!Hola!

2 weeks of letters...  The weeks keep running together and becoming one!  I'm really trying to keep everything straight :/  I also continue to get pictures from the members and investigators.  They are so much fun to get!!  I'm having a hard time keeping straight which ones I've posted and which ones I haven't!!  I LOVE THAT I EVEN HAVE THAT PROBLEM!!  LOL!!

So... I saw a post on facebook last week (on Alex's Mission President's wife's page) of a newscast in Fresno covering some Mormon Missionaries at the musical "The Book of Mormon" actually handing out The Book of Mormon.  I wondered if Alex was part of it at the time and found out this week... He was!!!  LOL!!  He said it was a great experience!!  I thought it was an awesome story!  He sent some pictures and told the story in one of his emails.  They look like they had a great time!!!

Click here to watch newscast :)

I also got pictures and videos from some members.  This time he was bowling... GUTTER BALL!  Bummer dude!  But I was informed that he got the highest score!!  Lol :):)  

Transfers are this week.  We'll have to see what happens.  I'll have to admit (again) I am nervous and I don't want him to leave where he is!  Everytime I feel like that tho it happens :/  He always finds the best people in every area but it makes me sad every time!!  I'm hoping for another 6 weeks!  

OH!!  My niece Braydee was at Swig and they had a drink "Missionary" and "Big Al" featured on the menu right by each other!!  What are those odds!  I think it's pretty cool!!  I'll post that pic too!  I kind of love it! :):)  Maybe my Big Al can be the mascot of both drinks ;) hahaha

Enjoy the letters!  He's had so much success and love with his investigators.  I get the chills when I think about all the good he is doing.  He is touching so many lives and in return they touch his :)  He also tells a story about he and Elder Quintana that I almost left out because I don't know if it is too personal for Elder Quintana but I loved the revelation that they are given in the last letter.  God is mindful!  I am reminded of that everyday :)  He keeps plopping right in the middle of mine... No denying it!!  I LOVE HIM and I LOVE MY SON who is spreading his word :)

NOTICE "Missionary" and "Big Al" Drinks featured! :)

Bowling :)

Cooking some lunch!

Elder Quintana with the ice bucket

Passing out The Book of Mormon at The Book of Mormon

Elder Quintana and Elder Benites getting ready for the grand finale!

Bringing in the Ammo

2nd night of the play. A bunch of us missionaries with some BOM play fans, they were cool with us!

July 13th

!Hola!

Good to hear from you! This week was awesome!! We did lots of good things, and seen lots of miracles. I'm really excited for the things that we're doing right now. We've seen lots of success and I feel that we'll see lots of success here in the future. Soooo... I guess just to start I'll tell you about our investigators that we have right now and how they're doing. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers, because some of these are new but they are really solid!

D. had his kid! His wife was really relieved and says that it's about time too haha, she says he was being really stubborn but now she's feeling better. Their kid's name is I. He was big! He was like 8 or 9 pounds I believe. They were in the hospital for a few days but now they're out and they're at home. D. unfortunately didn't come to church this Sunday. Dang!!  And he was going to be baptized this upcoming Saturday too! The only way he could is if he came to church though. So now his date has been moved back to the 25th. He's embracing the lessons and learning everything well, I think he just occasionally forgets about the commitments we extend to him like coming to church for example haha. But none the less we're still working with him

H. is D.'s brother. He needs to get married to his soon to be wife. They planned their marriage originally for December or January but he said that he wants to move it to September so that he can be baptized. So he has a date for September 19th as of right now. I don't have a whole lot of information about him but he's awesome! Him and I played the guitar one day together for a little bit and he says he plays in a band so he's pretty good. I told him that I played in a band too (wasn't really a band but just like a get together group and jam out kind of thing). So that's just one way I've become friends with him, hopefully he can teach me some mariachi stuff.

