Que Honda! (Wassup

Big Al is thriving!!  He made it safely to Lindsay and he got to see his companion from the MTC for the first time since they left the MTC :) He sounded soooo happy to see him again!  He also got to see some of the tallest and biggest trees ever!!  I can't help but envision the trees on Lord of the Rings (The Ents).  I imagine that they are these ginormous race that wake up to discuss our future in Entish and of course it takes them half the night just to say hello in their language ;) lol.  Anyway!  That's what came to mind when I saw the pictures!!  Holy Moses they are big!!!

He also is excited for the football team and sends his love and support!!  GO COUGS!!!!!

He's doing good things :)  Enjoy!

They got frogs out here in the desert

The Ortiz family. One of my most favorite families I've met so far

The fantastic four of Hughson. The day before I left

Another cool pic of the tree stump

One of the tallest ones out there

The most massive tree in the world. It's 20 feet in diameter, 245 ft tall and 1,500 years old.

This just shows you how big these suckers can get

This is more of the fallen tree

This tree fell in September 30, 2011 and was 282 feet tall. The fall was captured by a German tourist and I guess it's on YouTube or the sequoia national forest website. The thing I'm leaning up against is its stump!

Que Honda! (Wassup)

Every week that seems to go by is always something to remember! I love my mission every single day. This week was kind of different due to transfers and everything. As you all know I'm back where I started a year ago when I first came out to the mission. Well I'm at least 10 minutes away. I'm in a town called Lindsay and Elder Moody is one of the best companions every! He's white but he's basically a native because he knows Spanish really well. I've learned a lot more Spanish from him and the members here than I ever have any where else.
    So we had a little Fiesta farewell on Monday before Elder Brower and I went to our new areas. The Fiesta didn't have a Pinata unfortunately haha but we had an interesting thing called Arroz con luche, it means Rice with Milk. It's like a sweet and warm taste, kind of like when you make hot chocolate but it's obviously not hot chocolate. I don't know how to explain it you'll have to look it up on youtube haha. Over all the Party was good we had lots of fun and took lots of pictures and said our last goodbyes... Wednesday was the day I came down to Lindsay and I saw one of my best friends there that I haven't seen since the MTC. I saw Elder Nye!!!! My MTC comp who knew I went home and when he saw me pull into the church his eyes got really big and I heard him say "No way!!" and I was like yes way! So he came and ran to the truck and gave me the biggest hug. All the missionaries there and the members who gave us a ride were looking at us funny but we didn't care haha. It was like a little kid waking up for Christmas. I couldn't believe it when I saw him either, I was so excited!! And of course as soon as we arrived in Lindsay we went straight to work. I love being in the south because the investigators are so humble here! They are ready to be baptized!
      (These are investigators that I've taught in Lindsey thus far) We have two really progressing investigators named Teresa and Martin. They have a little family with 3 kids. We're working on getting them married so they can be baptized. It's either get married or move out, and they say they'd rather get married. So we're helping them with the Law of chastity. We're also trying to get Martin to quit drugs and smoking and maybe a few other things pertaining to the word of wisdom. I believe it was Saturday, we passed by and taught them about the plan of Salvation and how families can be together forever. They really liked that message and they asked what they had to do to accomplish that, and that's when we went into a few of the commandments and other things like the Law of Chastity and Word of wisdom. So they look forward to us every time we come over, it's awesome. We have another progressing investigator right now and his name is Hunter. Hunter's dad Tony has already been baptized and is working towards the Priesthood and his son hasn't been baptized yet but he will be! Tony is a good influence for him and reads the BOM often. I believe he was baptized in August and is in 2 Nephi 20 right now? Which is really good! It shows to Heavenly Father his efforts in working towards the Priesthood.
     There's a lot of less active members in Lindsay. I don't know exactly how much but I know it's in the double digits. So we drop by them often too. Right now we have two less active members that we're really focusing on. One of them is sister Baze and she was baptized but got into smoking again. We're doing the stop smoking program with her and she really wants to quit so she can go to the temple and just be clean again. The other less active member is the Contreras Family. The daughter in the family has already been baptized so they're actually a part member family. The parents want to be baptized but they have the same issue as Teresa and Martin, they won't get married. We've been going by and reading the Book of Mormon to help them get a better feel of it, because they said they want to know the Book of moron and everything else before they can get married and be baptized. The only way they can know is if they read it themselves, but we go by and just help them to liken the scriptures to themselves, like in 1 Nephi 19:23.
      Saturday was a day I'll never forget! So we were originally supposed to go up to the mountains to do a service Project for a girls camp, stuff like putting away cots, beds, chairs, and whatever else they needed. The ride up to the mountains was about an hour and a half or two hours. We left at 7 30 in the morning with some members and by the time we got there they were already finished with the service project... So just said well since we're already up here we might as well go see or do something haha. So we went to what's called "The trail of 100 giants" where there's a bunch of huge Sequoia Trees, which are the biggest trees in the world. You would not believe how big these things are!! I'll send some pictures and stuff and then you'll see how big they are. But it was one of the funnest and coolest parks I've been too. Everything in the mountains here in Cali just shows how amazing God's creations are.

