"And thus ended the twentieth year" (Alma 50:16) ~ 11 January 2016

Hi Family and Friends. (:

So this week was way rough but definitely a growing week. Change equals repentance. We had some great spiritually uplifting meetings on Sunday so I am looking forward to starting a fresh week.

I am so grateful to have a loving Heavenly Father who literally councils with us and guides what to do and what to say and where to go. He is so real.

This week our stake revised its boundaries. I had no idea how attached I was to the people we are working with until we lost like half of them to another ward. It was like transfers all over again! ha ha But the spirit there was so strong and I know this is an opportunity for improvement and growth. We went from 11 investigators to 4 and lost most of our less active members who we have gotten really close to. :(  I know that being sad by change is not a bad thing because it means we put our heart into something or someone. The harder thing is having an open mind and an open heart to embrace the change and make miracles happen. I loved what a member of the stake presidency said: "If next week all you change is your building and the time you meet, then you have missed the message." What a blessing it was for me to look inside myself and realize what changes need to occur in order to submit my will to the Lord and accomplish His work, not mine.

Eric Lidel has committed to baptism for this month which was a huge miracle! We committed him to the 16th and he was very nervous about it. We prayed with him and he said he was going to need to pray some more. A couple of days later he texted us and said he knows it is right but is very nervous. He doesn't feel ready but knows he can be. He fell off date for the 16th because of scheduling conflicts and now isn't sure what will work. He feels overwhelmed but he knows this is right. Please keep him in your prayers.

Sister Hill and I have prayed and know that God has prepared 3 people this month to be baptized. We just need to find the other 2. We are excited to find them and have been praying super hard! More prayers would be greatly appreciated. I know you all are praying for me. When things get hard I think of all the prayers on my behalf and I get immediate strength. So, thank you.

So, I turn 21 this month. The time I have been here seems so short and yet how crazy is it that I left as 19-year-old and I have been doing missionary work all the way until my 21st year!? Crazy. But I was really excited to share that verse with you all ;)

Looking back some years down the road, this is the time I imagined myself leaving for a mission. Now if am almost done and feel so very blessed for the person God has helped me, and continues to help me, to become. He knows best. I love Him with my whole soul and wouldn't trade the relationship I have with Him and my Savior for anything else. I love being a missionary. (:

Have a good week and a cake for me.

--

XOXO, Sister Hatch

"Because of his loving kindness..." - 1 Nephi 19:9 ~ 4 January 2016

The New Year has begun and things are rockin' and rollin' here in Rock Springs!

The weather has dropped to minus 20. A piece of advice for the wishful Wyoming travelers: hold your breathe. When you breath the air in, it caused you nose hairs to freeze and causes pain and discomfort. It’s amazing what cold feels like in comparison though, I never thought I would be so pumped for zero degree weather! #missionarymiracles

haha Anyway, we sure have had some miracles here. I love the new year and evaluating my year and how I can be better. It’s crazy to think that last year I was looking forward to my entire year of missionary work. It has flashed before my eyes and it made it little different for me to set goals because I only have a few months left as a missionary and then I will be back to normal life. however I concluded that I want my goals to be the same as last year, I still want to serve the Lord with all my heart, might, mind, and strength. Changing from a full time missionary back to a member missionary will make that a little different but through Jesus Christ we can continue to change and become.

I have thought these last couple of days about how to be more charitable. That is something I want to become this year, along with the other Christ-like attributes. Jesus Christ atoned even for those who despised, ridiculed, scorned, mock, spat upon, and crucified Him and He did it solely because of His unwavering love for those individuals. Because of His loving kindness my soul has been redeemed, my hurts have been healed, and my weaknesses have become strengths. I pray as we approach the new year we can each be a little better because of his loving kindness.
Lots of love<3

--
XOXO, Sister Hatch

"From the treasure of our hearts Jesus asks that we give of ourselves" ~ 28 December 2015

What a week of Christmas miracles!

