Letter #15- "A Time for Thanks and Revisions"

November 26, 2012

Dear Everyone,                                                         

This week has been pretty good. I have been trying to figure out why our key indicators keep falling and what things that I can do differently to help more. So this week I'm going to call it "A Time for Thanks and Revisions." I spent a lot of my time this week doing/spending time on things that I didn't need to. Too much time at dinner appointment, too much time driving to places. So I thought I need to do more. It made me think of a time in my life where I was moving around a lot, going from place to place looking for an escape from the things that haunted me. Well, I eventually found out that I was the problem and that things needed to change within myself to solve those problems. I have again examined my past weeks here in Goose Creek and thought I could change so many of the things I do to be better.

So I made sat myself down and started thinking. My farewell talk was on pioneers (and it was probably one of the worst talks I've ever given), but I know that I gave that talk for a reason. Brother Cox was inspired to have me talk on this subject, because now it is my motivation. I come from pioneer ancestry on multiple sides of my family. They did so stinking much and the other day I was reading an ensign that talked about a girl who was in a temporary internship, temporarily in a ward, and temporarily in this particular place that she lived. She then talked about how she was just going through the motions and not really applying herself to her calling, her friends in the area, and not really trying with her full efforts. She then said could you imagine what would have happened had the pioneers felt and had done the same? They built towns, they build bridges, planted crops, made paths for others to follow, built temples, and served others all along the way while traveling. They put forth their full effort to fulfill their callings to move west and then to colonize their assigned areas. I then instantly thought about my talk, and my pioneer ancestry, and whether or not I was putting in my full effort.

I am temporarily serving a full time mission. Was I working with all my might, mind, and strength? I came to the conclusion that I was letting the natural man take over more often than he should. I had then recommitted myself to working harder and putting in my full efforts. The progress is slow due to the damage done previously. But without the revision and study of my own actions I would never have progressed at all. Are you looking at what you can change daily? I promise you that you too can make improvements daily. Ask our Heavenly Father sincerely to help you to see your inadequacies and he will help you see what things you can do better and revise. Then, write them down and set a goal to over come them every day. I am thank full for revision and the atonement.

Ok, so this Thanksgiving was crazy. I have never ate more this week in my life. We were asked not to proselyte so we scheduled 3 dinners...then we had dinners at peoples houses every single night except tonight. We had to turn down a dinner even....Crazy. I feel super fat.

Locklin called and dropped us a few weeks ago. I forgot to tell you that. We are working with a few Brazillians. By they way we have had about 20 Brazillian investigators since I came to the area and we have more to get in contact with. So I'm learning Spanish and Portugese. Little by little. The funny thing about Brazillians though is they can't say no and they'll just ignore you if they don't want to talk to you. They can't say what they really think, just what I'm finding, this is not eternally true. Umm...Found a cool little family, found out they weren't married after they committed to a baptismal date, and they can't get married for certain reasons I won't say. Then we are working with a man named Candido who is in his 30's want's to know more about the church and we have asked him to be baptised before, but he says he still wants to know more. so I'll let you know how that goes. In means of other work we are doing, we've been working a lot with less actives, Sister Santana is entirely active again, minus the fact she picked up a smoking habit while being away from the church. So we and bishop are working close with her to help her with that. And I'm just grateful to be a missionary.

I love being a missionary! I can see why now people don't want to come home, I'm loving it and the work I do more and more each day. It's insane. I know this is Jesus Christ's restored church and there are so many people out there searching for it. I know the importance of being obedient and working hard for a righteous cause are the most important things I can do right now and I will continue forward with pioneer like effort to accomplish all things. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Kendon Hatch

Letter #14- "I'm loving being a missionary!"

November 19th, 2012

Dear Everyone,

This week has been way awesome! We started out really slow, because last week we dropped all of our investigators. We've started searching for new areas to work and have been doing some more finding ideas. This week we were able to find and teach 16 brand new people who we all have returning appointments with. And it's been awesome to see how the Lord supports those that are willing to put in the effort. Which reminds me of a funny story.

We ran into a guy who said, "No thanks, I've already been saved." So we talked to him for a bit I asked him how and why he thinks that. He said we are saved by grace right it isn't anything that we do that saves us. I said, "Ya, we are saved by grace but only after all that we can do." I wanted to so ok, so you've been saved so now you can do whatever you want and you'll be fine? Any way, we just left. He was crazy.