It sounds like Union won again?? They haven't done this good since they 1980's from Weston said. This year the team has won twice as many games than I did my Freshman Sophomore and Junior year. Just shows you how good we were haha. Tell the team and tell Wes to keep it up! I'm glad he went to homecoming too, dats ma boy right there!

I'm really glad to hear about Justin! What's cool is that the Lord has given me opportunities to teach people how Justin's experiences with quitting smoking are working for him right now. When the people hear that they re assure themselves and think "Oh maybe I can do that!" it's awesome to see them change their attitudes.

I would like Zach's email please if you could get that for me!

I'll check the mission office and see if the pull up bar is still there. But if it's not don't worry about it, they're not to expensive and I guess you could get a new one. It takes about a week or 2 for the packages to get to me. They send it to the mission office and then the zone leaders go down to Fresno once a week to get the packages (I'm not sure what day) and they come back to our area and give us our packages.

Well my time is short but I love hearing that everything is going good back home. I'll check out the pics you sent and see how they are. Tell everyone how much I love and miss them. Until then, you'll hear from me next week

Les Extrano y Amo

Una Semana llenado con bendiciones!

This letter is from Oct 6th.  So now I'll be caught up and you can know what's going on with him currently ;) Conference of course was the highlight of his week.  He loves watching it now more than ever!  He also got to watch Meet the Mormons and said it was awesome!  He asked everyone to go watch it, either in the theater or the website (I'm not sure if it's the actually movie or if it has little trailers or what, I haven't tried it yet but he provides the link).  I've heard it's awesome too and I'm excited to watch it also :)  I'll probably do it tonight as a family!  AND he saw his old rommie Zach Trujillo's girlfriend in a "Stop Bullying" video.  He was pretty stoked about that too :)

He is being transferred to Porterville, which is where he was before he came home, and you can tell he's excited about that!  He keeps progressing and he seriously inspires me to be better!!!  MAN I LOVE HIM!!  I hope everyone enjoys reading his letters as much as I do ;)



Una Semana llenado con bendiciones!

Do you like how I put a heading and then never translate it? This week has been awesome! Words don't describe how General Conference was. I love watching it now more than ever before, but general conf. on a mission is always the best. The beginning of the week didn't start off with too much, but by the end of this week I was pretty mind blown and I'll explain a little bit later. Our investigators are doing really good!! We're still teaching Arturo, but we haven't found him this week. If we find him and find out that he hasn't done much to progress or doesn't want to listen any more, we'll probably have to drop him :(. We've been emphasizing "Read and pray, read and pray" and he's done it a few times but hasn't acted upon it. When we find him we'll see how he's doing with his progression, but he's super busy and hard to catch. Hopefully we help him understand to "apply" the scriptures to himself. Stephanie and Erica are doing good still. We've caught Stephanie a 3 or 4 times this week and she's been progressing little by little. I think we've taught her 3 out of the 5 lessons so far. She knows we come by to only add to the faith and truths that she already knows. We invited her to conference but she wasn't able to come. Dang it! But I believe she watched 15 or 20 minutes of it on her phone? At least that's what she told us (hopefully it was during Elder Bednar's talk, that would've been perfect!) Erica is kind of a different story. She's been super busy with work and everything. The last time we talked to her was 2 weeks ago! Nothing much has happened with her yet... Miguel continues to read just like we ask him :) same with his wife Carmen. We passed by him on Thursday and taught out of those missionary pamphlets. Have you seen those things? They're so simple and easy to use! It's like teaching a little kid! We taught him The Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet and it helped him to understand so much more. If you ever get the chance to take a look at them, you will see what I mean by they're simple and effective... We've got two new investigators this week that are super solid! Their names are Tony and Alex. Tony is Axel and Abel's brother. Alex is a guy that came to help set up our Light to the Nations play that we had a few weeks ago. Brother Huerta, who is a counselor in the branch presidency, brought Alex with him. Alex had no idea that Jesus Christ appeared to the Americas. Since the play he's been to the church twice and says that this church is the ONLY church that he's ever got answers from! He's not a part of any other religion so that's good that he found the right one! We taught him about the appearance of Jesus Christ to the Americas in 3 Nephi 11, and you could see the spirit enlighten his mind. It was kind of funny, because as we were teaching him he had a look on his face like he was confused so we asked him if he had any questions and he says, "Oh no! I'm just trying to picture it in my head like the play." haha. And when he read he read the scriptures like the narrator from the play, he was just so excited that he found the story in the BOM! He told us he's going to go home now and show his wife 3 Nephi 11 so that there's no more doubts about our church.
      That's the update on our investigators this week! This week had a few other things happen though. Have you guys heard of the movie that's coming out called Meet the Mormons? Holy cow that movie is sweet! It talks about the lives of 6 Mormon families and what they're about. I think it's coming out October 10th. What's so cool about it is that it gives a clearer understanding of all lives of Mormons. We watched the movie this passed Friday and we loved it. President asked us to have our families watch it. It's on meetthemormons.com or it might come out in the theaters in Roosevelt? You could find it on the website for sure. What's even better is that 74% of people that we're not members that watched the movie would recommend it. It's a very touching, inspiring, entertaining movie. It might be on mormonchannel.org too. Speaking of which, we get the chance to go down to the stake center twice a week to see any updates on Mormon message, because here pretty soon they'll have iPads in the mission and we might teach out of them. When I went and watched the Mormon messages I was watching one called "Stop Bullying" My college roommate's girlfriend,  Zach Truijilo, was on the video!! I had to rewind it a few times to actually see that it was her. I was pretty stoked when I saw it. Wish I had Zach's email so I could tell him..... So BIG NEWS. I am being transferred back to Porterville!!! Actually it's a little town called Lindsey but it's basically Porterville. Can you believe that?? I was super excited when President told me where I was going. My new companion will be Elder Moody. I'm pretty sad to leave Elder Hall and our members. I loved them so much and I was just getting to know them. Elder Brower is leaving to Fresno East. Our Spanish branch is throwing a Fiesta farewell for Elder Brower and I tonight so it's a bitter/sweet thing haha. I was super shocked to hear I was leaving. I thought I was staying and finishing out with Elder Hall for another Transfer, but if the Lord wants us somewhere else he'll put us there!

