hey guys
another good week has come and gone here in plzen with some great experiences. The highlight was yesterday where I blessed the sacrament with vrata and he was all dressed up in a white shirt and tie. He didnt know how to tie a tie so he came early to church and I gave him one of my ties and taught him how to tie it, he was nervous about blessing the sacrament but we took him through it the night before and explained how everything works so it went well. There is a cold or flu going around plzen right now and half our branch was home sick so it was a smaller sunday but went well.
One cool experience was saturday night we had a meeting with our polish investigator which I wasn't really looking forward to because he speaks about 40% polish 30% czech 15% english and 15% mumbling and just mixes all the words together where you have czech language structure and random english and polish words thrown in and it usually just gives me a headache. Well today he brought his roomate with him a cool guy named pavel who is from poland but knows czech well. As we were talking with him he told us that he has been searching to find out if God really is there or not so we talked about faith with him and the restoration and the book of mormon and we challenged them to both come to church the next day which they did. At the end of the lesson I said the closing prayer, and prayed for both Pavel and Hubert by name and afterwards pavel sat for a while and than started thanking me profusely telling me that that was one of the nicest things anybody has ever done for him and telling me that the only other person who had ever prayed for him was his mom when he was a child. And then he started talking about how he had this interesting feeling during it so we talked about the holy ghost and little and after sacrament meeting he told us he has that same interesting feeling that he can't describe and that they are both going to be back here next week for church.
Another one was I was contacting with Elder Kartchner and we had just talked to this really obstinate girl and as we left her walking down I contacted the next guy I saw who was this massive 6 foot 6 guy with forearms the size of my legs with a bunch of tattoos on his arms. At first he tried to intimidate me, he stepped in real close to me (my face was about at his chest) and he started telling me about how he just got out of prison 2 days ago and about all these things he had done. What was going through my mind was I sure hope this guy doesnt punch me. but we started talking to him about that freedom which he had now and how he was going to use it, we sat him down on a bench and he opened up telling us how his sister died a couple of years ago and he has a desire to see her again, we taught him and than prayed with him on the bench and it was crazy to see how much his demeanor had changed during the lesson (although he did almost break my hand shaking it at the end). AFterwards when elder kartchner and I were talking about it, he was like I was sure he was going to hit you and I was ready to run away when it happened, so we shall see what will happen with martin the other elders will teach him, hopefully good things.
Last night for some comp bonding after I did call ins I taught my companion how to make homemade pizza which turned out pretty well and allowed for some good conversation while we did it. That is about all for this week we are still working with Hoa and he has a new baptismal date for the 24th of october the only thing keeping him back is his work so we are hoping and praying that goes well.
I hope you all have a great week and thanks for the emails and support, I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the Lord here in the Czech Republic it is definitely the greatest experience of my life and my testimony of him grows everyday.
Work hard and make good decisions and I will look forward to hearing from you next week.
Love
Elder Hatch
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Monday September 21, 2009
Dear Family and friends
Another week has come and gone here in plzen, and although our football teams had a bad weekend things went great here. We had some real great experencies here. I dont remember if you remember our investigator John he was progressing really well last transfer. Well we hadnt had any contact with him for about 3 weeks wouldnt answer calls or text messages so we thought he must of been antied or something and were pretty bummed about it because he showed so much promise. Well i got in contact with him this last week and it turns out he was in a big car crash and was in the hospital for over 3 weeks and in a semi coma for half of that time. But we met with him this week and he came to our branch party on friday and sent us a text message afterwards thanking us telling us it was his most enjoyable night in a very long time.
Also about 2 weeks ago when we were in a park i was approached by a woman to ask if we could teach english classes in a community center in this village outside of plzen to about 30 adults, we talked to her about what we are doing as missionaries and told her that we would love to but that we would also talk about faith with them and she agreed and had us come out last monday for a trial run. The four of us missionaries show up and it turns out that there are these 30 adults there but it is a competition to see who gets to be the english teacher, our competition was this 25 year old czech woman who wanted to practice her teaching skills and she had just finished her 30 minute spil. The woman turns to me and was like ok you have 30 minutes to talk about why you would be the best english teacher, i had no idea i was supposed to have a presentation ready so i spoke for about 2 minutes on our elaborate credentials to teach english (basically we are from America which trumps all other teaching credentials) and then i divided them up into different groups and we started teaching them so they could see how it works. The poor czech woman, by the end of the night they had a vote and it was basically unanimous in favor of us. And then they were like tell us something spiritual so i taught them all about prayer and they all dug it up we are going back tonight and there is some really good potential there.
