He had a wonderful Thanksgiving with his "other" family. I also heard from them last night and found out he's being transferred :'( I always feel this way at transfers!! I'm sooo sad! They're so sad!! And right before Christmas and his birthday?? I trust the Lord. He knows what he's doing and Alex will go to the new area and touch the lives of those there. I just don't know them yet. SO although I am broken hearted he's leaving them, I am also very mindful that I have been blessed and so has he. He will do great things in his new area. I'll find out in his letter today. I will also try to post it ASAP as to not keep you all hanging.
I also had the awesome experience of going to the temple with Charlie (One of his first baptisms and closest friends from the mish). It was an amazing thing to be a part of. Al was sad he couldn't be there but he is so proud of him also! I got to meet a TON of returned missionaries that he knew and served with. I also met a couple of momma's. We're already planning reunions for everyone.
Enjoy... Sorry about the letter and picture overload :) hahaha!! No such thing right??? ;)
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| On our way to the football field |
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| The field |
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| The game |
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| Our boy R. B! Sorry it's a bit blurry |
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| Card board that covers the turkey's |
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| Covering the turkey's with dirt |
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| Hanging out in the back garden eating oranges |
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| After we dug out the turkey's |
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| Seasoning the turkey's |
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| Me with a turkey |
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| Puttin turkey's in the ground |
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| Elder Flores and I |
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| Pit of turkey's |
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| Halloween party! |
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| Playing Charades |
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| Roberto's Helmet (I can't believe they put that thing on!! LOL! Football gear STINKS) |
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| Thanksgiving Dinner |
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| Gift to his family :) (they sent me a picture of it) She said at first we thought they were grateful for themselves LOL. Then they read the back... Translated: The best family in the world. We love you a lot! We're very grateful for you guys! You're our family! |
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| Sparkling Cider gun??? |
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| Sparkling Cider |
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| Ward Thanksgiving Dinner |
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| Alex and Layla... She's going to miss Elder Horrocks |
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| They invited them Christmas tree shopping when they found out they were being transferred :( |
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| Charlie and all the missionaries |
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| Group Pic |
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| Charlie and Sister Avina (She lived in Alex's apartment building and in his ward in Lindsey) |
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| Far Left: Kevin Nye (Al's MTC companion and also in the field. He served the most time with him. About 6 months) Far Right: Courtney Wilkins. (Alex was her zone leader and played the guitar at the farewell when she came home) |
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| Another group pictures :) Great day! |
Nov. 9th
Hola!!
I'm actually not sure at all what you mean by the church policies in California? What's going on there? I never hear what was going on. We normally don't hear about those things out here in the mish... And I do know Sisters Schillimet and Johnson! I didn't hear about the story though, I'll have to ask around about it. That's an awesome experience and Sister missionaries are a pretty powerful force, especially in the CFM, they really change peoples lives!
So Basketball is just around the corner? I bet it's going to be a fun season! Who's the new coach? For the boys and girls? That's so crazy because I can remember almost a whole year ago talking about basketball season, and also hearing about the torture practices that Weston was having haha. There's always a bad year for something but hey it's in the past. New coach, new everything! Just have a fun year!
I'm super stoked for Charlie to be going through the temple! I wonder if Kevin Nye and Kacen Moody are going to be there? Those two were some of the best companions I've had, and they loved Charlie! Well tell him I'm jealous and that I wish I could be there to go through with him. Can't believe it's been a year since he's been baptized, he's growing up! Haha
Hey if it helps Mar, I didn't letter in Basketball until my senior year. So she's definitely doing a lot better than I was as far as lettering in a sport. Playing as a freshman on varsity is pretty good!
Real quick. I'd think it'd be sweet to have a road trip from the mish back home but I just don't know how that all can work out, because I also want to see everyone, but let me know when you talk with Dad so I can know what's up.