After finally being out of and unstuck from all the wintery weather road closures, we are actually in Rock Springs in our assigned area! That is a miracle in its self, but on top of that, God has blessed us with so many merry things!

Christmas day we made a goal to have 5 lessons and invite someone to be baptized. The 5 lessons goal was actually a lot easier to achieve that I thought. We were able to share lots of Christmas messages with many of our investigators and less active members and member families.

The greatest miracles was when we went to Vlad's house, he is a reactivating member and his fiancé, Miamuna, is the investigator we started teaching last week. We now call Vlad's house the miracle house, because we found 2 new investigators when we went Christmas day and were able to invite one of them to be baptized!

We came in and Miamuna lit up when she saw us! We shared a Christmas message with just some of the people there because they were all busy cooking a Christmas feast, but after the message we invited everyone to join us for a prayer. At the end of the prayer, Vlad's cousin William looked at us and said, "I want to be a part of this." He said he used to be close to God and it was time to be close again, and he really likes our church. We invited him to be baptized and he willingly accepted. We will be teaching him this coming Saturday! :D His daughter Dianca also said she would be willing to learn more.

Saturday we had an AMAZING miracle. 100% lead by the Spirit. It’s a crazy story, I might have to save it for my homecoming talk. lol But, it resulted in another investigator, Amad. He is completely prepared by the Lord to be taught. The Spirit is so good.

Sunday was great. One of our wards had a really great sacrament meeting. They do it every year on the Sunday after Christmas. It's called favorite hymn Sunday. It is kind of like testimony meeting but you just go up and introduce yourself, say your favorite hymn and the page number and then you explain why it’s special to you, bear your testimony about it and then the congregation sings a verse or two of it! So fun! I bore my testimony on “Scatter Sunshine” for a few more reasons besides the fact that it is minus 15 degrees here....

Then Sister Hill and I were able to give talks in another ward about the gifts of Christmas. I love speaking. I always learn so much. I spoke about the gift we can give to the Savior, the gift of giving our hearts. Truly all we give to the Savior is just returning what He has already given us; what the Lord does not have is our hearts.

I got a Maya Angelou quote from sweet sister Lynda Fraley - it says, "Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, be better."

I know that as we rely on the Savior to constantly be a little better, we will be able to give our hearts to Him, and by doing so, He only blesses us more.

I love my Savior. I pray we can ever follow in His light.

XOXO, Sister Hatch

The Power to Astonish

Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas! I love this time of year and I love Jesus Christ. We had a wonderful devotional this last week from Elder Gay of the Seventy who talked about how as representatives of the Savior we have power to astonish, to deliver "good tiding of great joy". How beautiful! I want to testify that that is true because this week I personally have truly been spiritually AND mentally astonished... is overwhelmed a synonym of astonished? haha. Wow. What a week. I will just start from the beginning.

So transfers: it was a difficult Monday and Tuesday morning of good-byes and getting stuck in the snow. Over and over again. #arizonaproblems. After finally packing my stuff the morning before transfers, we headed to the meeting with our kind member, Sister Bischoff because our tire was completely flat. At transfers they announced the new STL's and where they were serving. So before I even found out who my companion was, I learned that I was heading back to the winter wonderland of Wyoming, to Rock Springs. lol. Shock number one of one thousand. As the drama of transfer meeting continued I finally got my golden greenie, Sister Hill, from a small town of 5,000 in Salem, Missouri! She is a convert of 2 years and has the brightest and strongest greenie fire! She is in a family of 9 and only 2 of her siblings and now her parents are active members of the church. She is so adorable and ready to work. She loves this work and is already making miracles happen. Bonus: we also get along great. We are polar opposites but we work so well together and have already had such a blast together! #pumped. So whitewash-training and STL news made it for a late exit from the mission office, between figuring out our new area book, getting all of my stuff AND sister hills stuff in a tiny Toyota to head back in the storm to Wyoming, and learning my role as STL. The roads were horrible and the freeway was closed past Evanston, so Sister Eberhardt had us stay in SLC. So we ended up going BACK to my last area and staying the night with Sister Parker and her cute new greenie, also a convert of two years, from the deep south. We had nothing to do from 5 pm. to 9 p.m., so we got to go out to eat with President and Sister Eberhardt, the Assistant’s to the President, and the office staff, which felt pretty official.