Another good story from this week is this man named vasil, we were contacting on the namesti and found him and taught him gave him a book of mormon and than we met with him the next day and he told us his experience with meeting us, basically his whole life had been flipped upside down and had almost lost everything and he went to pray in the cathedral on the namesti to ask God to send him help, he left the church went outside and 2 minutes later we contacted him. He had lost his job, his apartment, and had nothing to feed his children. That night a woman gave his family a bag full of food, they found a place to sleep and he has work starting this week. His wife isnt a believer but he is a strong believer and has a daughter and 8 month old twins.
The highlight of the week was vratislav getting the priesthood yesterday, he is excited to bless the sacrament next week i will teach him how to tie a tie this week. He has read almost everything on the aaronic priesthood and wants more to read on it.
We had an awesome branch party on friday well attended by the members and our investigators we had probably 15 non members there and 15-20 members and we played games in the back yard and cooked sausages over a fire. Vrata was the firemaster and everybodies friend which was great to see. The branch here is so cool i love them and everything they do. . I am glad that you all got the photos I sent home. My companion gave his first talk in church yesterday so I helped him translate it out and he did a great job with it. Well that is probably about all for this week thanks for all of your emails and support.
Love
Elder Hatch
Another week has come and gone here in plzen, and although our football teams had a bad weekend things went great here. We had some real great experencies here. I dont remember if you remember our investigator John he was progressing really well last transfer. Well we hadnt had any contact with him for about 3 weeks wouldnt answer calls or text messages so we thought he must of been antied or something and were pretty bummed about it because he showed so much promise. Well i got in contact with him this last week and it turns out he was in a big car crash and was in the hospital for over 3 weeks and in a semi coma for half of that time. But we met with him this week and he came to our branch party on friday and sent us a text message afterwards thanking us telling us it was his most enjoyable night in a very long time.
Also about 2 weeks ago when we were in a park i was approached by a woman to ask if we could teach english classes in a community center in this village outside of plzen to about 30 adults, we talked to her about what we are doing as missionaries and told her that we would love to but that we would also talk about faith with them and she agreed and had us come out last monday for a trial run. The four of us missionaries show up and it turns out that there are these 30 adults there but it is a competition to see who gets to be the english teacher, our competition was this 25 year old czech woman who wanted to practice her teaching skills and she had just finished her 30 minute spil. The woman turns to me and was like ok you have 30 minutes to talk about why you would be the best english teacher, i had no idea i was supposed to have a presentation ready so i spoke for about 2 minutes on our elaborate credentials to teach english (basically we are from America which trumps all other teaching credentials) and then i divided them up into different groups and we started teaching them so they could see how it works. The poor czech woman, by the end of the night they had a vote and it was basically unanimous in favor of us. And then they were like tell us something spiritual so i taught them all about prayer and they all dug it up we are going back tonight and there is some really good potential there.
Another good story from this week is this man named vasil, we were contacting on the namesti and found him and taught him gave him a book of mormon and than we met with him the next day and he told us his experience with meeting us, basically his whole life had been flipped upside down and had almost lost everything and he went to pray in the cathedral on the namesti to ask God to send him help, he left the church went outside and 2 minutes later we contacted him. He had lost his job, his apartment, and had nothing to feed his children. That night a woman gave his family a bag full of food, they found a place to sleep and he has work starting this week. His wife isnt a believer but he is a strong believer and has a daughter and 8 month old twins.
The highlight of the week was vratislav getting the priesthood yesterday, he is excited to bless the sacrament next week i will teach him how to tie a tie this week. He has read almost everything on the aaronic priesthood and wants more to read on it.
We had an awesome branch party on friday well attended by the members and our investigators we had probably 15 non members there and 15-20 members and we played games in the back yard and cooked sausages over a fire. Vrata was the firemaster and everybodies friend which was great to see. The branch here is so cool i love them and everything they do. . I am glad that you all got the photos I sent home. My companion gave his first talk in church yesterday so I helped him translate it out and he did a great job with it. Well that is probably about all for this week thanks for all of your emails and support.
