mission leader. Also, next week in the Campodónico ward i got assigned a ten minute talk and i can choose the subject.. still no idea what i´m going to talk about. Before i only had to give five minute talks in english, now ten in spanish.. haha but it´s ok, i love the challenge! 

This week we attached the shower head heater thing, and after i used it it tripped the breaker and burned something, so we didn´t have light or electricity for two days in our room! that was fun.. But an electrician came and put in a new key (that´s what it´s called in spanish, i´m not sure what it´s called in english, maybe a breaker?) that can withstand more electricity, so now we have hot showers! yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! It seriously makes waking up in the mornings so much easier knowing i´m not going to freeze to death. Also, i´ve started working out in the mornings and this week we´re going to start running every other day, we´ll see how that goes because we´ll have to wake up earlier, a serious sacrifice. On friday we did divisions and i went with elder Burton, our district leader, in his area, Lopez Albujar. He had to do a baptismal interview so i played the piano in the stake center for a while and i realized how much i miss playing the piano. And it´s always really fun when we do divisions and i get to go to their apartment because they´re with the zone leaders, and we have a lot of fun with four of us there. The zone leaders gave me the package from mom early and i opened it and we ate all the sour patch kids (i´m saving the swedish fish for a rainy day) Elder Burton is really into snowboarding, so we ended up talking a ton about skiing and snowboarding, in english, and i felt really weird talking in english so much. 

Last night after the baptism we taught a lesson to Agripina, an investigator i´ve had the whole time here, and her daughter who´s about 30, Evelyn. Evelyn asked in what year the church was founded, which is like the best question an investigator could ever ask me, and we taught what may be the best restoration lesson i´ve taught yet. The spirit was really strong, and we used like 15 scriptures from the bible to back up all our teaching, and they were both really into it. I felt like the whole time we were just all feeding off of the spirit and all on the same page. I absolutely LOVE when the investigators have real interest and desire to know if what we´re teaching is true. We´ll see how their reading and prayer go before tuesday when we visit them again! 

The pictures are of the baptism, sorry i can´t tell you the  people in order because i can´t see them right now! but just love them, and then my desk on a typical day. chuck full of stuff to study!

7/11/2011

This last week has been super busy and just awesome! Elder Insaurralde and I are finally getting into a groove. We still absolutely stink at teaching, sometimes it hurts to listen to myself haha, but we´re having real success! It´s been real proof that when you work your very hardest, keep all the rules, and pray like crazy, that the Lord fills in all the blank spots. The big news of this week is that this sunday we are going to have two baptisms! Pierinna and Kathia, the granddaughter and daughter, respectively, of Elio, are going to get baptized. And even cooler, Elio is going to baptize them! We have seven investigators with baptismal dates right now, and this week all our numbers of the key indicators (lessons taught, etc) were really good, our district leader even congratulated me haha. It felt awesome to finally find some good investigators and start teaching a lot.

Right now the weather here is so weird! Some days it´s hot as usual during the day, and other days it´s cloudy and foggy all day, like today. But now at night it´s always cold and I even bought a sweater that i almost always wear. I use my towell as a blanket sometimes and i´m actually wearing my thermal garments at night (which i was sure i would never use!)

Today were changes, kind of mini ones, because not many people got moved, and as i thought, I´m staying here in Campodonico with elder Insaurralde for six more weeks at least. I feel like i´ve been here forever! I was kind of sad though because elder Zepeda from guatemala who´s been in my district the whole time, one of my good buddies, is going to Jaen. But that´s how the mission goes!

This week has been a treasure with the new pension. In the old pension it was basically like eating in the US. Now it´s like eating in peru... For breakfast this week i´ve had cow intestines, liver, a whole fried fish, and yucca always. (ps, i ate all of them. i left a little bit of the intestines uneaten to show her i didn´t like them..) and i also ate cui again. I honestly think that as a mission blessing my gag reflex has been turned off, because i can down anything now. I have seriously done a complete 180 with my eating habits.

My interview with president risso was so awesome! He was super surprised to find out that my companion and i only had three transfers combined, but said that that´s how leaders are born. He gave me a lot of awesome advice, and i left just wanting to go baptize everyone. That´s how you know you´ve got a good misison president.

