APRIL 2024

LETTER FROM BRAD- SORRY THIS IS LONG BUT I LOVE MY MISSION

This week was so funnnn. We saw so many miracles and actually are just being guided by the spirit in every aspect. 3 weeks ago we started our consecration challenge where we got rid of anything and everything we do or say or have that pokes at the spirit. And we honestly could say its one of the best decisions because we've been able to learn so much from the spirit and realize how much guidance it offers. This week we also kind of just did divisions every day so we could get our other areas in our district working and getting numbers so that our whole district can be successfull as a whole. So I usually just stayed in my area training the new missionaries and my comp went over and helped the missionaries leading out. Superrr successful and everyone was able to see miracles and put baptism dates and it was quite exciting. 

Monday- I went to Arequipa for my immigration stuff and it was actually so fun. They had a little cesars there and surprisingly it was bigger than any little ceasers in the states, and it was actually hot and ready and I didnt have to wait for 2 hours for my pizza. It was absolutely packed and we waited like 10 minutes. Super fun. We also explored a little and I was so tempted to buy a poncho and splurge on a bunch of stuff but then I felt like I shouldn't. Fast forward to us leaving. I didnt realize theyd juet drop us off at the bus terminal thing and not really tell us what to do. And i was with a bunch of new elders so I had to buy the tickets and we bought them sevonds before the bus left so we made it on time, and I spent all my money on the tickets which if I bought the poncho we would have been stuck in Arequipa without money to get home. Cool little miracle. 

Tuesday: an absolute struggle and a half after District council. I didnt have money and we dont have someone to feed us. So i was trying to find food and money but still have an effective day. Eventually we borrowed some from these other Elders and found some food for the day. We then were able to get in contact with this kid we found through doing the paper activity thing(I explained like a month ago about the circle target thing) and he's so elect so we put him on date for April which we're super excited about. 

Wednesday: super hard day because nobodyyy was answering texts or doors. Pretty empty. We found a friend we dropped a while ago and she wants to get baptized now soo we will be meeting with her on Tuesday this weekkk. 

Thursday: Had divisions again so I was with an Elder from Bolivia and hes super cool and supeer new. We had some really powerful lessons and we created an excel sheet with our entire directory and we are knocking every single members house until they answer. We can make notes on if they answered, live there, have family, have family that arent members, and if they arent members, we rate them on a scale of 1-5 on how likely they are to accept a baptism date. If someone wants me to explain better I can. We've kept track of every single house thatsba member and are knocking every single one until we have none left. What we are looking for id inactive families that have family that arent members living with them. Every single innactive family has one so we can reactivate the family while bringing in baptisms. Well we found a family that has 2 kids unbaptized and their whole family is ready to come back to church. So we put a fecha for both of them for April which is super exciting.

And we haad a lesson with this kid and his sister talking about his baptism. It came to me sharing my testimony and I was literally just talking about jesus christ and i couldnt get it out without tearing up. I've never really had an experience like that with that topic but it truly was one of the strongest times ive felt the spirit. It was amazing. 

Friday: we got cooked. We ate with a member and they dont eat meat besides fish this week because of tradition stuff so they gave us super nasty fish. It actually really destroyed us and we didnt get a ton of work done. 

Saturday: still kind of cooked haaha. But we did the directory work and were able to find a 13 year old and a 55 year old that arent members and both want to get baptized so hopeefully next Tuesday as well we can meet with them and extend the baptism dateee. We did see a mircle today though. We were searching through tje directory by knocking every member door. Found someone who wasn't a member. Asked if we could share a short message and he said yeah but let me bring my wife first. Shared about baptism and our purpose and they go wait come in we want you to help us with these 3 questions we have. We walk in and sit down... AND IN THEY BRING 3 KIDS. They all sit down and say "we want to know where we came from, our purpose here, and where we are going after death." AHHHH first of all this has never happened in my mission getting in a house this easy and second ahhhh Plan of Salvationnn. We had a super powerful lesson with them and they seemed super engaged. Invited them to church... they came couldnt be more hyped. Absolute miracle and we said lots of thankyou prayers after. 