Love
Elder Hatch
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Monday September 14th, 2009
Hello Family
Life in Plzen is going great and I am enjoying every moment. So the highlight of this week was that yesterday we had district conference in Prague with all of the members from Bohemia. So that meant I got to see the members from the Liberec branch for the first time in about 10 months and I can actually speak czech and talk with them which was fun. It was pretty funny when I was there because I was a greenie and now they were like who is your companion and I introduced my greenie to them. Crazy things happen in 10 months it was almost like deja vu being back there since we had it in the narodni dum (National House) in prague which is this big beautiful building. Last year when I was there we walked around the city with ivan who got baptized right after that. President slovacek gave a really good talk there about how the gospel should be simple basically the two great commandments Christ gave in the New Testament to love God and to love our neighbor and that sometimes we think the gospel is all about just following rules or attending meetings but its purpose is neither of those but to bring us Joy and to help other people. Vratislav loved that talk, President also said something there that dad says. He advised us to meet every body we see even random people with a smile and they won't know what to make of it Vratislav got a kick out of that one and he is excited to start doing that. Us missionarys went by train there and it was great because Vratislavs member friend picked him up and drove him to prague for it, the branch is doing a good job of taking care of him.
The members here are really starting to like us and help us which is good, its almost kind of sad because it seems like by the time I get a good relationship it is time to move on with transfers but i know that the Lord sends me wherever I need to serve and I have no problem leaving and going there.
Hoa is doing good he is still working about a 100 hours a week and couldn't get enough time off to come to Prague which was a bummer but he is staying strong, basically we are waiting for him to get an afternoon off and than we will baptize him.
At sports on Saturday we decided to switch things up and teach the Europeans how to play some American football. So we gathered them around and explained the rules (which is very good Czech practice by the way) and than divided up the teams and played some flag football with a bunch of old ties that were left in the apartment. As my team was kicking off for the first time i turned to E. Kartchner and I asked him who I should kick it to and he replied "one of the europeans he will get scared and not know what to do with it" so the ball went to him and as we started running to him he got scared and threw the ball up in the air. For the first half of the game anytime we ran at an European they got scared and threw the ball to us but then they got the hang of it and stopped throwing it away.
The work is going well we have some good investigators who are progressing along that we are looking at giving baptisimal dates to in the upcoming weeks, we have been doing some tracting lately and to make it fun we do district tracting where we will go into the same building to tract and my companion and I will do odd floors and the other companionship will do even floors it makes it more fun and also it helps you have more faith to get let in when you see the other elders get let in. Yesterday we were doing it and the first door that opened for my companion and I we got let in to teach a nice woman about 2 minutes after we got let in I got a text message I looked at it after the meeting and it was like hey did you already get let in? about 5 minutes after we had been let in when the other elders realized we were inside because they couldn't hear us anymore they got let in too. It is always fun to have success as a district.
Well that is about all for this week we were going to go play some basketball again but it is raining so we shall see. Last week we played companionships and elder vomocil and i won and then we played trainers vs greenies first to 10 going by 1's and 2's, elder kartchner and i got down 7-3 when we realized that are greenies were about to beat us and we stopped being so cocky and came back to beat them. All my time playing basketball in the mtc with elder briggs is finally starting to pay off.
Well you all have a great week and i love you all
Love
Elder Hatch
Life in Plzen is going great and I am enjoying every moment. So the highlight of this week was that yesterday we had district conference in Prague with all of the members from Bohemia. So that meant I got to see the members from the Liberec branch for the first time in about 10 months and I can actually speak czech and talk with them which was fun. It was pretty funny when I was there because I was a greenie and now they were like who is your companion and I introduced my greenie to them. Crazy things happen in 10 months it was almost like deja vu being back there since we had it in the narodni dum (National House) in prague which is this big beautiful building. Last year when I was there we walked around the city with ivan who got baptized right after that. President slovacek gave a really good talk there about how the gospel should be simple basically the two great commandments Christ gave in the New Testament to love God and to love our neighbor and that sometimes we think the gospel is all about just following rules or attending meetings but its purpose is neither of those but to bring us Joy and to help other people. Vratislav loved that talk, President also said something there that dad says. He advised us to meet every body we see even random people with a smile and they won't know what to make of it Vratislav got a kick out of that one and he is excited to start doing that. Us missionarys went by train there and it was great because Vratislavs member friend picked him up and drove him to prague for it, the branch is doing a good job of taking care of him.
The members here are really starting to like us and help us which is good, its almost kind of sad because it seems like by the time I get a good relationship it is time to move on with transfers but i know that the Lord sends me wherever I need to serve and I have no problem leaving and going there.
Hoa is doing good he is still working about a 100 hours a week and couldn't get enough time off to come to Prague which was a bummer but he is staying strong, basically we are waiting for him to get an afternoon off and than we will baptize him.
