Hey family and friends
i enjoyed hearing from you today it sounds like you are doing well. Things are going great here, we had 11 non members at church yesterday which was great and we got some more we are working on coming next week. So i have a calling here in the branch in olomouc i am now the official branch pianist, my fingers are a little rusty but we show up early to church so i can practice some of the songs and it hasnt been too bad the last two weeks and you may be surprised but i havent even had to bust out a rendition of sweet hour of prayer which many may remember as a classic of mine when i played in priesthood.
Funny/cool news of the week we have this 22 year old guy who is investigating the church and also this 18 year old girl who is investigating, and they didnt know each other at all but they met at church and now they are dating which is a first for me but so far it is turning out pretty good and as a plus we were a little worried she had more interest in us as missionaries then the gospel but now we dont have to worry about that which is always good.
Another funny story we are teaching this family with three boys who have been at church twice, this last sunday they were coming back from brno so they couldnt come to church but at the start of priesthood i saw one of the boys come in, his name is milan and he is almost 10. he was all out of breath and i was like hey milan hows it going, he replied huffing and puffing we just got back from brno and i ran to make it to primary so he stayed for the last hour of primary and then afterwards i was talking with him and he was dissapointed it was already over but left home happy cuz we are going to visit them on tuesday. he is a really cool kid when we were teaching them this last week we taught them how to pray and he brought out a paper and pen and asked me to write down how to pray just the 3 steps 1. Address heavenly father 2. speak from the heart with him thank him for things which he gives us and ask questions or for help and 3. End in the name of Jesus Christ. I had never seen a little kid so excited to pray it was a great experience.
We should be having 2 baptisms on saturday, Andrea is a 25 year old single mom who is Josefs cousin and then josefs 11 year old son will be getting baptized. Andrea has a great conversioin experience, her mom died a couple of months ago and than one night she had a dream where her mom came to her and told her how help would be coming to her to show her the right way and the next day she met the missionaries.
The assistants came on exchanges with us this week which was great because it was the first time i was able to work with Elder Briggs my good budd from the MTC, we found a sweet guy together and than we taught Liba the awesome woman we met the gospel of Jesus Christ and she loved it all, we are going to be working with her to be baptized in december, it was quite different from the last time elder briggs and i taught together in the mtc and i would say we have made some definite improvement in our czech from that time. She also has already invited us over for christmas lunch and we have gotten another invitation for christmas eve dinner from one of our investigator families so i guess people must like us.
I am also grateful for the opportunity to help and serve others, at the beginning of the week i was having some hard times but tuesday evening i was with another missionary to train on exchanges and i had to forget about myself and my own wants and problems and lose myself in helping another missionary which helped me out myself. I am a big fan of if you want to be happy try to make somebody else happy and you will find it makes you as happy as well.
Other good news this week, the family i found and taught in brno have a baptisimal date for the 12th of december which was great to hear.
It sounds like stake conference turned out well, I loved dad's talk on missionary work it was good hearing about the successes of grandma jacques mission and grandma ruths i hadnt heard those stories before grandma jacques has sent me grandpa hals mission journal and i enjoy reading through it. Well that is all this week I am happy to be here and serving the Lord it is the best thing in the world and I know with out a doubt that God is there he hears our prayers and loves us, That Jesus is The Christ and is our Savior and Redeemer one of my favorite scriptures i love sharing with people is alma 7:11-12 you should all look it up.
Love
Elder Hatch
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Monday, November 9th, 2009
hey family
this last week was an amazing week here in olomouc, one of the best of my mission. so last week the ap's challenged elder roberts and i saying they could teach more lessons this week than us, well we got into teaching mode and blew them away. now as a consequence they have to eat olomouc cheese which is famous here for being the stinkiest cheese ever it stinks up a whole room as soon as you unwrap it. then yesterday at church it was like great, we had 10 people there. one of them Andrea who is our baptismal date was out of town because of some family issues she had to take care of but got up early sunday morning and took a bus 60 kilometers to get to church on time and she has fallen in love with reading in the book of mormon and has a goal to finish it before her baptism in two weeks as of yesterday she is in alma 5 .
Joseph got the Aaronic priesthood yesterday which was great to participate in. Also we are working with joseph's 11 year old son and joseph should be baptizing him in 2 weeks which will be a great experience.