So conference, 2 new investigators, Meet the Mormons, and Transfer calls were the highlights of the week! Sounds like everything is going really good back home. Weston's game is super exciting to hear about! Morgan is usually a tough team too. I love how the team continues to improve. Tell them to keep it up! I got the videos and pictures. I'll make sure to watch them :) Tell mar and her team I'm proud too! I'm proud brother that she would wear a Red Sox jersey to school. Speaking of baseball I saw at members home the 18 inning game between the Giants and Nationals. HOLY!! I bet Carter was happy.

I'm glad to hear everything is going good back home! Unfortunately I have limited time and I will let you know how Porterville goes this week! Tell Grandma thank you. I pray for Justin, I pray for the family, I pray for you all! Remember to continue following the prophet because he is the man! As he always says, or as every prophet advises "Try a little harder to be a little better."

Love your son Elder Horrocks

P.S. Will you send pics of West's homecoming game and everything too? Tell him I love him and good luck

The Baptisms Happened!!! They really happened!!! :)

This letter is from Sept. 29th. (I'm going to catch up letters and do 2 at once)  He also sent pictures!!  YAY!!  He's an amazing missionary :)  He really does love what he's doing!  So inspiring to watch his progress :):)

After zone meeting we were chilling for a bit.
Me, Elder Moosman, and Elder Checkets

My Comp

Our entire zone after zone meeting. I can't name everyone but Zone leaders are Elder Cook (far left on the end, standing up) and Elder Bozwell (Far right on the edge standing up) and President Clark in the middle 

Elder Arroyo and I after it rained again this week

Elder Hall, Axel (left) Abel (right) and Myself before their baptism

Elder Hall, Freddy (He baptized Axel, He's their uncle)
Abel, President Hernandez (baptized Abel, Grandpa of both Axel and Abel)
and myself

I got the letter!

