Anyhow... He made it to Visalia safely! (Thank you to all of our CFM family for texting me to let me know where he was and thanks for Charlie and his detective work. LOL We all make a great team ;) So nice to have connections!) He misses Madera terribly but he is loving Visalia already. I can't say enough how blessed I am to have good members around him that know there is a Momma at home stressing out! HAHAHA!! ...He is already having great success. He does wherever he goes. I'm super proud of him!!
P.S. He is still a goof ball! His 21st birthday is Sunday and he still is young at heart! I hope he never loses that :) I love his guts. Hope he has an Awesome Christmas and a very Happy Birthday ;)
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| Sent to me by a member when he first arrived in Visalia, Her 6 year old son thinks they are brothers :) |
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| Pictures sent to me from the same member |
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| The member said "He's such a good kid and such a fashionista!!" LOL I laughed HARD!! |
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| Volleyball activity |
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| Missionary farewell. Elder Quintana went home on the 2nd |
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| Doing stake correlation late at night... So much fun.... |
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| Doing stake correlation late at night... So much fun.... |
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| Pic we just took. Rockin' the ugly sweaters |
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| FHE |
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| Our attempts to practice being missionaries to a football :) |
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| Being Goofy |
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| Uhhhh Yeah |
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| HaHaHa |
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| Dinner at C.'s |
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| My boy F!! |
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| F. got caked! |
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| Group dinner at a members for Thanksgiving |
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| Group pic at the dinner |
Nov. 30th
New transfer. Going to get ready to serve as for years!
So yes transfers were this week and just for everyone's information I have no idea where I'm going and I have no idea who my companion is. Haha transfers are different from here on out! So when we get calls it just mentions which missionary is getting transferred, and then Tuesday we drive our cars to the mission office in the morning and there we get to find out who our new companion is and where our new area is. I haven't got calls yet for release as a zone leader, so I assume I'm not done yet, but that's alright!
I am going to miss this place like crazy! The land of Madera still owns my heart. I wish I could have stayed for Christmas. I'm pretty bummed about that haha :P. There's so many people here in these last 6 transfers that I've really come to to love and appreciate and I hate to leave them but the Lord needs his missionaries elsewhere. I look forward to my new area and I hope it's still spanish speaking! Most zone leaders, all but 2 or 3, are only english speaking. So we'll see what happens. I haven't cried yet but I'm sure I will haha. As of right now I've been just working and saying goodbye to people and packing. Packing is the worst! Oh well, gotta love being a missionary!
When I heard that Tanner got his mission call to California Fresno Mission I didn't believe it first. I thought it was a joke! I was laughing and cracking because of how crazy that was. I came to believe it was true when Charlie called me haha. That's so awesome!!! He's going to love the CFM! I can't believe I am going to have a first cousin coming in to the mission. Elder Benites and I always talked about what if I were to train him?? That would be sweet! That's like one out of a million right there.
Thanksgiving was an awesome time in Madera! I'm glad I didn't get food poisoning because I ate a lot! Probably too much. I think Thanksgiving day we had 4 or 5 different dinners, and they weren't just 1 plate and done they were basically buffets! I loved the food but I didn't love so much how I felt afterwards. Thanksgiving dinners with Mexicans are the best! Our first dinner was with Federico and Junior's family, the Cervantes Family. We played some pretty intense soccer for a couple hours after we ate dinner and then we went to a few other dinner's with members and Lupe's and Sandra's as well. It was great time! Thanksgiving all weekend! I'll try and send some pictures after I'm finished.
