September 25, 2012

Hey family,

It has been a crazy week. Thanks for the emails from everyone. I really enjoyed all of your emails they were all very uplifting and I enjoyed reading them. Thank you for that. I'm not sure where to start honestly. Good to hear about Alex, Spencer, and Bruce. It sounds like they're doing well. Alex sent me a email a couple of weeks ago but I haven't and don’t think I'll have time to respond to it. Hope he continues to do well. Thanks for your email Colin; I always find your emails funny. You sound well and a lot different for the better. I'm happy for you man. Thanks for the advice on this and that I think I will try to get into the Personal Finance course, it really does sound good. Glad you’re enjoying Uni and where you are.

This last week has been busy with this and that which has been good and has gone by pretty fast for the most part. It’s weird to be writing down the 25th of Sept. on the top of the email.  It seems like that’s a date that has been there for a while but has finally come. Today was transfers and Elder Tilley has been transferred. He's been moved into Brisbane so they can get his teeth done there and we don’t have to travel. I got a new companion here in Nerang and so I'll be dying here at the end of the transfer. It was good to go to transfers today and see several of the Elders that I've served with going home and giving their departing testimonies. It was an interesting day, bitter sweet. Mostly sweet though. My new companion is Elder Lao from California he is Asian and he seem like he'll be a good companion.  It'll be good, I'm excited.

We don’t have General Conference for another couple of weeks but still I'm looking forward to it. Thank you for your prayers and support they have been much appreciated.  Hope you have a great week. Thanks for the emails again. Love you much. Talk to you soon…

Elder Hatch  

September 17, 2012

Hey family,

It has been a long week and I'm tired today. Sorry for the shortness of the email. I just didn't have any time last week and this week is not much better sadly. It’s good to hear from you and sounds as if all is going well.

The week went by kind of slow but that’s all good. We got to do service here and there and had dinners on most nights of the week so looking back it was pretty good. I can’t complain. We did heaps of finding early in the week and then didn't have as much time later in the week. We met quite a few interesting people, as you do, and got a couple of good potentials. We have several teaching appointments set up in the coming week with people, so were excited. Oh, and I got my temple recommend renewed at interviews with the Mission President...all I was thinking was wow, I'm old.

Transfers are this next week. I don’t reckon anything will change though I’ll most likely be here with Elder Tilley for my last transfer. Next week on Friday, the 28th he'll be getting his wisdom teeth removed which I'm sure will be a long, long day to say the least. That’s the plan. Today we went up to Brisbane and they worked on him for an hour and a half. He said he got checked in Fiji but that they just had the doctor sign it as all good basically because his family couldn't afford to pay for it. Welcome to the islands. As they say, "what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is ours". It’s good it is getting taken care of though.

Other than that, not much else is going on. It looks like it will be raining this week. That will be fun. Love you much and miss you of course. Thanks for the support and hope things will go well for you in the coming week. I prolly won’t get to email until next Tuesday…maybe. We'll see.  Until next week, thanks…

Elder Hatch

Brisbane Trains

September 10, 2012

Hey family, 

It’s good to hear from you. I'll try to be brief because I don't have all that much time today to email. This morning we got up early and had to travel in to Brisbane to get Elders Tilley's wisdom teeth looked at. As it turns out he needs heaps of work done and the dentist said that we would need to come back at least five times to get it all done. It will be very expensive for the mission. It needs to be done though. The train ride up there was fun and the city is a pretty cool place...to visit of course. It’s a fun mix and maze of things. Other than that it has been a pretty good week we got to teach a couple of surprise lesson which were interesting. The work is going about normal and it will be getting warm very soon. The next week we have interviews and have more service to do for people here and there. Hopefully the schedule will fill up quickly. 

