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

April 15th

    This week was really good! Me and Sister Payne are getting along great and are excited for this transfer!

Heavenly Father has helped us so much this week in guiding to people to talk and teach. We have met so many people this week and have a lot of great potentials! One day we were going to see one of our investigator and on our way back to our car we saw a girl walking along the side walk. We started running after her and then slowing down and then running again haha

    i am sure whoever was watching us was thinking that we were crazy! We caught up to her and talked to her about the Book of Mormon. She seemed really interested and we will be meeting with her hopefully this week!

    Another crazy story... We were on our way to a house and I saw 2 girls walking out of a restaurant and I told Sister Payne to pull into the parking lot. The girls had already gotten into their car by now but that didn't stop me from talking to them :) haha  We jumped out of our car and ran to the door. I knocked on the car window and we had a great discussion and bore testimony to them. I had such a love for them and just knew how much Heavenly Father wanted them to have the gospel and how much they need it. They are sisters, teenage age and we gave them a book of mormon. We will be calling them this week to set up a time to see them.

    We had so many times when Heavenly Father puts in the right spot at the right time. I am so grateful for the guidance of the Holy Ghost. We couldn't do it without Him. I hope everyone had a great conference weekend. I love all of you so much! Till next week :)

XOXO

Sister Hancock

April 8th

  I  have to make this a quick email. It is 5:30. We just got back from Eugene. Transfers were today, so I got my new companion Sister Payne. We both have been out for the same time, we were in the same zone in the MTC, so we will be training each other. We are in Florence still, so I gotta show her the ropes haha

    So Sister Barton will be flying to Idaho tomorrow. It is crazy that she is leaving. I am gonna miss her. We were so close and she taught me so much! She was an amazing trainer and taught me everything I know! I am excited for me and Sister Payne. This transfer is going to help both of us grow so much! thank you!. 

   But everything sounds great and i'm glad you enjoyed conference! It was amazing! I will have to give you more details next week. I am a little nervous for what is ahead but I know the Lord is going to help me. It is going to be great! I love you so much! Good luck with work! 

Love,
Sister Hancock

April 1st

   Me and Sister Barton are the only ones that live in the apartment. We live at a members home, her name is Sister S. She is such a nice lady. We love her!  The part we live in is above the garage, so the extended part from the house. We had fast sunday too and we forgot to fast also hah but we had speakers and a special musical number by Sister Hancock and Sister Barton haha.It was a awesome sacrament meeting and me and my companion sang He Sent His Son! I guess i am a singer now.. not really haha we had lots of people say we sounded like angels haha.

 For our mission plan for the members, each auxiliary prays for 5 less active names to contact     and they ask them if they have a testimony, if they plan on coming back to church and if they say no or yes to both questions you ask the last question, will you take lessons from the missionaries? So you guys could try that!

Our 2 investigators on date are doing great! And we are trying to find more people! We do have a potential family. The husband is a less active member. His wife and her daughter are the ones we want to teach. The daughter wants to be baptized. We are just trying to get a time to meet with them. You can pray for that.

    O and about the goodfellows,  a lady in our ward knows them. I saw her wedding invitation on the her fridge and i asked her how she knew them. So that is pretty cool.

    My Easter Sunday I woke up and opened the presents my mom sent me and went to church, talked to people and had dinner at a members home!  It was a good day! We also had both our investigators there and about 10 less actives! Kinda weird having my first holiday away from home but it was good:)

     This week I got to go to Eugene on Wednesday because my companion went to the temple. So I spent the day with the sisters there! It was really fun being with them! I hope I serve there sometime. They serve in the college ward, so that would be really fun!! Eugene is so different from Florence. Florence is a much smaller town and there isn't much around.

Time goes by so fast! I feel like I just had p day and now it is our last week before transfers and my companion is going home to good old Idaho Falls! It is crazy!! She leaves April 9! I'm kinda nervous leading the area with my new companion. I'm sad Sister Barton is leaving but it will be a good and exciting change for her and for me. So this week is going to be full and busy! I'm really excited for conference!!

    Well I hope you have a great first week of April!! I hope you liked the pictures! I love you very much!! I hope your reading and praying with Dad! It is never too late to start. I love you!!

XOXO

SISTER HANCOCK