I have gained even more respect for all of the mom's in the church and all they do to get their kids ready for church and bring them and take care of them. We were teaching renata, joseph's wife and she was telling us how it is just so hard getting 6 kids under the age of 11 ready and go by bus to church by 9:30 and trying to keep the kids quite and just how it is so much work and isn't a spiritual experience for her with all the kids. we got them all to church on sunday and got some help for her and all the kids behaved which was nice and turned out to be a great experience for her. the Branch Presidents wife is very sympathetic and helped talk to her about it because she has a couple of little kids as well so hopefully it will be a better experience for her in the future.
Something funny is our investigator milan came with two of his sons age 9 and 12 and they were in primary, milan had to take off after sacrament and sunday school but his kids were still in primary and didn't want to go so they stayed an extra hour after their dad left and then walked home, always a good thing when the kids like primary.
We had a meeting at joseph and renatas place where they invited all these members of their family to come. We were teaching a room full of 19 people with all of these kids running around, it was pretty hectic but also amazing to see how all of their family members are having interest in the gospel as well. milan is renata's cousin and he was like hey next time you go over there you have to call me i want to go again, we are teaching him and his family separately as well we have already taught them three times and they are progressing well. it is such a great experience to teach families i am so grateful for the opportunity to do so and to see the changes it makes in people when they truly begin to apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives, there is no better thing.
i hope everybody has a great week and i love you all, it sounds like ian and alyssa did great in state congratulations on that and i look forward to hearing from everybody next week.
Love
Elder Hatch
this last week was an amazing week here in olomouc, one of the best of my mission. so last week the ap's challenged elder roberts and i saying they could teach more lessons this week than us, well we got into teaching mode and blew them away. now as a consequence they have to eat olomouc cheese which is famous here for being the stinkiest cheese ever it stinks up a whole room as soon as you unwrap it. then yesterday at church it was like great, we had 10 people there. one of them Andrea who is our baptismal date was out of town because of some family issues she had to take care of but got up early sunday morning and took a bus 60 kilometers to get to church on time and she has fallen in love with reading in the book of mormon and has a goal to finish it before her baptism in two weeks as of yesterday she is in alma 5 .
Joseph got the Aaronic priesthood yesterday which was great to participate in. Also we are working with joseph's 11 year old son and joseph should be baptizing him in 2 weeks which will be a great experience.
I have gained even more respect for all of the mom's in the church and all they do to get their kids ready for church and bring them and take care of them. We were teaching renata, joseph's wife and she was telling us how it is just so hard getting 6 kids under the age of 11 ready and go by bus to church by 9:30 and trying to keep the kids quite and just how it is so much work and isn't a spiritual experience for her with all the kids. we got them all to church on sunday and got some help for her and all the kids behaved which was nice and turned out to be a great experience for her. the Branch Presidents wife is very sympathetic and helped talk to her about it because she has a couple of little kids as well so hopefully it will be a better experience for her in the future.
Something funny is our investigator milan came with two of his sons age 9 and 12 and they were in primary, milan had to take off after sacrament and sunday school but his kids were still in primary and didn't want to go so they stayed an extra hour after their dad left and then walked home, always a good thing when the kids like primary.
We had a meeting at joseph and renatas place where they invited all these members of their family to come. We were teaching a room full of 19 people with all of these kids running around, it was pretty hectic but also amazing to see how all of their family members are having interest in the gospel as well. milan is renata's cousin and he was like hey next time you go over there you have to call me i want to go again, we are teaching him and his family separately as well we have already taught them three times and they are progressing well. it is such a great experience to teach families i am so grateful for the opportunity to do so and to see the changes it makes in people when they truly begin to apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives, there is no better thing.
i hope everybody has a great week and i love you all, it sounds like ian and alyssa did great in state congratulations on that and i look forward to hearing from everybody next week.
Love
Elder Hatch
Monday, November 2, 2009
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
hey everybody
things like every week are going good here. congratulations ian and alyssa on doing so good in regionals both of your times sound great that you got, thats a bummer that the regions all got changed up but good luck in state i am sure you both will do great.
we had zone conference this last week which went very well, elder roberts and my training went well. we trained on getting spiritually and mentally pumped to find i incorupported a few things from my old companion elder chambers so a shout out to him. also on the drive down i got a call asking me to conduct zone conference which was a first but luckily i didnt say anything stupid.