This week has been the craziest, busiest, most stressful week I've had thus far. We've been running back and forth from town to town, meeting to meeting. But it was a good week. This week was full of events and I couldn't be more grateful for the miracles we see every day. The highlight of the week (you're all probably wondering if Axel and Abel got baptized) well guess what... THEY DID!! It's about time! I'll send some pictures of it later today hopefully. But wow it was awesome! Everything went well and smooth and it was just a good way to end a week. They got baptized yesterday. Their dad and their uncle Baptized them.
    This Thursday we had a zone meeting with our stake presidency and President Clark came and joined us too. We talked about counseling and the real importance of it. Some of us get carried away with our work and to do lists that when we go to ward council on Sunday mornings, we forget to look for referrals and activities and assignments from members so that we can use their help to bring our investigators in to the gospel. So now we focus and being a member of every council instead of just being there to say who we have for investigators. After our zone meeting we had personal interviews with President Clark, just to see how our area is doing and how we are doing individually. I love President Clark so much, and he does so much for this mission! He's truly inspired and works so hard to help and bless us.
    Our investigators are doing really good! We found Giovanni this week and taught him about the plan of salvation. We followed up to see if he read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet we gave him and he said he forgot :( but we used it to our advantage. We used it to teach our lesson :) once he saw the pictures and the things that we're in it he was pretty stoked to see what we had. I mean who doesn't want to be taught with pictures? When we talked about the Atonement of Christ you could see the look in his eyes that showed he was amazed. He never really thought about Jesus Christ really did until we explained. I used an example for Gio about when I cut my leg open on a scooter when I was 9 years old and how Jesus Christ knew how I felt in that moment,  and he looked at me like "what?? really???" hahaha yup! Because how can our savior help us if he doesn't know perfectly how we feel?... I went on exchanges with an Elder named Elder Arroyo on Wednesday. That day we found Miguel and Arturo and they both read the BOM like we asked them to! YES! Miguel's read twice now so that's pretty awesome. Unfortunately with Arturo he didn't pray though. So AGAIN we emphasized that the only way to know is by reading and PRAYING. He was just being stubborn and wouldn't do because he feels like a "giver" and doesn't ask God for things. We told him that God was the biggest giver of all and he loves us and wants to bless us. So he's commanded us to pray to him. We told him that maybe he could ask God to bless him with opportunities to give? We went on to invite him to read 2 Nephi 32:8-9 and to pray again. Except this time we got his number so we could follow up on him. Miguel has been doing really good. He asked us how the BOM is a companion to the bible. We talked him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how we are commanded to be baptized the same way he was. In Mathew 3 it talks about Jesus Christ was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. In 2 Ne. 31 it talks about what it means to fulfill all righteousness, which means to set the example for us. It's pretty cool how the BOM and bible are hand in hand! We invited him to be baptized but he said he wanted to know more before he got his answer. So we'll teach him this week a little more... Remember the two sisters Stephanie and Erica? The ones that always have questions? On Thursday after the zone meeting we went to go teach Erica instead we found Stephanie. Now Stephanie was a little more iffy than Erica but we somehow, as we were talking to her, got on the subject of our pre earth life. She thought we were crazy but just said "Yeah we lived with Heavenly Father before we came down here!" and she went and got her bible and we read Jeremiah 1:5. After that she unloaded these questions on us and wanted to know more. After we talked a little bit we invited her to read the intro to the BOM and to pray to know for herself if what we teach is true. She said that she was scared to know if it's true, because if it is she's scared that she's going to have to change. So we keep talking and this is how I know the BOM is true, because we used it to answer every question. At the end we invited her to pray but she was kind of timid, but kept telling her "You can do it!" (like that one guy always says in Adam Sandler's movies) she said no. And we were about ready to pull out the BOM! The weapon! She says "What are you going to read now?" and we just said "We got all kinds of stuff in here." She finally said "Ok I'll pray!" hahahaha... Friday wasn't much. We had a ward activity at Brother Huerta's house. Elder Hall and I gave a brief spiritual thought on how to be prepared for General Conference. My advice to you family is go to G.C. with a question that you've always had and expect it to be answered. Write it on a piece of paper and then jot down notes during their talks. After the sessions are over go over the notes and scripture reference and your mind will be opened! (D&C 42:61) I love G.C. during my mission. It's always one of the best times of the year.
     Well that's all that happened for the week but I got your videos on pics :) I love em!! Makes me miss everyone! I'll see if I can send some videos too when I get the chance. I'm glad to hear about Justin. I sure do love him, tell him to keep it up! Wish I could have been at the concert that sounds super tight. One day for sure we'll all go. I love hearing from friends back home! Send Cramer, all I care for, my love to them. I'm sure they know, but just let them know again. I'm sorry I don't get much to say about what goes on back home but I love hearing stories..
    Well my time is short as usual but I love you all, and it's so good to hear from you. I'll send pics today when I can. Love ya!

Elder Horrocks

Hola Mi Familia

We're having issues with Al getting our letters.  It's super frustrating!!  It actually breaks my heart to think that he opened his email to see absolutely nothing :(  Well I guess he got the pictures.  I hate it tho!!!  I know I've said this before but, it makes me feel like I've missed a phone call from him or something when he doesn't the letters.  Hopefully he'll get them this week!  I've resent them 3 times so I'm hoping they went through ;)

Yesterday was the supposed to be baptism day!  We've been praying all week that it will happen!  He also asked that we all pray for the missionary's specifically on Thursdays :)  Not that we won't be praying for them every day anyway, but he said that the prophet and the apostles all go to the temple every Thursday night to pray for that specific thing also :)  the idea is to flood heaven with prays for our missionaries!!  ;)  So on Thursday's try to set aside some time to pray for that.  It doesn't matter what time.  Just that it's Thursday!

He also went on exchanges with and elder from Blanding who knows my brother Charlie.  Small world!!!  Pretty cool ;)

Enjoy!!!


Hola Mi Familia!!

This week was pretty good. There was so many good things that happened this week! The Lord does good things for us out here, even if things may seem like they are not progressing, they really are. I know I talk a lot about Axel and Abel being baptized and guess what, they were almost baptized! AHHH!! The day before it happened our branch president called me and told me that Abel went with one of his friends and with his mom on a little trip to Los Angeles. I guess it was something they just decided to plan a few days before. So the only thing we are doing now is changing the baptism date to next Sunday on the 28th. We're doing everything to make sure that they don't have plans next Sunday haha, of course they'll be baptized but good heck we can't afford to keep delaying it. We have the program and everything ready, the only thing that's different is the date. So pray that we'll baptize them!!

