By popular demand

Dear family,

Due to popular demand I will be writing about the typhoon.  To be honest I don't actually know what day it struck haha because everyone said it was suppose to be on different days and it has been cloudy all week.  It did rain a ton last night though so I am assuming that was it?  But we have had a lot of brown outs.  Which means you just lose power for a while.  And our bucket showers have been freezing all week.  Whenever it rains our showers are always freezing, I don't actually know why haha. 

Conference for us was really great.  Here there where a lot of people that feel asleep because they show conference in english.  They have a translation in to cebuano, but the church translates it into pure cebuano (no mixing in any other languages) and no one understands that.  English is easier for them to understand that pure cebuano.  All of our resources to learn Cebuano are in pure Cebuano, so sometimes it is an adventure when you use a word that you just learn because you never actually know if they understand haha.  Mostly I just study words that the people give me.  But for me conference was really great.  I felt very spiritually fed after it.

So Julius finished the Book Of Mormon.  Crazy!  Now he is starting on D&C, I love how much he loves learning.  Unfortunately he lost his job and then had to move to a new city for a new job and only comes back on weekends and all that stress caused him to make 1 mistake and smoke, so we have to move his date back another 4 weeks.  Haha he might just finish D&C by his baptismal week too.

I don't think I have talked about Krisha and Anging enough.  They are perhaps some of my favorite people.  Krisha is 17 and Anging is her mom. We asked them to be baptized in the first lesson and they said of course.  Then Krisha last week started talking about how she want to serve a mission.  She is fantastic, we were kind of thrown off because we had never even mentioned missions.  But now she always talks about serving a mission.  She actual kuyoged with us to a recent convert and started helping us teach.  She is really going to be the best missionary every!  Her mom is the sweetest lady ever too.  They are both so funny and I laugh a lot when I am with them.  

Anyways thats all for me this week.  I hope you are all doing fantastically.  I pray for you all the time and am so thankful for all of you!

Your favorite,

Sister Hancock

Everyone wants to get baptized!!!

Family!

I hope my email finds you satisfied and content with life. As my title states, we have had a lot of success this week.  Everyone we extend the baptismal commitment to says yes.  Its crazy!  I really hope all of them follow through cause that would be great.

Thank you for all being so obedient to make request. ... I was just going to insert missionary humor right there... Aaaah I am such a missionary because I really think missionary humor is funny, and before I thought it was the worst thing ever.  I have changed so much haha.  But anyways I did get to see a sneak peek of the saturday morning session this morning when we went to the temple and Sister Davis and I started freaking out and then we started freaking out more when the conductor was the same conductor at the MTC.  The workers there were laughing at us.  Wow I am such a missionary haha.  But it was crazy we watched the women's conference this week and when they filmed the choir all I could think was how white everyone there is.  It was so weird.  Its funny because here whenever you see a white person we pretty much have a social obligation to stop and talk to them.  I don't know why, its weird

But anyways after that really long and pointless tangent,  I want to share with you my favorite experience of this week.  So we were teaching Jennifer (I have talked about her before, but she is married to a canadian who has been a member for a very long time and has been investigating the church since September I think), anyways so at the end of the lesson we asked her to pray right there if the church was true.  So she did and the spirit was just so so strong the whole time the after we sat for a while and asked her how she felt. And she said she knew it was true.  She said she had only felt that way one other time and that was when she went and saw the temple.  She agreed to get baptized after that and we are so excited!  It seriously makes me happy every time I think about that experience.  THIS CHURCH IS SO TRUE!!!

Sorry I have so much more to say but unfortunately my time is almost completely out!  I guess I will just have to tell you later!

I love you all!  Hope you enjoy the pictures

Sister Hancock

Summer Time

Family,

It is definitely summer time over here.  The kids are out of school and it is hot.  Like really hot, as long as there is wind it is fine, but if there is not wind it's dili maayo.

It has been a really good week here for us.  Oh before I continue, I have to wait a week longer to see conference here, so if there is any life changing announcements you are not allowed to talk to me about them until two weeks.   All right? Sounds good.

One thing me and my companion have been talking about is that it is really cool to see how god works.  For instance, So we visited this less active and the next week she brought one of her friends with her.  So of course we went to teach her and she lived in this part of city that we had no idea even existed, (the only way to get there is you have to cross a basketball court, there is literally no other entrance weird huh?) Anyways after we went over there we talked to her family and neighbors and they all are super interested, but most importantly we found Anging and Krisha.  They are seriously some of the greatest investigators.  They ask really good questions about the book of mormon during our lesson and they absolutely loved the plan of salvation.  When we asked them if they would be baptized they said "of course". So right now their baptismal date is set for May 3 and we are really excited about that!

