I know it has been WAY too long! I haven't had a lot of extra time to transcribe letters and I apologize! Like I said before... LIFE keeps happening around me!! AHHH!
So Big Al is doing wonderful. I absolutely LOVE listening to the recordings. It is so much fun to actually hear life going on around him. In one of his letters there is a conversation going on between him and his companion and It was fun to be the fly on the wall listening to them. They had me laughing pretty hard. They love the people and they love the work and you can tell that they are happy where they are.
You can also tell that Alex is very apprehensive about the future and coming home. You can sense the fear and hesitation about coming home and what he should do when he gets here in his voice. Keep him in your prayers please. He has never loved change and always had to "work himself up" and prepare himself for it. He doesn't feel prepared at all for coming home. So although he is excited and misses us all, he is still hoping for some direction from God for his plan.
He got to visit with Charlie and Kevin last week! I'm hoping that that helped him in finding some relief for the future also! Besides seeing them he was also able to visit with cousin Tanner :) That was really cool! Except for that they both need their BUTT'S KICKED for not taking any pictures!!
One week is missing because they had a temple day and weren't able to really write. Also, last week's letter is missing because he accidentally forgot to attach one of the recordings. I asked him to send it with today's recordings so I can't get them up ASAP. He's also been a slacker about sending pictures (and all of the pictures I do have actually go to last week's letter so I'll wait to post them) I guess since he's been sending recordings and we get to hear his voice he doesn't think he needs to send pictures of his face?? LOL. Maybe this week...
Enjoy! Like I said they're longer but full of so much detail and personality. I love it!!
January 18th
He we are back to another week. January 11-17. I mentioned before, but it goes by super fast! I can't believe how fast it goes by!! I want to keep this one short and sweet. I got a lot of chores today for P-Day. I want to be able to get to read all your letters too, maybe write a few friends. I guess we'll just start!
Monday: I wrote Ya'll and read your letters. I actually have a few remarks for some of them when I get to your letters.
Tuesday: It was a fairly good day we actually dinners with the Garcia family. They were awesome! We actually shared a message called "Always remember him" and it's about Jesus Christ, when we partake of the sacrament how we're supposed to always remember him and the significance of what he did. I guess the video took the message to a whole other magnitude of the meaning of the sacrament. They like it! They really enjoyed it! I think Sister Garcia used it for a spiritual thought in her class on Sunday. We had a good time there. Then we saw their neighbor C. He has been doing AWESOME! C. is really coming along. We actually met his parents. They're really cool and down to Earth. His parents really enjoy what we do. We just asked them if we could have permission to reach their son and there was nothing secretive "In fact here's this and this if you want to read a few pamphlets and join in with us on the lessons you are more than welcome to learn what he's learning." and they were like "No. We're Catholic but we really like what you're doing with my son. Before he never really said prayer on his food and now he prays on his food and we think that's cool!" That's one step in progress is his parents. We don't know if we'll teach his parents but I think his parents will come along as we keep teaching C. C. has had various different questions. If any of you know what the show Supernatural is, It's about two brothers and it's I guess it's a scifi show?? He watches that a lot but he has a lot of questions from it like "Is Michael the archangel the one that is going to completely destroy Lucifer?" And I guess there is some truth to that?? Maybe at the last day?? I don't know. lol. Just weird questions but, when he comes to the spirituality of things, when he's really sincere and not just curious, it comes down to the atonement of Jesus Christ. He understands that this is something he needs to do. We actually had a lesson with him yesterday but I'll get to that in a min, but now we have permission from his parents! Awesome!
Wednesday: We had a miracle. We have a member named B. C. who we taught last week at a dinner lesson. We shared with them the video "Strive". It's the youth video on Mormon Channel. We tied into how we are to get rid of our mediocrity and also our progression in the gospel in general. It needs to be more of a constant thing and not just a recourse. Like the Holy Ghost is always telling us to do better things but if we don't do what it tells us to do the first time it will just give us more recourse and tell us to do one thing, if we're not doing that we'll drop ourselves to a lower level and then it will tell us to do better at that. So we tied it into becoming better. We also tied into missionary work. One of the things they said was that their father was really against them being baptized before and their father grew up rough with them I guess you could say. So it was really hard for B. and her sister to get baptized into the church. They were telling us about it and how they want their dad to open his heart a little bit and change (that actually happened last week) so wednesday we got a call from B. and she's like "Elders! My dad gave us a call and he wants us to meet with him! He said he misses us so much and hasn't seen us in forever and he feels like he wants to be different. He's sorry for things he did in the past." It was just a random phone call that she got about this miracle so she felt like she needed to share that with us and we are super happy for her! The only unfortunate thing is we're not going to be able to teach her dad. He's not a member but the other Elders can teach him because he's in their area in Wood Lake. It's still the hastening of the work either way you look at it! Anyway! That was cool! We had a mutual activity. The reason we went was to support two investigators E. and A. They are A's daughters. It was just a bonfire get together. We roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. We got to meet the youth and get to know and befriend them. The big event was the bishop was going to burn down two Christmas trees. He had this line of toilet paper that started by the swimming pool and was around a 30 foot line of toilet paper all the way to the tree and it was wrapped around one tree and the the other tree was standing next to it. So he had soaked the toilet paper in gasoline. He shared a spiritual message. He basically asked them how fire pertained to the holy ghost. He shared a message about how we needed the holy ghost to be more illuminated in our lives and how we can exercise that. So he went to burn the tree (and this is the funny part), and he started the fire at the beginning of the roll and it caught fire SUPER fast!! Here's the big, bright, flaming line of toilet paper zooming across and it went all the way across the 30 foot line and when it got to the top of the branch on on the tree it was like BLOOP! The flame got as small as my finger and the fire slowed WAY down and very slowly started the tree on fire and everybody was like "HOOOOOOO YEAH!!!!!!" lol. It was really funny because we were expecting this big BOOM of fire and it just was really wimpy at the end. hahaha! Our investigators got really good fellowshipped tho! Fun activity, good time with the youth. We also went and saw A. after the activity that night. She just recently got noticed that she has a higher chance of having cancer but she doesn't know what kind. The doctor says it is cancer but they don't know if it's malignant or benign. The doctors are going to do is send her to San Fransisco and get her cleared for operation. She's having a hard time so we gave her a blessing that the operation would go well and the rest of the process will go smoothly and get resolved. So we're keeping her and her family in our prayers.
Thursday: There wasn't a whole lot going on except we got to meet the new missionaries for the first time. Tanner's trainer used to be here in Visalia and was transferred to Hanford. If you all haven't gotten the news I guess I'll wait for him to tell you where he is. He's not in my zone but he's going to be with an Elder Perkin's. Really good elder! Awesome, awesome missionary. Elder, uh, Taylor (I guess now he is. That's weird to say) is going to be having a really good trainer and training period. I'm really excited for him. We saw our two other missionaries. Elder Herman is with Elder Stojka. That's going to be good for them! We also saw Sister Anderson, from Utah. She's good friends with one of the sisters here in the mission. Anyway, we met them and they're awesome! It's crazy how time flies by so fast and you see all these new missionaries coming in and... I feel SOOO old now! Lol. I don't feel like I know anyone! All these new missionaries and faces that I don't even know. That's just how weird it is and how old I am (as far as missionaries). hahaha. Later we saw C. again. We brought a HS friend named C. and we had a good lesson. C. had a guitar and Elder Frame said "Hey! My companion knows how to play the guitar" so we kind of busted out the guitar for awhile. I showed them what's up. They liked it! They enjoyed it I guess lol. I'm trying to be humble here. LOL. So we had a good time. Their mom was really cool with us after that and said "Oh you play the guitar?? That's awesome!!" We had a good lesson and I kind of felt like I needed to chastise myself after because I told myself I wouldn't play the guitar anymore till I was off my mission. Now I need to renew my commitment. So I haven't played the guitar since and only play on P-Day now.
Friday: It was alright I guess. Friday wasn't the greatest day but we had a fun time at the church activity. We played soccer with the sister's and the new investigators. They're a family of 8, they're HUGE! A few other people also. We had a fun time! It was great! A little bit rough, I'm not the best soccer player! lol. All these Mexican's running through my legs and doing tricks and I'm trying to keep up with them. Hahaha! Still can't get the hang of soccer and I've been out here for a long time! We taught a few lessons. None worth mentioning tho.
Saturday: We had our Zone Meeting. I gave a training. Sister Nada gave a training. Elder Cho gave a training. The best way the the CFM is going to hasten the work is through finding. It is inspired from God. Everything we went over in the meeting is essential for our zone. Hopefully we can practice it more often. That's one thing that lacks, is role plays and practices. We just need to own our skills I guess. Really fun, good, productive meeting. Saw M. our investigator who really warmed up to us. It was cool at the end of the lesson we followed up if she was reading the BOM with B. her daughter and she actually has been. She's been doing that a lot more. We praised her and told her to keep doing that. We told her that it would bless her life. I'm not sure how we got talking about the spirit world, but she's been having these weird spiritual experiences with family members that appear to her in dreams. Like her mom and aunts. And we were like HEY! Those are real!! I told her about when Cole passed away and I talked about how someone called Grandma Gardner and told them that Heather had Dax and Gramma said "Yeah I know!" and they asked how she knew and she said "I had a dream about Cole and he was holding Dax and looking at him" I can't remember for sure so correct me if I'm wrong but I think Cole kissed him and he disappeared and that was the end of the dream and that's how she knew. I thought that was really cool so I shared that experience with M. and she was thought that was really sweet and cool. I think the whole purpose was so that she can recognize that there are guardian angels and people who watch over us. Those people who look over us constantly need our help. We talked about work for the dead and how she can have her ancestors be baptized. She thought that was a really cool blessing. I think that will help her to catch more interest. She really warmed up to us.
Sunday: This was our day to remember. We were on fire!! It was awesome! We went on team up. We taught several different people. Within the hours that we had to teach we ended up teaching six different lessons all with member presence. We found three new investigators that night. With a member present. Hardly ever does that happen!! Normally missionaries don't do that because investigators don't feel warmed up to the members but, after that experience I felt like that that's totally false! We should use members more often when we find new people!! My companion went and saw a less active family and they found their son's girlfriend is actually interested and the son was really excited! I wasn't able to be present but that was a new investigator. We taught C. again, about the atonement. I think next time we're going to talk about how to obtain the full blessings of the atonement. I think he understands why but now he just needs to understand that baptism is the only access and way that a person is able to receive the fullness of the atonement. That's why we're baptized unto repentance. Another new investigator was a guy named H. and his wife. They told us they were Catholic but they wanted to hear what we had to say because they had been to Mormon churches before and they had some doubts about Joseph Smith and the BOM. So we told them we'd come back on Wednesday. It was a great day.
I guess that sums up my entire week. If you have any questions after this just write them. I'm sorry I've been really bad at replying and answering questions if there are any. I'll try to do better at that. I don't know if I ever shared with all of you my testimony.
(Bares testimony in Spanish)
Well I love ya'll! I hope you enjoyed that! I will be seeing you next Monday! Let me know if you have questions. I love hearing from you.
Love,
Elder Horrocks
January 25th
Hello Everyone! Elder Horrocks speaking! What I'm going to be doing here is... I'm going to try doing something a little bit different instead of trying to have all of the recordings sent all of the recordings sent on Monday at once I'm going to try to do them daily instead. That way when I get to email I can start emailing right off the bat. That way I can respond to everyone's emails and answer some questions. This should be good! Sooooooooo...
Monday: I emailed you and had a good P-Day. We played volleyball and my companion spiked the ball right... to where it counts! Right in my unit! LOL. (Conversation starts between Elder Frame and Alex here).
E.F.: Yeah!! And then just freakin' threw the ball at me!!
E.H.: Well cause I tried to **laughing hard** I tried to smack the ball over the net and then BOOP!
E.F.: **laughing uncontrollably** NO you didn't! You just threw it up in the net and UGHHHHH! **laughing hard**
E.H.: Anyway... **laughing hard**! So... We both got paybacks! SO!! Anyhow! LOL. What else did we do that day??
E.F.: That day?? We got a haircut.
E.H.: Yeah we got haircuts.
E.F.: They were really expensive!
E.H.: Yeah they were like $16
E.F.: Yeah it was ridiculous...
E.H.: Yeah we forgot that we had some free haircut people.
E.F.: Yep!
E.H.: Uhhhh, Brother Garcia, Sister Garcia. Yeah the Husband ...What else did we do that day?? We didn't do much.
E.F.: We broke our fast. That was really good that day.
E.H.: Oh yeah!! We had a really lonnnnng fast the week before!! **both are laughing**
E.F.: We like fasted the WHOLE WEEK!! LOL
E.H.: We had like a, yeah it was like, we had simultaneous stops because something came up last Friday. Last Friday we stopped our fast because President asked us to go eat lunch and help a companionship so we were like "alright we'll stop". And then the next day **laughing hard again**. Uhhhhhh...
E.F.: Yeah why did we stop the next day???
E.H.: Something happened. Then Sunday night we went to the R.'s house and she gave us hot chocolate and we took a sip and we were like "DOH!! Wait!! Whoa whoa!! Wait! Wait!! We not! We're supposed to fast!!!! WE'RE FASTING!!"
E.F.: And then you were tempted by it! I'm like, **Alex is laughing hard**
E.H.: Well I sat there holding it in my hands in the back of the car and C.... **laughing** and I was like "THIS IS SOOOOO GOOD!!
E.F.: And C., he's just drinking his and like "This is sooooo good Elder!! Are you sure you don't want some??" **laughing**
E.H.: "What are you going to do with it???" **long pause** "I think I'll just take a couple more sips and throw it out the window..." **Hee* and he starts busting. **mischievous laughs** "You can't serve two masters Elder!!"
E.F.: And then C. laughed!! It was soooo funny!!
E.H.: **pause** You know I'm recording all of this??? Right???
E.F. **long pause** Yeah??? Sure??? **both laughing again** I was just chatting with you dude!! **both laughing** **pause** Well... Uhh... Elder Horrocks family... LOVE YA!!!
E.H.: **laughing** We love ya!! If you haven't heard that yet!
E.F.: Well love you!! I'm gonna go... and... *longer pause** do... some stuff **Alex laughing hard**
E.H.: Well go do your stuff then! **laughing** **clears throat** ANYWAY!!
Well that sums up our prep day except for the people we taught. We made some new investigators! And we're pretty sure that they're lesbians because, ummmm, it was pretty awkward!! Uhhh... So, here's the thing. We went to teach a member named M.P. and they're in this really ghetto apartment complex and we were sitting there and she's like "come on in!" and we're like "is there a guy in the house??" and she says nooo. And we said well we can't come in... and she was like "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BRING A MAN!!" lol. And we didn't know anything about it so, we were confused and we said we would just come back. Can we come back?? Just so we were able to be obedient, there were these two girls just across the way and we're like "Hey what's up??? What's going on??". And she says (in a deep voice) "Hey!! What's up man?? Ya'll come ova here!! Share da wurd!!" (all super gangster with us) and we thought they were like 13 year old boys!! We looked at them and one of them was drinking a beer and the other one was smoking a cigarette and we were like "DANG!!". And Elder Frame says "How old are you??" and they're like "23 and you??" "21..." Dang! You look like you're 14 or something! LOL and you sound like a little boy!! LOL!! Soooooo, their names are D. and S. They're an interesting deal! We ended up sharing with them a little short scripture instead of teaching them a lesson. We talked about God's plan with them and she was like "What is God's plan??" and it was kind of all over the place but we taught them John 3:16-17 and why Jesus Christ came and all that jazz. They understood and they were like "Yeah!! I respect you!!" and they asked us to come back and they were SUPER surprised when we went back! Lol. (I'll get to that). Lol. That's when we thought that they were maybe lesbian's. So!