But, I am loving the changing of the trees and the weather. We've had rain the past three days with some wind too because of the storms going on right now and we were affected a bit by the hurricane, but not much. I don't have much to say this week other than the fact that I've really been trying to do more purposeful studying. Not solely opening the scriptures and reading and then going to the cross references, But actually trying to apply my studies during the day. So I have been writing on an index card each day a message to carry with me and to remind myself throughout the day that that is what I'm working on. I dare you to do it. You'll be so much more effective as a servant of God. Promise.

We've been working really close with that sister we I told you about last week. She is way awesome! She says you guys call me everytime I start getting depressed and she turns to us and says I think of you guys as my guardian angels. We then gave this totally awesome lesson on how the spirit works and how she can have the spirit more in her life by being more active in church. We have seen her the last two weeks at each ward activity minus one and each week at church. She's making amazing progress! Which scares me because she's bound to have something bad happen soon and I just hope that we have taught her well enough that she'll respond appropriately to it.

I'm loving being a missionary! To be honest I woke up the first morning I was here and asked myself out loud. "Do I want to do this every day for two years?" Elder Zurita says he remembers that day and he thought I was going to be a problem missionary. But I haven't had a second thought since. There has been times that my faith has been tried but it was always followed with an, "I know that what I am doing is a good and righteous act and it will affect me and my family for eternity. So I'm going to do it." I love this perfect gospel that makes too much sense! And I am so glad I can serve here in South Carolina.

Love you all,

Elder Kendon Hatch

Letter #13 "... Always listen to the spirit."

November 12, 2012

Ok, I'm keeping this one short due to the fact we are at a members house and using their computer because the library is closed. 1st sorry I didn't send the pictures we haven't gone to the post office yet. Should I send that in a regular letter or a bubble padded one. No idea. I'll send it bubble lettered. We have some way cool pictures and some videos of me rapping missionary style to send in some time too. 

Well anyway. Quick story.

We had set up about 7 different member present lessons this last week and all of the appointments fell through except two....It was crazy disappointing so Elder Zurita and I dropped all of our current investigators and started a fast and that fast just ended about an hour ago, so we'll see how it goes. 

Now a long and way awesome story.
We have been trying to get a hold of a lady who is less active for about a month now. Since I got here basically and we had no luck what so ever. So three nights ago...Friday the 9th I think...we were pulling up to another less actives house for a stop in visit. As we pulled in I said to Elder Zurita, "I feel like we don't really get anywhere with Jesus, I think we should try to find something else to do right now."
He said, "I was just thinking the same thing." So he grabbed the phone and started to make our calls that we had on our to do list. It was about 6 at night and we had Hermana Santana on our planner for tomorrow. So we called her. 
She answered and we talked for a little bit. She said she was feeling a little sad right then and that she was depressed. So Elder Zurita said we could give her a blessing tomorrow when we came by. All the sudden she started sobbing uncontrollably. We waited for a bit and she said, "Ok, Bye" and hung up.
We called her back in about 10 minutes and asked her why she was crying and asked what was going on. She said that she was so depressed to the point where she had decided she had no more desire to live and that she was going to kill herself that night. Right after she decided that, we called her. She took it as a sign of God telling her not to do it. Had a short lesson over the phone with her. Read in the Book of Mormon. Bore solid testimony about her being needed here on earth and being of great worth. And then said goodnight.

Went to her place on Saturday with a senor couple from our mission. The Benedicts, they are way rad. And during the lesson the spirit directed me to ask 2 questions and when I went to ask a third, that wasn't directed by the spirit and solely because I was curious, my words were choked back. No way could I have spoke. It was crazy! Then the Benedicts basically attacked her depression with the spirit and love! It was sooooo cool to see happen. She then came to church the next day and then to the Spanish group activity where she laughed and smiled and had so much fun. It was hard not to smile when we saw her having a good time and the change that simply 2 days and an opportunity to partake of the sacrament can change someones countenance entirely. If you or someone you know is having a hard time have them read this story and take them to church or something. Love them and always listen to the spirit.

Well, I'm bouncing out of here.
Love you all,
Elder Kendon Hatch

Letter #12- "These men are ordained of God!"

Hello Mom and Family,

 

Sorry you didn't get any mail back from me this last week, our P day was awesome! We went to a park and road bike trails! It was so much fun! Elder Zurita is awesome! He has been out for about 8 months and is a good missionary who always strives to do what is right. He's got a bumb knee so we haven't been allowed to bike at all. The church has started a 12 week in field training program and it's way cool to see how much responsibility you have as a missionary. I know that the things I do now are only through and with my Heavenly Fathers help. Elder Zurita and I live in a townhouse with two other missionaries, Elder Walker and Elder Brinkerhoff. Elder Brinkerhoff heads home next transfer and Elder Walker is about a year out.

