Casa

 

Written 5-12-14

 

Ciao Tutti!

So first of all thank you sooo much for all your amazing email updates.  Sounds like you are rocking it all over the planet. 

Unfortunately, I'm writing from America.  I went home on Saturday the 10th.  I'd really been struggling with a lot of anxiety and depression during the mission and it got to the point where I wasn't able to do the work.  But now I'm home and everything is going much much better.  I'm starting therapy in a couple of weeks.  As of right now I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with my life.  But I'm looking at doing the therapy for a year, getting a job and just being at home.  I'm also thinking about volunteering at the TRC for the Italian missionaries.  But nothing is set in stone yet.  Mission president said that there is the possibility that if I can get everything taken care of, I could get called back on the mission after a year.  It is super weird being home though.  Everything is just... weird and different and I'm not hearing Italian 24/7.  Ma tutto bene.

But even though I'm home, I want to keep hearing about the amazing mission adventures.  My email now is kelseyhatch93@gmail.comI'm going to change it soon so I'll let you know when I do that. 

To my MTC zone, I love and miss you guys soooo much.  I hope you all continue to have amazing beautiful experiences in Italy.

To my beautiful MTC companion, thank you for the absolutely amazing experiences we shared teaching Luca, Carmen and all the beautiful other people.  I loved every minute of it.  Thank you for your endless patience with me.  Ti voglio tantissimo bene.

To my amazing MTC teachers, chivediamo possibile?  Non lo so.  Ma you guys are amazing.  Thank you for all the coaching, language teaching and the beautiful spiritual experiences.  You are amazing examples!

To all the other amazing missionaries around the world I am so glad I met you in the MTC or have been communicating via email.  It has been so fun to hear about your amazing adventures!

Missionaries, never give up.  Never forget you are divine sons and daughters of God.  He knows us each individually and is so involved in our lives.  You truly are the light of the world. 

So con tutto il mio cuore che la Chiesa di Gesu Cristo di Santi degli Ultimi Giorni e la vera chiesa sulla terra.  So che Joseph Smith era il profeta della restaurazione.  So che il sacerdozio, il potere di agire nel nome di Cristo e sulla terra adesso e che possiamo ricevere tanti benedizione.  So che Il Libro di Mormon e la parola di Dio.  So che Gesu Cristo e il nostro Salvatore e Redentore e che Lui ci ama tantissimo!  Vi Voglio Tantissimo Bene.  Mi Manca, voi, Italia e il cibo Italiano.  Chivediamo, buona fortuna e Proverbi 3:5-6.

con tantissimo amore e un braccio (hug.. I forgot how to say hug... comunque),

Kelsey Hatch

Ward Picnic

Written 4-30-14

 

It always seems like there's a huge long period of time where everything goes wrong.  The work doesn't progress, travel plans get messed up... the whole nine yards.  And then all the miracles come flooding in and it's so beautiful and wonderful and a reminder to me that this truly is the Lord's work.  

So, working backwards, Sunday we had 3 investigators, one member who had been excommunicated but is working to be baptized again, and 3 inactives at church.  That is the most I've ever had my entire time here in Savona.  We taught Gospel principles and taught a lesson on the attributes of Heavenly Father.  It was so beautiful because one of the less actives shared a story about how her son passed away a few years ago.  One of our investigators also went through the same experience.  They sat there and just held each other and cried.  It was the first day they had met each other.  The spirit of love and joy in the room was so strong.  

So our investigators S. and G. are progressing magnificently.  S. was talking to one of the members about her baptism in 1-2 weeks... yeah we didn't plan that date with her... she came up with it herself.  Both of them are happier every time we visit them.    We keep having amazing lessons.  The people here are so loving and giving.  S. keeps feeding us every time we go over and she's unemployed.  These people are amazing examples to me of what it means to be Christ like and love everyone.  G. loves German so when we leave she kisses me on the cheek and says, "Ciao meine schwester."  Yeah kinda makes me want to cry every time.  

Our investigator E. has been coming amazing.  She speaks only Spanish so we've been doing a lot of lessons of just reading from the pamphlets and watching DVD's in Spanish.  Our last lesson in her beautiful broken Italian, she said that she felt like this was the path she needed to follow.  She loved church and every day she keeps saying how her life is getting better.  

