Where in the World is Sister Annika Hancock?

Dear family,

another transfer  has come and passed and it again raises the question, where in the world is Sister Hancock?  Drum roll please........ CONSOLATION CEBU.  That is right, I got transfered back to the great island of cebu, only this time I actually live on cebu island and not on lapu-lapu island.   My area is really city and apparently our church has an elevator?  Which is completely COMPLETELY different then Ubay. My new companion is Sister Wolfe, an american.  I am excited I will hopefully send you cool pictures of my area later!

So as for the happenings of this week, well I did get to do something really cool.  I get to ride a carabo for the first time (which is an animal here that kind of looks like a bull that they use for plowing fields).  It was pretty legit.  I also got to drink carabo milk, which was the best milk I have had since I have been here, it was almost like milk back home (the milk here is really gross, all the have is powdered milk mostly).

As for the spiritually things, Lita came to church again wahoo!  She has a problem with priesthood so that is why she has yet to agree to be baptized, but tuesday we had a really good lesson about the book of mormon.  The spirit was really there, so we are hoping things go well, but I guess I would really get to see since I got transferred, that is the sad part of transfers is leaving everyone. It was really sad leaving the pinero family and brother dedios as well

Other then that I literally traveled for 8 hours today in order to get to cebu, and I had to pack all of my stuff this morning, so I am really exhaust, but I got a chance to take a picture of the boat we ride to get to cebu for you all.  I hope you enjoy that.

Anyways because my head is on low battery (that is how filipinos say they have a head ache, just a little bit of info for you)  I am cutting this email short.   But know I love you and am praying for you all and miss you all.

I love you

Sister Hancock

sorry I always forget to include them with the email, but this is the boat we rode today

Wet Market

Dear family,

Sorry if this email is kind of shorter, you all emailed me this week which is fantastic, but doesn't leave me as much time to write a big email.  But I request you guys have a family reunion every weekend so that you will miss me more so that I will end up getting more emails, its fantastic.

Anyways so at the begining of this week we went to tagbilaran for a mission conference.  (Tagbi is really far away so we didn't get to work for two days due to travel, it was very exhausting.)  It was really great though, I learned a ton and we also got to celebrate the missions 1 year birthday (wahoo we have been a mission for one year!)  and we also celebrated our mission presidents birthday.  So celebrating all around wahoo!

Also this week Lita and Casandra came to church.  Lita is an referral from a bishop in cebu.  She is really really awesome.  She hasn't been able to come to church because her grandson has been in the hospital, but this Sunday she came.  She is the nicest lady ever and always wants to feed us haha and she really wanted to come back

Casandra is the american who came here to marry a filipino but wasn't able to so now is kind of stranded, anyways she is a member but hadn't been to church for 4 month, but she missed it so much that she decided to walk and hour to get to the pinero's house so that they could give her a ride.  (she doesn't have plete or money for transportation).  That is a serious problem here that everyone lives to far a way so they can't go to church because its too expensive, but I guess we have discovered the solution, convert someone who lives close to them and has a tricicad so they can get a ride. Haha but it really but into perspective just how blessed we are to have church so close.  Seeing people sacrifice so much to come to church and partake of the sacrament really inspires me.

I hope we realized just how blessed.  Thank you all so much for your support for me, I couldn't do it with out you.  I love you all so much and pray for you everyday.  Next year I will just have to beat you all at golf

Love you tons, take care ha?

Sister Hancock

P.S. Here we have to buy everything from a wet market, and there is pig heads laying everywhere, its really gross

The ocean is a great place for a baptism

Dear family,

I hope this email finds you happy and excited to go back to school.  As for me I still have a year before I have to go back to school.  That is one of the advantages of serving a mission haha.

So this week has been really great!  The pinero family officially got baptized wahoo!!!  We were really blessed that day because it was high tide so they got to stay in close to do the baptism.  It was a really big blessing because the elders baptism before was low tide and we couldn't really see, much less hear what was going on.  But during their baptism we got to hear and see everything which was great.  The spirit was so strong too.  It was so cool to see a whole family get baptized together, that really is what missions are about. Helping families live together forever.  I am so glad we have that blessing.  It was really cute as well because after wards when they bore their testimony, Sister Pinero wrote her testimony so she could give it in bisaya.  The branch (we are a branch now wahoo!) was also really great because a lot of them came even though we have to go really far away to get clean ocean (the ocean by ubay is really gross as in if you walk in it with an open wound you could die, really REALLY gross), anyways they came and they gave their talks in tagalog so that they could understand.  I am starting to kind of a little bit understand tagalog, its great.

Other then that the work continues to progress.  Our current second counselor used to be less-active (probably because he lives an hour away from the church),  but ever since he has found out he was going to be the second counselor he has come to church every sunday. and for the past two sunday his wife has come with him as well.  She is not a member, so we are trying to really focus on them, its hard because they are always busy and they live an hour away from us (and riding on a motorcycle for an hour is kind of exhausting), but they are really really good!

Other then that I am doing really well.  I learn and grow everyday, although thankfully I am not yet fat.  I also still continue to eat new foods (I ate a salted egg yesterday, we looked really gross but it was actually completely fine) and still love living here and serving a mission.  I hope you are all happy.  Continue to be the great people you are! I love you all so much!

Sister Hancock

A new Branch

To my beloved family,

Hello, how are you all.  I am glad to hear you all enjoyed the wedding.  I was also celebrating on this side on the world.  We went on splits with the STLs that day (which I always have fun going on splits, and sister davis is still my STL so we had fun).  And the for dinner we had chicken adobo and mango floats to celebrate. I am thinking I will have to make that for you guys when I get back.  Then we had a sleep over, so you know, the whole world was just partying.

Good news this week, The pinero family passed their interviews, wahoo!!!!!!  I was pretty soaked although I almost fell asleep while waiting, because I don't know why but interviews here take forever and there was four of them getting interviewed.  So their baptism will be this Saturday, in the ocean.  I am excited to send you guys pictures.

Other good news, Ubay is official a branch, wahoo!!!!  So that means they are now looking for a different place to have church.  It been really cool to see our little group progress so much that we are now a branch.  Sacrament meeting was really cool too.  Our mission president came and talked about how before Ubay was randomly cut out of our mission boundaries and wasn't in the boundaries of anyone's mission.  They talked about how the devil was trying to keep the saints here from receiving blessing.  But now they have corrected that and there are 2 sets of missionaries here.  What a blessing it is to be able to serve here.

As well we were able to see the elders have a baptism this week.  I love baptisms, the spirit is always so strong and it makes you so excited about the work.  The work really is hastening and it is such a blessing to be able to witness that.  

I love you all and hope you are well and your testimonies are strong.  Keep on enduring to the end!

Sister Hancock

P.S.  The first picture is our branch presidency, the missionaries and my mission president and his wife when we became a branch.  We are standing outside of our apartment/church.  The second is the elders baptism.

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.