January 13th, 2009

Hey family

Im glad to hear that you guys are doing good, things are awesome here in the czech republic. Lenka was baptized on saturday which was awesome she had been so excited and happy for it all week and got there like an hour early. Elder Gagon and I had to get up at 4:20 to travel to the church and get the font filling up. For some reason the water heater wasnt working to well and the water was coming out super cold so we spent the next 4 hours boiling big pots of water to throw in there so they wouldnt freeze to death but it was worth it. Czech people really dont like to smile and everybody was commenting on how much lenka was smiling and how good it was to see somebody so excited about the gospel. She was confirmed in church on sunday, that was the part she was nervous about because she is a pretty shy person until she gets to know you and she was scared to have to go up in front of everybody during sacrament meeting but when the time came she was perfectly fine.

Im glad to hear you got the picture of us, that was sent from the Wooly's they are a senior missionary couple here in Brno and they had us over for sunday dinner and we were printing off that picture so we could give it to lenka and i asked them to forward it on to you guys. We had pork roast and potoatoes with rolls and apple pie, it was good to have a good ole american sunday dinner again. Also they go around and do cleaning checks on the missionary's apartments to make sure we arent slobs so we had our check this last week and passed with flying colors. I guess it helps when your apartment is only a month old but we do a good job of keeping it clean.

We also got in this last week some senior sisters here in Brno. They are actually sisters in real life also who are both widowed. Their dad was a missionary here and than later on one of the first mission presidents here President Toronto. He is the guy who was their before world war 2 and than escaped out with the missionarys on the last boat before world war 2 started. And than he returned as mission president after world war 2 for like 4 years before they were kicked out again. So they have a ton of stories and actually remember some of the members here who were kids with them back then. The older one knows czech because she lived here until she was 14 and the other one is 10 years younger but knows a little czech because she served here on a mission 3 years ago so our district here has gotten pretty big.

I was on exchanges with Elder Fruehan this last week he is the new missionary and has been in the country for a month. It was fun to go out contacting with him because everything rested on me i couldnt rely on my companion and his czech. It was my first time being with a missionary younger than me but we had alot of success finding people and had a good time in the process so it was worth it.

Yesterday we had zone conference so our p-day was switched to today thats why my email is a day late and sunday was branch conference so it was a pretty busy weekend but well worth it. Branch conference was sweet for sunday school we divided off into three groups, relief society, priesthood and young men and young womans. And they discussed ideas they can do to improve things they came up with alot of different stuff. The members here have gone through so many hard times and are still strong i love working with them.

Thanks for the package from Brother Lambson you guys are awesome i bought some cheese today for the gorditas and im pretty excited to eat those. I attempted to translate for him during priesthood, it was pretty rough i understood what they were saying but it was hard to put into words so he got a pretty simpliefied version but it was good work for me. During sacrament meeting they have these head sets and one of the zone leaders translates because there are about 10 people there who dont speak english but do speak czech. Well that is about all for this week sorry if i was all over the place in my email i just kind of type whatever pops up. I hope you guys all have a good week and keep on chugging along thanks for all of the love and support you guys are awesome.

Love
Elder Hatch

PS I have discovered a secret love for fried cheese but dont worry im working out more so even if i do have clogged arteries hopefully i wont be 300 pounds when I get home :)