SIMPLY CHASING DOWN THE WORLD!

Wow..
So much happening in one week..
The most exciting though is the realignment of our ward boundaries. Luckily, Sister Bozant and I just gained some super solid members while everyone else in our district.. lost some lets just say. We'll see how everything goes. The best part was at the start of the meeting last night the opening hymn was "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go" and that lightened the mood. It was great haha

Sunday we had in one of our wards something called a "Musical" Sacrament. Basically, it's a testimony meeting but everyone gets up and says their favorite hymn and for 30 seconds explains why it is or what it means to them. We tried so hard to have our investigators come to this meeting but OF COURSE everyone just happened to be gone.. One day we will have them all there. Everything that could have gone wrong this week DID go wrong haha gotta have your ups and downs on mission, I guess. Loads of fun. Sister Bozant and I also just discovered that we are actually over the entire stake! Which is over half the mission! We have the opportunity to teach all the single women who are investigating the church that live in the stake boundaries. Fun stuff! (Our miles aren't liking us too much right now..)
I finally got a copy of a quote that I read my first transfer out in the field and I've been sharing it for the past week with almost everyone that I can. I love it and it really exemplifies what I've become and really the feeling I've learned to love since being out on my mission so far.

I am a part of the fellowship of the Unashamed. 

The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made.

 I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. 

I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. 

My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.

 I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, 

tame visions,mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. 

I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. 

I now live by presence, learn by faith, love by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power.

My pace is set, my gait is fast, my goal is Heaven, my road is narrow, my 

way is rough, my companions few, my Guide is reliable, my mission is clear.

I cannot be bought, compromised, deterred, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed. 

I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the 

table of the enemy,  ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won't give up, back up, let up, or shut up until

 I've preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ.

 I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.

 I must go until He returns, give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes.

And when He comes to get His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My

colors will be clear for "I am not ashamed of the Gospel ..." (Romans 1:16)

Every phrase is what I am striving to become and will continue to for the next year. I can't believe I'm a third done with my full-time mission service. It truly feels like I've been out a month or so but I can feel the change that's occurred and I love it! I have one year left to complete what I came out to do and that is sooo not enough time. Before, I believed 18-months was a long time but it's not. 

Love you all and I'm off to work!

-Sister Hatch

Miracles are REAL!!

So... adventures last week. Starting with my companion waking me up at 12:30 to make an E.R. trip. That was just the start of our exciting week but I'm not going to go into that. 

 

Something else exciting, on Sunday I had the chance to speak to all of the Stake Presidents in the Idaho Boise Mission. Not intimidating at all. It was actually super fun. I got to meet back up with Sister Johnson and we shared about a family in the Paramount Stake that we had grown close with and their daughter was my first actual baptism. 

 

We had Zone Conference yesterday and it was Amazing. Our purpose was a big focus. I love meetings like this.  One of the Stake Presidents that was there at the meeting on Sunday spoke to us. He said that most likely our reaction when we all opened our call and read the words "Idaho Boise Mission"... yeah.. most of us were not pleased. Now, we realized (most of us at least) how much of a blessing this is to us. We have the chance to teach more than most in our mission and see results from our labors. We are serving in an area where the church is fully establish and the work is hastening. He went on to list several other things that just were amazing and I had never thought about things.

 

                                    Not to brag but... The IDAHO BOISE MISSION is the the best mission in the world

 

Also, a straight-up miracle happened last night. We have an investigator who is 14 (1/2) and has been taught for over a year. She is absolutely golden! Her mother won't allow her to be baptized until she is 16 (it was 18 but they lowered the age). Sister Bozant and I have been trying to get into see her mother and have had a few door stop visits but nothing really productive there. Last night we finally got in! Over the course of an hour or so we talked and calmed some of her worries and she actually agreed to let us teach her what her daughter has learned. Her mom says she is firm in her catholic faith but wants to know what she can do to help her struggling daughter and has realized it might just be by understanding her faith. It was amazing. We have an appointment with her for next week and we might have her daughter come teach with us to know how she really feels about this major choice in her life. Last night was just amazing.

