10/31/11

Fam!

This week was pretty normal... I´m pondering over what i should write. Haha i´ll start out with the best news, everything went great with Jackeline´s baptism! Well, except that my camera battery was dead and so there are only pictures on elder Hurst´s camera. We´ll see if i can send them. Her whole family was there, and a bunch of people from the ward were there too. It was super spiritual and i got to baptize her because her dad´s arm hurt so he didn´t want to do it. Everyone was really excited to have a baptism in the ward because this year they have only had a total of three or four others, and they´re mostly inactive now. And they were all happy that it was Jackeline because the Vasquez family is slowly but surely getting to be a family of all members! They´ll be a fantastic family. 

Elder Hurst and I are having a great time together. We don´t speak much english at all, because he´s really good at spanish, every once in a while we throw in an english word.. It´s nice to have a code language to talk in sometimes to, so other people can´t understand us. This week we have started playing chess too. He´s really good, and i´m super duper rusty, but we have fun! We just got done playing a game for like 45 minutes and i was totally dominating, then i threw it all away and almost lost, but pulled off a draw at the last minute. 

This weekend is the weekend of Señor de los Milagros= lord of the miracles. It´s a saint they have here, well an image, of christ being crucified. they have parades, the streets are all decorated, and it´s crazy! They have painted the actual street/ dirt in a lot of places too and it says bless us señor de los milagros.. interesting. It´s reminded us a lot of the story in the old testament of elijah and the priests of Baal when they have the challenge to see who can get the offering to burn. It´s so funny! When i read it i busted up laughing. It´s in Kings chapter 18. There´s a verse where Elijah starts taunting the profets of Baal and it´s great. 

Monica didn´t go to church yesterday because she had to help her sister sell roasted pork in the streets, so she can´t get baptized this saturday anymore, because to get baptized they have to go to church at least two times. So, in these few days we´re going to set another date with her for the next week. In church a member brought a lady that lives down the street from her and she seems really interested, she´s already attended church two times, so we´re excited about visiting her! 

I realized Elder Hurst had seen the new harry potter and about cried. That's the one thing i really wish i could see! 

I didn´t voice record anything this week because i couldn't´t think of what to say! What to you want to hear? ask me anything and i´ll talk about it the next time. 

So, as district leader i do the baptismal interviews of the other missionaries in my district. This week i did three. The assistants to the president are in my district, and they had two, and in Los Incas another baptism of one of my investigators! So this week was full of a lot of interviewing and a baptism, and our numbers weren't´t great, but we had a baptism which is all that matters, so i´m content. 

I´m reading the war chapters in the book of mormon. I just finished alma today, and i had a fun time comparing Moroni and Amalickiah. Moroni was awesome, but my favorite is Teancum because he just likes to blow into the lamanite leaders´ tents and javelin them in the heart! haha i´ll be reading the scriptures at night, etc. and just start laughing because the stories are so great of all the killing and stuff. The other three missionaries don´t think they´re nearly as funny as i do, but elder hurst understands my sense of humor. 

Sorry this email is kind of all over the place, i wrote it stream of conscience style! Love you and i´ll fast for dad this week! 

Elder Hatch

Pictures:

And a funny pic of the zone last p-day

Daniel- the 10 year old kid who lives in our house, was carrying his electric piano through the kitchen and broke all the cups, so we´ve been using plastic cups that have a beer brand, cristal, written on them. So, needless to say, a lot of beer jokes have been going on this week. 

