Hello Motha

Here are 2 letters :)  It's been a couple of busy weeks... Justin started a new job so I've been a bit preoccupied with that.  I did however get some great pictures and even some great video of Alex from some of the members and investigators!!  YAY!!!  I love having an Alex overload ;)  He's doing so well and is such an inspiration to us :)  His letters are awesome!  He loves the people he's teaching and I'm so happy that they love him back :)  I'm grateful he has them!  Hope you enjoy the letters :) <3  Man I love and miss that kid!  (LOTS of pictures at the end of the post too)

I think they are playing Paper, Rock, Scissors LOL

Alex can do a pretty mean "old man's" voice... Although you don't get to hear it much in this hahaha

May 25th

Hello Motha

Another week has flown! I got a lot of emails from lots of people but it looks like you all had a good memorial day! The family looks good! Grandpa's grave is looking good too. It doesn't seem very long ago when we'd all go hang out at Grandma and Grandpa's for whatever, and we'd be outside and Grandpa would be sitting in his chair looking proudly upon his posterity hahahaha it kind of makes me laugh cause I wonder what was going through his mind like, "Yeah, those are my grand kids".  I thank Heavenly Father for a plan of happiness, and that one day we all will see him again. I too think he's always with us, he's definitely been with me out here on the mission.

I remember when school got out. That was a party indeed! I can't believe summer is already here.

I want to start off first by just letting everyone know that all is well with C. and her 2 kids. We've seen such miracles touch their lives, and I'm so happy that they came to an understanding of God's love for them. They were able to find peace between themselves and the situation of taking offense from what the Bishop said. C.'s a strong lady! And she didn't let the situation prevent her from being baptized! The other thing I want to mention is her two kids will be getting baptized too, if they can get through the baptism interview. So all three will be getting baptized this Friday. YES! The thing is, is that our mission president is the only one to say whether or not investigators can be baptized, those are his keys. The Bishop just had a misunderstanding of that, so our stake president called him and talked with him so that all could be set right. Now all we are relying on is the Lord with faith and hope that all will go through. We just have to continue nourishing them.

Cr. is progressing very well, yesterday was her 3rd time attending church, and those are three weeks in a row that she's came. The only doubt is that she thinks it's wrong to be baptized twice, although she says that she knows what we teach her is true. I personally think there's more to it. We're basically teaching her and her whole family and a blocking point between them and making baptismal covenants is the Father of the family. He's a little bit restrictive and he really doesn't want anything to do with the missionaries. He's a little hard hearted towards us, and all we could use is just a conversation with him to see if we can break the ice. So overall I think it's the father that's preventing them from progressing. Cr. has other similar doubts, we'll be teaching her about Faith in Jesus Christ just to kind of help her understand what he really could do for her. I know if she puts trust in God and Jesus Christ first then there's no need to fear of what would happen in the foreseeable future.

F. and G. are definitely on the right track! Didn't come to church unfortunately yesterday but they pray and read, which is what we want them to do. Their kids do likewise. We taught their kids individually once during the week and when we came to teach them we saw that they had marked scriptures that they liked, it was really cool! That caught me by surprise. So I'm stoked to see what kind of progression they'll take later on.

Thus far that's all the progression we've seen in investigators this week. I'm always marveled when I see the Lord's work take place and uses us as instruments. This past week was a "step back and watch" kind of a feel, but even then it's amazing! I love my mission! Despite all the hard stuff we've had to do, I really do think it's starting to develop me for something. I think I'll be a little bit different when I come home haha but that's good right?... Elder Nye and I are doing good! I wouldn't be surprised if we stayed again another transfer. That'd be sweet! I'd be Elder Nye's first and last companion, if we're not together then let the Lord's will be done. He has great things to come ahead for him in the future. If he ever comes to Roosevelt, you should get to meet him, he's a good guy and a really good friend!

Thanks for the pictures! Tell everyone I love and miss them and to send me a letter once in a while. Tell Justin congrats on the job!

Love you all! Hopefully you all had a good week, thanks for everything back home

Good luck to Mar in Softball this weekend! And to West in football! I can't believe it's already here.