Sunday: not a good night. Both me and my comp still are cooked and so the night was just us alternating between bathroom use so we were dead. Eventually in rhe morning i felt better but my comp was wayyy worse. It also didnt help we were fasting haha. But we made it to church and it was absolutely fullll. And we had like 12 friends make it including the family we found so we felt so blessed this week because of how many miracles we have seen. Definitely because we've done our consecration fast and I recommend all missionaries do it. Other than that my comp has been throwing up all day so we ended the day early after having to stop at like 10 different houses for him to use and realized it wasnt an affective use of our time haha. Everyone pray for him so we can end this transfer strong  

I forgot to tell this story earlier in the email but we were in a taxi and we got to our lesson and then i hoped out and realized I left my phone in the car... i was freakingggg out cuz its so much of a hassle to get a new one. The kid we were teaching called it like 5000 times and we prayed like 10000 times. Finally he said he was coming back with it anddd so I gave the taxi driver a 10 so he could go buy a nice cold Inca Cola. Definitely an absolutely huge miracle. 

Spiritual thought: I've noticed how the times I'm being led by the spirit and recieving revelation I dont recognize until after the miracle or after I've recieved the fruits from it. When we are in the moment of revelation we a lot of times won't recognize until its after. Just like with Nefi, he was writing that he was going through the wilderness not knowing beforehand where he should go or what to do. I'm sure he felt like he was just wandering a lot of the time but every little thought he recieved was guidance from the Holy Ghost. And he didnt realize until after because he was writing on the plates after this happened."The holy ghost will bring ALL THINGS to your rememberance." Its not a coincidence we randomly remember stuff such as our mom telling you to pray before bed 5 years ago; its the spirit bringing that to our rememberance to guide you and help us. Not sure if that made sense but it did in my head. Heres some fun pics from this week

We have been giving our friends with baptism dates calenders so we can give them follow up and they can know when we're coming or what they need to do that night like praying and reading. Works really well and we take a Pic with every calender and friend on date so that's basically why we have a lot of those. 

SPRING BREAK DAY 1-

APRIL FOOLS

First day of Spring Break.  Almost no pranks today.  So disappointing.  4-1-24

DATE WITH LUKE
Luke and I got to use the gift card he gave me for Mother's Day last year on our date- we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for some wings and salad for Lunch :).  I loved this date and am so grateful Luke will make time to hang out with me.  It's probably one of our last for a while.  Hopefully my kids will come back for dates with me as they get older :).  4-1-24

LIVING PLANET AQUARIUM WITH GRANDMA AND SIMON

This was a really fun outing for all of us!  Kelly came too!  We have never been here before so that was cool.  We loved the rainforest and seeing all the animals.  Everyone got to walk across the suspension bridge.  We learned about rubber trees, pet the rays, and my favorite part was seeing the penguins.  Everyone humored me and enjoyed them for a while.  It was fun to spend time with Grandma and Simon.  They were so generous to take us all there.  Good times.  4-1-24

SPRING BREAK DAY 2- 

KELLY'S APPOINTMENTS

Kelly had all her appointments this week to check her blood and see if there were any follicles.  It didn't go as well as we had wanted and eventually they just ended the cycle with instructions to up the estrogen dose and wait a month.  Kind of discouraging, not gonna lie.  But we are trying to have faith in Heavenly Father's plan for Kelly.  I cannot deny the feeling that He is in charge here.  We will have to be patient, but it will happen in His time and in His way.  4-2-24

Not much else happened this day.  Not that I remember anyway.  I did discover and with Brad's copy of his passport was able to send him a package from Amazon!  Pretty cool!  4-2-24

SPRING BREAK DAY 3-

GRANDMA RUTHIE
We met up with Grandma Ruthie for some Culvers and Fish Hook Park.  This was a lot of fun.  Everyone goes off and does there thing and we sit and chat.  Kinda nice.  Grandma invited Bailey and Ainsley along too, which was fun.  This was a nice outing.  4-3-24

KICKBALL WITH GRANDPA HATCH
Grandpa came over and walked over to the park with us for a fun game of kickball.  Grandpa was fun to play with.  It was hard to realize that he's not his 40 year old self anymore.  He is getting a little older.  Not too old, he was still so much fun, but it was interesting the things he can't do as well.  I will miss that.  He was fun though and stayed for some Dominoes after!  So fun!  4-3-24

