Meetings and more

Dear family,

It has been a really great week, but it honestly been the week that I have worked the least in my whole mission.  But I learned a lot.  First we had MLC this week, so we traveled to liloan monday morning and it was awesome because I got to see all of my mission friend who are either assign close to their or are STLs. So I caught up with all of them then we had our meeting that night and then we slept at sister sears and sister mcCurdys house.  Then tuesday we had MLC.  Both the meeting and MLC related to practice teaching, which made me feel guilty because I was awful at it, but I am repenting now and we are really diligent at practice teaching.  It is also very american because we meet in their house (and they literally have the nicest mission house) and we eat american food and use ovens, its amazing.  After MLC president surprised us by telling all the far away missionaries that they could go to the temple (because we were all stay there to see elder bowen).  It was great.  I love the temple.  I just love it.  Especially the cebu one.  Then wednesday Elder Bowen came, which was good and I learned a lot.  I also said goodbye to my companions that are going home, which was sad but also good.

Thursday and friday sister Lange stayed in liloan for her passport papers so I was just planning to work with ward missionaries, but then one of the sister that lives with us got sick, so I end up just watching her. Oh and I also taught ZTM by my self, that was... interesting haha, but the message was delivered and that all that matters.  So half-way through friday, saturday and sunday we worked.  It was good, it made me miss work, and I was very glad to be back.  Working just feels good.

Well that has been my life the last week. It was crazy, but quite enjoyable.  I just love those type of events though because I love see my mission friends and catching up with people.

Anway I love you all so much.  I hope you have amazing days.  Love you,

Sister Hancock

PS: one picture is at MLC  and then the other one is my companion who I just realized that I haven't sent any pictures of.

Greetings from consolacion

Hey,

 

Guess what I am in consolacion right now.  In my old area actually.  I got emergency transfered.  Haha just kidding, I am just here for MLC, because we have the sisters meeting later tonight in liloan and the MLC tomorrow.  We are going to be here soooo long because after that we have the young men general president or something coming to talk to us on wednesday.  Which means lot of sleep, and our area not getting worked at all, but I am excited because it will be fun.  Also I am pretty much saying good bye to all of my old companions because this will probably be the last time I will see them, except sister sears and sister mccurdy extended, and are companions hahah so I might see them again.  But anyways there will be plenty of pictures to follow.

 

As far as news to report this week...  Well, first we went on splits with san rem this week.  I was good becaust they have been having some hard times lately, but it was good to be able to help them.  I went on splits with sister Melano.  It funny, I almost always go on splits with filipinas and I always feel like they are twenty gazillion time better then me at everything, because they actually know the language.  Its a great learning experience for me, i am pretty sure they don't learn anything though haha.

 

Flor came to church this week, wahoo.  She told us actually that she had missionarys teach her clear back in 85, but droped her and others find her and then redrop her, up until we found her.  She talked about how she knows its true she just still hasn't been baptized.  We don't know what she is waiting for, but we will see.

 

As far as other things, my companion is as trunky as every.  Haha just kidding, I don't think it has hit her yet that she is going home.  She is doing great though.  Our area is doing great.  I love all three strees of it just as much as ever.  I am happy and hope you all are happy.

 

I love you all so very much and am praying for you.

 

Love you,

 

Sister Hancock

unsa man na oy?

Dear family,

We had a solid last week.  We were really blessed with being able to teach a lot of people this week so we broke both my companion and I record of most lessons taught this week.  It was solid and extremely exhuasting, but you know it is awesome to have an oppurtunity to share the gospel so much.

So I have a few funny stories for you guys.  The first one is yesterday we taught a less active who I don't think has every been taught before, at least she doesn't have a record.  Anyways she was a really honest funny person.  We had some of the young women working with us and one of them was talking and said "god sees everything I do", and she interrupted her and responded "he sees me when I pee?!"  And I was very unmissionary like and started cracking up and whereas the young women that was with us just stared in horror.  But that might be a story you just have to be there to think it was funny.  Then as well we were teaching this other lesson, and the family had the cutest mice that lived in their house, and mice don't really get me any more (or so I thought), so we just admired for a little bit and the when back to teaching.  A little later on the mice ended up moving right under my foot and then when somebody pointed it out I freaked out a little, because if I had moved my foot even a tiny bit I would have step on it.  The filippinos didn't understand why I was freaking out but I hope I am talking to an audience that gets me.