Love Elder Horrocks

P.S. 2 things my voice recorder you sent isn't quite working on these computers so I'm not sure how I'm gonna do with that. I'm trying to figure it out still. Second thing is I met a guy out here when I was on exchanges with the assistants and his name was Kenneth Bailing. He said he know the Frosts and the Richards. I'm assuming he loves rodeo cause that's what he says he does anyhow. Just wondering if anyone knew that name

Elder Horrocks

Zone Picture by the temple

June 2nd

Well I have to apologize because I probably left you wondering why I didn't write you all yesterday. So yesterday we and 4 other companionships in the Zone went up to Bass Lake in Yosemite in a little town called Oakhurst (if I ever live in California I'm living in Oakhurst). It's beautiful up there! We just went up there to play volleyball, football, wiffleball, eat lunch, and just hang out for a while. Charlie and Rey the ward mission leader from lindsey took Elder Nye and I up there. I was exhausted afterwards but it was really fun!

This week was busy busy busy! And our 3 baptisms did go through for this weekend!! It was such a success and a great experience for C. and her kids to be baptized. Not only did we have baptisms but 4 companionships in Madera had baptisms that same day. So we had 6 baptisms and 3 of them were ours. We also had one in Firebaugh which are other missionaries in our zone. So overall as a Zone we finished with 9 baptisms. I won't lie it's hard having back to back to back baptisms. We gotta be on the ball for that stuff! The following Sunday we confirmed 4 people in church, and Elder Nye and I and another sister in the ward had to give talks. I think that makes 6 or 7 times I've had to give talks on my mission. So yes as you can tell we were just as busy as can be... The whole mission did really good this month. Our goal was to reach 100 baptisms and we reached 97. We were super close! The thing is, is that 9 solid baptisms fell through but 12 miracle baptisms happened along with it. So God continues to work miracles among us every single day. Now we're working to carry the May affect into the month of June

We had a Zone Conference this past Wednesday and Elder Nye and I got second place for cleanest car and a 8 dollar gift card to little caesars. Sweet! Our car is brand new though so we hardly did anything but wash and vacuumed. A lot of great stuff happened at ZC. Haha funny thing to mention is that we learned about nutrition from Sister Clark and eating healthy. Haha it's gonna be a struggle eating healthy in the spanish culture because everything they make is just so good! And I'm already getting chunky enough as it is. I'm still at a good 180 or so around there.

That's basically what has happened thus far that is worth mentioning Glad to hear that things back home are good. I never ever ever expected to hear about a tornado! I saw pictures of it and it looked huge! That's kind of weird how much rain you're all getting back home. I feel like that hasn't happened since I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. One of the missionaries in our zone lives in Oklahoma and he said that his house is on a hill but that his area back home flooded with like 4-5 feet of rain! Now we could really use some over here in Cali. A couple days ago it reached to about 104. And yesterday when we went playing at bass lake the sand was super hot! There's false gold in the sand and so when the sun comes out the ground is super hot! Few of us got blisters on our feet because of how hot it was haha.

You got pictures from Cr.?? Yes that same Cr. is the one we are teaching. She's cool huh! We're working with her and her family to see if we can teach and baptized them. Their family is going through some rough times. Her mom and her father are thinking of divorcing and her mom's currently living with C. Hard things happen but we know the gospel will bless lives!

F. and G. are dropped :/ They just weren't really into it I guess. They would let us come teach them but after some incidents and things we needed to drop them. So these upcoming weeks for June will be a lot for finding and teach Cr. and her family.

Congrats to Justin on his new job! I'm excited he's working with Joe. Tell him I said hi and I'm happy for how far he's come... Jayde Bertoch emailed me this weekend. If you see his Dad tell him I said hi to Jayde and it's good to hear from him and I'll try and write him back as soon as possible! I'm glad he's doing good.

Well that's all folks! There's so many great things that had happened that I wish I could just share with all of you, but I believe this suffices :)

Love ya! Elder Horrocks

P.S. You probably already. But I was bummed to hear about Elder L Tom Perry when he passed away! He was one of the greats and has always been there my whole life.

Alex, Elder Nye and Charlie

Alex, Elder Nye, Charlie and Rey

C.'s and her children's baptism