Monday, January 9, 2012

Hola Familia!

Si esta lluviendo mucho ahora...creo que lluvio toda la noche. pero lo bueno es que fuimos a llenar nuestro tanque de gas el otro dia entonces no vamos a sufrir el frio porque tenemos nuestro calenton! pero si hace mucho frio hoy.

This week was really good. A little slow because one day we had our zone conference and it took up like our whole day and another day my companion wasn’t feeling too hot so we had to stay in the house a little bit. But we were able to contact quite a few people so this week we have lots of work to do. It’s pretty cool because we have had lots of experiences where people called out to us and want to talk with us. It has been a really big blessing! We have had a kind of hard time lately finding new investigators but we just kept on working at it and now we’re seeing the blessings fall into place!

This week Magdalena came to church and this week we are going to try and put a baptismal date with her, but we have to be very careful because she still has to quit smoking and that will probably need another two or three weeks (she can’t have smoked for at least a week before her baptism in order to be baptized). She has already made lots of progress and her family is behind her 100 percent! We talk with them often when they are at her house and they are all really glad with the progress she has made and they all support her going to church too. We have tried to teach them too but they just like to listen, but we’re trying to ease them along so that we can get their directions (address) so we can send the missionaries to their homes!

Some good news is that Brother Payan (the one that had surgery, our mission leader, and the one that we send the packages to) is doing a lot better! He came down from El Paso with his daughters on Saturday and also brought us our packages, so I got mine! And a lot of thanks are in order! I loved everything in the package! I was kind of confused about the Books of Mormon because we have tons but I’ll make sure that the people that I give those to are very special and that they know the books came from my family! I’ll have to write my testimony in those two and give them away that way! Thanks for the puppy chow!!! It is soooo goood! And all the candy too! And the hot chocolate! I got everything that was in it because I checked the list and they didn’t open the package when they crossed! My comp got two big packages too so it was like Christmas for us to open those up!

Cool experience: so yesterday we were in church and we spoke. I gave a talk about the First Presidency message for January by President Monson. I’m sure some of you have already read it but he gives us certain principles to follow so that we can have abundant lives, full of success and blessings. First we have to have a positive attitude, and trust in ourselves, those around us, and our Heavenly Father. We also need to have worth, not just the worth to do new things but the worth to try again if at first we don’t succeed! I really loved that message and I hope everyone that was at church could learn something or feel the spirit through my talk. But after sacrament meeting, a guy came from another ward with his wife, who is Russian. She speaks very little Spanish, but speaks ok English. The guy speaks Spanish and speaks ok English also. He came to us to teach her a discussion in English...needless to say it was amazingly difficult haha I actually had to ask certain words in Spanish to the guy so that he would tell me them in English because I didn’t remember the exact translation. It was kind of weird teaching in English; the truth is that I actually felt more like myself and my personality, not the same way that I feel when I teach in Spanish. But it was a good experience and I enjoyed it a lot! My companion and I were really glad that sometimes we speak English to each other because it helped us this time!

There is also a family that their kids all speak English in their house and only speak Spanish when their parents are talking to them, it’s pretty cool! And their son Chris works in El Paso in a family dollar. So yesterday I asked him if he could bring us some candy if we took him money. So this week we’re going to give him some money so that he can bring us back candy from the dollar store!!!

Well I hope you all have a great week and that you can all have missionary experiences because they are the best! Miss you and love you all so much!

Love Elder Jake Hatch