We found a new investigator at dinner about 4 days ago with the M. Family. He's from Arizona and came to Madera and plans on living here for good. He's just living with the M. family (his sister is the mother of the family) until he can find himself a stable place. His wife and kids live in Tijuana Mexico. The reason he left to Arizona in the first place was because of work and because he was passing through some rough times between him and his wife. I think they planned on getting a divorce but something occurred between her and him and they're going to try and save their marriage. When we found him he told us that he's always wanted to see what the church was about and he even bought himself a white shirt some shoes and a tie. When he came to church this Sunday he looked GOOD! People were asking him if he was already a member and he told him that he wasn't and the members would look at him in surprise and think wow you look like you've been in the church for a while! I have a feeling that he's going to be a future leader somewhere down the line in his life. He's super solid and is really fun! We've taught him three times thus far and the second time we taught him he offered the last prayer. The prayer he offered was so sincere and he paused for a moment and began to cry asking God to give him a chance to save his family, but you could just feel the room filled with the spirit.  He's just all around an awesome guy! We set a date with him for the 1st of August, and if everything works out between him and his family he'll be baptized with his wife and kids too

U. is S.'s husband. We've been playing ball with him and been getting to know him that way. He's pretty good ball player! We've just started teaching him too. He's been reading from the bible in Genesis in the Old Testament and stuff. One day he texted us asking questions about those things and of course we answered them. He's really smart too but sometimes the old testament can be hard to interpret and understand. We have him The Book of Mormon and said that he has read it a little bit here and there too. We set a date with him for the 1st of August too, at first he was a little hesitant to accept the invitation but S. was there with us and says, "You're going to be baptized so we can get sealed!", and he's pretty easy going so he was just like okay! He's one of the funnest guys we've got and his family is the best!

That's it for our investigators thus far! We had lots of fun playing ball this week. Yes we did play volleyball on Thursday and shared a message. I was laughing pretty hard because we were just having a good time, we were awful but it was fun! We played ball on Friday with one of our investigators out on some street courts by a middle school. There's a lot of people that go! There was probably about a little over 100 people there playing and rotating. When we were playing my companion Elder Quintana some how landed from a jump and the arch in his foot extended and he said it hurt like crazy! He looks at me and tells me that he dislocated his foot and so him and I go off to the side of the court and his foot looked really swollen. When that happened we had to end our day and go back to our apartment and put his foot in an ice bucket and some hot water to ease the swelling. I have some pictures of it and I'll send them to you :). Since then though his foot hasn't gotten much better :/ it's starting to look like a potato and he thinks a bone might be out of place? We're going to have to check it out with the doctor, maybe it's some ligaments? We're not sure but for now he's just toughing it out.

I wish to make the same request as I did last week from everyone back home to continue praying for Elder Quintana and for the situations that he's having with home. I mentioned last week that was going through some hard times but they've continually gotten worse :( I wish I could just take all his burdens and just carry them for him but I truly know that God gives us trials to make us who he wants us to be. I was watching a Mormon Message called The Refiner's Fire and Elder Quentin L. Cook said a quote, "The refiner's fire is real, and qualities of character and righteousness that are forged in the furnace of affliction perfect and purify us and prepare us to meet God." Isn't that so true? If we endure the challenges we receive he'll sculpt us into the person he wants us to become. So just pray that Elder Quintana will hang in there. There's so much opposition in his way that I think he's going to receive some great blessings in the near future.

It's crazy how summer is flying right?! Remember last year on August 5th when I left the second time? Yeah well it's almost been a year since then and it feels like nothing at all. The mission goes by to fast

Tell Kylr congrats on his call! He'll be awesome! That's so crazy that he's already up and going! Tell him I love him and that he's going to be awesome! Maybe we can speak spanish when he comes home? I wrote him a letter so hopefully he gets it.

Sounds like everyone is doing great at home. I laughed when you told me about J.T. and his story hahahaha are you having to buy new pairs of underwear all the time? Poor kid, I hope he gets feeling better!

Let me know what Weston's recruiter says, I'm stoked to hear what he has to say! By the way ask him if they've got a baseball program anywhere. I'm not sure where this recruiter is from but tell him the big brother is looking for baseball eh? ;)

Well my time is up. Love ya'll! Have a great week and happy big 2 to little sister Char Char

Love Elder Horrocks


Elder Horrocks




July 20th

Wow so what a week! And another flown by too. It's really mind blowing to me that this Saturday is transfer calls and next Wednesday this transfer is over. It feels like it just started. I feel that I'm going to be staying though, I don't think my work is finished here yet. But who knows! I guess we'll find out this upcoming week right?