We couldn't get our stuff out of the car at my old apartment, because it was so tightly packed and we didn't know what was where, so we slept in our clothes and left first thing in the morning for Wyoming.  We made it Evanston around 9 a.m. but the roads past that were still closed. We finally made to Rock Springs around 5 p.m., made it two a few lessons, messy hair, dirty clothes, un-brushed teeth, and all! #cute Then had to head back Friday morning to SLC for our temple trip.

The temple was beautiful and it was Sister Hill’s first time seeing it. It is actually her first time in Utah, which was really fun and exciting because 90% of our missionaries either come here like yearly, or have family here, or both. She was so happy! The traffic was crazy because of everyone there to see the pretty temple square lights so we made it to the Banks’ house way past curfew. The Banks, who are in our mission presidency, have a huge mansion so that was fun to stay in. The next morning we had our zone conference, mission dinner, and devotional which was amazing! Can't wait to tell you more about it. That ended late so we stayed another night at the Banks’ and left around 10 the next morning. We finally made it back to Rock Springs and had a boss lesson with our less active named Vlad, from West Africa, and his fiancé who we found out is not a member. Sister Hill extended her first baptismal commitment and Vlad’s fiancé, (can’t remember her crazy Brazilian name) was so excited! She said yes! The Spirit was so strong. So Sunday was our first full day so it was a bit overwhelming but of course meetings and lessons were so centered on the birth of the Savior and we had some great Christmas programs in our wards. I don't know much about our area quite yet, but we are learning more about our investigators.  Right now we have 7 investigators, including Vlad’s fiancé we found on Saturday, but the prior sisters were already working with the 6 other investigators and none of them are progressing. We have called all of them and have visits scheduled with almost all so I am looking forward to meeting them and helping them. We may lose some investigators and gain others because in 2 weeks they are completely re-doing the stake boundaries. We have 3 sets of missionaries here in the stake, it is a fairly large stake and even covers Pinedale, which is about a hundred miles away. We have 3 wards right now and I think we still will, but we don’t know who will be where until January 10th. So, that’s fun. #drowning. We met with the stake president about that yesterday and he is really great and super missionary-minded, so I know things are going to just keep getting better. So, we are leaving back for SLC tonight, or sooner, because another storm is coming in, for New Missionary Training, and then I think we will be in our area again for at least the rest of the month. So, in a nut shell, that's our life right now. #astonished

Missionary life is great. The Spirit teaches me daily. The Lord is molding me. I have heard missionaries say how exhausted they are at the end of their mission. #true. I have finally hit that point. I know from here until the end I'm going to have to rely on the Atonement on a whole different level than I have before and, for that reason, I am so grateful. I am grateful to learn more of His Atonement and use it, because I have so much more I need to give. More to give to the people in Rock Springs, to the sisters in Wyoming, and most of all to my Savior. I am so looking forward to figuring out how I can truly give my whole heart to the Lord. That is really all we have to offer. Everything else we give Him is just returning what He has already given us. I want to give the Lord my complete heart. The amazing thing is, I know as I do this , He only gives me more. How good is our Master? His love for me astonishes me daily.

Our zone conference was centered on personal conversion and our testimonies of Jesus Christ. In our wonderful devotional, Elder Gay talked about some of the symbolism of Christmas and the special responsibility we have as missionaries to testify of the Savior’s birth. I know that Christ lives. I know we celebrate His birth because of His death and resurrection. I know the Atonement is real and as we allow it to change us we can ever be becoming: becoming more happy, more pure, more like our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that everything we do here on this earth, we can magnify and beautify as we rely on the Savior, as we rely on His love and the power of His Atonement. I pray we can ever be astonished at the magnitude of His gifts to us and, as we do so, we can freely give. We have to the power to astonish. The gift of Christ is a miracle. I testify in Christ’s name, which I bear, amen.

