28 DAYS LEFT FOR ELDER HANCOCK!

I got attacked by a dragon!

This is a recent converts dragon, she wanted to play while we were teaching a lesson. It was a distraction. Love yall!

Los Missionarios!!!! I Love My Mission!!!

Hola!!!! Sorry everyone that ive been a bum and i haven't updated this in a while. Things are going great here in Spartanburg! My trainee and I are working hard and we have seen alot of miracle happen lately. I got to do exchanges this week with a few of the companionships in my district and it was pretty interesting. The first exchange i went into the Spanish area with Elder Pineda. On our way there we stopped and help the Sister missionaries teach a couple of people. They wanted us to help them with this guy named Nezar, he is from Pakistan and he is Muslim. He has only been in the states for about 1 and a half now, so he speaks like 2 or 3 words of English. It was an interesting lesson to say the least. We were invited right in by him and we soon found out that he had 5 kids all under the age of 7, and they were crazy! The mom was gone to work so the house was pretty messy haha. We tried explaining a few things to him but we couldn't get our point across so we had a bright idea to show him on his laptop the Restoration video on Mormon.org. We were trying to teach him about baptism, but couldn't explain it without showing it too him, so we showed him a baptism on this movie. We asked him, (imagine two 20 years saying this in a loud, slow voice) "DO YOU WANT TO BE BAPTIZED!? YOU KNOW CLEAN?" and he looked at us with a big smile and said, "Yes! Very good! Clean, Christian!" So he is preparing to be baptized on the 11th of February! Thats not the end of the story though haha. We were getting ready to go when he asked us if we wanted to eat, so we didn't want to be rude so we said sure. He then proceeded to put on his shoes and coat and then left us there with his five kids ranging in age from 7 to 6 months. None of us knew what to do haha. The sisters were freaking out and so were we, our rules say we aren't supposed to be alone with or babysit children. So we called one of the Assistants to the President and told him the situation his reply was, "#1 you cant leave those kids alone, and #2 this is pretty funny, im going to go tell President" we couldn't help but laugh. So after about 45 minutes or so the man came back with pizza and we ate with them. It was probably one of the craziest things that has happened on my mission haha. I hope everyone gets a kick out of it though! Love y'all!!!!! - Elder Hancock

Transfers!

Hey everyone! Transfers are this week and it looks like im leaving. It was a tough last sunday, its almost like leaving home again. We have had an awesome month so things have been going really well. We had a baptism last week, and it was a miracle straight from heaven. She was a 80 year old part member. Her husband has been a member his whole life but he has only been active for the past 20 years or so. She has been coming to church for 15 years and she finally decided it was time for her to be baptized. She is in a wheelchair and it took the Bishop, Elder Peterson and I all to baptize her. Its pretty hard getting 4 people into a little font haha. But everything went awesome. President Holm mentioned to me a couple weeks ago that this last 6 months i have are my time to shine since i have been trained and prepared with everything ive done on my mission. Im sad to be leaving Orangeburg, ive seen the ward grow and progress so much in the last few months so it will be exciting to see what will happen here next. But im ready to see where ill be headed to next, im hoping the beach, even though its winter haha. I hope everyone is doing good! Thanks for the support! Love Y'all! - Elder Hancock

Update!

hey everyone, sorry it has taken me so long to update the blog but it has been really busy with all the changes in the mission. Im still in O-burg and its really heating up her. I dont think there was a day this week that it was under 100 degrees. But on the up side im getting a nice tan. We are working hard and we are finding some new people to teach and the ward here is really starting to get excited about the work. Highlights from this past week : I got stung by my first bee, that wasnt fun at all. It was one of the really big bees so i have a reason to complain. Its hard to bike after you get stung in the hand by a bee. And then the same day we were tracting in the ghetto and my companions helmet got stolen! They left mine but they took his, i tried to barter with all the kids that were in the neighborhood, and tried to get them to give it back to us but they said they didnt know where it was at. So we arent biking until he can get another helmet. Other then that things are going great! Ive really come to love South Carolina and the people that are in it, ive grown alot in the past year and i know the Lord has blessed me. I hope everyone is doing good! Love y'all! - Elder Hancock

New Address!

Just want to make sure you notice Josh's new Address, if anyone is wanted to send mail or packages.

Elder Joshua Hancock
110 Oak Park Dr. Unit B
Irmo, SC 29063


I changed it at the top of this page.

THank you, I know how much he appreciates every letter and package he gets.

Miracles!

Hey everyone! Well we were able to have a baptism this past weekend and it went awesome! I guess ill start from the beginning with the story. A few weeks ago a member of the ward told his that he finally had found his mom on facebook after not being able to see her or talk to her for about 20 or so years. He wanted to set up a time that we could come over and talk about the church with her. When she came to visit a few weeks later we went over to meet her, at first she seemed a little bit stand offish but she was a very nice lady. We found out that she was a baptist back in Virginia and was very involved with her church, so involved that she would go tracting for them! But we kept teaching here and after we had taught her the first three lessons we felt impressed to teach her more about the apostasy and how important priesthood authority is. After going back and forth for about and hour and using countless scriptures that i didn't even think that i knew, she asked us out of the blue, "Where do you do your baptisms at?" Elder Parker and i looked at each other and thought "Dang it, she has been to church twice already and we never showed her the font!" haha Her son said " We can go show you right now". So we all jumped into the car and went to the church. The entire drive there we both kept getting the prompting to ask her to be baptized. As soon as we got to the church and showed her the font we all sat down and i pulled out my scriptures. I read her a scripture from the book of Alma. It was verse 62 in the 5th chapter. I then invited her to be baptized, without hesitation she said,"YES, i would love that!". Elder Parker and i were so excited when she excepted. That was about 10 days ago when that happened. She is now a member of the church and has promised me that she will be to the temple in a year. Its never to late to change your life, she is 68 years old, and probably the strongest convert ill have on my mission. So miracles are happening, seen and unseen forces are preparing the hearts of those around us for the gospel! Thanks for all your prayers, Love y'all!