5-28-13 email

Hello family, sorry I wasn't able to email yesterday. The library was closed, and since it's a day late, I won't have quite as much time today. Anyways, I'll try to get in as much as I can. So to start off, my thumb is feeling much better. It still looks like one huge blister, but it doesn't really hurt anymore. This week has really been great though. We only had two investigators at church this week (Adriana and her mom) but we have had a lot of success in other areas. In fact we hit our goal again of 20 lessons! We still have a lot of room to improve, but we are starting to see some great things happen here. This sunday Elder Acosta and I, along with our Branch Mission Leader, Hno. Antillon (awesome guy) spoke in sacrament meeting about, of course, missionary work. The talks went great. I spoke about how the gospel can bring us so much hope, and how it is our responsibility to share that hope. The most amazing part about that sacrament meeting though, was all the people that came! we had over 80 people in attendance! That may not seem like a lot, but it's almost double our norm. Almost every less active family that we are working with miraculously made it to church. It added a little pressure onto my talk, haha, but it was worth it. Then I found out I had to teach gospel principles too, but that's not too hard anymore. Other than that we have had success with a lot of our investigators. Including Adriana, Teresa, and their mom who came to english classes, church, and a baptism that the english Elders had. Also our investigator Jesus Ramos starting reading the book of mormon and accepted the commitment to work towards baptism. He drinks a lot, so it won't be easy, but I think he'll do it!

Other than that, things are pretty much the same. Elder Acosta is getting really excited to go home in 15 days. (yes, he is counting) We had a fun p-day going on a run and playing handball and soccer at the park. And that's about it I guess. Well, I hope you all have a wonderful week! Have fun finishing school soon! -Elder Hatch

PS I got the graduation announcement from Miranda. That's just crazy.

5-20-13 email

Hello to my family! this week has been a better, and more exciting week. We had a whopping 5 investigators at church this week which was great. Even better was the fact that Adriana and her mom were two of them! It was kind of a bittersweet situation because her mom got fired from her job, but all of the sudden she is super interested in coming to church and learning with her daughters. We were able to start teaching her and she had a great experience coming to church. We have some awesome members of the branch that really helped with that. We also found another investigator named Jesus Ramos that was really interested in the plan of salvation. He is friends with a less-active family in our branch, so it looks pretty promising. We are seeing them tomorrow. So I am pretty happy about our week, I hope we can do even better next week.

In other news, I also got a battle wound this week at a branch party. We were helping to cook the beans when I slipped and grabbed a burning pot. I got a pretty nasty second degree burn on about half of my thumb. Haha lots of fun... It's not too bad though. I'll have to send a picture or something.

Some more sad news, we have our last interviews with this president miller tomorrow. He goes home in just three weeks now! So does my companion. I wonder if much is really going to change or if he will just keep all the same rules when the new president miller comes in. It will be exciting to see! Well sorry this one is kind of short, but thats all that I have for this week. I'm glad everything is going well ( Including prom and piano ) I hope you all have a great week this week! -Elder Hatch

5-13-13 email

Hello Again family! Well I only have a couple minutes today, and I have nothing new to say since yesterday, so it will be pretty short this time. Anyways, I just wanted to let you know how much I loved being able to talk to you guys yesterday. I miss you all so much!!! I do understand why they only let you do it twice a year though, I couldn't concentrate on missionary work for the rest of the day at all. We did get to go to a nice mothers day barbeque afterwards, which was delicious. I'm really excited for this week though. We are shifting all of our focus on to finding new investigators. Which means we are going to be doing a lot of contacting and knocking. I'll be honest, knocking doors still isn't very fun to me, but I always feel like I'm accomplishing something, even when people aren't very nice to us. Anyways, we went on a nice run this morning, that was fun. Other than that there isn't much new to report! I hope you all have a wonderful week! -Elder Hatch

5-6-13 email

Dear Family, So I will start off with some good news, We found somebody to skype with! We have church the same time you do, so I was thinking sometime between 3 and 4. If it's ok I will skype alice's account to make it easier. I am very excited! Just think, after this there's only one more call until I come home! Haha So anyways, I don't have much to report this week. It's getting harder and harder to motivate Elder Acosta. But we still get work done. Hmmm We had an awesome Sunday though, we had a couple investigators at church and had a nice meeting. Plus we had a great cinco de mayo barbeque with the branch president. I love mexican food. period. Well, I hope you guys aren't too dissapointed with this letter, but I will be seeing you sunday! -Elder Hatch