Monday, June 18, 2012

Hey family!

This week was really great! Sorry I don’t have a lot of time to write a long letter but we will be able to talk a whole lot in two weeks anyways!

This week we had 5 of our investigators come to church, it was an awesome blessing because we have been struggling with getting them to attend church. Delfina and Mary came this week as well as the Rivera family, which we were thinking about dropping because they had stopped progressing but we extended the invitation to go to church and then we told them that if they didn’t want to keep the commitments that we extended to them that we wouldn’t be able to visit them as often as we had been. So they realized that they hadn’t been doing the things that we told them and decided to change and be better about keeping commitments. We are working really hard and have been having lots of success. My companion and I are both doing good and we haven’t been having problems, he has made the decision to not battle with being obedient. I’m very happy for that blessing and hope he keeps to it!

I love you all and miss you all alot!

Love Elder Jake Hatch

Monday, June 11, 2012

Hey Family!

Sounds like everything is going well at home, very good to hear!

This week was a really good one. Things are going well, we were able to change houses and now we are in one that is much better. It has conditioning and is pretty big (more to clean but I don’t feel like I’m in a cage). And there are windows so the house isn’t an oven like our last one.

Our investigators are alright, we need to find a lot of new investigators this week but we have a good amount of investigators, the only problem is that very few of them are progressing at this point. We had one investigator at church yesterday and it was one of the new investigators that we found this week. We are also going to have divisions this week with the zone leaders, and I will be doing divisions with the other companionship in our district on Friday. They have some baptisms coming up so I have to go and get to know their investigators and see how their conversion process is going.

We are struggling with having investigators at church. We had 10 people committed to go to church but like I said only 1 went. We went with a family that we are teaching yesterday and talked with them about the consequences of our decisions, because they decided to go to a party on Saturday and were out late so they didn’t wake up on time to be able to go to church. We talked about agency and how we can use it for good or for evil and how there are always consequences for our decisions whether they be good or bad. We tried to go with Manuel a lot this week but we weren’t able to because every time that we go to his house he isn’t there because he is working a lot.

I’m learning a lot of patience with my companion, he is still kinda difficult. He has a very strong character, and doesn’t like to be wrong, and expresses himself in a very hostile manner, but I know there will be opposition in all things and this is just a trial that will help me to grow and to be a better missionary as long as I love him and try to serve him and help him conquer his weaknesses. But as for everything else, it’s all good! We’re hoping to commit a few investigators to baptism this week and I’m very excited for that, as well as the divisions that we will have.

Welp, I had better get going now because I have to go the houses of the other missionaries to check to see if they cleaned their houses like they were supposed to haha. We cleaned our house for about 2.5 hours, and it wasn’t even dirty, and it’s not really that big, just needed to be organized.

Love you all very much and miss you all alot! Have a great week everyone!

Love Elder Jake Hatch

Monday, June 4, 2012

Hola familia!

Each week goes by faster than the last...way too fast! It's weird to think that next month I'll be home.
And don’t worry I try not to think about it at all even though it's kinda hard not to.

We have had a lot of work the last couple weeks. We have lots of investigators but not many of them are progressing. None of them went to church yesterday and so we decided that for a few of them we are going to have to drop them because we have been teaching them for a while but they have decided to not progress. The family that was supposed to get baptized soon hasn't been going to church so their baptismal date fell through, and we are considering dropping them as well, the dad works Sunday's and hasn't even asked for Sunday's off in his work and doesn't seem like he has the desire to do it. This week we went with Sonea, I don’t know if you remember her, but anyways...she is going through some hard times right now and told us that she isn't going to be able to receive us, so we just expressed that we were there to help her and serve her in whatever way she would let us. We also went to visit Manuel a couple times but we never found him at home. We invited his wife and kids to church yesterday, he came but his family didn't. But it was really good to see him there. We found a couple new investigators this week so we’re going to focus more on them and less on the investigators that we have already taught but are not progressing. Diego our mission leader has been helping us a lot. He goes with us to teach a couple times a week. He is awesome and works really hard. He is actually the ward secretary as well so he has quite a workload in the church. We went and visited Nefi and Raul as well, but they are living with their mom on the weekends so they haven't been able to go to church. Jose Eduardo the kid we baptized after we helped his family reactivate. His birthday was this week. He still goes to church with his family but sometimes his mom has to work so he can't go.