Well let's see... We had a really really busy week! As always, great things are happening and continue to happen. I don't really talking about meetings all that much in my letters but this week we had an MLC meeting (mission leadership council) and wow it was intense! Yeah I would definitely say we're a pretty obedient mission but we just have so much more to give. We talk about obedience, or even exact obedience in the mission, but there's more! To me it's almost like trying to be perfect, but not even that just having a real urgency to do all you can, and if we mess up we can repent. The attitude that we've been looking for is being exactly obedient even in the littlest things, repenting if we mess up, and then strive to prevent disobedience. God can only give us so much if we do what he says, but if we don't then we don't have any promises (D&C 82:10). It's hard to explain because it's a missionary thing but we've come short on some goals and it's because we're not exactly obedient. I don't know where else you can be exactly obedient other than the mission! It's hard as a normal member to have that kind of mindset. But wow there's a spirit brooding about our mission about ex. obedience. It's such a powerful thing to see when all the missionaries are on board to be exactly obedient. Miracles only come by obedience, and as missionaries, we seek the miracle of conversion.
Anyways... So we actually had some fun events along with missionary work. We've been working with a less active family name The B. Family. They're a less active family and we've found a little bit through them. The mom was a relief society president a few years back and her and her husband have been sealed in the temple. I believe they've been sealed to their 6 children too? I'm not really sure. But they came back to church and people were lining up to come and see them. They've missed them so much and it's been about 3 or 4 years since they came to church. It was so cool to see how much the people loved and missed this family! So see we help out in the retention too. We went to the B. son's football game this past Friday to watch him play. He plays on J.V. but he's a big kid and some of these kids in Cali are huge! It was fun night though and they played really well, we only got to watch the first half. We heard they lost 26 to 20 but that varsity won 55-30. It made me miss watching/playing in high school games back home.
U. has his first calling! We just found out yesterday that he was called to be the YM secretary. He's going to be great! It's going to be fun to watch him see how he does.
Our investigators and people were teaching are doing really well. We set two baptismal dates for the 28th of November this past week through less active members. They're two kids, F. and H. It's funny how we found them. We tried to go visit a different less active member but coming to the house and seeing the family it was definitely not the family we expected, but they just so happened to be less active and have been wanting to baptize their children for some time. The only obstacle is the kids Biological mom, she doesn't want them being baptized. We'll be meeting the mom today so pray that the spirit will touch her heart and she'll let them be baptized. M. is another investigator who Elder Benites was teaching back in his last area in Clovis. She's more american than spanish, she's a cowgirl! We did some service for her this past week on her horse ranch in her backyard. It was great! She's definitely progressing and has been to church four times. It's sad though cause we might have to pass her off to the english elders... H. is still in the process of getting his marriage license. We'll see what happens. His baptismal date is for the 19th of December... The others are doing great as well. We're just focusing on setting dates and finding. We found a family named The T.! They're a big family of like 6 or 7. They can definitely be baptized, especially the daughter in particular. Her name is C. and she seems really receptive to us.
Well I only have a few minutes and I will answer your questions about Christmas and all that other stuff in a separate email today and send some pics from Halloween and from this past week. I love ya'll!! I wish you a great week.
Love
Elder Horrocks
Nov. 16th
Good week!
Weeks just fly! And they go faster and faster all the time. I don't really like it haha. So I'm going to go and jump right into the week!
Monday we were able to teach F. and J. They're great kids! They're so ready to be baptized but they just need the permission from their mother.
Tuesday we had our Zone Meeting. It's crazy how fast those meetings come and how much trainings we've had to give. It was an awesome zone meeting and everyone was very edified and uplifted! I learned a lot myself of what I can do to become a more complete missionary. I remember one of the trainings given by our District Leaders was about giving correction out of love and one of the senior couples in our Zone stood up and said "This principle will help you with marriage!". I laughed and thought that was funny. I definitely did not see it that way. I guess if you really put it into perspective, missions really do prepare you for life and for eternity. It's brilliant how the Lord does it too. What better place than a mission to prepare for those things! I also was able to go on a exchanges and normally miracles happen on exchanges. And a miracle did happen! I don't know if I mentioned last week but we found a little family. I think I said they were the T. family but they're actually the M. family. We found their Dad, his name's C. and we're teaching him now. He offered the kneeling prayer at the end and he did awesome! They're a good family, they just have a hard time understanding everything. We were able to see G. Tuesday also! We invited her to be baptized for the 9th of December. She said that she'll think on it. She read the Book of Mormon like we asked! We'll see where she goes from here. We had an appointment with her today but it fell through.
