February 20, 2012

Hey family,

Things are going good. It has been another busy week in the Lockyer Valley. It was good to hear from everyone. It sound like it was a pretty good week for all of you, lol. It was good to hear for you Colin. I’m glad you’re doing well at BYU. I have to say, the various exercise program sound pretty mean. I’m glad you like the swimming pool and it is cool you got to see rugby. It’s an interesting game to watch. They reckon it’s more intense than gridiron (football) over here, but what can I say, Aussies like to talk big. Americans do suck at rugby, I have to say. Also, I have to comment on the chemistry labs. The attention to detail is very annoying and it doesn't take a very big mistake to throw off your numbers and then you fail the lab just like that. It’s a little frustrating. Keep working hard and enjoying your time at BYU.

Hopefully Dad will get to start working in the Temple soon. It sounds like they really don’t need Temple worker that bad. I know over here, in the Brisbane Temple, it can be a struggle just to get Temple patrons not to mention Temple workers. Just curious…if you get a chance ask Sister Walch the names of her family, is she a Clarke or a Donaldson?...just wondering. We finally got an a/c remote for the flat. We couldn't get the actual remote for the unit but we found a universal and it works just as well. All good there! Now we are blesses with cool air which is a great blessing.

There is a new Missionary coming in from Mesa Arizona next week and his name sounds familiar. I’m not sure if this is it but I think it is Elder Bingham, maybe the Relies (relatives) know him?

My week has been busy. We've had a good mix of things to do. Our investigator, Phil, has a baptismal date for this weekend so we've been getting him ready for that and had a couple of lessons with him over the last couple of days. We'll have a couple more this week and a lot of organization and stress to go along with it I'm sure. We got to mow another lawn this week. Well, it was more like a paddock than a lawn. I got to use the good ole American made John Deere ride-on mower so it was a fairly enjoyable time despite the sun. Good times. I love doing service. Next week is transfer time again. My Companion will likely be leaving so no emails until Tuesday afternoon at the best. I’m hoping the baptism goes well.

I was just thinking how you (the Mom) always the Missionaries seem to be able find the strangest people to bring to church. I can tell you the crazies just come out of the wood works when we're around. We just ran into an interesting guy a couple of days ago, tattooed, been in jail, smokes, dodgy friends and living conditions, various mental issues… but he knows there's something special about the Church. It is funny though, the day after we “miraculously” found this guy, the ex-wife/partner who is a member called us up to “talk about” this guy. It is kind of funny actually but interesting at the same time. Everyone is a son or daughter of God and we'll do what we do. It is great to have people to teach and visit.

Deep clean is this weekend. I will thoroughly enjoy myself; vacuuming up spiders and all. I hope you have a great week. Stay out of trouble. Love you heaps. Thanks for the emails. Talk to you next week.

Elder Hatch

Feb. 13, 2012

Hey Family,

All is going well here. It has been a busy week in general. We've been working hard and staying busy.

For questions yes, I have my Zune now and yes, it is working great. Thank you for the music. It’s good to have more music to listen to. I really like the clarinet pieces and the Enya is good as well. My companion has a charger so I just use that to charge it up and the other week I got a Bassburger set of speakers for it so I can listen to it whenever I like to. I generally don’t listen to it in the car. I let my Comp put in his tunes when in the car but yeah, mostly I just listen to it after hours in the morning and at night before bed. That is really the only time we really have apart from lunch. It is great though and I’m going to try to put the stuff I already have on it today as well. No, I'm not a Zone Leader anymore which is a blessing and it’s just nice be able to work and not have to worry about everyone else's drama and so forth. We have a really big area so we drive a lot in the car every day. It’s unbelievable really but we easily do 2500 km's (1500+ miles) a month. That is a lot of driving. We made it to the Temple a couple of weeks ago and yes, it was a good experience. The Temple is a great place. It was just a very long journey starting at like 4am in the morning to make it to the 8am session. The session is mostly Missionaries of course. As far as being similar to the Dallas Temple...it is much different. It is more ornate. The Dallas Temple seems very old compared to this one but I guess that because it is but it is all good. I'm in a Ward (not a Branch) and we have a good amount of people that attend the Temple most weeks. Everyone is just very spread out.

