Hammin' it up in Billingham!

A few more pictures from my last area York  - Y....'s baptism! 

April 17 2017

haha that title is so good I know!! hahaha 

Hey everyone I hope you guys are having such a great day! It’s almost May, can you believe it? 

This week has been an interesting but good week for me and elder Iakopo. I will be honest at first I was a bit nervous to serve with him, but then it turns out that the kid is hilarious and is just like me and we have been laughing nonstop for this past week, it has just been so good!

Billingham thu is so different from York, because York is like this small historical place that is just fun to look at, and Billingham is the opposite, it’s like a massive industrial place that’s not very fun to look at but the people here are just as nice.  I forgot what it was like to talk to old people but there are loads of them up here! 

E. Iakopo & Ben Walter

We have had a lot of fun things happen this week. The first day I got here we talked to this girl named T..... and her brother right now is an investigator! so we taught her and we scheduled her for baptism and she even went to church in Manchester because she decided to leave, but she still went to church over there so that is soo cool. 

We also have this investigator that just got out of a mental hospital so that’s really cool, we call him chilly willy, because his name is .......... and he is so chill, so hahaha that is always an experience to go and teach him. 

Also Ben Walter came from america to visit! He used to serve here but he came to england to visit and he took us out to dinner at T.G.I. Fridays and it was sooo good to see him again! a long time friend so that was way fun and it was weird to hear about home life! 

We went and taught this less active and well it turns out he has like 30 animals in his house and so the pictures will just tell you what we experienced! hahaha-  there were loads of things in this house, and he said he wanted to show us a video so we watched and it turns out that he wanted to show us star wars! hahah,  so I saw like a minute of the new star wars so, hey that looks super cool, can’t wait to watch it in a couple of months. 

Not sure how I feel about this....

Sunday was very unique! I went to Middlesbrough ward this Sunday to do a chinese interview that didn’t happen so I missed my first week in my own ward which was quite weird so I hope I can get to know the members at one point! 

But then to top off the fun week that we had, we knocked onto this polish guys door who was so cool and he invited us to come to his church and he would come to our church and so we went to his church last night! NO JOKE PEOPLE IT WAS A JESUS CONCERT!!! rock songs and then prayers and it was the weirdest thing that I have ever experienced in my life I have never gone to another church but now I know why. I will send you a video of it, but holy cow we had to really pray after the end of that because their pastor did the whole speaking of tongues, and laying on of hands, and calling out the spirit and it was just something else!! it was weird!!!!!!!!!

The Jehovah Witness church next door 

but yeah that was my week, I will send you all the pictures!!! hahaha you got to love Billingham!

I love it here!! 

Good luck out there everyone!!

Love Elder Hanks

Sorry about so much video of the lady in the white dress but I was trying to be inconspicuous .

Baptisms and transfers!

April 17 2017

Well well well..... here we are once again. Another transfer gone here in the ELM, and I am still loving life this week was so busy and so awesome! We started off the week with a sweet exchange. I went with elder Barff (from Tahiti) and we did loads of finding and it was awesome. We got let in to a dudes house which was sweet, and we met an American named Hunter!,?.? WHAT!???!! It was crazy! Tuesday we finished off the exchanges and had a few meetings and what not!



Wednesday was hectic! So we went to a district Meeting down in Pontefract and from there the day just flew by. We were driving all over the place trying to find baptismal clothes for the baptism  and it was just taking forever! We finally found clothes in Selby and then drove back and had a lesson with A...... and printed programs and got it all sorted. And that night A........ WAS BAPTISED!!! Ahhh it was so awesome and her mom came and supported her and then afterwards she told us that she wanted to learn more about the church as well! Sooo cool!

Y........ wholly molly that girl is so awesome! She is so ready to be baptized and also on Friday she fed us some proper Chinese food just in case one of us left and it was seriously so good! I'll attach some pictures but it was amazing! Y...... is so awesome! I'm so happy that she will get baptized next week.

Also on Friday we finally got to see our friend S........ who went back to china for a month! It was so fun to see her again, and she brought us some Chinese treats it was awesome! We helped correct her grammar for her uni essays and next week we are going to start teaching her again! So excited! We took a pic with S......!

          


Then finally Easter Sunday! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and got lots of chocolate because we did, haha we got loads!! But it was awesome we had some amazing talks, one was a 15 yr old girl who joined the church because she saw a Mormon quote on instagram. Such a cool story! 

But of course we had Transfers Sunday night and the results are:

Elder Ferrell: stay in York and train a new Zone leader elder Glenn.
Elder Hanks: I'm moving to Billingham to be a Zone leader with elder Iakopo, from Australia !! So it should be exciting!

Have a great week everyone!

A sunny and great week!

April 10 2017

Hey there friends family and neighbors! I hope you all had a good week and are looking forward to Easter this weekend. I am looking forward to it. This week was so good, and had some bad as well. So we shall get stuck in shall we. 

Easter Treats we got from an awesome family here in York

This week we were able to see some amazing miracles. One thing I love about being a Zone leader is we get to go to the baptisms in the Zone and this past week we went to one of a lady named V.......... And she was so nervous to get baptized but she finally got into the water and the spirit was so strong. Wow it was just awesome! 