After zone conference on wednesday we went to zlin for the night and the next day and found some cool people for the missionaries there and worked with them and they are all doing great. A cool finding story from this week, we had a lesson at the building with a recent convert and then we had 45 minutes before english started so we hit the streets and started talking to people. i contacted about a 50 year old woman and started talking with her and she was very happy which is unusual for czech people to show on the street so i was like you look very happy can i ask why you are so happy? and she said well my first granddaughter was born 2 days ago, we talked about that and then started talking about faith and we were like well do you have a couple of minutes we can show you our building. we took her to our building and we explained shortly how we meet with people and have a great message we share with people about christ and God's plan for us and how God still speaks with us a day, she replied well thats great where do i sign up? and can i come to church too? of course we answered yes and then as she was leaving she was like also i have never been baptized and i think its something i would like to work on. needless to say elder roberts and i had big smiles on our faces for the rest of the day, she was sick over the weekend but is looking forward to meeting with us this week.
We had a branch halloween party on friday and we were out of town the two days before and didnt know about it on p-day so we just scrounged through our apartment to make our costumes. I just wore my goofy russian hat with these german flag suspenders and my companion dressed up as a white trash american with this old hoodie with the sleeves cut off and some mocasins. i got a good picture of us that i will send home soon. It was a good turn out we had some fun games there and everybody had a good time.
Our heaters werent working and sunday it was below zero needless to say it was a little cold when we got out of bed but luckily we have gotten them fixed and have a nice warm apartment
again.
one of our new investigators is in the czech army and fought in iraq for a little while, he is also a scuba diver for them and in his spare time he is a free diver i dont know if you remember mom or dad but there was an interesting article in sports illustrated about that a couple of years ago, he was showing me his pictures and he can free dive (that means without an oxygen tank) to 40 meters which for all of you americans is like 150 feet i think, he told me his key is this wooden flute he played on which you have to push alot of air through to strengthen your lungs. he has some pretty interesting egyptain beliefs but is willing to listen and try something new so we shall see what happens.
have a great week everybody and good luck ian and alyssa
love
Elder Hatch
things like every week are going good here. congratulations ian and alyssa on doing so good in regionals both of your times sound great that you got, thats a bummer that the regions all got changed up but good luck in state i am sure you both will do great.
we had zone conference this last week which went very well, elder roberts and my training went well. we trained on getting spiritually and mentally pumped to find i incorupported a few things from my old companion elder chambers so a shout out to him. also on the drive down i got a call asking me to conduct zone conference which was a first but luckily i didnt say anything stupid.
After zone conference on wednesday we went to zlin for the night and the next day and found some cool people for the missionaries there and worked with them and they are all doing great. A cool finding story from this week, we had a lesson at the building with a recent convert and then we had 45 minutes before english started so we hit the streets and started talking to people. i contacted about a 50 year old woman and started talking with her and she was very happy which is unusual for czech people to show on the street so i was like you look very happy can i ask why you are so happy? and she said well my first granddaughter was born 2 days ago, we talked about that and then started talking about faith and we were like well do you have a couple of minutes we can show you our building. we took her to our building and we explained shortly how we meet with people and have a great message we share with people about christ and God's plan for us and how God still speaks with us a day, she replied well thats great where do i sign up? and can i come to church too? of course we answered yes and then as she was leaving she was like also i have never been baptized and i think its something i would like to work on. needless to say elder roberts and i had big smiles on our faces for the rest of the day, she was sick over the weekend but is looking forward to meeting with us this week.
We had a branch halloween party on friday and we were out of town the two days before and didnt know about it on p-day so we just scrounged through our apartment to make our costumes. I just wore my goofy russian hat with these german flag suspenders and my companion dressed up as a white trash american with this old hoodie with the sleeves cut off and some mocasins. i got a good picture of us that i will send home soon. It was a good turn out we had some fun games there and everybody had a good time.
