Letter Day is here Again!

Hi everyone! Sorry I didn't get Kotah's letter out last week! He didn't write until way late and then we had Thanksgiving stuff to do and so I am sending you both letters this week! Double the news! lol
Mimi


MONDAY NOVEMBER 19, 2012

This week, we, as a companionship received another companion. President wanted us to help him out. Our job was to help him to get back into the work. We were talking and both felt the impression that the reason he was here with us, was because he needed to learn to truly love the people he was serving and how important that was in his mission. We didn't sit him down and talk with him, or anything like that but we led by example and I think that is what changed his heart. So, long story short, is that today when we were leaving the house, we got a call from president and it was to tell us that he was leaving. We had done our job. I know that we did our job because I prayed about it afterwards and I felt the same way I did when I left Huejutla. It was great to know that we had done our job and helped him out. I didn't get to write until late because we were helping him pack and whatnot all day.

Tomorrow, we have interviews with the president. I love president and hermana Jordan! They are awesome!

I spoke some english this week with some of the members and I speak with an accent now. ha ha I only speak english on p days when I write you guys so it's hard to speak it now.

I love the Little Caesar's guy! You two make a great team!

Well, I have to leave now. Sorry this is short. We are going to eat with an hermana and going to teach her daughter who is inactive and we are going to help activate her in the church. :D

I love you all and know that you are doing great things. Have a great week and do what the Lord wants you to!
Wahoooo! I love the mission!

Love,
Elder Hancock



MONDAY NOVEMBER 26, 2012


hola hola hola! This week was amazing! It was super busy but I had a lot of super cool spiritual insight, but for other news, I am doing amazing!

We had interviews this week with president and we talked about how I felt about our experience and how me and my comp had the same spiritual insight on what we could do to help, which was to help him learn to love more. And he also told me that I needed to make sure to email my mom each week.

This week I have been studying in Alma 32 about how we need to let this seed grow into a super beautiful tree! I had the thought that there are three major things that we need to help this seed grow, the first is that for all seeds to grow, we always need to have soil or ground that is good, we compare this soil to the bible in mark or really all of them when Jesus taught about the planter and how the different seeds couldn't grow unless they were planted in rich soil. He later tells that these are like people. If they are planted in rich soil, they can have the seed grow. I compare this soil unto your environment and how the people around you have major effects on what you do! Second, is one other thing that is necessary, it is water. If you plant a seed in perfect soil but don't water it, nothing will happen. This water is the food, the food in our spiritual seeds is doing things like reading, praying, going to church, fasting, etc. things that bring the spirit into your life. The third thing that is needed is always, light! Light is the final and most important thing that we must have in our lives for this spiritual seed to grow! What is light in our lives? Think really hard . . . . . . . . .  the light of Christ is the light in our lives! It is necessary for us to have the light of Christ in our lives for this spiritual seed to grow! If we do not have His light then we are in some serious trouble! You ask, how can we have the light of Christ in our lives? Well, we are promised in the scriptures and also again in the Doctrine and Covenants that if we are actively doing the things that we need to do, like reading with intent to learn, praying for answers, going to church; first of all a desire will start to grow in us to continue doing these things, but most of all, we will be blessed with more light and knowledge! So if we do and have all three of these things, we will have a beautiful tree grow in our hearts and its roots will be so deep that not even the biggest of machines can uproot them. After this, the scripture says, in essence, that we have to continue to keep doing these things so our trees will bring forth fruits! I have a lot more to say on this subject but I don't have time to write it all! Read that chapter and you will have amazing insights into how you need to do things and the blessings you will have!

I had a baptism this week, it was a baptism of three, two sisters and another boy from another family, his name is Diego. The girls are Alexa and Marleny! It was super awesome! The dad of the two girls just got baptized and got the priesthood last week, so it was way cool that he got to baptize his girls!