 

We are working in about 4 different cities right now and our area is soooo huge because we're Spanish speaking. I can only imagine how large Jacob Moss's area will be with that crazy Asian language he's speaking (hmong?). It's city area, but it's weird to see super thick forest everywhere. There are some swampy areas too. For the most part we work in really poor areas, but last night we got to go to a really nice part of town to have dinner with the Torres family! They are way cool and totally hardcore missionary members.

 

It's wicked hot at nights here, I have to sleep with my feet uncovered and the door open so we get a draft otherwise the room gets stuffy. So no I don't need anymore blankets. There were a few cold nights, but they are rare. I'll send my SD card back in the mail this week.

 

Ok, so we have been working super hard on weeding out the investigators that aren't progressing. We have set up specific goals to get them to act, and if we don't see any action by them in the next few visits we're going to be dropping a lot of investigators. But it's ok because we need to do more finding anyway. Something crazy is happening with the ward. The ward is an English ward and we have spanish translators for all the Spanish members. This week we had 30 Hispanics members/investigators show up and 8 members who are active not show up, so we are hoping that by the start of December we can have a branch up and running.

 

There is a man named Candido who Elder Zurita had tracted into with Elder Bowman(who's home now) and he started going to the free English classes at the church that one of the Senior couple missionaries teach. We got to meet him once before and invite him to church and he came this week. So we set a time to meet with him on Thursday and hopefully we can invite him to be baptized on the 24th of this month and he'll accept.

 

Locklin is doing well for all we know, he has been out of town visiting his family for the last week. His girlfriend is back in town and is at his place so we get updates from her on how he is doing. We don't really know a whole lot of what is going on there, but we've been stopping by and calling daily to see what we can do.

 

Funny story, there was a guy named Derek that we ran into outside, he told us he just got out of prison. He looked really young, we shared a little bit of a message about the book of Mormon and then left him with one and asked if he would read it. We came back the next day and he and three other people were outside talking so we walked up and started talking to them all. This guy named Jerry starts yelling at us saying that, "God wrote the bible, no man wrote the bible.." So and so forth and I stopped him and said, "you mean God wrote all that by hand...?" He stopped and said, "well, no prophets wrote it and the apostles." And I said, "cool, prophets wrote this book too. The Book of Mormon..." and gave him my schpeel on the Book of Mormon plus a solid testimony. Then he stated as if to prove a point, "Jesus is my savior!" and looked at me as if he had stumped me. I said, "Yes, he is. He's mine too." Then I bore my testimony on Christ. This woman then starts in on me and says, "there ain't nothing no man can teach me or give me that Jesus hasn't already gave me." and looks at me like she stumped me. And I said, "You're right, Christ makes all things possible, and our Heavenly Father loves us so much that He gave us Christ so we can learn and grow more." This went on for about 4 more sentences where they state eternal truths like God is a perfect man so on and so forth trying to stump me....why I don't know. But then I said, "you know I see we aren't going to get anywhere with this conversation do you need any help at all." Then she acted all offended and said "what do you mean by that????" I said, "do you need anything done any work done on your house, car, anything we'll do it for you." She then said, "Ya for a donation to your church!"

I said, "No Ma'am, we are called by a prophet of God to serve the people in the area we are called to. I was called to South Carolina and I will serve the people here until I leave. And it's not service if we get paid now is it?"

Suddenly her countenance changed, "These men are ordained of God!" She says and then gets our phone number we're going over Friday to power wash her Trailer for her. Just really funny story. There are lots of people like that everywhere. She said she'd come worship with us on Sunday too. We'll see.

 

Well, that was a long story, but a good one. Elder Bednar came to visit our mission this week and we all got to shake his hand. He said something...well a lot of things that were profound, but only one that I'm going to share right now. He said that if we went before the Lord and asked him with sincere desire to know what we are truly like as people, we would be terrified and disgusted at what we saw. It made me really think about my actions and what I was doing. So now I am really trying hard to revise my life so that I am looking outward and not being so selfish. It was way way cool! I learned tons! I'll have to send home my study journals and journals and such so you all can look through them. That would be way cool.