Other then that we went with splits with our kabalay (or people who live in the same house) this week, they are also assign in our same branch and want to hear a crazy story?  So they are both tongan, one of them her parents are from tongan but she actually grew up in nevada, they other one grew up in tonga. Anyways after little bit, they found out they were actually cousins.  How crazy right?  Finding your long lost cousin in the mission field.  If their is any long lost cousins I might have let me know so I can look for them.

Oh as well I found out my RC krisha in lapu-lapu, she works at a call center, and she ended up talking to one of my uncles.  If anyone could let me know which uncle that is that would be great, just because I am really curious.

Anyway I love you all.  I hope life is good and you all have good health and are happy. love you so much,

Sister Hancock

Life of a missionary

Dear Family,

I hope you all had an excellent past few days.  Mine have been good.  I got my new companion, Sister Lange.  She is really smart and super good at bisaya.  She is from california and went to BYU before her mission and is planning to major in education.  So mostly these past few days have been filled with getting to know hern adjusting to different teaching styles, teaching her the area, teaching her how to be and STL, introducing her to people and all those fun things.  Which sometimes can be exhausting but she is smart so it all went very smoothly which was great.

Also the past few days have been kind of interesting because the pope came here (so there where like catholic parades in the street and I can't even tell you how many times the pope got brought up in conversations), there was sinulog so everyone went to cebu city (not the island) to either worship or, it they weren't catholic, to sell things there.  I don't actually know what sinulog is, but I saw a lot of picture of it before my mission and it seemed kind of cool.  Then we had a storm, so they streets were a lot more empty the normals.  We did a lot more wandering, and our umbrellas might have broken because of the wind, but you know its all in the life of a missionary.

But other then that life has been good.  Tecy on of our less active who was a seminary and institute teach came to church this sunday which was great.  When she saw me she said "I am here now" and then laughed.

Life is good, I am happy, and this church really is true.  I love you all so much, thank you all for your wonderful examples to me.  I hope you are all doing amazing!

Sister Hancock

Another one bites the dust

Dear my beloved family,

Well another transfer has come and passed, bringing with it many memoriess and many laughs.  We recieved transfer calls again and with it brought some tragic news.  My beloved companion is transfering, to my old area haha.  My new companion will be Sister Lange.  This is her last transfer, so I will be killing another one.  I told my companion my personality must have gotten really bad to kill three in a row. Just kidding.  But that means I will most likely be staying in this area for at least 3 transfers, which makes me really happy because I love this area.

So to answer the request of my beloved father, I will be going more into depth what STL's do.  It probably changes from mission to mission because its not a super set thing, but here is what I do.  We have groups of sisters from 2 different zones that we go on splits with.  After the splits we do an evaluation with them, which is mostly just setting goals with them to become better missionaries and people.  We also have what is called implementation, which can be anything to make their mission lives better.  Also new last transfer we worked with the ZL to make stat implementation for our zone.  For all of you who have never served, one of our implementations is to count how many refferals that you asked for, then on sunday night send it with a bunch of other confusing numbers that I seem to always mess up.  We also teach at ZTM.  Which for those of you who haven't served missions, once a month our mission president, the APs, his wife, and other
wonderful
people give "workshops" at their house.  So you go to his house on tuesday, you are there for all day learn, and eating real american food, and using dish washing machine (its a beautiful thing), then on thursday us and the Zone leaders reteach all of the workshop to the people in bogo.  This week our presidents workshop was on Daniel's story and he mixed it in to having self discipline and then obedience.  Man my mission president can teach.  I don't think I did as good of a job delivering the message, but you know we are all learning.  At least I have another month before I have to do it again.

As for other things, this last little bit we had a sister in our zone work with us, her name is sister lapena, I have gone on splits with her but you guys probably don't remember me talking about that.  Anyways her companion went home, so she has just worked in our area with us which has been fun.  Also both daphney and flor came to church this sunday, WAHOO!!!  Also we had a less active come to church who neither of us even know, who hasn't gone to church in year so we are starting to teach her as well which is fun.  