My comp is sick. He has a parasite or something like that. We have to go and get him super medicine that hermana Jordan told us to get. Keep him in your prayers. I know you worry mom. I am being careful, but hermana Jordan told me that every elder gets one, so I'm just waiting for it, the words from the blessings before my mission are fresh in mind though, that I will not get sick like super sick, I will get the average illness but I won't get super sick if I am taking care of myself.

I am still not sure how we will do the call at Christmas, mom. I would like to Skype because it is more affordable for you guys. My comp says the Mexican Elders just like to call their parents but it's a lot of money to call Mexico from the States  and I feel like Skype is better for the Americans because it is less money. I will let you know what I find out.

I love you all and keep doing the right thing! Keep searching the scriptures and Heavenly Father will help you to understand them as you do! I am super happy and proud of you all (my friends and family) for acting on the spirit and deciding to serve missions!!! They are the absolute best things in the world if you let them change your heart!

Love,
Elder Dakotah Hancock

 View from Dakotah's room in the early morning.

Dakotah and his companion, Elder Bruno

Baptism this week, Alexa, Marleny and Diego

It's Letter Day, Letter Day, Letter Day!

Well hello dear family!!!!

So, this week was great! I love the new area but I feel uncomfortable sometimes cause I feel like I should be in humble ole Huejutla. haha I talk about how we did things in Huejutla all the time with the other Elders. We don't have hot water here and still wash our clothes the same way as we did in Huejutla. The food is good. We had one meal this week that originated in Huejutla. They have different frijoles here than in Huejutla though, it is only black there and here is the other.
My comp thinks that I am Jeffery R. Holland, when he was younger, of course, but he always calls me Elder Holland and holds the pic of him in the Liahona up to my face and compares us. ha ha

This week an hermana couldn't feed us so she gave us money to buy food so Elder Bruno and I bought chinese food. It was delicious when we were eating it but later that night we paid the price ha ha! I don't know if we will eat there again. ha ha.

This week we got new rules in the mission. We cannot contact, cannot baptize, cannot baptize anyone under the age of 14, every lesson pretty much has to be with a member, and a couple of other things. It was crazy when we got the rules, but I am happy that I am in this mission so I can tell my kids that I was in the mission when the word "missionary" changed from someone who just goes out and tries to do what the Lord wants and baptizes or something like that; to someone who helped a whole ward or stake come back to church and save themselves in the kingdom of heaven!!! It is called the work of salvation and it is definitely a harder way of working, but I know that we will all be benefited by it! I know that presidente has revelation for us all in the mission so I trust that the Lord is working thru him for the best!

Well, I was having a hard time this week and satan was in my thoughts making me feel not good enough or things like that, you all know, those kind of days, but I was praying really hard and I remembered the scripture that God will not allow us to have a temptation above that which we are able to overcome with His help. This thought really helped me cause I saw that Heavenly Father will not give me any temptation, doubt, thought, or anything, unless he already knows that I can overcome it for the better, praying for help the whole time. Satan just tries to get me down on myself and it's super hard but every time he does, I pray and Heavenly Father is there EVERY TIME. I know that Heavenly Father will help me at all times. This thought that I had was an answer to my prayers and also to a lot of other prayers. I have also seen that God does things in his own time. I love the answers we receive and how we can notice an answer to a prayer along time down the road!

I was thinking about how I felt super happy when I felt that I had done everything that the Lord wanted me to do, in Huejutla and I related this to that we could have the same feeling when we are finishing the mission, and also when we are finishing this life. If we do all that we can, at all times, then we can have the greatest feelings of peace and joy, of happiness and of faith, not fear for death, but a hope and knowledge that it is really only the beginning of an amazing journey!

I LOVE to hear about all of the mission calls, and I know that they will be tested in ways that they don't even know! I know that the Lord is strengthening me to be the man he wants me to be! I have noticed that with Elder Lopez I learned to work very hard! And with Elder Bruno, I have learned that I can have fun while doing the hard work. :D

Tell Ty, that I love him and the mission is the best decision in his life yet! He will have tests that will push him to the limit and then right off the edge of the cliff; it is then that God can help us learn to fly and become who He wants us to be!