SPRING BREAK DAY 4-

MANTI TEMPLE OPEN HOUSE
This day started bright and early, we grabbed some breakfast on our way and then made the road trip down to Manti.  Just like the good ol' days when we'd go down for the pageant.  Course it was morning!  When we got there, you could see the stand-by line (we didn't have tickets and this was the second to last day of the open house), stretching all the way around the back of the temple, at the top of the hill, then all the way down the hill and around and down the sidewalk!!  SO LONG!!!  We had heard stories about how long people waited in line, but I don't know if we could have been fully prepared for the 4 and a half hours we had to wait!  But how fun to say that we waited in line for that long to see the house of the Lord.  I am so glad we did and so glad we didn't wimp out too!  It was actually pretty fun.  The kids (even Sadie) did awesome!  We stood and talked to the people next to us for the first little bit.  They were nice.  Then Kelly and Devan showed up and pretty much entertained us all for the rest of the time.  The kids ran around on the field, rolling down the hill and playing tag.  Looked fun.  We almost got blown away during the last hour or so, when a big wind storm rolled in.  SO much wind!!  But we hunkered down and stuck it out.  That temple was SO worth the wait!!  It was so neat to see so much of the original work inside and be able to go up the spiral staircase and sitting in the chapel.  So cool.  Such a beautiful temple!  I really loved seeing and remembering my trip to that temple to do baptisms with my mom for my Laurel project many years ago.  Such a beautiful place.  I loved what Kelly said about the dedication weeks later that this temple had been re-dedicated a few times and that that is similar to us.  We have to keep rededicating ourselves to His work and His Gospel.  SO cool.  Such a great day and fun time together.  4-4-24

SPRING BREAK DAY 5-

GRANNIE ANNIE SCONES AND SUSHI

We did our traditional scone run at Grannie Annie's, a lot of us were there, but not all.  Then sushi that night at Osaka Sushi.  This was fun because Nate got us the table that you sit at on the floor.  Kinda fun.  4-5-24

GENERAL CONFERENCE
I loved conference this year!!  It was SO GOOD!!  I thought everyone did awesome.  We had all the right treats and everyone stayed pretty attentive.  I saw way less sleeping this year for some reason.  The talks were amazing!  4-6-24--4-7-24

LETTER FROM BRAD- SORRY TERRIBLE EMAIL

Gonna be honest I would love to share some stories and send an amazing email buttt I'm dead so this is the best I can do right now. I really love you all and loved conference and the focus on temples covenants and prayers. I would like yall yo go to the temple soon so you can ponder on these 3 things. That's really all for this week love you guys lotssss. Dw not depressed just not writing a big email. 

4-8-24

LUKE'S MISSION PHYSICAL

He is one step closer to finishing his paperwork!  Everything looks good!  It was fun to take this step.  He did so good during his shots too!  

4-9-24

OUR COOL MIRACLE GETTING TO UVU TO SEE CHARITY SING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

Looking back, we could have planned this outing better.  Maybe.  Like just leaving earlier I guess.  But that gets tricky because the kids' track practices, etc., so anyway.  I'll just tell the story.  We left here with "time to get down to UVU to see Charity sing the national anthem" if we had going at a time that there was no traffic or any other hold ups.  We drove separate to stop at Nate's work and leave the Prius there, and we'd been stuck in traffic getting there and then immediately stuck in traffic as we got on the freeway from there.  This was when it occurred to me that we may not make it.  I believe it was 5:20 when we left Nate's work.  I started to get really frustrated because I really wanted to see Charity sing, and thought it would be nice for her to have our support.  But luckily, the Spirit prompted me to pray.  So I said a little prayer in my head.  I told him how much I wanted to be there for Charity and how much I think she would like us there.  I promised Heavenly Father I wouldn't get stressed or cranky and that I wouldn't speed (I've been doing so good for too long to give it up!), if he would please just help us to get there in time for Charity if it is something she needs us to be at.  We knew how prompt they were at the basketball game, we knew we needed to be there right at 6:00.  Unfortunately, the GPS was telling us we wouldn't get there until 6:20ish.  I was pretty devastated inside, but I was doing really good at not letting it show.  For some reason, I was driving.  I had the thought to get in the carpool lane at one point and we just flew in that lane for quite a while.  Like WAY faster than the other lanes.  It was pretty amazing.  We had a few hang ups, where there was some congestion, but overall, we FLEW to UVU in the carpool lane.  Nate was looking at his phone the whole time and noticing the adjustments to our ETA.  Then he navigated me to taking the exit that is just before University, which I would not have thought of.  We were able to get to the parking lot at 5:50!!!  We had ten minutes, so Nate let me hop out and go find seats, while he parked the car.  Fortunately for us, there was no line getting in, and plenty of seats on the four sets of bleachers (this is really sad about our girls softball team, not gonna lie).  We were able to sit down and wait for what seemed like a little while, before they started and announced Charity!  She did an amazing job and impressed all of us, including the lady next to me.  So fun though!  I loved it!!  I loved our little miracle too.  Once we were done we remembered to thank Heavenly Father for getting us there on time and it came out that several of us had prayed (along with Kelly from Ephraim and Charity from Orem).  Such a fun family miracle.  I hope I never forget it.  We went to Crown Burger (or something like it- I'm thinking it had a different name, but it was basically the same thing) for some dinner.  Fun to celebrate Charity.  4-9-24

