Monday, December 26th, 2011

Hola Familia!!!

It was really good to talk to everyone yesterday! I was really happy that the Facetime worked. My companion too, he did it after me and got to see his nephew for the first time! I’m really glad that everyone had a great Christmas! I am getting right back to work! We have a busy week ahead of us!

Funny story... so you know how I got a hole in the pocket of one of my pairs of pants...well today I got another one in another pair of pants! I guess these pants are all for just a year and a half and then they all fall apart. So I will need to get some new pairs of pants!

That’s awesome that Eric (Udall) is engaged! Tell him congrats for me!

I will get started on the essay questions for BYU and try to get them back to you as soon as I get them finished. We are also going to have a meeting with President today instead of district meeting so I’ll try to talk to him about the interview and stuff, and if he has done it before or if he knows how to do it.

(I was feeling like I didn’t ask him some of the things I wanted to when we talked with him on Christmas so I asked them in the email the next day)

About your questions:

*Do you love your mission? Why?

Of course, I love my mission! It’s awesome, at first I kind of had to fake it just because it is something totally different, but now I can truly say that I love it. I really have seen a change in myself and I have been able to learn so much about the gospel. Now I enjoy studying the scriptures everyday and am always excited to learn more about our Heavenly Father’s plan. That’s something that I never really did besides reading the Book of Mormon for seminary or as a requirement. But now it’s something totally different for me.

I love my mission because it has helped me see a lot of my errors and things that I lacked before my mission. It’s helped me to become humble and see how blessed I have been my entire life. It made me appreciate everything that I took for granted before my mission (Family, food, a nice house, a car, the scriptures/gospel, church leaders, and lots more stuff.) I’m so very grateful for this amazing opportunity to be able to serve the Lord and the people of Chihuahua Mexico for these two years.

*Do you love the people you are serving?

I really love the people that I serve. It’s actually the thing I love most I would believe. It’s amazing being able to share eternal truths with people that you hardly know and a very strong bond just comes immediately between you. Every time I am able to teach someone and they accept our message I grow to love them even more because they strengthen my testimony while I try and help them to gain one. When they get their testimonies it strengthens mine to watch and see other people get the same answers from our Heavenly Father, that the church is true and that this really is His plan for us, his children.

I’ll think about some experiences that I can share with you this week and put them in my letter next week so it will be longer because I don’t want to get stuck without something to be able to write. I hope you all have an amazing week! I love you all and miss you all very much!

Love Elder Jake Hatch