June 16

My Wonderful Family and Friends!!!

That is so exciting all the Texans are in town! How fun!! Lots of fun stuff going on! I hope everyone is doing great!! This week was full of miracles!!

Me and my companion Sister Payne just love the Coast so much!! It is the best place! 

On Friday night we had a zone conference call and as a zone for Saturday, it was going to be a day of miracles, exercising our faith. So we had an awesome miracle with one of our investigators, K. She went to California to see her son graduate and she just didn't have the greatest time there. She was really heart broken about it and about other things in her life. She doesn't understand why Heavenly Father would do this. When she was done explaining, she said that she has gotta take a smoke. So I said we will go outside and she said no, she doesn't want us to do that. We shared some scriptures with her and the member we had with us shared her testimony. K felt the spirit so strong and dropped her lighter and cigarettes, probably without even recognizing it, saying how she feels this great energy and peace. The spirit is so strong and she later had tears of joy! It was amazing! 

Later Saturday night we had a ward talent show!! We had 5 investigators there and 7 less actives!! We were so excited and so shocked!! haha We also did a talent, involving a missionary rap and glow stick dance!! The members loved it!! We dragged our ward mission leader and another member to do it with us! Heavenly Father has blessed us so much in Florence!  Sometimes it is hard to recognize those blessings and miracles.

This sound great at home!! We had Zone conference in Eugene on Wednesday and we came with one of the cleanest cars. About all the missionaries had the same idea we had, is that we wanted to win the cleanest car!! haha we got a 5 dollar gift card to McDonalds!! It was probably one of my favorite conferences so far! Talked about becoming a consecrated missionary. It really made me realize i have a lot of work to do. This week has kinda be hard and rough for me but Saturday and Sunday really lifted me up. We found 3 new investigators on Sunday! A, G, and K!! 

Sunday morning we had a conference call with the sisters, telling us that transfers are a week early! My heart dropped. I could be transferred this time to somewhere new. After the call, i just cried because i don't want to leave florence. I prayed right there and told Heavenly Father ill go where you want me to go. Later on i was at peace and comforted, knowing that it will all work out. This moment i had also was a small taste of what i will feel like when i really leave Oregon. I won't want to leave and in a way that comforted me knowing that I love it so much I wont want to leave.  I have grown such a love for the people here and for Oregon and the gospel and a lot of things. I am excited to get the package!! For p day today we went on bay street!! I got an awesome Oregon coast hoodie and sunglasses!! While we were in one of the stores a lady walked in and it was Sister Payne's aunt!! It was crazy!! haha 

I love the gospel and love being a missionary. It is the hardest thing I have ever loved to do. Some days are hard and I want to give up, but something or someone keeps pushing me along. I couldn't do it without my Heavenly Father and Savior. I love you all!! 

XOXO

Sister Hancock

June 10

 Your week sounded great!! That is so fun mostly everyone in the fam will be together!! Levi's party sounded really fun and what a great uncle to take Bergen! This week was great! We had sisters exchanges this last week!! Sister Hollingshead and Nealy spent Thursday night and Friday night with us!! It was really fun to have them here! Sister Nealy is fresh out. She is 5 days older than me and we are about the same height! They are both great sisters! We had an awesome zone meeting at our stake presidents super nice beautiful home! If you have any fun ways we could let our investigators know we love them, let me know! We had stake conference this weekend too!! We had Elder Foster come! it was great! He gave a great talk about teaching our children in parables, as the savior did. Teach them by stories! We got to have lunch with him and the other   missionaries! President and Sister Young were there also! We have gotten to see them 3 weeks in a row!! We are lucky sisters! Their son comes home in 2 weeks! 

Our investigators that we are teaching the most are  R, C, J, K, K, K and J. I will have to tell you more later. We have a ward talent show this coming Saturday! So that will be fun and a great time to have investigators come! We have invited a lot of people, so hopefully they will come! 

Me and Sister Payne are doing a talent so that should be fun... haha O bikes... So our ward mission leader, Brother L has bikes, so we just park our car there and take the bikes and bring them back so it works great. The mission is cutting miles, so its nice to have another way to get around. We have our zone conference in Eugene this week! excited for that!! Tell Dad Happy Fathers day for me!! Wish I could skype with him too! haha It is crazy we are half way through this transfer already!! Time flies! thank you for getting the rain jacket, summers here in Florence are really windy, so hopefully that will help too. 

I love you so much!! 

xoxo

your missionary

O brother:) i love you too! good luck at vet school Dr. Hancock!!!

June 3

Fam and Friends!!

