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
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