This week we had a picnic with the ward which was sooo fun.  We went to Altare which was a beautiful little picinic spot up in the mountains near Savona.  We brought our own food but the members fed us anyways.  We played tug a war, basketball, volleyball, the kids tied me up with the tug a war rope, and I taught some of the youth some Krav Maga.  It felt so good to relax and have fun with these beautiful people.  We went to a magnificent Santuario after the picnic and there was a fountain there of pure water directly from the stream that we could drink.  It tasted so fresh and delicious.  After the picnic we had a testimony meeting.  S. said that she had wanted to bear her testimony but was too shy.  I was so excited when she said that.  She's also inviting the Anziani to teach her daughter's boyfriend.  I dont' have any updates on that yet but I'm crossing my fingers.  

Through experiences too sacred to share, I've really come to know my Heavenly Father and my Savior more this week than ever in my life.  I've had to rely on my Savior in so many ways.  This truly is His work so no wonder that we need to rely on Him in order to do it.  

Thank you so much for the emails, cards, letters and everything Easter.  Please pray for me, my companion and the beautiful people here in Italy that this work can move forward.  

Love you all soooo much!

Sorella Hatch

Word of the week:  Simpatizanti (Sim-paw-tee-zon-tee).  Investigators.

Scripture of the week:  Proverbs 3:5-6

Challenge of the week:  Savor every beautiful experience

Buona Festa Della Mama

Written 5-7-14

Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing mothers in my life.  Mom, thank you for being the best mom in the world!  Thank you for being an amazing example to me always!

Well this week has been good and bad and everything in between.  Yesterday we had an awesome zone training meeting.  Our leaders talked about attitude and how every time we want to complain or focus on the bad parts of the work, that we need to change our attitude and focus on the good.  We brain stormed different ways to stay positive and ways to cope with the stress.  It was awesome.  Also Anziano Christensen, my district leader gave his dying testimony.  He talked about how even when we have trials in the opportunities to not throw away the opportunity.  He challenged us to look around and see how blessed we are.  

So it's official.  Our investigator S. is going to be baptized in about two weeks!  We're sooo excited for her!  She will be one of the strongest members.  She didn't have money to pay her fast offerings so she brought a huge bag of food and she referred her husband who lives in a different country to the missionaries.  Every time we see her she asks us more and more questions about her baptism and it is amazing to see the light of Christ shining from her eyes more and more.  So I had my first family night in Italy.  So we taught her and her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend how to have a family night.  We played a game called don't eat pete.  I had never heard of it but there's a board with pictures of faces and you put candy on the faces.  Then a person closes their eyes and the group chooses a face.  The person who closed their eyes has to eat all the candies without eating the one the group chose.  It's so fun and we had a blast.  Then we talked about the scriptures a little bit and then Sorella Gjika and I sang a hymn.  I had been struggling a little that day to feel the spirit but when we started singing Be Still my Soul, the spirit entered the room and our hearts.  Music is such a powerful beautiful way to bring the spirit.

We met with a less active Sorella E.  We just talked with her and shared a small spiritual thought.  We bore our testimonies and she shared hers with us.  It was a beautiful experience.  I had never met this sister before so to finish off the appointment in that spiritual high felt wonderful.  

We stopped at G.'s house to visit her and see how she was doing.  Usually we meet with her and her boyfriend but her boyfriend was at work.  We just talked and laughed while watching her adorable daughter play with her peppa the pig toys.  It was awesome to have a relaxed fun spiritual time and help this sister come closer to Christ.  Usually our appointments with them tend to be a little awkward but this one was relaxed and spiritual and I think will really help them come closer to baptism.  

Transfers are coming up next week so we'll see.  I'm hoping to stay here in Savona with Sorella Gjika but who knows what will happen.  

So the challenge for this week is find the positive side in every situation.

The scripture for this week is D:C 112:10

The word for this week:  MAMA

Love you all and journey on!

