January 26th, 2009

Hey everybody thanks for all of the birthday wishes this week. That is sweet that Spencer got his mission call to Brazil.

So I must admit that I dont feel any older or wiser being 20 but lets hope that the wiser part comes soon. So I think i have had more people try and convince me to drink beer here on my mission than i ever had at home in high school. Because the church building is far away and it is difficult to get people to come and meet us there for the first couple of meetings with them, often we meet in these little restaurants called hospodas and get a kofola which is like the czech national soda. Alot of times this leads to people asking us if we have tried czech beer which we say no to and then leads into a big discussion of them saying that it is healthy and it wont hurt us to try it, needless to say it puts a damper on the meeting but usually it turns out all right in the end.

Lenka gave me a birthday cake for my birthday and is doing awesome, we are going over to the District Presidents house with her for family home evening tonight. One of the other companionships had a baptism this week on friday which was really powerful. It was a 16 year old kid who has been investigating for like 8 months but his mom wouldnt give him permission to be baptized until this week, but he has come to church and mutual every single week so everybody knew him really well.

One of the young men who just turned 16 about a month ago has become a good friend of his and baptized him which was really cool to see. We had some investigators there who really felt the spirit and commented on it. So transfers are next week and the word on the street is not alot of changes are going to be happening.

The mission is really old right now, like i have been here for 6 months and there are only 3 missionarys in the whole mission who have been here for less time and there are no new missionarys coming in this transfer. So it is possible that Elder Gagon and I will stay together for another transfer but we really have no idea anything could happen.

Somebody asked how much time my past companions have left, Elder Andersen has 4 months left, Elder Nowland has a year left and Elder Gagon has 8 months left. Elder Williams and Elder Melancon are some missionaries here and they had my comp and I over this morning for biscuists and gravy and eggs it was pretty good to have a big real breakfast for once. I busted out my culinary skills yesterday and made a nice sunday dinner of barbeque chicken and potatoes.

During the winter a lot of the castles and chateuxs are shut down so we haven't been going on any trips on p-days. That is about all this week nothing too exciting, I hope everybody has a good week and keep on working hard.

Love
Elder Hatch