Moving

November 9, 2015

Happy Monday!

As the subject line suggests, we are moving to a member's home in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, so I won't be here at the patron apartments anymore. I am glad we are leaving. It is all too easy to justify laziness - which I have been fighting since I got here. We will only be like a mile away or so though. Now the vacation feeling will hopefully go away. If I haven't mentioned that previously, it feels almost like I am on vacation from missionary work here. But no more! The lady is great according to Elder Bielamowicz, so I guess we'll find out. Needless to say that most of our day will be spent moving to and fro. Thankfully Elder B said he would take our suitcases in his truck, so that saves us a few trips too.

Anyways, on to the rest of the week! It rained on Monday and was super cold, but throughout the rest of the week it warmed back up again. Right now it is sunny, but very windy and it is a cold wind. I was starting to think that word didn't exist anymore. But I broke out some of my warmer clothes and such.

On Wednesday we had interviews with President Weidman, and that was also my official 9 month mark! Crazy! I celebrated by wearing the same outfit I wore to the MTC that day.  I thought it was kinda funny. Before interviews we had a lesson with our golden investigator Emily. Her story goes something like this: she walked into the visitors' center a few weeks ago and tells whoever she talked to that she wants to be baptized. Now we are teaching her and she is preparing to be baptized on November 21. We are planning to have a lesson with her at the Weidman's home tomorrow, which is both exciting and more than a little bit intimidating. It should be good though. I was able to address some concerns with president and that helped a lot. I am just so thankful to be able to serve with him and sister Weidman.

On Thursday we had Zone Training Meeting and then went straight to 3 lessons at the Santa Monica College Institute. They were pretty good. You asked about driving, yes I am the driver, and sure we'll say that it is fun. Parking is a BEAST and after our lessons it took us about an hour to get home for dinner. Basically, we have to be really careful about planning and where we go at what time of day. Thank you so much for letting me get a GPS by the way, it helps a lot.

On Friday, we had exchanges with our sister training leaders. I went to the Spanish area with Sister Moli, and my companion, Sister Abon stayed here with Sister Vincent. While on exchanges we had a few neat lessons in Spanish, and I was able to follow the conversation and contribute. With one struggling mother I shared Mosiah 4:9 and talked about how my mom shared that with me when I was struggling. She's been having problems with her kids, and they are less active. So that was cool, because I understood what she was saying in Spanish and then read the scripture (in really rough Spanish) and Sister Moli translated what I was saying. We sang a couple songs in Spanish that night too. It was cool to be able to contribute, even though I was a white girl that didn't understand a ton of Spanish. The Spirit is a real thing folks! I still struggle with it, but it is slowly but surely getting a little better.

My companion, Sister Abon, is a cute little Marshallese girl who has been out the same amount of time as me. She is so laid back and sweet that it makes perfect sense that she is from the islands. She is pretty tiny too. We took pictures, but the mission office, visitors' center, etc. are closed today for carpet cleaning so I can't send them this week. She's fun - she was sister Scott's companion after she left Harbor City. She and her family are converts, and she is going to teach me how to do the poly dances -- it's been a good couple of weeks so far.

I think that's all this week. We've got lots of good things happening and we are staying busy! Thank you for your love and prayers and being a wonderful family. I love you a lot and am so glad to be able to email you- have a great week!

Sister Hatch