10/24/2011

Hi fam.
This week has been AWESOME! And pretty much every week for that matter. I just love the mission. I´ve been forgetful in my emails lately, and totally forgot to thank you for the voice recorder and everything! I´m sending a few voice files i recorded, i hope it works. If you like it, i could just talk about my week and send it, and save a whole bunch of time writing emails!
Ok, about this week. Wednesday morning at 8 all the new trainers had to be in the office to receive the new missionaries! We had a few hours of talking with president Risso and the assistants, then it was the super intense moment of getting my new companion assigned to me! He is Elder Hurst from Dallas, Texas. He went to byu the same time as me, but lived in wyview. He makes me look small, which is great too. His spanish is really good, with a little practice he´ll be an awesome missionary in no time! As long as i don´t mess him up too bad...
We´re living with four missionaries now, it´s super fun! Elder Morales´ new companion is from Argentina, and lived in the same mission that Reuben Christianson is serving in, and served as a mini missionary, and was in the same room as Reuben! He showed me pictures and it was cool!
Barrio means ward, sorry :) sometimes i mix up english and spanish. Los Amautas is the other half of what my area was before. We were in two wards, and now elder morales and his comp have Los Incas and we have Los Amautas. Elder Gonzales, Elder Morales´ companion has been in the field for 8 weeks, but mine is fresh as can be. Hna Graciela, aka sister graciela, is my pensionista! She added me as a friend on facebook too! you should add her mom. you can be friends with my mom away from home! haha
I don´t have a coat, but it´s turning back into summer. I got super sunburned today playing soccer! But even in the winter a sweater is fine.
Hilight of this week- we taught Jackeline Vasquez for the first time with Elder Hurst, and the time before elder Morales and I had assigned her Moroni 10 to read. She has been an investigator for like three years. The sister missionaries even used to live in their house (her family is mostly members), but she just didn´t want to change. She lived in ecuador for a while, where she lived a partying lifestyle, but about a month ago moved back here with her kids and family. She knew she wanted to be baptized, but wouldn´t accept a baptismal date. We didn´t really know what to do with her other than pray. So, elder Hurst´s first day meeting her, we started to analyze moroni 10 a bit, and she had marked it all up with highlighter like she loved it. And said exactly what dad sent me in his letter this week. Elders, I have been meditating and prayed, and i want to get baptized. I freaked out for a while, then asked her when. she shrugged, so i suggested saturday the 29th, but she wanted to do it sooner! Tuesday! So she had her interview with the zone leaders (elder price) last night and she´s getting baptized tomorrow!
It´s so fun to be training and trying to help build the confidence of my companion. Now i know how elder Orcohuaranga felt with me! a newbie gringo!
Love you!
Elder Hatch

Elder Hurst and I in the mission office! 

Waiting for a van to take us to Monsefú on the panamerican highway! 

Trying not to get eaten by a giant baby in the photo printing shop..

The elders in our zone.. There are 6 sisters too, but they were taking all the pictures of us!

10/17/2011

First of all, thanks so much everyone in the family for your amazing emails! Whenever i read your emails i just have to try to not cry.. sometimes i succeed.. Love you guys.
This week has been so amazing. There are so many experiences to tell about, i´ll be brief and try to tell a bit about them all.
i´ll answer mom´s questions. the email is stinky and i cant open two pages at once, so i have to choose one email to reply to and answer all the questions from that email because i can´t remember the ones that other people ask me.. so sorry.
First of all, tuesday we did working visits with the zone leaders. I went to Las Americas (their area) with elder Nicaragua from nicaragua. he taught me a lot of good stuff, and tuesday night we had Cesar´s baptism. Elder Morales and i went to fill up the font and there was absolutely no water in the chapel. And all the toilets were full of "stuff", so we could tell that there hadn´t been water for a while. My mind started racing and i was thinking, do we go to another chapel? or reschedule? i was super bummed, but we decided to go into the utility closet and see if we could go into the attic to see if we could open a valve or something. There wasn´t even any water in the big water tanks in the attic. So, elder Morales was up there and i was standing at the bottom of the latter.. I started praying, and asked that Heavenly Father would help guide us to know what to do. Mid prayer, i heard rushing water... i stopped praying, and yelled to elder morales asking if he had done something.. he said no, and asked what i did. I just said that i prayed. I felt the spirit so strong as i realized that the Lord had just taken over because he knew we couldn´t figure it out. The font filled up perfectly in time for the baptism, and Cesar´s baptism was awesome. A future missionary, Ivan, baptized him.
Long story short, Yeiner and Jorge´s baptisms fell through. Yeiner wasn´t completing his commitments to read the BOM, etc. So i decided to postpone it a week. and Jorge goes to Piura every weekend with his dad apparently, so that´s not going to work out.
Cesar was an investigator from a while ago. He hadn´t been baptized because his dad wouldn´t give him permission. we contacted his dad once, he gave permission, so we baptized him. easy. We contacted Yeiner and his family because cesar invited Yeiner to church, and he showed up alone so we made an appointment with him and visited him.
We had interviews with president Risso, and he basically told me i would be training this next week, but in a very inderect way. Last night the zone leaders told me that yes, i´m training. My new companion will be here on wednesday. He´s one of 3 americans that´s coming into the mission mid transfer because of visa problems! But it´ll be so fun! Elder Morales will be in Los Incas with a missionary who only has one transfer in the mission, and i´ll be re-opening the barrio Los Amautas.
We spent the whole week changing our room with the family where we live. Now we´re in the room they were living in, which is a bit bigger so 4 missionaries can fit. We painted, put in carpet, moved everything, etc. So we only proselyted half time this week.
My birthday was great! Hna Graciela made the cake mom sent me, and it was so so so so good! Everyone loved it. And i didn´t get any eggs cracked on my head, which was a nice surprise.
As district leader, i´m in charge of four companionships now i think. Yes, district meeeting is every week, and i taught the first lesson on the Doctrine of Christ. Now i´m delegating the teaching responsibility to the other elder in my district. The zone leaders put me in charge of teaching spanish to the gringos. I taught english to the latino elders last week, that was fun. And yes, i can express myself pretty normally in spanish! I want to be a lot better, but i can get by fine! To the point that i´m not scared to speak with no planning. I´ve been so grateful that i studied a bit of spanish before the mish! It´s been so helpful.
Who is byu´s new quarterback now?
Take care, have an amazing week, and thanks so much everyone for the emails. They make my P-day and week so much better!
Elder Hatch
PS, sorry no photos, the computer is stinky, but i have a bunch of awesome ones! I´ll try to send a lot next week, and pics of my new companion!!!