Tuesday: Tuesday is when we went back and that's when we found out they were lesbian's because we walked up and they're like "COME ON IN!!" and we tried to find a man to help us so we could go into the house and we go in there and there is D., S., and there's like four other girls in there. She tells us "COME ON IN!!" and Elder Frame asks if there is a man in the house and one the girls is like "YO!! I'm da man o da house righ here!!". So we were like alllllllllright then... Good for you!! Lol. So that kind of signified that maybe they're all lesbian's, but whatever!! So we do not know if they are lesbian investigators yet but we'll find out soon. We also sat up the broadcast for the missionary general conference. We went and saw J.V. and dedicated her house. She asked us some questions about polygamy. It was a good lesson. We helped her understand the difference between marrying and sealing. Good lesson!! Then we saw one of our new investigators A. She's actually a 16 year old girl and her boyfriend is a less active member named R. He's also 16. They are living together. And, Uh, that's not a good thing! That's a no no! So right now we're just teaching them the restoration. She understands fairly well that the authority was lost and all of that. Then we invited her to be baptised and she accepted. So we asked if she knew what baptism is and R. was like "Yeah! Remember you said it yesterday" and we were like "Wait!?!?? You guys talked about it before??" That is kind of a key indicator that she is pretty prepared, at least as far as accepting the baptism. We just trying to make sure she has a testimony and commitment.
Wednesday: Missionary General Conference day! One of the coolest days ever! I'll that the MGC really talked about was teaching repentance and baptising converts. Everything! Everything that they implied was teach repentance and baptize converts. There was no big change to it. OH!! By the way, this conference was broadcast to all the missionaries in the world. Anyway there wasn't anything changed. Elder Frame and I were expecting a higher expectation of baptism, but I guess you can't go against the scriptures and what they say. Like D&C 20-37 about humbling themselves and desiring and are willing to take up themselves the name of Jesus Christ, it's pretty simple! They just have to want it. But we as missionaries have to improve our part as far as teaching the repentance. There's a lot of people who are baptized but then they fall away because they don't know how to repent or they feel like they've lost themselves and not capable of coming back because of what they've done. Well that's why you're baptised in the first place!! You're baptised under repentance. There was a lot of note taking a lot of things going on. I recorded the stuff so maybe you can listen when I get home but they're too long to send. After we went to the apartment and did our studies. We had dinner and it was yummy. The highlight of the night was H. (This just happened tonight) Soooo, H. He was kind of timid and had some doubts here and there about Joseph Smith and the BOM. Funny thing is, is that he has felt the holy ghost before and it was a powerful experience in his life! Thank goodness we had our member with us. If we didn't have him with us, I don't think he would have opened his heart up to us like he did tonight. Basically what he told us was that he's been through a lot of junk in his life where he's felt really bad and needed to have women and alcohol to be happy. I guess he came to a self realization that, that wasn't what happiness was about. So the member who is a living miracle of the atonement testified of his experience and shared with him that he's been through those exact same things. It's easier when a member does it because it takes the attention off of us and focus the friendship on the member and the investigator. So H. had an experience where he felt the spirit before. He went to church (not sure which church but it doesn't matter because everywhere has the spirit of Christ), and the Holy Ghost taught him that God lived and he told us that. He said "And at some point I just knew God lives!! And what I was doing was wrong!! I felt peace and joy and this happiness. I didn't know where it came from but I just want that again!!" So we testified and left him the BOM. He also asked questions about the priesthood. Never do investigators ask about the priesthood or even know what it is!! But he asked about it because he's read the Bible. He knows about Aaron and Moses and the Melchizedek priesthood. So we were really surprised at how knowledgeable he was! Awesome thing about H. is that he has real desire! Sincere desire!! We been praying soooo hard that we could just find someone who wants to be baptized for the sake of change and he wants it!! He wants that feeling that he's had somewhere in his life back. So what a cool miracle. That's just everything in a nutshell. As we continue to visit with him we'll begin to have more experiences to tell you about! But WOW!! We went over time as far as trying to get back to the apartment but we were just following the spirit of the law... So Cool!!! I know just from that experience that God has real prepared people and members are essential!! Jesus Christ prepares the people. It all depends on our obedience and our faith to go act and do things. I feel like I've grown. My testimony of my savior has grown! I know he lives, I know he wants good things here in life and that's through his gospel and repentance. I know repentance is essential to our happiness.
Sorry if I sound dead and beat. I'm super tired today but I want to be able to do this. So Thursday: We had exchanges. He went with Elder Cho and I went with Elder Bishop. Elder Bishop is from Texas, somewhere in the outskirts of Austin. He's an awesome guys One of the best Elder's I've ever seen. He's really humble, he's very chill and relaxed. I kind of felt bad for him because the whole entire day I was speaking spanish and he didn't know a lick of what was going on. I would be talking with people and he'd just stand aside. I was hoping we'd have an opportunity to speak English so that maybe I could see what he was really about. Luckily that opportunity came, but I want to start with dinner. Dinner, awesome lesson! We actually all got together and we ate dinner at the gospel principle teacher's house here in Visalia. She is sooooo awesome!! She is like the mother of missionaries here in Visalia! She just loves them to death! She is the sweetest lady you'll ever meet! She cooked us spaghetti because she said "I don't know if you ever get tired of eating Mexican food." So I said that I hadn't eaten spaghetti in FOREVER!! So she made us spaghetti! :) So she told us a lot of different things, she KNOWS a lot of things! She's read the Bible, the BOM, D&C's, Pearl of Great Price. She's read the entire quad and she knows a lot! One thing we talked about is that the hospital told her that she is going to be having surgery on her lower back, I can't remember what the reason is exactly. Anyhow, she shared that trial with us and we shared a message based off of trials, and shared Ether 12:6 where is talks about that we don't receive a witness until after the trial of faith and for her, we tried to help her to resonate with the scripture so she could understand that with the hope that she has (she has a great connection with God) that God can help her in anything thanks to the atonement of Jesus Christ and because of that she can overcome obstacles. So she took heed to that. Then she started crying and started feeling like everything was going to be ok. She knew that God would help her. She doesn't know if it will cause death but the doctor told her that it could. I guess it's a risky deal. So she was crying and started telling us the story about her son who served a mission and that he passed away while he was serving. I think from a gas leak or something. So she told us a story about how she really loved and appreciated the missionaries. She said that her son Ronnie (that died while serving) came to her when he was young and said "Mom I need to talk to you" She said "ok son! What's going on" and he as a little boy told her "Mom! What do you expect?? An angel to come to you??" She had been talking to the missionaries about baptism. So she gave Ronnie a big hug and then she called the Elder and told that that she wanted to be baptism. It was pretty awesome how even back when he was little he was a great missionary for his mom. One of the cool stories about her son when he passed away was that she had a day she was trying to get ready for the missionaries to come over to her house for Christmas, and she was in the shower and her husband kept coming in and saying the elders were there. She told him to tell them to come in. So he went downstairs and came back up and said that they wouldn't come in until she was done, so she said to tell them to come in anyway that they were being silly. So he wen't back down again and came back up and said they're still not coming in. So she grabbed her towel and tries to hurry and dry off, get dressed and came running downstairs to see the missionaries and all the missionaries were there to give her a Christmas surprise gift. All the missionaries gathered around (this was just after her son passed away) and looked at the missionaries and started to cry. Then she heard son's voice and it said "Mom, they're here because I'm here". It was a really touching story!! She has a lot of experience. She's so converted it's not even funny. It was a great dinner with her! We really enjoyed her. We went and taught the O. family and C. We invited C. to be baptised and he said he would. We pointed out to him what a person does when they are sincere when they KNOW the things they are being taught is true and he said he'd be baptised. So we invited him to be and he said he would. The one thing that spooked him was the date, it was super soon. He said his parents might be an obstacle as well as learning everything all at once. We told him that wasn't going to learn everything all at once! He'd have to read consistently but it's not like he had to read the entire BOM to know it's true. He could do it simultaneously, pray and read every day, and that's what we as missionaries do. We pray and read every day and a confirmation always come from doing things daily. We'll see him again soon and he's supposed to be reading and praying more. Now we're just trying to help him be an agent for himself and to act.
Friday: We had President interviews so we went to Fresno to drop off some stuff from Visalia and then went back to the apartment and did our weekly planning and then we went to our interviews. Sister Clark was there and gave us a little short training. We practiced role playing and some other things. Coming to interviews I was really relieved to talk with president. His counsel is really inspired and it always helps me. I love him so much!! He helps us in so many circumstances and he helped me to realize that, this work is fun!! You just have to stay on your toes! I think that, not to point out anything confidential, but he told me that basically I needed to stay to positive so everyone else can see it and also to help ourselves to be more dignified and to help the Zone. And to remember that people are always watching. I don't remember how it was said but I think it was a Stake President from Fresno West (I know him and he's a pretty good guy) said something like, If we would always have dignified, faith building missionaries that knew the time and place to work hard, knew when to be serious and when to be laid back (or something like that ), that we would be able to baptise a lot more people. Cause there are people watching us everywhere. The Lord is watching us also. We need to be on our toes. He also told me about Tanner's response in an interview when he first got to the mission. He asked him why he wanted to serve a mission and Tanner told president that "I wanted to serve a mission... Well I actually saw my cousin come home and saw how bad he wanted to come back out and I observed him and watched him and I saw how bad he wanted it and he came back out. I thought maybe this might be something worth the while" and that kind of took me back. I never really kept in close touch with`Tanner all that much but I knew him and loved him. I didn't know he felt that way so I'm glad I was able to help him without even knowing. I pray that he'll be able to really do some good things. He sounds like he's doing good. President saw him yesterday in interviews and said that they got talking about baseball. I laughed and said YEAH!! Baseball's a topic! Baseball's a thing! And knowing Tanner he probably talked about it for awhile. I don't know haha. But he's doing really well. He's really chill, just laid back and relaxed. He's not stressing out as far as I understand. I'll be seeing him in a couple weeks at a Zone Conference. I'm really excited for that! That will be fun! We also went to volleyball for an activity and had a good time! A lot of people came, unfortunately none of them were our investigators. We need to be more on top of those things but it was a good time. Everybody is a little bit crazy when it comes to volleyball but we helped some less active come. Hopefully he'll come to church now! His name is O. He is a good man.
Saturday: We first of all went to a basketball tournament for C. He did a really good job. He and a whole bunch of non members went and we're hopefully going to be in contact with some of them here sometime soon! Their really good friends with one of the recent converts here in Visalia. Anyway, there was a YM's tournament and the Spanish Ward ended up winning it! Sooooo! I guess that's the fourth year in a row for them! So anyway we went to the tournament and it made me miss playing in tournaments and stuff. Dang that was hard! Lol. I hope I don't have to watch too many more tournaments by the end of my mission because that really made me miss playing but, it was a fun time! I really love watching the YM get into action. There was a little bit of scruff here and there, you know how church ball is. Lol. It gets pretty brutal! That afternoon kind of dragged for us. We couldn't find anyone at home. NOBODY WAS HOME!! I think they must all be out for the weekend! Fiesta's and other stuff!! I was like MY GOODNESS! Someone please!! I just want to teach somebody!! We weren't able to get to anybody until like 8:00 at night. We taught A. She just barely told us that she's going to San Fransisco for operation on her cancer on the 29th of this month. So we're going to be supporting her and hopefully we can send some missionaries over there to visit her while she's there. They're doing alright tho. Still going through some rough times. We talked about the atonement and the BOM and it's role in helping us understand the atonement. We taught them in Ivanhoe (it's a small town outside of Visalia). We also went and saw the F. family. They're less active but they have some really strong testimonies. I think it's just the commitment issue. So funny story! We made cookies for them and we went to go give them their cookies and we're outside the gate and they bust the door open and they're like "WHO IS THAT!?!??" and we're like "IT'S US!!" And they were like oh my gosh it's the Elder's! And we're like walking in looking all innocent with our cookies in our hands and they're like "OH SHOOT!!". We had originally planned to have dessert with them and they totally forgot. lol. So they were like ahhhhhhh and grabbed a cake out of the fridge and set it on the table and we ate some cookies and milk. LOL. Well they forgot! LOL. But it was alright because the cookies were enough for everyone. (Elder Frame cooked them and he's bragging about his cooking skills right now lol). We taught them and we actually found a new investigator through them named V. She has talked to missionaries before in L.A. and then she moved to Ivanhoe and has lived there for, I don't know how many years... **long pause** **starts laughing hard** Sorry!!! My companion is being a goofball!! **laughing hard** Sorry!! **can't stop laughing** ANYWAY!! **tells his companion to get out of here and laughing even harder** **clears throat** V.!! She has been living in Ivanhoe for maybe **starts laughing uncontrollably** GET OUT!!!!! **laughs for quite a while** OK!! **clears throat again** I gotta keep my cool now! **Elder Frame is giggling in the background** **Alex giggles a little more and then breaths deep** V.! She's 14 years old, she's been in Ivanhoe two years and she liked the missionaries but she wasn't really "fond" of them or talked with them but her parents did. So maybe we can get through her parents again. We asked if maybe she wanted to recommit to listening to missionaries and she said yeah!! She said she really didn't understand it so she really wants to understand what her parents are being taught.
Sunday: Sunday Funday!! Really good time at church! Really enjoyed sacrament meeting. The church talks were awesome and very spiritual. I think it touched a lot of hearts of what they were teaching about the sacrament and the meaning of it. One of our investigators A. that we found at a less actives home is awesome!! She is 16 years old. Her boyfriend is starting to come back and I think what is motivating him is that A. is committed and ready. We found a new family, the S. family. A guy named T. is a guy that we saw yesterday in the street and we were talking with people and we saw him pulling weeds and we asked to help and he told us he no, that he was ok and we told him we'd love to come by and talk to him a little bit. So we went by today. He was really relaxed about us going into his home. He told us to just come on in and we were like "Uhhh OK!" So we went in and taught him and his wife R. They had 4 boys. They're really humble people!! They have a lot of potential! The wife is a little quiet. I don't think she really liked us at first but she started warming up to us when we started to be ourselves and started laughing and let her know we're still normal people. We just have a purpose right now. That was awesome! S. family are a humble, great family. We went to dinner at the M. home and had chile rellenos. Yum! If you haven't ate it you need to look it up and eat it. Then we went and taught our ward mission leader to evaluate our teaching skills, asked him what we could do better and got some good insight. Then we taught the C. family. And that was our Sunday!!
Wow! Now my recordings are finished and I'm going to send them off to you tomorrow. I look forward to hearing from you guys. I love ya!! I feel like ya'll send me a lot of packages... I maybe need to send souvenirs or something LOL. Let me know if you want any or something LOL I don't know. Anyway! Ta ta for now! Talk to ya'll later. Love you bye.
Love,
Elder Horrocks.
