Dec 20 2010

Feliz navidad. sounds like the fam is doing good. por fin tate finaly got his first deer. haha i got my first deer when i was like 7 and it was a 300 yard shot in the snow standing up in a tree. haha jk tate that is awesome i am proud of ya. but i am not proud that you are not shooting the ball in bball. if you want to win then shoot the ball. the worst that willl happen is it wont go in so shoot it every chance you get. so tiralo. that means shoot it. haha it sounds like everyone is having a great time. i liked the pics besides the fat one. haha i looked almost like a real mexican. jk but that was funny. i have actually lost weight here ive lost like 6 to 8 pounds of muscle. buts its ok i can stilll kick the trash out of tate. ahaha but this week was a bummer i am not going to lie. we knocked about 400 doors and got 13 news and maybe 2 of those will get baptized. it is frustrateing when you teach em all and they feel the spirit and then they reject it. i hate when that happens. we even ask them what do you have to do to know if this is true. they are like read pray and go to church and then they dont do it. it is frustrateing. but everyone has there agency but when they feel it and know it and then reject it is tough. but yeah. we did find some cool people though. we had a cool experience with this one family that we taught. we taught her and her 2 daughters and we asked her to pray at the end and we told her to ask if this church is true and she did it and started chokeing up and holding her chest and the spirit was way strong. she recieved her answer right there on the spot which was way sweet. but they didnt go to church so we need to focus on that with them this week. we didnt have any baptisms because guadalupe the one that backed out on us the other week had a wedding for her sister so we need to still talk to her. and madaline didnt go to church again this week and we even passed by her to go and she wasnt there or didnt wake up to answer the door. but on the bright side we have 3 baptisms planned for christmas which should be way fun. one her name is rosana she is our neighbor and the other is oliver and his mom. oliver is 18 and his moms name is weird i would have to look in my planner but they are way cool. also we might be able to baptize leonardo and his wife we are not sure. we are going to talk to president this week to see what we can do for them. . but we dont know so we are going to talk to pres and see because they want to get baptized. we did a special fast for them this week so pray that everything goes well. i love this work and i am so excited to talk to everyone not as excited as mom but i am excited. haha. but la verdad i have no clue when i am going to be able to call you guys because we are going to have those baptisms. i think we will do it in the morning and that would be best. so plan on us calling you in the morning but i am not sure depending on when we have the baptisms. so plan on getting a call in the morning. we are either going to use the phone in the hermanas house next to us or the phone at judiths. so am just going to call you from there and then you just call back so you pay for it. sound good? haha but sorry i dont have an exact time. it is because we are going to have a white christmas. haha but plan on getting a call in the morning. but yeah that is pretty much it for now. but i love you all and i will talk to you on christmas.
Elder hancock

Dec 13 2010

all is good here in aucapulco. i am aficialy staying here for another change which is a answer to my prayers. de verdad i didnt want to leave here because we have alot of people that can get baptized and alot of good investigators. this is really a area that is really growing and there are alot of people ready to recieve the gospel.

