Mark your calanders!

Mark your calendars so you can be at Sky Harbor Airport to welcome Jordan home. He will arrive:

Tuesday June 15th
, 2010
at 5:30 pm

on British Airways to Phoenix.

Everyone is invited to welcome him off the plane!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Pictures from the Czech Republic

Jordan sent us a memory card full of pictures. Here are a few of them. You can access the rest by clicking here:



The Elders held a special Family Home Evening activity at the Chapel.
A Picture of Prague on the day he arrived in the Czech Republic
There are only 4 Elders assigned to the little city Liberec where Jordan is serving. Here they are on preperation day.


Monday, August 25, 2008

Liberec-- Monday July 25th, 2008

Hey everybody we had a pretty good week here ill start out answering some questions, our apartment is pretty much in the direct center of town, our street is a busy walking street with lots of shops and we are directly between the two namestis which are kinda like town squares and the the central hub of the bus and tram station is like a 3 minute walk away which is very nice.

For a rundown of our daily schedule we wake up at 6:30 and exercise shower get ready and breakfast from 7-8 personal study from 8-9 comp study from 9-10 personal language study from 10-10:30 and then we leave usually for contacting which we do in the central area of town have lunch around 1 depending what time we have meetings at, then we have more contacting and meetings spread through out the day, if we dont have any meetings at night we would go tracting from 5:30 to 8 and have dinner from 8-9 we usually have a big lunch and then just like a sandwhich for dinner planning from 9-9:30 and then journal writing and getting ready for bed, im doing a pretty good job of writing in my journal everyday.

For tracting we hop on a bus to get out of the central area and pick a panalock to tract one of the hardest parts is trying to get in to them since you have to be buzzed in. We ride the bus usually 2 or 3 times a day and they also have some trams that we take when we visit one of our older less actives. We have 3 less actives we work with, two are single women between like 75-80 and 1 is a married woman who is like 25 and her husband hates the church.

Vera is one of our older ones and she is in a long term recovery center she had a couple of surgerys done and her only family in the area is a nephew, so we go by a couple of times each week for a few minutes and help her walk around the hallways and visit with her which she greatly enjoys. a funny story from it as she was holding onto my companion and walking we passed an older woman who was staying there and her husband was visiting her the woman in czech said to her husband, those boys are handsome i can tell they are not from around here but they speak czech, what do we have to do to get one of them? Go ask the doctor and see if i can get one. I wasnt able to understand all of it but elder andersen told me about it afterwards and we had a good laugh.

It was a slow week for us on teaching a lot of people are gone on vacation right now the whole branch was pretty much gone from monday to saturday. Our two main investigators didnt come to church which is a bummer. honza had to work the night before from 10-6 and we went to pick him up at 8:20 but he didnt answer which was a bummer and Aja was out of town so we are working on trying to get some more investigators. there are a ton of old people here it seems like we contact them but we usually have more success with the younger crowd between like 18-20.

It has rained quite a bit here the last couple of days. I cant think of anything else right now we are keeping busy working it should start to pick up more next week when the university here comes back and starts up the semester. How is swim going for Ian and Alyssa? When do you have time trials? Its crazy that im already a month through my first transfer time flies it seems like i was just packing and getting ready to leave the MTC. I hope you all have a good week

Love
Elder Hatch

Monday, August 18, 2008

August 18th, 2008

Hey guys it sounds like you all had a good week. mine had its up and downs but it was good overall. On monday our ward fhe went great, the branch loved it. we had twenty people there which was awesome and actually more then we expected so us 4 missionaries didnt eat but it was worth it the members really enjoyed it. In the celestial room we covered the floor and walls with white sheets and had a bunch of lights and some music playing when we opened the doors one of the women started crying and said it was so amazing and thats where she wants to go so it was definitely worth sacrificing our whole p day to do it.

On Tuesday we found out one of our progressing investigators had made a few mistakes before meeting us including stealing some money from some people and had to flee the country or they would kill him so that was kind of a surprise but dont worry mom we are safe. Another one of our really good investigators had to move to another city for work and there are no missionaries there which is a bummer but we got talking to some sister missionaries about an hour away and they say they go to that city some times when they have investigators so they might be able to take over teaching him which would be cool.

Our zone leader came on exchanges with us on thursday which was really good he and his companion spent the night at our apartment then we got up early and left for zone conference in prague which was awesome. It was a dual zone conference at the mission home and it was a great experience. president and his wife taught us some really good things about how to love the people for who they are, and the AP's had some good presentations. From my interview with president i think i might stay in liberec for the next transfer he told me to get ready cuz the winters are cold in liberec but i told him i have a good big coat so ill be ok.

