And Then There Were 2

Dear family,

After playing a few intense games of survivor I am proud to say I am one of the last survivor.  Sadly both sister Clegg and sister Sister Alvaro have gone. But serious face now.  Sister clegg left this week and it was cool because we got to meet her family.  Her family is touring the philippine and they came up to bogo and met us, and gave us food which was nice.  They also did a fireside here which was cool because we got to attend.  It was kind of funny seeing very american people interacted with filippinos.  I officially feel more comfortable with filippinos then I do with american americans.  I might have turned filippino on you guys, sorry.

Other than that I went on my first split as STL this week.  It was really fun, I went with sister Lapena in san ram.  They area is super close to a really cool ocean so It was really cool being there.  Ours is close to the ocean but its not cool.  I am going to learn a lot from all of these sister which I am excited for. 

As for cool spiritual stories of the week, so we have an RC in our area named ann.  She was baptized in our area while sister clegg was assign here before  (both her and sister alvaro were assign here before, sister clegg 4 months ago and sister alvaro 1 transfer ago, but they came back to finish the last little bit of their mission)  Anyway she experience a lot of opposition with getting baptized.  Her mother was extremely upset about it and did some really horrible things to her because of it.  After sister clegg left she became less active, but when sister clegg came back she decide she would come to church.  And now she is extremely determined to endure to the end, she tells us all the time that she wants to work with us. It really cool how god knows all of his children and how his plan is all about seeking after the one.  I know that god loves all of us so very much, its cool to see the miracles around us today.

I love you all so very much.  I hope you are all doing wonderful and looking forward to talking to me soon. What its almost christmas?  CRAZY!  I love you all, see you soon.

Sister Hancock 

Sorry I forgot the picture until just barely.  The first one is me in san ram on splits.  The beach is so pretty there, and there was a ridiculous amount of boats in the ocean.  The second one is the actually had an american burger there.  I was in heaven.  I miss beef.  I haven't had beef in who knows how long.  It was a tasty experience!

Craziest Week Ever

Dearest Family,

Well these past few days have officially been the craziest of my mission.  For starters I transfered up to bogo on thursday, which is an extremely long ride.  Two hours after getting there we found out we were being evacauted out for the storm.  So we spent the rest of the night letting the sisters know we were being evacuated and telling people to go to the church so that they could have a safe shelter for the storm.  Thank goodness, and the answer of a lot of prayers and fasting here, the storm wasn't as bad as what they thought it would be.  But that could actually be false because it is really hard to get quality information here as a mission.  Before the storm I heard everything from it was bigger the yolanda to there was actually no storm coming, we literally had no idea what to execpt, but it was a lot more organized in yolanda.  

Anyways so we got here and we had a few days with nothing to do, we couldn't go on splits with the sisters here because transfers just happened and no one new their area (which is really important here in the philippines seeing as there is no addresses, its kind of different then in america).  So we ended up visiting our old areas, which was really good.  I went back to lapu-lapu and saw all of my converts there.  It is really amazing how much the have progress, I am so proud of them.  And hopefully I will be able to see the Ligan family's sealing because they said the wanted to invite me and the said it was happening in June, just before I go home.  Also apparently my arms have gotten fatter on my mission, but nothing else, I am a lot browner, and I am a lot better at the language, which is good to hear.  It is amazing what changes can happen in a year haha.

Then the next day we went to sister cleggs old area and I went on splits and we pretty much tracked, but I was thinking hopefully it will get me more prepared to be an STL.

Then the storm happened, which here it wasn't bad at all, it was really just rain, but we were at a loss of what to do with out an area in a storm, so we ended up helping planning for the chirstmas party this week.  Then we went to the mission presidents house for dinner and ended up sharing a message with his family (because his family was there for christmas).  That... Was Terrifying... And also probably the only time me and my quadpanionship will ever all teach together.  It was a cool experience.  Oh I love my quadpanionship.  It wouldn't work in any other situation, except this one, its great.

All of that, plus some of my companions going home super soon made emotions run high.  But despite the rollercoaster it was a great time.  We are all looking forward to going back to our area and checking out the damage.  Hopefully that will happen today, but we are still waiting on the area presidencies decision.

But anyways, we are doing well, and we are all in good health, and life is good.  I hope you guys are enjoying the chirstmas season in , and I hope you guys are well and happy.  Love you all so much!

Sister Hancock

Biggest News Since the Age Change

Dear Family,

I am breaking a missionary world record... Next transfer I have a QUADPANIONSHIP.  Literally I have 3 other companions.  Sister Clegg, Sister Alvaro, and Sister Sears.  I kill sister Alvaro in the first week that we are companions, and I kill Sister Clegg the third week of our companionship.  I am also becoming STL in Bogo.  How we are going to work? I don't know.  How we are going to do companionship study, I don't know.  How are we going to go on splits with the sisters, I honestly don't know.  All I know is we are a quadpanionship.  I am literally shocked beyond belief right now.  All those questions will be answered in the next e-mail.

Also I don't know if you guys have heard about the typhoon could hit here tomorrow, BUT I just want you guys to know I am in an incredibly safe area, and close to the mission office so don't worry about me at all.

As far as this week, it has been a very good week.  We had a Recent Convert family come back to church, and the haven't come to church in over six months.  We were really excited.  I really will miss this area.  I really love the ward here.  The relief society told us her conversion story this week, about when she was baptized.  She told us her family beat her, but she kept going to church and stayed a strong member, and now she is seeing so many blessings from that.  Even though sometimes it is hard, we all need to hold on to the gospel because that is were all of our blessings come from.