but like i was saying i love this area and i am still with elder roskelly. we realy get along really well and i believe that we make a really good team when we teach so that is good. this week we when to a old peoples home or casa de ancianos and we hung out with them from like 10 to 5 in the afternoon. it was way fun. there was a lady there that had read the whole book of mormon and is like yeah i know this book is true and she was like 90 it was pretty cool. the house is like right in front of where we live and we had no idea that it was there. there is a huge fence so we had no idea what was behind it. but it was way fun. we played bingo with all of them and that helped me learn alot of new words in spanish so that was good. i helped feed this dude that couldnt feed himself. i also taught a 90 year old the joseph simth story and then i also all the workers there talked to us and i contacted them so all in all it was a really good experience. before that on tuesday this week. we were going to visit leaondardo and his wife to see if they got there birth certificates to see if they can get married but they werent home and i saw this girl sitting in the front door. and i told my comp hey we need to talk to them. we did and turns out the grandma is there and is a member but wants nothing to do with the church. we taught the daughter and grandaughter and i told them straight up that we had no clue that that lady was a member and we felt we should talk to them and was like there is no coincidences and i know they felt the spirit but they were scared to admit it because of their mom and grandma. but that was pretty cool. also we had more divisions this week because we had people that needed to get intervviewed to be baptized. so i stayed here and had elder carlos our zone leader with me. it was alot of fun. we found alot of cool people throughout the day just always haveing in your mind that your going to find walking from cita to cita even when you are busy. also the other day on like the 12th was a mexican holiday for the virgin guadalupe that the catholic church worshipes here and we saw this kid that we have taught before and we were like why didnt you go to church and he was like i dont know and we were like well go tomorrow and he is like i cant and we were like why not and he said because of this holiday for the virgin guadalupe . after reading the book of mormon. in reality alma and amulek and ammon and all of them just told people how it was and in reality we need to be like that too. yeah we need to have love and charity but when something is wrong then its wrong. i thought you guys would like that story. haha but this week we had 2 baptisms that fell through because one is she wantsto have her uncle come and he couldnt come this week so we are doing it this next week. the other one is named guadalupe and she lives with a member family because her husband is a member. this week she was way pumped to get baptized. she had been having problems with her mom telling her stuff and her mom and we told her. who doesnt want you to get baptized and she was like satan and we were like who wants you to get baptized and she was like god. and we said who are you going to follow and she said god and she was way pumped and stufff and we were going to do it right before church and we got a call that morning that she didnt want to do it. we talked to the fam at the church and they said she was with her mom after the interview so we are going to go back and talk to her. she knows it is true and has felt the spirit so i think she will come around. but we did have 2 conformations so for this month we already have 4 and we have alot more to go so we are pumped this week. today we got a new zone leader with elder carlos and elder norris left. im going to miss elder norris he was way cool but he new dude seems cool too but yeah that is pretty much it for the day. we dont have meetings today so thats why we are typing a little later. but everything is going good here. we had 9 investigators at church this week which was good but the bad thing is 6 need to get married. haha so we really need to work and that and help them. but yeah this was my week. and sounds like everone is doing great in texas. i love you all and am gratefull for all your support.

ps. i heard today i have a bunch of packages in cuernavaca so i should get them the 23rd so they did get there.

con amor, elder hancock

Dec 6 2010

hello fam. it sounds like all is good in texas. this week was a great week. yesterday we confirmed judith and we baptized her daughter that just turned 8 after church. and before church we baptized suzie. she is 9 and her sister is a member and her grandparents are really strong members. her parents are investigating the church and the dad told us he is 70 percent sure that the church is true. the spirit was really strong at the baptism and we are going to talk with them this week and try and see if we can set a baptism date for the parents. so sunday was a busy day for us. we still need to confirm yuritzy. we stopped by their house and the dad said that he couldnt make it to church because of a problem with his son. so she didnt come. the story with them is that they know the church is true and they have desire to go but they are dirt poor. you saw the picture of all the little girls that they have. . he said that he really wants to got to the temple with his family and be sealed. we didnt even teach him that and he told us that. so they are way cool. they just have alot of trials that they need to overcome. but yuritzy is awesome she knows everything that we have taught her and more. we will make sure she makes it to church this week. this week we found this cool kid his name is oliver. he is 18 and i knocked his door and talked to him. i asked him if he believed and god and religion and something like that and he was like he had his douts and i was like what kind. he said like why are there so many churches and confusion and stuff. i was like well let me tell ya about someone that had that same doubt. it was way cool he really liked it and accepted to be baptized. he just didnt go to church this week so we will see what happened there. he probably just didnt wakeup on time. and slept in. . haha but another way cool experience was we knocked the house of this lady her name was melina and her friend was there and her name was karina. at frist they didnt seem like they were listening really well to our lesson about the restoration and then melina started to open up and tell us that she went to one of our churches when she was in the u.s. she said that she felt peace and comfort there. i told her that we pray every night where we need to go as missionarries and us being there is no coincidence and when i said that karina began to cry when i said that and i just bore my testimony and we asked her what was up. and karina told us a experience she had that one day when she was feeling depressed and alone. she prayed and went to bed and had a dream where she saw a man dressed and white and his hands where spread out and extended toward her. she said she felt comfort and peace and she wasnt alone. she said that last night she felt the same way and began to pray and she had the same dream last night that she had had before. she said that when i said that there was no coincidences that she felt that same peace and love that she felt and she was crying all through this story and she was like i feel it here and held her heart. she was feeling the spirit way strong and so were we. i felt it way strong when she was telling her story. we comitted to baptism and to go to church. we told them that they would feel the same peace and comfort if they went and they didnt come. i feel they will bebaptized but we need to stress the importance of church again. we had 5 in church so that wasnt bad but we should have alot more. but that was a way cool experience this week. God really is prepareing those that are ready for the gospel we just need to find them or members need to find them and then tell us. haha but yeah this week was good.we should continue to have alot of success this month which is good. we have changes this saturday and dont know if we are leaving i dont want to because of all of out success that we have lined up but we will see. my comp has been in the same zone here his whole mission so who knows. haha but i sent some pics one is a family that is in the ward. he is the patriarch with the hat he is so funny. they are way cool. we dont have a bishop right now because he moved out of the area so that answeres that question. haha. but yeah everything is good here and i am loving every min of it. tell the kids i love em and to keep up the good work. and thank you mom and dad for all you do. i still have'nt got the packages. i dont know whats up.i have faith i will get them. christmas should be good. i will write you the details about that next week. but love ya i got to go. elder hancock