JAZZ GAME

Our Junior Jazz game night was the night of Pride night, so we were able to switch it with this night, thankfully.  We had to pick up Molly early from Matilda's birthday party, much to her dismay.  But we all went and sat up in the nose bleeds (Hunter and Devan came even) and we all had a good time.  I was playing musical chairs with the little girls and Kelly and Devan for most of it.  That was fun.  But I did enjoy talking to Devan and his sincerity.  It was a good game and we even WON!!!  First win in a while.  4-11-24

TRANSFERS FOR BRADLEY

This was a sad transfer for Brad, but also a cool one as he was made District leader and trainer of a new greenie, Elder Quispe.  New challenges ahead, and so sad to leave Elder Hoff (new ZL), but he will grow!  4-11-24

PORTER'S FRIEND BIRTHDAY PARTY

We were invited to Grandpa's house for Porter's friend party.  This was a lot of fun.  Pretty loud and chaotic, but fun!  We had to leave early for soccer games, but so fun to celebrate Porter!  4-13-24

FIRST SOCCER GAMES OF THE SEASON
Our first day of soccer and it was the game where Noah and Luke played each other's teams!  At the same time of Erika's game!!  This was a challenge.  We sat at the top of the fields, in between both, and tried not to be mad at the people that sat in front of us.  Who are we kidding, we were angry with them the entire time, but the games were fun!  We had fun watching.  I think Luke's team won.  Erika's did as well.  Sorry Noah.  4-13-24

PRINCESS AND THE FROG MOVIE NIGHT
This was a fun idea- thanks to Kelly- we decided to do a themed dinner with the movie The Princess and the Frog.  We ran to the store to get some last minute stuff (since the whole idea was at the last minute).  We ate Gumbo, Dr. Facillier's evil necklaces (watermelon), we wanted to do gummi frogs, but couldn't find any, so we did worms instead.  Seemed like they fit.  Then we had Lillipad salad (Della Fontanna style) and Beignets.  This ended up being a LOT of fun!  We'll have to do another one soon.  4-13-24

FAMILY MEETING

We got up to the family meeting in good time.  We had a nice lesson and enjoyed everyone's company and then Brad called, so we left.  It was a short little visit.  I always feel bad, but we love talking to Brad!  We never want to miss it!  4-14-24

LETTER FROM BRAD- TRANSFERRRS

Dang that was quick. Its weird how like one day you're living with someone 24/7 for 3 months and then the next you're living with some random Peruvian that doesn't speak English. The mission is kind of crazy. Anyways we got transfer news and Elder Hoff is leaving to Tacna. I'm staying as DL and training a new Peruvian. Kind of fun but at the same time I'm starting to miss having a comp that enjoyed planning stuff and doing stuff because now I'm kind of doing everything. We shall figure it out tho I'm excited. 

Not much happened this week until the weekend because I just was in a trío with the elders in my District and we had such powerful lessons!! We had this one about the plan of salvation and I used to actually hate the plan of salvación but it's actually crazy because as we were teaching it everything started falling into place and I actually understood and connected the dots and it all made sense. Super cool actually. We also had a baptism with the other Elders but they started wayyyy too late and ended up being late picking up my comp from the bus stop thing. Por guy was probably stressed. 

Thursday was awesome because we met with our friend Zoraida and she wants to get baptized but is leaving soon so like end of May kind of haha. Also met with our friend Joe who's baptism date is now for the middle of May. Super cool kid but his mom is kind of a huge problem

Sunday we had stake conference and it kind of sucked because a lot of the people with baptism dates in our district didn't come because it was in the stake far away. We then had a baptism after that in my ward with our friend Abish. I apologize dont got any pictures until next week. It went kind of awful because all the leaders decided they couldn't come 5 min before so we kind of just had to wing it but it ended up being okay. We just were super rushed the whole time so that was stressful. It was annoying because right after everyone like legit sprinted out of the building and then got mad at me cuz I was still cleaning everything up and draining the font. We are thriving. 