10/10/2011

What? I´m going to be 20?! haha that´s so weird.. I seriously feel like i jumped from 16 to 20 wayyyy too fast. But yes i got the package from mom and dad today! Thanks so much! I still haven´t opened the cards in it or anything, i just saw that there´s a bunch of candy because they open it before you can take it home.. Oh, and on packages now you only have to put my name and the address, not the other missionary´s name. And I can´t believe you remembered that i love red velvet cake! I didn´t even remember that!!!! But i´m so excited, and for the cookies too. Goodness, mom you´re the best. My birthday should be really fun, a member told me she´s going to give me some evangelical music that i actually really like, and i´m sure i´ll get a few eggs smashed over my head (that´s the peruvian tradition) and i wanted to baptize someone on my birthday, but i felt like that was a little too self-righteous, so we´re not going to. But we are baptizing Cesar, a 16 year old, tomorrow! And on saturday we are baptizing Yeiner and his little brother Jorge. I hope everything works out! We wanted to baptize Yeiner´s mom too, but we found out she´s living together with a guy who only shows up to their house at night... so we have a little more work to do there.
All the news about the stake is awesome! lots of changes in the ward and stake lately! I´ll have my homecoming interviews with my old bishop and someone i don´t even know.. And david cusick told me that Ben Teng is gonig to Taiwan on his mission! The same mission as taylor larson. I´m so jealous i might explode. It would be so awesome to have a friend from home in the mission. A guy from my byu ward who was in my quorum is in the Piura mission now.. bummer haha.
Oh, and our zone leaders told elder Morales that we´re going to be split up in two weeks.. There is going to be a mini transfer and a few more missionaries are coming in to the mission. It´s almost for sure that i´m going to be training, and maybe elder morales too, and they´re going to open up Los Amautas, so we´ll both get half of the area we have now. Exciting! I´m just trying to get used to being district leader now. Teaching the class in district meeting is fun, and i like motivating the mishies too.
Sunday in church we went to pick up investigators, and so we got there like five minutes late.. And when they were announcing the talks in church they announced the missionaries. For a second i was like oh, it was a mistake, then i realized that it wasn´t because the bishop just looked at me with no expression haha. So, luckily they announced elder morales first and he went up and talked with no preparation. I had like five minutes to gather my thoughts, and talked for 10  minutes! Proof that prayer works, and the progress i´ve made on my mission! It´s super exciting that we´re starting to have some success here and i´m loving every second of the mish! Thanks so much family for the birthday wishes! I love you! and hope you´re all loving life and the gospel, because it´s so amazing! Elder Uchtdorf said the gospel is life, so true! Oh, and something that i really liked from general conference. When president monson said to a member of the 70, why are you looking down? it´s better to look up. (rough translation into english) I´ve really learned to be positive and just laugh when it´s rough. I´m working hard but i´m going to work even harder this week, i need to get ready to be a trainer! :/
Elder Hatch

