March 14, 2011

Buenos Dias!!

I keep forgetting to write this... Thank you for sending me packages! I really do appreciate them, even though I still have yet to receive one. Which brings me to my question!! How did you spell my name on the packages? AND, how many have you sent? Because last week I was told by the offices that they're having... difficulties... with my packages. There's 3 of them but they can't be taken out because apparently on all 3 my name's been spelt incorrectly! Like one letter in my last name or something like that, but everything else is correct! Therefore I don't know if they're yours and it was just a mistake? Maybe I'll get them just before I finish my mission :D

So my new companion's name is Elder Cruz (Elder Cross!) and he's from... yup! You guessed it! Guatemala! Yeah he's pretty awesome so far! He's quite small but he knows a fair amount of english which is a nice change! Our two investigators names who have their dates this week are Siannah Jimenes and Jorge-Luis Jimenes. They are twins! Fraternal. And are 20 years old each! We lost the other 4 dates because they were in other missionaries areas, and now that they're here they're taking care of them! So that's all we have! But it's been going well with Elder Cruz! In all honesty it's been tough, and a fast learning experience, learning what I have to do, what we have to do, where to go, what to teach, everything! And at times it's fairly tough! However Kara sent me a great email this week and shared this analogy about swimming! I'm going to copy and paste it to save time!

''Stephen talked about how it's a little like learning to swim. You are holding onto the edge of the wall and your teacher (Heavenly Father) is holding his hands out to you beckoning you to swim to him and cheering you on. You take a leap of faith and let go of the wall and swim to your teacher only as your approaching your teacher...he moves back farther. You keep swimming and you make it a little farther and then you start panicking and flailing your arms. It isn't until your about to go under water that the teacher grabs you, pulls you up and holds you tight assuring you that he's got you and your going to be ok. Then, he turns you around and shows you where the wall is and says "look how far you have come! That is amazing! You wouldn't have known what you were truly capable of it I hadn't moved back a little bit at a time, but I knew what you were capable of and I needed to show you."

And that's how I feel write now! I feel like Heavenly Father is just moving away a little so I can swim closer to him and he can help me come further! It's a trial and it's tough, but it's a growing experience for me to say the least. I've told Elder Cruz that we'll learn together! So we'll see how it goes! Oh speaking of swimming we had a bit of a scare this week! Of course I heard about the earthquake in Japan which is terrible. They're in my prayers and I'm hoping for the best! However that little experience sent a bit of a scare to us with a 95% change of receiving a Tsunami over 100 Meters! Pretty Big! So we spent most of the day huddled in a church further up north, which is why I'm sending these photos! Then the afternoon telling our investigators we couldn't teach them, then the night in our Zone Leaders house because it was safer. Thankfully nothing happened and God protected his missionaries :P

That’s all the time I have for this week! 

With love,

Elder Hatt III