I had the chance to go on splits with Elder Moosman on Tuesday this week. We placed a couple Book of Mormons and we found an investigator named Julio that was a referral from the English elders. Elder Moosman doesn't speak Spanish, so I taught him. We talked about the plan of salvation, and to my surprise he's never really heard anything about the gospel, or even Jesus Christ or God for that matter. Which is weird because a lot of Hispanics have a catholic or christian background. But he's way cool and he has a big family. He told us to come back and talk more about God's plan for us, since we were only able to visit with him for a short time.  On Wednesday we found another new investigator named Geovani. He's 15 years old and kind of has a catholic background but had no idea where go after this life. So there we taught where we go :) and he was pretty psyched to hear about that. Thursday was highlight of the week. We had zone conference on that day and I learned that becoming a complete missionary doesn't come over night. Just like our Savior he wasn't perfect from the beginning but he became better and better each and every day. I think that is the sole purpose of what life's about, to become like Jesus Christ and follow his example. There's so many things I learn out here that apply and can help us forever in life! And even after we die we just keep going and going and going. Progression never stops, it kind of makes me think if Heavenly Father is still progressing. Even though he's this perfect being and has all wisdom, compassion, and love. So really there's no beginning and there's no end. President Clark mentioned something very important about missionary work at zone conference. Since the age change of Missionary work there's been a huge amount of missionaries to enter into the field, but what makes missionary work at it's best is the members. So now we call it "Member/Missionary Work". Something statistically stands out to me, 2 out of 3 investigators that are taught in members home are baptized. When it's just ourselves as missionaries teaching, 1 out of 48 investigators are baptized... So yeah!! Members are great! That's always a goal to have members with us at our lessons, so that our investigators have a friend when they go to church. President Clark has asked us to invite our families to pray every Thursday at whatever time to pray for missionary work to grow and to pray for our members that they might have opportunities to do missionary work. The significance of this is that our beloved prophet and the apostles go to the temple every Thursday night and pray specifically pray for us, the missionaries :) so we are doing the same every Thursday and it doesn't matter what time, just pray for missionary work and the opportunity to do it is all that it is! On Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Pugh. He's from Blanding Utah and says that he knows my Uncle Charlie. Maybe Charlie knows some Pugh's in Blanding?

On Saturday you'll never believe what happened, IT RAINED!! Hallelujah let it rain baby! It was maybe like 5-10 minutes and little drops, but it happened! It rained pretty good up in Yosemite Park but when it reached us it died down a little bit. I looked at my companion and everyone else and just said it's gonna rain!! I know it! They all looked at me like I was crazy and said to watch and that it would pass over and die. But nope! It was pretty exciting. On Sunday I gave a talk again in church. It's something that happens in the Spanish branch often. We give at least 1 talk a month because there's not a lot of people to choose from haha. That same day we found two new investigators their names are Carmen and Sofia. Carmen is Miguel's wife and we told her that she could be sealed to him forever. That caught her attention, so we taught her about the restoration and how God's authority in the church allows us to perform those covenants. We gave her a BOM and invited her to read and pray for herself to know if what teach is true. We did the same thing with Sofia and gave her a BOM too and invited her to do the same.

Thanks for the pictures they're awesome! How was the concert? Was it Volbeat? J.T. and Charleigh are getting big!! Well let me know how things are. I didn't receive a letter from you or dad or anyone yet, I only got the pictures from you. And I actually got done earlier so I was able to send a letter earlier than usual. But I love you all!! Let me know how things are back home

Love,
Elder Horrocks

Otra Semana Pasada! (Another week by)

Time is all running together!  Must mean he's staying busy ;)  I told him I know that feeling all too well!!  And I'm supposing that going on a mission is a lot like the first few weeks back to school!  Super easy to get up, get ready, get going, AND be on time for the first few weeks and then the snooze button becomes your friend!! Ha Ha.  It also sounds like he's still enjoying it and even finding time to school other elders in basketball :)  Keep Praying for him and his investigators.  And pray they don't start their apartment's on fire exterminating bugs... Literally ;)

Otra Semana Pasada! (Another week by)

Santa vaca!! Weeks just fly!! I swear I was just writing you last week. Time is becoming nothing out here. The only thing that gets harder everyday is getting up at 6:30. I had so much energy in the morning my first couple weeks and now it's starting to wind down haha. That's how it is for every missionary though. This week was pretty awesome! Miracles are happening everywhere. As far as Axel and Abel the only things we need to do is get them interviewed by our zone leaders and then they can be baptized. They're expected to be this Sunday, which isn't very far away! I hope we don't have to keep delaying it. Abel wants his Dad to baptize him but the only problem is, is that he's inactive and a little bit disobedient. But Abel loves his Dad, I'm just worried that it would break his heart if he knows that his Dad may not be able to do it. But we love him and his dad! No matter what they want. Abel said he's cool with our branch president doing it if his Dad can't. If his Dad could do it I think that would sure make Abel as happy as could be. Axel just wants to get baptized he really doesn't care who does it haha. We didn't catch Arturo this week dang it! We have faith that he's doing good though. We didn't catch Jorge either. It was hard to catch our investigators this week for different reasons. We did actually have one of our investigators this week (Miguel) that actually read on his own! Holy heck can you believe that? A lot of our investigators think they have to read so much. He told us that he only read like 3 or 4 verses and me and my companion were all pumped up and excited for him! He looked at us funny, but we were being serious haha he felt like it wasn't much but we told him that's plenty and to keep reading. Some investigators read maybe a line or don't read at all. So we're super excited for Miguel! He wants to be sealed for his family. First we need to baptize him... We have a new investigator named Erika who is Stephanie's sister. Stephanie kind of flaked out on us :( we invited her to be baptized but she said she didn't want to make such a big jump in her life and that she felt that God was happy with her at where she is. We were sad but her sister Erika still wants us to come by. She has a TON of good questions and she tells us all the time, "Dang you guys are the only people that can answer my questions". We have an appointment with her on Tuesday so we look forward to that. 