The week was pretty good. Tuesday we had a big Zone Meeting at our Chapel and the Mission has a new chant thing that they're doing to get us all pumped up to go out and find more people. It is interesting but definitely not really appropriate for the Chapel. Tuesday we had to mow our lawns again because they were really getting out of control and we had a flat inspection coming up on Thursday. That had to be done before it rained. We were planning on mowing the lawn in the afternoon when it got cooler but the clouds were really building in the morning so we had to do it in the morning. Honestly we were praying that it wouldn't rain until we got the lawns mowed. As it turning out our prayer was answer. Just as we were finishing mowing the lawn the heavens opened up and it just poured. That was the crazy rainstorm that dumped 52mm (2 inches of rain) in 20 minutes. We had a lesson we had to go to at that time and we got soaked just running a couple of feet in it. It was awesome.



The rest of the week we did a lot of finding and visiting and had a couple lessons with the guy with the Baptismal date. We're hoping all goes well with him. We also did some service this week. We had to mow a lawn. It was overgrown and we only had one mower and we had to bag all the clippings. It was a good deal of work. I forgot to put on sunscreen and just got toasted. It was bad! We (the Missionaries) were really to only ones at the service project fit enough to do physical work so it was a good opportunity to get out and serve. I do love doing service. Other than that not a whole lot planned for the coming week. We have another Zone training this week and who know what else. It should be a good week.

Love you all and miss you. Talk to you next week.

Elder Hatch

Local News

I found this article in a local newspaper from the area Kiefer is currently serving in. I found it amusing and love the rural Aussie flare.

Snake sends a shiver
Sophie Holley | 7th February 2012




A FIVE and a half foot carpet python slithered into a tight spot last week, drawing in numerous intrigued shoppers.

Michael Edminds received a shock when he was lugging his grocery shopping out to his car in Gatton's IGA carpark on Thursday afternoon and came across the python innocently soaking up the afternoon sun in the hot carpark.

This was innocent enough until a car pulled up next to Mr Edminds and scared the snake under his car.

"I tried to poke the snake out from under the car so I could leave," Mr Edminds said.

But this only scared the snake into sliding up under the bonnet of his car.

Mr Edminds could not believe it when he popped his bonnet and saw the snake entwined around his engine.

"It was stuck in between the brake lines and couldn't move," he said.

"It looked like it just had a feed so it wasn't moving anywhere."

Bystanders stood by watching as one person held the panicked snake's head and another tried to wriggle the reptile free.

After a 25 minute struggle, the agitated snake came free and was put into a bag to be released back into the wild, away from shoppers.

IGA employee Grant McMillan, the man that bravely held the snakes head during the struggle, is familiar with the scaly reptiles.

"I've got a pet jungle python so I'm used to handling snakes," he said.

The snake was released by a volunteer back into the wild.

Finally! Feb. 6, 2012

Hey Family,

It's good to hear from you. I think all of us are running out of thing to write. Not much changes from week to week it seems. All is good though.

These last few days have been pretty normal. Thursday we had District Meeting up in Toowoomba which was good. My Companion was sick of a couple of days there so it slowed us down a little bit which wasn't good. District Meeting went well and it was a good training. The Zone Leaders were there so we were committed with more goals and things to achieve over the next week. Friday my Companion was still sick but luckily we were just weekly planning during that time so we didn't really lose much work time. Saturday we had trade-offs in Toowoomba. This time I got to go there for a change which was nice. It is a fun little town, diverse, but fun all the same. We taught a couple of lessons and had a chance to attend a Baptism and to do some service. It was great to get out of my area for a day, step back and see how other people run things, and see what you can do better. It was a good experience.



Sunday was interesting. We have an investigator that we've kind of been teaching but not really. He been coming to church regularly for the last month and has been investigating the church on his own. We've been fellowshipping him and answering any questions he might have. It has been hard to get a lesson in with him. This Sunday though, after answering more of his questions, we committed him to be baptized and he accepted a day for the end of the month. He seems pretty good but now that he has a date, Satan is going to do whatever he can to keep that from going forward. We'll be working with him closely over the next couple of weeks and hopefully have a Baptism for the Ward by the end of the month. He an interesting person but he is a child of God so that’s all that matters.

Thing are going good and we hope to teach some more lessons this week some time. Thanks for your emails. Good luck Colin at Uni. Keep working hard and doing the basics. Most of all Happy Anniversary. Love you all. Until next week…

Elder Hatch


** note from the Mom: Kiefer never really explained why he missed writing for the past two weeks. It was good to finally hear from him!

Hoping

We haven't heard from Kiefer since the 17th of January. The Mission home reports that he is busy with his work. We are hoping he has a regular P-Day and a chance to email today.

Updates to follow...