Our heaters werent working and sunday it was below zero needless to say it was a little cold when we got out of bed but luckily we have gotten them fixed and have a nice warm apartment
again.
one of our new investigators is in the czech army and fought in iraq for a little while, he is also a scuba diver for them and in his spare time he is a free diver i dont know if you remember mom or dad but there was an interesting article in sports illustrated about that a couple of years ago, he was showing me his pictures and he can free dive (that means without an oxygen tank) to 40 meters which for all of you americans is like 150 feet i think, he told me his key is this wooden flute he played on which you have to push alot of air through to strengthen your lungs. he has some pretty interesting egyptain beliefs but is willing to listen and try something new so we shall see what happens.
have a great week everybody and good luck ian and alyssa
love
Elder Hatch
Monday, October 26, 2009
Monday October 26th, 2009
hey family
great things are happening here in olomouc, Josef was baptized on saturday and got the holy ghost on sunday which was a great experience the other woman andrea wasn't baptized we had to put it off but hopefully in a month or so she can be baptized. Unfortunatly two of his kids were really sick so his wife had to stay home with them over the weekend and couldn't see him baptized or receive the holy ghost but she was very happy to hear of it and see the pictures, his sister came to the baptism and was very interested and she is thinking about being baptized now too.
Sunday was also branch conference so we had President and sister slovacek with us and also the district president and one of his counselors and it was a great meeting all of our investigators loved hearing them talk and Josef was very impressed and is already planing on applying these things they taught into his life. during sunday school the branch worked on a plan on what they want to see in 5 years. They came up with they wanted their main goal to be working towards building their own chapel here in olomouc so we went over the requirements necessary for that, a funny thing was we had this old lady there as an investigator and she thought it was a matter of just raising enough money to get it so she was wanting to start a baking service to raise money for it. I was translating for the slovaceks so it was pretty funny telling them about all the different ideas, sister slovacek got a good laugh out of starting a baking service.
It was a pretty hectic week for us tuesday evening after some meetings we took off to ostrava for exchanges there, we showed up at their apartment and gave them a call and were like hey we are right in front of your building, they said "we are outside and dont see you", it turns out that they had moved apartment buildings and our gps had taken us to their old apartment and they didnt know the address to their new apartment and neither of them knew the city because they were both brand new so it was and interesting experience finding where they lived we had to ask a lot of directions from random people but we finaly found it. we spent the whole next day in their area helping them find new people and then we were back to olomouc for another day of teaching and having josefs baptisimal interview and then friday it was off to brno for leadership conference and back for the baptism and branch conference.
The lord blessed us for all of the work and effort we put in and even with being out of our area so much we still were able to find some cool new people to teach and gave a baptisimal date to this guy named martin, i found his number in the apartment gave him a call we met with him and gave him a baptismal date, he has read the book of mormon one and half times through since the missionaries gave it to him a couple of months ago. the next meeting he brought his wife and 10 year old daughter and we started teaching them as well.
here is an interesting and funny story we were leaving this apartment building last week after teaching a leasson and as we were leaving some crazy 20 year old girl ran and jumped on my companion bear hugging him trying to kiss him, luckily he was able to get her off of him without hurting her and i got a good laugh out of it and was pretty grateful that i was behind him and it didnt happen to me.
i was finally able to see elder hollands talk in english it was pretty intense and good i liked it quite a bit. things are going great here, my companion and i are getting along great he is a real good person and fun too he was way into extreme sports at home.
This work is so amazing and it is so fulfilling seeing how the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to change lives so powerfully and help people become better and happier but even more important shows them how to return to live with Our Heavenly Father. God lives as does His Son, Jesus Christ and Thomas S. Monson is their called Prophet on earth today.
Love
Elder Hatch
great things are happening here in olomouc, Josef was baptized on saturday and got the holy ghost on sunday which was a great experience the other woman andrea wasn't baptized we had to put it off but hopefully in a month or so she can be baptized. Unfortunatly two of his kids were really sick so his wife had to stay home with them over the weekend and couldn't see him baptized or receive the holy ghost but she was very happy to hear of it and see the pictures, his sister came to the baptism and was very interested and she is thinking about being baptized now too.
Sunday was also branch conference so we had President and sister slovacek with us and also the district president and one of his counselors and it was a great meeting all of our investigators loved hearing them talk and Josef was very impressed and is already planing on applying these things they taught into his life. during sunday school the branch worked on a plan on what they want to see in 5 years. They came up with they wanted their main goal to be working towards building their own chapel here in olomouc so we went over the requirements necessary for that, a funny thing was we had this old lady there as an investigator and she thought it was a matter of just raising enough money to get it so she was wanting to start a baking service to raise money for it. I was translating for the slovaceks so it was pretty funny telling them about all the different ideas, sister slovacek got a good laugh out of starting a baking service.