        

I actually had the chance this week to go on exchanges with one of our zone leaders. His name is Elder Cook, I want to say he's from Riverton Utah? I may be wrong. But we had an awesome time together! He's a great missionary! He loves to work and he loves to just serve everyone he talks to. I learned a lot from him about missionary work and the only thing he learned from me is that I could whoop him in b-ball haha. He's an awesome dude, I really enjoyed my exchange with him. We had other meetings this week too like Trainer/Trainee and it was pretty good. I kind of already knew what was going on since I've had a taste of it before. The best thing I learned from it was to never compare myself to anybody else. Which I'll be honest I'm a little guilty of that. So I made a goal to just continue being myself during my training, and to find out by the end of my training of how I can personally teach and help others come to Christ. There are people to hear the gospel in a way that I teach, as well my companion teaches. We just have to have faith to find them... A couple funny things happened this week. We had the J-dubs (Jehovah's Witnesses) come by our door. And she was Hispanic and she saw us and said that she couldn't speak English very well, but we just said Oh no it's okay! We speak Spanish too! Then she looked at us like oh shoot, well we have another appointment to go to so we'll  come by another time okay? hahaha it was funny! The other crazy thing that happened this week was Elder Moosman tapped a wasp hole that was in the ceiling outside of our apartment. The nest was inside the hole and he took a lighter and some old spice spray and started lighting the wasps on fire and then he tapped the hole so they couldn't come out. It was super funny! He just did it like a man, and he was sitting there swiping the wasps around like it was nothing. We thought he was crazy. I'll have to send the video. Speaking of videos, President Clark has now issued that we can send videos! Also we can Skype, but only around Christmas or Mothers day. So maybe I'll send it sometime soon.

Yes i did get your package and letters :) Thank you so much! But unfortunately the chord you sent is to small. The plug into the camera needs to be bigger, so I'll just send the cord back, I might find one at Walmart or something. But thanks for the food and stuff! I think it's all gone though. It's good to hear that everything back home is good. 4-0 baby!! That's what I'm talkin' about! I miss football a lot but it sounds like the team is doing awesome. Send my love their way and tell em I said to keep up the good work. Same with Mar send my love to her! I'm glad Justin is working on his goals. We all have goals in life and I've seen changes in him since I first met him. So as far as he has come since then, I have faith that he can over come smoking! I love the pictures and I love hearing about everything back home. Unfortunately I'm going to have to cut this one short but I love you all!! 

Love your son, Elder Horrocks

He sent pictures!!! YAY!!!!

I almost had a breakdown last week!!  Nothing big really, but to me it was huge ;) Alex for some reason didn't get my email.  He had gotten the pictures I sent but no letter!  This happened once before and I HATED it!  I get all anxious!!  It feels like missing a chance to talk to him :(  Luckily I had been checking my email and he had sent a letter saying he didn't get my letter, so I quick sent it out to him again!  I was excited to tell him about my little adventure so I was sad he didn't get to read about it. (He had seen the picture I had taken tho and had a bunch of questions) ANYHOW,  I had an amazing night on Sunday when I went to a fireside that Alex's old mission president (President Gelwix) did in Sandy.  I saw that he was going to be there and it just so happened that I was in Sandy so I talked my sis KaeCee into going along with me.  Justin was going to go but decided to stay home and help grandma with the kids at the last second.  Anyway, it was such a wonderful fireside.  I felt his love for the people in the Fresno Mission and I knew that they were looked after physically and spiritually!!  Alex was blessed to know him for sure!  Afterward I introduced myself to him and told him I was Alex's mom.  He hugged me and told me how proud of Alex he was and that he loved him dearly and that he was going to make a WONDERFUL missionary!  He also told me that he was in Canada when Alex flew back out and was sad he didn't get to tell him goodbye first.  He is such a sweet, sincere, genuine man.  I knew without a doubt that he loved the missionaries and would have done anything for them.  Including listening to the spirit when it told him to go visit at 1am.  I felt very spiritually fed and blessed that he knew and cared for my son.

Alex also sent some pictures!!!  YAY!!!!!  He looks sooooo happy! I love that I can still see his personality shining through :)

Helping out, put up the play

Me trying out some costumes

Jesus Christ appearing to the Americas in "Light to the Nations"

All Book of Mormon characters and stories during the play, (Liahona, Joseph Smith finds the plates, Enos prays, all other stories)

On the way home from the play we were crowded in the car

On our way to the temple

A scripture case I made out of a cereal box and Ensign pics

Elder Guereca and I

On our way to do service. Me and my companion Elder Hall are in the back

Elder Brower creeping on Elder Hall

Me washing the car

I Didn't get a letter from you but I got your pics and stuff. I'm assuming you're sending it today? If you didn't get the chance to send yet it's okay. I'll send you mine!