Spiritual thought: why do we learn the story of Adam and Eve? I heard this question and I had actually no clue. But then in one of our lessons it actually clicked and I learned it was because we learn the need for a Savior. Because of the fall we are out of God's presence. But because we have a savior we are able to return to God's presence. Because of the fall we are able to choose to come back. We are given agency to make the choices we need to make to come back to our heavenly father. It made a lot more sense in Spanish but anyways love you all very much. 

4-15-24

CLAIRE'S BROTHER'S FUNERAL
This was a sad day for Claire.  She did an awesome job on her talk though.  I was really impressed with how well she did.  And she made me laugh :).  I was happy I was able to sit by Gentry and Margo.  They are awesome.  Genry said her "favorite quote- all time- You!  Claire is hilarious!"  HA!!  My new favorite quote is of Genry saying, "I like weed."  HAHA!  It's a horse, don't worry.  I hope I get to see Claire soon and we can chat about all the things.  4-15-24

VISITING COURTNEY
Courtney texted a few days before that she was going to be in the hospital until delivering.  So scary what she was dealing with.  But I was able to sneak in a visit before the real chaos of May started.  I took her some flowers and cake balls and sat and chatted for a bit.  It was really nice actually.  I was so glad Nate was able to be home so I could do that.  We had fun talking.  It's so crazy that she is starting to have kids after I have finished having mine.  So strange.  But fun to talk with her.  I hope things go well with her c-section in a few days!  4-18-24

LUNCH WITH PAPPY AND EVERYONE :)

Nate came on our lunch this month :).  We had missed last months and just kept moving it back, so I decided rather than rescheduling because Nate was off on that Thursday, that he should just come with :).  We had a great time!  We met up at the Layton Olive Garden this time, as I was coming home from visiting Courtney.  Nate brought Sadie.  We had a nice time though!  I love that my dad and Nate get along so well.  4-18-24

FROM BRADLEY
Guys this is urgent. We just found out that one of the familias we are teaching is having a really hard time right now. Their son Harold has cancer and he has a very little probability to survive. They either have to do an extremely strong dosage or cut the chemo and let him die. Either one is extremely dangerous and each one has very little probability of success. This sunday me and my comp are fasting and so is our ward and the missionaries here. We need you guys right now to please pray for him and this sunday to join us in the fast. I have faith that God will heal him and that through our faith, fasting, and prayers that he will be healed and this family will witness the power and miracles of God. Please pray and fast for Harold Eyzaguirre and his family 

love you guys

4-19-24

DAVIS INVITE

The davis invite came and went.  I was glad all I signed up for was baked potatoes.  Luke did awesome on his 110 hurdles!  4-20-24

CHARITY

We got to have Charity and Hunter with us Saturday evening.  We went and played at the park!  They were so much fun!!  4-20-24

CUTE SADIE
"I kind of like being 5 the most, then I can keep being your little Sadie" 4-21-24

LETTER FROM BRADLEY- PRAY FOR HAROLD

Good day my people. This week was pretty slow until Sunday. As you all probably saw my friend Harold has cancer and we've been fasting/praying for him to help him and his family which has been really nice. Also thankyou to anyone that joined us as well its very appreciated. He will be coming home tonight so I'll give you all an update on that next week. 

This week I don't have much to share other than I want to share a cool story from Sunday. We were trying to get into this members house when someone next door opened cuz they thought we were knocking her door. I said to my comp he should go talk to her while we wait for this door to open. Didn't end up going. Then we walked up past it and I said yo should we knock the door because we already know she's here. We knocked the door and she answered, let us in and we had a lesson with her. Turns out her son is a member in the city next to ours and has heard about the church in the past. She started telling us how she once had this dream of exactly what was going on right then. We were sitting there talking to her but there was also someone in all white standing there and spoke to her saying "stand up, and get going." Something like that but a little more profound. She also said we were offering her these 2 huge loaves of bread. All I had to say to her is that we're offering her the bread of life. We are giving her this opportunity to yoke herself with Christ and have his strength in her trials. It was really cool how God prepares people and helps them before we meet with them. That is why we must follow the spirit in all that we do. The first part of this week I wasn't following much of the spirit so it was a lot harder but after church I was able to re-enter myself and get to work with the spirit. And that's when we started seeing miracles. 