It was a pretty hectic week for us tuesday evening after some meetings we took off to ostrava for exchanges there, we showed up at their apartment and gave them a call and were like hey we are right in front of your building, they said "we are outside and dont see you", it turns out that they had moved apartment buildings and our gps had taken us to their old apartment and they didnt know the address to their new apartment and neither of them knew the city because they were both brand new so it was and interesting experience finding where they lived we had to ask a lot of directions from random people but we finaly found it. we spent the whole next day in their area helping them find new people and then we were back to olomouc for another day of teaching and having josefs baptisimal interview and then friday it was off to brno for leadership conference and back for the baptism and branch conference.
The lord blessed us for all of the work and effort we put in and even with being out of our area so much we still were able to find some cool new people to teach and gave a baptisimal date to this guy named martin, i found his number in the apartment gave him a call we met with him and gave him a baptismal date, he has read the book of mormon one and half times through since the missionaries gave it to him a couple of months ago. the next meeting he brought his wife and 10 year old daughter and we started teaching them as well.
here is an interesting and funny story we were leaving this apartment building last week after teaching a leasson and as we were leaving some crazy 20 year old girl ran and jumped on my companion bear hugging him trying to kiss him, luckily he was able to get her off of him without hurting her and i got a good laugh out of it and was pretty grateful that i was behind him and it didnt happen to me.
i was finally able to see elder hollands talk in english it was pretty intense and good i liked it quite a bit. things are going great here, my companion and i are getting along great he is a real good person and fun too he was way into extreme sports at home.
This work is so amazing and it is so fulfilling seeing how the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to change lives so powerfully and help people become better and happier but even more important shows them how to return to live with Our Heavenly Father. God lives as does His Son, Jesus Christ and Thomas S. Monson is their called Prophet on earth today.
Love
Elder Hatch
Monday, October 19, 2009
October 19th, 2009
Ahoj from olomouc family
Things are going great here it is a beautiful city and a great branch. When I left plzen Wednesday morning it was snowing so winter is starting a little early here. Luckily it has warmed up a little since then. It was sad leaving plzen and saying goodbye to everyone but that is part of life. I got their contact info so I will stay in contact with them.
I have heard a lot about olomouc because elder chambers served here 8 months and elder nowland had also served here and they told me a lot of good things so I was excited to come. I got in wednseday and elder roberts picked me up and we went straight to work. We have a great teaching pool and a lot of good people we are working with which is a first for me, for a lot of my moves into new places the area was pretty empty with nobody to teach. We will have two baptisms on Saturday and we challenged another couple to baptism last night and they accepted. We are also getting some good referrals from our investigators for other people to teach. In our zone we have 4 different cities across eastern czech republic including olomouc, ostrava, Zlin and uherske hradiste so we also have a car. I drove this last week which was weird since I hadn't driven a car in almost a year and a half but I didn’t crash so hey that’s good news. My companion is a great guy I like him a lot and we get along well and we are both hard workers so things are going great there.
Last week they had district conference so this week we watched general conference in czech again which was nice to hear again. One of the guys we are baptizing on Saturday is named joseph, his wife and daughter were baptized about a 6 weeks ago and he has decided to join them in the Church. He had a problem with smoking which kept him back the first time from being baptized but he has overcome it and is doing great. We go over pretty often to teach him and we are also teaching his sister and cousin so we are getting a good network going with the family.
We have a pretty busy week ahead of us, wednseday we will be in ostrava on exchanges helping the missionaries find some new investigators there and then Friday it is off to brno for leadership conference and then Saturday we have our baptisms. So it will be quite a bit of traveling this transfer I am guessing and a lot of hard work which is good because the harder I work the better I feel.
I am happy to be a missionary and happy to be in Olomouc, it is the greatest work in the world serving the Lord and helping other people. I have a firm testimony of the scripture I'm not quite sure how it goes in english anymore but “if you lose your life in the service of God you will find it, and if you focus on yourself you will lose it”. The greatest joy in life comes from serving others and building lasting eternal relationships. Materialism and selfishness only destroy and bring emptiness and sorrow.
Have a great week everybody and make wise decisions, I'm glad to hear you all got back safely from cancun and had a good time with Jenni and mason
Love
Elder Hatch
Monday, October 12, 2009
Monday October 12th, 2009
Hey family
We were able to watch conference this weekend which was a great experience to hear the words of the prophets. I was able to watch Saturday's sessions in english but I watched Sundays in czech because I was sitting with our investigators. . I could understand the conference in czech but it just did not have the same power because it is not my native tongue. Something funny with it and also disappointing, I was watching elder hollands talk and i could tell he was getting way into it and pretty intense but the translator just had this smooth passive voice.
