Marriage?

Family,

What my sister is getting married this week, that is so crazy.  I hope you all enjoy the wedding immensely.  I will be thinking of you and probably celebrating in some was with my companion.

So I have been really good this week.  The work continues to go on.  The Pinero family have their interview this week and then they are getting baptized next week.  It is so cool to be able to watch them progress as a family so much.  I love watching the testimonies grow and their acts of faith help my faith to grow.

I just want to write you guys a little about this group I am in and how awesome all of the members are here.  They really are soo faithful,  We have one nanay who lives extremely far away from the church (most of our members live far away because I live in the middle of now where).  Anyways its really expensive for here to come to church every sunday, but in order for her to have money to come she does all of the missionaries laundry every week.  It takes her a really long time, but despite that she does it every week just so she can come to church.  Our group leader is also really amazing.  He seriously would do anything for us missionaries if we asked him too.  He always want to work and always asks us if we want to go site seeing for our p-day, he is great.

This week randomly we had an american family show us at our door, (which is extremely weird here since there is only one other american that lives here besides me.)  It wasn't random because they were actually their to screen children to see if the were malnutrition (which pretty much every one the screened was), but we had no idea it was happening.  It was a kind of funny situation.  After that they went a played a prank on the elders, they said "do you guys speak english, we are lost, we are looking for someone who love jesus".  It was kind of funny because the elder they talked to is fresh from the MTC so he got really excited. haha oh good humor...

Also this week we had Zone training meeting, which involves us waking up at 430 in the morning driving all day to get there (because we have to go all the way to calape) and the getting home at like 600 at night, but I guess that is what you get for being the missionaries that are the farthest away from everything.

Anyways I love you all and I praying for you and hope you all enjoy the wedding, and your week and your lives. 

Sister Hancock

 

The first picture is me climbing up a coconut tree, I may or may not have fallen on the way down...Its okay if no one sees it your fine right?  The second is they have leaves here that you can actually blow bubbles from, coolest thing ever right?  My mission is completely now that I have seen that haha.

 

Dear family,

I hope everything is going well for you there and that you are enjoying your summer.

So as I said last time I got a new companion.  Her name is sister Villaluz.  She is a convert like most Filipinos, and she actually turned down a boy who was purposing to her to go on a mission haha, she is fantastic and a really hard worker and really positive.  I really like having a filipina as a companion as well, because she understands the culture a lot better then I do.

So we taught the Pinero family with her and it was nice because they could finally clear up a lot of their confusion because she speaks tagalog.  I kind of felt like I was a new missionary again during that lesson because I didn't really know what was going on because it was in tagalog, but it was cool how many words I was able to pick up on.  Maybe by they end of this transfer I will be able to speak tagalog as well, haha  jokes.  But I can now say some sentences in tagalog.  Also I give an attempt to learn chibrancano (which is their native language, which people just say its broken spanish, but it definately doesn't sound like spanish to me and they say they don't understand spanish at all.)  Also they have given up all of their coffee and alcohol so they are still good to be baptized on the 23, wahoo!

I wrote you 4 days ago so I don't feel like I have a ton to write you about, but while I was waiting for my companion here on bohol I got to go on splits with sister Holmes from my batch.  It was really nice because we got to talk a lot about how we were going through some of the same things.  It was just really fun and really nice.  Also we got to sleep over at the STL house then (because we live the farthest away)  and I got to talk more with sister davis my trainer, which was really fun.

Anyways I love you all.  I know this church is true.  And I know the gospel blesses our lives so much.  Every day I am so thankful I have the gospel. keep on paglahutay hangtud sa katapusan (enduring to the end).  Love you all so very much and I keep you in my prayers

your missionary,

Sister Hancock

PS  I can't really view the picture but I am hoping that this is one of my companion and I and also that lizard tried to get in our house like 20 times, it was really creepy, but no worries our group leader (the one in the picture) caught it and killed it.  Its huge right?

Tender Mercies

To my loved ones,

I hope you are all doing okay.  I hope you know that I am always praying for you as well!  I hope you are able to see god's mercy in your life.  I hope you are able to see god strengthen you through you trail.  I was very sorry to hear about Katie's death, but know I am praying for all of you and that you will receive strength from god.

A few thoughts I had this week:

So this week we taught the Pinero family about being sealed and that they could live with their families forever.  The whole time we were talking about it she just had the biggest smile on her face and I was thinking how blessed we are the we have the knowledge that we can live with our families forever and above that how blessed we are that we are sealed as a family.  No matter what happens we know we can live together again.  What a comforting thought that is.

There was also another cool thing I got to witness.  There is this member that we teach in our area who can't come to church because she is way to far away and doesn't have a motor.  Anyways she is american and she came here to marry a filipino.  Anyways a lot of things happen he left her for a while and all the stress of living here and him leaving her caused her to have a miscarriage.  She was telling us that her live was at the lowest point it has ever been, then when we visited her she told us her husband had come back.  I felt really prompted to share with her Mosiah 24:14 (about christ strengthening us through our trail so much that we can not feel them.  She said she had a testimony of that because before she kept seeing her baby and feeling super horrible, but that day she saw her baby again and it didn't hurt at all any more, even though she still has a ton of trial, none of them hurt.  How awesome it is we have a heavenly father who loves us so much, and has all power to help us.  I how you all see that help of god in your lives.

Know I love you and am praying for you all constantly.

Sister Hancock

P.S.  Sorry I couldn't email till wednesday, they decide to change our pday to wednesday on transfer week.  Oh and I have news, Sister T is transfering and I will get a new companion tomorrow, Her name is Sister Villaluz.  She is filppina, my junior batch (which means she got here the transfer after me), and she speaks tagalog but her bisaya is probably a lot better then mine because filipinos learn it a lot faster.