On sunday we had a great sacrament meeting, we had two investigators there, the other missionaries had two investigators then one random guy showed up who was visiting from prague and asked if he could come to our church and see what it was like, one of the members brought a non member friend, than a mongolian couple showed up he is a member and his wife is not and she wants to be taught, they had to travel by train an hour and a half to get there which shows a lot of dedication on their part.

We extended a baptisimal invitation to Aja and it went really well she accepted and right now we have it set up for a double baptism on september 6th which would be awesome. The members were way excited to see all the people there it was a great boost for this little branch. On wednesday we went to the branch presidents house for dinner, we had to ride a bus then a tram then he picked us up at the tram station and drove us to their house. They have this sweet little cottage out in the country side that they are redoing, we had some very good czech food and one of the members was there with his girlfriend who is our investigator which went really good being with them.

I am loving it here the work is going good and the people are way nice. An interesting thing about the czech republic is that pretty much all the shops are closed on sundays and everybody stays home with their familys which i think is awesome. So me and elder andersen went tracting last night (sunday) we got let into the panolak went up to the very top floor knocked on the door and we got this like 40 year old guy to answer in his speedo almost nottinghill style mom and he was just leaning on the door talking to us pretty funny.

Alot of the old women are scared of us and wont open the door so they try to yell through it to talk to us but they are all like deaf and cant hear what we yell back it makes for some interesting times.

You guys will have to let me know how the triatholon goes with kamille im pretty sure she will kill library boy's (me) time. I love you all thanks for everything, im sending pictures home today so look for those.

Love
Jordan

Monday, August 11, 2008

Monday, August 11, 2008

Hey Family hows it going there? Its great to read all your emails and know you are doing well. I will start off with answering some questions, they have a transit system here of buses and trams that i got a month long pass too. we are in an apartment building and have a very nice apartment, i found out why it is so nice it used to be a sisters apartment so it is all new and remodeled and is much nicer than the other elders apartment which is like a 10 minute walk away, they live in an old panawok which are huge apartment buildings built during the cold war and it is pretty much a dump there.

The church is in some rented rooms on the second floor of the building across the street from us. i took some pictures and ill send them to you.

everybody can send me emails not just family but i can only write family and other missionaries on here. I haven't been over anywhere for dinner yet we got invited this week to go to the branch presidents house for dinner he and his wife are real nice and they have a cute 1 year old son.

Right now we have two baptisimal dates which is pretty exciting since I think there has only been 1 baptisim here in the last 4 years? The branch is very small but they are very willing to always come sit in on a lesson with us traveling pretty far to get to the church to do so.

Last sunday we had our first meeting with a woman who we found as a new investigator. she has had a hard life under the soviets and then last year her daughter dissapeared and she has been searching for her ever since, we gave her the book of mormon and challenged her to start reading in it when we met with her on wednseday. she had read the whole thing and was asking us questions from all over the book which was really exciting, and then when we taught her about prophets she got even more excited and we gave her the conference edition of the liahona to read.

I teach a couple of little principles in each lesson and it is exciting because they understand what i say but then when they ask questions back i have no idea what they are saying and my companion steps in and helps me out. Our zone leader came in on thursday for exchanges and i got to go contacting with him for a little bit he is a good guy. elder mac from kanas city currently the oldest missionary by time in country, we are kind of on a weird cycle here a bunch of missionaires have been coming and leaving the last couple of transfers and now we only have 3 missionaries coming in and 3 leaving in the next 8 months.

My comp left for brno thursday night for a leadership conference and i went and stayed with the other elders for my first over night exchange, the next day i went out with one of the members the whole day tracting which was good. Tonight we are putting on a branch family home evening for everybody we are making tacos and then we are decoration different rooms and taking the branch on a tour of the 3 kingdoms of glory so hopefully it turns out good we are spending most of today decorating and getting the food and cooking. i guess the branch really like the one the missionaries did last transfer which was a journey back to the time of the book of mormon.

You asked what different kinds of czech meals i have had, ive had sveditka which is like a couple of slices of i think sourdough bread? and you eat it with meat and sauce, ive had their version of fried chicken with fried cheese balls which are very good, and some peach chicken thing it has all been really good.

I guess the czech republic is famous for this one kind of soda kofala so i have had that, here beer is much cheaper than soda or water which is kind of crazy. My comp made a slovak dish for as district dinner called hluska which is very good hes gonna teach me how to make it then last night he made ovoce knedliky which is a famous czech desert that is very good. Hopefully that answered most of your questions keep on sending them, we are working hard here im exhausted when i go to bed and wake up but the work is going well and im loving it. Keep on doin whats right good luck with your talks mom and dad im sure you will do great.