At sports on Saturday we decided to switch things up and teach the Europeans how to play some American football. So we gathered them around and explained the rules (which is very good Czech practice by the way) and than divided up the teams and played some flag football with a bunch of old ties that were left in the apartment. As my team was kicking off for the first time i turned to E. Kartchner and I asked him who I should kick it to and he replied "one of the europeans he will get scared and not know what to do with it" so the ball went to him and as we started running to him he got scared and threw the ball up in the air. For the first half of the game anytime we ran at an European they got scared and threw the ball to us but then they got the hang of it and stopped throwing it away.
The work is going well we have some good investigators who are progressing along that we are looking at giving baptisimal dates to in the upcoming weeks, we have been doing some tracting lately and to make it fun we do district tracting where we will go into the same building to tract and my companion and I will do odd floors and the other companionship will do even floors it makes it more fun and also it helps you have more faith to get let in when you see the other elders get let in. Yesterday we were doing it and the first door that opened for my companion and I we got let in to teach a nice woman about 2 minutes after we got let in I got a text message I looked at it after the meeting and it was like hey did you already get let in? about 5 minutes after we had been let in when the other elders realized we were inside because they couldn't hear us anymore they got let in too. It is always fun to have success as a district.
Well that is about all for this week we were going to go play some basketball again but it is raining so we shall see. Last week we played companionships and elder vomocil and i won and then we played trainers vs greenies first to 10 going by 1's and 2's, elder kartchner and i got down 7-3 when we realized that are greenies were about to beat us and we stopped being so cocky and came back to beat them. All my time playing basketball in the mtc with elder briggs is finally starting to pay off.
Well you all have a great week and i love you all
Love
Elder Hatch
Monday, September 7, 2009
Monday September 7th, 2009
Hey family
So we have had a pretty good week here in plzen life is going great with the work. We had some good experiences this last week with tracting, the week before we had gone tracting and it was my companions door and the guy opens up standing there in his little whitie tighties and my companion is kind of taken a back it was his first time having that happen but he said his couple of lines like a pro and than i took over but we went back and taught him this week twice and he is like yeah this book of mormon is great its just like the bible.
Hoa is doing good his factory is working him 100 hours a week still and he was scheduled to work on Sunday but we committed him to pray and we would pray for him and than go talk to his boss to get Sunday morning off for church. It went well and his boss set it up so he could work later Saturday night and than get Sunday off, it was a good experience to see him sacrifice like that basically his only time off the whole week he spent coming to church.
So this week we had something called the Ovoce Knedliky challenge, ovoce knedliky are fruit dumplings. This one grandma in the branch does it, it has been going on for a while and they keep scores of all the missionaries, so far 150 missionaries have participated in it and the record was 36 fruit dumplings. So we were all pumped to go try and break the record and see how many fruit dumplings we could eat. Me and my small stomach weren't much for the challenge; I got down 16 before calling it quits. However elder kartchner was going for the record and he had prepped for it the night before stuffing himself with food. So for 150 missionaries there were only about 5 who had broken 30 and then comes E. Kartchner and eats 40 of them breaking the record needless to say the grandma was quite impressed.
Also a request i have for people is my myldsmail account is getting filled up so if you are going to send me pictures send them to gmail.
So when i was in trebic i told you a story about how we made brownies for the librarian and while we were there another woman contacted us and we started teaching her. Well her name is Iva and she had been progressing pretty well when i had been there we got her to church about 5 times. Well she called me up about a week ago telling me she is going to get baptized in october so that was great news to hear.
We are going to go play some basketball today which should be fun, we are playing companionships so luckily my companion is 6 foot 3.
Something pretty cool is that a couple of times this transfer i have needed to go with Elder Kartchner to meetings so we would put the 2 greenies together and send them off finding and they have done a good job of it. One time they found a woman who speaks a little english and we met with her later and now she is investigating the church. And then another time they were really frustrated because they had talked to this woman and she talked with them for about 20 minutes and they weren't able to understand anything she said but got a paper with her phone number on it. We called her up and now she had met a couple of times and was at church and cried there she loved it so much.
So we have had a pretty good week here in plzen life is going great with the work. We had some good experiences this last week with tracting, the week before we had gone tracting and it was my companions door and the guy opens up standing there in his little whitie tighties and my companion is kind of taken a back it was his first time having that happen but he said his couple of lines like a pro and than i took over but we went back and taught him this week twice and he is like yeah this book of mormon is great its just like the bible.