I've been looking through the housing (BYU) … I'm not sure about having a car. I think it might just make more complications with insurance and then petrol. I'm not sure about that. I think I should be able to live without a vehicle. I still want to just do the winter semester and then take some time to work and make some money between semesters. I want to try to go back and work at the BYU concession doing what I was doing before I left. It’s a good gig and the people are nice. I'd like to see if I can do that on the side of school. There won’t be a great deal going on sport wise though so I might just have to look around for more work. I'll keep looking at the housing and see what I can find. I might have to just suck it up and live south of campus lol. Class and schedule wise. If you can get me classes in the mornings, that start around the same time regularly that would be great. I generally like to have my classes done by early afternoon. A couple breaks between classes are ok. I just study in my spare time. I don't like late class if it can be avoided. I want to be able to work in the evenings if possible. Look up the professors on rate my professor and just scan thru the reviews to make sure they weren't completely awful. 

I think that's about it. Thanks for everything. Love you heaps. Thanks for the update and the info.

Love you 

Elder Hatch

Posting Gap

From the Mom: My apologies to everyone for the lapse in posts to Kiefer's blog. I have been traveling taking Colin back to BYU for another semester before he enters the MTC on December 19th. Also, due to a newly installed spam blocker, there were a couple of weeks of Kiefer's emails that got to Colin's email account but not to Ross' or mine. Needless to say, we had a couple of distressing weeks. All is well now. Thank goodness Colin received the emails! The Blog should be up-to-date now. Thanks to everyone that checks in.

September 4, 2012

Hey,

Sorry about using the “d” word in one of my emails that’s funny that it would (spam) block everything because of that. lol. It was good to hear from you. I’m glad Colin got to school well and things in Arizona are going good too. You sound very busy dad but that sound like a sweet a calling for you (Stake computer and technology assignment, part of being an assistant Stake Clerk).  I reckon you will love it.  I'm way happy for you.

Yesterday I got my care package, it was the best!  Far out.  Thank you so much for that. I’m not going to lie I kind of had a couple of trunky moments (the package includes some BYU Winter Semester information) but that’s all good I have to start figuring things out soon so it was good to have all of the information. I was looking at the map (BYU housing) and was disappointed that they don’t have too many places north of campus but I guess that’s all good. I'm I haven't been able to look at the papers too much.

I logged on to my Route Y account and had a look around there. I'm trying to have a look and figure out what will be good. It’s hard. I think I had a couple of classes planned in the schedule I'll just plan in the courses and when the time come if you could register for me that would be great. I think a math class, a finance class, maybe a religion class and maybe a chemistry class will be good. I still don’t know what I want to go into.  It is kind of funny how two years later and I still am not much closer to knowing what I want study. I'll be thinking and pondering on it. Far out I have a lot of big decisions to make in the next couple of weeks, lol.

Oh thanks to Brother Robert Woodbury for sending the letter with the package.  That meant a lot to me and was really good. Thank him for me please. 

Overall this week has been pretty good with a couple of hard days. It’s getting warmer sadly and before long the heat will hit which will be shocking to say the least. Transfers are at the end of the month. I reckon that I will be staying here for the rest of my Mission. I've have a good run and got to see a good deal of the country so I’m pretty happy with how thing have gone. It’s been fun and I still have more time for that. We got a couple of good referrals in the last couple of day and picked up some good potentials so we'll be pushing forward with them in the next week. Elder Tilley didn't get his wisdom teeth taken out before he came so next Monday week have to travel up to Brisbane and have a doctor look at them.  And then, most likely, the week after have them taken out. It will be a fun couple of weeks. Next week we have interviews with the Mission President so that should be uplifting as always. Far out.

Thanks for everything sorry the email is a day late hopefully I'll actually get to write on time next week. Later. Love you.

Elder Hatch

August 28, 2012

Hey Family, 

Good to hear from you and to see that the journey to Utah has been safe and successful. It seems that you will have made this trip so many times now that it should almost be second nature. That’s a long way to go. Glad to hear the old friends are doing well. It’s been a long time since they were in Texas. It’s impressive you can still keep in touch with them. 