I also gave a talk in church Sunday and couldn't seem to get myself off the topic of Jesus Christ. Usually I talk about some sort of topic but I just kept returning to Jesus Christ. It's really true though. God has given us these tools such as scriptures and church, and apóstoles, profets, teachers; to guide us to Jesus Christ. We take the sacrament to yoke ourselves with Christ. We go to church for this purpose. We study the scriptures because they teach and guide us to christ. Everything we have on this Earth is to guide us to Christ, you know why? Because Christ is the bridge that brings us back to our heavenly father. He's the only bridge that leads us to our heavenly father so why wouldn't God give us all these tools and resources to guide us back to the bridge? Back in the olden days its not that they rejected Jesus Christ as a person for his good deeds but they rejected the fact that we need a Christ. They felt they didn't need a bridge so they tried to destroy the only bridge we have and build their own.  Obviously didn't work. Dont forget the need of Jesus Christ. Dont forget our necesity of a Christ because if we understand who Christ is for us and why we need him we'll never skip the sacrament again. 

4-22-24

KIDS TO WORK WITH NATE

Jack went on Monday, from 11:00-3:00 maximizing the amount of time he can miss from school.  Noah went Thursday from 5:30-11:00 So as not to miss too much school and Erika and Molly went Thursday at 10:30-2:30.  Everyone seemed to have a good time!  Lots of running on the treadmill and eating pizza :).  4-22-24--4-25-24

RS ELDER'S QUORUM DINNER

This was pretty cool, once I got past the fact that we spend way too much money on food in the church.  I wish we didn't.  But other than that- super fun night!  We were sitting with the Desmonds, Pickerings, and Hills.  Pretty good conversation.  Then we got to see slides and hear all about Paul Gines' trip up Everest.  Looked so cool!  I don't know if I'd want to do that to my body, but pretty cool either way.  We had to hurry out of there so that Nate could go to work and I could go on my date with Noah :).  4-22-24

DATE WITH NOAH
We didn't have a lot of available time to go out, so we squeezed our date into this tiny window on Tuesday night.  We realized when we were buying tickets that it's cheap night!  So that was awesome. We went to see Escape from Germany- the new TC Christensen movie.  I LOVED it!!  I think Noah liked it too.  Might have been a little late at night for him, but it was fun to be together and laugh and chat during it together.  Good times!  We got home VERY late!!  Very memorable!  4-22-24

BREAKFAST BURRITOS FOR KJH ADMIN

I signed up at the last minute for making a dozen breakfast burritos Wednesday morning.  It was so spur of the moment, but I wasn't worried about it.  For some reason, I didn't get all the things I needed.  I left off cheese from my shopping list and didn't really have enough of everything else.  It was kind of a loaves and fishes moment by the time I was done making them. I was happy I had all 12, but they were pretty small.  Oh well.  Hopefully Heavenly Father helped them feel full.  Plus there was lots of other food.  But I was happy for the answer to prayers.  Even some leftover for the kids.  4-23-24

LAYTON TEMPLE OPEN HOUSE

The youth were all going to the temple open house together- Nate, Luke, Noah, Erika and Jack included, so Sadie, Molly and I decided to make a girls night out of it and we went too!  Separate, but we were there about the same time.  This was a fun little outing for us.  We loved the temple!!  I can't wait to take these two girls there again someday!  It was fun to get to know the temple that we will probably start to call ours.  I was taking notes for when we usher in a week.  4-24-24

JACK CONCESSIONS

Jack got to go run the concessions stand with Liam at the Race Cats Track meet up at Davis this Saturday.  SEVEN HOURS!!  They did great!  He was exhausted after wards and didn't even want to go to Kason's birthday party.  But he made 50 bucks!  4-27-24

PROM FOR LUKE AND NOAH

Luke took Claire and Noah took the Spanish foreign exchange student.  I cannot remember her name.  They both sounded like they had a good time.  Can't believe this is Luke's last high school dance!!  So crazy!!  4-27-24