Hoa is doing good his factory is working him 100 hours a week still and he was scheduled to work on Sunday but we committed him to pray and we would pray for him and than go talk to his boss to get Sunday morning off for church. It went well and his boss set it up so he could work later Saturday night and than get Sunday off, it was a good experience to see him sacrifice like that basically his only time off the whole week he spent coming to church.
So this week we had something called the Ovoce Knedliky challenge, ovoce knedliky are fruit dumplings. This one grandma in the branch does it, it has been going on for a while and they keep scores of all the missionaries, so far 150 missionaries have participated in it and the record was 36 fruit dumplings. So we were all pumped to go try and break the record and see how many fruit dumplings we could eat. Me and my small stomach weren't much for the challenge; I got down 16 before calling it quits. However elder kartchner was going for the record and he had prepped for it the night before stuffing himself with food. So for 150 missionaries there were only about 5 who had broken 30 and then comes E. Kartchner and eats 40 of them breaking the record needless to say the grandma was quite impressed.
Also a request i have for people is my myldsmail account is getting filled up so if you are going to send me pictures send them to gmail.
So when i was in trebic i told you a story about how we made brownies for the librarian and while we were there another woman contacted us and we started teaching her. Well her name is Iva and she had been progressing pretty well when i had been there we got her to church about 5 times. Well she called me up about a week ago telling me she is going to get baptized in october so that was great news to hear.
We are going to go play some basketball today which should be fun, we are playing companionships so luckily my companion is 6 foot 3.
Something pretty cool is that a couple of times this transfer i have needed to go with Elder Kartchner to meetings so we would put the 2 greenies together and send them off finding and they have done a good job of it. One time they found a woman who speaks a little english and we met with her later and now she is investigating the church. And then another time they were really frustrated because they had talked to this woman and she talked with them for about 20 minutes and they weren't able to understand anything she said but got a paper with her phone number on it. We called her up and now she had met a couple of times and was at church and cried there she loved it so much.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday August 31st, 2009
Hello family
Things are going well here in Plzen or our two nicknames are the nursery district because of two brand new missionaries or the arizona district because we are 75% from arizona. A funny comment about that zone conference was friday and they always have the new missionaries stand up and introduce themselves and elder mills stood up and said he was in the arizona district which got laughs from everyone and President was like well we will see just how good arizona missionaries are we are expecting great things from that district so we have the arizona pride on the line now.
While we were in prague i picked up a triple combination for vratislav and we had a lesson with him that night where i gave it to him. He had been wanting one for a while and so i called him up while we were on the bus home from prague and i told him i was just coming back from prague and he asked "do you have it"? so he was waiting at the church for us and we sat down and taught about the doctrine covenants and pearl of great price and how to use the index and footnotes, he was just walking on clouds the whole time he was so excited about it. In sunday school we have been going over the doctrine and covenants and so i would always lend him my triple combination but sunday he showed up with his own and was so excited for sunday school to use it. He is also working on learning english, he got rid of his tv because he said there is only filth on tv here and it would waste his time. So now whenever he is not working or with us he reads his scriptures and studies english.
For sports day on saturday all of these people in the park wanted to play against us and our investigators and they were really good but we crushed them 8-0 and our investigators were like its cuz we have the word of wisdom and they all smoke and take drugs.
Hoa is doing good he had to work about 100 hours this week in his factory because they were way behind but we taught him and he brought a friend who also wants to learn about God so he is the referral machine for us.
Last p-day we went out with the Gordon-Smiths they are a couple that go to church here in plzen, he is from england and she is from the czech repulibic and they have a house about 45 minutes away. They took us on a 35 kilometer bike ride up and down all of these hills and i hadnt been on a bike in atleat 14 months so needless to say i was pretty tired after that and a little saddle sore but i survived it was a lot of fun though biking through the czech country side then we came back to their house to a big meal of spaghetti and bread.
A cool experience: we walked onto the town square the other day and it was covered with people but this one guy all the way across stuck out to me so we went and talked to him and it turns out he is from hungray and met with the missionaries there and had gone to church there and really liked it but had just moved here and doesnt speak czech but knows english he was at church on sunday and loved it and cant wait to come again next week. When we went up to talk to him he was like hello elders how are you? sit down with me, so i thought he was a member but turns out not.