Thanks for the emails BTW. This shorter week has gone by fast which is always a blessing. We've been staying busy with service projects here and there, which has been good. We've even been able to teach a couple of good lesson and work with some people which has been interesting. It’s been nice. The Temple trip on Wednesday was good. Thursday we had to get the car serviced at Toyota. They called us half way through the service and let us know that out front brake pads were down to 2mm. I knew they were bad but not that bad. Glad we got it serviced. It was expensive though.

On Friday we had a special training from the Mission President and the Area Presidency. During the last hour of the training Richard Turley, the assistant church historian gave a little training on the prophet Joseph Smith. He's a smart guy and it was very interesting. Good experience. Saturday was pretty normal, a nonmember Fijian family had us over for dinner which was heaps of fun and it was really good. Sunday was pretty normal but the sound system in the chapel wasn't really working properly. Well the podium wasn't working so the only sound was coming thru the overflow (lobby) speakers. It was a classic church moment.

Someone today us yesterday (Sunday) that there was meant to be a cyclone hit Gold Coast Saturday sometime??? I kind of had a laugh about that one. I'm not sure if cyclones really come down this far but we didn't see anything. Other than that not much is happening. Life moves on. Oh my watch died last week we were in a lesson and it just turned off and didn't come back on. That was sad. I went through withdrawals for a couple of day but now I'm all good. Guess it’s good timing with only two transfers to go but still it would have been cool to have it go until I got back. I might see if I can go find someone to fix it but I think its toast. 

We have nothing much going this week but the week after there's training and interviews the week after and this and then it will almost be transfers again. General Conference is just around the corner. I'm excited. It will be good. Well thank you for everything love you all. Hope you get settled in well Colin and that the drive home is safe and uneventful mum. Well until next week. 

Elder Hatch

August 21

Hey family,

Thanks for the email everyone it was been good to hear from you. Sorry for the lateness of the email.  This week was, once again, our Temple week. It was a long week but it’s good because it has gone pretty fast. I loved the pictures of the fish (from the hiking trip).  Far out, those are some big fish. I can see how those would feed five of you. I reckon that was a great trip, it looks like beautiful landscapes. The news of all the old youth from the ward is funny. To hear that Alex (Key), Spencer (Key) and Bruce (Otteson) are all back and doing well, I can’t wait to catch up with them. Amberlea (Key) and Melanie (Turner) are engaged! lol. That is great. Good for them.  You should have taken some picture but I can’t really talk.  Hope the shift (to BYU) goes well Colin, you look good.  It is good to know you got your passport all worked out. Now I guess it’s just the visa right?

This week has been busy. We've been doing a good deal of finding which isn't the most effective but it has filled the time in. We've also had some good lessons with a couple of our investigators. We have this one guy that is an alcoholic and a lifetime investigator that we visit once a week or so. He's interesting. Anyways, he goes to an addiction recovery group and two of the members that go to that group got his information and went over to his house and did a kind of intervention. Anyways in the course of their "intervention" (paraphrasing: they did something dodgy...).  I wasn't too happy about that situation. It has led to a bit of drama. People and investigators give me headaches I have to say.

It’s getting warmer and before long we'll be into summer. I'm not looking forward to the heat but on the other hand I sure you're looking forward to the cool weather. The Temple trip was good today as always.  It was a bit hard to focus and all though there was a good spirit there. It might be the last time I get to go since the Temple will be closing for a month in October. It will be good to have the whole family there when Colin goes through the Temple. That will be a great experience for everyone.

Uhmmmm Colin why do you want a torch? What kind of torch (flashlight) do you want me to get you? Working on our Aussie slag are we? Good luck.  (Actually, Colin was referring to Kiefer passing him a symbolic torch…like the Olympics…as Kiefer leaves and Colin goes to Australia.  I didn’t get it either…Colin had to explain it to me. –the Mom)

Yeah that’s my week. Times are interesting. Thanks for all your support you give me. Love you very much. Have a great week. Talk to you next Monday.

Elder Hatch