Our other investigators are doing great!  Julius absolutely loves the book of mormon and his goal is to finish it before his baptism, and he is in 3 nephi right now so I am pretty sure he will do it.  He is so great because he brought his wife to a relief society acitvity and then just sat in the corner and read the Book of Mormon,  He is great.  And we gave him a bible and a book of mormon with his name on it.  And his reaction to the bible was "WOW! It has both the Old Testament and the New Testament."  That made me laugh really hard.  He was also afraid to touch it because he was scared he was going to make it dirty.  On top of that we taught he about family history.  Our ward might be one of the only wards in all of the philippines that is really into family history, so he had a lesson on it during church and he said he really felt like his family was just waiting for him to be baptized so that he could do their work for them.  Our other Investigator Roxelaine is also doing really well and loving the gospel, in fact she loves it so much she spend 45 minutes talking about 1 verse haha.  Most of the time she was trying to explain to us that full in bisayan can have two meanings haha.  Even after we told her that's how it was is english too.  We love that she loves it so much, we are just glad we are done with the lessons with a lot of content at this point.

In other news I had an epic fight with the biggest cockroach I have ever seen that was crawling all over my stuff.  I had a defaulty sprayer (we kill them with permetheron) so whenever I got brave enough to attack it never worked.  Eventually I did kill it though.  According to the people here it was over killed because I sprayed it ten times.  But there is nothing wrong with being safe right?

Anyways life is good here.  The gospel is good everywhere and I love you all so much!  Keep it up!

Sister Hancock

P.S.  One of the pictures is normal food here in the philippines, and then the other one they told us they were going to move to tacloban yesterday, and the today they said they weren't so we took farewell pictures.  But I thought you might like to see it so you could see what a house looks like in the philippines from the inside.  Imagine bamboo flooring with that haha its great!

1st Transfer Down

To: the people live on the other side of the world

I have officially lived in the Philippines longer then I lived in the MTC, crazy.  I love looking back and seeing how much I have progressed.  So transfer news.... I AM GOING TO BOHOL.  Haha just kidding I am still getting trained so nothing changed for me.  And if things are normal I probably won't serve on Bohol for an extremely long time, but you never know I guess.

So I told Julius I wanted to tell the world his good news, and considering that you all are on the other side of the world I thing this counts.  He has gone 6 days with out smoking now!  We are so excited for him!  If he keeps it up we might move his baptismal date up, which will be a first.

We had John Paul's baptism this week.  I was such a neat experience.  We have also been talking to him about serving a mission, and initially he wasn't so sure but we have a really great young men's group here and one person is leaving on their mission soon, and now he really wants to go.  I loved talking with him about it.  And it is so good for filippino's to serve because during their missions they focus on helping the learn english which is why our mission is considered an english speaking mission.  And if he learns english he will be able to get a good job which will completely change his life.  Their family has been going through a lot of hard things this week and it is so sad to see, but I love how much the church can help lives in so many different ways.

So this week my bisayan was pushed haha.  I taught gospel Doctrine this week.  It is pretty common here that there isn't a gospel doctrine teacher, but our ward is pretty good about making sure we always have a teacher.  However this week we did not.  And my companion turned to me and was like " sige, this will be a good experience for you" " what? Hala!"  But it actually was really great.  Naturally we switched off like we do it in lessons so it wasn't all me, but it was an on the spot lesson about service.  It made me confident that  my language grew a lot more, and it was kind of fun to be honest.  And I have been getting a lot of compliments about my bisayan, which is good  However Roxelaine still gives me her face every time I talk haha so don't worry that still keeps me humble.

We also got to go to the temple for a sealing, which was such was so cool and the spirit was so strong.  And the cebu temple is amazing.  I might have been more amazed by it because I have been around people with nothing for a while now, but I was awestruck by it.  It was absolutely amazing!

Also I had my first filipino barbeque.  It ate Buso which is the best rice ever. It is the kind of rice we saw on bizarre foods that is cooked in a banana leaf. It is sooo good, I wish they had it in america.  They also have chicken liver and chicken intestines.  I had the intestines and they were actually really good.  Its funny I am not picky about filipino food at all, but if people feed us american food I become more picky.  And guess what, I have liked every single fish I have eaten here.  That really is a miracle.

Anyways I love you all so much and am praying for you!  