 

Hope all is well and sorry for the abrupt end but I'll write you next week!

Idaho Boise Mission

Dear Parents,

We thought you would enjoy receiving a photo of Sister Hatch and her new trainee, Sister Bozant, from Henderson, NV, posing with President and Sister Winder.  It is a pleasure serving with such wonderful young missionaries in the Idaho Boise Mission.

Regards,
Sister Gibbons
Idaho Boise Mission

Shotgun Training!

Gotta say that training is difficult. Opening an area (shotgunning) is hard. Both at the same time when your 4 months out... I'm just happy I'm getting out of bed every day haha

So Sister Bozant is my new comp.  Super exciting for her. We do have our struggles but it's all good haha The work is going incredibly great for being in this area for less than a week. We set a baptism date last night! I just love to see people being introduced to the gospel and running with it! Pure joy as you see the spirit touch them and really help them recognize the truth of things. As our lesson went last night, you could see the spirit working with our investigator... Love it!

I'm going to back up a little bit. So, last week was transfers. Crazy busy! We are now living with a member family. The Miranda's are amazing. Bro. Miranda is in the Bishopric and is hillarious. He is from Guatamala and has a little bit of a different type of humor but I love to see him laugh at his own jokes.

Oh, so I'm cursed, apparently. In the Paramount Stake, 5 of the 6 wards I served in got a new ward mission leader. Since I've been here (5 days or so) one has already been released! I should really warn them when I come in haha so now 6 of 8 I've served in have done that. Hmmm....

 

Well, my letters are going to be a lot smaller. The library I'm at now only allows 1 hour to be on instead of two like the Meridian Library. Kind of annoying. I'll send pictures next week and hope all is going amazing with everyone!

-Sister Hatch

A New Chapter

So transfers were this weekend and you could probably guessed what happened. I'm finally getting transferred out of my Greenie Area.

I'm leaving the Paramount Stake for the Boise East Stake and the Oregon Trail and Columbia Village wards. The BE Stake is about half of our mission and my two wards are more than 6 times the size of the Pmt Stake. Crazy! Oh.. and I'm training a brand new sister missionary, too! They flew in yesterday morning (I'm getting to that). Going to be a whole new adventure. I'm not quite sure who exactly is in my District/Zone except Elder McKenzie (my District Leader) and his two companions, Elder Martin and Elder Ficiur. Hopefully we will have another set of sisters in the District, as well. I rather doubt it:(

They say the first transfer is the most bitter sweet. It's so true. I have loved to be in the Paramount Stake for the past 5 months (I've served in 6 of the 9 wards). The people out here are crazy. Just saying. But I love it all the same. Hopefully not all transfers are going to be as hard as this one but we'll see. Sister Johnson and I (yes we were still together for a few days) said goodbye to people for the past few days and taking some questionable pictures... as I've said, people are crazy out here:) in a good way. Okay, questionable with only one family and just because they are that A-MAZ-ING haha and they have a dog that can do a Joker impression that is pretty dead on. I'm going to have to send that picture next week. Everyone is amazing though. If I had enough time I would tell you all about ever one of them.

 

Anyways, I have to appologize for not sending this out on Monday! I'm horrible I know. But my new companion is... drum roll please....

 

SISTER BOZANT!!!!

 

She is sooo cool:) love her to death. She's from Las Vegas and just super awesome. I'll have to send a pic on Monday but super fun stuff:)

 

Hope all is well in small town, USA!

 

-Sister Hatch

We are AWESOME!

"Awesome at what?" you are probably asking yourself. I will get to that in a minute.

This week has been a whirl wind!.. Transfers are next week and looks like it's going to be another crazy change! I'm most likely going to be leaving the Paramount Stake since I've been here 3 transfers. Although my companion has been here 2 so it really could go either way. This area I'm in is notorious for keeping missionaries for up to 9 months! That would be half my mission.. Wow..