Sorella Hatch

Buona Pascua

Written 4-23-14

Wow.  What an insane, hard, amazing, spiritual week!  So Easter Sunday we went to church and the sun was out and spring was alive and beautiful.  Church was only for two hours so everyone could go home early and make lunch.  Yeah... I wish they did that back at home.  We went to S.'s house for lunch.  What a feast.  We started off with salatini (little tiny breadsticks that are rolled like a cinamon roll with bacon inside), salad, torte verde, uova ripiene (deviled eggs), pasta con frutto del mare (pasta with sea food), water, strawberrys,  and cake.  We were stuffed to the brim.  She bought us the hollow chocolate eggs and there was a lindt oven mitt in mine.  The miracle of that appointment was that we met S's son and his girlfriend.  The son was hilarious and we really enjoyed getting to know him.  He said the prayer at the end of the lunch and apparently he hadn't prayed for over 10 years.  S. was so happy and was thanking us for giving her the precious gift of hearing her son pray.  It was so beautiful and amazing.

We were able to talk with a lot of investigators we were having problems with and figure out where they are on the conversion scale.  We had to postpone our baptism date with M. because she still hasn't received her testiomony yet and we haven't taught her everything.  But we were finally able to figure out a way to see her more than once a week and I'm hoping she'll be baptized soon!  We also talked to G. and her family.  At first talking with her was really awkward.  But we finally figured out that she loves the feeling she gets when she talks with us we were able to help her see that while it is wonderful to just talk and feel the spirit, we are there to help them come closer to Heavenly Father and to take steps to becoming members of the church.  One thing we've been doing is baking brownies and bringing them to appointments.  The way to conversion in a person's mind is through their mouth with brownies... ok that's one of the ways but it's been really fun!

So this week was when the exhaustion and anxiety of my training transfers finally caught up with me.  We slowed a ton and I spent a lot of time on my knees praying and napping.  I'm doing much better now because I've finally learned some of these lessons:

1)  Complexity doesn't help anything.  I'm practicing now  to live as simply as I can.  What a relief and a breath of fresh air it is to focus on one task at a time.  We have agency and I choose to live simply.

2)  Sorella Gjika was very patient and loving this whole week.  Love truly is the healing balm.  It is our purpose to fill our souls with love.  If we are filled with love, that is what brings people to the Gospel.  I'm learning how to cut myself slack, cut others slack, and how to be patient when the people in Italy just want to feed us and basta (that's it) instead of listening to our message.

3)  The only stable secure thing in this world is the Gospel.  I never understood what it meant to build a foundation in Christ.  My life has always been built on food, sleep, music, and family and friends and the church.  I understand now that our Heavenly Father is always there for us with His arms wide open and has never ending amounts of patience and love for us.  Because He is always there, when we construct the foundation of our entire lives, souls and missions on His teachings, that is how we become anchored against the storms of this life.  

There is a mormon message from D. Todd Christofferson about a man who was pruining a current bush.  When he cut the bush a drop of dew fell from the bush.  The farmer thought that the current bush seemed to say, "Why are you cutting me down?  I was growing so tall and wide.  Now you have pruned me down to nothing."  The farmer had this thought back,"Listen current bush.  You were growing but you were not producing fruit.  I want you to be a current bush and produce currents.  Not an overgrown bush that produces nothing."  This has been the theme of my mission.  There have been so many experiences where it's felt like Heavenly Father has cut me down to my very core through the trials and tribulations of the mission.  And then the thought comes to mind, "Listen Sorella.  I'm your Father and I know what I want you to be. I don't want you to be a fluffy missionary who spouts long phrases of Italian and has a hundred baptisms in a month.  I want you to bear testimony of me and fulfill your simple purpose which is to invite others to come unto Christ."  Food for thought.  Sorry if that doesn't make much sense... it's a bit of stream of conciousness but it is a small part of what I'm learning here in beautiful Savona,Italy.

Love you all and thank you for the letters, cards, loves, support, prayers and everything!  Buona Settimana Tutti!

The scripture for this week is John 3:16

The phrase for this week is Pasqualina... the holiday of the day after Easter... simply beacuase it is hte day after easter... yeah the Italians know how to party!

The challenge of the week... and our lives:  Build our foundations on Christ.  

