Week 36 Stake Conference and a New Stake Presdency

March 14, 2015 Mi Familia, I thought I would start out in Spanish today, no idea why. Actually probably because I forgot to tell yall that I try to contact people in Spanish sometimes. Haha I suck at it but it’s pretty fun. My Spanish isn't too bad from what it was at the beginning of my mission. Living with a bunch of Spanish elders probably helps out a little. Anyways, this week was pretty good. It was a pretty average week with some cool stuff, and some pretty bad disappointments. So Monday we had a co-lesson with the Hermanas in Woodland. It was really cool, they are teaching this Hispanic family(they all speak fluent English) and the Hermanas cover our same area, just Spanish, so they have been teaching this family every night for like 3 weeks, and they finally asked us to come over and help, cause they can’t go every night. So we are going over like 2-3 times a week to help them teach, and Monday night was the first time. So this family knows like nothing, so the Hermanas have done good work already, but we co-taught them Faith and Repentance, and they loved it! This family is so into the Book of Mormon and they really just want to change, and it was such a spiritual lesson. Super cool. We then had a lesson with our Vietnamese investigator and she is still having problems with her parents letting her be baptized. Even though she is married and old enough, it’s still a huge part of that culture, so she is struggling with that. Tuesday was a pretty good day. District meeting went well, and I’m just glad I don’t have to conduct/teach them. That night we had dinner with a really cool/funny family and we had productive splits. No lessons but we found a bunch of people on a list that bishop gave us. Wednesday was a good day. We had a lesson with Sean, our investigator. He is doing alright. Still struggling with the WOW. We also had a lesson with DeShayla, our investigator that can’t be baptized because her parents won’t let her. That went alright as well. She is young so she was super distracted by her tablet. That night we saw the family we saw on Monday again. We had a good little lesson with them as well. Thursday we went to Davis for zone service, which is always fun. That night we had splits, and we had an awesome unplanned lesson with a former investigator whose husband is a member, and her mother in law is too, and she lives with both, so we went there with a member, and there were already 2 members from the other ward visiting her too! So it was really awesome, it was a neat experience for sure. We are hoping to continue to teach her. She is soooooo close to being there, but she has felt a lot of pressure in the past so we are going to take it easy with her. We then saw the family that the sisters want us to see again and had another cool little lesson there. Friday we saw Sean again. We had a member there with us that Sean loves so that helped out a lot. After that we had weekly planning. And that’s where the day started to suck. We got a text from our investigator that we had that SUPER solid lesson with last Friday and set a baptismal date with her, she texted us and told us that she doesn’t want to meet anymore and isn’t going to be baptized. So we were just in bad moods the rest of the day about that. Like, it is just so sad to see. She was so awesome, prepared, you name it, but she decided not to go through. And it sucks, because we KNOW she felt the spirit and knows it is true, and she is still choosing to go away from it. So sad. But that night we had a lesson with an RC and it went well. The WML was there for it and he is such a loving great guy. So awesome. I am going to miss the people in this ward when I have to leave. Saturday we went up to Knights Landing. We were able to see one of our investigators up there. He is a frustrating guy. He knows what he needs to do, and knows what it feels like to live the gospel, and he wants it back in his life(former member) but he just won’t make the steps for whatever reason. And he doesn’t even know why. It’s so frustrating, but we were able to see him which was good. That night was adult session of Stake Conference. We had 2 seventies at our stake conference due to us getting a new stake president. It was elders Falabella and Auna (the second guy is he is Hawaiian. We were able to sit by our investigator and her member husband that I talked about in the Thursday paragraph, so that was good. It was funny, President and Sister Wright were there, and during the rest hymn when I was standing up I made eye contact with both of them, and I was standing pretty far back, but it was just funny cause they said that they saw me sticking up above the crowd and couldn’t help but laugh. It was pretty funny. Sunday was a pretty cool day too, because of Stake Conference. We had the Stake Presidency rearranged, and the 2nd counselor is now the Stake President!(totally called it) What’s cool about it is, that his sister and her family are the cool family in my ward that we ate with on Tuesday(refer to the Tuesday paragraph) and so after he was set apart, he was able to confer the Melchizedek Priesthood on his nephew, and there were two seventies in the circle for that. We are pretty close with this family and go over a lot because they are cool and the dad isn’t a member so they want blessings sometimes, and also so we can see the dad even though he smokes like a chimney. He is a really funny and great guy though. So since we know them Alex, the nephew, invited us to be there for the ordination. We weren’t in the circle but it was cool to be there for that blessing since his uncle is the new stake president and there were 2 seventies in the circle. So that was really neat. Our old stake president is going to be a mission president in Brazil. He is only like mid 40's so look out for him to be an apostle in like 20-25 years. President Cuvelier. That night was topped off cause we had dinner with the Dennis'. SO that was great. So all in all it was a pretty good week. Not the best, but not the worst. I am pretty pumped to hear about Utah being a 3 seed in March Madness! That’s sweet! I hope they do well. I’m totally picking them to go all the way. Mostly since I am super out of the loop on college sports, and you never know. It’s not that unprecedented for a 3 seed to win the whole thing. Anyways thanks everyone for all that you do! Remember to always be missionaries and ask your local missionaries for some #Hallelujah cards, or go to FollowHim.mormon.org to see the new Easter video. You can share it on facebook too! You never know who might need that message. Love, Elder Hatch