Boom Baby!

So this week has been a rather great week. Usually after a baptism, there is a gap between solid investigators that will be ready for baptism soon and the person that was just baptized, because so much time is put into the person that was just baptized. This week however, no. We had a referral - a miracle find and some random people walk into church. The first one was the referral. I think that I told you this about Riccardo. He is 20 and awesome. In our lesson on Sunday (we had it with the mission president) he bore his testimony to us, prayed out loud for the first time in his life, and he prayed for others to learn the truth of the message that we present as missionaries. The only reason he didn't set a date for baptism was he didn't know his work schedule for the next few weeks. So there will be a date set tomorrow when we meet with him.

Next, Ernest is a black man from Nigeria that one of my companions met on the metro. He has come to church twice. Not only has he come to church twice in a row, but he traveled two and a half hours to get there both times. The second time he brought his fiance (future wife for those who can't read the butchered spelling). She is not as interested as Ernest because she hasn't expressed her desire to be baptized after two lessons. But she will come around.

Then last was a man that came to church last week with a friend, and the sisters picked him up. We had a great lesson with him yesterday. He committed to stop smoking and will probably have a date fixed by next week if not later this week.

Last week at Zone Conference, the Assistants presented the goal to the mission of 30 baptisms this transfer. That is 18 above the transfer average for baptisms in our mission. There have been 8 baptisms already. There are 18 dates set so far and more to come. Everyone is really excited about reaching this goal. Really awesome.

Jalayne, that was really hilarious - that letter of that story from school. Things are going great. I am healthy and happy and just lovin life. Keep up the good work in everything you all do! Have a great week.

Love,
Anziano Hatch

P.S. Remember the investigator, Aaron, from Ostia? (This is the part if you don't remember you look it up on the blog). Anyway, he was baptized and confirmed last Sunday! That also made this week really really great!

The Philipino guy is a member who just left for a mission to Milan today. We went on a lot of exchanges with him. He will be a great missionary. It was really exciting to see him off.