January 10 on the 9th

Hey, Happy Birthday Dad…hope it is a good one. Let me know if you (or Colin) want me to send you something and I'll try to start working on it. There is a Samoan shop just around the corner. I could get you a lava lava (?) for church or some islander shirts. lol

I'm sure it was cool to have some cold weather in Texas. Ha ha. The story about the kid throwing up at church really reminds me of when Colin did that in Target. ha ha ... that was great.

Background Story...from THE MOM's weekly email to Kiefer: ...at the end of Junior Primary one of the kids stood up and just vomited. Needless to say, the room had to be cleared…literally. We took the whole Primary including the Piano into the Cultural Hall. The dad of the kid did kid clean-up and most of the worst floor clean-up. Then he put the kid, feet first, into one of the really large garbage bags and took him home. I was the second crew…and now I can’t get away from that smell. Colin was scolding me on the way home because we “let” the kid throw-up. I reminded him of our trip to Target when he vomited just inside the store. He said that it wasn’t his fault because we had taken him to Castle Park just before. Now I know I was a total failure of a mother!

I got a package from the ward this week. It was a care package. It was amazing. Tell Sis. Patton thank you. I really appreciate that and it meant a lot to me. The week went good though. It was pretty much normal like yours. It's been a little stressful basically being in charge of the area but Elder Tu'i is getting used to the area. It's been very helpful having a kiwi (New Zealander) companion just because the ward is mostly Poly (Polynesian) and he relates to them really well. It's good that we can start to, hopefully, get a better relationship going with the members.

I've been driving the last couple of days. As its turned out it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's been a little weird just judging the turning radius of the car from the right side of the car and the left side of the road and all, if you know what I mean. Thinking back now it was actually kind of nice not having to drive but I guess I will be driving for the rest of my mission now so I'll get over it. I guess there is not much I can do about that.

This week is looking to be busy. One of the 12 Apostles is coming for a mission tour this Friday. I think it is Elder Nelson so that will be excited to have him here and maybe even get to meet him. On top of that we have interviews with the (Mission) President this either this Wednesday or later in the month, I'm not sure about that one. It will be good though. We taught a couple of people while tracting last week so we'll see how interested they are this week and whether they will continue to progress or not.

Elder Tu'i popped his back bike tire so we will be walking everywhere (Monday-Thursday) until we get that fixed. It has been raining a lot though so if that continues we'll have to walk anyway. I love the rain it really keep things cooler here.

Well, we're working hard and doing our best to move things forward in the Forest Lake area. Thanks for everything. Love you and will talk to you next week.

Elder Hatch

* the items in italics were add by THE MOM as clarification / comment ...

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