Email received 08/20/12

Hey Family,

This week went really well, but, Elder Johnson is still sick.  We are now thinking he has some kind of parasite.  So we are going to have to go to the doctors today. 

I had my first Confrencia de la Zona this week.  It went really well.  President Villarreal is going to be an apostle some day.  He is such a powerful man.  One of the Zone leaders talked about how on our tags we have three names.  The name of the Church, Christ's name, and the names of our families.  We are literally representatives of these people.  He said we always need to be thinking about these names and how they want us to represent them.  It was a really cool experience.  I really can't wait for the next one. 

I had my first... food that I really didn't know what part I was eating.  We went to eat carnitas (AMAZiNG!!!!!)  and we sat down and they brought us the tacos.  They said the meat wasn't puro.  It wasn't all just the pure meat on the pig.  It was everything.  It tasted good but the thing that got me was biting down and feeling something really crunchy and then chewy and  then soft.  Yeah that was a...good experience. 

We had two baptisms yesterday.  They are an amazing couple.  We just found them while we were contacting some random street.  It was a miracle that we found them.   The light in their eyes truly is amazing. 

Jesus had a relapse this week.  He has been out of a job and has been fasting and praying really hard to find a job.  He found this job that was perfect.  But he didn't get the job because he has a tattoo on his hand.  So he went and got drunk.  We went over there and he started talking to us and just broke down and cried.  Because of the guilt and shame he had.  At that moment we said it was ok.  We all fall en veses.  We all fall at times.  That in those times we fall and have trials is when we need to have faith to  pick ourselves up and keep going.  That we need to ask in "mighty prayer and supplication" for the Lord to forgive us.  We told him that his faith can be strengthened in this trial.  He has so much faith in Christ.  This week I kept thinking about that experience.  How bad Satan wants us to feel like we have to give up because our sins are too great.  No sin is too big. 

I know, I know that if we lay our burdens, our afflictions, at the feet of the Savior he will carry us.  That if we pour out our souls, our hearts to Him when it feels like our souls are on fire, I know that Christ will forgive us.  We need to enter into our own Gethsemane.  When we repent we must humble ourselves.  To the point where we are wrestling with our souls in mortal anguish for the sins we commit.  It doesn't matter how big or small that sin is.  And we must not procrastinate the day of our repentance, because "this is the time for men to prepare to meet God."  I know what sin does to us.  it makes us feel worthless.  I have been there.  I have seen the Darkness.  I have seen the Light.  I know how it feels, the mortal anguish sin causes us.  Satan does not want us to make it.  But I testify with all the fervency of my heart,  IT IS WORTH IT!!!!!!  I have felt the arms of the Savior wrap around me as I have fallen on my knees and begged,  PLEADED for forgiveness.  It came.  It comes through our humility.  The Savior is there.  I have felt Him.  I know.  Oh remember, remember, Christ is our rock.  Christ is our foundation. 

I love you all.  Thank you for your prayers and encouraging words.  I think of  you all every single day.  My love for my family and my Savior and all people is my driving force.  Thank you.

Elder Hancock

Helaman 5:12

Ps.  Did you get my pictures last week?

Email received 08/13/12

Hi Mom and Family,

Well this week was really good.  We had a lot of things happen.  We had three bautismos yesterday.  A family.  Nothing makes me more happy than to change the hearts of an entire family.  The dad, Jesus, had a really bad drinking problem.  We have been trying for weeks to get him to stop drinking.  But every time we went over there he was drunk.  He had so many problems with his wife and his family.  When we started teaching him two weeks ago he was on the edge of moving out and getting a divorce from his wife.  As we were teaching him, the Spirit filled the room.  It was like a thick kind of air, but as that happened I  promised him with the power of the Spirit that was in the room that if he waited two weeks to move out and took two weeks to change, REALLY change his life, that the gospel will give him and his family so much happiness that they didn't know was there.  Two weeks later he and his wife, Ivone, and his ten year old son,  Jesus Alan, were baptized.  

Elder Johnson got sick again.  He asked me to baptize all three.  After the baptism, the light and the love and the peace and the joy that I saw in each one of their eyes was all worth it for me, knowing that I was used as an instrument in the hands of the Lord in bringing an entire family to the arms of the Savior and Eternal happiness.  I am telling you right now, there is no better feeling.  

The past few weeks have been kind of hard. On Saturday, I got really upset after a contact with this guy.  People here really like to try to bible bash with us (especially T.J.  or J.W.).  This guy was explaining what faith was to us, and I was telling him that faith was two parts: a belief and action.  Without action you can't have faith.  Your faith decreases.  But he started telling me that I had no faith.  And then he was saying stuff in Spanish that I didn't understand.  And then he said that if I had the faith I would have been able to defend myself.  So we said that we were representatives of Jesus Christ sent here to preach His Gospel and that we were not going to fight with him and we walked away.  After, Elder Johnson told me that I did really well but he was just taking advantage of us.  It was really crazy.  

As I was feeling really upset I remembered the chapter of the book of Mormon I read.  Alma 23 I think ... can't remember exactly.  Ammon is talking about all the success they had.  And at first, when they were teaching, they were spit upon, beaten, mocked, everything.  As they were about to turn back and give up because they were depressed, the Lord said be patient in your afflictions and go back to the city and teach the people.  That's what they did.  Even when they went back the same thing happened to them.  This time they were thrown into prison.  But they were patient in their suffering, while they were starving to death.   