10/3/2011

 

PROVO TEMPLE NUMBER 2!!!!!! haha i sent that alone but didn´t mean to. Here goes attempt number two. That was so awesome! When president monson announced that i didn´t even listen to where the rest of the temples were because i was freaking out!  I started crying too :) I was looking around for someone to rejoice with, but the only other gringo there was elder Price, from down south in Utah, so he wasn´t too excited. But that´s so awesome! I think i want to get married there too maybe. But will it be done in 16 months? haha jk. 

Conference was awesome and I loved all the missionary talks. especially in priesthood. The 10 hours of conference passed way too fast, and i wrote down a lot of stuff i wanted to tell you about that i liked, but left my journal in the room and now i don´t remember haha. But elder Holland´s talk in priesthood was unreal! We´re in the same stake as president risso, and he gave us a ride home from priesthood. It was fun to talk to him for a while. Oh, and President monson talked about peter mourik, who gave me my patriarchal blessing! That was super cool. I felt the spirit talking to me many times during the conference. And it was strongest of all listening to the choir! i love music.   But the talks about peru were great. We found a new, awesome family this week, and they´ll probably get baptized in a week or two. a mom and her two sons- 18 and 13 years old.  They went to the first conference with us, and the mom´s grandpa- an 80 year old man, drove us in the back of his pick up truck, it was definitely not safe but super fun and reminded me of when i was a kid riding in the back of trucks. Yes we watch conference live! The stake center is like 10 minutes from our house in the super rich part of town. 

In los amautas a teenager plays the piano, but nobody plays in los incas. I would offer, but we always get there late because we have to go look for investigators to bring them to church with us. 

Big news, today is transfers! But as we thought, elder Morales and I are staying here together. They told us the new missionaries for Los Amautas will be coming mid-transfer, the 25th of october. and more news, I´m district leader now! I´m excited and nervous, but i kind of new it was going to happen, because i was invited to the mission leadership conference last week.. and i wasn´t a leader.. so i put two and two together. I have four companionships in my district. The zone leaders, a sister missionary companionship, us, and elder Bohman and his comp. So i´ll get to interview their baptisms, teach the district meetings, do all the reporting stuff, etc. A lot of new stuff! Any advice from the RM´s in the family? i´d appreciate it. 

I love this work. I´m so grateful for our family, and for what the Gospel has made it. All i want to do is give to the other families what our family has. I know President Monson is the Prophet of God, and that the Book of Mormon is the proof that the Church has been restored. 

Pray and read the scriptures every day! 

Oh, i want to know the favorite scriptures of the family, and stories from obedience to commandments! 

Elder Hatch  

Pictures:

1. This avocado was HUGE! and i love avocado now by the way. 

2. Before....

3. After. Yeah, we killed a rooster. They live above us on the roof of our house. I was going to do the killing but i didn´t cut hard enough on my first attempt and kind of shaved the rooster´s beard, so hna Ursula grabbed the knife from me and killed it! haha it was super funny, we have it on film. And i got blood on my shirt, but it was totally worth it. 

9/26/11

Answering questions:Yes my hands are all better, they healed up really quick! Extra missionary healing speed! But the day after that i got sick again! it was miserable, the worst of them all, but i worked through it and woke up the next day feeling fine.
La victoria is the city i´m in now.. It´s like an offshoot of chiclayo. And they definitely don´t have the orange road barrells. Their construction here is a bunch of guys with shovels and wheelbarrows, and some kids too, and they put wooden planks across the gaps in the road so you can cross over them.
Brad is a bishop now?! That´s so awesome! Congrats Brad! You´ll be an amazing bishop.
To get to the Trujillo temple from here it will take about three hours.
I had no idea that president Whetten died!? That´s so sad! He was a great president, and i have some cool memories with him. What a great way to go out though, right after being mission president.
I don´t know Jake Lloyd. I heard he´s from Pleasant Grove and moved to timpview to play there..
Our investigator who went with us to the conference wasn´t home the four times we went to look for her, and her oldish mom was getting mad at us, so we decided to give it a rest, and now she´s out of town for a while. We were super bummed, but we´ll see if we can contact her in a few weeks.
Turns out the new missionaries aren´t going to come to our other ward, because not all the missionaries who were scheduled to come into the mission are going to get here. So, it will be another little while until Los Amautas has their own missionaries.
We go to the stake center to watch General Conference this weekend, and i´m SO excited! Honestly, it´s like i´m going on a weekend trip.
As for singing and playing the piano, no.. Since i´ve been in the field i´ve had precious few chances to play the piano, and i only sing in church and district meetings. Which reminds me, I bore my testimony in church yesterday! It´s cool being a missionary and bearing your testimony, because you don´t get nearly as scared.