November 29 2010

que paso......... whats up fam. things are going really good here in mexico. yesterday was a little disapointing but it is all good. we had our baptism this week on saturday with yuritzy. she is like 10 or 11 and she is going to be the next profeta. she is way smart. when we teach her and her family she is the one answering all of the questions. we baptized her in the beach in front of the princess hotel. it was pretty cool. the problem was she didnt make it to church this week and didnt get confirmed. her mom got called into work and her dad got sick. so this week she needs to go to church. and also judith still hasnt got confirmed either. she got a new boss and her scheduale has been crazy. she knows she needs to got to church so we are going to help her with that this week. so this month we baptized 6 and only confirmed 4. so our monthly goal was 5 so we didnt get it because they havent been confirmed yet. but its all good. we are going to plan to teach all of our investigators of the importance of recieveing the gift of the spirit and the importance of going to church. this month we have the possibility to baptize 9 this month. so we are excited to go to work and try to lead the mission with baptisms this month. we can do it but people need to go to church. so that is whats going to happen. but that is awesome that you guys had a fun thanksgiving. me and my comp for thanksgiving planned 2 dinner appointments instead of 1 haha. it was fun. this p day as a zone and another zone we went bowling. it was way fun. haha i had to show everyone all up like always. haha but thats cool that joel has been doing really good. i love that kid. he sent me a little note. did the fam in utah get to go see him play. also i wanted to wish you and dad a happy anniversary and thank you guys for being awesome parents for me. you are both great examples to me and have always been there for me. thank you. but yeah this was pretty much my week this week. we have this month set up really well to have alot of baptisms we just need to go to work and do it. we are way pumped. also it sounds like teisha had alot of fun on her trip. and sounds like tate is ready to tear it up in basketball. it is crazy how every one is all growing up. i remember when i tried out for basketbal in the seventh grade and all that stuff. it is nuts how time flys. but the language is coming. there are still times in lessons when i dont know what is going on. lessons i understand really well. its when i get out of lessons i need to learn alot more. so im trying to work on that and try to talk to as many people i can to learn as fast as possible. i still catch myself makeing stupid little mistakes. so i need to continue working hard on that. but yeah that is pretty much it for this week. just time to go to work for this new month and do our best. but love you all so much. oh yeah i havent got the packages yet because the zone leaders havent been in cuernavaca to get them yet. so i should get them this week. so dont worrry. . but love you all so much.