Another week flown by!

So there are many miracles that we witnessed this week, but at the same time it was kind of crazy but I'll explain. For our investigators we are ready to get Axel and Abel in the water! We've taught them all the lessons and now we just got to make a baptismal service and have them be interviewed by our zone leaders and hopefully they can be baptized this Sunday. As far as tony he isn't with his brothers as much. He's usually with his mom. But when he does see us he wants us to teach him haha. We didn't see him this week though. I'll take pics and when i get a cord I'll send them to you. Our other investigators are doing good too. We love them all. One of them that's doing good is Arturo and he is right now trying his hardest to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it's true, AND if that's true then that means that Joseph Smith was a prophet right? It seems simple but yet it's so true. We dropped by him and he said he didn't read this week and so I told him to go get his Book of Mormon and he brought it to us and I asked him to read Alma 37:36-37 and he read and we told him how Heavenly Father is LITERALLY our Father. He wants to hear us pray to him. He wants to know how were doing. Just like parents want to know how their kids are doing haha. So we marked Moroni 10:3-5 and he told us he'd read it right when we left so we expect him to have that done.
        We have 3 other investigators that we met this week too. Stephanie and Erika are two of them, and they're sisters. We taught them the restoration with them and did what's called the cup lesson (do you know what the cup lesson is? Short explanation: 12 cups on bottom that represent 12 apostles, stack other cups on top that represent Jesus Christs teachings and commandments such as faith, repentance, baptism, receiving gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end... along with others like obedience, prayer, scripture, study, Sabbath day holy, and all preach my gospel lessons. On top of it is Jesus Christ cause he's the head of the church) That's not even all of it. But it helped our two investigators a lot. It kind of makes our restoration lessons really unique. Stephanie and Erika really wanted to feel the spirit, but it seemed like they wanted to know right away. But we explained that all of these things we teach don't all come at once, but overtime and with experience, our testimonies and ability to recognize the spirit begins to grow (Alma 32:28-30) we shared that scripture with them and it helped them to understand. So they're awesome! Our other investigator, or i should say really good potential, his name's Jorge. He's the friendliest Mexican I've ever met. When we talked to him he asked us to come by again. We were like what? You're asking us? That never happens! Also as missionaries were not supposed to talk about politics. When we talked he started to bring those things up, but we even told him that we don't have TV or any news to read from to know what's going on. So when we told him that he's like "Oh...well... Obama me no likey." Hahahaha he gave us a good laugh. Unfortunately we haven't caught him since we talked cause he hasn't been home. I'll let you know when we do though.
        So two crazy and exciting things happened this week. First I had an opportunity on Friday to go on exchanges with a missionary that has been on his mission for only a week. And I went to his area and he was running it. His area is out in Ceres in it is big! His name was Elder Checkets and he's English speaking. We went on exchanges because Elder Hall my companion had to go to a leadership meeting in Fresno for some leadership stuff because he's district leader. Elder Checkets and I did really good for being trainees haha. It was super hectic trying to find our way around though! Oh my heck it was so frustrating! And we were on bikes too. So that made it even better... So if you can imagine two trainee missionaries walking around a city, looking puzzled as ever, that's what it was like.... The other event was on Saturday and it wasn't as crazy. It's actually an experience I'll never forget. We did service to help out for a play called "A light to the nations" in Turlock. It's about when Jesus Christ comes to the Americas. It's like a play with dancing and singing and other neat stuff. But you could feel the spirit so strong when it showed the part when Jesus Christ appeared to the Americas. People in the act were crying and they looked so happy when they saw this. It only strengthened testimony even more of our Savior. In a sense it was like having a feel of when the Savior comes to the Earth again. We'll all be crying and walking to him ready to see him. I took lots of pictures and I'll have to send you some one of these days.

So you took a picture of President and Sister Gelwix??!! How? What was going on? Where did you meet them?? Did you tell him you were Alex's mom? :) haha that's way cool. I love the pics they're super funny! I heard about Weston's game and it seems that he's doing awesome! 3 in a row baby! Wished they would have put a big donut on the board, but 41 to 21 is still pretty good. Mar made the team! how's Justin doing? Is he doing a lot better? Tell him I love him. Hope all is well.

Well I guess I'll write ya next week cause I'm running out of time! But I love you! Tell everyone I send my love their way and remember our investigators name by name and keep them in your prayers.

Love, Elder Horrocks

This isn't a great picture of President and Sister Gelwix.  I didn't want to hold up the line any more when I got to them so I just snapped the picture while I was standing in line.  They were some of the kindest people!  So blessed they looked over my son.

Once Alex received my letter and got the story he sent this quick note back:
Got the letter! President Gelwix is a wise man! I love that man to death! I'm stoked you got to meet him and he still sends love towards me. I felt super bad that I couldn't meet him before I left but maybe I'll see him when i come home. But I think you got my letter so I'll leave it at that cause I got to head out but love ya!

