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.

And the new food of the week is . . . Buwad

To those on the other side of the computer,

I hope that where ever you my be life is going well.  So I have some news, I felt my first earthquake, it was actually an aftershock from the big earthquake here, apparently after shocks happen all the time here.  It was really small, but it was still the first one I ever felt which was crazy.

On other news I had buwad this week.  It is really disgusting.  Its dry salted fish that smells horrible and for some reason filippinos love it.  I don't understand it.  If you come to the philippines that is one thing I would definitely not recommend trying.

We are also still seeing success here in Ubay.  We got news that our little group can now officially become a branch wahoo!  But now we have to help them look for people who would be good leaders here and help them find a meeting house because once they officially become a branch they can no longer meet in our apartment (which will be kind of nice for us, because it involves a lot less cleaning on our part).  Also the Pinero family came to church again, wahoo!  Right now their baptism is schedule pretty far away because we can only teach them once a week and we have yet to teach them Word of Wisdom which they probably have some problems with, and we will have to wait four week from whenever they stop that so it will probably be a little while before they get baptized, but they are fantastic.  They live a hour a way from church, but still make the sacrifice to come.  They are the best.

On thing I also want to talk about one thing that I have been learn that the holy ghost really does.  This week when the spirit was really strong in the lessons our investigators would always talk about how much the understood.  One of our investigators said, as soon as I had a question in my mind you answered it.  Its crazy too me whenever they talk about that because there is always a language barrier, but it really is the holy ghost that is the really teacher of us all.  We are so blessed as members of the church to have the gift of the holy ghost, it is one of the greatest gift of god.  Always live worthy to have to holy ghost influence in your lives.

I love you all. Continue being the great people you are and I know god will bless you for it.

Sister Hancock

P.S.  Sorry I am not sending picture, it says dili pwidi saksakan USB kay mo hang, and I don't know exactly what that mean so I am just avoiding the posibility of getting all my pictures erased because that has been know to happen here.

Beloveds

To my beloveds,

I am glad to hear you all had a great time at our family reunion!  I am sad I couldn't be there, but I still love you all anyways.

Anyways my life this week.  So the Pinero family came to church again and the want to be baptized which is great!  It is kind of crazy teaching them because their native language is chibracano (excuse the miss spelling) we read the tagalog book of mormon with them and I teach in bisaya.  (Sister T trys to teach in tagalog since they under stand that better, she always tells me she has no idea how she learn tagalog too.  I mix in a few tagalog word every now and then... Okay mostly I just teach in bisaya, a lot of times they have a hard time understanding me but what ever they still want to be baptized, and the spirit is the real teacher anyways right?)  but they are a super great family, they always read and they children are adorable and really well behaved, which is great for me because me and sister T are pretty much the primary teachers/nursery teachers for our group.  We teach them in our room so our room gets really messy after church.

I also had to give another talk this sunday.  Hopefully I will get really good at public speaking after being in this group.  The good news is I no longer write me talks, you know I just kind of go with the flow.

I also got to preach to a crowd this week hahaha.  We started off teach the old lady and we were standing and teaching her since she didn't have a chair,and little little the whole neighborhood came to watch.  I felt like all I needed was a box and then I would be doing it like old times.  The invited us to "preach" to them all again, but we said we do more house to house visits haha.

Anyways I love you, and hope you are all doing great and seeing blessing that comes from living the gospel.  I love you all so very much!

Sister Hancock

P.S. The picture are of me fight we a carabo (the use those to plow rice feilds, its the coolest), and sister T with our primary class.

Brown Out

Dear family,

Sorry if my replys were short today, we had a brown out during email time, so I have very little time to actually write you, sorry!

But I am glad to hear you all enjoyed your fourth of july.  While you guys were watching fire works at night, I was watching a baptism in the ocean during the day.  The elders in my group had a baptism.  I had to give a on the spot talk during it, but I guess I will have to get used to that, being in a group and all.  But the baptism really was way awesome, we went to a really pretty beach and the spirit was really there.

In other new, Sister T and I saw a lot of success this week.  We had a lot of our investigators at church this week.  Due to lack of time, I won't go into as many details as I like about them, but just know they are really great

Other then that life has been good.  And again sorry for the short email.  Next week it will be long a juicy

I love you all so much!  I miss you all and am constantly praying for you!

Sister Hancock

Peak into paradise

To my beloved family,

I wish I could capture through picture how beautiful this place is where I live.  I really have tried so hard, but none of my pictures so far have done it any justice.  I really live in paradise.  There are just rice fields and trees and oceans and beauty, its amazing.  I can't even explain it, but I will continue to try through pictures.  Of course I can't do that if the pictures won't upload which is what is happening right now...

So tomorrow I officially have a year left of my mission,  That is so weird, time goes by so fast.  I still feel like I am so new to this whole mission thing and now I only have a year left. Life...  My companion will have 6 months left of her mission next week and she says she still feels new as well, so maybe I will never feel experienced.

Other then that it has been raining like crazy here.  Yesterday I was walking through rain up to my calf.  And then when you teach lessons the rain is so loud your really can't here each other.  The whole lesson is shouting "what did you say".  But its fine haha, I guess the spirit is the really teacher anyway right?

Also this week I learned to suck an eye ball of a fish so that I could eat it.  It literally took me forever to get it and everyone was just laughing the whole time I was sucking on the fish (which that definitely would not of happened before my mission).

Also this week I got to go on splits with Sister Davis my trainer since she is now my STL.  It was great, they slept over since ubay is so far away from everything, then they had to leave at 4 in the afternoon to be able to get back on time, but it was quite enjoyable.

Other then that the work is going well.  We have been able to find some really cool people this week.  I will update you more about that next week.  I hope you are all doing well and you party it up on the 4th for me.  I love you all and am constantly praying for you!

Sister Hancock

Where in the world is Sister Hancock? (Guess before you open)

Dear family,

If you guessed Ubay, Bohol (which I honestly don't know how you would) you are right!  Ubay is, obviously in Bohol, and is super super bukid, which I guess is kind of comparable to the country. There are a lot of rice fields and carabou.  It is also sooo pretty here, I have already fallen in love with this area.  My new companion is Sister Tiniacavaraba, Sister T for short.  She is from Fiji and cracks me up all the time, she is great. I actually met her before when I went to the MTC for a day with LJ and Kaylie (she was Sister Clegg's companion)  She is also super bisdak (good at bisaya) which I am grateful for because you definitely learn more bisaya if your companion is good at it.  She is so bisdak that people always ask her if she is half filipino then when they ask I tell them no but I am.

Lets see my experiences in Ubay so far, well we ride motorcycles everywhere and sometimes it is interesting trying to fit 3 people on the same motorcycle, but I love motorcycles haha.  No one tell mom but I want to get a motorcycle when I come home, they are so fun.  But it was definitely interesting learning how to ride a motorcycle in a skirt at first, now I am pro though so no worries.  I have changed so much since my mission, I am a coke drinking, motorcycle riding girl now hahaha.

Our ward is actually an unofficial group that meets in my apartment for church.  On Sunday there were eight normal members at church, then counting the  missionaries the kids and the investigators there was a total of 20 people.  Not strong in numbers, but you know strong in spirit I guess.  I am excited though, it will be a really cool experience.  I will probably have to give a lot of on the spot talks and teach classes all the time, but it will be great.

So one of the picture is me drinking straight from a coconut, which was quite enjoyable, and then the other one is houses that you commonly find here.  They build their house on the shore and have those walk-ways for high tide.  The walkways are pretty sketch actually and you always have to walk really slowly other wise you might step on a rotten bamboo stick and fall through.