Anyways it was a
really good week again this week. We are teaching around 2 lessons a day and we
have a bunch of potential investigators lined up. On Tuesday I got to mow a
lawn for the first time in a while! It was a really messy lawn, but it felt
refreshing, even though the mower was crappy. Velva Allen, the older woman that
had her records removed but is coming back into the church is still waiting on
her papers. She really has a strong testimony though, and I love going to her
house. I went down to a little town called Klamath, which is actually in the
other Crescent city ward boundaries, but we were on exchanges. This guy,
Brother Bates, a 78 year old guy, is pretty much the third nephite. I’m not
kidding. This guy has like 15 kids and about 100 grandchildren. He is related
to basically every person in Klamath. We went with him and taught like 5
lessons that night because he knows everyone and just like goes into their
house and doesn’t care. It’s pretty awesome haha he is a way cool guy.
Our investigator,
Ervin Strickland, was having a problem because he quit smoking and was on vapor
cigarettes to help quit his smoking. It was like a judgement call and we all
thought that he should be able to be baptized while on them, because there is
no nicotine or tobacco in them. But after a talk with the bishop, he realized
that it was about the image of the church, and that he was representing the
church when doing the smoking motion, even with just the vapor cigs. He
realized that it was dumb to be on them and quit the next day and has been off
for about a week now. He is set to be baptized this month sometime, and he and
his wife are going to work towards being sealed in a year. It was amazing to
see that miracle happen. It seemed as though we were at a sort of impasse, then
everything worked out through the hand of the Lord and he is going to be
baptized this month. It was so cool! Anything is possible through the Lord!
When he told us that he quit the vapor cigs too I was just like freaking out in
my mind like holy crap how did this happen?! It was so cool. Anyways we have
another investigator, Sarah Ballard, who we have taught twice now (but me only
once). She is very interested in what we have to say in our lessons and has
been to church twice now. I really feel good about her. She smokes, but we can
work that out once she has a testimony and truly desires to be baptized. Like I
said before, anything is possible through the Lord. We have another family that
we were going to visit, but she had her baby on Saturday, so we are going over
tonight just to say hello and get our foot in the door a little more. They live
next door to the bishop so his wife is going to go over with us and say hello.
They said that they are looking for a church so we are keeping them in our
prayers as well. Arrain, another one of our investigators, and her husband
Robert are doing ok as well. She didn’t see the importance of the book of
Mormon so we tried to explain it to her and committed her to read it and pray
about it more. Her husband is still concerned with all of the temporal
knowledge of the church and tries to bash with us a little, but is a good guy
and isn’t really mean. He just doesn’t really believe it yet. He is reading the
book of Mormon a lot too though.
We were tracting again
this week and these guys called us over to come talk with them. One was Catholic
and the other Episcopalian. The catholic one was drunk and high, so it was
difficult to talk to him, but the Episcopalian really liked some things about
our religion and wanted to discuss it and learn more. We ended up pairing off
with them one on one, and lucky me, I got the way buzzed one. He really liked
that we were out doing what we do and spreading a message about Jesus, and had
a strong belief in God, but he would just ramble on for a while at a time. I
could get some stuff in but eventually we got talking about the Holy Ghost and
what it feels like. He explained that he felt it really strongly with a certain
minister, and he left. I told him that he could feel that same spirit if he
read the Book of Mormon, and I gave him 4 chapters in it to read. I hope he
reads it when he is sober. We are going to go over there again and see how they
are doing, even though the one that Elder Searle was talking to lives in
Sacramento, and is just here for a little bit. We ended up being there for two
hours, because they both were talking our ears off. So basically things are going
great here in Crescent City. The work is moving forward, and I am learning more
every day. Thanks for all that you do, and I pray for you all, all the time!
Love ya!
Love,
Elder Hatch
He gets to go to the temple in Medford, Oregon on Wednesday. He is really excited to be able to do some temple work there.
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