And then when Ammon came to free them they preached again unto them.  But this time they had success.  They had so much that thousands of Lamanites were baptized and converted.  Not just to baptism, but for Eternity.  So much so that they refused to take up arms against their brothers.   Because they had so much faith in the Lord, they knew that if they died they would be welcomed with open arms.  Thats what happened.  The Anti-Nephi-Lehis died as the Lamanite army fell upon them.  But because of this, thousands of Lamanite hearts were softened and converted.  These chapters struck me to the very core.

It was so amazing because I was looking back at this chapter and remembered the faith diligence and patience the Sons of Mosiah had.  Then I remembered Christ.  He is with me.  He is lifting me when I am down in the depths of sorrow.  I have faith and I know that Jesus Christ knows exactly how we feel.  He is there.  I have felt the healing power of the Atonement.  I have felt his love surround me like a warm blanket when all of the feeling in my body has gone.  Have faith.  Have faith.  It is according to your faith.  When you ever, EVER get down, remember Him.  Pour out your heart to Him.  He will be there.  I know.  I KNOW.  I have seen the power of the Atonement change people's lives.  Don't EVER forget Him.  Because He never forgot you when He took upon your pains afflictions sorrows and sins everything in the Garden of Gethsemane.  His arms are out stretched towards you.  He is always there, no matter who you are, or what you have done.  He is pleading with you to come to Him, to humble yourselves to Him and to pour out your hearts to Him, whether it be sins or sorrows.  He is begging for you to come to Him.  

I love you all.  Thank you for your love and support.

Elder Hancock

Helaman 5:12

Ps.  I got your email, Mom.  These are some pictures we took on top of a big hill in our area.  You can see all of DF.  Elder Johnson is the tall skinny one in the red shirt.

Email received 08/06/12

Mom and Family,

It is so awesome to hear that Spencer Jones is going to Argentina.  That's the same place Brother and Sister Harris and Brother LaBaron went.  That is so awesome!!!! 

Well this week was kind of a tough one.  We have an investigator that we met last week.  We were walking up this hill and we heard, "ELDERS!"  We never hear that.  We hear, "HERMANOS!" all the time.  But the guy was super drunk.  He told us that he needed our help.  We didn't listen because he was so drunk.  So we decided not to go back to follow up.  Then a few days later we were walking back from the Bodega, because Elder Johnson needed medicine, and we saw this same guy again.  We knew we had to teach him.  We started teaching him this past week.  We have such powerful lessons.  He is having a lot of problems with his wife and his kid.  We told him that its because of his drinking problem.  I have never met someone that has wanted to make a change in their life as bad as he does.  So, Saturday night we taught he and his wife together and they told us they wanted to get baptized really bad.  They told us that they were going to church the next day.  Before we left we told him he had to stop drinking.  So yesterday we went to pick them up for church and he was drunk.  My heart sank.  I was so sad.  He told us he couldn't come to church because he had been drinking again and his wife ran off yesterday and he didn't know where she went.  After that we felt so bad.  We had been fasting and praying so hard that they would come.  We were wondering what we were doing wrong.  We have been doing everything we possibly can to bring people to Christ.  And we just felt so sad and confused.  But the last 15 minuetos de clase we were called out in the hall by someone and right there were standing Jesus and Ivon.  We were so happy.  We knew that it was nothing short of a miracle.  It was such a testimony builder to me.  I need to be patient with the Lord.  It was so amazing. 

Yesterday in Sacrament one of the people I baptized, Mitzy, bore her testimony about EFY and how the gospel changed her life and her family.  She told us how her dad is interested and how happy her family is now.  How she knows that ever since the Missionaries entered their home they brought happiness with them.  That whenever she looked in our eyes they saw the love of Christ.  It made me so happy.  I know that I have brought someone to Christ that is building an unshakeable testimony on Him.  That is exactly why I am here.  It made me so happy to see that.  I know that she felt that way when we taught them because we have the Spirit with us.  My main goal when I came on my mission was that I need to have the Spirit.  I need to have people see the light of Christ in me.  Because that is how we draw people to us, by the true and eternal love of Heavenly Father.  Because I know that without the Spirit we cannot teach.  That simple.  We cannot teach.  She also bore her testimony about the Book of Mormon.  How she knows it is the word of God.  So awesome. 

The Spirit combined with the Book of Mormon is the Most powerful tool in conversion.  I know that.  I have seen that with my own two eyes.  That is my message to you all today.  The Book of Mormon is the most correct most important book on the planet.  I KNOW with all of my heart that if we read it every single day,  and if we truly study it every single day, and really know it is true, then we will be strengthened through our day.  It really cut and dry.  If the Book of Mormon is true: Joseph Smith was a Prophet; he restored the fullness of the Gospel on the Earth.  Not just any gospel THE Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That it is the mizmo Iglasia Jesu Cristo establisio en su vida.  If the Book of Mormon is true the entire Church is true.  That simple.  We are the only Gospel on the earth that has the Book of Mormon.  I know with all my heart that it is true.  I Know that it will strengthen your lives if you let it.  I know without a doubt there is power in the Book of Mormon.  Read it EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!!  PRAY EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!!!!!!  Ask your Father in Heaven if it is true.  It is through the small things that we build our testimonies.  That is what I told Mitzy.  If you do the small things DAILY we are promised exaltation.  It is a PROMISE!!!!!  I know that is how we will be able to live with our families forever.  Through the Evangelio de Jesu Cristo. 

I love you all thank you for all of your prayers and support.  I feel them everyday.  I love you.

Elder Hancock

Helaman 5:12

Ps.  I wore my Special tie yesterday