Anyways this seems to be a really long letter full of semi boring information (I blame dad), just kidding, but I am going to end it here and give you more detail on my life on monday.  I love you all so very dearly.  I hope that the winter isn't to cold.  (I have started to sometimes get cold here, you know that is a sign that I have been here a very long time)  Love you so very much,

Sister Hancock

My lds mail is being weird right now so I can only select one person to send things to, so will you send these pictures to everyone else?  Thanks your the best.

The first picture is us at the sanyo family, they are the sweetest.  But we taught them how to make smores because the had never had the before and they were amazed and really excited at how good they were.  The kept saying "the marshmellow is like frosting now"  It was funny

Then the other one is us and daphney.

Love you!

Happy New Year/ One Year

Dear family,

 

I hope you all had an amazing new years and that is was full of snacks and fireworks and fun times.  Don't worry mine was quite enjoyable as well.  And also does anyone actually believe that I have hit my one year mark, because I sure don't.  Time has absolutely flown by, it is terrifying.  But when I reflect on how much I have learn over the course of my mission it really is incredible.  Missions really are the most amazing things.  I am extremely grateful that god has given me this past one year to serve him in such and incredible way.  I have seen a lot of miracles, but the miracl e that I am most grateful for is the change I have seen in my self.  The sacrifice of the mission is far worth the many blessings you receive.  Those who aren't married should definitely go on one *cough tyson, brianna, max.

 

But its been a really good week.  As I talk to you all early, in this area we really focus on Less Active.  We had a meeting with our ward and found out their are a total of 775 member in this branch, but we only have a sacrament attendance of 130.  It shows just how important our role as members are, that we fellowship other members and really help each other continue on.  It was really cool this week because one of our less actives, who used to be the branch president then after he was released went less active, came to church.  He is super gahi (I don't know what a good describer word for that is in english) and was known for pretending to sleep when we came to teach him.  One of the members in our ward came went to his house this week, and that is why he came to church.  You have no idea what kind of effect you as members can have.  Keep helping with the hasten of the work.

 

Other then that we went on splits again this week, and had to travel really far to get there, but it was good to be able to help those sister, as well we are currently in liloan because we have an STL meeting tonight, and then we have MLC  tomorrow.  I heard MLC is way fun, so I am excited to go.

 

I love you all.  Keep being amazing people and amazing examples to others.

 

Sister Hancock

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

To my lovely family,

It was very enjoyable skyping with all of you this christmas.  I hope it didn't make all of you miss me too much, but you know, I am a missable person, Just kidding.

Well you guys have already heard about my pasko, but I think I left out one detail.  Sister Sears and I were about to give presents out to the little kids, like just candy and little pencils or things and it was really cool how excited they were for them.  Christmas just made me realize how much I do have with a great family and a great life situation.

So other then that this week we got to go the ward christmas party and a lot of people invited us over for dinner, and cooked some great meals.  To say the least it was a very enjoyable week with a lot of fun times.

As far as the work I realized the person I talked about during skype I hadn't mentioned before, but daphney.  She is 17 and is super amazing.  She has a harder life because her mom died and her dad works all the time so he can support her so her and her sister both live in different house with different family friends and thats how she met the missionaries.  Anyways she is super amazing and knows its true and loves reading the book of mormon.  Also one time we told her we were teaching her the next day and then everyone who lived in her house went to went to a party, but because she knew we were coming she didn't go to the party, she was just really excited for us to come and teach.  Anyways she has recently been offend so that is her current struggle, but she great and I think she will make it through.

Well I hope you guys enjoy the next little bit of your christmas holiday and new years eve, and hitting a year of not seeing me, but that one you shouldn't enjoy.  I love you all so much.  The church is true!

Sister Hancock

The first one is randomly during the ward christmas party the called the missionaries up to preform something and we had no idea what we were doing, but oh well it end up okay

And the second on is one splits during a really rainy day.  Banana leaves make great umbrellas