As far as work in the area it felt a little bit slow but we some pretty sweet miracles to share. So L. (B's Grandson) He said yes to being baptized on the 19th of December. He's super excited! And he wants to be a missionary when he grows up. We asked his mom for permission yesterday and she said she still feels that he's too young to be baptized but that if he really wants too that she would let him. It was funny because his mom came to church yesterday because L. invited her. While we were in Sacrament I guess L. leaned over to his sister and told her, "I'm going to be baptized here.". She looked at him like he was crazy saying, "NO! You can't!" his sister told his mom and then his mom was kind of surprised as well. But after we talked about it with her she joked about it and then she's actually considering letting him being baptized... J. L. is like we teach him the lessons and he accepts the doctrines and it's really really easy. At the same time that concerns me because I want him to gain a testimony. We're also helping him to quit drinking and smoking. His baptism date is on Christmas. I look forward to seeing that happen! F. and J. were not able to be baptized :( I'm not sure when. We already talked with their mom about permission and she feels the same way about L.'s mom. So pray that those two will both be baptized in December!
I hope you all had a wonderful week! I have to get going but I look forward to telling you all about my new adventures this upcoming week!
Love Elder Horrocks
p.s. I'll have vanilla for the protein powder
p.s.s. said I could use some weights. Like those bowflex ones that range from 5-60 pounds? If that's okay? If not no worries, I can use bands.
p.s.s.s I laughed so hard at Marz weird al video! Super hilarious! Congrats to them at b-ball by the way!
Elder Horrocks
Dec. 7th
CRAZIEST WEEK EVER!!
Well there you have it! Haha it really has been a crazy week! In a way good/hectic way though. You'll know once I move on through my letter. So to answer the grand question; I got moved to Visalia, yes I'm still a Zone Leader, and my companion's name is Elder Frame. He's awesome! I won't lie though I feel like I just came from Oaxaca Mexico to the United States haha. There's still hispanics here in Visalia but different kinds of hispanics. There's not as many Guayaquilenos (<not sure how you spell that). The majority of the people are from Sinaloa or Jalisco or some other part of Mexico, where as in Madera EVERYONE is from Oaxaca. The community is different too. I went from a small town to a much larger city. Visalia has 180,000 people. And there's malls, fancy restaurants, and all kinds of other things that I haven't seen in 8-9 months. At least anywhere that I've served. I guess Visalia is a lot fancier! I love it so much already it's awesome! The people and members here are so loving and are some of the best I've met! Also what gives Visalia a plus is there's a AA Baseball time that's just 2 or 3 blocks down the road from our apartment. They are the AA team for the Diamondbacks. SWEET!! It's too bad it's not baseball season though haha. There's a lot of cool stuff, but even better the work and the members here are awesome
So let me tell you why we had such a crazy week. We had so many things going on that was forgotten before, it was just nuts! I got here and we did everything we could to get to work but our luck just wasn't working out. We just had the worst luck of a forgetful mind I don't know what was up! And that's the worst thing to have as a zone leader. A couple examples were things like the truck packet information. (A thing we use to fill up gas and write down miles). Well we had a MLC meeting in Fresno on Friday and we drive to Visalia and we needed to get gas, but when we got to the gas station I open the glove box and realize the packet is gone! Soooooooo we needed that pronto, and we had to drive back to Fresno, get the packet, come back to Visalia again, and thankfully we had enough gas to make the trip. It was awful! Used up a lot of time. OH I can't forget when the next day we had to do stake correlation when we thought it was due on the 13th! Oh man that takes preparation in advance and so it took up our whole day. Haha we just couldn't have a normal day to save our lives. That's the life of a ZL :)
Other than the crazy stuff. We had a great time with our investigators and members! I seriously love them so much and they seem to just make you feel at home. We have one investigator whose name is S. He's super solid and is going to be baptized this month! His date is for the 18th but he has to leave for work soon for like a week so we hope he can come back on his day and be baptized. His other obstacle is just having an understanding of remission of sins after baptism, a better understanding of repentance. Once he get's that he's set! I haven't met all of our investigators yet but from what I've heard there's so many great people out here, and I'm super excited!
Well I gots to go because my time is up. I'm sorry to those I wasn't able to write but I love you all too! Until next week
Love Elder Horrocks
Elder Horrocks
Dec. 14th
Awesome week!
Just so I don't lose track of time I want to start my email now and then read your letters later and then I can answer questions and all of that good stuff! So bear with me cause I want to share as much as I can.
