We were able to visit with Jordan on Monday during his layover in Washington D.C.. It was great to visit with him and he was so excited to be moving onto the mission field and getting to know and work with the people of the Czech Republic. He was also very appreciative for all the letters and goodie boxes that he has received while in the MTC. So as a mom, I thank you for your love and support!

Jordan will be able to receive email and here is his address: starsihatch@myldsmail.net

thank you!

Florence

He made it!

Dear Parents,

Just a note to let you know that your missionary arrived yesterday, tired but eager to get busy with missionary work. They spent the day with the 2 Assistants to the President touring downtown Prague and having an authentic Czech dinner. While out on the walk they experienced some street contacting.

Today they are having training and interviews with the president. At lunch they will be introduced to their trainer/companion and will leave for their first area. We have some of the most qualified missionaries in the church and your son/daughter is in good hands. President Slovacek is a wonderful, caring mission president and fantastic leader.

We are very impressed with our new missionaries and are grateful that they have been sent to us. Thank you for raising such fine men and women.

Very truly yours,

Sister Alsop

Secretary to President Slovacek

more MTC pictures!

Jordan with his companion Elder Moat



Elder Hatch with friend Elder Cappucio


District going to the Czech Republic in front of Provo Temple


Elder Mittanck with Sisters Clark and Perez


Elder Jacob Brimhall from Gilbert, going to Alabama

Tuesday July 22, 2008

Hey family hows it going? It sounds like you all had a great time at the Beach which is great being able to relax and be with family. That is awesome you got a 5 on your AP human geography test Ian way to go. This last friday we got our flight plans to the Czech Republic which is very exciting, we have to meet at the travel office at 5 am where we will go up to Salt lake and catch a delta flight to Washington DC at 8:40 i think we have like a three hour layover in Washington DC and then we will fly from there to Vienna on Austrian Airlines and from there to Prague and we will get into prague at 11:40 in the morning so that is gonna be one long day but it will all be good. I will call home during the layover in Washington DC i think we land there around 2:40 Washington time? I am not quite sure i dont have my paper with me so make sure your by the phone or have your cell phone with you.

I went in and checked yesterday and i had recieved my visa which is awesome, of the seven of us going to the Czech prague mission six of us have our visas and we are hoping the seventh one comes in this week or they will have to be delayed. The two slovenes in our district havent recieved theirs yet either so they are really hopin it comes in this week.

The mtc is going well we are working as hard as ever it is pretty motivating to learn the language when you know that within a week we will be in the Czech republic but we have all been working hard the whole time and although its kind of nervous to think about i know we will do fine we really have a good district. Our teachers have been telling us more and more what to expect when we get over there about customs and food, something that is pretty funny is that Czechs are in love with ketchup. They put ketchup on pizza, french toast and pretty much anything else you can think of. One of our teachers was telling us they have a whole aisle in the grocery store for ketchup with tons of different variations. I guess the milk is also alot different, it comes in like boxes that are good for 6 months before you open them but after you open them they are good for about a week. Brother Ruda was telling us how they eat their french toast over there, here we put on butter and syrup or jam or powder sugar, over there they take the french toast put on some mustard, ketchup, onions and pickles and eat it for lunch and dinner. I guess the Czechs also have no tolerance for spicy food. Brother cardon one of our teachers was telling us how the missionaries made sloppy joes for a branch activity and the members were complaining about how spicy it was and asking what was in it and it was just like ketchup and a little bit of pepper. But i am excited to get over there and start teaching and helping people out and getting to know and love the Czech People it is going to be awesome.

I read a really good article yesterday by Jeffery R. Holland called the Other Prodigal Son talking about the older brother in the story, it is really good and I learned alot from it I recommend it to all of you to read.

That is exciting Jenni and Mason are back in dental school starting their second year sure was a short summer for them. Its also crazy Alyssa is starting her freshman year and Ian is a big junior now what classes are you two signed up for? My advice for you Alyssa is make good friends who will make good decisions and don't be too cool for seminary try to get as much out of it as possible, there is so much to learn from the scriptures, I thought I knew quite a bit before my mission about the scriptures but the more I read here the more I learn how little I know but it makes me excited to search the scriptures and find answers to my questions.