So I have to say that this week was a little bit odd but probably one of the funnest that I've had! The reason I say odd is because we did a lot of traveling and so it felt like I didn't get to work much in my area. We had lots of meetings going back and forth from Fresno and Madera as well as exchanges going back and forth from Fresno. One of the reasons we went down to Fresno was for the Book of Mormon play. I don't know if you all know what that is but it's a play that kind of gives a bad impression on the church. It's something about 2 missionaries going out to Uganda and things happen to them, but just from that you can already tell that it's definitely NOT the Book of Mormon. Funny thing is that the South Park cartoon producers are the ones that have put together this play, imagine that huh? But anyhow, so Elder Quintana were on exchanges with the Assistants and we planned on going to the play to stand outside before and after the show and hand out some Book's of Mormon. There was some very interesting comments as they came out of the play! Some were saying stuff like, "Why weren't you in the play? Is that what your religion is really about? So you're the real mormons?" or stuff like, "That play was totally discriminating towards your religion, give me one of those books!" and of course some really liked it and mocked us but we didn't care haha. One guy came up to me and took a picture with me and was asking me a bunch of questions and posts the pictures of me and him on Instagram. I'm sure there was so many missionaries on peoples Facebook and Instagram that night. We ended up handing out Books of Mormon for two nights in a row, and I believe we handed out about 800 the first day and 600 the next day. We didn't end up finishing until about 11:00  o clock at night but it was okay. We were on assignment from President :)

I had the opportunity of going on exchanges with Elder Daley who's one of the District leaders in our Zone. Great missionary! We had lots of fun. We were on bike and I haven't rode bike intensely since Lindsey, and I was there during the winter so it wasn't even that bad. Elder Daley smoked me on the bike and I am so out of shape! The problems of being a zone leader... We aren't riding bikes! But it's 100 degrees outside too so it wears you down. Exchanges with Elder Daley was good though! I really had a good time.

I know I said that I wasn't able to be in my area a lot to teach but I'm grateful that I was able to have at least some time. We had a few days of teaching U., S.'s husband. He's doing super good! He's really smart. Like I said before he reads in the old and new testament but he seems to understand the majority of it but he's reading in the Book of Mormon too. So that's really good! He's been reading a lot! It sounds like he doesn't have a lot to do at work so he reads and stuff. Just yesterday we had a lesson with him and he brought a list of questions about some scriptures and stuff. That shows a lot from an investigator! He's very skeptical about some pictures like when Nephi kills Laban. "But isn't one of the commandments not to kill anyone?" Haha we get those questions frequently when an investigator is actually progressing. But we explained to him why that happened, sooooo good things for Uriel! We don't have a date for baptism but hopefully here soon we can

M. is doing really really good! He came to church yesterday for the second time! He's reading and praying and doing everything he should be doing. He has one of the biggest desires to just simply be better. You can see how much happier he has been since he's heard of the gospel. This week we watched the Ephraim's Rescue movie with him. He was really touched by it. His family should be getting here from Tijuana Mexico today. He's really excited about that and we are meeting them tomorrow and we're stoked to be able to see them as well. We're going to try and teach them too :)

I'm pretty excited for Weston and his recruiter! What a stud. It sounds like this guy has some good advice and hook ups too. Tell Wes that's awesome! I got his letter and I'll do all I can to try and email him back but my time is short like I always say.

Happy birthday to Charleigh! She's getting so big!!! J.T. is getting big too, it's weird to think that she'll almost be 3 by the end of my mission.

Elder Quintana's foot is good. We ran this morning and he said it felt good. And he's doing a lot better with his family situation back home too. He says that his family members and brothers and sisters are staying super positive. I know where he's coming from. I had an interview with Pres. Clark this week and he told me he was unsure of why the Lord sent him back to Madera from where he was before, but now he knows why, he believes I was uniquely qualified to help him. Which I'm happy to help! But I feel that he'll feel a lot more help from our Savior. So anyhow, he's doing lots better!

Sorry if I wasn't able to answer any questions that you had but let me know if there's any next week! I'm always glad to hear about the cool stories and see the funny pictures and videos of what goes on back home. They make me laugh.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love

Elder Horrocks