So I'm still getting used to Visalia, especially the area in general whereas it's so big compared to all the other areas I've been to. So I went and bought a GPS! Now we feel so much more effective getting around the place. I forget how different it always feels coming to new areas and getting to know the place... But anyhow, so we started off our week with an awesome Zone Meeting! We were going to do it Tuesday but moved it to Wednesday because a couple companionships got sick, then we moved it to the Thursday because President Clark wanted to come. When everyone heard that they embraced themselves and thought "oh boy!". I guess President Clark's never been to a Zone Meeting in Visalia before.
We found 6 new investigators this week! We were on a roll last week! Hopefully we can keep it going. It was 1-2 new investigators everyday back to back, it was sweet! And it started right after Zone Meeting. One out these 6 has a baptismal date for the 26th of December, and his name is Jairo. Jairo is just a down to earth kind of guy, super cool! We found them through a referral through Elder Corona (my old comp in Tulare). When we received this referral I actually knew who they were! Elder Corona and I found them in Tulare but they just happened to have moved to Visalia. So that was nice for me! Already knowing who our new investigators were going to be haha. When we met up with them I came to find out that Elder Corona had already baptized I believe two or three individuals in the family, but some of them he had not. J. was one of those! He has a cool story. He came to rock bottom at one point and realized he needed to make some changes. With faith he left behind his drugs, alcohol, and whatever other bad habits he had and he started reading the Book of Mormon with one of the family members named B. That's when he quit using drugs and continued looking for God. When we met up with him we just knew right there and then that he was prepared! So we set a date with him for baptism and he says he wants to serve a mission! Well he's 25 and when he told us we were just like "Yeah that'd sweet! you should totally do it!", but then we come to find out that he has a 2 year old son... Man!! Elder Frame and I were so excited because we thought we were going to baptize a future missionary! But it broke our hearts knowing he can't because he has his son. So we haven't broke it to him yet, but when we teach him about missionary work we will. So anyway, that's J. for you! Then we have Saul, he's in Mexico but he'll be baptized so just pray that he can come back safe so that he can be baptized. As for the other 5 investigators, they're great! The people in Visalia are just great! 3 of them are the A. family and we actually went to their quincenera! (Keen-sen-yera). A quincenera is kind of like when english people have sweet 16's, but in the hispanic culture "quince" is 15 and so they celebrate their 15th birthday.Our investigator E. was the one turning 15. I'm not sure why but that's their thing. And so we went!. And it was the first one I've been to. I'll send some pics after
Thursday we had a service project for a woman who was doing a thing called "Toys for Tots". It's all military based. We went and helped out for a few hours organizing kids toys and a lot of other cool stuff. It was fun! We had our church activity and we played Mafia. I know my family is familiar with that! It reminded me of when we used to play. After, we tied the game into the gospel and asked how that game applies to us. The principle was choose wisely. It was kind of a cheesy lesson, but whatever it was fun activity!
Had Stake conference Friday and Saturday. It was my 4th one in the mission. I always love Stake conferences because it's a great opportunity to hear from awesome speakers and feel the spirit. We had 3 of our new investigators come to Stake Conference. They loved it! It was great insight for them. It only goes up for them from here!
Hopefully there was good insight for all you back home! I have short time right now but just want to let you all know that I love you! Merry Christmas! And if anyone has not watched the new christmas video go and see it now! It's awesome! I know that a Savior was and is essential to God's eternal plan. So I invite everyone to share "A Savior is born". And help someone else discover why he was born, and why he came and a ransom for us. 16 million people have seen this video in a matter of 3 weeks and the work of the Lord is spreading.
https://www.mormon.org/christmas
Love ya!
Answers to Questions:
- Rawhide is the name of the baseball team that's next to our apartment
-We got the banana bread! Super good!
-Don't know about skype yet but I will know this week. We have one member who says they'll let us borrow their computer.
p.s. Congrats to the Cougs! That's an awesome keep tearing it up!! Tell Wes and Mar the same.
Elder Horrocks