Okay, I can't hold in the awesomeness anymore. Guess what we did yesterday! Since my companion and I will most likely not be together for a third transfer we had... A HALLOWEEN PARTY!!! haha legit I know;) We carved pumpkins and made cookies to give out to our investigators! We had one pumpkin we carved for the mission office with Idaho and "IBM" on it (Idaho Boise Mission)..Okay, really dorky I know but hey! We had fun:) We also went and played with miniature horses:) The pumpkins were from the Boise Temple Presidents garden. His daughter lives in one of our wards and they told us they had some extra Pumpkins and thought we might know what to do with them.

Anyways, sorry for the shortness of this but thinking you may get a laugh out of our weirdness a bit:)

Sister Hatch

P.S. A picture (finally) of the baptism we had few weeks back. She's so cute!

Miracles

Plain and simple, that's what has been happening in Meridian. Miracles.

I have been in the same area my whole mission (with the exception of loosing/gaining different wards with additional missionaries in the stake) and some thing amazing happened. One of our wards, where we really have taught only members or "eternal" investigators, we found THREE new investigators this week! Crazy, right?

After the last session of conference, Sister Johnson and I we're thinking of ways to get the wards more enthused about the Lords work and really couldn't think of anything besides what we were already doing (Sad, I know.). We decided to finish handing out invitations to the before mentioned ward's harvest festival to some of the really active members. Our WML's goal was to have them invite one family who was either LA or not members to the party and spread the word that way. On our sixth house, the father came out and said, "Why don't I just take you over to my neighbors right now? I'm pretty sure she would be interested in this ." And so we went over because we weren't about to pass down a chance to meet a non member family. When he asked her to come he also invited her to take the missionary lessons! Guess what she said.. YES!! Sister Johnson and I just gaped at each other. We had no clue he was going to invite her but he did. Talk about taking the lead!!! So that's just one of the many miracles that's happened in the Paramount Stake. It truly is one. We haven't had a new investigator in the ward since before I was here so close or over 6 months! And we have 3!

One of the highlights of my week, though, (besides conference. nothing beats that) was when I met the Doctor. Seriously! We went on an adventure and you never knew I left because he's a time traveler! Jk.. I wish. But the T.A.R.D.I.S. was parked outside someones house:)

General Conference was pretty amazing this year. Partly because it fell on my 4 month mark:) Hopefully everyone had the chance to hear at least part of it. For me, the main message that I received was that God really needs everyone's help in sharing the message of the Gospel with those that don't have it. The apostles promised us blessing and miracles would occur based on our effort to keep the covenants that we have made with God. They promised that there will be nothing to stop the blessings of heaven if we will simply and completely act in faith.

I'm working on my faith even more. We can always do better. As missionaries strive to find those searching the gospel, their are some really hard times but keep that faith. Investigators are coming but still none progressing as much as we would like. We have 9 kids who are really excited to be baptized but one of their parents won't allow it or isn't willing to commit to what they have to do. We are still working with them but it's hard to see their smiling faces and their excitement when we teach them about the gospel and know they won't have the chance for several years to really feel of the blessings that the Gospel can offer them. We pray that their parents hearts will be soften and will know that they will get the chance when the time is right. We have two weeks left in the transfer and I will most likely be moved since I will have been in this area for 4 1/2 months. Never know, though. 

Thanks to everyone and hope you all have a good week:)

It's always a Good TIme!

It's always a good time!
In the Idaho Boise Mission!

This week has been a blast! Sister Johnson and I have just had fun for the past few days as we've had our VERY FIRST BAPTISM through a reactivation of a family, The General Relief Society Broadcast, 2 Primary Programs, and just a full slate the past few days. We love days that are just filled:) We feel so much more useful.

And today, once again, it rained! We are really enjoying the rain. Except today it is freezing so we've had to pull out our winter coats. Yeah. Our bulky-huge-warm winter coats haha and then we came to the library and everyone else has done the same. So we don't feel so much like pansies anymore. I may be from Utah but what most people don't realize is you never get used to the cold no matter what.

