I met Hermione !

Jan 25 2016                                                                  

So hello there everyone it’s good to be back writing you guys again. I wish I could say that this week was full of fun things and great experiences but I am going to warn you it was just one of those weeks, that some missionaries tend to have so I will try and make this as exciting as I can.

this is my food cabinet...

This past Wednesday, I went on a split with my District Leader Elder Walter. Which was really good I was really looking forward to this exchange for several reasons. Well me and Elder Walter had been out for some time knocking on some doors in an area, and then we went to a lesson with one of their investigators named S...... And well same was very interesting because of his background. I don’t want this to be taken the wrong way, but same didn’t have the best background ever. He is from Jamaica and well, he is also gay. So his main problems with the church dealt with the church's stance on homosexuality and also how the blacks couldn’t hold the priesthood for a time. And he was really struggling with some of the doctrine of the church. But we went and we did our best to try and teach him the importance of the gospel and how it blesses lives.  He had a lot of questions and in the end he decided that the church wasn't for him,  and both Elder Walter and I  felt that we had done everything that we could of. The only weird part, was as we were leaving he said, "when your in the celestial Kingdom come find me in the Terrestrial kingdom!" So that was quite interesting, because that made it sound like he had believed some of the doctrine but still wouldn't accept it all, which was really sad. 

E. Von Cannon & I doing some "knocking" 

The next thing that happened was something that was very interesting. Me and Elder Von Cannon were on a bus, on our way to the university. We were having very little success that day and as I got on the bus I said a silent prayer to my heavenly father to just give me one person that I could talk to, just one! As soon as that prayer ended, well this Chinese girl walks onto the bus and sits down kinda far away! Then of course the thought came, "hey you should go talk to her" I tried so hard to say, "ooh she is too far away,  I will have to move to talk to her and then it will be weird" then I thought "and I don’t have good enough Chinese to talk to her alone by myself" But then I am sure-  no,  I know that Heavenly Father was giving a soft slap in the face when she pulled out some flash cards with English vocab words on it! haha,  like could I ask for anything more than a chinese girl sitting alone on a bus, trying to learn English. So because of the hit on the head I had received, I went over and talked to her! We had a great conversation about her learning english and me learning chinese and then it came to the topic that I was a missionary and how my brother had done the same thing and could also speak chinese. Then she got really curious and said tell me about your church!! It was crazy so we got her number and hopefully we will be able to see her this week. And it turns out she gave herself the name of Hermione from Harry Potter because she likes the film!  So sorry if I shattered your dreams of meeting the real Hermione, but instead I met the chinese one! 

This is what I look like after a long day in the rain!

And this is celebrating when the sun comes out because it hardly ever happens!

The last thing that happened was this week we had a worldwide missionary broadcast that was required for all of us to go! Here are some of the things that I learned from it! 

" No matter how much we speak of him, It’s never too much, no matter how much we admire him, our admiration is never enough. When we remember him, he remembers us."

"Don’t be too eager to invite people to come unto Christ through baptism, without teaching the importance and necessity of repentance."

 (My favorite one) "Real Intent does not mean to ask in curiosity, but it means willing to act on the answer we will receive, and with sincerity."

This one has some real power to it, "Speak of him and he will speak of you to the father."

"we have to make sure that we don’t get in the way of the holy ghost testifying to our investigators."

"Teaching is not talking, teaching is listening and observing. Teaching requires a much stronger spiritual focus." 

I love you all and hope that you all have a wonderful week. The Church is True!

Love Elder Hanks