18 July 2016

Hey everybody,

THIS was the best week! So much happened but I am terrible at writing emails to tell you. 

I almost just ended my email there. OKAY. Here we go. 

First off, we have been working with a woman and she is really awesome. She was a referral from a member because it is this members mom. We have taught her and she is progressing towards baptism. It is really cool. Their family lives in a further part of our area which is about an hour long bike ride through the jungle. There's no street lights there so at night it's kind of sketchy. But it's so much fun going there because there are a lot of people that have expressed interest to learn about the Gospel. Dang. I love talking to people about the gospel. IT"S SO COOL. I was telling my sister about this eariler but one of my favorite parts of the book of Matthew is in chapter 26. Peter pulls out his sword when they come to take Jesus and smites off the ear of one of them and then Christ rebukes him and says " 53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?"Oh that is SO cool. We underestimate the power of God SO. MUCH. We don't even know. The power of God, the Priesthood, is on the Earth again. The same power that was used to create this world, God offers to man. This is for sure the coolest thing you could ever learn about. 

Anyway, we have been meeting with a few other new people this week along with members of the church. It is so wonderful when people begin to understand more about this. Their eyes are opened so much more and it makes me so happy to see. There are a lot of rejections and every day people call us "sesat" meaning "lost" or "misguided" or just crazy. I don't think I am crazy. I'm just way pumped about teaching people because there is way more out there that most have never heard of. A comforting thought when that happens, Jesus Christ himself was doing the same thing, trying to teach the Gospel to people and more. And STILL people rejected him, abused him, oppressed him, and eventually killed him. That is something that has helped me tremendously in my discovery. Just like, if this is truly the work of God, then satan is sure going to be working over time to try to stop it. He sure is a mean fellow. 

Like I said, my letter doesn't go into much detail,. I apologize. I will (yet again) try to get better at it.

Love you all,

Elder Hanks

10 July 2016

Hello everyone,

This was a great week. Oh man. Started on Monday with a great celebration of the independence of the United States of America. I talked a bit about that in my last letter. Anyway! We had some really cool miracles happen this week!

So two weeks ago and the first part of this week, we were having no success with finding people. Well, we would find people but then they would reject us and call us "sesat" meaning "Lost" and walking away. So that wasn't the most encouragement building time but hey, Alma said that his sorrows were swallowed up in the joy of Christ and is he anyone different than us? NOPE. So even though there were a lot of rejections, man. I feel way happy and pumped! What a blessing to be with my companion right now because as we have been together, we have discovered that we are literally the same person. We both like contact sports (he's playing for USU when he gets back. Full-ride scholarship. Lucky dawg) we both love plain chocolate ice cream, super man, and being missionaries so it works out pretty well haha. 

Anyway, back to what I was saying. I had a thought. We weren't really finding anyone new because we had already found some that God had put in our way. We just had to meet them! So we looked through some sheets of potential investigators again and called through them and got a few appointments set up from people who had never answered their phone when we tried to call before.. Some of those appointments fell through and they blocked our number, but some of them didn't and we had some great experiences!. One guy we met is Chinese. 16 years old and really awesome! We met and taught him about the awesome love that God has for us and how God doesn't want us lost in the interpretations of man  but to know the way of God and stuff like that and the whole time, you could just see lights turning on in his head. it was really funny and just SO COOL. At the end, he told us "WOW. I feel REALLY good right now." (he is Taoist and has a little knowledge of Christianity) then he said "I really feel like praying right now" THEN HE DID AND IT WAS SO AWESOME! It was so cool. He did it in Chinese so I didn't understand all of it but hey. It was awesome. We are meeting him again this week so I'll write more about that!

A miracle that happened after that was since we had gone and tried to meet with some of the people we met before, we started seeing more success as we tried to find new people! Every day we set different goals on our to-do list that get me really excited everyday. For example. Wednesday- Punch Satan in the throat. You get the picture. Having a goal like that is way awesome and really helps you want to do the right thing as much as you can. Following God is doing just that. It's awesome when at the end of the day you can maybe tell your self that you participated in thwarting the plan of the hell-bent-on-destroying-you being. It feels so good!      

Anyway, I have to go now! Not too many pictures this week. 

Love,

Elder Hanks!

4 July 2016

                                                 I love these blue eyes and happy smile!!

Hey everyone! 

We went to the beach and played rugby and had a bbq for the 4th of July! We got back a bit late so this won't be too long!

THis past week we had the great opportunity to meet with a lot of our members. Members who haven't come to church in a long time and it was so amazing to see testimony come back into them. Everyone has a testimony. It just has to be brought out! 

A scripture I love sharing with people is in Alma 13:12-13 and it says that after essentially living the gospel and allowing it to change them (I'm obviously paraphrasing) that they could not help but look upon sin except with abhorrence. Not just dislike, but abhorrence. Then I love just saying, wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to obey God's commandments if we looked at sin like unto this? Obviously we won't do something we hate. It is so cool. The feeling of abhorrence toward sin is something that comes as you study the gospel and it is an amazing thing that enables you to do anything. The full, non-confusing gospel of Jesus Christ, not mingled with the "wisdom of man" but lead entirely by God is the greatest thing to ever happen to us as children of God. SO COOL!

We met with our investigators this week as well as a few former investigators who agreed to meet with us! Also some really cool new investigators. SO AWESOME. This is surely the work of God. No true change can be brought about in someone unless it is by the Holy Ghost. We don't have to be confused and wondering who has truth in this world. God has made it easy for us to find through the Holy Ghost which will lead us to that which is good. Awesome. 

The gospel is so cool. When I was younger, I would've never said that. But it is. It is the greatest thing that anyone could ever have.

I'll write more next week about what's going on!

I love you all,

Love,

Elder Hanks