"I Will Follow Gods Plan for Me, Holding Fast to His Words and His Love." ~ 14 December 2015

I have always found peace from the primary children songs; such simple beautiful testimonies that hold such important truth. It has been a rough morning. Tomorrow is transfers: my favorite thing, as you all know. haha. Transfer news has come and gone and I got quite a bit of news. Sister Parker will be staying here in the area and training a new missionary. I will be Whitewash-training and becoming one of the new Sister Training Leaders (STL). So in nonmissionary terms I’m getting a brand new missionary and we are going to an area where we both won't know anyone. Usually it means the area needs a bit of a re-start, and as an "STL" I will be over all the sisters in my zone to serve and to train them... Guys, I am super scared. But mostly, unbelievably sad to be leaving this area. I have given my heart to this area. Whitewashing a new language program has truly helped mold me and I have become soooo very attached to the deaf people and to the members and investigators I have found here. This has been my most favorite area and the best people I have ever served. I want nothing more than to see James, Christy, Callie, and Mark through to their baptisms. They have become such a part of my life and are forever friends. 

Through feeling this overfill of emotions, I have come to understand a glimpse of how Heavenly Father feels. His whole purpose is for us. He created us. He loves us. He knows us inside and out. I know he loves the people here in this area 100 times more than I do. I have to trust that. I think that when Heavenly Father sent us here to earth He wanted nothing more that to keep us by His side and teach us himself and love us. But, for us to grow and become as Him, we had to leave. Now I have to leave, for my own growth and for the growth of the people here, and that is super hard for me. I often think that Heavenly Father puts too much trust in me, but I am grateful because I remember that I can never put too much trust in Him. My mission is coming to a close and I know that where ever I go, I will go with all of my heart, and become something more, more like my savior, more like the pure love of Christ. How grateful we should be to be here on this earth and experience so many adventures that God has to offer. I love my mission, I love this gospel, I love this earth, and most of all I LOVE getting to know the GREAT worth of EACH soul. I am very excited to serve more of God’s children and some of the sisters here in the SLC East mission. God is so kind.

XOXO, Sister Hatch

Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name. ~Alma 26:35

Nevertheless, [Jesus] left not himself without witness... SEPTEMBER 7, 2015

... In that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and with gladness." -Acts 14:17

What a week it has been, things have seemed to slow down and I had to really try hard to not be discouraged. But fear not, the Lord thy God is with us whithersoever we goest, and miracles never cease!

We had MOST of our lessons cancelled right after a super spiritual zone meeting so not a lot of people to report on, but I truly know that an ever-growing conviction of Jesus Christ brings miracles. That's what our zone meeting was about. Truly standing as a witness of Christ and bearing testimony with all the fervor of our soul and without apology. So after zone meeting the zone leader's challenged us to bear testimony of our Savior to someone in that manner. We were supposed to meet with three of our investigators that night but since that didn't happen we decided to just knock on a random door. An active Protestant lady answered the door, she wasn't at all interested but we were able to fervently bear our strong witness of Christ. The spirit really touched her heart and gave her the desire to read the Book of Mormon.

As I was reading in Acts 14 this morning, verse 17 really touched me. This is when Paul and Barnabas are preaching and performing miracles and they were mocked and rejected. They gave this testimony in verse 17 that even though God allows us to "walk in our own paths" he never leaves us. I am so grateful that I have felt the "rain" that God has poured down on me and tasted the "fruit" he has planted for me. He has truly filled my heart and I know that as I try to share
that with love, the Lord always blesses me, as well as all those that can experience the same joy I do when I "dance in the rain" I love rain, I love fruit, and I LOVE Jesus Christ!