We are syl'ing pretty much this whole last week to get ready for the Czech republic, that stands for speak your language its crazy speaking in a different language but i love it, haha we learned this last week that there are 19 different ways to say one and 11 ways to say first that got a little bit of whining out of us but it is all good its kind of cool how specific the language is you don't ever have to get the meaning of stuff from the context its all in how you declinate it. So a week from now you will be getting my first email from the Czech Republic so fyi i wont get any of the dear elders you send after the time limit on friday we dont get them on saturdays or sundays and im leaving first thing monday i hope you all have a good week.

The atonement of Jesus Christ is real and we all need to partake of it daily it is the most amazing thing that has ever happened and we all need to give thanks for it, I'm happy and excited to be able to share this wonderful message of hope with the Czech People.

I love you all be good and keep me updated with everything

Love
Elder Hatch

Jordan's new address

Cirkev Jezise Krista

Elder Jordan Hatch

Milady Horakove 85/95

170 00 Praha 7

Czech Republic - Europe

This will be Jordan's address his entire mission - going directly to the Mission Office. They will distribute it out to the missionaries 2-3 times a month if they are outside the Prauge zone. It costs 94 cents to send a letter. It will also be posted on the side of the blog.

I'm sure it would be wonderful to arrive to a bunch of letters, so people pull out your pen and pencil and write Jordan a note. If you send it off now it will be there by the time he gets there! He leaves in 7 days!

Tuesday July 15, 2008

Hey family hows the beach treatin you? I hope you all are havin a good time and not driving kamille too crazy :) this last week has been pretty much like all the rest, we have gotten into a pretty steady routine here but it is good. So in a couple of days we should be getting our travel departure information which is exciting. We are all learning a lot here but everybody is getting kind of antsy to leave. I am excited to get out there but kind of nervous, it just seems crazy that 2 weeks from now i will be in the Czech republic. We play soccer everyday as a district in PE its us czechs and a couple of bulgarians vs the russians it is pretty fun we all have a good time and get along good.

Something i found out is they aren't calling anymore north americans to russia because of visa problems so a lot of the people learning russian here are nervous they might get reassigned. One of the elders here at the MTC is 7 foot 2 its like having goliath here basket ball would be pretty easy when your that tall but it must be a pain having to duck everytime you walk through a door.

Thanks to everyone for the treats i have gotten i still dont know how i havent gained weight must be from the hour of pe a day and all the stairs i have to climb.

The senior missionaries who are here for a little while before going on their missions are so nice they are always interested in talking to us and finding out more about us. If any of you out there are thinking about going they really want you and treat you great so go for it. There is a senior couple that live in murray and they come down once a week for language training in Czech they are going out there in october so that is cool, they also have one morning a week where they call up and learn czech on the phone i cant imagine how hard that would be.

We are doing a lot more SYL now, that stands for Speak Your Language where you dont speak any english we did that for all day yesterday and it was interesting we can communicate pretty well with each other and it teaches you want you need to learn so you can say everything you want too. I finished the book Jesus The Christ this last week and it was really good to learn more about him and just strengthened my testimony that he is our Savior and Redeemer its a really good book if any of you are interested in reading it kind of long though.

Something about being here for 9 weeks is it seems like as soon as the 3 weeks elders get here they are gone, the elders who left today for canada and australia got in to the mtc after we had already been here for a month. The time keeps on going by faster it seems, I think my first full day in the MTC on that thursday was the longest day of my life but it has changed so much since then. We have a really tight knit district which is good not having any fights or disagreements between us. I cant really think of much else to tell you guys i will have plenty more to tell you when i get to the Czech Republic, i ran into one of my BYU professors Dr. Rowe he was my nutrition 200 teacher he is retired now and is a district president at the MTC.

I love you all very much make sure you eat an extra apple fritter in rememberance of me :) haha and if kamille splashes water on your sandcastle ian try not to punch her jk time goes by fast in no time at all ill be back out there with you dont worry about me im doing great the language is coming along well and im growing in the gospel very much, I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that it can provide us with so much joy and hope I am more and more greatful for it everyday, be good everyone and i love you

Love
Jordan

A classroom in the MTC

This is how Jordan gets his big guns, the local pull up bar!

This is a picture that Sami, Kamille's younger sister drew for Jordan.