Work is going well here i am enjoying myself and working as hard as i can losing myself in the work. I hope you all have a great week and thanks for the emails and support it is always great to get from you. i am also going to send home my camera chip today so you should be getting that in the mail
Love
Elder Hatch
Things are going well here in Plzen or our two nicknames are the nursery district because of two brand new missionaries or the arizona district because we are 75% from arizona. A funny comment about that zone conference was friday and they always have the new missionaries stand up and introduce themselves and elder mills stood up and said he was in the arizona district which got laughs from everyone and President was like well we will see just how good arizona missionaries are we are expecting great things from that district so we have the arizona pride on the line now.
While we were in prague i picked up a triple combination for vratislav and we had a lesson with him that night where i gave it to him. He had been wanting one for a while and so i called him up while we were on the bus home from prague and i told him i was just coming back from prague and he asked "do you have it"? so he was waiting at the church for us and we sat down and taught about the doctrine covenants and pearl of great price and how to use the index and footnotes, he was just walking on clouds the whole time he was so excited about it. In sunday school we have been going over the doctrine and covenants and so i would always lend him my triple combination but sunday he showed up with his own and was so excited for sunday school to use it. He is also working on learning english, he got rid of his tv because he said there is only filth on tv here and it would waste his time. So now whenever he is not working or with us he reads his scriptures and studies english.
For sports day on saturday all of these people in the park wanted to play against us and our investigators and they were really good but we crushed them 8-0 and our investigators were like its cuz we have the word of wisdom and they all smoke and take drugs.
Hoa is doing good he had to work about 100 hours this week in his factory because they were way behind but we taught him and he brought a friend who also wants to learn about God so he is the referral machine for us.
Last p-day we went out with the Gordon-Smiths they are a couple that go to church here in plzen, he is from england and she is from the czech repulibic and they have a house about 45 minutes away. They took us on a 35 kilometer bike ride up and down all of these hills and i hadnt been on a bike in atleat 14 months so needless to say i was pretty tired after that and a little saddle sore but i survived it was a lot of fun though biking through the czech country side then we came back to their house to a big meal of spaghetti and bread.
A cool experience: we walked onto the town square the other day and it was covered with people but this one guy all the way across stuck out to me so we went and talked to him and it turns out he is from hungray and met with the missionaries there and had gone to church there and really liked it but had just moved here and doesnt speak czech but knows english he was at church on sunday and loved it and cant wait to come again next week. When we went up to talk to him he was like hello elders how are you? sit down with me, so i thought he was a member but turns out not.
Work is going well here i am enjoying myself and working as hard as i can losing myself in the work. I hope you all have a great week and thanks for the emails and support it is always great to get from you. i am also going to send home my camera chip today so you should be getting that in the mail
Love
Elder Hatch
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday August 24th, 2009
Hey family and friends
Well Vratislav was baptized on saturday and confirmed on sunday which was an amazing experience. The baptism was out at this pond just north of the city and it was a beautiful location and weather. Äfter talking with the branch we had decided that the best time would be at 7 in the evening because all the swimmers would be gone from the lake and it was a cool overcast day so nobody was there anyways. We found this sweet spot on the secluded side where there was a clearing in the trees and a little entrance to the water it was so peacefull and i have to say that i am more of a fan of outside baptisms than inside ones. There was amazing turnout from the branch basicaly everyone under the age of 80 was there to support him and afterwards the branch had food and blankets for a picnic. It was a great experience to see how vratislav was finally able to reach his goal of being baptized he definetly had his week of trials before the baptism. Thursday night his former girlfriend showed up at 2 in the morning buzzing his apartment wanting to spend the night with him but he wouldn't open the door and she finally went away. And then friday night the exact same thing happened with her buzzing and than yelling up at his window trying to get him to let her in but he fought it off like a champ. Another great part about the baptism was it was done exactly as it should be at least in my opinion. His member friend baptized him, the branch president gave him the gift of the holy ghost and all the prayers and talk at the baptism were done by members.
My companion elder vomocil is doing good he is a great trainee, last night i was doing call ins with the other elders and than with the zone leaders and when i finished up i came in the kitchen and he had made a special little dinner for me. A lot of our investigators were out of town this week on vacation so we did alot of finding one cool story was on sunday after church we had decided we werent going to go home to eat lunch until we had found a new investigator, we were going along contacting and my companion contacted one guy who told us he was catholic and had met with us before but didnt have interest my comp couldnt understand it all so i came in and helped him and i was like well lets just sit down and talk about Jesus for a little bit we have a great uplifting message about him and he was like ok. He told us how he had read in the Book of Mormon before but didnt like it. I opened up my backpack and pulled out a bible and book of mormon and i said well how about you read your favorite vers about christ from the bible and than i can read my favorite from the Book of Mormon. I read with him Alma 7 11=12 i asked him what he thought of it and he was like i dont know i wasnt really listening to you i was too busy noticing that you had the holy ghost glowing around you while you were reading. So needless to say we had a good meeting after that and we are meeting with him again on wednesday.