Oh i totally almost forgot the most exciting thing of the week! Mom stop reading... Last tuesday we got robbed! i´ll tell the story in detail.

We had just gotten done teaching a new family a lesson and were walking through the streets, and a big crowd of guys was sitting around after playing soccer as usual. We walked by and they yelled at us so we waved and kept walking, then we were right in front of our bishop´s house in an open dirt field area just walking along when... I hear someone run up behind me so i got a little scared, but a guy came up between elder Insaurralde and i and said hey elders, so i stuck out my hand to shake his hand and right then a guy from behind put me in a headlock and then the handshake guy puts my hands behind my back. I started to struggle and was seriously about to fight but elder Insaurralde started yelling NO NO NO and so i stopped. Later i found out he was yelling no because they were robbing him too and said they had a gun..
then a third guy started going through my pockets, took my coin purse, and they all ran off. But my coin purse had the keys to the room attached to it so i yelled my keys! so he dumped all the money out and tossed it up in the air and bailed. But like five guys just stood there watching it all happen. I was wearing my watch( I almost always have it in my pocket) and my north face backpack, but they didn´t take anything but my money (like two bucks). We were pretty shaken up, but completely fine. I hope they enjoyed the drugs i´m sure they bought with the Lord´s money.

Spanish is coming great! I study every once in a while, but elder Insaurralde and i talk a lot and he´s really good about correcting me, so i´m learning a lot.

Things are going great, and i´m loving every minute of my time here. Now i feel like my days are numbered in Campodonico, so we need to baptize everyone! I´m so excited for our baptisms this week! It´s really all i think about. :)

I know that the Lord loves us, and can say without a doubt that he knows me and has heard my prayers. I am coming to know Him on a very personal level as I constantly try to do His will. I know that obedience brings blessings.  Hope you all have a great week!

·Elder Hatch

7/4/2011

New address for packages! for letters, just don´t use the name above mine

Yonatan Monzon Puma

(Elder Justin Cox)

Yonatan Monzon Puma

(Elder Jacob Hatch)

Misión Perú Chiclayo

Manuel María Izaga #690 piso3

Chiclayo-Lambayeque

Perú

Hey Everybody!

First off, did dad get the little gift i sent him for his birthday? I totally remembered his birthday and i hope you get the letter and gift.

Well, this week i had a huge shift of my point of view. From the start of this transfer i honestly wanted to be changed. I love Campodonico, but i wanted to get to know a new area, see new faces, etc. So i was a little bummed that i would be staying here, and i was scared out of my mind at the prospect of being co-companion. By the way, my companion had two months exactly when we became companions, and together we have three transfers in the mission, officially the youngest companionship in the mission. Anyway, naturally i was really nervous. And the first few weeks were TOUGH. Every night went by way too fast and i felt like i was just treading water, scrapping through every lesson, and definitely had "second companion syndrome" as casey told me. I didn´t even know it either! I absolutely worshipped how elder orcohuaranga taught, his style, and i was just used to it. When elder insaurralde and i started teaching together it was a struggle, and still is, but not as bad. Obviously because we´re super new, i´m learning spanish, etc. But i´m learning to like a lot of the things my new companion does and i´m finding my own style as well. More than anything these weeks of hardships have made me so grateful for the Lord. I have been humbled in so many ways and been brought to my knees time and time again. My prayers are much more sincere, I´ve begin to recognize His hand in the work so much more, and elder Insaurralde and i are already a lot closer than orco and i were. Looking back, these two weeks have been awesome. We still have tons of work to do with our lessons though. Elder Insaurralde is kind of timid, he doesna´t like talking with people in the streets, knocking doors, etc. And those are things that don´t bother me at all, but i´m not that good at them because orco always contacted people before, so we´re learning more and more every day. Everyone (seriously everyone) we´ve found knocking doors is "conviviente" or living together with someone they´re not married to. It´s really frustrating, because to get married they need what i think is a birth certificate that´s always in the city they´re born in, and they can almost never get them in time for the massive weddings here. We´ve got one couple that looks like it might happen, but her partido de nacimiento is in Lima, so it´ll be tough to get.