February 1st
Hey ya'll! I didn't get to make my recordings day by day this time so here we are! We have an activity to go to in Hanford so I may or may not skip past a few things but I promise that they will be able to share them at sometime or another later. It's crazy that January is over!! It's like Elder Nye used to say... "Yeah! February is over!!" Seriously months go by so fast! It's not even funny! So here we are with a new month, it's February.
Monday: Of course we emailed all of you. Sounds like everyone is doing well. I'm pretty jealous of Weston's recruit. Wish I could have had those opportunities. Florida was pretty awesome when I had that opportunity to go but Weston's making some big steps! That's pretty sweet! Sounds like a lot of people are actually looking into what he's doing! So I wish him luck with that. That's going to be awesome for him in the future. Sounds like everybody else tho is doing really awesome too. If there is anything you need from me just let me know. I feel like you guys send me a lot of things and do a lot of things for me out here on the mish and I don't have any time to give something back in return but I'll make time if you ask. So as far as teaching goes we taught C. with the Garcia family. More like a FHE. We watched the prophet of the restoration video. It's a really great video. Helps me to be able to appreciate the restoration. It really does! Knowing what the saints and all of our ancestors went through is touching to know that they were willing to give their lives in order for us to be able to obtain the blessings we have. I think C. is on the edge of he wants to understand church history and why these things are so important and why it's so big. So we showed him the video and I think he has a greater understanding of the love that exemplifies in the gospel and people want to share these things. It's because it's blessed so many lives. I think Joseph Smith: The Restoration Video (the hour long one in case you're wondering) kind of gives that feel.
Tuesday: We had what was called a zone counsel. I think I mentioned last week that we had a missionary broadcast. It was for all the missionaries worldwide and they counseled us and reminded us of who we were. To always keep the Lord's name on our lips and we are to teach repentance and baptize converts. So we got together as a zone and we kind of came up with an expectation. We received a lot of revelation and felt a lot of good things are going to happen. We expect a lot of good things are going to come from the zone for it. Dinner was great!! The S. family!! I don't know if I've ever mentioned them before but I love them to death! The first time I've eaten French food. She's American but she cooked us some French bread and some other cool things and I was like "WOW!!" I felt like I was in a fancy restaurant. I guess that's what you get for eating with a different culture. They love the missionaries. I really appreciate their help with us. We ended up sharing a message with them and they gave us I swear like five names!! Our dinner ended up going a little bit over but man, they were just spewing out all of these names!! They were giving us name by name!! There neighbor that speaks spanish and all of these other people!! There we just sending us referrals!! So we stayed of course and got all of that! So that was the highlight of that day :)
Wednesday: I don't like mentioning Wednesday as much. I'll explain why... I've been talking to my companion about about like school and all those good things. I told him that I didn't know if there was much time, if any, especially when you're a zone leader. You're always constantly doing other things to help missionaries and stuff. So I've been wondering what I am going to do to prepare for schooling and stuff like that and I gave him my options. I think what I'll do when I go and prepare for school, I have two ways, I want to either 1. Go to work and also continue to get my general and stuff. You know how they say on your mission that you really know what you want to be?? Well I'm really trying to find out what I want to be. I've had some good input from my companions saying I could be a counselor. I guess something I've developed on my mission is being able to relate to people. So I'm like UHHHHH MAYBE??? I don't know!! I also like leaning towards Sports Medicine because it's something I loved and something that I was passionate about before. So ANYWAY... So I went to my old UVU link and I thought about it and I was thinking that that would be awesome and I wouldn't mind going back to Utah Valley. It was really fun and a good experience. The crazy thing about it all is that it's not very far away!! I don't like it at all!!! Preparing for the future is a lot more than I expected! I thought that I was busy as a missionary and I am busy as a missionary don't get me wrong, I am super busy! But even more so it doesn't change! There ain't no rest for the wicked they say. Seriously there is NO down time for those kinds of things. So I was looking into it and I was like HOLY HECK!! There's so much information I don't know where to go or where to start. So the other thing is that I either want to start school in August or maybe put off a semester and maybe work at home for a semester and go to night school. I know I wouldn't have anything to do and probably wouldn't have much fun but I also need to a car if I want to go around anywhere and that's an obstacle to overcome so I'm going to need a little cha-ching for those kinds of things. So I'm feeling a little bit apprehensive about the future. It's just so weird and it just slapped me in the face realizing that HEY that's just around the corner. When you come on a mission it's a privilege!! You take every advantage of every minute that you have and the Lord will bless you for the rest of your life, so I'm trying to keep that mindset. Trying to stay focused. Knowing that the Lord will provide and things will work out. So moving on... Wednesday night we went back to the S. family. It was a good lesson. They really like us. Another funny story... This is our second lesson with them and as we're talking, they didn't read the restoration pamphlet so we decided that we would read it with them. So we read it and we're on the second page and they had to leave somewhere so go through it quickly and their son **laughing** B. rips the loudest, rancid fart I've ever heard or ever smelled!! It was so funny but soooooo bad!!! Elder Frame and I and everyone else was laughing pretty hard! So YEAH!! That was funny.
Thursday: We had a service project called project homeless. We found it on the Just Serve website and we basically just went and just took orders. What the project was, was a bunch of stands of I think clothes or things that they were giving away??? I don't know if they charged or anything. Anyway they had a whole lot of things going on. It was just some way or another to help the homeless, so there were a lot of homeless people there. As we went in we were the clean up crew. Cleaned up the tables. We didn't participate in the activities much but we came right at the end so that we could clean up tables and they were expecting the clean up to take around two hours but because of us 18 missionaries in the zone being there it only took and hour so they were like "Thanks for coming!! When are you going to come again???" So we were like "That's the right question!" lol. So we had a good service activity. Met a lot of different people. I met a guy from the Dominican Republic and he played baseball. He wasn't homeless or anything, just a volunteer. So he played in a baseball league in the Dominican Republic. I was talking to him about it and we talked about Albert Pujols and all these other awesome baseball players. So we really got to know him! Unfortunately we aren't allowed to proselyte as missionaries and so we weren't able to get his numbers. We're not supposed to do that at Just Serve projects. We're just supposed to get our name out there and then hopefully they ask us for information. I'm not sure why. That's just the way they want us to do it. Soooo we met him, he was really cool. Different kind of Spanish speaking for sure! Way different than what you hear in the states. Overall he was a really awesome dude. Later on the day we went on exchanges with the assistants. We to Fresno and went in their area. I went with Elder Mo'o (spelling??) I think he's from Syracuse. He's tongan and he's super cool!! He's going to play football at Snow College. That morning we were running and tossing the ball around and when we were running he was like "why don't you just go play at snow college with me??" and I was like "DUDE!! I'm way too small!! I can't. I'd have to get husk!" I don't know. Football is probably not my plan for the future. It would be COOL but probably not. As much as I love him and football I don't think I can. I'm not up for the deal. Anyway, great exchanges with them.
Friday: That morning we were in Fresno so we didn't have to drive from Visalia to Fresno. We had MLC with President Clark. This probably doesn't have much significance to you at home but we have this thing that is called the culture. The Mission Culture. It's not like a to-do list but it's like an outline of what we do as missionaries in the CFM and President Clark showed it to all of us at the meeting and was like "Do you all recognize this??? Do you know what this is??" and we were like "yeah that's the culture" and he grabbed it and ripped it in half and into pieces and we were all wondering what in the world he was doing! He said "It's gone! We're not going to use it anymore". I think why is because, in the missionary broadcast, that's the culture we should be using. What the brethren are telling us. So we're really not making a new culture we're just following what the brethren are saying. We're always constantly watching their videos of the broadcast. Using it as "game film" I guess you could say. To help us become better. We're making a lot of changes that's for sure!! That's what the whole MLC meeting was for. We received a lot of revelation. We had a lot of different aspects and different things that we wanted to do. It was a very revelatory experiences. We also had our church activity. **sigh** They're good when a lot of people, a lot of less actives come. They're very effective in that matter. But when NOBODY comes?? I think we should just do it every other Friday. Maybe it just gets old for people?? There were only three members that came and the rest of us missionaries and we just played volleyball. It was fun! Don't get me wrong but I think we'll end up doing it every other Friday to try to get more people coming.
Saturday: We taught a lot on Saturday. Not a lot worth mentioning so I'll move on to Sunday. Sunday has a lot of stuff!
Sunday: We saw the S. family. This was really cool. It was so cool that Elder Frame and I didn't even know what to do with ourselves! So as missionaries when we give commitments and people don't do their commitments it's because people aren't really sincere. The other thing is after we read the restoration pamphlet with them we committed them to read it again and we promised them blessing. We knew it could bless their lives and open up their minds. So Elder Frame asked them if they read it and he was like yeah I read it! So we asked what stuck out and what did he learn. He was like "well there was this guy that was looking for truth and trying to find a church and he had an experience which lead him to which church he should join and there were a series of prophets I guess you could say. And there's this thing called priesthood, I've never heard of it, but it diminishes infant baptism. So it's like baptism for adults." So Elder Frame and I kind of sat there in awe and we were like "OH! Well!! Yeah!! That's totally true!!" You all are probably thinking why is that so significant. But not all people keep their commitments and missionary work can be hard sometimes. We were just like "he's truly seeking!" He wants to have a better life for his children. I think that is his whole purpose of him reading it. Knowing that he learned about the restoration himself, that should totally give him an aspect of how it can bless his life. So we taught and we testified. We really taught by the spirit because they had questions and because they read the pamphlet they were able to give us insight to where we could have this gospel conversation. It was REALLY cool!! He is truly seeking!! So we asked him questions like "If this is true, If you found this for yourself to be true, doesn't that mean that you would need to be baptized??
and he said yes and we asked him if he would be when he found out that they were true, and he said yes but that he'd have to learn more and he didn't want to jump into it right away. We we like "Oh yeah! Totally!! We understand". He's solid! He's really solid! They're progressing. Their kids really love us. They love having us over. They're welcoming and nice and they're starting to become what you would call a "dry Mormon" all they need is the manifestation of the spirit so they can know what we're teaching is true. We're going to be seeing them on Wednesday so pray that their answer came that what we teach them is true. We have faith that because of his faith that he is going to receive an answer. That was really cool and increased our faith knowing that there are prepared people out there. You just have to go find them. All of Sunday we taught a lot of lessons. We had our team up, our ward mission leader came with us. He's super helpful and and awesome guy! I really liked yesterday! That's for sure! Sunday was a really good day.
I need to get going. I hope you had a great week. I love you all and I hope that everything that's hard at home, I don't know if there is anything going on at home for me. Just pray that everything out here will be able to work out. I think we're starting to come out of our dry spell of our missionary work. Everythings working out. Elder Frame and I are starting to see more people become more converted as well as ourselves. The gospel is true!! Missions are awesome!! Missions have totally changed my perspective of life and the things that I want to do. I love ya!! Buh Bye :)
Love,
Elder Horrocks
Monday, February 22, 2016
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Letters are now recordings
So Alex has started to send his letters in voice recordings WHICH I LOVE!!! It is so much fun to hear his voice every week and hear his accent that he's picked up on LOL. BUT!! I have to transcribe all of them because he puts personal information in them and names of investigators. To protect their privacy I can't post the recordings and I don't have any way to edit them for the blog. Sooooo, that being said... If you would like to hear the recordings feel free to drop by and listen anytime. Here and there I will post some that he sends that are silly recordings he makes during the week etc.
Please be patient with me please! Not only do I have my missionary, I also have 1 husband, 2 teenagers, 2 babies, 2 more babies I babysit, sports games and practices the teenagers participate in, college applications to help fill out, family to visit, a church calling, house to clean, laundry (mountains of laundry) to fold, baths to give and showers to take and dinners to make kind of life!!! So I will do my best to get them up ASAP. Just know that life gets in the way sometimes ;)
He's still doing sooooo well! He loves loves loves it! From the sound of it he will be home May 25th. Unless the Lord changes his mind and then we'll see him in July :) We got to Skype with him on Christmas day and I had a hard time consoling myself the rest of the day. He sang us a song (I'll post it too) and played the guitar. Man I miss hearing him play! It was a GREAT day! He had a wonderful birthday also! Thank you Lupe, Sandra and Jessica for traveling to surprise him and thanks to the people of Visalia. You made his day special for him! (Do I really have a 21 year old son???? HOLY MOSES!!!) ...I also have to add that not only does he have a big family so that's why he gets lots of gifts but we also send his birthday packages at the same time. Lol.
One more thing... My brother Charlie's son Tanner is leaving the MTC today for Fresno! I'm soooo excited for them to possibly get to see each other. He said they are getting a few new trainee's in his zone so there's a good chance he'll be there, The other night when I was thinking about The Mish I was recalling all of the times that I recognized my dad getting in on it and I was like "What am I thinking!?!??" He totally was in on this one too!!" He's sneaky! He always was! That's why he was so good at cheating at Uno ;) LOL! I love him!! Here are 4 weeks of letters. They are longer than normal because he can give more detail now that he's talking. I love them. Enjoy...
December 22nd
Hey Mom! Hey Family!! You're probably wondering why I have my recorder out already. I don't know who sent me the recorder but if it was you guys just let me explain why I took it out a little bit earlier than normal. Here in Visalia we have a situation with our computers and there is six of them all in total but the stake presidency said they are going to take out 4 and bring in 2 new ones. The reason being because 4 out of the 6 computers were given by members and the stake completely disagreed with that and said it was a big no no! So they are coming in and taking those out and bring 2 new ones in. But that totally messes up a lot of the missionaries email time. And so they're going to be having a set schedule to where they all have to come at a certain time to email. So I thought it would be a lot easier to just send a recording and I know you like to send letters and stuff and I love sending letters, although sometimes it feels like I'm writing novels every week. Don't get me wrong I love writing letters, but man!! My hands get sooo tired! So I guess just do what you will with the recordings. Let me know if you want me to go back to letters and I will, but if it's not a problem maybe you could to follow along with the recordings and put them on the blog?? Just let me know if it works out, if it's convenient, or whatever.
Just to start off, I did read your letter already and answer to responses or questions... Yeah it's CRAZY!! My birthday is next Sunday and Christmas is this Friday! It feels like just yesterday I was in Lindsay and Charlie completely stuffed my face in cake! In the spanish culture we call that "Comer La" which means "eat it" "Comer La" Comer La" and they were doing that to me last year. I didn't know what in the heck that meant but Charlie was like "put your face in there! Eat the cake it's a mexican tradition!" So I was like alright! So I stuffed my face and BOOM!! Next thing I know my teeth hit the table and we had a cake fight for a little while but, luckily and hopefully there won't be anyone to do that to me this year!
I heard you got the picture from us playing volleyball. Yeah! That was me! The studly guy in the tight black shirt! Yeah! lol. And she always calls me fashionista??? What??? I don't know where the heck she got it but, I thought it was funny. Maybe its cause I get nice clothes from my family?? hahaha. I don't know! But yeah, I thought it was really funny. And yes in response to your question about Elder Frame and I looking alike, people ask us all the time if we're related. They actually ask us if we're brothers! hahaha. And sometimes we joke around with them like "yeah we're brothers!" and they're like "NO WAY!" hahaha "How did you both get on the same mission??" and all of this other stuff, it's pretty funny!