Charlotte has had a rough week, her son that's been in a detention center for 7 months just had court and has to go to another place for 2 years. She is still moving forward with her date but please keep her and her family in your prayers.

Austin came to church and loved it! He is a young single guy so we are probably going to have to let the YSA missionaries teach him :( but his lessons are going great. He is diligently studying the Book of Mormon and praying daily to find the truth. What a joy he has brought to us.

We had an Amazing lesson with Diego and Krista and they are beginning to recognize so much truth and light in their life that has come as they have began learning about the restored gospel.

Tiffany and her girls are not interested in baptism for now but they have shared with us how we have brought so much hope and peace into their life these last couple weeks. We feel so close to them and always feel the love of the Savior so strong when we are there.

We are praying and fasting to find more people to teach, keep us in your prayers. We know the Lord has prepared someone in Green River to receive our joyful message, we just haven't found them yet!

I know the Lord’s love is real and He has a plan for each of us. "His ways are not our ways" (Isaiah 55:8) but I know His ways come to us in the scriptures and through the quite whispering of the Spirit (Elder Corbridge, "The Most Important Things", Ensign, Feb 2015). As we align
our will with God we will know his ways and receive real and lasting joy. The Atonement is real. Please use it. I love you all! Thanks for being a part of my life.

Love,

Sister Hatch

Life is good and God is good! 31 August 2015

I am doing so well and feel so much love and peace for the good things that are happening. 

I just met a lady who moved into the ward who joined the church because something she heard at General Conference while sitting in the Conference Center. The Spirit is so strong there and we will remember the feeling that is there forever.

I have been struggling this week with just "feeling the music" of the gospel. I have been so diligent and have seen miracles daily but I just haven't been feeling as much as I normally do. I know that is one of tools Satan tries to use. In my scripture study this morning I was able to see that the way we "always retain in remembrance the greatness of God" is by looking at our blessings. I know I have been so blessed in my life because of your and mom’s diligence in teaching me and leading me the right way. Thank you for your constant example.

Our vision in our VGP this month is virtue and in my patriarchal blessing it talks about that quality is something I need to constantly strive for. It says you and mom are to school me in virtue. I have gained a deeper understanding of what virtue is. It is the prerequisite to receiving all the Lord has. When I think of virtue I think of purity and purity makes me think of consecration. Giving 100% to the Lord because of our pure love. What do you think of when you think of virtue and how has that helped you achieve goals in your life?

A quick miracle is Austin. We felt inspired to knock on his door. He is our neighbor and a couple of weeks ago the door had a for sale sign so we thought we would just introduce ourselves to him as a neighbor. He just moved her from Texas so he new nothing about the Church. That never happens! It was so fun, I felt like I was in a different mission! haha. So, we told him about the Book of Mormon and asked him to read 3 Nephi 11 and set a return appointment. Since he is single and we needed another sister to go with us. The day of his appointment happened to be the day that Sister Kent was visiting Green River so she came and taught with us! He read the chapter we gave him twice and had lots of good questions! The lesson was so filled with the spirit and he is excited to keep meeting with us. He says he will be baptized if he feels the truth of our message. He is going to pray about the Book of Mormon before we return.

We have found another new investigator, Tiffany, who is so like me. She is kind of hippie-like and loves Jesus Christ. She said she wants to do whatever makes her heart sing. She loves sun flowers and creating things and I have so much love for her. She has 3 kids and she is our next door neighbor! ah love her.

The Clarks are being baptized on Saturday so things are going really great. Charlotte is preparing for her baptism on the 19th but her husband, Allen, is going to wait. I am exciting she is leading the way because she is so solid! I know that the Lord is blessing me and the people in Green River. He knows all of his children so well. I know it. 

Elder Berry knows Elder Webb but he knew him first as the guy with the car dealership in Farmington. haha He is a convert so people told him Elder Webb was a 70 and he didn't know what that meant. He was baptized when he was 20. 

Love, love you!