This week we also went to an activity in the other ward, but we took our investigators to it because the activities that we planned were rejected by the ward council. Marmol doesn't work very much in missionary work, something we are trying to fix. But it was a really cool activity. It was like a miniature carnival with different stands, some were spiritual stands and the rest were like games or food. Everyone was given three coins (the chocolate coins wrapped in gold tin foil) and they could spend them on the games or the food. But if they went to a stand and did something spiritual they were given another coin. Then they stopped all activity and divided everyone into three different groups depending on how many coins they had. Then they sent them to three different rooms that each one was decorated different to represent the three kingdoms of glory. I was in the celestial kingdom because I already knew how the activity worked haha. But then in each room they explained where they were and why they were there. Then they passed through the different rooms to see the difference. It was really affective and the investigators that went were really impressed.

We have an appointment to see a house today; we are looking for a different house to rent still but hopefully if the zone leaders approve this house we can move in tomorrow.

Sorry I am sending this so late, we had a training meeting all day today and we just barely have time to write! But I miss you all and love you all a lot!

Love Elder Jake Hatch

My companion is from the state of Mexico,
He has three brothers and no sisters and he lives with his mom.
I’m getting along pretty well as district leader. they actually just changed my district this last week but it is better because we have district meeting a lot closer to our house now and don’t have to travel so far.
 Well sorry I don’t have lots of time and I still need to read moms letter but thanks dad for the letter! Bye love you!

Love Elder Jake Hatch

Monday, May 28, 2012

Hey Family!

Congrats again Kelley for graduation! Sounds like things have been pretty busy there but I’m glad everyone is doing well!

This week went by really fast! It needs to slow down! We had a really good week; we were super busy everyday and had lots of work. We found 10 new investigators this week, we also found a young man that is a member that used to live in Utah with his mom but he came here to live with he’s (think about it….) dad. So now we are teaching his dad and his grandma. I'm pretty amazed at how much I actually remember here. Everything that has changed stands out. We are teaching a family that is getting ready to be baptized, but the dad works all but one Sunday of each month so it's hard for him to come to church. But we committed him to talk to his boss and ask for more Sundays off. A lot of the members remember me and some of them that I didn't interact with always say that I look so familiar, then I tell them that I was in the ward for 8 months and then they realize who I am. It's pretty funny.

We are in search of a different house right now. We don't live in the same house as before due to an elder that had problems with the owner, and the house we are in is terrible because it's tiny, doesn't have windows, and is really humid. The lighting fails a lot due to a bad fuse box, and just this week a tube from the apartment above us broke and it was leaking through the ceiling. This week we had divisions with one of our zone leaders, it went alright. This week I am going to be doing divisions with the other two areas in our district. So this week is going to be really busy! I bought a really cool shirt in Walmart the other day; I'll try to send a picture. I also ate tripitas again with the family in the ward that sells them. Oh if you don't remember what Tripitas are it's intestine and you put them in tacos. Haha I was just wondering who would get the most grossed out by that. I think it would be Becky. :).

It's a lot hotter here in Chihuahua than it is in Cuauhtémoc. I've got a pretty awesome farmers tan going on!

Hope everyone has an awesome week! Love you all and miss you all lots!

Love Elder Jake Hatch

Monday, May 21, 2012

*Hey Family!

Things sound like they are going great back at home! Glad to hear! Congrats on all of the graduation stuff Kelley!

Things are going great! I’ve loved it since I got back here to Marmol! I was kind of upset when they changed me from Cuauhtemoc but when President told me I would be returning here I was very happy again! Almost everyone remembers me and seems glad to have me back. The ward has changed a lot. There are a few families that have become inactive. We’re going to be working with them. This whole week I have wanted to go visit Manuel Olivas, but we have been super busy because the area was kind of struggling. President told me I need to be a really good example to my companion. So I’m thinking he sent me to work him hard haha. Hopefully I can help him understand why it is so important for us to be obedient. We don’t live in the same house we used to, I guess one of the Elders had problems with the owner and she kicked them out. The house we are in is really small and I got sick the first night I was there because it is so humid inside, and there are no windows. We are looking into changing houses again. We had a conference this week with Elder Valenzuela (one of the area 70`s.) it was amazing and I learned so much! I’m really excited to be back in Marmol! I have lots of faith that were going to have lots of success and bring the area back up to its potential.

idk if I told you guys or not, but I’m now the district leader. I have three areas that are in my district. I also have to do divisions with all of them soon as well. The district is kinda "broken down". So hopefully in these 6 weeks we can bring it back up! I’m really excited and grateful for the opportunity to serve. I’m also very nervous. I’ll have to do baptismal interviews as well, one of the things that makes me nervous. But I’m more than willing to give it a try!

I don’t know if you guys remember I had promised some of the members and my converts that I would come back to visit them, haha and now I joke with them that I fulfilled my promise. But I still have to come back after the mission to visit they say.

Well I hope you all have a great week and know that I love you all and miss you all soooooo much!