I heard about Marz 3 pointer in the JV game and also the Freshman game. If I remember right they lost both of them tho. Bummer!! Just gotta keep goin!! Just get past that one and go on to the next one! I also heard about Weston's game against Ben Lomond. I sure miss watching those 2 play! It's been awhile. It's crazy they still play and at this point in time if I hadn't come back on my mission I'd be watching them play. It's crazy!! BUT! I'm super happy to be here and where I am at this time and to see the blessings I've received. And who knows... maybe if I hadn't of come out, maybe the football team wouldn't have gone to the semi-finals?? HAHAHA! J/K ;)
I saw the videos of J.T. and Charleigh. MAN THEY'RE HUGE!! They're BIG!! They're getting sooo big all the time! J.T. just looks like he's, I don't know, it just doesn't look and feel the same where I'd be able to pick up my little brother and just sit there and play with him! Now he's too big to even carry! That's crazy!
Paul called me yesterday. He told me Happy Birthday and all that stuff. He told me he was in Utah working! I'm really happy for him! He's in a good place. Sounds like he's doing really well and Charlie is doing great! Say hi to both of them if you see them over Christmas. I love them both! I keep them in my prayers!
Tell Grandma Taylor Happy Birthday! I love her and I wish I could be there with her on her birthday. Also I did get Grandma Janet's package. So I got everyone's packages. I think I got more packages this year than I got last year. It was funny because we were all unpacking packages for the zone and everybody's like "GEEZ!! Elder Horrocks!! What the heck???" and I get all these packages and I'm coming out with all of these boxes in my arms and everybody has all of their packages and maybe 2 or 3 lol and I have like 9 or 10. I laughed about it for a little while. They all asked me why and I said "I just have a big old family! Don't be jealous!" hahaha
By the way, President Clark has asked the whole mission to teach you on Skype so I guess I'll be teaching you guys! This is kind of cool! I've never studied for a lesson for my family before! But I'm really excited about it! Always being a missionary that's pretty awesome :)
So, going on with my week. It was alright. It was so hot, we didn't get as many investigators as we would have liked to. We got 6 the week before and 0 this week. We're just striving everyday to find new investigators because that's our focus. Especially through the members. Trying to build up our teaching pool to see who we can find, teach and baptize. To give you an update on our progressing investigators... J. is no longer going to be baptized on the 26th. I thought I was going to be baptizing on grandma's birthday, but nah :( Not this week. He was supposed to pay a fine to the courts, but he didn't end up doing that because ??? He didn't turn it in on time! He was supposed to pay $1500 for a lawsuit over an accident. He talked to the judge last week and asked if he could extend the due date. The judge was pretty nice about it and said yes. He gave him an extra week. So he went to Tulare to fix his car so he could sell it somebody, but the thing is he didn't come back! Soooooo we're not sure if he's going to be going to jail anytime soon, but that's his case. It isn't the prettiest right now. Another thing that worries us about him being in Tulare is because his brother used to give him drugs and that's where his brother lives and he's staying there right now. He's been off of drugs for a month so we're praying he can be strong and resist temptation so he can at least be living one commandment. I guess we should have taught him living and honoring the law of the land before so he could pay his stinking fine! I hope he's keeping the word of wisdom right now. Our other investigator S. hasn't come back from Mexico yet. He's still working delivering phone books. He's been working and hasn't come back. I hope he comes back for Christmas so we can see and talk with him. We'll be setting a solid date with him. He needs to be baptized. He's been taught for about a year and a half and hasn't been baptized yet. So we'll see what we can do there. As for the others. A. isn't doing so great because she's been at the hospital so much. We believe she has tumors in the side of her lower right back. She's been going to the doctor to see what's going to happen. They're they're these weird looking lumps. So pray she'll get feeling better. We gave her a blessing and she felt a lot better. She felt more energized, less lethargic. She really felt our love for her. We just hope and pray her family can be strengthened through this trial because we don't know if it's a life or death situation but it's going to be tough.
I'll send some random recordings here and there. Some funny ones and stuff. I know you're probably falling asleep to my voice but this makes my life a little easier and also the lives of the other missionaries. Hopefully this all works out.
Hope you have a great week! Merry Christmas!! I love you!! I pray that everyday you are doing well and I'll see you through Skype on Friday I guess :) Have a great week! Love you, bye!
Love,
Elder Horrocks
December 28th
Hey Family! I'm going to do things a little different so I'm not making a bunch of recordings for everyone. I will do one main one and send it to everyone and then answer questions you asked individually in emails. I will also go through day by day to make it easier to stay on track :)
So Monday... I emailed you and sent you the first recordings. We also tried to go see a few people who weren't around. S. wasn't at his house and back from Mexico yet. But preparation day was, ya know, preperation day. Not a whole lot going on. We did see B. which is J.'s cousin, our investigator who had to pay the fine and never came back to Visalia. So we talked to B. and read with her in the BOM in Alma 5 and she really gained a lot of trust in us. She really opened up to us. She's really not our member, she's in the YSA. My companion Elder Corona baptized her back in Tulare in the Spanish ward there, so we have familiarization there. She's awesome! She said she'd commit her mom to read with her and come to church and stuff. She's super solid!! But other than that there wasn't a whole lot going on during preparation day.
Tuesday I had an exchange with my DL Elder Vasbinder. It was ok for the most part. We visited a few members and got a few referrals. Elder Vasbinder are total and complete opposites, but we were able to get on good grounds and we're pretty cool with each other! He's an awesome awesome elder! I love him a lot! He is a good district leader. Anyway, throughout the week we didn't have a lot of people to visit because they were all gone for holiday's.
Wednesday was super good! We went and did a service for some of the sisters investigators. His name was J. L. and we painted for him. They're coming in pretty good! I think he has given us more referrals than he has the sisters. hahaha. And he's their investigators. He's been really cool with us! That same day we had a youth activity with Sister Garcia. A couple weeks ago she text us saying she had a missionary moment and needed to talk to us. We were like "cool!!" and went over to her house and talked to her about her neighbor. His name is Chris. We ended up meeting Chris for the first time at the Youth Activity. He's a Super Cool Kid! He has a Catholic background and he's actually talked to missionaries in the past. He said they were pretty forceful with him. We didn't end up teaching him but we did end up sharing a message for the entire youth and that turned out really well. We shared what the world would be like without a savior and we really gained the trust of our youth in our ward. They are really awesome kids!! I would say they are probably one of the most solid youth that I've been around, other than Lindsay. Lindsay had the best youth I've ever seen!
So Thursday was Christmas Eve and it was our Zone Conference and we had it at our stake center. The missionaries from Hanford, Porterville, and Visalia all gathered together and that was by far one of the funnest days we had this week. We actually had our spiritual trainings in the beginning then we went from there and ate lunch and did everything else we needed to. Then we ended up playing some games and the only way we were able to participate was... Let me back up, this is how it was set up. We were playing Bingo and whoever won Bingo (there had to be a certain amount of people that won) and Sister Clark would bring them up and the Elder's and Sister's would stand in front of the stage and she'd present a video or presentation of what they game was going to be. The first competition was putting a cookie on top of your forehead and try to move it all the way down from your forehead to your mouth and catch it in your mouth and whoever got the most cookies won. That was first and my companion Elder Frame participated in that one. He didn't win haha dang it! But hey! Elder Corona did! That was cool! There was a lot of those. A lot of different activities (like 7 or 8). I got to do one of them. It was kind of funny how I won Bingo because Sister Clark was calling out the letters and numbers and when she said "G Noel" I was so excited because I won and put my button down on the character and shouted "NOEL!!!" hahaha! I didn't say Bingo, I said Noel instead! It was pretty funny and everybody was laughing and I said "Uhhhhhh, BINGO!! I mean BINGO!!" It was really intense. A lot of fun. My competition was a rubberband shooting. I had to shoot a rubberband at a stack of cups. Me and another elder had to have a shoot off. It was really bad because neither of us could hit the stinking cups to save our lives!! We were pretty good the first round but stunk it up the second part!! So we both ended up with the same prize :) That was Zone Conference and it was super fun! I really enjoyed it! Later that day and because of lack of people to teach and everyone being gone, we went and hung out with members all Christmas Eve. One of the members we went to was the Reinker's. They are actually relatives of one of the sisters here in Visalia and she was saying, hey didn't my grandma send you this or that, and I thought it was really cool she had relatives here in Visalia. We ended up getting to know them. Elder Frame and I talked to Brother Reinker and he's actually a mountain man! He used to live in the mountains and he did a lot of that stuff so it was cool getting to know him! He reminded me of a few people back home. I felt like I was talking to someone from Neola, UT or something! It was pretty awesome! He showed us his marshmallow guns that he's going to give to his grandkids and Elder Frame and I and the sisters ended up playing with them. Elder Frame said "Hey! Shoot a marshmallow in my mouth!". So I grabbed a gun and loaded a marshmallow and he's about 8 feet away from me and the first try I got a marshmallow in his mouth!! He said it hurt! hahaha! I don't know what you call the giggly thing that's in the back of your throat but it hurt it! hahaha! Then the sisters tried it and I guess they did alright. After like their 3rd try they finally got it. So we're sitting there shooting marshmallow guns at the Reinker' house and had a great time! Later on we went to Garcia's home and we sang them the Christmas song that I sang to you guys for one of our spiritual messages. Brother and Sister Garcia really enjoyed it. We made sister Garcia cry. She's awesome! She expressed thanks for us and said that ever since they've been coming around and bringing the missionary spirit in her home she's noticed a complete difference. She also said it's been one of the better Christmas' that she's had. So we felt blessed to be able to help her. It was a really spiritual moment for her. She loves the missionaries!! I guess she wasn't really much into the missionaries before (I could be wrong). I feel like she's a lot more open to missionaries to the missionaries in Visalia right now. They just love us a lot!! The Garcia family is great!
Christmas Day was Friday, that was the day we Skyped. Way different! Way weird! hahaha. I always get really nervous to Skype because I don't know what to say or what to expect and when we don't have anything to say I'm just like "Welllllll!! What do you want to know??" lol. It was crazy! Everybody's different!! Everybody gets different every year and its weird to see how much change happens at home. But for the better right?? Anyhow, really awesome to get to see you guys! I really miss you guys a lot! It's crazy how during the Christmas season you really long to be with your family but you know you're here at the right time! I know that to be true. I am here for a specific reason and I've seen a lot of blessings. The Christmas' in the mission are actually one of the best that you'll remember! When Weston goes on his mission he'll have a blast! I've always had a blast! These members take good care of us and they do so much for us not even funny. I feel like we underestimate their service. It's unbelievable! So moving on through the day, we went to other members homes. Saw A. our investigator in the hospital. Thing about her is they're not sure if she has cancer so she has to go to a bigger hospital to check it out. So we're keeping her in our prayers making sure everything for her goes smooth so that she doesn't have to hard results. I couldn't imagine having cancer. We also went to other people's homes and did Elder Frame's Skype. The movie we watched was Big Hero 6 and you guys were right!! hahaha! As a missionary you're a lot more sentimental and watching the movie I didn't cry, but there were some parts in the movie where you wanted to cry hahaha I guess ;). That was a good movie! It's now one of my favorites! It's super funny! That basically ended our Merry Christmas day! Awesome time! I'm sad it's the last one I'll have on my mission.
Saturday I went to a baptism in Medera. I don't know if you guys remember L.B. The B. family grandson. He got permission from his mom to be baptized and he LOVES it! He wants to be a missionary so bad! I had the opportunity to speak on the holy ghost and that was awesome! I enjoyed getting to seeing everybody again! I saw Lupe and Jessica's sister Mele. She's back from Washington. Oh my gosh!! It just felt like I went back home! Like I went back to my house! Back to my family! So I was really excited to see them! It was an awesome time :)
Sunday was my birthday. It was kind of random stuff throughout the day! We went to a member's house and she fed us tamales and she gave me a pan dulce, which is sweet bread, and she put a candle in it and counted it as my cake! Remember last year when I should you I got my face shoved in cake?? Yeah! That same thing happened to me after church soooooo... hahaha! It think it's just tradition. Maybe we can carry it over to our family when I come home?? We can start shoving each other's faces in cakes! hahaha! Later on that night we taught C. at the Garcia home again. Sister Garcia was awesome and participated so well! And so did her husband, he's the man!! He's such a great help and he's definitely helped us with this process. Really C. is progressing. He just has questions about the BOM and what we do. Why we're so different than others. So we kind of got to know him, we didn't teach him any lessons really except the concept of BOM. He's going to read it. He feels a lot more calm with us which he didn't feel with the last missionaries that were forcing him into it. So right now with member support that really helps because that will make the process faster for his progression with their support. He can ask them questions. OH YEAH!! By the way!! Some members from Madera came all the way to Visalia to give me some presents and that's where I got my cake from! Lupe, Jessica, Sandra, Uriel and Chucho came! All of those guys came!! It was kind of funny cause I was sitting at church and I looked to my left and all I see is this kid and it looked like Chucho and I was like "Is that Chucho????" I just thought "that's not Chucho! Is it???" Then I saw Lupe and I was like "HOLY HECK!!! What are they doing??!!!" I was pretty excited to see them and I went out during sacrament meeting and I saw them all! They had presents and a birthday cake! I felt REALLY loved! I really love those guys! I felt really blessed and I appreciate their time to take time out of their day to come all the way to church in Visalia, all the way from Fresno and Madera. Then they give me a cake and presents?!?? I was like "WOW!!" They're awesome!! I love them to death! They're one of my favorites! Really the rest of my birthday was good. Everyone telling me happy birthday. Elder Frame, my companion, he made it even greater hahaha, he text me 79 texts messages once throughout the day saying "Happy" "Birthday" and "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Happy Birthday!" "Hey Elder!" "Hey Elder" and I was like "OOOKKKKKKKK!!! I get it!!" hahaha! Sooooo, if it wasn't for the people that are here it wouldn't have meant as much! The people here are very loving! I'm really going to miss them! I'm going to miss Christmas' and Birthdays on the mish! I can't believe its all gone :(
Really that's my week. It was an awesome time! I hope you guys had a great Christmas :) It was so great to see your faces. It was super good to see everybody! Still I have a hard time fathoming the fact that everybody's getting so big and looking a lot different. It's crazy! Weston has a stinking beard!?!? What in the world??? Dre has curly hair!! Just everything!
That's it for the week. I love you guys! I wish you a happy new year throughout the week and I hope you stay safe. Love you bye.
Love,
Elder Horrocks
P.S.
Answers to Questions:
No we didn't find J. We actually got word that he's staying in Tulare with his brother working. I guess that was most important to him haha but hey it is what it is. I really felt like he would be baptized but by the looks of it. He'll be going to jail.
S.came back from town! He's doing good. Because of the holidays we really haven't got to sit down and talk with him about baptism or his progression. We should be this week though!
More than good on the packages and food and stuff. I think we'll last a month or two
You'll hear about the others in the recordings I sent! I hope you enjoy them!
Tell West and Mar to tear it up this week! Man I remember it like yesterday we were down in Cedar City playing games too. That was 3 years ago! I can't believe that!... Tell the rest of the family i love and miss them. Hope ya'll have a wonderful new years eve! Happy Birthday J.T.!
Love you!