STAKE CONFERENCE

I completely spaced the adult meeting the night before.  I was really bummed about that.  I hate it when I just forget things.  I was not even too busy.  Although, it's a lot to leave the kids two evenings in a row.  But I would have liked to go.  Stake Conference was really good though.  We had a guy who is one of the secretaries to the First Presidency!  Kinda crazy!  He gave a really great talk.  I loved it!  There were only a few talks, which was fun.  We sat way in the back on the stage again and Grandma and Simon came to our meeting so that they would be here in time for Luke's ordination.  That was fun.  Good times.  4-28-24

LUKE WAS ORDAINED AN ELDER

After Stake Conference we all gathered in the Primary room at the stake center.  Grandma Ruthie, Aunt Jen, and Grandma and Simon were there.  Travis Maughan was presiding and conducted a prayer and then Luke was ordained an Elder by Nate.  It was so neat to hear all the blessings and guidance the Lord had for Luke in that moment.  He's getting so close to making all these big life decisions, I am so happy that he made this one.  He has such a strong apirit and so much potential.  I can see him doing cool things.  Can't wait.  Mom fail: I didn't take any pictures.  So sad.  4-28-24

HELP KELLY MOVE

We drove down to Ephraim Sunday evening to get some of Kelly's things- mostly clothes from the storage unit.  That was a fun little excursion.  I realized after that it was kind of pointless without more space int he back of the van.  But whatever.  It's done.  And I got to talk to Erika on the drive :).  4-28-24

LETTER FROM BRAD- A GAME OF CHESS

My beloved friends and family. I know nobody reads these I dont really care but this week was so crazy for me I loved it. I actually grew so much and was able to see how much I’ve grown recently and how much I know and am able to do now. It alsoo was pretty depressing for a minute but we look past those parts

Now that I think of it, the beginning of this week I was super depressed. Not because I missed home. I had a dream probably like 5/7 days this week of going home and in all of them usually I'm sad because I can't go home yet. But this one I wasn't sad and I was happy in the dream. So i woke up and felt terrible that I was happy to be home in my dream haha. Not really sure to be honest. Weird stuff. 

I had divisiones with this area Portillo to help them with a few of their baptism dates and putting a few more to reach their goals. Our first lesson was with our friend Pamela and apparently we only have lessons with her when I'm on divisiones so she doesn't even know the other Elder. But we've had maybe 3 lessons with her and the first one she was so against the church and didnt want anything to do with it. This last one we were able to put a fecha on her 12 yr old son, get her too commit to church; and on top of that we've been making baptism calenders for our friends so we are going to make a huge one for her, her son, and her Boyfriend. We are gonna make plans with them to get married and its actually so hype because she's changed actually sooo much since our first lesson. Then after that we woke up early the next morning and ran to this other friends house thats kinda far away. Showed up and put a fecha with these 2 kids that have been to church like 20 times but they just never put a baptism date on them. Super cool kids and they clearly want to kid baptized and follow Jesus. Then that same day we went to this girl in my area and put a baptism date on her too. Shes actually super cool and willing to listen we just need to get her to church. Thats her difficulty right now. Anyways super fun divisiones because we just realized how many people that would accept a baptism date right now. Then that night we had ann activity for our ward... 6 people showed up... including members... i dont care. I also got absolutely WRECKED by this one dog. He just came out of nowhere and went straight to the calf. Couldn't get him off but good thing these dogs all have warn out teeth because now I just have this huge bruise and not a missing calf haha. 

Later the week I had divisiones with one of the Assistants to Presidents. Superrr exciting divisiones because we just grinding super hard and were able to have a lot of super successful lessons. He also just dropped a ton of knowledge and ideas on me and so I was able to come up with a bunch of ideas to do with my district to help us become more centered on our purpose and more intentional in what we do. We also kind of got lost in the far pampas part of our area because its just dirt hills and tiny little shacks that are all the same. 

Then on Sunday we were able to have the baptism of our friends Jhon Luis and Luciana Quispe! They're all so chosen and ready to follow Jesus. It was actually one of the most succesful baptisms we had with having a ton of the ward show up. Jhon was kinda of larger than most people so the baptism suit didnt fit so i gave him my white pants and one of my old shirts but then I had to change rigght before the baptism of Luciana because I had to swap pants with Jhon. I also gave him on of my shirts which was kinda cool because he didn't have a white shirt to go to church. Im probably also gonna give him a tie to complete the set. Also holy we have had a goal as a mission to hit 100 every month which we haven't hit yet but today we heard that we just hit 140 baptisms for the month of April. Which is absolutely crazyyyy. 