Wednesday was tough. My companion got sick! What's worst is that Zone Conference was the next day. There's just some kind of luck in Madera where someone gets sick during important events. I know exactly how he felt! We're supposed to go to the Ramate or in other words the flea market with some members. We were going to talk with everyone there and see if there was potentials.
Thursday Elder Benites was feeling a lot better! We went and watched the Testaments movie with the B. family. They're starting to love the gospel again, it's amazing to watch! Sister B. cried. She hadn't seen the movie before. The spirit continues to bring the family back closer to Heavenly Father... Friday. Sports night!! We weren't sure how big our event was going to be but we had a whole bunch of non-members come! We brought investigators to play soccer for an hour and then we'd play volleyball. We have a member named Fernando Ruiz who's on the high school volleyball team. We asked him to invite a few friends and he brought like 15-20 friends! It was kind of a shock haha. Some kids were on the high school team but there were 3 or 4 who were on a college team. They burned us!! It went from fun soccer to volleyball death haha but it was really fun! We were totally tired after that night... We also met F. and J.'s mom that night. We didn't ask her for permission to baptize her kids yet (we'll be doing that today) but we just got to know her! We just befriended her and she's actually really cool! I don't see why she didn't let her kids be baptized before, but we'll see what happens tonight. We had Zone Conference on Thursday also. Awesome conference! I always love Zone Conferences
Saturday we went and watched F. and J. play soccer. They're really good! The soccer community out here is excellent. I've never really liked soccer before but on my mission I've learned to like it enough. It's just a culture thing for the hispanics! So they're really good out here in Cali. I think that they tied their game. I forgot to take pictures! I apologize for that! They have a tournament on this upcoming Saturday. Hopefully we can go watch that and I can get pics then.
Sunday! Sunday is game day as a missionary. And a miracle happened! The B. brought their non member grandchild! His name is L. and he's our new investigator. I think he's 13 years old. But it was another testimony to me that these less actives are so precious. And they are where the fish are!
I have to head out but I love you all and thank your letters! They're awesome!
Love Elder Horrocks
P.S. Tell Charlie and Paul I said hi! It's so cool to see them with the family
Elder Horrocks
Nov. 23rd
Hey so I'm sorry but I have to get going here in about 20 minutes or so to a turkey bowl in Hanford and so I have to make this letter really fast. I feel so bad because I feel like there was a lot of good stuff that happened this weekend and just through the week in general.
I'm happy to hear that everyone's doing good! This week was fun. We had a ward get together and had like a early thanksgiving dinner this past Saturday. We went to go help cook the turkeys with the members early Saturday morning, and it was so cool how they did it! They dug a pit to fit about 10 turkeys and there was a hot coal and rock on the bottom. We gutted the turkeys, put some seasoning on them, wrapped them in tinfoil, put them in a tray, and then threw them in the pit. Then we covered them with wet cardboard box and then covered it with the extra dirt from the ground. The steam and heat is what cooked the turkeys, and in about 4 hours ALL the turkeys were cooked and fresh! We are totally doing that when I come home next thanksgiving!!! I'm not sure if anyone's ever heard of that or ever done that back home, but wow!! The hispanic culture knows what's up!
Our investigators are doing great! F. and J. still have their baptism this next Sunday. And we set one last night and the day before with two people named J. L. and L. B. (grandson of the B. family). It was cool because they were both miracles!! Especially the J. L. guy. But I'll tell you all more about that later. I gotta go!
I love you all! Have a great thanksgiving!!
p.s. shirt size is a 15 1/2 (for church shirts)
p.s.s exchanges happen before christmas FYI