elder hancock

Nov 22 2010

thanks fam for all the updates. sounds like everyone is doing great. that is awesome that tate ison the ateam. also itis good to hear that joel is doing way good. i love that kid. tell him that he needs to get baptized and the only reason he is balling is because i taught him everything that he knows. haha. also tell jron that he needs to be baptized as well. they all need to listn to the missionarries and get baptized. haha but i am serious. that is good that tim is doing good. tell joel and tim and all of them that they can email me. they are my brothers so they can send me a quick note. all the mail takes too long here and it is way expensive so it would be fine if you gave them my email. also all our fam members too like cousins and stuff. but that is good that you got to go see cj play and hang out with him. but this week was good. we had a baptism for sunday but the family didnt show up for some reason. they are way cool so we are going to find out what happened tonight. she will get baptized this week though. the parents really want to be baptized too but isreal the dad needs to divorse his wife that lives and the states and get married to his girlfriend that he is with now he really wants to and is doing everything he can to get it done. we fasted for him and the other couple that need s to get married. we talked with the 1st counsilor in the bishop ric and they are going to help with money. so that will be good. i know fasting and prayer is power so it will all work out if they continue to do there part. we have had to drop a few people week which is sad. last week we dropped the couple we met in the cab that were suppost to be our first baptisms. they dont understand the aurthority and we were bold and plain with them that the church they go to doesnt have the authority and fullness of the gospel. we were really plain and bold with them and dropped them it was sad to see because they know so much but arent willing to sacrifice just a little to go to church. it stinks to drop people but if they cant progress we need to find others that will. but it is all good. we had a cool experience this week that goes right along with the quote that you gave me today. we went to these investigators to set appointments and after we were going to contact so we talked to them and went to contact. we already contacted this whole area we were at or thought we did. and i look over and this gate was open to this whole other area we hadnt seen before and we went in and first door was a inactive member and she let us in. and all of her grandkids and kids that live with her are member and inactive. she has one daughter that isnt and we talked and talked to her. we made it clear that we were lead by the spirit to be here and it was a powerful lesson. we teach her again this week so hopefully it goes well. she has been taugtht before but we feel this is her time now. oh and a funny story , but this week this older lady like 50 or so. when we left the house i shook her hand and she pulled me in and gave me a kiss on the cheek. it all happened so fast i didnt know what to do. haha so yeah you gave someone a hug this week and someone gave me a kiss this week. and i am fine with food and all that. i have money and stuff so i am good. i ate a really hot small pepper this week at a members house and thought i was going to die but i survived. ha ha. oh and this week we had zone conference with the pres and his wife. they came here for a day and taught us some good stuff. they are so funny his wife is taller than him and they are awesome. haha but it was a good conference. he talked about alma 32 and how the word of god is compared to a seed. i love that chapter. he applied this to missionary work. it was way good. i learned alot. oh and we can baptize whereever we want too as long as there is enough water. and the ocean was not dangerous. we would of been just fine. hermana marian just worries too much. . she is 65 and looks like she is 40. . i told her what you said and that your thankful and stuff. she said that you can come stay with her any time. she has five houses and no one lives in them. ahaha but shes funny. but yeah we baptize whereever the investigator wants too. that is sad to hear that hermana dube passed away. that is crazy. make sure you pass my condolances with the family. also you better of sold my michael jorden jersy for bro pruett. i forgot to tell you to do that. so you better do that for him. but yeah i think that is all from here. if your sending another package i now need sandals because i left them at the zone leaders house and we met them today and they left my stuff and my comps stuff on the buss. so they lost my sandals my air force shorts and a nike shirt. so some day i might see a mexican where my air force shorts. ahaha but i need more nike sandals. ahaha. but i think that is all. i love you all so much. i should have 2 more baptisms this week. so it should be a goood. week. i love this gospel and i love talking to the people here. i am starting to teach better i feel. oh yeah also this week we found a neighbor right by us that lived in utah for a long time and knows about the church. he had a girl friend that was a member and he had a kid with her. his kid still lives there and is being raised in a mormon family. he is married now here in mexico but he was telling us about his life and really opened up to us. he was in jail and had a jailmate that had a book of mormon and he would read it out loud. he said that he felt peace and comfort when the old man read the book of mormon out loud and it made him to want to change. he said how he wants to help kids out to stay off the streets and all these good things but doesnt know how. it was all in english and was weird to teach in english. like it was hard to teach principles in english but it was much easier for me to take the experiences he shared and apply it to the gospel and how it will help him in his life. i want to be able to do that in spanish. at times i dont understand there experiences fully when they just go off in spanish. like i know the general idea most of the time but i sometimes i miss important details that i could relate to the gospel. thats why i use the spirit but i feel im getting better each day with my spanish. so i keep working. but who would of thought we would of found a mexican that lived in utah for most of his life. hahaa it was sweet. that was another miracle this week. so god knows his children and knows who we need to find. we just need to find them. so we got to keep up the good work this week. i love you all. thanks for all of your support and prayers it really means alot to me. love you and i will talk to next week.