Oh! And as I said before, we had our FIRST BAPTISM like.. 2 days ago! It was amazing! It was through a reactivation of a family and we are hoping that they keep the fire that they have right now to continue doing the things that we've taught them. I totally forgot my camera today with pictures from our baptism but in the mean time (and for the next week) enjoy this picture of my amazing MTC district:D

Anyways, Hoping life is good for everyone and thanks for the letters:) Always love to read them and still see life is progressing on the outside haha love you all!

-Sister Hatch

Ministry of Angels!

We're just buzzing around on the LDS homepage and found this one of my favorite talks and thought you might enjoy it! Love ya! Sister Hatch

The Ministry of Angels

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/the-ministry-of-angels?lang=eng

Finding Our Amulek!

So we just had an AMAZING Zone Conference with Elder Martino of the Seventy. Can I just say.. I don't know what to say! It  was just that great! But let me back up a little before I get on to the fun part:)

Bikes were not meant to be rode while wearing a skirt... I just want everyone to know. It is way to difficult and I don't know why we even tried some days. I have holes in several of my skirts and.. yeah.. just not the best time. Although, it was all totally worth it because, after only being on a bike for 7 days (7 to long if you ask me...) we receive the keys to a brand new car! Seriously! When they gave us the keys there wasn't even 5 miles on the thing. I loved it:) It still only has about 80 miles on it. Going to break the 100 since we have to go into Boise today to the Mission Office.

Anyways, back to Elder Martino. He read with us about Almulek before he was Alma's mission companion and basically shows us one way to interpret the story. Almulek was a Less Active Member of the Church and he just taught us beautifully how to help those who were once strong in the church come back to what they once knew. It was amazing. I wish that everyone heard what he shared with us.

Not much to mention about teaching this week. It's been probably one of the slower weeks of my mission but this week is looking to be the opposite which I'm super glad to be. Tonight, we have lessons booked from 6-9. Tomorrow has a few empty spaces but hoping to fill those later tonight.Wednesday is the same. Thursday through Sunday is completely filled with meetings and appointments with mostly member families so we are looking forward to that:) All of our investigators seem to like to take vacations all at the same time so we are refocusing this week to the members of our wards. Next transfer, each ward with only be sharing with one other ward so the members really need to step it up. One of our wards, the transition will be easy but in the other two... After the baptism this Friday, they have not really any strong potentials.. 

Oh yeah! Baptism coming up! Woot! We are so excited.. hehe Details next week on how it went.

The weather is finally starting to cool down. I warned Sister Johnson that there will be no warning at all. It will just be cold. That is what happened haha I'm so nice.. We were on splits (When we still had our bikes) So after the correlation meeting we went outside and Sister Johnson literally screamed! It was fall and you could tell. So we rode a mile and a half home and.. Love Sister Johnson. She was Freezing! I'm a wonderful companion to her haha

Anyways, Congrats Gunnison on your homecoming win! (Don't know who you played but great job!)

Hope all is well in Small Town, USA!
Love you all!

-Sister Hatch:)

Dear Parents,

We thought you would enjoy receiving a photo of Sister Hatch and her new trainee, Sister Johnson, from Chandler, AZ, posing with President and Sister Winder.  It is a pleasure serving with such wonderful young missionaries in the Idaho Boise Mission.

Regards,

Sister Gibbons

Idaho Boise Mission

The Master Finder !!!!!!!!! and Transfers Week!

So.. We totally destroyed the Elders. Simply put. Totally and completely.

Great Week.