January 4th
Hola Famila! This is Elder Horrocks speaking. Back here on Monday again! Oh Man the weeks fly by SUPER fast! I can't believe how fast they go! It's been a super great day today, I'll tell you all about it. We went to the sequoia's today and I'll have to show you some pictures. There was all but 4 of the elders that came with us to the sequoia's and we had a little zone activity. We went the General Sherman tree. We all took some pictures. We went to a a resort where people go and build snow huts and snowmen and sleigh riding and other kinds of stuff. I can't remember the name of it tho. This will be the second time on my mission I've seen snow and I've been super happy to see it! It's been exactly a year since I've seen snow, when I went with Paul and Charlie up to Yosemite Park. So we went up to the sequoia's today and had some fun! I'll send you some pictures. Some crazy crazy stuff happened. Well not that crazy, just we had a lot of fun you know! Missionaries who have never seen snow here on our mission. We had one Elder from Bolivia and it's his first time he's ever seen snow! You should have seen the look on his face! It was super funny! This recording for the week is going to be a little bit shorter. This week was really really tough due to New Years Eve and holiday's. We didn't do so hot this week. We hardly even taught. We probably taught 10 or 11 lessons overall. Normally we teach 20. So it was pretty tough. Going through the days as I was marking everything, that was eventful or worth sharing and there was just a few so this one will be a little shorter but here we go!
Tuesday I had an exchange with an elder named Elder Anderson. He's a pretty cool guy. He's really quiet and really laid back. He serves in the Farmersville area near Visalia. He's really funny! The highlights with him was when we got to teach C. and A. A. is still in the hospital by the way. But she got released so she's home! We don't know why they didn't send her to the bigger hospital tho. She isn't going to have anymore procedures, which is good. I'm assuming she's doing her own thing and living her normal life right now. We went and taught C. at the Garcia's home about the restoration and he understood everything! He really did! He understood everything perfectly. That there needed to be a restoration and there needed to be something in order to have Christ's church upon the earth once again. Once we got into it and then explained the BOM I think that's when he understood that we are different and that's what sets us apart from most religions. It's not like we're trying to convert him to the religion we're just trying to convert him to Jesus Christ. All these other increments and things just seem to help him come closer. So that was Tuesday's highlights. Elder Anderson and I had a good time
Wednesday isn't worth sharing much. We didn't teach hardly anybody. Don't get me wrong! Our weeks have some ups and downs. This week was definitely one of those downs but this week we're really excited because there's people home! The holiday's aren't going on! To be honest I really don't like the holiday's during my mission because you don't really feel like you're doing much. So this week will be a lot better! Anyhow, Wednesday's not worth sharing much.
Thursday was New Year's Eve. We had to be in the apartment by 8:00 because that's the rule. Actually last year we had to be in the apartment by 6 instead of 8. I guess they changed it to 8 because last year there were more opportunities to teach than they thought. So this year we did. Unfortunately there wasn't anyone home that day either. Man we just had such a rough couple days there Wednesday and Thursday. It was kind of funny, when we got home and got done planning I made Elder Frame a box case for his scriptures. His military set. Kind of a funny note... I've been making boxes for lots of people on my mission. I actually make some pretty cool boxes! I'm not gonna lie! hahaha! I made one for a memeber up in Madera with a bunch of Avengers pictures on it. Of course it wasn't missionary appropriate but it was for him. Good thing it wasn't for a missionary! I'll send you pictures of that, I'm not sure if I have or not. So we basically hung around the apartment and studied and waited till we had to go to bed. By the time we had to go to bed we were kind of sleepless because of all the racket going on outside! By the time it hit midnight it was like a whole bunch of gunshots and fireworks and all this other booming going on outside our apartment. I could NOT go to sleep!! I think I didn't fall asleep until like 12:30 or 1:00 am. Cause there was soooo much noise! It's crazy! But hey! Yeah, that was New Year's! Whoop-dee-doo! hahaha!!
Coming on Friday we actually had a meeting that next morning after New Year's Eve and OH MY GOSH!! Like I said, I was super tired and coming into the meeting everybody was just sooo tired. Sister Clark was like "Oh My Gosh!! You guys sound like a bunch of zombies!!" Cause we tried to sing a hymn at the beginning and we totally flunked it. She was joking around with us and so we all stood up and sang the song again. You could tell everyone was tired! I bet it was just the booming and clashing going on that night. But MLC was one of the best meetings I've been to. Super inspiring. The new goal or expectation of the year is that in 2016 the CFM will better keep pace with the Lord as he hastens his work. Last year we really didn't do all that well. We were going to baptize 1000 and I think we ended up baptizing 750. There was room to improve for sure. Basically President Clark introduced the expectation and then we talked about the "how" of how we're going to do that. The assistants taught us about role play, and when I say role play I mean practice what they're teaching. There are a lot of missionaries out here that know what their stuff is but don't know how to teach it because they haven't practiced it. So what they did was they gave us permission as ZL's to go and do companionship studies with the other companions to help them and see what we can do to help them and bless their lives. So that is going to help us soooo much! I'm sooo excited to see what we can do! We can role play a lot more too! Elder Frame and I need to better a lot of things. I am not a perfect role play person by any means. There is so much improvement for everybody. All you can do is go up from here! We're going to continue on with that :)
Sunday was one of the few days that we were actually able to teach a lot more! I tell you what! Teaching & finding missionaries are happy missionaries!! You can tell probably by this recording, it's not that I'm not happy but man... Yeah! I wasn't happy! I wasn't really happy when we weren't teaching because it was just hard! We strive so much to teach and you just realize it's better to be teaching & finding and then your labors come out so much more effective. We talk with people on the streets and invite them to do things, declaring repentance. Oh by the way I don't know if you watch video's or if I've sent you videos but "In the CFM We Baptize" has changed. It is now "In the CFM We Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts" and that just has a greater significance to it because before we were just kind of baptizing people just to baptized people, but now it's going to more of the future perspective. We're going to start with the end in mind. These people are going to go through the temple and do other great things but the only way that's going to happen is to find them through the members. That's when real converts go and progress and they have a friend next to them. I saw some numbers and we had ten or twelve thousand member presence last year and this year (I could be wrong) but I think it was twenty thousands member presence. That's a HUGE difference! That's 8,000 more times using the the members. So that's a big push! At least for me in my perspective. Anyhow! Coming back to Sunday! After many struggles throughout the week and lots of praying and lots of thinking and it was Fast Sunday as well, we were really blessed to have M. and her boyfriend come to church. M. is J. aunt. B. mom, just so everybody knows. She came to church, she enjoyed the testimonies. She told us she almost cried! She said she felt the spirit super strong! We were really happy for her. We went and taught her and the only things she's been struggling with is smoking and getting married. Her and her boyfriend are living together. She has no confidence or faith that she can overcome these things. I know how hard it is and I've never smoked or anything. She's been through the smoking program. She went a week or two weeks without smoking and then she fell through and the other missionaries in the past would be discouraged and that was a turnoff for her. That's a no no! I know addictions and things are really tough to overcome but once you overcome them you can conquer the world! You can conquer anything! So we're working with her. We just committed her to pray as often as she can and read the BOM with her daughter B. Her daughter reads everyday and she is going to be such a great help! We're blessed to have her with us. So she's going to be helping her with that. If she continues to come to church the Lord's going to guide her. In the scriptures in D&C 82:10 it's really relevant even to investigators when they do what the Lord asks and once they do what they ask they have their promises. Just as much as it is relevant to missionaries. We're really happy with that and that was kind of a reliever. Like "Hey! The Lords trying to help us" We're still trying to be more exactly obedient in sooo many aspects. We can continue to improve and find where we're off but the atonement is real! It can change us as much as we help others to change! It's for missionaries too!
I also fasted for my future concerns about coming home on May 25th or July 6th. Right now the Lord is kind of telling me I guess to lean more toward May and I actually was surprised! I thought the Lord would want me to give more of myself. I wasn't expecting any of the answers as far as my prayers go. But that's the what the Lord's trying to tell me. Right now I believe the Lord wants me to do that and focus on that and all other future concerns would fall into place. I also prayed and fasted about school and in all honesty I was surprised on that too! I thought maybe I could go and work for a semester and maybe do night school. But I think God wants me to start school as soon as possible. So maybe that's why going home earlier might be more convenient. I don't know. These are just my thoughts and impressions, they could change anytime soon! It all just depends on what the Lord wants and I want to do the best that I can for him and not disappoint him. It's not that I want to come home or anything at all. But I want to do what he wants and I'm trying to connect maybe why I had those answers and what's going to happen. That's what I feel as of right now. So May 25th, maybe start working, go to school in August or the fall as soon as possible and I'm going to need some sort of vehicle... DANG!! I don't want to be too apprehensive in the future but right now just keeping those as a side note just so everybody knows. Just keep praying for our missionary labors! That's all that really matters at this point in life.
I think that's all I had for the week. As far as my questions, I had a question for Weston. I don't know when he wants to leave on his mission but just let him know that I'd like to hear from him and see what his thoughts and impressions are about serving the Lord and what he wants to do. I'd like to hear from him! I love you all! I'm sorry if I missed something important like birthday's or something. hahaha! There's always something that I miss! But I think that I got it all as far as my week and I love you all and I'm so happy to be where I am right now! I hope you all have a great week and I'll talk to you all next Monday. Love you bye!
Love,
Elder Horrocks
P.S.
January 11th
Hey everyone! This is Elder Horrocks speaking. Here we are with week six of the transfer and it's from January 4th-10th and we're just going to go ahead and get right jumping into things!.
I can't believe another transfer has gone by! And you'll never guess (well I guess you probably can guess lol), I've only been here for a transfer so, yeah we're staying together. Hasn't really changed much! Elder Frame and I are going to be companions for another transfer. There is 4 or 5 missionaries that are leaving. One of them is Sister Lewis. Dang! We're really sad to see her go! Elder Shep is going home. Elder Perkins. There's a whole bunch going home and it's crazy! Elder Frame has told me that every transfer that they've always changed things up so... I don't know! We're going to be getting some new missionaries too! I think there's 3 companionships maybe, that will be training new missionaries in our zone and it's a cool privilege to be able to have 3 new missionaries coming to our zone!! Who knows!? Maybe cousin Tanner will be one of them!! I don't know! But it would be super cool! I actually asked president yesterday at a meeting if he was going to have him be sent to Visalia and he doesn't know yet actually. hahaha. I guess he does the transfer boards and everything goes by so fast and he has so much to do!! Anyway, we'll find out tonight who will be coming to Visalia really.
I sent you guys pictures of the sequoia's. I hope you guys enjoyed those! That's definitely something I want to do after the mission. When I come back to visit I want to go back there! It's going to be an awesome time!! It will be a little bit different not being a missionary but I want to go back to the sequoia's soooo bad! It's beautiful!!
Tuesday was pretty good! It wasn't bad. We had our district meeting and we had our zone council meeting with our leadership in our zone. Planned for our next zone meeting. We were going throughout the day and I think President asked us to go on an emergency with Elder Draney and Elder George. Two elders who are in Visalia 3rd ward, they're English speaking. Reason being is they just needed another exchange and it was one of the funnest exchanges I've ever been on! Elder Draney is an AWESOME missionary. I actually got to ride on bikes for the first time in 9 or 10 months and I am SOOO out of shape!! hahaha! I felt like compared to last year, a complete dump! Lol. I am SOOOO out of shape! Last year about this time I was on a bike with Elder Moody in Lindsay (WOW!! I can't believe how fast that went by!). Anyway, it was raining that same day on our exchanges and I felt like Ghost Rider LOL! We were passing through all these cars and all these lights and Elder George's bike is super fast! So I'm cruising and Elder Draney is doing drifts on his bike in the rain. We're just having all sorts of fun! Nobody got hurt! Thankfully hahaha! No worries. Don't need to worry about that ;). Later that night we exchanged back with our companions, it was just something short. We had a really good day tho! We taught some people. We went finding and looking through members.
Wednesday was another pretty good day (we actually had a pretty good week if I haven't mentioned already! A lot better than last week that's for sure!) We were able to teach and do missionary work! We had a get together with C. and we talked with him and taught him. We didn't have a specific thing planned. We just asked questions and made sure he understood the restoration and he does. We actually talked to him about meeting with his parents. We're going to meet with his mom this Tuesday. Which is a big miracle! We feel like he's been a little bit apprehensive about it. He thinks his mom is going to reject us or something, but our prayers have been answered and she's softening her heart. When he told his mom we were teaching him he told her in the heat of the moment and she said No. She said he should probably investigate in his own religion, which is the Catholic religion, before he goes to anything else. But he really doesn't do anything in his Catholic religion. So he said "Hey mom. I'm doing this for real. This is something I want to do!" and I think his mom is starting to see his sincerity. That was a good day to be able to set that with him. Keep in mind, the three days between Wednesday and Saturday, almost Sunday even (It takes forever to do it) we had to do Stake Correlation... Ohhhhhhh! That's soooooooooooooooooo LONG!! Basically as ZL's we have to gather up all these papers together and sent it to the stake presidency. But we did it so THANK GOODNESS!! I think their was just a few mistakes here and there so we had to fix a LOT of things. There is just a lot of information and it can be stressful! But we did it!!
Thursday night was one of the best nights we had! Evening teaching we went with an awesome member, President Mann. He's the first or second counselor to President Clark. He's the CEO of a hospital. He's a saint! He rides his bike to church so he can talk to people on the streets about the gospel. He talks about how there's missionaries. He's super cool! One of the best people I've met here in Visalia. What he did though was helped us out with some team ups. We taught three people. One of them being M. the one we're trying to help overcome her smoking habit. His testimony such a big help! He is such a wonderful teacher. He helps a LOT with the team ups. It was kind of cool how we got his help. He just called us up and said "Hey elders! If you know anybody that needs a team up just give me a call!" and we were looking around and I said why doesn't he just come out with us?? We didn't have anybody! So he came out with us and taught someone in the hospital! It was like going back to work for him :) We had a member named Y. O. and their family has been expecting her to have a baby (Matthew) and she was in labor for 2 days!! I can't imagine how painful that was!! DANG!! She was not having fun at all hahaha! The first night we went there Matthew didn't come. Second night, the family was still waiting. Third night he finally came!! So we went and saw her and congratulated her and she was super happy!! I think she's more happy tho to just not be in labor, hahaha, than anything! The babies nice but dang!! Being in labor for 2 days?? That's a long time!