Friday officially began the mission Perú Chiclayo! And saturday morning we had a meeting with three zones and president and sister Risso. They are such amazing people, i feel honored just to know them! for the sake of time i won´t explain much about them, but what casey told me is all correct. He told us about hosw he was called as mission president: first of all he got an email from elder holland´s secretary saying elder holland wanted to have a video conference with him. He said that´s when he knew his life was going to change haha. In the video conference elder holland was in his house with his wife walking around in the background and she said hi, etc. Then elder holland whispered "don´t tell anyone, but you´re going to be called to a mission presidency" and he and his wife freaked out. Later pres Uchtdorf had a video conference with him and said it was really comfortable and then all of a sudden he got really serious and said something like "on behalf of the first presidency and the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, i call you as a mission president" it sounded SO COOL! It was great to meet them. This thursday we have interviews with him, and i´m excited for all that stuff.

Last night we went to visit the Floreano Family, an amazing family who we baptized the father and one daughter. Still the daughter Katia isn´t a member, she´s 17 and never even listened to elder orco and i. She came to church last week though and we taught her earlier this week but she barely even listened. Last night we watched the 20 minute joseph smith movie and after i started asking her questions, the spirit was strong, but she didn´t seem very interested. Then i just felt really strongly to challenge her to be baptized, so i did and she said yes! She has a date for the 17th of July and i´m so excited to work with her and i really think she´ll do it! Her family is the best support i can think of. it´s perfect, and then we just need to baptize her niece, pierinna.

Another cool experience was that we went to visit a member family and when we were knocking on the door two ladies came up to us and called us elder (almost never happens) and long story short they were searching for the bishop´s house to give their father, who is in the hospital, a blessing. They found us and i know we were guided to be there and they were guided to us, it was so cool. We went with them to the hospital which is in our area, and gave their father a blessing. He had a stroke a few days ago and was breathing really shallow, and looked really close to dying. (i know from my experiences in oncology in the hospital) and they just wanted us to give him a blessing of comfort. Elder Insaurralde gave him an amazing blessing and the family felt really good afterwards. Awesome mission experiences.

Mom and dad i´m so so jealous of your trip, it sounded unreal! and casey thanks so much for your letter, i loved it. Have a great week everyone!

Ooh almost forgot, Birthday shoutouts to Maddie Crawley and DAD of course! we changed pensions this week because our old one, hna frida, was too stressed out with work and her kids. So now we´re with hna socorro and her house is like two blocks from our house which is a lot nicer. But i´m still not used to the foods she makes us.. So far, two of three breakfasts have been tuna with potatoes. the first time it was 50% tuna, 50% onions. I downed it all. Oh, and the old pensionista said i´m the first gringo she´s ever had who eats everything she makes! I´ve completely grown up in the eating sense. And i want to say sorry to mom as sincerely as possible for being the worst ungrateful stinky eater ever. I love you mom