Sister Hancock

                                                       Me, Renante, Hanz, Roxanne, and Sister Davis

                                                      Cebu Temple at night time - so gorgeous!

A Little Piece of Heaven

Dear my loving family,

It has been a really good week here. We are really excited because we have a baptism this Friday.  His name is John Paul, and for the second time he biked for an hour in order to be able to come to church.  He is so awesome.  He has also been such a great example to his family and because of his example his older brother, who has more or less ignored us before has agreed to meet with us tomorrow which we are really excited about!  The work really is hastening.  Me and Sister Davis also get to attend a sealing Friday of a really great couple in our ward.  He is the second counselor in our bishopric and is one of Julius' relatives so we work with them a lot, and we are so excited to be able to see them.  I also get to get to the cebu temple for the first time which is way exciting.  Friday will be the pinaka-epic day ever.

We have also had some really amazing lessons this week.  Our investigator Julius who is the most amazing person ever and "is already planning for his enduring to the end".  Its so funny he is so excited to be able to home teach and bring back the less active families.  Anyways, we had a lesson about the atonement and for the first time he promised he would stop smoking today.  So we set his baptismal date for April 26.  We are really excited for him, and me and sister Davis felt super great about this date before we even told him and he feels really good about it too.

Then we also got to teach Jennifer this week.  She is married to a Canadian who has been a member for a long time.  She comes to church every week, but doesn't feel like she knows enough to commit to be baptized yet. But we had a really good lesson about how if the book of mormon is true then everything is true, and she is really excited to read the book of mormon for herself now.  She is starting for the begining and I am really excited for her!

Then our investigator Roxelaine.  She is so funny, she absolutely loves everything we teach.  Like yesterday we taught her the 10 commandments and with every single commandment she got so excited and had a story about why it was important.  She also makes fun of my bisayan a lot.  With some people I feel really good about it, and then with her every time I speak she always has this really concentrated face.  She is so funny.  Then she always talks about how I don't understand what is going on, and then I always tell her no I understand what you guys are saying, you just don't understand me.  She is seriously my favorite though.  And we also have set her baptism for April 26.  April 26 really will be such a good day!

Other than that I had a really cool experience doing laba (laundry) with one of our investigators.  We washed it all from a pump and it really made me think about living here and how my appreciation for things have grown and how much I have already learned from the people here.  The kids are my absolute favorite.  Every time they see us they run up to us and shout "Americano" and then bless our hand which is a really cool custom here.  I love it here.  Missionary work is the bomb!

I hope you are doing well and finding joy in the journey!  I love you all so much!

Sister Hancock

P.S. My pictures are of me doing laundry, I can't send my favorite one so that on will have to work. And then the other one is a really cool sunset, the evenings are my favorite here.  Also everyone makes their own house, so most houses look like that.

Have I really lived in the Philippines for 1 month

Dear Family,

Time is flying by for me.  It feels like I just emailed you yesterday and now I have another P-day.  Its crazy I have really been living in the Philippines for a month now.  It still sometimes amazes me that I am on the other side of the wold learning a language I never knew existed before.  Its so cool!

Haha one thing I definitely need to learn more about is the culture here.  I am so ignorant.  For example we were tracking at night because a family we were suppose to teach couldn't hear our "AYOs" (that is how you let people know you are at there house, there is no knocking or door bells), because it was so loud, which is normal here.  Anyways so we were talking to these people about how we have a message about Jesus Christ, and as soon as we said that they were like sit down join us.  In my mind the whole time I was like this is great they are so interested.  Then after we left I was talking to Sister Davis about it, and she said "Ya they weren't very interested, it probably isn't worth returning." What? Haha I am still use to america culture...

Another really cool thing that happened this week was something one of our investigators did.  John Paul, who is 13 and scheduled to get baptized on March 22 rode his bike for an hour to get to church because his father has been sick all week and so their family had no plete (that is the word for money you use for transportation.)  I was so amazed.  He is such a good example of the importance of coming to church!

One cool thing that makes me feel like I definitely fit in here is everyone loves basketball.  Every night there is a game around where we teach, and every night the place is full to the brim.  It is just like a junior high level game too.  But everyone gets so into it and is so loud the whole time.  Its like a Utah State game crowd excitement, with a less amount of people.  One time these kid asked us if we want to play, we didn't, but I did shoot the ball really quickly.  I air balled it... I am blaming it on the fact that I was wearing a skirt rather then the fact that I haven't played in a very long time

Anyways I love it here, I hope you are all happy and your lives are wonderful!

Sister Hancock

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.