A Rather Great Week

This week has been rather great. Thursday was a living example of 1 Nephi chapters 16, 17, and 18. The morning was very, very, very trying. No one seemed to even so much as look at us as we were doing some tracking. Lots of doors slammed in our face and lots of people yelling at us. We went home for lunch kind of angry, but realizing that we could turn it around. We worked hard and met with a new member and an investigator. Got some good contacts. Made a new investigator and had a lesson with our investigator with a baptismal date. She is doing awesome and her baptism will be next Sunday.

Then on Saturday we did some finding work and worked our way toward Puzzuoli for General Conference. That happens to be on the other side of the Bay of Napoli. There we watched conference at the church building. As a surprise to us, it was broadcast in English, so we got to enjoy it a bit more. The talks that I think hit me the most were Sister Beck's talk and Elder Rasband's talk. They both really hit me. We stayed in Napoli at the Zone Leader's apartment and then went back to Pozzuoli for Sunday. On Saturday, we only get to see the Saturday morning session. Then Sunday morning we see the Priesthood session, Saturday afternoon, and then watch the Sunday morning session live. By the time the Sunday morning session finished it was 8pm and time to travel home. But being Easter, there were no trains from Napoli to Castellamare Sunday night. So we slept in Napoli again and then headed back to our area Monday morning. So conference was quite the exodus.

The last two days have been really good. I feel like we have both been reenergized from conference and we are just talking with everyone we see. We have had some rather good success doing some finding work. The highlights being a family we found doing house and a young couple, the woman of which is growing to popping level, that had known the missionaries some time ago. So things are looking very promising.

This morning during personal study I was reading in the 58th chapter of Alma, the last chapter of Helaman's recount to Moroni. I especially liked verse 11, "Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him." How often that happens in our life.

Sounds like you all had a very good week in D.C. That is awesome that you were able to make it to see T.C. Williams High School. Then you all returned to a lot of snow?! That is weird, but not as weird as that one year when it snowed on April 16th something like 18 inches of snow. I remember our assignment as kids home from school was to clear the driveway so Aunt Evelyn, who was coming up later that day, could pull into the driveway. It was really tiring.

So Duke won the tournament? Man, the two most hated teams in the country won their respective leagues this past year. The Yankees and Duke. How weird.

Welp, that about does it for me. Oh, I am thinking about you all maybe sending me like a one year mark package or something, cause I could use some new socks and a couple new pairs of garments and some toothpaste.

Love you all!!
Anziano Hatch

Me and Vesuvio (Mount Vesuvius)

Sunday morning in Napoli