Friday Elder Frame and I had a lesson with F. But I'll tell you about the lesson he had a couple days before that. So F. was one that was hard to catch because of work and his wife's alone and we can't teach her unless he's there because of the rules. So, when Elder Frame went and taught him (I'm not sure how the subject of baptism was brought up but it was) and F. was like "Yeah! You know what?? I've actually been kind of thinking about this whole baptism thing because I was baptized as a kid but I don't remember anything about it at all and I don't even think it's valid" I can imagine the look on Elder's Frame was like, Yeah! Yeah you're right!! Yeah you're saying everything right! hahaha! Then he was said that it is something we have to learn for ourselves and God want's us to be baptized. F. said "I can see the difference that you had made in my friends life (which is J.L.). He's getting baptized soon and he's changed a lot! Maybe I'll have to think on it and talk with my wife. It's ok to get baptized again right??" And Elder Frame was like as long as you're baptized by the right authority, of course! And F. asked if it would be ok if his wife did the same thing. Hahaha! And Elder Frame was like "Yeah!" hahaha. Playing it cool. He said "yeah that's totally fine and cool". Anyway he's striving for it and when we had our lesson with him he talked a lot about his family. He loves his family! He cried because he expressed his love for his granddaughters. He loves them a lot and wants the best for them. We told him that this is the path and the way if you want true joy within your family and your own life. The gospel is the way to go and what we're teaching you is true. What you're feeling is the spirit. I think he understood that. Now we need to follow up if he talked with his wife. I think we're going to go by today. So anyway, later that evening we had activity night at the church playing volleyball. Lots of people came! A lot of less actives. C. came hahaha and he kind of plays likes a rag doll. I guess the rest of us do to?? I'm not the best volleyball player but I've seen volleyball players and they definitely don't play the way that we did! LOL! But we had a fun time! A lot of people there. A lot of investigators and less actives. It was really successful! I ended up leaving early before it ended because I had to go teach M. We told her we would go teach her so I went with a member and we talked with M. Just FYI, I found out information about her from a different missionary in Tulare that was teaching her, that her bf is already a member. We thought he was just an investigator. The night we taught him with President Mann he said the closing prayer and he said everything and had the elements of the prayer and said it correct way. So that caught us by surprise. Then later we learned that she's not able to get married to him because he's never been divorced from his wife. H. has had issues trying to divorce his ex so they aren't divorced. But by Mexican laws, you are automatically divorced after 5 years and it's been more than 5 years, but they need his signature. He doesn't have to pay or do another process they just need his signature. The other thing is and I can't remember how this works but he can't go to Mexico to sign the papers and then expect to come back to the states. Maybe it's because he's illegal??? I don't know haha. But our team up was a blessing that night because he talked to him and told him he was automatically divorced by law in Mexico, all they need is your signature. He also told him there's another way and he knows a couple lawyers that can get him and his information and send it to Mexico and get the papers signed there and he doesn't even have to travel. The lawyer could help him! The things about M. is that she doesn't WANT to get married because it's been a tradition in her family not to. Her mom, her grandma, her great and great great grandma have never been married. I can't imagine that kind of life but that;s the ways she's grown up and she's never wanted to be married. H. has wanted to tho. So we talked to her and increased her faith and said that she didn't need to think of marriage as just papers. It's something that's going to bond you and H. together and you'll have more harmony within your lives. She listened and by the end of the lesson her faith was increased. We will be following up with her tonight to see how things went. We committed her to pray to know if she should be baptized. She actually already knows that. She told us that she already knows what the answer is because she's been given it before. So she knows she needs to be baptized. Second thing was to keep reading and praying in order to avoid temptation from smoking. Third thing E. will come out with us again tonight and help us with the whole marriage aspect. So we have a plan to help her overcome her addiction. Kind of like 12 step. I'm pretty excited to see what comes out of that tonight.
So we've been seeing A. Her daughter Al. is one of our new investigators. We taught he about the restoration and what makes us different. She understood and actually the next day the entire family came to church (except for Al. Gosh dang it!!), but everybody was there. We had four investigators at church. We thought we'd have a little more but that was a family! It wasn't just individuals :) A. loves it! She loves the church. She loves what we're doing with her. I think it's more just her family connecting with her also and to get on the same boat. Speaking of church! Great day!! Learned a lot!! We had the opportunity of going to dinner at Bishop's house. Bishop Chandler is Awesome! He's a stud!! He's one of my favorite members. Especially after the dinner we had with him. We had a really fun time! Elder Frame and I cooked some cookies for bishop hahaha! It's kind of funny because you know elder's don't really cook food and stuff for the members but we just decided that HEY! We just decided to be different! Put a thank you card on it and we got the other missionaries in our ward and put their cards on it too. We had a really fun time! Bishop's place is a place you can feel the spirit really strong and you can tell that there is something special there. They were absolutely wonderful! I love those moments you become close with members. It's hard to think about the times that you have with them and then the times you have to leave them. I think about that a lot with Madera. There was a lot of people that I miss!! But I'll see them soon. Later on that day we went and say C. at the Garcia's home. Taught him the plan of salvation. This lesson was definitely one that stuck out with him more because his sincerity of knowing what is going on and where he needs to go. If it wasn't for the Garcia's I don't think it would be nearly as powerful. They help a lot and make a big difference in teaching C. C., Elder Frame and I are starting to have a closer relationship and we're starting to see a lot of really good things come from him. His parents are more sincere about meeting the missionaries. I think they didn't want to meet us before because they thought we were the same missionaries from before that were forceful. Not to say they were bad missionaries but they weren't a good match for his mom. Now they're really open to us and we're meeting them on Tuesday.
So that's basically it for the week! I hope J.T. had an awesome birthday and everyone had an awesome week! I really love you all and I'll be answering any questions or concerns in emails here in a little bit. Then I have to do some other things for preparation day.
I love ya'll!! We'll hear from you next Monday. Audios! Bye Bye.
Love,
Elder Horrocks
Please be patient with me please! Not only do I have my missionary, I also have 1 husband, 2 teenagers, 2 babies, 2 more babies I babysit, sports games and practices the teenagers participate in, college applications to help fill out, family to visit, a church calling, house to clean, laundry (mountains of laundry) to fold, baths to give and showers to take and dinners to make kind of life!!! So I will do my best to get them up ASAP. Just know that life gets in the way sometimes ;)
He's still doing sooooo well! He loves loves loves it! From the sound of it he will be home May 25th. Unless the Lord changes his mind and then we'll see him in July :) We got to Skype with him on Christmas day and I had a hard time consoling myself the rest of the day. He sang us a song (I'll post it too) and played the guitar. Man I miss hearing him play! It was a GREAT day! He had a wonderful birthday also! Thank you Lupe, Sandra and Jessica for traveling to surprise him and thanks to the people of Visalia. You made his day special for him! (Do I really have a 21 year old son???? HOLY MOSES!!!) ...I also have to add that not only does he have a big family so that's why he gets lots of gifts but we also send his birthday packages at the same time. Lol.
One more thing... My brother Charlie's son Tanner is leaving the MTC today for Fresno! I'm soooo excited for them to possibly get to see each other. He said they are getting a few new trainee's in his zone so there's a good chance he'll be there, The other night when I was thinking about The Mish I was recalling all of the times that I recognized my dad getting in on it and I was like "What am I thinking!?!??" He totally was in on this one too!!" He's sneaky! He always was! That's why he was so good at cheating at Uno ;) LOL! I love him!! Here are 4 weeks of letters. They are longer than normal because he can give more detail now that he's talking. I love them. Enjoy...
Alex's song from ChristmasDay
Garcia's singing Happy Birthday
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| Surprise Happy Birthday at the church! |
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| Elder Quintana's Farewell |
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| Imprint of face... EAT IT! EAT IT!! ;) |
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| Garcia's Happy Birthday cupcake |
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| Surprise at the church |
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| They even brought him a cake! |
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| Elder Frame Keeping up on tradition :) |
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| After |
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| Uriel, Sandra, Lupe, Elder Al, Chucho and Jessica |
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| Sequoia trip: My comp and I |
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| Dang the General Sherman is huge! |
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| Zone Picture |
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| Back to the General Sherman |
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| Elder Draney's epic fall |
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| All the elders stuffed in the igloo. (Elder Frame and I are in the very back) |
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| We found and Igloo! |
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| Getting ready to plank |
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| Sequoia's! My companion buried! |
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| Planking!! |
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| Christmas Party |
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| Elder Frame's epic fall |
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| Ward Christmas Party |
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| Garcia's home on Christmas Eve |
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| Games at the Zone Conference |
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| Shooting marshmallow guns at Bro Rinkers |
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| Us and the Sisters at The Garcia's house with their kids |
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| Part of his Madera Family |
December 22nd
Hey Mom! Hey Family!! You're probably wondering why I have my recorder out already. I don't know who sent me the recorder but if it was you guys just let me explain why I took it out a little bit earlier than normal. Here in Visalia we have a situation with our computers and there is six of them all in total but the stake presidency said they are going to take out 4 and bring in 2 new ones. The reason being because 4 out of the 6 computers were given by members and the stake completely disagreed with that and said it was a big no no! So they are coming in and taking those out and bring 2 new ones in. But that totally messes up a lot of the missionaries email time. And so they're going to be having a set schedule to where they all have to come at a certain time to email. So I thought it would be a lot easier to just send a recording and I know you like to send letters and stuff and I love sending letters, although sometimes it feels like I'm writing novels every week. Don't get me wrong I love writing letters, but man!! My hands get sooo tired! So I guess just do what you will with the recordings. Let me know if you want me to go back to letters and I will, but if it's not a problem maybe you could to follow along with the recordings and put them on the blog?? Just let me know if it works out, if it's convenient, or whatever.
Just to start off, I did read your letter already and answer to responses or questions... Yeah it's CRAZY!! My birthday is next Sunday and Christmas is this Friday! It feels like just yesterday I was in Lindsay and Charlie completely stuffed my face in cake! In the spanish culture we call that "Comer La" which means "eat it" "Comer La" Comer La" and they were doing that to me last year. I didn't know what in the heck that meant but Charlie was like "put your face in there! Eat the cake it's a mexican tradition!" So I was like alright! So I stuffed my face and BOOM!! Next thing I know my teeth hit the table and we had a cake fight for a little while but, luckily and hopefully there won't be anyone to do that to me this year!
I heard you got the picture from us playing volleyball. Yeah! That was me! The studly guy in the tight black shirt! Yeah! lol. And she always calls me fashionista??? What??? I don't know where the heck she got it but, I thought it was funny. Maybe its cause I get nice clothes from my family?? hahaha. I don't know! But yeah, I thought it was really funny. And yes in response to your question about Elder Frame and I looking alike, people ask us all the time if we're related. They actually ask us if we're brothers! hahaha. And sometimes we joke around with them like "yeah we're brothers!" and they're like "NO WAY!" hahaha "How did you both get on the same mission??" and all of this other stuff, it's pretty funny!
I heard about Marz 3 pointer in the JV game and also the Freshman game. If I remember right they lost both of them tho. Bummer!! Just gotta keep goin!! Just get past that one and go on to the next one! I also heard about Weston's game against Ben Lomond. I sure miss watching those 2 play! It's been awhile. It's crazy they still play and at this point in time if I hadn't come back on my mission I'd be watching them play. It's crazy!! BUT! I'm super happy to be here and where I am at this time and to see the blessings I've received. And who knows... maybe if I hadn't of come out, maybe the football team wouldn't have gone to the semi-finals?? HAHAHA! J/K ;)
I saw the videos of J.T. and Charleigh. MAN THEY'RE HUGE!! They're BIG!! They're getting sooo big all the time! J.T. just looks like he's, I don't know, it just doesn't look and feel the same where I'd be able to pick up my little brother and just sit there and play with him! Now he's too big to even carry! That's crazy!
Paul called me yesterday. He told me Happy Birthday and all that stuff. He told me he was in Utah working! I'm really happy for him! He's in a good place. Sounds like he's doing really well and Charlie is doing great! Say hi to both of them if you see them over Christmas. I love them both! I keep them in my prayers!
Tell Grandma Taylor Happy Birthday! I love her and I wish I could be there with her on her birthday. Also I did get Grandma Janet's package. So I got everyone's packages. I think I got more packages this year than I got last year. It was funny because we were all unpacking packages for the zone and everybody's like "GEEZ!! Elder Horrocks!! What the heck???" and I get all these packages and I'm coming out with all of these boxes in my arms and everybody has all of their packages and maybe 2 or 3 lol and I have like 9 or 10. I laughed about it for a little while. They all asked me why and I said "I just have a big old family! Don't be jealous!" hahaha
By the way, President Clark has asked the whole mission to teach you on Skype so I guess I'll be teaching you guys! This is kind of cool! I've never studied for a lesson for my family before! But I'm really excited about it! Always being a missionary that's pretty awesome :)
So, going on with my week. It was alright. It was so hot, we didn't get as many investigators as we would have liked to. We got 6 the week before and 0 this week. We're just striving everyday to find new investigators because that's our focus. Especially through the members. Trying to build up our teaching pool to see who we can find, teach and baptize. To give you an update on our progressing investigators... J. is no longer going to be baptized on the 26th. I thought I was going to be baptizing on grandma's birthday, but nah :( Not this week. He was supposed to pay a fine to the courts, but he didn't end up doing that because ??? He didn't turn it in on time! He was supposed to pay $1500 for a lawsuit over an accident. He talked to the judge last week and asked if he could extend the due date. The judge was pretty nice about it and said yes. He gave him an extra week. So he went to Tulare to fix his car so he could sell it somebody, but the thing is he didn't come back! Soooooo we're not sure if he's going to be going to jail anytime soon, but that's his case. It isn't the prettiest right now. Another thing that worries us about him being in Tulare is because his brother used to give him drugs and that's where his brother lives and he's staying there right now. He's been off of drugs for a month so we're praying he can be strong and resist temptation so he can at least be living one commandment. I guess we should have taught him living and honoring the law of the land before so he could pay his stinking fine! I hope he's keeping the word of wisdom right now. Our other investigator S. hasn't come back from Mexico yet. He's still working delivering phone books. He's been working and hasn't come back. I hope he comes back for Christmas so we can see and talk with him. We'll be setting a solid date with him. He needs to be baptized. He's been taught for about a year and a half and hasn't been baptized yet. So we'll see what we can do there. As for the others. A. isn't doing so great because she's been at the hospital so much. We believe she has tumors in the side of her lower right back. She's been going to the doctor to see what's going to happen. They're they're these weird looking lumps. So pray she'll get feeling better. We gave her a blessing and she felt a lot better. She felt more energized, less lethargic. She really felt our love for her. We just hope and pray her family can be strengthened through this trial because we don't know if it's a life or death situation but it's going to be tough.
I'll send some random recordings here and there. Some funny ones and stuff. I know you're probably falling asleep to my voice but this makes my life a little easier and also the lives of the other missionaries. Hopefully this all works out.
Hope you have a great week! Merry Christmas!! I love you!! I pray that everyday you are doing well and I'll see you through Skype on Friday I guess :) Have a great week! Love you, bye!
Love,
Elder Horrocks
December 28th
Hey Family! I'm going to do things a little different so I'm not making a bunch of recordings for everyone. I will do one main one and send it to everyone and then answer questions you asked individually in emails. I will also go through day by day to make it easier to stay on track :)
So Monday... I emailed you and sent you the first recordings. We also tried to go see a few people who weren't around. S. wasn't at his house and back from Mexico yet. But preparation day was, ya know, preperation day. Not a whole lot going on. We did see B. which is J.'s cousin, our investigator who had to pay the fine and never came back to Visalia. So we talked to B. and read with her in the BOM in Alma 5 and she really gained a lot of trust in us. She really opened up to us. She's really not our member, she's in the YSA. My companion Elder Corona baptized her back in Tulare in the Spanish ward there, so we have familiarization there. She's awesome! She said she'd commit her mom to read with her and come to church and stuff. She's super solid!! But other than that there wasn't a whole lot going on during preparation day.
Tuesday I had an exchange with my DL Elder Vasbinder. It was ok for the most part. We visited a few members and got a few referrals. Elder Vasbinder are total and complete opposites, but we were able to get on good grounds and we're pretty cool with each other! He's an awesome awesome elder! I love him a lot! He is a good district leader. Anyway, throughout the week we didn't have a lot of people to visit because they were all gone for holiday's.