Everthing sounds so good!! It is nice to hear how everyone is doing! Mais that is so fun you went to the Taylor Swift concert with that "hot date"!! haha Jennie if you are reading this, I hope your wedding day was perfect, my mom told me about it and it sounded adorable!! I can't believe you are married! Levi!! That is so exciting you are going to Mississippi really soon! Your leaving poor mom and dad all alone... well good luck bro and go find ya a wife;)

Well this week was another great week!  We did so much better getting members to our lessons this week! We were so excited to have almost all of our lessons with a member!! We taught a less active this week, his name is J. We ended up teaching his girlfriend and daughter who are not members. It was such a neat experience! They all felt the spirit, especially his girlfriend J and we will be teaching them again next week. We had another answer to a prayer! Our investigator R, the one that is not married to the man she lives with G. He is a less active member and the reason they haven't gotten married is because he needed to get disability. Well he had his court date about a month ago and just got the call this week that he is accepted for disability!! They were not expecting the call for another 4 weeks or more. The lawer said it was the fastest he has seen! We were so excited to hear the news! They can now get married! We hope it happens soon! And as we help her and G stop smoking, she will be able to get baptized!!

I was reading a talk in the May 2013 Ensign by Elain S. Dalton,this is a part in it that i loved,  "When I was in college, I was a member of the BYU International Folk Dancers. One summer our group had the unique privilege to tour the missions in Europe. It was a difficult summer for me because a few months earlier my father had unexpectedly passed away. While we were in Scotland, I felt especially alone and became discouraged. We danced at a chapel that night, and then after our performance we went next door to the mission home. As I proceeded up the walk, I saw a stone placed in a well-kept garden by the gate. On it I read the words, “What-e’er thou art, act well thy part.” At that moment those words went deeply into my heart, and I felt the powers of heaven reach out and give me a message. I knew I was known by a loving Heavenly Father. I felt I was not alone. I stood in that garden with tears in my eyes. “What-e’er thou art, act well thy part.” That simple statement renewed my vision that Heavenly Father knew me and had a plan for my life, and the spirit I felt helped me understand that my part mattered."

Whatever we do in life, act well our part! Do our very best! I love you all!!

xoxo

Sister Hancock

May 27

Family and Friends!!!

This week has been a great one!! Me and Sister Payne started riding bikes.! And oh it has been an adventure!! Our first full day on them, we stopped this guy who was on a bike also and started talking to him. We were on the bike trail by a park, long story short there was this man yelling at us saying he was going to call the cops. So as we were getting on the bikes to go, I wasn't going anywhere. My skirt went underneath my tire and pulled me back and my skirt off of me. Good thing i had my spandex pants on:) it was pretty funny!! 

We had a really awesome experience this week! With that being said I am grateful for prayer. It wasn't something we were praying for in the moment but it was an answered prayer by us and the girl we talked to. We stopped by a referrals house to see if she was home, she wasn't and as we got into the car we saw a girl walking. We hurried to get out and she turns around and says hi. We started talking to her and explaining how we are missionaries. She stops us and she says 'You are an answer to my prayers. I was running and listening to church music and praying for a sign to know what to do. And then you guys came." We told her it wasn't a coincidence we ran into her. We started telling her about the Book of Mormon and bearing testimony to her and she asked if she could have it!! She started crying, we all did. She embraced us with a hug with such gratitude that we stopped and talked to her. It was a miracle. We were in the right place at the right time.

Yesterday we had a great Relief Society lesson on 'Converted Unto the Lord'. It really made realize what being truly converted means. It is enlarging and deepening of our testimony. Our testimonies are not enough. We need to be truly converted and it is a process. Like the 10 virgins 5 were prepared with their lamps of testimony and their oil of conversion. It is an individual thing. It is one precious drop at a time. I love you all!!!

XOXO

Sister Hancock

May 20

Transfers were today... i am staying in Florence for another 6 weeks and who knows maybe another. Sister Payne is also staying! i have been in Florence for 3 and 1/2 months. it is weird to think that one day i will be serving somewhere else in Oregon. Florence just feels like home now. 

This week was a great week! We have been teaching this girl who just turned 8 last week. Her dad is a member and her mom is not. We are also teaching the mom. But A the girl really wanted to be baptized and so we just went over the lessons with her. Her baptism was this past Saturday! She was so excited and we had one of our investigatiors there to see what it is all about and get a little taste. It was a great service.

This week I recieved another confirmation that this is where I need to be, serving my Heavenly Father. I was reading in the November 2012 Ensign about President Monson's announcement of the age change for missionaries. I am here because of that announcement. I never thought at age 19 I would be serving a mission. It made me realize even more how much i just want to lose myself in the work. I came on a mission to forget about myself and serve my loving Heavenly Father. One of the desires of my heart is to truly lose myself in the work. I desire to have an eye single to the glory of God. Doing so everything else will become secondary. Me and Sister Payne are not perfect and no one is. Elder Nelson said, "Be patient with yourself. Perfection doesn't come in this life, but the next.." 

