Here We Go

Well family, the hype has died down a little bit, and I have some time to write you an email. This week started the zone conferences. The first one was in Bari. So Anziano Sapio and I drove down on Sunday night, and we drove down to Lecce to do an exchange with the Zone Leaders there on Monday. It was a good exchange. The city of Lecce is a beautiful one. It was also fun to work with the missionaries there. Then the next morning, we went to Bari with the missionaries from Lecce, and we had a zone conference there. We were the last ones to speak and we presented our mission goal of reaching 240 baptisms in the year of 2011. We kind of did the fire up of the troops kind of thing. I think that it was received very well. After zone conference we left Bari and drove back to Rome completing a trip of about 750 miles. So I am getting my share of seeing Italy.

Wednesday we went into the office to check email and stuff, and we found out that the night before - before the sisters got home in Rome 3 - someone had broken in and torn apart their apartment. It was weird. They only took a camera and an empty make-up bag. But they sure did make a mess of the apartment. So we went over that morning to check out the apartment with the person in charge of apartments here in the mission. We were there until a locksmith came. That took about three hours. We got to know the man really well. He is actually the stake patriarch of the Rome Stake. So he is really cool. Needless to say, the sisters were alright, just shaken up a little bit, but they don't want to go back to that apartment. So we have locked it up and are trying to figure out what to do with it.

After we got back from the apartment, we went to the misison home and talked to President and Sister Kelly about the state of the apartment and so on. By the time we finished with that, we had to go to the airport and pick up some missionaries that were coming in from Malta, which - if you didn't know - is in our mission. So we got back around eight, and the day was pretty much over. So I wrote you that email. Then yesterday, we did zone conference here in Rome. It went well. It was good.

So to answer some questions - a typical week as an assistant is what you just read. We go to the airport. We come back. We get stuck in traffic and think of stuff to do when we get gridlocked. We are kind of the firemen of the mission. If there is some kind of emergency or something that president needs to get done, we are always on call. When we travel or plan travel, it depends on where we are talking about because if they must fly, we shop, because we can make reservations. For trains and buses, we just take whatever fits our schedule best. Our time with zone leaders is spent mostly doing exchanges and stuff with them. And my companion is the cook, Anziano Sapio.

Well family, that is it. I love you all very much. Mom, if you can get me my BYU id name and password, that would be great. Thanks!

Love,
Anziano Hatch

Lecce