Love
Jordan

Saturday, August 9, 2008

All the new missionaries


This is the group of missionaries Jordan traveled with. Looks like a great new bunch of missionaries!

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Letter from President Slovacek, Jr.

We received a letter today from Jordan's Mission President, Marvin J. Slovacek, Jr. Along with the letter we received a map of the mission along with a picture of Jordan with his first companion/Trainer Elder Anderson.



Jordan's first assignment is in the city of Liberec. It is circled below. This is located just 20 miles from both the German and Polish borders. He is about 60 miles from the temple located in Freiberg, Germany.

Monday, August 4, 2008

The first letter from Prague

Monday August 4th, 2008

Hello family and friends. i bet you are all dying to hear from me its been an exciting two weeks here first off ill start out with my address
Pražska 16/25 460 01
Liberec-1 Czech republic

you can send mail here and my companion says it takes about 6 days for it to get here but if you ever send packages the mission home would be the best place, i get the mail from the mission home about once a month transfers are 2 months here. So as you can tell from my address i am in the beautiful city of liberec which is in northern Bohemia.

After i had talked to you on the phone we got on the plane to vienna which was a long flight but i had a cool kid named matok (mark) in front of me who was half american half slovak and was a funny 2 year old boy who kept us busy. We got into vienna in the morning and hopped on a plane over to prague i made it to prague with all my luggage and so did everybody else but elder briggs who lost both of his bags.

President and his wife and the two AP's picked us up and took us to the mission home where we had a nice lunch and the AP's took us on a prague walk around the city which is beautiful saw Prague Castle and went over Charles bridge saw the gate from the first mission impossible where the girl is killed.

We did some contacting for like half an hour which was an interesting experience and then had our first czech food which was good svedicka. We were all dead tired by this time and very hot and sticky since it was a very warm day in prague and very humid. We went back to the mission home and me and elder larson had interviews and then we all went to sleep for like 12 hours to get over the jet lag.

The next day president finished up interviews we had a orientation meeting where they told us about our debit cards and then it was upstairs to presidents apartment to find out where we were going. I got assigned to liberec and my trainer is Elder Andersen from Logan Utah i am his third trainee so he has got the training down pretty well and is doing a great job. There are 4 of us elders in the district here in Liberec.

My first full day here we had a lesson with one of our progressing investigators to teach the law of chastity to a 23 year old man so that was an interesting experience but it turned out great which was awesome, he has a baptismal date for in a month which is very exciting. Our other progressing investigator is from Bulgeria and is up here for work and the teaching is going great with him which i am excited about. We are doing quite a bit of contacting so we can get some more people to teach and i am able to do some of it and it helps me learn more czech. Some of the people are really nice and some arent but its all good.

Liberec is a beautiful city its up in the "mountains" which are kind of just big hills in the czech republic and there are trees everywhere and it is very green. Our apartment is on a busy walking street on the 4th floor right across from the Church which is a great location. We had an english class on thursday and i was assigned to the advanced class where they are basically fluent in english, i only had one student so we talked alot so he could practice his english and he told me alot about the history of the czech republik.

Saturday was sports night where we took our bulgerian investigator and his brother in law and played some volleyball.Church is at 9 and the branch is pretty small about silverton size there was about 10 members plus us four missionaries so we have alot of work to do but i am excited.

I just got back from a vylet which is an excursion to sykrov which is a castle out in the countryside we took a train too it was beautifull kind of more of a chatuex then castle but it had huge gardens and luckily i brought my umbrella cuz it rained pretty hard when we were leaving and i took alot of pictures, i have taken pictures of pretty much everything and ill send them to you sometime.

We do alot of walking so i dont think there are any worries at all of me gaining weight. My companion is a pretty good cook and we combine our groceries together and cook together so he is showing me some good easy meals to make, I have had a couple of czech meals now which are great the food is really good, we go to a czech restaurant before district meeting every week so we can experience the food. My companion has been in the country for a year so on his mission for 14 months the other two missionaries in our district are elder harris from idaho who has been out 8 months and elder crane from touilla utah who has been out 6 months they are both cool and we have fun together they came on the vylet with us.

it sounds like you are all doing great thats crazy that two of my roommates are going to the same mission. Well i hope i didnt overload you with information there i will fill you in on more next week i love you all and hope you are doing well thanks for writing and keeping me up to date on everything. The gospel of Jesus Christ truly is amazing.

Love
Jordan