March 5, 2012

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for the emails. I enjoyed all of them. It's great to hear from you. Have fun on your trip to Arizona and to Utah. It should be fun for you I reckon. My Companion and I were just talking about how close General Conference really is. It is just a month away now. I’ll look for you. If you see the camera people, strike a pose, and maybe you'll get into the Ensign. Now that would be fun.

Wow! I'm not really sure where to start again this week, lol. It has been a good week. Honestly we've been able to plan a good day’s work with various activities and not just door knocking all day long. We've gotten to do some service as well so that helps with the whole planning thing. Unfortunately our only investigator ended up in the hospital and is now being checked in to a mental health rehabilitation clinic. Kind of sad and a little ironic but at least we were able to find him and give him a blessing. Hopefully when he gets out he will be better prepared to receive the Gospel in his life. Tuesday, of course, was a full on day (transfers). Wednesday was fairly busy and we kept out of trouble. We did our home teaching and visited some people. Thursday we had a Zone Meeting and got some good work done. Friday was weekly planning and Saturday we had to slash our back paddock. I kind of want to talk about that one so bear with me.

I don’t normally check the mail too much because, honestly, we don’t get too much but we did get a notice last week, on the 24th, telling us that we needed to have our lawn cut by today, the 5th. We didn't discover the notice until Friday, three days ago. Luckily we had already cut the two paddocks around the house we just needed to slash the big overgrown one in the far back of the property. The last time it was cut was literally 5 months ago so the grass was almost taller than me. We managed to get a whipper-snipper with a blade on it but it still took us most of the day to cut and pile it all up.



The final pile of grass was 7 ft tall and prolly 10 ft either way. We let it get out of control and that what we get for it. I have some pictures which are fun. It’s just all the rain that makes the grass grow so fast. It is hard to keep it down. Hopefully though, since we're getting out of summer and the rainy season, we'll be able to cut it less and less. Good times though. I like serving in the country!

Oh, some of the members here want to try some Twinkies and other American lollies (in Australia, small pieces of sweet substance are known as "lollies"). Whenever you send another package throw some Twinkies in.




My new Companion is good. He has a good personality, the members really like him, and he's a good teacher. We need to find people and then we will be able to make things happen. We'll be doing a lot of finding this week. We really need new people to teach. Sorry, nothing too exciting to report on and time is short. Love you all heaps. Talk to you next week sometime.

Elder Hatch

February 28, 2012

Hey Family,

It was great to hear from you and for the updates. Tomas (Elder Johanson) sent an email today and it was good to hear from him and know that he's doing pretty well. It has been a long day and I’m just far out tired. Yeah good fun…

Well it was a very crazy week. Our investigator Phillip got baptized! We're really quite happy but it was bitter sweet because my Companion wasn't able to be there for it sadly. Tuesday we had our Zone Meeting which went well and Phillip got interviewed by the District Leader for baptism. He made it through the interview and passed with flying colors which was great. The rest of the week we had to do a lot of coordinating to make sure the program was all set out, that speaker were assigned, and just the little things that have to take place behind the scenes. It is crazy how much stress goes into those sorts of things. Baptisms are great but they're very stressful at times. The service, in the end, went well and we had a good turnout. The next day was Ward Conference so it was good to have the Confirmation to make the Ward feel like they are actually missionary minded. Good times.

It has been raining a fair bit here and we've been trying to keep out of the rain but you get wet and that’s part of being a Missionary. More blessings… The drama's started Friday when the calls went out for Missionaries going up north (transfers). Since we don’t have a functional cell phone, we didn't get the message until 8pm. They basically told us that my Companion had to be on a plane the next afternoon just after our scheduled baptism. We weren't too keen on that one but as it turned out he packed all night and in the morning we drove two hours into Brisbane to drop him off. I got a temporary Companion, drove the two hours back home and prepared for and had the baptism. I have to say that I was so very tired that night. Sunday was stressful as well. I knew my temporary Companion because he had previously caused trouble in my last area and I guess the Mission President had just found out the full existent of the "trouble" so on Monday we had to drive two hours into Brisbane to take him back to the Mission Home. I was assigned two other Missionaries as Companions until transfers today (Tuesday). It has been a long day. We drove back into Brisbane this morning, picked up my new Companion and then drove back out not too long ago. I reckon I've done 600 km's (about 372 miles) over the last couple of days. My new Companion is quite a character, he is from Utah and is a cowboy. The members here will love him I reckon. Its good have him here.

This coming week looks like a heap of finding and a couple of lessons. We're hoping for the best though and will make the most of the time we have. Thanks for the uplifting words and the emails. Love you.

Elder Hatch