This week there was a bunch more drama with Genaro, but finally on friday we baptized him, and Sunday was his confirmation. But his cousins who were both baptized by missionaries, got suitcases as gifts from their missionaries after their baptisms, and somehow got it into Genaro´s mind that he is going to get one from us. And now he´s always going to our house during the day and leaves notes with our pensionista begging for a suitcase. What a stinker! But we´ll straighten him out tonight.
Saturday afternoon we knocked on a door and the old man who answered shook his finger at us and walked away, but his middle aged daughter came and talked to us, but said she had to go tend to the guinea pig farm they have. Out of nowhere elder Morales asks to see the guinea pig farm, so she tells us to go around back... I´m expecting like 50 guinea pigs in a little wooden pasture thing, because that´s how most of the peruvians keep their guinea pigs that they raise to eat. But this was a full-blown breeding operation! They have 10,000 guinea pigs! They breed the pure races and everything, it was so cool! The lady gave us a tour of it all and had a TON of knowledge about all the breeding and stuff. There were a lot of words i didn´t understand.. I´ll have to brush up on my animal breeding vocabulary in spanish :)
We fasted to be able to find people that can go to church on sundays and people who are ready to progress, and ended up having an awesome Sunday! A few people we didn´t even know came to church because their family members and friends invited them, so we set up appointments with them and are excited to see them this week. And last night we went to visit a young man who always goes to church and seminary and everything, but for like a year his dad hasn´t given permission for him to be baptized. The problem is that his dad is never there, and it just popped into my mind to go visit him as we were walking back to our room at the end of the night. We went and his dad was there and seemed really happy and easy going.. So a member who was with us sweet talked him for a little bit, and we asked him for the permission and he said yes! so we should have another baptism coming up soon!
I gained a stronger testimony of fasting this week, and we´re starting to have success little by little here in Los Incas and Los Amautas. I know the Lord is doing this work, and all we have to do is keep being diligent and we´ll be blessed with baptisms if it´s His will.
Elder Hatch

Pictures: Genaro´s baptism and us with elder Palacios, our district leader, and his companion, elder Quezada. We did an exchange this week and i worked with elder Quezada for a day in their area, El Imperio

9/19/2011

family!
They broke ground on the Trujillo temple and everyone is really excited! but it won´t be done for like two years..

It´s the anniversary of la victoria, so this whole month they have a carnival on the main street of town, which goes through the heart of our area. they play music all the time, and a lot of it is American music, and surprisingly a lot of the stuff i listened to. it kills me when i hear it! hah but i try to walk fast and get the pain over with.

They´re also doing construction on like all the streets. They´re changing them from dirt roads to paved streets with sidewalks that are actually really nice! But right now basically all the streets are completely torn up and have huge holes everywhere to put in the sewage system. In our pension they´re doing construction too. Covering up the brick walls with cement, and in a week or so elder Morales and i are going to paint! And in two weeks, they´re opening up the other ward, los Amautas, that we´re assigned to, and the other missionaries are going to live and pension where we do too! So we´re excited for that.