Wednesday was super good! We went and did a service for some of the sisters investigators. His name was J. L. and we painted for him. They're coming in pretty good! I think he has given us more referrals than he has the sisters. hahaha. And he's their investigators. He's been really cool with us! That same day we had a youth activity with Sister Garcia. A couple weeks ago she text us saying she had a missionary moment and needed to talk to us. We were like "cool!!" and went over to her house and talked to her about her neighbor. His name is Chris. We ended up meeting Chris for the first time at the Youth Activity. He's a Super Cool Kid! He has a Catholic background and he's actually talked to missionaries in the past. He said they were pretty forceful with him. We didn't end up teaching him but we did end up sharing a message for the entire youth and that turned out really well. We shared what the world would be like without a savior and we really gained the trust of our youth in our ward. They are really awesome kids!! I would say they are probably one of the most solid youth that I've been around, other than Lindsay. Lindsay had the best youth I've ever seen!
So Thursday was Christmas Eve and it was our Zone Conference and we had it at our stake center. The missionaries from Hanford, Porterville, and Visalia all gathered together and that was by far one of the funnest days we had this week. We actually had our spiritual trainings in the beginning then we went from there and ate lunch and did everything else we needed to. Then we ended up playing some games and the only way we were able to participate was... Let me back up, this is how it was set up. We were playing Bingo and whoever won Bingo (there had to be a certain amount of people that won) and Sister Clark would bring them up and the Elder's and Sister's would stand in front of the stage and she'd present a video or presentation of what they game was going to be. The first competition was putting a cookie on top of your forehead and try to move it all the way down from your forehead to your mouth and catch it in your mouth and whoever got the most cookies won. That was first and my companion Elder Frame participated in that one. He didn't win haha dang it! But hey! Elder Corona did! That was cool! There was a lot of those. A lot of different activities (like 7 or 8). I got to do one of them. It was kind of funny how I won Bingo because Sister Clark was calling out the letters and numbers and when she said "G Noel" I was so excited because I won and put my button down on the character and shouted "NOEL!!!" hahaha! I didn't say Bingo, I said Noel instead! It was pretty funny and everybody was laughing and I said "Uhhhhhh, BINGO!! I mean BINGO!!" It was really intense. A lot of fun. My competition was a rubberband shooting. I had to shoot a rubberband at a stack of cups. Me and another elder had to have a shoot off. It was really bad because neither of us could hit the stinking cups to save our lives!! We were pretty good the first round but stunk it up the second part!! So we both ended up with the same prize :) That was Zone Conference and it was super fun! I really enjoyed it! Later that day and because of lack of people to teach and everyone being gone, we went and hung out with members all Christmas Eve. One of the members we went to was the Reinker's. They are actually relatives of one of the sisters here in Visalia and she was saying, hey didn't my grandma send you this or that, and I thought it was really cool she had relatives here in Visalia. We ended up getting to know them. Elder Frame and I talked to Brother Reinker and he's actually a mountain man! He used to live in the mountains and he did a lot of that stuff so it was cool getting to know him! He reminded me of a few people back home. I felt like I was talking to someone from Neola, UT or something! It was pretty awesome! He showed us his marshmallow guns that he's going to give to his grandkids and Elder Frame and I and the sisters ended up playing with them. Elder Frame said "Hey! Shoot a marshmallow in my mouth!". So I grabbed a gun and loaded a marshmallow and he's about 8 feet away from me and the first try I got a marshmallow in his mouth!! He said it hurt! hahaha! I don't know what you call the giggly thing that's in the back of your throat but it hurt it! hahaha! Then the sisters tried it and I guess they did alright. After like their 3rd try they finally got it. So we're sitting there shooting marshmallow guns at the Reinker' house and had a great time! Later on we went to Garcia's home and we sang them the Christmas song that I sang to you guys for one of our spiritual messages. Brother and Sister Garcia really enjoyed it. We made sister Garcia cry. She's awesome! She expressed thanks for us and said that ever since they've been coming around and bringing the missionary spirit in her home she's noticed a complete difference. She also said it's been one of the better Christmas' that she's had. So we felt blessed to be able to help her. It was a really spiritual moment for her. She loves the missionaries!! I guess she wasn't really much into the missionaries before (I could be wrong). I feel like she's a lot more open to missionaries to the missionaries in Visalia right now. They just love us a lot!! The Garcia family is great!
Christmas Day was Friday, that was the day we Skyped. Way different! Way weird! hahaha. I always get really nervous to Skype because I don't know what to say or what to expect and when we don't have anything to say I'm just like "Welllllll!! What do you want to know??" lol. It was crazy! Everybody's different!! Everybody gets different every year and its weird to see how much change happens at home. But for the better right?? Anyhow, really awesome to get to see you guys! I really miss you guys a lot! It's crazy how during the Christmas season you really long to be with your family but you know you're here at the right time! I know that to be true. I am here for a specific reason and I've seen a lot of blessings. The Christmas' in the mission are actually one of the best that you'll remember! When Weston goes on his mission he'll have a blast! I've always had a blast! These members take good care of us and they do so much for us not even funny. I feel like we underestimate their service. It's unbelievable! So moving on through the day, we went to other members homes. Saw A. our investigator in the hospital. Thing about her is they're not sure if she has cancer so she has to go to a bigger hospital to check it out. So we're keeping her in our prayers making sure everything for her goes smooth so that she doesn't have to hard results. I couldn't imagine having cancer. We also went to other people's homes and did Elder Frame's Skype. The movie we watched was Big Hero 6 and you guys were right!! hahaha! As a missionary you're a lot more sentimental and watching the movie I didn't cry, but there were some parts in the movie where you wanted to cry hahaha I guess ;). That was a good movie! It's now one of my favorites! It's super funny! That basically ended our Merry Christmas day! Awesome time! I'm sad it's the last one I'll have on my mission.
Saturday I went to a baptism in Medera. I don't know if you guys remember L.B. The B. family grandson. He got permission from his mom to be baptized and he LOVES it! He wants to be a missionary so bad! I had the opportunity to speak on the holy ghost and that was awesome! I enjoyed getting to seeing everybody again! I saw Lupe and Jessica's sister Mele. She's back from Washington. Oh my gosh!! It just felt like I went back home! Like I went back to my house! Back to my family! So I was really excited to see them! It was an awesome time :)
Sunday was my birthday. It was kind of random stuff throughout the day! We went to a member's house and she fed us tamales and she gave me a pan dulce, which is sweet bread, and she put a candle in it and counted it as my cake! Remember last year when I should you I got my face shoved in cake?? Yeah! That same thing happened to me after church soooooo... hahaha! It think it's just tradition. Maybe we can carry it over to our family when I come home?? We can start shoving each other's faces in cakes! hahaha! Later on that night we taught C. at the Garcia home again. Sister Garcia was awesome and participated so well! And so did her husband, he's the man!! He's such a great help and he's definitely helped us with this process. Really C. is progressing. He just has questions about the BOM and what we do. Why we're so different than others. So we kind of got to know him, we didn't teach him any lessons really except the concept of BOM. He's going to read it. He feels a lot more calm with us which he didn't feel with the last missionaries that were forcing him into it. So right now with member support that really helps because that will make the process faster for his progression with their support. He can ask them questions. OH YEAH!! By the way!! Some members from Madera came all the way to Visalia to give me some presents and that's where I got my cake from! Lupe, Jessica, Sandra, Uriel and Chucho came! All of those guys came!! It was kind of funny cause I was sitting at church and I looked to my left and all I see is this kid and it looked like Chucho and I was like "Is that Chucho????" I just thought "that's not Chucho! Is it???" Then I saw Lupe and I was like "HOLY HECK!!! What are they doing??!!!" I was pretty excited to see them and I went out during sacrament meeting and I saw them all! They had presents and a birthday cake! I felt REALLY loved! I really love those guys! I felt really blessed and I appreciate their time to take time out of their day to come all the way to church in Visalia, all the way from Fresno and Madera. Then they give me a cake and presents?!?? I was like "WOW!!" They're awesome!! I love them to death! They're one of my favorites! Really the rest of my birthday was good. Everyone telling me happy birthday. Elder Frame, my companion, he made it even greater hahaha, he text me 79 texts messages once throughout the day saying "Happy" "Birthday" and "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Happy Birthday!" "Hey Elder!" "Hey Elder" and I was like "OOOKKKKKKKK!!! I get it!!" hahaha! Sooooo, if it wasn't for the people that are here it wouldn't have meant as much! The people here are very loving! I'm really going to miss them! I'm going to miss Christmas' and Birthdays on the mish! I can't believe its all gone :(
Really that's my week. It was an awesome time! I hope you guys had a great Christmas :) It was so great to see your faces. It was super good to see everybody! Still I have a hard time fathoming the fact that everybody's getting so big and looking a lot different. It's crazy! Weston has a stinking beard!?!? What in the world??? Dre has curly hair!! Just everything!
That's it for the week. I love you guys! I wish you a happy new year throughout the week and I hope you stay safe. Love you bye.
Love,
Elder Horrocks
P.S.
Answers to Questions:
No we didn't find J. We actually got word that he's staying in Tulare with his brother working. I guess that was most important to him haha but hey it is what it is. I really felt like he would be baptized but by the looks of it. He'll be going to jail.
S.came back from town! He's doing good. Because of the holidays we really haven't got to sit down and talk with him about baptism or his progression. We should be this week though!
More than good on the packages and food and stuff. I think we'll last a month or two
You'll hear about the others in the recordings I sent! I hope you enjoy them!
Tell West and Mar to tear it up this week! Man I remember it like yesterday we were down in Cedar City playing games too. That was 3 years ago! I can't believe that!... Tell the rest of the family i love and miss them. Hope ya'll have a wonderful new years eve! Happy Birthday J.T.!
Love you!
January 4th
Hola Famila! This is Elder Horrocks speaking. Back here on Monday again! Oh Man the weeks fly by SUPER fast! I can't believe how fast they go! It's been a super great day today, I'll tell you all about it. We went to the sequoia's today and I'll have to show you some pictures. There was all but 4 of the elders that came with us to the sequoia's and we had a little zone activity. We went the General Sherman tree. We all took some pictures. We went to a a resort where people go and build snow huts and snowmen and sleigh riding and other kinds of stuff. I can't remember the name of it tho. This will be the second time on my mission I've seen snow and I've been super happy to see it! It's been exactly a year since I've seen snow, when I went with Paul and Charlie up to Yosemite Park. So we went up to the sequoia's today and had some fun! I'll send you some pictures. Some crazy crazy stuff happened. Well not that crazy, just we had a lot of fun you know! Missionaries who have never seen snow here on our mission. We had one Elder from Bolivia and it's his first time he's ever seen snow! You should have seen the look on his face! It was super funny! This recording for the week is going to be a little bit shorter. This week was really really tough due to New Years Eve and holiday's. We didn't do so hot this week. We hardly even taught. We probably taught 10 or 11 lessons overall. Normally we teach 20. So it was pretty tough. Going through the days as I was marking everything, that was eventful or worth sharing and there was just a few so this one will be a little shorter but here we go!
Tuesday I had an exchange with an elder named Elder Anderson. He's a pretty cool guy. He's really quiet and really laid back. He serves in the Farmersville area near Visalia. He's really funny! The highlights with him was when we got to teach C. and A. A. is still in the hospital by the way. But she got released so she's home! We don't know why they didn't send her to the bigger hospital tho. She isn't going to have anymore procedures, which is good. I'm assuming she's doing her own thing and living her normal life right now. We went and taught C. at the Garcia's home about the restoration and he understood everything! He really did! He understood everything perfectly. That there needed to be a restoration and there needed to be something in order to have Christ's church upon the earth once again. Once we got into it and then explained the BOM I think that's when he understood that we are different and that's what sets us apart from most religions. It's not like we're trying to convert him to the religion we're just trying to convert him to Jesus Christ. All these other increments and things just seem to help him come closer. So that was Tuesday's highlights. Elder Anderson and I had a good time
Wednesday isn't worth sharing much. We didn't teach hardly anybody. Don't get me wrong! Our weeks have some ups and downs. This week was definitely one of those downs but this week we're really excited because there's people home! The holiday's aren't going on! To be honest I really don't like the holiday's during my mission because you don't really feel like you're doing much. So this week will be a lot better! Anyhow, Wednesday's not worth sharing much.
Thursday was New Year's Eve. We had to be in the apartment by 8:00 because that's the rule. Actually last year we had to be in the apartment by 6 instead of 8. I guess they changed it to 8 because last year there were more opportunities to teach than they thought. So this year we did. Unfortunately there wasn't anyone home that day either. Man we just had such a rough couple days there Wednesday and Thursday. It was kind of funny, when we got home and got done planning I made Elder Frame a box case for his scriptures. His military set. Kind of a funny note... I've been making boxes for lots of people on my mission. I actually make some pretty cool boxes! I'm not gonna lie! hahaha! I made one for a memeber up in Madera with a bunch of Avengers pictures on it. Of course it wasn't missionary appropriate but it was for him. Good thing it wasn't for a missionary! I'll send you pictures of that, I'm not sure if I have or not. So we basically hung around the apartment and studied and waited till we had to go to bed. By the time we had to go to bed we were kind of sleepless because of all the racket going on outside! By the time it hit midnight it was like a whole bunch of gunshots and fireworks and all this other booming going on outside our apartment. I could NOT go to sleep!! I think I didn't fall asleep until like 12:30 or 1:00 am. Cause there was soooo much noise! It's crazy! But hey! Yeah, that was New Year's! Whoop-dee-doo! hahaha!!