Elder Hatch

6/27/2011

This week has been super different from the whole rest of my mission! I feel a lot more like a missionary now haha, i can´t explain it. But before with elder Orcohuaranga it was almost too easy to baptize and stuff. He was such a great missionary. But now everything is tough, Elder Insaurralde and I have to struggle for every lesson, and the best way to describe it is just work. Tuesday morning we went to the bus station which is always super crazy on transfer days because there are TONS of missionaries there and it´s really fun to see everyone. There are already a lot of familiar faces. Anyways, i went there with the zone leaders and picked him up, and we grabbed a cab back to our area with just us two, and it was in the cab when it really hit me that i would be directing the area, and that he knew absolutely nothing about campodonico! Not gonna lie, it was (and still is) a super rough transition from extremely junior companion to basically senior. Elder Orcohuaranga taught me well though and I´m to trying to teach Elder Insaurralde all I can. He´s a really cool guy, a little timid, which i´m helping him with, but he´s a great companion. He is from the very corner of paraguay like five minutes away from brazil. He speaks spanish (duh) english, portugese, and guaraní (if you spell it like that), which is awesome and i want to learn them all from him! As is imaginable, we didn´t have many appointments set for this week because orco was finishing off his mission, so we basically started from square one again. I feel like it´s even rougher than being in a completely new area though because i already know basically all the members and we already baptized all the easy part member families! so this week we knocked a lot of doors, and had very very little success with that. So we´re going to change it up this week. We got a few references, and i want to start visiting the old investigators again. But it´s been tough to find new investigators. This morning all the missionaries went to the institute of religion here to say bye to president and sister chipman. It was so weird to think he´s not going to be my mission president anymore! The mission Chiclayo officially starts on the first of july, and on the second we´re going to meet president Risso, from Uruguay! But it was really fun this morning to talk to some other missionaries. I talked to elder Seitz from vernal ut, and he gave me a bunch of sports updates! I heard Jimmer went to Sacramento! but he got drafted to another team originally... I´ve been completely lost as to the sports world. I actually forgot about sports. Not kidding.
Last night we taught a lesson to a 50ish year old man named Wilfredo Sanchez. He´s super into politics and thinks peru is the worst country in the world and basically worships america and germany. He was talking about how all the people are so wicked and spend all their money on alcohol, and we tied it in with how the world is going to get worse and worse until Christ comes again. I basically got on my soapbox and preached to him. It was awesome, because usually lessons are to people who just sit and listen to you, barely answer your questions, etc. But last night there was a dance party next door to where we were so we were already basically yelling and it just made everything more exciting. The spirit was definiately present and as i was telling him that the answer to all of his questions can be found in the book of mormon and that all he had to do was read and pray, i felt really grateful for having had it in my life always. I´ve taken it so for granted that we just have the book of mormon and know the church is true, but other people are so lost! I hope he follows through with his commitment to read. This week will be another hard one, but i´m ready to get to work! Pray for me!
Love you all,
Elder Hatch
ps the picture is of elder insaurralde and i with pres and sister chipman

6/20/2011

This week has been a week unlike any other of my mission so far. Elder Orcohuaranga was finishing up his mission and did so very well. We had pretty good numbers, even though for the last few days we were mainly saying bye to his converts, etc. It was really cool to see how much the people remember the missionaries who brought them the Gospel. One family orco baptized just went to the temple a few months ago, and it was so so awesome to see how happy they were! I can't wait to have people i've baptized go through the temple. So, this morning we woke up at 3:30 AM so we could make it to the bus agency before 5 when orco's bus left to piura. He'll spend the day there today then tonight he'll be home before 10. We exchanged ties and stuff, it was a cool last day together and he was an awesome trainer. I'll definitely miss him and wish i could still ask him for advice during this next transfer.
 
So, today i'm with the zone leaders waiting out the change that will happen tomorrow. We found out this morning at like 11 all the transfer info. dun dun dun... I'm staying in my same area of Campodónico, and my new companion is elder Insurralde (i think) from Paruguay! but my companion only has one transfer in the mission, and we´re a co-companionship. But since it's my area and i have more time than him, etc. my zone leaders told me it's basically like i'm senior companion. I was absolutely scared when i found out. I was just sitting there meditating on what in the world i was going to do and what i did to deserve such a radical change for like an hour. Then i went to pray and read the book of mormon for about ten seconds before i found the answer to all my doubts and it put to rest all my nerves. I read in 1 Nephi chapter 9, and the last two verses of the chapter gave me such amazing peace, i can't explain it. I know so strongly that the Book of Mormon is true. Every time i read it it gives me in some way exactly what i need. My testimony has also been strengthened exponentially by seeing other people recieve their personal testimony of it. It amazes me how much people are willing to change when they feel the spirit whispering to them that it's true. This next transfer is 9 weeks, because there's an extra three weeks for the new mission president to get settled in kind of, so my new companion and i will have a little extra time to see what the Lord can do through us with so little experience. President Chipman even wrote me an email and told me that missionaries with so little experience are almost never put together like this, but told me  to trust in the Lord and that we would see His hand in the work. I'm really excited to see what will come out of these next few months. I have faith that we'll be able to have some baptisms, but i feel like there are going to be some serious challenges too. I'm so excited!
Thanks so much for all the prayers and support, I can feel the extra help i'm receiving. Please keep it coming in these next few weeks, as i'm sure they'll be a tough transition!
 