Love Elder Jake Hatch

*Note to self:  edited for some content…read original

Monday, May 14, 2012

Hey Family!

It was great to talk with all of you yesterday as well! I really hope my accent isn’t really that bad haha but I guess it is cool anyway.  I am so glad that everyone is doing well and that everything is ok! That’s awesome that Kelley will be graduating soon and that Kim and the boys will be down there for a while! I wish I would have gotten to talk to them but I totally forgot to call them! Tell them sorry for me, but you can tell them all we talked about!

Yeah so this letter is going to be pretty short but you already knew it would be since we talked about everything yesterday. But I do want to share a few experiences that I had this week.

The first one was probably my favorite, so in the morning I was studying and before my studies I prayed to have the confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true. I already knew it was true, but I just wanted to feel it again and have the confirmation of that again. So I started reading in the Book of Mormon and I found a lot of interesting things that I hadn’t noticed before. But I didn’t really feel the Spirit testify to me during my personal studies, but then just when we were about to finish our Companionship studies, we watched a training video for Preach my Gospel and at the end comes the testimony of Elder Holland about the Book of Mormon and when I heard it, it hit me very hard and I felt the Spirit so strong, probably the strongest that I have felt it in my entire mission. It was an amazing feeling and I knew that Heavenly Father had answered my prayers.

The second one is this, we got ready and studied as normal and then we prayed to leave the house, and we prayed that we would be able to find someone who would accept our message and be a "chosen" child that was prepared to receive the gospel. So we contacted for a little bit but we didn’t find very many people, then we had a teaching appointment and then we started to contact again. In the first house that we contacted there was a lady that opened the door and we testified to her about the Book of Mormon and that she could read it, meditate about the message that it contains, and pray directly to Heavenly Father, to know if it was true and that she could receive an answer through the Holy Ghost. She accepted the invitation and told us that she liked what we had told her and that she wanted us to go back another day to teach her! It was an awesome experience and it strengthened my testimony of the power of prayer!

So I know where I’m going now.........guess where??  (I deleted the empty lines he added…)

......p.s. I hope by now you had to scroll down to get the answer! I bet the suspense is killing you!

Marmol!!! haha I’m going back to Marmol to finish my mission so it will be a total of like 10 months in that area in my entire mission ! But I am way excited! I’ll be able to help my converts stay strong and I can also look for some of my old investigators that could be ready to receive the Gospel now! I’m way excited. My companion is Elder Godinez. I don’t really know much about him, I just barely met him like a half hour ago.

Welp that’s just about it...I hope everyone has a great week and know that I love you all and miss you all alot!

Love Elder Jake Hatch

Monday, May 7, 2012

Hey Family!

This week was really good even though it was a little bit slow. We had a lot of half days this week.

We had district meeting on Monday, on Wednesday we had a meeting with President half of the day, then Thursday we had planning session, Friday we had the baptismal interview, and Saturday we had the baptism. But it was a good week. The baptism went really well, not a lot of people went, but it was still really special to her because her family was there. I will send a picture soon but I forgot to bring my camera to send it. My new companions name is Elder Nicholson. He is from Wyoming. He is the oldest of 5 kids. He only has 8 months in the mission. He is really cool and I think we will get along very well. He still struggles a bit to speak Spanish but I’m trying to help him out.  Right now the mission is putting a lot of emphasis on Family history. We are contacting with family history and our four generation genealogy charts. It was a good thing that you made me mine before I came out here, I didn’t really think I  would ever use it but now I use it every day. And I didn’t know that I had a great grandma that was from Holland. That was pretty cool to learn.

This week we are planning on having another baptism. It’s an investigator that didn’t pass his last interview because he had smoked, but he is doing better now and is still excited to get baptized, we have an appointment with him tomorrow, so we will see if he is still ready to be baptized this week!

They just put a Subway here in Cuauhtemoc so my comp and I are pretty excited to go there today. We wanted to go to a pizza place called Los Arcos. It’s a Mennonite pizza place but it’s like the best in all of Chihuahua, and it’s pretty inexpensive. But we figured we will wait, plus we don’t have lots of time.

It’s pretty likely that I got my second to last haircut in the mission today…that’s kind of weird to think about haha.

I’m really excited to be able to talk to everyone next Sunday! My companion and I are going to talk from the Church; we already called the bishop and asked for permission.  I think I’m going to call you at like 4 o’clock, but if we get to the church before 4 I’ll just call you earlier.

Sorry if my letter is a little short as well, but I’ll have lots of stuff to talk about on Sunday!

Have a great week everyone! Love you all and miss you all a lot!

Love Elder JakeHatch