Anyways I am kind of still in shock, so I can't really add much details, but thats my life, you will find more about it next week.

I love you all so much!  I hope you are doing wonderful!  Keep being amazing!

Sister Hancock

Belated Birthday?

Dear Family,

This week has been full of temptations, haha just kidding.  But we have had an unusual amount of people try and talk us in to doing karaoke (filipinos love karaoke).  On of our investigator went through, "its not in the ten commandment",  and "god wants us to be happy".  Apparently you need karaoke to be happy, who would have thought?

This Sunday was also pakio (i don't know how to spell that) sunday.  He is a boxer that filipinos love, which mean no one, even members, went to church.  There were throngs of people surrounding tvs in the street.

Other then that I continued to celebrate my birthday, which was great.  On Tuesday my district bought a cake for me which was fun and I got package, on Wednesday on of the members in our ward cooked sweet spaghetti (which is what filipinos eat for birthdays), and on friday we had more cake, which wasn't for me, but you know I can pretend haha.  

Its been a good week, I really love this area.  I hope you are all doing well.  I love you all so much and am praying for you.  Keeping being awesome!

Sister hancock

Salamat Kaayo!

Dear family,

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes.  Sorry if my responses were shorter.  Just know there is a lot of you, but I love you all so much.

So, so far my birthday has been really great.  I woke up this morning at 530 because there was this crazy thunderstorm that literally shoke our house.  There was thunder literally every 30 seconds and the light outside was really creepy, like twilight zone light.  There was shoots of "the second coming is here" and "china has finally done".  But now the weather is normal, so you know we are all fine.  Lets see after that my companion decorated my desk, I decided I hated hair fall so I got a really quick hair cut from my companion, ninyo (the one that got married) made us breakfast, they gay man we take some of our laba to gave us flower pens he made, and now all of you email me.  Thanks to all of you for making my birthday so great!

Sooo, work this week.  Well I thought I would tell you about one of our investigators named malou.  First off in Filippino culture they really like mixing languages, I didn't really understand it when I got here, but then you grandually adopt things from the culture you live in, and now I love it, I have a really hard time speaking straight english.  Anyways she is native chibracano.  So during the course of the lesson she literally mixes 4 languages chibracano, tagalog, bisaya, and english.  Every other sentence is a different langues.  It keep us on our seat.  You never know whether you are going to understand a sentence.  She is really nice and really love missionary and asked us to sleep at her house like 20 time, and we had to tell her like twenty times it wasn't allowed.

We also have this really crazy less active old man that we teach that literally text us 5 times a day the craziest message.  It keeps us laughing through out the day.

Other then that we went on splits this week, and I went with sister T which was fun.  And sorry I have to cut this email short.  But I love you all so much and hope live is great for all of you.  Know I love you and am praying for you.

Sister Hancock

gialsa ang balay?

Dearest loved ones,

How are you?  I hope you are happy and finding joy in the journey.

This week has been really good.  We have a crazy CSP this week.  Get this, we literally moved a house.  No we did not move people from one house to another, we literally took apart a house, took the roof and the walls and moved them to a new location and then built the house again.  I have built a  house. actually I didn't really do it because filippinos don't really like letting sisters help so most CSP just invovle us trying really hard to help and the walls and roofing getting taken away from us and us just ending up watching.  But it was really cool, only in the Philippines...

Sorry to leave you all on the cliff hanger last week about Analyn,  So I have some bad news and some good new.  The bad news is she decided not to be baptized, sister mccurdy and I thought it was a permenant decision, until she came to church this sunday, and now I am really hoping she continues in Manila.  She has gotten her answer, and has told us several times she knows its trues, hopefully she is just will to make the sacrifices necissary.  The good news is the day after analyn dropped us, we found this really gold investigator.  Like she asked a ton of questions asked us if we had a book, told us she wanted to learn more about mormons for a while, and at the end of the lesson committed to baptism.  We have only taught her once, so I might be counting my chickens before they hatch this time, but she really seems to have so much pontential to me.

Other then that I am doing well, I am really happy and really love the ward I am assigned to.  We are having a thanksgiving devotional today, so happy early thanksgiving to you all.  I love you all so much, and miss you all, have a good one!

Sister Hancock

Happy Holidays

To my wonderful family,

Well this week was full of holidays here.  On tuesday consolacion had their huge fiesta, so all of consolacion was involved.  Mostly fiesta are just a lot of eating and drinking, and candles.  Then there was halloween, there were trick-or-treators in the area that I was teach our last lesson, because it is a richer area.  Its really cute, the say happy halloween, trick-or-treat in a really cute accent, I love filippino accents. Then Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 were all souls day and all saints day.  Which involves a lot of people going to cemeteries and getting drunk as well haha.  But it also means everyone is busy which is really unfortunate for missionaries.  So some days were harder to work then others, but I am telling you it was quite the party here haha.

Well updates on analyn, on tuesday we had a really good lesson and she commited to baptism, the on friday we found out she is moving to manila on november 18 and she isn't sure if she wants to get baptized before she is moving.  So no one really knows what is going on, but I guess I will just have to leave you on a cliff-hanger and you will have to wait for next week....

As for me, i got sick this week, but I feel fine now.  I just literally have no voice haha.  It was funny we were singing a hymn for companionship study and sometimes literally no sound came out, so I just had sister mccurdy sing by herself, and I laugh.  But hopefully my voice comes back eventually haha.

I love you all so much!  I hope that you all are happy and enjoying life! Love you,

Sister Hancock