Well just now while I was writing this email I got a call from President telling me that I will be transferred to oloumoc and I am going to be Zone Leader there with Elder Roberts, he was my district leader when I was in trebic so it will be fun serving with him there. Oloumoc is supposed to be a beautiful city and the zone has some high expectations there so I am excited to get to work. I am sad to leave Plzen and I will always remember this city because this is the place I would say I became the missionary I always envisioned myself being combining missionary skills with langauge ability and working with a lot of great people but life is also about moving on and having new experiences and new challenges for growth.
Vratislav is doing great he was at all the sessions of conference and it was so cool because you could just see that he was hungering after the word of God and soaking it all up, I have great hopes of him serving a mission he is the favorite missionarys person to teach with because he gives good simple testimony and he kind of just tells it how it is and people respect him for that.
Something else cool, Iva the woman Elder Chambers and I found in Trebic at the library was baptized at district conference in brno by my future companion Elder Roberts and from what I hear there was a 70 at the conference and the 70 stood in to give her the holy ghost.
One of our other investigators Pepa is making good progress we found him last transfer but he was gone for a month this transfer but he was at conference and caught 3 talks and they were all on chastity which we knew would be the biggest problem with him since he has had a girlfriend for about 2 years. He had to hurry and run to work after conference but we taught him that night and we were teaching the 10 commandments and when we got to adultery i was like what does this word mean to you and he was like it means i will end the intimate part of my relationship with anna (who is his girlfriend) i was taken a back and it was a testimony to me that you cant beat around the bush but you give it to them with the spirit and they will follow it.
I hope you all have a great week and i look forward to hearing from you next week from oloumoc take care and don't have too much fun in Cancun.
Love
Elder Hatch
We were able to watch conference this weekend which was a great experience to hear the words of the prophets. I was able to watch Saturday's sessions in english but I watched Sundays in czech because I was sitting with our investigators. . I could understand the conference in czech but it just did not have the same power because it is not my native tongue. Something funny with it and also disappointing, I was watching elder hollands talk and i could tell he was getting way into it and pretty intense but the translator just had this smooth passive voice.
Well just now while I was writing this email I got a call from President telling me that I will be transferred to oloumoc and I am going to be Zone Leader there with Elder Roberts, he was my district leader when I was in trebic so it will be fun serving with him there. Oloumoc is supposed to be a beautiful city and the zone has some high expectations there so I am excited to get to work. I am sad to leave Plzen and I will always remember this city because this is the place I would say I became the missionary I always envisioned myself being combining missionary skills with langauge ability and working with a lot of great people but life is also about moving on and having new experiences and new challenges for growth.
Vratislav is doing great he was at all the sessions of conference and it was so cool because you could just see that he was hungering after the word of God and soaking it all up, I have great hopes of him serving a mission he is the favorite missionarys person to teach with because he gives good simple testimony and he kind of just tells it how it is and people respect him for that.
Something else cool, Iva the woman Elder Chambers and I found in Trebic at the library was baptized at district conference in brno by my future companion Elder Roberts and from what I hear there was a 70 at the conference and the 70 stood in to give her the holy ghost.
One of our other investigators Pepa is making good progress we found him last transfer but he was gone for a month this transfer but he was at conference and caught 3 talks and they were all on chastity which we knew would be the biggest problem with him since he has had a girlfriend for about 2 years. He had to hurry and run to work after conference but we taught him that night and we were teaching the 10 commandments and when we got to adultery i was like what does this word mean to you and he was like it means i will end the intimate part of my relationship with anna (who is his girlfriend) i was taken a back and it was a testimony to me that you cant beat around the bush but you give it to them with the spirit and they will follow it.
I hope you all have a great week and i look forward to hearing from you next week from oloumoc take care and don't have too much fun in Cancun.
Love
Elder Hatch
Monday, October 5, 2009
October 5th, 2009
Hey family
The work is continuing onwards here in Plzen. Transfers are in a week so don't send anymore stuff to my apartment here in plzen because i may be leaving so if you have anything to send just wait a week to see what happens. The good news of the week is that our investigator John is going to start working towards baptism, (he is the one from the car crash). He was telling us that since we first met last transfer his life has changed and he has more joy in life now from a renewal of his faith. We have been wanting to talk with him about baptism for 2 months now but he lost his phone so we weren't in contact with him for 2 weeks, then a week after we got back in contact with him he got in a car crash and was in a coma and in the hospital for a month, so there have definitely been some things popping up to interfere but he is still continuing onwards.