La Obra del Senor

New Arrivals: Alex is on the 3rd/middle row. 9th one over from the right

Big Al is doing spectacular!!  He sent a link to the blog that the Mission Presidents wife runs.  The picture above is from her blog.  I didn't see any other pictures of him, but it was fun looking through them  Check it out :)


La Obra del Senor

So this week was a little bit better then last weeks. As far as our investigators with a baptismal date we have 4 at the moment. Their names are Axel and Abel, Miguel, and Arturo. Axel and Abel are the grandsons of our branch president out here in Hughson and they are going to be a little easier to baptize, they're 9 years old. We finished all the lessons with them and now they can be baptized! It's about time too, because we can only catch them on the weekends and we were supposed to baptize them 2 weeks ago. But because of some things or events they had to do we couldn't meet up with them before. What's funny about Axel and Abel is they have a brother named Tony and he's 11. He was there when we taught Axel and Abel the last lesson. When we finished our lesson Tony says "Wait! You gotta teach me the other lessons, so I can be baptized too!" We asked Axel and Abel if they wanted to wait for his brother and they simply said no hahaha, just shows how much they love eachother ;) but they were kidding. You could tell Tony was a little bit jealous of his younger brothers, but hey maybe we might have another baptism!

Miguel is an investigator that said he would be willing to be baptized so that he could take his wife and kids to the temple and be sealed. When we told him about how families are sealed together forever, he hopped on that and started asking questions. So we look forward to getting him to the temple too! But he has a few word of wisdom problems that we know about. We told him that if he reads the BOM and prays he will progress, because we can't always be there to help him. As for Arturo he was doing awesome for a week! He loved it when we would pray with him. We followed up with him to see if he read the BOM and to pray to know if it was true. He told us he didn't read and that he doesn't know if God would answer his prayer. We're not sure what's holding him back, but we told him the Heavenly Father WANTS us to pray to him. (Mathew 7:7-11) We told him God wants the best for us so we should pray for him, just like an dad on earth would want the best for his son. He understood that, and he knows that prayer is a commandment so we will follow up with him today to see how things are... Unfortunately we didn't get anyone baptized for the 4 weeks i was here. We were soooo close!! But we can't take away free agency. We're looking forward to 2 or 3 with Axel and Abel and maybe his brother too.

All of our other investigators are in mind of us but aren't progressing as much. There is one that goes to church with her family and she plays on the volleyball team and everything but she won't be baptized. So we question ourselves about her. We've taught her literally everything there is to know!! We're thinking that we'll teach her about sealings and temple marriage, because she can only be marries in the temple if she wants to be baptized... It's like Elder Holland said in one of his talks to the missionaries, "President why can't they see this? What else can we do? Why don't they just walk up to the font?" it's because salvation was never easy. And we should never think it's going to be easy for us, when it was never easy for our savior who suffered for us. So in all the persecution, confusion, and questions of why isn't it simply working we have to remember these exact words. We have to suffer a little bit of what he suffered, but he'll bless our area for it. So right now we're kind of watering our area till we can go out and start to harvest it. We're focusing on finding new investigators everywhere we go.

Wednesday was a good day. We had 6 qualtiy lessons instead of just 2 or 3, and we found some potentials but we'll see how that works out. This area is tough! From what I've heard from every missionary, this is the hardest area they've been in.

Good to hear that Union won their game! Sounds like Weston did pretty good. 6 touchdowns in 2 games is pretty good. Mar's gonna make the volleyball team as usual. That's crazy you got rain for 4 weeks in a row! Now we need that in Cali! We're dying over here cause it's so hot! Did I tell you we have a drought? So pray for rain! (James 5:8)... No I didn't recover from fire bum haha that never happens when you're eating mexican food 24/7. Every Sunday we have a family called the Sanchez's and they sell street tacos or drive taco truck 3 days out of the week and they have 500 people a day! Every Sunday we go over there and they feed us tacos. It's the best tacos I've ever had. But just because of that we never recover from fire bum... By the way one day Elder Hall and I, and the english elders were driving to Waterford and we had our bikes on the back of the car. But the latch broke off and we were going about 60 mph and the bikes went rolling down the road after the latch broke loose. Their bikes are busted so it stinks to be them haha, but we got a new latch the next day so my bike won't fall now.

Everyone needs to read at least one chapter a night in the BOM, and I promise you'll be on the right path.  As a family or personally, but personally is good or even better. Also tell Justin that if he still has his Preach My Gospel book to read ch. 4 and go to the point where it says "Helping overcome Addiction" I think he'd like that.

The language is definitely coming! Since I've given my talk I've seen great success in my personal growth with the mexican culture and the language. I'm understanding a lot more as time goes by... That video you saw of President Clark  and missionaries singing "Called to Serve", that was Sister Clark recording it. I wasn't in the video you saw but she did record us at a zone conference like 2 weeks before that we had. If you go to www.fresnomission.blogspot.com you might find more videos, maybe you might find me? I don't know.... By the way you know that corn on the cob on a stick you see on nacho libre?? Yeah i had one of those!! They're sooooo good!! It's basically parmesean cheese and chile sauce on corn. so it's definitely mexican style. But I gotta go so I'll keep you in my prayers and keep our investigators in yours! Love you all!

Elder Horrocks