You may now refer Sister Hatch and Sister Johnson as the Master Finders:) If you don't remember (and I didn't really explain the game very well last week) The Master Finder is a game of skill and spirituality.. and just to prove you have what it takes. You receive points from finding investigators, giving out materials (i.e. BofM, pamphlet, etc.) and doing some interesting contacts (like contacting an dwarf or a black person.. remember it's Elder Tingle who set this up) and at the end of the two weeks we had a total of 4310. The only other score that we know of is Elder Birk and Scot's which was 2325 and they were probably the next closest. Elder Tingle wouldn't tell us anyone but he did say we 'crushed' everyone.
Why did we get such a high score? Because of one reason alone.. We found 8 new investigators!! Crazy, right? In 1 1/2 weeks. Seriously. We knew that we probably weren't going to win because up until Thursday we only found 1 and hadn't contacted any dwarfs like we were supposed to apparently. Really low on points scale but we were still talking like we were going to beat everyone when we were at zone meeting because what else would you do if one of the Elders walks up to you and asks how the finding is going? "Oh, not very well. People aren't very willing..blah.." No! You tell them that you are TOTALLY going to win! Even if you were still at.. 725 points the second to last day of the competition..
After zone meeting is where the fun began.
MONSOON SEASON!
It started to blow and pour so much but luckily we were inside (talking to some potentials) and didn't get wet the first storm. After it stopped we got out in our car and were going contacting because we didn't have any appointments with anyone. We went over to a family of LAs (less active) that we have been trying to see for a while but once again they weren't home. When we started to walk back to our car we noticed a recycle bin had been tipped over from the storm (because people are awesome here and have a garbage AND a recycle bin) and thinking we could help some people out a bit we decided to pick up the cardboard that had flown everywhere in the storm. We looked further down the street and saw several others tipped over and, both thinking this would be an awesome opportunity to contact people if they saw us picking up the tipped over bins, we ran down the street to continue the good work. No one was out so disappointment.. Then it started to rain a little bit. We jumped back into our car and headed to another persons house that we have been trying to contact. A couple blocks down we saw a few more tipped over and we thought again it would be a great opportunity to meet people. After picking up a few more bins it really started to rain but no one was out still and we jumped back in our car. A block down we saw a few more tipped over and we thought... last time.. we jumped out in the now pouring rain and picked up the items that had been thrown everywhere. While a truck did stop at a corner to watch us down the street, we still didn't get to talk to anyone (not that we thought any smart person would be out in the rain). We got back in our car, drenched, and headed to our dinner appointment.
 Why was this important you ask? Because later that night we found SEVEN new investigators!!! and that's how we won. By being crazing enough to get out in the rain and pick up cardboard and plastic. At least that's what Sis J and I keep telling ourselves.But it was fun. Flooded streets are scary to drive on but still a fun adventure.

Speaking of driving, those of you who really know me might not believe this but, in the three months I have been out I have become a master of city driving! Totally. Boise may not be a very big city but it is the land of the crazy roads. Seriously. I missed an exit today to got to the Mission office but I drove under this one bridge and there was the other side of the exit. The roads so do not make sense here.

Anyways, transfers were this week and it was another messy one. We are now getting 36 added on to the 100 missionaries we have now (35 of them have only been out 6 weeks) so it's growing super fast out here. Last transfer we had a new set of missionaries in our stake and 3 of the 6 missionaries were brand new. This transfer we are not getting a new set of missionaries (although next transfer we will be getting 2 new sets of Elders here) but a lot of the missionaries are getting switched up.  Elder Meyer is moving to another Meridian area and Elder Hook will be staying with Elder Merrill as his new comp and District Leader. Elder Tingle is leaving to be a Zone Leader in Boise for his last transfer and Elder Williams is training a new Missionary.
On a more important note (jk),Sister Johnson and I are staying together! We are so stoked! Now the sad news... We are loosing our car :'( Sad, I know.. We are the only Sisters in the whole mission who will be on bikes.. buuuuuuuuut it's only for 2 or 3 weeks until Salt Lake sends cars up here so we are going to get an even newer car! (Sister Dickey and I are the only people to ever drive this car) Totally worth it to bike. It is finally cooling down -if you can't tell from the rain storm- and I'm excited to bike and for the new car! Even though I will most likely be leaving this transfer, I still get to drive for a while:)

Anyways, Sorry for the novel. Just had a little/a lot of extra time to write today so hope all it well and love to hear from you all!

-Sister Hatch