A day in the life of a missionary

My beloved ones!!!!!

haha so this week was again full of a lot of firsts. I have tried so many things this week it has been great!  First off, that restaurant we went to with filipino food, it wasn't even close.  The food here is so good!  They make the best meat ever, and I am learning to eat with my hands since in some situations that is the polite thing to do haha.  You really enjoy it more when you eat with your hands.  Hopefully I will learn how to make good chicken adobo so I can make it for all of you when I get home.

We also had our first baptism this week.  That was really cool!  We taught a 9 year old boy named long-long whose parents are less active, and then both he and his brother got baptized on the same day.

I also had my first split with the Sister trainer leader, which initially I was really scared for because I had only been in the mission for a week and she was a Filipina.  But once we got out there and started teaching my confidence grew a lot so I am talking more now more which is good!

As far as the language I am become much better at picking out where individual word start and when they end when filipinos speak.  When they speak I can sometimes get the just of the conversation so that is good.  But when  I speak it is coming a lot more fluently and I don't have to think so much before speaking so that is good news.  When we have a lot of lessons in one day though I get so exhausted from trying so hard to listen.  I come home and just want to sleep.

For other news, I am working on my filipino squat.  They just sit in this squat position for forever while we teach and I can't do it for very long right now.  But my companion did say my mannerisms are a lot like a filipino which I have been working on so that is good news.  It is just so much easier to raise you eyebrows then nod when responding to a conversation, Try it, You will never go back haha.

I love you all and know that the Lord has been blessing my life a ton, and I pray that he is blessing yours!

Your all time favorite missionary,

Sister Hancock

P.S one of the pictures is a bridge that connects the island we work on and the island we live on.  We had no idea they were separate until recently because it just looks like a river haha

The Philippines. . .

Dearest Ones who read my email,

So week one in the Philippines... I have definitely had many adventures.  For one, I ate bolut on Saturday.  Before you get all impressed with me it was only 16 day bolut which isn't bad at all.  But no one told me that so I was all game for eating bones and feathers, haha maybe later.

Our house is also a lot nicer then I thought it was going to be, which was nice for the adjustment.  It is really small, but only me and my Nanay live there so we don't need a lot of space.  It's funny though because our neighbors always are blasting music.  That one thing about the Philippines is people are always blasting music, and so during lesson we never have peace, there is always some distraction which is funny.

So anyways I am currently in Lapu -Lapu which is the farthest south mission on Cebu Island.  I love it here.  The people here are so amazing.  And we see a lot of success here because people are so willing to just talk to you.  It makes me really sad because a lot of the homes we go to are really poor.  One of the families we teach has an infestation of mosquitoes by there house so there skin is completely covered in sores, it's so sad.  I also have gotten many mosquito bites while being here, but apparently that's normal for new people because I guess we are new meat or something.

Anyways, as I was saying the faith of the people here is so great.  We have been teaching this lady named Roxylane.  We have only taught her twice, but in the first lesson she tried to give us tea and we explained that we couldn't drink tea, and then our next visit she told us she had completely gotten rid of all of her tea.  She is so amazing!

My Nanay is from Layton, UT.  Her name is Sister Davis and she has been in the Philippines for 3 transfers, so she is training really early.  Because we both are American we get a lot of attention and stares, which is nice for missionary work.  Then everyone is always surprised that she speaks Cebuano and that she speaks it so well.  I don't really speak much because it is hard to follow conversations, or at least when Filipino's talk, when she talks it's fine haha.  But that is probably the hardest part of being here is the language, but I am learning.  I am starting to pick out words the filipinos say when they talk so that is good news!

Anyways I love you all, and I hope that you are doing well and feeling gods blessings for you!

Sister Hancock

P.S.  The Pictures are of me eating Bulot and me and my Nanay

I am here!

Hey everyone!

I am just suppose to write a really quick email to tell you that I didn't die on the plane ride over, good news right?  It actually went a lot better then I thought it would.  I had a really nice lady who lived in Tacloban who had a hard time sleeping to, so she talked to me for pretty much the whole flight.  It went by faster then I thought it would.

I love it here already.  We are just spending the day at the mission home learning how to survive in the Philippines so that is fun.  We drove through the city to get here and it is so amazing!  Everything is so green!  And the roads are way crazy, but it is cool how even thought there aren't any road laws some how there are very few accidents.  

Anyways I love you all so much, and it was so good to you!  Be ready for the best email of your lives next week haha.

Sister Hancock

Last Week

Family,

Man I get to talk to you this Monday, I am soo excited.  I am also leaving for the Philippines this Monday in case you didn't know haha.  I guess it pretty cool.  Just kidding I am sooo stoked to leave!!! I randomly get excited every now and the and have little freak out sessions, ask my companions.

Anyways this week has been fairly different that my average week here.  Yesterday we had in field orientation which pretty much you are in classes all day from 8am-5pm learning about key indicators, and how to work with members, and different things like that.  I liked it a lot and they tried to make it really entertaining for us so that was cool.

Want to hear something nerve rack I was asked to do though?  Me and my companions were ask to demonstrated how to begin teaching to all the new missionaries.  Pretty much they just have this class on your first day with 50ish missionaries and they watch us teach, and then half way through the instructor stopped us and let the new missionaries teach.  It was pretty scary, but it was a fun experience!

Also one thing really cool that a member of our branch presidency pointed out was that while we have been in the MTC, we have had most of the members of the executive missionary counsel speak to us.  He said in all the years he has been there no one has ever had that.  The missionary counsel talks about missionaries every day really knows what we nees, so we were so blessed to have them come.  They talk about gaining a testimony, working with the members, and the doctrinal reason of why people would want to join our church.   Our branch presidency said there was obviously something that this group of missionaries needed to learn from them before going in the feild. I feel so blessed to have been taught by them before leaving on my mission.

Anyways, I love being on a mission.  I love all of you.  I know this gospel is true, and I love that I have the opportunity of sharing it!

Love you,

Sister Hancock

P.S. One of the Picture I sent you is the sister who is from Bohol and is going to the orem mission, so look out for her those who live in logan:)