There is GREAT news for everyone, gather around and read this! When I was in the MTC, I weighed 225-230 pounds; I was huge! But, now, I have dropped like 30 pounds and I am sitting at a wonderful 198-200 pounds!! I can't believe that I have dropped 30 pounds! I can finally see the muscles… ha ha I am grateful that the Lord has blessed me with the ability to drop the weight so I can do His work better.

I don't have time to send any pictures today and the internet has been slow today, so I will try to send some next week. Thank you for the pictures grandma and thank you mom and poppi for the pictures. You look foreign to me. It's crazy! Without the sling and todo poppi looks a little different. ha ha
I love you all and do amazing things!
Elder Hancock

It's another LETTER DAY and TRANSFERS

Dear family!

I am in a new area and I want you to guess where it is. hahaahaha I am in the state of Veracruz! ha

Well, this week was just great, it was a great test of faith and I have seen many of the blessings of the spirit! So, first of all, I am amazed and excited that everyone is going on missions and I know that they will be better people because of them! I am super excited for Shane, it will be a test for him to learn german, but I know that he will be able to do so, if he has a prayer in his heart at all times! Tell everyone congrats on their calls! I cannot say how much I am grateful for my mission! I have seen so many opportunities to grow and to open my heart to the promptings of the spirit and to let Heavenly Father shape my life in the way that he wants to.

This week, we had a girl set for baptism and we felt all week that she was ready for the baptism, but when she talked to us she didn't feel ready. We fasted for her this week and I saw a miracle. We went to visit her Saturday; the day of the baptism, and she still didn't feel ready but she wanted to see how it was done. Long story short; after the baptism, she asked me and my comp if she could be baptized that night! I was super excited and I loved the whole experience! I got to baptize her. It was my first and last time in the water, I will tell you why that is with all the changes. 

Now for the news about all the changes! First, I left Huejutla and I am in a city called Panuco, it is about an hour or so south of the Tampico Temple and about two hours north of Huejutla. I already love it and I can tell that we are going to have some really great success here!! My new comp is with me for his last change in the mission! He has six weeks left! His name is Elder Bruno!
He is from the farthest south state in Mexico. He is awesome and our house is a mansion! It is one of the nicest houses in the whole mission. I think we have a little hot water, but I am not for sure yet. We still have to shop and get my companion's hair cut today. We have to walk a little ways to the internet cafe, but there is a lady who sells bread, right across the street. Elder Lopez is now in Mante serving as leader of the zone!

Thinking about your talk topic of gratitude; you should be here in Mexico, where people are really grateful for things, not like some people in America who just say they are grateful and don´t really know how to show it! I love the people here and I know I can be a help to them. This last week I felt like my work was done in Huejutla. My desires were that I could be there for one more change to teach some people that I really love but the spirit is the one who helped me to know that I needed to go cause I was done there. I was just feeling really down about leaving Huejutla, so I prayed for excitement and joy entering this new companionship and area and He has blessed me with it. :D I am also glad to see that the Lord has blessed me with a comp that wants to work.  Now there are hermanas in my old house ha… that is crazy.

Other changes are that it is now a rule that we cannot baptize, contact, and a lot of other things. The people baptizing have to be people in the ward. We can't go out and contact people but if someone talks to us about the church, then we can talk to them about it and contact them after. We can talk to people, just not about the church unless they bring it up. It is all on the members now. They help us do it all. Pretty much, it is our job to motivate the members to do their job and in turn, we will receive people to teach. It is a whole heap of faith on our part! I don't know why the changes in everything but I know it will be for the better! I think maybe it is mostly because we are doing this thing that is called the work of salvation. It is all to help the members that we already have to be active, and through this, we can have members like back home, who are helping others to come unto Christ. The work of salvation is the most important thing right now, because the prophets have said, what kind of church are we, if our members aren't even active, what good is baptism if the members aren't active. That is why we are doing all of this.

I am going to go now. I love you all and know you will do the right thing! Keep smiling! It is the light of your heart that the world can see!

Love, Elder Dakotah Hancock