Nov 15 2010

what up fam. we have a district meeting in a hour so i cant be on too long. but this week was pretty crazy. our baptisms did go through wich was way cool but satan certainly did all he could to stop it but he will never win. lets just say that prayer is power and satan will never win. and yesterday we baptized them but before we were going to do it in a tank thing but she text us while we were with the zone leaders eating and she didnt have the key to it. so we met them at the beach and the member we live by wouldnt let us go in the beach because she said it was too dangerous so she talked to this security guard and we got into this nice hotel right next to the beach and baptized them in the huge pool it was sick. haha the spirit was strong and it was way cool. we baptized her, her 22 year old son and her 10 year old daughter. it was way cool. we also had our stake conference this week and had a investigator there that knows for shure this is the true church. elder bednar and elder Erying spoke and it was way good. elder bednar compared inspiration to when we walk in a dark room and turn on the light. he said this doesnt happpen verry often but what does happen often is like in the morning when the sun rises gradually and recieve inspiration like that. he even said alot of times its a foggy day but you still know the sun is riseing. so most of the time you dont know your thoughts and actions are guided by the spirtit but they are. that is like every day on the misison. we dont know exactly every thought and every where we are guided is by the spirt but every day we knock a door and find a escogido or a inactive member we know we are being lead by the spirit. those type of things are not coincidences but they are not these big inspirations that make us go where we go. its like the sun when it gradually rises in the morning. i really liked that. then pres ireing talked on heritage. and i thought that was cool because the people we are teaching are from the heritage of the people in the book of mormon. so that was way good. today we played bball and volleyball at the church that was fun. haha but sounds like all is good in texas and tate had a good year in football and teisha is doing good in tennis. keep up all the great work. and make sure to tell all the youth to not be afraid to open their mouth and share the gospel to their friends. all of our baptisms have come from friends of members. all 5 of my baptisms are from freinds from members. it is so important that a investigator has a friend. tell them to have family nights with the missionarries and the missionarries teach the lesson in family night and they invite their friends. it is fun for the family the friends and for the missonarries. this is one of the best ways i think. so have them invite friends to their family nights and have the missionarries come over. it doesnt have to be just monday they can do that other days of the week. when they feed the misisonarries invite a friend to come over to eat as well. if they are afriad to talk about the gospel that is why the misisonarries are there. the missionarries will know what to do. but yeah thats pretty much all i got for this week. we knocked this ladies house this week that just started crying when she saw who we were so we will see how she ends up. it was nuts. but just little things like this are awesome and remimds me each day i am doing the lords work. i love it and love mexico. haha oh and yess i want a backpack that has that water pack in it but dont make it too big. just big enough to carry my scriptures but yes i want one of those. but love yall verry much. nos vemos.

Nov 8th 2010

thanks fam for all the updates. i dont have that much time so i will try to type really fast. this weeks was really awesome. we found 28 new investigators this week and we had a whole convey or van full of investigators to church. the lady that we live by is a member and she hooks us up. she is a doctor here. she gives us food each night and even offered to do our laundry but we wouldnt let her. she was inactive at first but now she is on fire. she has been loading us with references and all of her references went to church. this one reference her name is judith is awesome. she has a son that is 22 and 2 little daughters her husband died and she has cancer. we gave her and her family blessings last sunday and have taught them this week. they are getting baptized this saturday. she got up and bore her testimony in church and she sounds like a member already. it was really cool. she gave us all of her coffee that she drinks every day and her son gave up smokeing. the gospel has really changed their lives in a week and a half and she is over her depression and stuff. it was really cool. we are teaching her neihbors right next to her and the husband owns the van and is the one that gave everyone a ride to church. they know the church is true as well and are getting baptized in 2 weeks. they joined a lesson this week so we taught 2 families at once and they want to do it again this week. its nuts. is us 2 white dudes teaching like 20 mexicans at once. haha its awesome. So out of the 28 people we found 11 came to church and they were all references from a member. so give the missionarries references. us missionarries shouldnt even have to knock doors. the members should have a desire to share the gospel and go with the missionarries to them and it is almost a guarantee baptism but the members need to do their part. so do your part. haha but we also knocked this door this week and this lady told us that she just felt she needed to talk to us and she wants to get baptized to and has stopped smokeing. we taught this other lady that told us this crazy experience when she was in a coma and was up with christ and they were about to pull the plug but he told her she had more work to do. it was crazy she wants to be baptized too but she has to get married so might take a little longer. and the parents of the kids that we baptized are on fire but they still need to be marrried and get all the paper work worked out. but yea today was a awesome week. we met all of our goals this week and were really blessed. we just need to keep up the good. work. it sounds like teisha had a fun time. i want some pics. tate keep up the good work in the sports.haha i like what dad said about there is never a bad day working for the lord. it is true. its all good. today we went to the beach and played beach football. it was alot of fun there were 8 of us. it was sweeet. its beautiful here. no we dont have restrictions on being home early. we are safe dont worry mom. and yes i want lot and lots of food. what ever food you can stuff. give it to me. haha also i can have a air force hat here. i wear my air force gear everywhere. so yes i can wear the hat. but yeah all i can think of is food. and find me a sick vintage tie. haha and yeah get my comp a texas shirt and a tie or something with lots of food. all i can think i want is food. so give me food. next week ill try to send you picks i dont have time now. but all is good here. love you lots.