Well that is about all for this week, it was great seeing Vratislav be baptized and now its back to work progressing other people to recieve that great blessing, being a missionary is the greatest work in the world it is so satisfying.
Good job on time trials Ian and Alyssa work hard and break those swim records and i hope you had a great anniversary Jenni and Mason congrats.
Love
Elder Hatch
Well Vratislav was baptized on saturday and confirmed on sunday which was an amazing experience. The baptism was out at this pond just north of the city and it was a beautiful location and weather. Äfter talking with the branch we had decided that the best time would be at 7 in the evening because all the swimmers would be gone from the lake and it was a cool overcast day so nobody was there anyways. We found this sweet spot on the secluded side where there was a clearing in the trees and a little entrance to the water it was so peacefull and i have to say that i am more of a fan of outside baptisms than inside ones. There was amazing turnout from the branch basicaly everyone under the age of 80 was there to support him and afterwards the branch had food and blankets for a picnic. It was a great experience to see how vratislav was finally able to reach his goal of being baptized he definetly had his week of trials before the baptism. Thursday night his former girlfriend showed up at 2 in the morning buzzing his apartment wanting to spend the night with him but he wouldn't open the door and she finally went away. And then friday night the exact same thing happened with her buzzing and than yelling up at his window trying to get him to let her in but he fought it off like a champ. Another great part about the baptism was it was done exactly as it should be at least in my opinion. His member friend baptized him, the branch president gave him the gift of the holy ghost and all the prayers and talk at the baptism were done by members.
My companion elder vomocil is doing good he is a great trainee, last night i was doing call ins with the other elders and than with the zone leaders and when i finished up i came in the kitchen and he had made a special little dinner for me. A lot of our investigators were out of town this week on vacation so we did alot of finding one cool story was on sunday after church we had decided we werent going to go home to eat lunch until we had found a new investigator, we were going along contacting and my companion contacted one guy who told us he was catholic and had met with us before but didnt have interest my comp couldnt understand it all so i came in and helped him and i was like well lets just sit down and talk about Jesus for a little bit we have a great uplifting message about him and he was like ok. He told us how he had read in the Book of Mormon before but didnt like it. I opened up my backpack and pulled out a bible and book of mormon and i said well how about you read your favorite vers about christ from the bible and than i can read my favorite from the Book of Mormon. I read with him Alma 7 11=12 i asked him what he thought of it and he was like i dont know i wasnt really listening to you i was too busy noticing that you had the holy ghost glowing around you while you were reading. So needless to say we had a good meeting after that and we are meeting with him again on wednesday.
Well that is about all for this week, it was great seeing Vratislav be baptized and now its back to work progressing other people to recieve that great blessing, being a missionary is the greatest work in the world it is so satisfying.
Good job on time trials Ian and Alyssa work hard and break those swim records and i hope you had a great anniversary Jenni and Mason congrats.
Love
Elder Hatch
Monday, August 17, 2009
Monday August 17th, 2009
Hello family
Well i got a new companion here in plzen his name is elder vomocil (which is a czech name) and he hails from sandy utah. His mom works for the government and so he actually lived in prague for 2 years when he was 12 while his mom worked in the embassy. He didn't learn any czech then but his czech is doing pretty well now he is a quick learner.
Wednesday we woke up at 5 in the morning and hopped on a bus to prauge where elder graham met up with the other missionaries who were going home and then i was in training for a couple of hours on how to be a good trainer. After that we went upstairs to Presidents Apartment where President announced who was going to be serving with whom. It was a fun experience, i will be sending some pictures home of everything. We got back to plzen in the evening , we worked all day thursday and had district meeting, then it was back to prague to spend the night and my companion stayed in prague friday while i went to brno for leadership conference. It was a good experience, i was able to see lenka there and she told me she is going on a temple trip next week for the first time to do baptisms for the dead, she was pretty excited about that but a little nervous. We are set up for having a pretty good transfer i am excited about it.