Last night we had dinner with some members, the Floods. They were baptized in 2011! They are the greatest converts ever!! The converts every missionary wants to have! It is so amazing to see the result of someone being baptized. They were able to go through the temple last year and were able to go to the sealing of their daughter a few months later. They gave me hope and reminded me again, why I am here. They are so happy and they are a forever family! It is so special!! The gospel of Jesus Christ is so special. I can't believe I am here doing this. I am a missionary. 

Love You

May 13

Family and Friends!!

It was so great getting to talk and see all of you yesterday!!! I am so glad the face time ended up working! It seemed like i was right there with all of you! Loved seeing all your happy faces, it really lifted me up! It went by too fast, but that's okay :) Well what to say... so after i finished talking with you this was what happened later that day...

We are really trying to get the members involved and excited about missionary work. At our dinner appointments we have challenge them to either pray for a street to contact or someone for us to teach. Our first follow up was with Sister S. Yesterday she was proud to say she found her answer. She got a map out and was looking for a street we could contact. She said she kept going back to Rhodendrum Drive and she realized she actually knew a woman that lived on that street. She said alright that is my answer. After we had great talks with our families, we headed over to contact this referral. Sister S didn't know the exact address but she knew she lived by a member and described the house to us. We knocked on one house, it wasn't her but we found a new investigator. Then we knocked on another house that looked like the description and it was her! She was taking a nap but we are going to go back! We ended up finding 1 potential investigator, 1 new and hopefully an elderly couple we could serve. Sister S was definitly inspired! We can't do it without the members! This is going to be a great week! 

Me and Sister Payne have caught a cold but we are not letting it get in the way! The work must go on! With transfers coming up, we are ready for the finish line! Sprinting to the end!!

Well I love all of you and thank you so much for all the love and the support! I really do appreciate at it! Keep praying and don't forget to smile :)!  Spiritual Minded Is Life Eternal! 

XOXO,

Sister Hancock

May 6

Everything sounds great!!

This week was awesome! Full of miracles! We had a district goal to find 10 new investigators. Saturday night we had only 4! We have been praying for the district that we would be able to make that goal. Sunday after church we went through former and other investigators. One name stuck out to me, her name is J. The elders found her a few years ago. So we went over to J's apartment. A women was outside right next door to J's, watching her 7 year old son who turns 8 in June!! We started talking to them. She became really interested and was telling us how she has trying to find something more. She is very religious but hasn't found the right one for her. We told her that we have that church for her and I promised her that the gospel will answer any question she has. We got a return appointment with her and her son! Come to find out J next door moved! We came there to find A and her son I! Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways!! I was so happy that we found 2 new investigators that are the elect! This week we found 4 investigators and as a district we found 7! We almost reached our goal! Prayer is a powerful thing! We definitly have to do our part!

idk where the elder is from but yes he had to go home to get surgery. i am excited to talk to you all on Sunday!! it will be fun to see all you happy faces! i am not sure what time it will be. We get done with church at 1. so anytime after that, we don't know when though.  tell daddy thanks and that mean alot! brought tears to my eyes. i will see you Sunday!!!!! 

xoxo sister hancock

April 29

Dear Fam!!

Everything sounds great at home! That is so exciting that Levi passed his test! Good for him! Levi and Sam never change,.. do they? haha that is so funny that they won a tshirt and a kindle! awesome! Bergie sounds cute as ever! it will be crazy in October when Shae has her little one:) so excited for that!! 

Well lets see... We are finding a lot of great people to teach! Monday one of our less-active/recent coverts, Monique asked us if we could go to her little boy's tee ball game. Their family wasn't going to be able to make it to watch him and she wanted someone there to cheer him on. It was really fun watching lil Jack. He is a hoot! 

We found 2 new investigators this week! Alex and Carolyn! So that will be exciting teaching them this week. We have other lessons with our progressing investigators! This week was just a lot of knocking on doors and less actives! We have lots of lessons planned for this week. 

Friday we had a conference call with the mission! They are so powerful! It feels like all the missionaries of the OEM are right there in the same room! We had a situation in the mission that they needed to address. One of out Elders needed to have emergency surgery because they found a tumor and they needed to remove it. And he might have to do some chemo. It was such a spiritual experience we had as President opened our fast with prayer for this Elder and his family. It made me realize that we are all in this together. There is no to waste. We our on the Lord's time. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

XOXO

Sister Hancock