 

Well, it's getting down to the wire. I only have one hour but that is luckily more than at the MTC. I know this work is Gods work today, and that it is my joy to preach this gospel (see also Alma 29:9) I am loving this work more with each and every day. I know that God loves us so much that he gave us our Savior Jesus Christ and that we are able to live, lives that are beyond happy so long as we trust the will of our Heavenly Father. Let him make you a pearl of great price. Submit yourself fully to his will, by asking him to help you to submit your will to his and you will reap the benefits of living by the gospel. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

Love you all,

Elder Hatch

President and Sister Holm

Photo of Kendon with President and Sister Holm upon his arrival in SC 10/08/12

Letter #11- "By your fruits ye shall know them"

Dear Everyone,

I had a solid week! We have some way cool investigators right now. We met a man named Steve, I don't know his last name but we call him Steve Fish because he had rotten fish in his garbage can that smelt really bad. He grew up Catholic, but since doesn't practice anymore due to some inconsistencies and corruptions that he sees in it. He seems very sincere and very honest with us. He also knows a lot of information about reformers and such, but we had a really successful first lesson with him and he said he's going to read the Book of Mormon, so I hope he does.

The lady Heidi we have been teaching since I came here we found out is praying wrong...so we have to go back and teach her how to pray correctly. We would have taught her then but we had another appointment to get to. I told her that if she didn't make any attempt to come to church within the next three times we saw her we wouldn't be able to come see her any more. I was hoping it would motivate her, but I think that just made her made. Oh well, we have other people that are willing to follow through with their commitments that need to be taught.

We met a man named Locklin this week. We were walking down the street contacting people and he walked out to his car. Looked at us and said, "Hey! I want to talk to you two, but I don't have time right now, come back and see me." We noticed he was drunk, but said ok, here's a card with our number gave it to him and then he drove away. We came back the next day and he was crazy drunk, I think I could have got buzzed off of his fumes drunk....He started talking with us and told us about 4 times that he was in the military and that he was dealing with post traumatic stress. He had pills that they gave to him to take for it but they counteract when taken with alcohol, but that he can't stop drinking. So we decided to teach him how to pray and that that might help him out a little. So we started talking to him about it and some friends showed up and that was the end of that conversation basically.

We decided to come back the next day, we came and he was drunk again so I asked him straight up, "Do you want to stop drinking?"

He said, "Yes, I do, I need Jesus in my life."

I said, "Ok, then we start by getting rid of all the alcohol you have. Will you go pour that out outside? (Pointing to the beer in the living room)"

He grabbed it and poured it out. We then asked any other alcohol in the house he said, "Yes, everywhere!"

We then said, "Ok, get it and lets pour it out."

He responded, "I want to do that with my girlfriend."

Long story short we told him that we couldn't teach him without him being sober and left after saying another prayer with him that he talked all the way through while I said it. I left his house thinking to myself he'll never give it up now.

We showed up the next day, no one answered.

We showed up the next day, He came to the door, said, "You all gonna haftu come back. I'm sick"

We showed up the next day, no one answered.

Finally the next day...yesterday, (Sunday) we show up and he comes outside smiling. He looks at us and says "HEY!" He was completely different, aka sober. Turns out that, the same night that we asked him to get rid of his alcohol he did it! He gave his debit card to his girlfriend said go buy some nice decorations we're going to do this right, after they dumped it all out. She left and never showed up again. He called her and she didn't answer. He woke up the next day and found his card on the porch, 300 dollars had been withdrawn and she was gone without a trace.

Turns out things ran deeper than we thought. He was buying drugs and alcohol for all these people. He deleted all his old friends numbers from his phone, told them they were welcome at his house so long as they were sober and not looking to get high. But if they weren't willing to do that they should not call him ever again. He was sick and vomiting for three days getting his body back into normal order after those three days we taught him about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and now he has committed to a baptismal date of November 24th. He is going to be going to the churches addiction recovery program, and is fighting hard to get his life back in order.

I used the title "...by your fruits ye shall know them..." because the two peoples baptismal dates we had to drop where the two people I thought were our miracle investigators last week. But they did not put forth any effort. Locklin has altered his life in a 60 degree turn by his works alone and the other 120 degrees are surely by the grace of Christ. I could drop a whole strain of scripture right now supporting the concept of the Grace of Christ, but that is what I want you all to research this week. See how our actions are so weak in comparison to what Christ does for us. Look up grace in the Bible Dictionary, the definition is soooo sweet. I know that the Lord loves us, God sent Jesus Christ down here for us and that we through Christ can be with our Heavenly Father again. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.