A few interesting stories from this week:

Tuesday we were searching for a house of someone we contacted in the street a few days beforehand. When we finally found the house, we went to knock on the door, and elder morales started talking to a little skinny kid. Turns out he lived close by, so we took his address and said we´d visit him after we talked to the people in the house we were looking for. Turns out they weren´t there, so we went to his house like five minutes later. Also turns out that his whole family are members of the church except him- a few inactive, but members. He´s 12 and his name is Genardo. He hadn´t been baptized yet because his grandpa who lives nearby is super catholic and very against him being baptized. After talking to the family for a few minutes, we decided to baptize him saturday and try to sneak under the grandpa´s radar. We didn´t have to wait to baptize him because he´s been going to church forever, but somehow elder morales didn´t know him yet and neither did i! So, we started teaching him, and the next day when we went to his house, his older brother had pulled a Judas Iscariot on us and told his grandpa we were going to their house at that time. So, the grandpa shows up and says right off the bat, thanks for coming but my grandson is catholic and i won´t let this go any further. I tried for a while to speak reason to him.. turns out he has never read anything from the bible, he was just really ignorant and super catholic without even knowing what he believes. So, i gave up and elder Morales got really emotional and bore an awesome testimony to him, and even managed to call him a few names haha it was funny. Then there was a long, awkward silence after and i asked Genardo what he wanted.. He said he wanted to be baptized in the Church and likes the Church and a few other things that i can´t remember now, but his grandpa was speechless. We packed up and left. a few hours later genardo went to a member´s house, had them call us and told us he still wanted to get baptized, so we kept teaching him. Saturday came around, and something happened in the family, it was weird, but long story short, we ended up with the font full, district leader there in the chapel, members, etc. and no baptism. We were super bummed, but he still really wants to get baptized! So, we´re going to baptize him this friday, and he asked me to do it!

Next story. Saturday night elder Morales and i were walking back to our apartment feeling bummed about the day.. baptism falling through, having the district leader waste an hour of his day in our area for an interview that never happened.. not teaching many lessons because of it all.. and a lady walks by, we say hi to her and keep walking. then, from behind us we hear "jovenes!" That means young people but it´s what they call us.. so we both whipped around to see what was happening and the lady was motioning for us to come to her. We obliged, and she asked us if we were willing to go to her house to teach her.. We started freaking out and said of course. She said she´s always in her house because she washes clothes for a living. Her husband is nonexistent, and has three kids. She gave us her name, phone number, and address, and said for us to visit her during the week. That all happened with us saying basically nothing except that we would teach her. Then when we got a chance to talk, morales invited her to stake conference the next morning and she said yes, and that she was going to go home right then and leave everything ready to be able to go with us at 9:30 am. We were freaking out, so excited! Sunday morning we go to her house and she was all ready in a dress and everything. We took a mototaxi to the stake center and were some of the first people there. It was such an amazing conference! it was for all of Peru via satellite. All we knew was that it would be presided over by a member of the first presidency so we were super pumped. Turns out it was President Monson! Elder Gonzales of the 70, Julie B. Beck, and elder Cristofferson all spoke in spanish. Sister beck struggled a bit but did really well! and Elder Cristofferson speaks like perfect spanish! and Pres Monson spoke and a translator did the voice over. I was hoping to hear him talk in spanish! They spoke about the book of Mormon, being good wives, how to have a successful family, and reaching out to those in need aka less active members, respectively. Our investigator really liked it and took three pages of notes! She has a lot of questions for us on Wednesday when we´ll see her again.

This letter is super long, but it was a fun week! It just added to my testimony of hard work bring blessings and that our prayers are heard. Love you and hope it´s a good week of school and work.

Elder Hatch
mom sorry i didn´t answer your questions, i forgot. but i´ll answer them next week because now i don´t have time! just remind me.

pictures:

You can´t see it too well, but the mug i´m holding says te quiero mamá, or I love you mom! Happy birthday this week! I sent you a letter, i hope you get it soon!

The second picture is from the baptism that never happened the people are me, eld.er Morales´ mini missionary companion he had before me who´s in the ward, elder morales, and hno wilder, our ward mission leader.

Third is of most of the elders in our zone, after playing a trivia game where when you lost the other person got to draw something with lipstick on your face. I wanted a mustache really bad, and i even was asking elder bohman to draw one on me, but he just drew something random on my face and i was all befuddled as to why he didn´t draw me a mustache so i asked him, and turns out he didn´t know the spanish word for mustache.. haha

Lastly, wheelbarrow races plus hot basketball court outside = giant blisters on my palms that hurt! But i´m fine.