Dear Family and Friends,
THE DROUGHT ENDS HERE! It’s been over a year since the Beaumont Spanish Branch’s last baptism. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all about to change thanks to the Hatch – Viitanen Show! We are seriously working our little booties off… cutting lunches and skipping dinners just to tract or teach… and it is finally paying off!!! Dunia de los Santos (de los Ultimos Dias) Torres is getting baptized this Saturday! She was sick of the presence of the adversary in her life so she straight up kicked her boyfriend out of the trailer! She had someone come to switch the lock on her front door and now she lives alone! She called us right away to tell us she could get baptized! Legit! This Saturday at 1:30 our time Dunia is getting baptized and the streak will officially be snapped! We are seriously so ecstatic! Dunia is so happy! The branch loves her! Members have come and picked her up and taken her shopping and to work and to Women’s conference and a bunch of other things without us even having to do anything! She is already a part of the branch, they have done a really good job of welcoming her!
Elder Hatch and I are really putting in work. We work hard and we play hard! We are leading the zone in numbers!!! In know numbers aren’t what’s important, but considering that we are the only Spanish speaking elders in an English zone, surrounded by English elders in a predominantly English area… I’d say we are doing pretty good! Our zone leaders are really impressed!
Elder Campbell Went Home
Last Tuesday we said farewell to Elder Campbell. We ended on really good terms. It is kind of lonely going from a trio to just a duo. The good news is I love Elder Hatch and I love the work right here! We are such good friends and we get along well. We also miss lots of Elder Campbell’s little quirks and things he would do but I’m sure he’s doing well.
At the transfer meeting, President Crawford told Elder Hatch and I that Elder Hatch was supposed to get transferred, but since we both asked him to keep Elder Hatch here, he decided to. He was joking around about it, but deep down I think he was saying “alright elders, you asked for it, now show me what you’ve got.” That’s why we’re working super hard!
New Investigators
This week we have been raking in the new investigators. We have so many sweet new people we are excited to be working with! We have people progressing at all levels right now, which is really good.
We have an appointment with Matt tonight. He has been out of town, but he said he is still “extremely interested” so we will see what that is all about. Also, Yaneth gave us a bunch of other referrals. These three other ladies that live together. We have dubbed them as “the other three amigas.” Their understanding level is really good but we have only been able to teach a couple lessons so far. But they look good!
We taught a lot of really good 1st lessons this week to people that seemed really interested by it. Including a lady named Adriana that we found on Thursday during the Hour of Power! On Friday, we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Curtis! We had such a good time! Although, the only down side is he doesn’t speak Spanish so I had to teach every lesson by myself! Elder Hatch and I were really close to go over our miles limit but we made a plan to stay under. That included having to bike on Friday during our exchange, in the rain. Well, we did it. and we had such a successful day! We went from appointment to appointment and when we weren’t teaching we were finding new people to teach left and right! Also, Elder Hatch on his exchange was knocking a street when he came to a door he knew he had already knocked. He knew the people inside weren’t interested. But he felt impressed to knock again. Turns out it was a family that had just moved in. They were taking the lessons in Arizona and they were going to church every week and were wanting to get baptized but then moved! And they had been looking for the nearest LDS church, that’s when we knocked on their door! Legit!
Yaneth and Beto
Saturday was an extension of the success we had on Friday. Just lesson after lesson. Yaneth and Beto are doing really well. Yaneth also came to the women’s conference, and the relief society loves her. Beto’s birth certificate is still in the mail, but as soon as it gets here the wedding/baptism is going down! We went over tithing with them yesterday and they haven’t had coffee since we taught them last weekend! They are both really excited and are loving church. There really isn’t anything else to say!
Yesterday we were invited to a “cottage meeting” held by the bishop of the English ward. English is so different than Spanish! It was seriously a culture shock! It was ridiculous! We got there a little early so we decided to knock for ten minutes. Let me tell y’all, that was possibly the scariest 10 minutes of my mission! My heart was pounding so hard knocking on some of these mansion homes. But we knew that the Lord would bless us because we had chosen to use the little time we had to work. We got rejected pretty hard! White people are so rude! Especially the rich ones. But we kept going… then… we get to a house that doesn’t speak English. A hispanic! I’m thinking, MIRACLE! Right? Wrong. We got rejected pretty hard haha but it was still an interesting experience.
The cottage meeting was good there were several talks on the atonement and I was asked to play the violin. It went pretty good.
Elder Hatch
I don’t think i’ve told you guys anything about elder Hatch. He is from Los Angeles and he played quarterback for Mt. San Antonio College in Cali which is one of the best football junior colleges in the country. He has connections at BYU so he is fixing to transfer and play there when he’s done with his mission. He’s sweet! He dated a Chinese girl before his mission.. and yeah that’s about it! We have some sweet conversations about the gospel during our down time so it’s really cool!
Conference
Well y’all, I’ll tell you I’m pretty excited about conference! I’m fixing to buy a notebook so I can take some sweet notes. Our investigators are pretty excited because they are going to be able to hear the living prophet and apostles. Something they have never been able to do! So for all y’all reading this, just think about how important that is and how lucky we are that we get to.
Thanks for keeping us in y’all’s prayers. God bless y’all!
Love
Elder Viitanen
The Conference has been soooo wonderful. Very good talks. We have great leaders in our church,. I am so happy about my membership in the church of Jesus Christ-
Carlos, you are great missionary,like your Dad was, too. Continue with being humble at your work. It is very good point, to be hard-working, but you need to take care of yourself, too I am happy for successful work. You are the soldier of Christ.
I love you
Mummi