Mom and Dad, i'm sure you're having a blast in Europe, and I can't wait to see photos and hear all about it!
Love you,
Elder Hatch
 
The first photo is of elder orco and i with Yaruska on the right, who we baptized a few weeks ago, and her little sister Katia on the left. She's the last member of her family who still isn't baptized, we'll try to fix that! :)
The other photo is taken from the window of our zone leaders' apartment, but it's basically what all the streets in my area look like too. All of chiclayo is identical!

6/13/2011

I still don´t think i´m going to be able to send pictures, the computers here are so ghetto! the internet goes like a mile per hour.. Yeah sorry about last week, we didn´t end up having time to come back and i was super frustrated. But the quartet went really well! the musical fireside was awesome and the spirit was super strong. We have another one this friday night too, and we´ve invited a bunch of people so it should be great. About the glasses package, i wrote you about a month ago or so with the new missionary`´s name. it´s not cox, i´ll see if i can find it if i have time. but sending them now is risky anyway, wait until you come back from the trip because right now i´m not sure what mission i´ll even be in. We have transfers this upcoming week, and i´m really excited for a change. As much as i love my area and elder orcohuaranga, I can´t wait to have a new companion, and maybe new area and mission. But i think i´ll stay in campodonico one transfer more.. So to answer dad´s question, i´ll find out which mission im in next monday! Elder orcohuaranga leaves this sunday and i´ll live with the zone leaders for a day. Haha elder orco is super ready to go home.. and he´s getting worse and worse with the rules each day. he´ll make it alright though. I can´t remember if i said thanks for the package with the calendar and ensign, but if i did thanks again! the calendar is so funny and mom that was so so nice of you to go through and write all the days, etc. I love you!

Some stuff that´s gone on since i wrote last.. it´s been forever! We baptized Elio on the 7th of June, his birthday. He´s the same age as dad, and it was really cool. We also baptized his daughter, Yeruska, who is 19 and wants to go on a mission really bad when she turns 21. I baptized them both and hope i´ll be able to send a picture someday! Yesterday we baptized Luz, the most golden investigator of all time. It was a really spiritual service, and they are going to be such a great family in the church! So now if we´re counting i have had the priviledge of participating in 8 baptisms already! It´s been a great time here in Campodonico.

This last week I started having a handwriting crisis. First i changed to cursive, then to super neat normal handwriting, which i think i´ll stick to. It looks kind of girly, i still need to work some kinks out.. haha.

This last week we were walking in the street and i heard something come crashing down on the street so i turned around and a little old man had been pulling a bike-cart filled with bags of cement and it tipped over on his leg and he was yelling for help, so orco and i ran and helped him and everything. I felt kind of like a superhero, but a lot more of christ´s love and it felt so good to be able to help him. Then i realized that´s all i do now is help people with their salvation, what amazing work! I really want to send pictures, and i´ll try some more after i finish this letter, but i probably won´t be able to, i´m sorry!

Mom and dad everything sounds so fun in the summer there! And have an awesome time on your trip and be careful with your money. Maybe you´ll see austin saguibo in paris! He´s like an hour away from there though. And casey thanks for the letter, it´s awesome to hear from you and to get the sports update, even if the heat and mavericks, my two least favorite teams are in the finals...

I know the work i´m doing is God´s work. I feel it every day as i´m sharing the gospel with people. I want to be so much better, and just want to be able to convert everyone! it makes me so sad when people just don´t have the desires to listen or change. If they only knew how important this was for them and how much better their lives could be! I´m eternally grateful for having been born into the gospel, because who knows if i would have found it otherwise. What a blessing it has been in my life and of our family. I thank Heavenly Father all the time for my amazing family and pray for you all too! Have a great week

Elder Hatch

My zone by a river going to Sipan

Anderson and Fernando´s baptisms. Anderson is the short young man, Jesus baptized him (the other young man who´s taller whose pants don’t fit) the patriarch baptized Fernando, he´s the oldish man.

The Sipan Museum