Place of refuge

Akong Hinigugmaong Pamilia,
(Cebuano is a very long language, hence all the slang here)

I hope you are all doing wonderfully!  I pray for you all the time.  Anyways, here is one thing I have to write about before I go into detail about the work here.  So this week we did a CSP (community service project), only this time we cleaned and elders apartment in zone, a little weird right.  But then when I got there I was shocked with exactly how bad of condition the house was in.  I would have taken pictures, but unfortunately my camera broke so hopefully I can buy a new one.  But I felt like you know that book where the character is just sweeping dirt floor and then she realizes that it is pointless, that was exactly my feeling.  Lets just say I gain a lot of gratitude that I am a sister and that they give us the good houses to live in, cause that was just shocking.

On other news we are seeing a lot of miracles here in Cordova, we have some amazing investigators.  Here is a the story about how we found two of them which I think is a miracle.  Anyways so no one has an address in the Philippines so whenever we get a referral we just have to ask everyone if they know where that person lives.  So while we are doing that we normally get led to other people for some reason or another.  Anyways twice when we were doing this we found Marvin and Roxylane.  Marvin had missionaries teach him in 1998 and didn't know why they didn't return, but still had his book of mormon in super good condition (which is a really hard thing to do while here in the Philippines).  And Roxylane is married to someone who is a member, but less active, and her mother in law is a very strong member who actually sent her in as a referral, but it didn't get through I guess.  Anyways we found both of them and they are both so excited to hear the gospel
 and I just love seeing their excitement, it always renews mine! It's just sooo coool! And we found out that Marvin is actually really good friends with another one of our investigator Julius.

I haven't told you about Julius.  Julius is soo awesome.  Everytime we go and teach him he talks about how much he wants to help getting less actives back to church and how he just wants to spread the gospel.  He would be baptized but he has been smoking all of his life and in order to get baptized here they have to go without smoking at all for 4 weeks, so we are working on that right now.

I love this gospel and I love all the miracles we are seeing here, it really is a testiment to me that people are prepared to hear this gospel and just how valuable it is.  So if you get the chance share it.  Because like Roxylane said (she is at home all day alone with nothing to do) when she reads the book of mormon it is like she has a companion.  The lord will always be our companion and everyone needs to feel that kind of love.  I hope you are all doing well.  I pray for you all, and love you so much and am so grateful for your example for me.

Sister Hancock

P.S. I was going to send you an old picture, but this computer is being weird, its the philippines right?  Next time though, and hopefully I will have a camera by then too.