Vratislav is set up to be baptized this next saturday and the branch is way excited about it, and Hoa is still working towards it, he was at church yesterday. Elder Kartchner in our district is also training and his companion is Elder Mills and he is from chandler arizona with the crossroads of ray and 101 on the west side by the toyota center. I didn't know him at all before hand but what a small world that is like a mile from our house. So our district is 75% arizonan which is i'm sure a definite first in the czech republic to have that.
We eat once a week at this members house and she gives us huge portions, and as most people know i don't have the biggest stomach and cant eat a lot of food at once but she is definitely helping me to expand it. I think by the time i leave plzen i will be able to be a competitive food eater, that chinese guy is going down next year i will eat more hot dogs than him.
It was fun going shopping for food today with my greenie because it is such a whole new experience going from the mtc where food is just provided to you, to a grocery store in a forgein country and now you have to make your own food. I am taking good care of him though and helping him out with it all. It feels like i was just with elder andersen getting trained and now i am training it is a very weird feeling.
I got packages from home and grandma j today so thank you for that. Work is going well here and i am happy to be a missionary, i am way excited for vratislav's baptism he has come so far since i met him 2 months ago. We are having a member brother kyncel baptize him in a pond north of plzen and than do a branch picnic afterwards. A lot of the branch priesthood was out of town on sunday for vacation and i was assigned to teach priesthood. In our class there was an englishman, an american, two brand new missionaries elder kartchner and vratislav, so only one czech speaker but i still did it in czech anyways and just translated for everybody else.
Well i hope everybody has a great week and i want to share my testimony that i know without a doubt Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and through him people have the power to change their lives, no matter how bad they are to the better. The wonderful thing about the gospel is that you don't have to be who you are. Keep on doing the great stuff that you are doing at home and I will be continuing to work hard here. Until next week
S Laskou
Elder Hatch
Well i got a new companion here in plzen his name is elder vomocil (which is a czech name) and he hails from sandy utah. His mom works for the government and so he actually lived in prague for 2 years when he was 12 while his mom worked in the embassy. He didn't learn any czech then but his czech is doing pretty well now he is a quick learner.
Wednesday we woke up at 5 in the morning and hopped on a bus to prauge where elder graham met up with the other missionaries who were going home and then i was in training for a couple of hours on how to be a good trainer. After that we went upstairs to Presidents Apartment where President announced who was going to be serving with whom. It was a fun experience, i will be sending some pictures home of everything. We got back to plzen in the evening , we worked all day thursday and had district meeting, then it was back to prague to spend the night and my companion stayed in prague friday while i went to brno for leadership conference. It was a good experience, i was able to see lenka there and she told me she is going on a temple trip next week for the first time to do baptisms for the dead, she was pretty excited about that but a little nervous. We are set up for having a pretty good transfer i am excited about it.
Vratislav is set up to be baptized this next saturday and the branch is way excited about it, and Hoa is still working towards it, he was at church yesterday. Elder Kartchner in our district is also training and his companion is Elder Mills and he is from chandler arizona with the crossroads of ray and 101 on the west side by the toyota center. I didn't know him at all before hand but what a small world that is like a mile from our house. So our district is 75% arizonan which is i'm sure a definite first in the czech republic to have that.
We eat once a week at this members house and she gives us huge portions, and as most people know i don't have the biggest stomach and cant eat a lot of food at once but she is definitely helping me to expand it. I think by the time i leave plzen i will be able to be a competitive food eater, that chinese guy is going down next year i will eat more hot dogs than him.
It was fun going shopping for food today with my greenie because it is such a whole new experience going from the mtc where food is just provided to you, to a grocery store in a forgein country and now you have to make your own food. I am taking good care of him though and helping him out with it all. It feels like i was just with elder andersen getting trained and now i am training it is a very weird feeling.
I got packages from home and grandma j today so thank you for that. Work is going well here and i am happy to be a missionary, i am way excited for vratislav's baptism he has come so far since i met him 2 months ago. We are having a member brother kyncel baptize him in a pond north of plzen and than do a branch picnic afterwards. A lot of the branch priesthood was out of town on sunday for vacation and i was assigned to teach priesthood. In our class there was an englishman, an american, two brand new missionaries elder kartchner and vratislav, so only one czech speaker but i still did it in czech anyways and just translated for everybody else.
Well i hope everybody has a great week and i want to share my testimony that i know without a doubt Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and through him people have the power to change their lives, no matter how bad they are to the better. The wonderful thing about the gospel is that you don't have to be who you are. Keep on doing the great stuff that you are doing at home and I will be continuing to work hard here. Until next week
S Laskou
Elder Hatch
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