Sorella Hatch

Agency and Investigators

Written 4/16/14

 

That's what I've learned about this week.  Agency.  Using our agency in every situation.  We use our agency to determine our attitude, perspectives, progress and learning in this life.  

So update about our investigators.  Sorella Gjika had the amazing idea to cook a bunch of dolci (dole-chee... means sweets) for our investigators because it would be her first time meeting them.  So a few cupcakes and brownies later (Italians are obsessed with brownies and cupcakes... basically any American dessert) we met a lot of people.  All the appointments went fantastic and now that I can understand a lot better, I was actually able to learn about our investigators.  I had gotten to know the investigators a little bit during my first two transfers but because I couldn't understand very much, I didn't learn a lot.

So our investigator S.  We had a beautiful dinner with her and her daughter G.  Dinner consisted of pasta with a fish sauce, deviled eggs but with mayonaise and tuna in the mix instead of paprika, salad, focaccia, crostinis, torte verde (pastry filled with spinach and artichoke.. delicious), and then yogurt cake and little chocolate easter eggs.  S. is super healthy so I actually felt good after dinner and not like I was ready to fall into a coma for hours like I usually do after an Italian dinner.  Anyways the daughter G. is 17 and absolutely lovely.  She has some small developmental delays because she was orphaned when she was little and that caused some problems.  S. adopted her when she was 5.  But the spirit was so strong.  We have to teach G. a lot slower than we usually teach but I knew G. was learning.  We finished the lesson and I asked her how she felt.  She said she felt more relaxed and happy.  I testified to her that those feelings of peace and happiness were the spirit and I knew she understood.  She played the guitar for us and played the sweetest songs that totally set the spiritual tone to start the lesson.  She also does Karate and studies German... a girl after my own heart.  I gave her a Book of Mormon and I'm hoping that she's reading.  We also saw miracles with S.  We text our investigators a verse of scripture every night.  S. texted us that twice in a row, before she received our text, she opened the scriptures and had flipped right to the page where the text was.  Then she got the text and knew that it was no accident.  Also, we thought she was hesitant to join the church because of tithing.  Turns out that she's scared she won't be able to pay enough tithing because she has some financial problems.  This woman is so elect and I watching how the Gospel is literally changing her life is so beautiful and exciting.

Also another miracle with them was S. started asking us all these questions about polygamy and other... touchy subjects.  We're taught in Preach my Gospel to help the investigators understand that if we know that the Book of Mormon is true, then we know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he restored The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints on the earth today.  When we know these truths, we can know that whatever the prophets say for us to do is counsel and guidance from our Heavenly Father.  I personally don't know why polygamy was practiced but I have a strong testimony of prophets called by God.  I explained all of this to S. and she was content and understood.  I was so grateful that I had studied that material and that Heavenly Father helped me remember how to handle those situations.  

We met with a member Sorella Garcia.  Her husband is the first counselor in the bishopric.  They have small children so it's hard for her to get to church.  I was having a hard time understanding her because she speaks spanalian but Sorella Gjika was able to understand that she has an inactive brother and we planned a family  home evening with her.  After the lesson she invited us to eat lunch with her, her kids, her sister and her kids, then their mother showed up and then our investigator J. showed up with his daughter because he's her brother.  It was delicious lunch of rice, minestrone soup, meat and salad but all Ecuadorian style.  We're really excited to see where things can go with them.

We did scambio this week with the Genova sisters.  I met the lovely Sorella Ball who grew up in Idaho on a sheep farm.  She shared with us the lessons she learned about helping sheep.  We as missionaries are the under shepherds for Christ sent out to bring back His lost sheep to the fold.  It is a beautiful principle to ponder and I was so grateful to be in the company of such beautiful sisters.

Spring is here and it is the perfect weather.  There are blossoms, it's green and it's sunny and cool.  But I've heard that summer is hot hot... not sure how I feel about that yet but ready to take on the challenge.

Challenge for this week is:  Make a goal for one day and fulfill that goal during the day.  It feels so good!

Word of the week is:  Agnelo (Awn-yelloh).  Lamb.

Scripture of the week is:  D:C 6.  

Love you all and am so grateful for all the love, prayers and support.

BUONA PASCUA!  (Happy easter)

Sorella Hatch