It's interesting how we are led to help people as missionaries even though they don't end up being interested in the message we still help them quite a bit, it is a big testimony to me for God's love for all of his children even if they don't end up accepting the message.
For example, we met this one guy this last week, contacted him and sat down on a bench and he started telling us his story about how a week ago he came home from work an hour early and walked in on his girlfriend with another man. She promptly kicked him out of their house and locked him out and he had nothing with him, he didn't have any money because it was all at home, he still had work which he went to every day but wasn't getting paid for 2 weeks and he had already been living outside for one week. And his girlfriend told him he would never see their 2 year old daughter again. He wrote a last letter to everybody and was going to go jump off a bridge to end his life, we talked to him for awhile and he ended up changing his mind and decided to give life another shot, he has a book of mormon he is reading in but right now doesn't think it is for him.
I went on exchanges with Elder Kartchner this week so the two greenies got to spend a day together doing missionary work which they were pretty scared for but they ended up doing a good job and we had set up some meetings with english speakers to even it out a little bit. We met some scientologists and they want us to come to their seminary class so I told them that if they come to our seminary class this week we will go to theirs so we shall see what happens, I really have no idea what scientologists believe,I just know that Tom Cruise is one so we will see if they end up coming to ours.
President and Sister Slovacek came to church yesterday which is always fun. They sat up on the stand and they have these little translator sets so I sat in the back and translated for them, I am pretty sure a couple of czech words slipped in but they understood it all.
I ate rabbit for the first time on Saturday, we did service for this one woman and afterward she gave us lunch which consisted of rabbit. Also this last week we ate intestine soup which actually wasn't too bad just pretty chewy. Well that is about all for this week I hope you have a great week in San Antonio together.
Love
Elder Hatch
The work is continuing onwards here in Plzen. Transfers are in a week so don't send anymore stuff to my apartment here in plzen because i may be leaving so if you have anything to send just wait a week to see what happens. The good news of the week is that our investigator John is going to start working towards baptism, (he is the one from the car crash). He was telling us that since we first met last transfer his life has changed and he has more joy in life now from a renewal of his faith. We have been wanting to talk with him about baptism for 2 months now but he lost his phone so we weren't in contact with him for 2 weeks, then a week after we got back in contact with him he got in a car crash and was in a coma and in the hospital for a month, so there have definitely been some things popping up to interfere but he is still continuing onwards.
It's interesting how we are led to help people as missionaries even though they don't end up being interested in the message we still help them quite a bit, it is a big testimony to me for God's love for all of his children even if they don't end up accepting the message.
For example, we met this one guy this last week, contacted him and sat down on a bench and he started telling us his story about how a week ago he came home from work an hour early and walked in on his girlfriend with another man. She promptly kicked him out of their house and locked him out and he had nothing with him, he didn't have any money because it was all at home, he still had work which he went to every day but wasn't getting paid for 2 weeks and he had already been living outside for one week. And his girlfriend told him he would never see their 2 year old daughter again. He wrote a last letter to everybody and was going to go jump off a bridge to end his life, we talked to him for awhile and he ended up changing his mind and decided to give life another shot, he has a book of mormon he is reading in but right now doesn't think it is for him.
I went on exchanges with Elder Kartchner this week so the two greenies got to spend a day together doing missionary work which they were pretty scared for but they ended up doing a good job and we had set up some meetings with english speakers to even it out a little bit. We met some scientologists and they want us to come to their seminary class so I told them that if they come to our seminary class this week we will go to theirs so we shall see what happens, I really have no idea what scientologists believe,I just know that Tom Cruise is one so we will see if they end up coming to ours.
President and Sister Slovacek came to church yesterday which is always fun. They sat up on the stand and they have these little translator sets so I sat in the back and translated for them, I am pretty sure a couple of czech words slipped in but they understood it all.
I ate rabbit for the first time on Saturday, we did service for this one woman and afterward she gave us lunch which consisted of rabbit. Also this last week we ate intestine soup which actually wasn't too bad just pretty chewy. Well that is about all for this week I hope you have a great week in San Antonio together.
Love
Elder Hatch
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)