Amazing ZC and Always knock on the last door

Feb 22 2016

Hello everybody how are you all doing this fine week? This week was quite a hectic week for me and elder Von Cannon but you will come to know why later on in this email. 

This P-day me and Elder Von Cannon went to the top of the minster and were able to see the whole city of York and that was really awesome, I will show you guys some pictures later, but that was crazy fun, and the stairs up to them are so small that my shoulders were touching wall to wall, it soo crammed in there!! But so worth it, massive leg work out too, because it’s like 300 some odd stairs but it’s the best!! 

The week started off with an exchanged on Monday and Tuesday. I went with Elder Manu'a who is still Training and he is from Australia. He is so awesome I love that guy, we had a blast together and was great fun. The church came up with this new thing that when you go on exchange, both sets of missionaries go to the leaders area, so there were 4 of us working in these other guys area. So that was great fun we went by some of their investigators and one of them was very interesting. Their name was S..... and S.... is an older lady, but she has some medical issues. She has this really rare blood infection, that causes her legs to swell up and she can hardly walk on them. It’s pretty bad, so bad that you can’t even touch them or you can get infected. So we kept our distance, but it also has this really bad smell to it, because it causes the skin to die, so that wasn’t very fun, but on the brighter side we had a good lesson with her, and eventually invited her to be baptized and she accepted. Now there will be some hurdles to overcome with her legs, but hopefully everything will work out for her. 

Then on Wednesday we had a great Zone Conference. The mission is doing a major push for Obedience, so that was the focus of the Conference.  It was all of the northern Zones of the mission, which has 3 zones. And I was asked to give our purpose in front of everyone. It was alright, all I had to do was state the purpose and then add a little thought to it at the end, but that was good. But Zone Conference was amazing!! We learned so much and there are just some few things that I want to share with you guys. Most of these are quotes but are awesome. 

Chinese speaking missionaries from the northern 3 Zones... York, Hull & ? 

"If you think that you are doing the lord a favor by being on a mission you need to think again, the Lord is doing YOU a favor for allowing you to be here, it is his mission." 

That was a really powerful statement to me. Next we did something kinda unusual we studied about Moses all together. And president brought up some really great points with us. He talked about how the people when they finally were able to leave Egypt -how happy they all were, until they actually started to journey in the wilderness and how they then wanted to go back to Egypt (bondage). And they even saw so many miracles like the dust storm, and the parting of the sea, and even after all of that, some people still talked about going back to Egypt because the trip was hard. It just didn't make sense to us, that they actually wanted to go back to Egypt back to bondage after all that they had seen and experienced. That's when president related it to us and obedience. Often times we see the blessings that come from being obedient and we are happy and joyous, and then something goes wrong we lose sight of it, and we begin to be disobedient again (going back to Egypt).  It was an amazing analogy and it really had an impact on me. I know that obedience is so crucial in missionary work. 

As for the missionary work this week, well that was really difficult. We had very little success this week and it was quite the challenge for us. But we did have some and we are praying and hoping for a better week this week. One good thing that happened this week, was we were knocking on some doors, and this seems to happen a lot to me on my mission, so I will keep doing it. But anyways we were knocking on some doors and we were having little success, a bunch of people were being mean so we left the area, after a couple hours of knocking, and we were walking past this house, and it was soooooooo super decorated like a ton. So I decided, "What’s the worst that could happen, we already have been rejected a ton today, what’s one more door?" So we knocked it and this older lady answered the door, and guess what she was a Christian open to learning more!!!! A MIRACLE!!!! It was awesome so we have a return appointment for this week, and we will see how that goes. But lesson learned is always knock on the last door, because it’s probably going to be something good. 

Then later on in the week we had the old people area. Every door that we knocked on seem to be an elder lad, or lass, who had zero interest in us. But then came 2 doors in a row. The first guys name was P...... and P..... saw us and said "You American?" "yes"  "Well I drove across America in a 1940 Rolls Royce, and saw america and even saw your Salt Lake Area!"  We started talking and he said to come back anytime and we can have a chat about religion, so we will have to see how that goes. Then after P...... we met M......! Now M..... was not very keen on letting us into his home, but luckily he was having some computer problems so Elder Von Cannon being the genius that he is, offered to help and so he let us in. We couldn't fix his computer, but we started to talk about religion, and he told us that he used to go to the Church of England, but thought that they were modernizing everything, and it wasn't for him. He even uses the King James version of the Bible so that was great to know. Well he also invited us back for a chat about our church! So who knows I hope that I can have some 80 yr old conversion stories to tell, that would be really sweet!! But that was for us this week!! 

I love this mission, its soo tough and has a lot of struggles but I am learning so much and know that this is where I am supposed to be!! The church is true and I love you all, and hope that you all have a good week!! 

Love Elder Hanks

I found some Chinese Bamboo!