Spiritual:

Not really sure if I talked about this or not but Ive been thinking a lot about covenants lately. Because really the ordenance of baptism isn't what gives us power or salvación. It's Jesus. So when we are baptized we make a covenant. When we keep this covenant we can recieve the redeeming power of Christ. When we come to church and partake of the sacrament WORTHILY, we are keeping this covenant. We are diligently strengthening this covenant or connection we have with God. And the more covenants we make, obviously theres more responsibilities but at the same time when we KEEP those covenants we are able to recieve the redeeming power of God. So just a reminder to all of you to diligently keep your covenants. Go to church and partake of the sacrament worthily. If you're not worthy to take it go talk to your bishop because hes literally called of God to make it possible for us to take the sacrament again to keep our covenants. It's really not that hard. Just shoot him a quick text to set up an appointment. Because in reality its literally a sacred promise we've made with god and he wants to bless/help us. We just have to do our part and when we die he'll come and give us the biggest hug because we did it. 

Also we just found out that the mom of one of our recent converts has Cancer too so everyone please pray for her. Her name is Melissa Telles. The kid that we prayed and fasted for, they've found something thats been working for people and they're trying it on him so everyone please keep praying for these 2 amazing people.  

The video is a quote we made for our zone for us to get a little bit more hype and excited as a Zone hahaha

4-29-24

LUNCH WITH MARIANNE

We were FINALLY able to go out for Marianne's birthday almost two weeks ago.  We went to Everbowl- so yummy!  It was a nice time.  I felt like I talked to much of course, but I really love hanging out with Marianne.  She's a good friend.  4-29-24

TRACK SENIOR NIGHT- LUKE

This was a big one!  The last chance meet and Senior presentation.  I got to make the balloon arch for them to walk through- had help of course- and then we got to do the whole walk on the field and have his name announced as he walked down the teammate tunnel and through the arch.  He got a card from everyone and some candy and a flower for me- he didn't know the flower was for me until later :).  But it was so fun to honor and celebrate Luke!  He's done so awesome in track and stuck with it so well.  I really am so proud of him and all of his accomplishments with the hurdles.  Grandma Hatch was there to cheer him on.  So cool!  Way to go Luke!  4-29-24

LUNCH WITH TAMMY

Tammy and I have talked about going out to lunch for years.  This was fun!  We went to Zupas.  Sadie was a dream the whole time we were out.  We got to talk nonstop for the hour and a half that I had before Erika's track meet and it was a much needed chat.  I love Tammy!  Such a good friend, so much wisdom.  4-30-24

ANOTHER COOL MIRACLE- ERIKA HURDLES STYLE

I got done with lunch with Tammy just in time to make my way to Syracuse.  I had timed it out perfectly and knew I was cutting it close, but when I got there, I realized I had cut it WAY TOO CLOSE!  Especially with the parking situation the way it was.  It's so dumb that they have these meets start during high school hours!  The parking lots are way too full!!  So I scrambled looking for a spot.  I had a tired Sadie with me too, so we didn't want to have to walk a mile.  Well, I couldn't even find anything within reasonable distance.  I was getting really discouraged and said a few more prayers- I had been praying the whole day that I could make it in time.  I tried to stay positive, but things were looking gloomy.  Then!  I stumbled upon the "Daycare drop off parking only" spots!!  This was a blessing!  I know it is against the rules- possibly illegal, not sure though- but I HAD to take one of these!  I did have a toddler with me, so we could pretend we were dropping off for day care :).  Not really.  But anyway.  I parked and we ran/walked/cried/sat down and screamed/I carried Sadie over to the track.  As I was walking I could hear the announcer say, "This is heat 6 of the girls 100 hurdles" and my heart sank!  She is usually in the first heat.  But something stopped me- or rather- kept me walking, I pulled out my phone to check which heat she was in on our awesome new app with everything I need to know- and saw that she was in HEAT SEVEN!!!!  I had made it!!!  Sadie and I hurried a little faster at that point.  We were going in the back way, also against the rules, but we made it!!!  We walked in, saw Erika, gave her the thumbs up and you got this, and then stood there and video-ed her run!  Saw the ENTIRE THING!!  SO HAPPY!!  Such a cool little miracle!  Maybe I've never mentioned how much I HATE missing my kids' events, so I'll say it now- I REALLY HATE MISSING THEM!!  I missed a few this season, which was a huge bummer, so this was a nice blessing.  She did awesome too!!  4-30-24