Coming on Friday we actually had a meeting that next morning after New Year's Eve and OH MY GOSH!! Like I said, I was super tired and coming into the meeting everybody was just sooo tired. Sister Clark was like "Oh My Gosh!! You guys sound like a bunch of zombies!!" Cause we tried to sing a hymn at the beginning and we totally flunked it. She was joking around with us and so we all stood up and sang the song again. You could tell everyone was tired! I bet it was just the booming and clashing going on that night. But MLC was one of the best meetings I've been to. Super inspiring. The new goal or expectation of the year is that in 2016 the CFM will better keep pace with the Lord as he hastens his work. Last year we really didn't do all that well. We were going to baptize 1000 and I think we ended up baptizing 750. There was room to improve for sure. Basically President Clark introduced the expectation and then we talked about the "how" of how we're going to do that. The assistants taught us about role play, and when I say role play I mean practice what they're teaching. There are a lot of missionaries out here that know what their stuff is but don't know how to teach it because they haven't practiced it. So what they did was they gave us permission as ZL's to go and do companionship studies with the other companions to help them and see what we can do to help them and bless their lives. So that is going to help us soooo much! I'm sooo excited to see what we can do! We can role play a lot more too! Elder Frame and I need to better a lot of things. I am not a perfect role play person by any means. There is so much improvement for everybody. All you can do is go up from here! We're going to continue on with that :)
Sunday was one of the few days that we were actually able to teach a lot more! I tell you what! Teaching & finding missionaries are happy missionaries!! You can tell probably by this recording, it's not that I'm not happy but man... Yeah! I wasn't happy! I wasn't really happy when we weren't teaching because it was just hard! We strive so much to teach and you just realize it's better to be teaching & finding and then your labors come out so much more effective. We talk with people on the streets and invite them to do things, declaring repentance. Oh by the way I don't know if you watch video's or if I've sent you videos but "In the CFM We Baptize" has changed. It is now "In the CFM We Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts" and that just has a greater significance to it because before we were just kind of baptizing people just to baptized people, but now it's going to more of the future perspective. We're going to start with the end in mind. These people are going to go through the temple and do other great things but the only way that's going to happen is to find them through the members. That's when real converts go and progress and they have a friend next to them. I saw some numbers and we had ten or twelve thousand member presence last year and this year (I could be wrong) but I think it was twenty thousands member presence. That's a HUGE difference! That's 8,000 more times using the the members. So that's a big push! At least for me in my perspective. Anyhow! Coming back to Sunday! After many struggles throughout the week and lots of praying and lots of thinking and it was Fast Sunday as well, we were really blessed to have M. and her boyfriend come to church. M. is J. aunt. B. mom, just so everybody knows. She came to church, she enjoyed the testimonies. She told us she almost cried! She said she felt the spirit super strong! We were really happy for her. We went and taught her and the only things she's been struggling with is smoking and getting married. Her and her boyfriend are living together. She has no confidence or faith that she can overcome these things. I know how hard it is and I've never smoked or anything. She's been through the smoking program. She went a week or two weeks without smoking and then she fell through and the other missionaries in the past would be discouraged and that was a turnoff for her. That's a no no! I know addictions and things are really tough to overcome but once you overcome them you can conquer the world! You can conquer anything! So we're working with her. We just committed her to pray as often as she can and read the BOM with her daughter B. Her daughter reads everyday and she is going to be such a great help! We're blessed to have her with us. So she's going to be helping her with that. If she continues to come to church the Lord's going to guide her. In the scriptures in D&C 82:10 it's really relevant even to investigators when they do what the Lord asks and once they do what they ask they have their promises. Just as much as it is relevant to missionaries. We're really happy with that and that was kind of a reliever. Like "Hey! The Lords trying to help us" We're still trying to be more exactly obedient in sooo many aspects. We can continue to improve and find where we're off but the atonement is real! It can change us as much as we help others to change! It's for missionaries too!
I also fasted for my future concerns about coming home on May 25th or July 6th. Right now the Lord is kind of telling me I guess to lean more toward May and I actually was surprised! I thought the Lord would want me to give more of myself. I wasn't expecting any of the answers as far as my prayers go. But that's the what the Lord's trying to tell me. Right now I believe the Lord wants me to do that and focus on that and all other future concerns would fall into place. I also prayed and fasted about school and in all honesty I was surprised on that too! I thought maybe I could go and work for a semester and maybe do night school. But I think God wants me to start school as soon as possible. So maybe that's why going home earlier might be more convenient. I don't know. These are just my thoughts and impressions, they could change anytime soon! It all just depends on what the Lord wants and I want to do the best that I can for him and not disappoint him. It's not that I want to come home or anything at all. But I want to do what he wants and I'm trying to connect maybe why I had those answers and what's going to happen. That's what I feel as of right now. So May 25th, maybe start working, go to school in August or the fall as soon as possible and I'm going to need some sort of vehicle... DANG!! I don't want to be too apprehensive in the future but right now just keeping those as a side note just so everybody knows. Just keep praying for our missionary labors! That's all that really matters at this point in life.
I think that's all I had for the week. As far as my questions, I had a question for Weston. I don't know when he wants to leave on his mission but just let him know that I'd like to hear from him and see what his thoughts and impressions are about serving the Lord and what he wants to do. I'd like to hear from him! I love you all! I'm sorry if I missed something important like birthday's or something. hahaha! There's always something that I miss! But I think that I got it all as far as my week and I love you all and I'm so happy to be where I am right now! I hope you all have a great week and I'll talk to you all next Monday. Love you bye!
Love,
Elder Horrocks
P.S.
Dang Weston broke his foot?? How long has it been broken before??
I don't know any Larry Cleveland but I do know of a mission president from Visalia that just returned from Mexico? Sorry he doesn't sound super familiar
Tell J.T. happy birthday!! I forgot that in my recording!
I heard about Steve! I'm super excited for him. I'll be emailing him soon!
Good luck Ma and Pa! Trek is fun! And good luck Justin with your talk! You'll do awesome!
January 11th
Hey everyone! This is Elder Horrocks speaking. Here we are with week six of the transfer and it's from January 4th-10th and we're just going to go ahead and get right jumping into things!.
I can't believe another transfer has gone by! And you'll never guess (well I guess you probably can guess lol), I've only been here for a transfer so, yeah we're staying together. Hasn't really changed much! Elder Frame and I are going to be companions for another transfer. There is 4 or 5 missionaries that are leaving. One of them is Sister Lewis. Dang! We're really sad to see her go! Elder Shep is going home. Elder Perkins. There's a whole bunch going home and it's crazy! Elder Frame has told me that every transfer that they've always changed things up so... I don't know! We're going to be getting some new missionaries too! I think there's 3 companionships maybe, that will be training new missionaries in our zone and it's a cool privilege to be able to have 3 new missionaries coming to our zone!! Who knows!? Maybe cousin Tanner will be one of them!! I don't know! But it would be super cool! I actually asked president yesterday at a meeting if he was going to have him be sent to Visalia and he doesn't know yet actually. hahaha. I guess he does the transfer boards and everything goes by so fast and he has so much to do!! Anyway, we'll find out tonight who will be coming to Visalia really.
I sent you guys pictures of the sequoia's. I hope you guys enjoyed those! That's definitely something I want to do after the mission. When I come back to visit I want to go back there! It's going to be an awesome time!! It will be a little bit different not being a missionary but I want to go back to the sequoia's soooo bad! It's beautiful!!
Tuesday was pretty good! It wasn't bad. We had our district meeting and we had our zone council meeting with our leadership in our zone. Planned for our next zone meeting. We were going throughout the day and I think President asked us to go on an emergency with Elder Draney and Elder George. Two elders who are in Visalia 3rd ward, they're English speaking. Reason being is they just needed another exchange and it was one of the funnest exchanges I've ever been on! Elder Draney is an AWESOME missionary. I actually got to ride on bikes for the first time in 9 or 10 months and I am SOOO out of shape!! hahaha! I felt like compared to last year, a complete dump! Lol. I am SOOOO out of shape! Last year about this time I was on a bike with Elder Moody in Lindsay (WOW!! I can't believe how fast that went by!). Anyway, it was raining that same day on our exchanges and I felt like Ghost Rider LOL! We were passing through all these cars and all these lights and Elder George's bike is super fast! So I'm cruising and Elder Draney is doing drifts on his bike in the rain. We're just having all sorts of fun! Nobody got hurt! Thankfully hahaha! No worries. Don't need to worry about that ;). Later that night we exchanged back with our companions, it was just something short. We had a really good day tho! We taught some people. We went finding and looking through members.
Wednesday was another pretty good day (we actually had a pretty good week if I haven't mentioned already! A lot better than last week that's for sure!) We were able to teach and do missionary work! We had a get together with C. and we talked with him and taught him. We didn't have a specific thing planned. We just asked questions and made sure he understood the restoration and he does. We actually talked to him about meeting with his parents. We're going to meet with his mom this Tuesday. Which is a big miracle! We feel like he's been a little bit apprehensive about it. He thinks his mom is going to reject us or something, but our prayers have been answered and she's softening her heart. When he told his mom we were teaching him he told her in the heat of the moment and she said No. She said he should probably investigate in his own religion, which is the Catholic religion, before he goes to anything else. But he really doesn't do anything in his Catholic religion. So he said "Hey mom. I'm doing this for real. This is something I want to do!" and I think his mom is starting to see his sincerity. That was a good day to be able to set that with him. Keep in mind, the three days between Wednesday and Saturday, almost Sunday even (It takes forever to do it) we had to do Stake Correlation... Ohhhhhhh! That's soooooooooooooooooo LONG!! Basically as ZL's we have to gather up all these papers together and sent it to the stake presidency. But we did it so THANK GOODNESS!! I think their was just a few mistakes here and there so we had to fix a LOT of things. There is just a lot of information and it can be stressful! But we did it!!
Thursday night was one of the best nights we had! Evening teaching we went with an awesome member, President Mann. He's the first or second counselor to President Clark. He's the CEO of a hospital. He's a saint! He rides his bike to church so he can talk to people on the streets about the gospel. He talks about how there's missionaries. He's super cool! One of the best people I've met here in Visalia. What he did though was helped us out with some team ups. We taught three people. One of them being M. the one we're trying to help overcome her smoking habit. His testimony such a big help! He is such a wonderful teacher. He helps a LOT with the team ups. It was kind of cool how we got his help. He just called us up and said "Hey elders! If you know anybody that needs a team up just give me a call!" and we were looking around and I said why doesn't he just come out with us?? We didn't have anybody! So he came out with us and taught someone in the hospital! It was like going back to work for him :) We had a member named Y. O. and their family has been expecting her to have a baby (Matthew) and she was in labor for 2 days!! I can't imagine how painful that was!! DANG!! She was not having fun at all hahaha! The first night we went there Matthew didn't come. Second night, the family was still waiting. Third night he finally came!! So we went and saw her and congratulated her and she was super happy!! I think she's more happy tho to just not be in labor, hahaha, than anything! The babies nice but dang!! Being in labor for 2 days?? That's a long time!
Friday Elder Frame and I had a lesson with F. But I'll tell you about the lesson he had a couple days before that. So F. was one that was hard to catch because of work and his wife's alone and we can't teach her unless he's there because of the rules. So, when Elder Frame went and taught him (I'm not sure how the subject of baptism was brought up but it was) and F. was like "Yeah! You know what?? I've actually been kind of thinking about this whole baptism thing because I was baptized as a kid but I don't remember anything about it at all and I don't even think it's valid" I can imagine the look on Elder's Frame was like, Yeah! Yeah you're right!! Yeah you're saying everything right! hahaha! Then he was said that it is something we have to learn for ourselves and God want's us to be baptized. F. said "I can see the difference that you had made in my friends life (which is J.L.). He's getting baptized soon and he's changed a lot! Maybe I'll have to think on it and talk with my wife. It's ok to get baptized again right??" And Elder Frame was like as long as you're baptized by the right authority, of course! And F. asked if it would be ok if his wife did the same thing. Hahaha! And Elder Frame was like "Yeah!" hahaha. Playing it cool. He said "yeah that's totally fine and cool". Anyway he's striving for it and when we had our lesson with him he talked a lot about his family. He loves his family! He cried because he expressed his love for his granddaughters. He loves them a lot and wants the best for them. We told him that this is the path and the way if you want true joy within your family and your own life. The gospel is the way to go and what we're teaching you is true. What you're feeling is the spirit. I think he understood that. Now we need to follow up if he talked with his wife. I think we're going to go by today. So anyway, later that evening we had activity night at the church playing volleyball. Lots of people came! A lot of less actives. C. came hahaha and he kind of plays likes a rag doll. I guess the rest of us do to?? I'm not the best volleyball player but I've seen volleyball players and they definitely don't play the way that we did! LOL! But we had a fun time! A lot of people there. A lot of investigators and less actives. It was really successful! I ended up leaving early before it ended because I had to go teach M. We told her we would go teach her so I went with a member and we talked with M. Just FYI, I found out information about her from a different missionary in Tulare that was teaching her, that her bf is already a member. We thought he was just an investigator. The night we taught him with President Mann he said the closing prayer and he said everything and had the elements of the prayer and said it correct way. So that caught us by surprise. Then later we learned that she's not able to get married to him because he's never been divorced from his wife. H. has had issues trying to divorce his ex so they aren't divorced. But by Mexican laws, you are automatically divorced after 5 years and it's been more than 5 years, but they need his signature. He doesn't have to pay or do another process they just need his signature. The other thing is and I can't remember how this works but he can't go to Mexico to sign the papers and then expect to come back to the states. Maybe it's because he's illegal??? I don't know haha. But our team up was a blessing that night because he talked to him and told him he was automatically divorced by law in Mexico, all they need is your signature. He also told him there's another way and he knows a couple lawyers that can get him and his information and send it to Mexico and get the papers signed there and he doesn't even have to travel. The lawyer could help him! The things about M. is that she doesn't WANT to get married because it's been a tradition in her family not to. Her mom, her grandma, her great and great great grandma have never been married. I can't imagine that kind of life but that;s the ways she's grown up and she's never wanted to be married. H. has wanted to tho. So we talked to her and increased her faith and said that she didn't need to think of marriage as just papers. It's something that's going to bond you and H. together and you'll have more harmony within your lives. She listened and by the end of the lesson her faith was increased. We will be following up with her tonight to see how things went. We committed her to pray to know if she should be baptized. She actually already knows that. She told us that she already knows what the answer is because she's been given it before. So she knows she needs to be baptized. Second thing was to keep reading and praying in order to avoid temptation from smoking. Third thing E. will come out with us again tonight and help us with the whole marriage aspect. So we have a plan to help her overcome her addiction. Kind of like 12 step. I'm pretty excited to see what comes out of that tonight.
So we've been seeing A. Her daughter Al. is one of our new investigators. We taught he about the restoration and what makes us different. She understood and actually the next day the entire family came to church (except for Al. Gosh dang it!!), but everybody was there. We had four investigators at church. We thought we'd have a little more but that was a family! It wasn't just individuals :) A. loves it! She loves the church. She loves what we're doing with her. I think it's more just her family connecting with her also and to get on the same boat. Speaking of church! Great day!! Learned a lot!! We had the opportunity of going to dinner at Bishop's house. Bishop Chandler is Awesome! He's a stud!! He's one of my favorite members. Especially after the dinner we had with him. We had a really fun time! Elder Frame and I cooked some cookies for bishop hahaha! It's kind of funny because you know elder's don't really cook food and stuff for the members but we just decided that HEY! We just decided to be different! Put a thank you card on it and we got the other missionaries in our ward and put their cards on it too. We had a really fun time! Bishop's place is a place you can feel the spirit really strong and you can tell that there is something special there. They were absolutely wonderful! I love those moments you become close with members. It's hard to think about the times that you have with them and then the times you have to leave them. I think about that a lot with Madera. There was a lot of people that I miss!! But I'll see them soon. Later on that day we went and say C. at the Garcia's home. Taught him the plan of salvation. This lesson was definitely one that stuck out with him more because his sincerity of knowing what is going on and where he needs to go. If it wasn't for the Garcia's I don't think it would be nearly as powerful. They help a lot and make a big difference in teaching C. C., Elder Frame and I are starting to have a closer relationship and we're starting to see a lot of really good things come from him. His parents are more sincere about meeting the missionaries. I think they didn't want to meet us before because they thought we were the same missionaries from before that were forceful. Not to say they were bad missionaries but they weren't a good match for his mom. Now they're really open to us and we're meeting them on Tuesday.
So that's basically it for the week! I hope J.T. had an awesome birthday and everyone had an awesome week! I really love you all and I'll be answering any questions or concerns in emails here in a little bit. Then I have to do some other things for preparation day.
I love ya'll!! We'll hear from you next Monday. Audios! Bye Bye.
Love,
Elder Horrocks
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