                  

Speaking of baptisms. A........ our investigator who was supposed to be baptized, something happened and we had to delay it, which is the saddest thing ever but then we were able to reschedule her for this week. It has been a real challenge but we are trying to hard to help this girl. So pray that it happens this week. 

For Y...... our other investigator she is golden. She is getting baptized on the 19th and she is sooo good for it. We are not worried in the slightest. We took her to a mission home fireside on Sunday night and she loved it. Not only that but members were so great to her! Wow it was awesome. But Y........ is on date for after the transfer, so if you pray for anything pray hat me and elder Ferrell will stay together here in York and so we can see Y...... get baptized.

               the beautiful city walls of York- the longest medieval town walls in all of England

But one thing I have thought about was something our Beloved prophet said about the Book of Mormon. I read some of the Book this morning and found this, 

1 Nephi 6:4-6 

4 For the fullness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved.

5 Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the world.

6 Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men.

Look at this. Everything IN THE BOOK OF MORMON has something for us to learn. All of it, every single scripture verse in the Book of Mormon has worth. I have absolutely learned that truth here on my mission. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it truly can as Nephi said, persuade and strengthen us all in our faith in Christ. Please read it, study it, and pray about it and you will see wonders in your life! 

Love you all! Hope you all have a great Easter applying principles of peace from the Prince of Peace! 

Elder Hanks 韓長老

Awesome month of April and a little embarrassment to start the month off...!

April 3 2017

Well I thought we could start this week out with a fun story. But before that I hope you all enjoyed the amazing General a Conference we had this weekend and that none of you fell asleep while watching, because that is just so unfortunate to miss out on the words of our prophets and apostles! 

exploring Scarborough

So this week we had MLC and let's just say I left my mark. I just know that explaining this won't do it justice but it makes for a good memory.

all the witnesses to my "embarrassing" MLC stretching exercises ! 

So there we were in MLC doing what we do. And the Assistants to the President were doing an instruction on Baptismal interviews. And they stopped and said "everyone is looking a bit sleepy, let's get up and stretch a bit." So I went to do just that. I went to slide back my chair on the carpeted floor and the chair decides to get stuck on the carpet and begins to fold itself in. Only to add to the problem, I went to push off of the chair to stand up, only to to speed up its folding process. With all the leaders in the mission standing in a circle, I soon realized I was going down. As I went tumbling down it was as if the whole world went in slow motion, as I thought to myself what on earth am I going to do when I fall down. So there I went down to the floor and as I hit the floor and pulled a backwards somersault. Everyone now staring at me, I rolled my self back up into a squatting position and started to stretch. Trying to lessen the embarrassment of falling over I said, "oh you know me I take stretching very seriously." Haha then everyone started to bust up laughing. Haha it was so awkward, but hey not everyday you get to make your mission President and wife laugh! Haha wow so awkward. 

Then of course Conference you just can't beat that, and then to finish it all off for us, we have Zone training this week so we are planning that. Ummm A........ is getting baptised on Wednesday so we are really excited for that! And Y....... is getting dunked on the 15th so that is also awesome! 2 baptisms here we go! 

But this week we did, 2 exchanges one with elder saylin from woods cross and he has been here for 2 weeks. We had a great time and then also with the assistants elder Mikkola we talked to one English person the whole day!

And to finish off the week with a miracle we had an old dude named A........ walk up to us and asked to meet with us. So we did and taught him, he is a new investigator! Haha we are so blessed right now! But here's a good quote I liked from Conference. 

• We love him, because he first loved us. We can overcome the world, because he Overcame the world first. 

• A true disciple of Christ does not care about the social connections but more of our heavenly connection.  

Well that's it for me folks! Hope you all have a great spring break! It should be a good one for us! 

March 27 2017

This week was so great! I always think that there is no way for me to grow my love for my mission but then it happens. So we have lots to cover so let's get right down to the nit n' greedy

So this week started out awesome. We had a Zone Conference this week and it was absolutely amazing. President Turvey talked all about the Atonement and it was such an uplifting meeting like ooh my goodness!
My love for the Saviour grew so much during that meeting it was absolutely amazing. And not only that but I got to see old friends and people from back home!  (Autumn Jenkins)  It was like the best day ever!

my wardie - Autumn Jenkins arrived! 

Updates on people! To start off this past week we had our investigator named A...... pass her interview for baptism so she should be getting baptized in the upcoming weeks. So we are really looking forward to that. So pray that everything works out for her. We are praying so hard that she can be baptized on the fifth of April.

Y.......! Yes she is Chinese;) she is awesome!  We meet with her twice a week and she came to church for the second time on Sunday and loved it. And we have taught her most of the lessons and she is scheduled for the 15^th of April so pray that it works out for her as well. But she is gone for 5 days so we are praying that she will be ok! So we are very excited!

On Saturday our Stake did a western night. Haha they had a mechanical bull and people came in cowboy stuff and haha well it was so fun to see English people trying to be American! Haha the best part though was afterwards they gave us the left over peach cobbler.

For our Zone p-day we all went to the Minster as a Zone and it was so funny to see all the church people see so many Mormons in their church. Probably the only time it will ever happen!;)



We have done loads of finding this week and we are finding a few Chinese people so let's see if we can get some more Chinese people into the water.

Well love you all! I hope you all know how much I love this gospel! This is his church and I am so grateful that we can celebrate Easter this coming Sunday to remember Him and his resurrection. I love my Saviour and I owe him everything. What an amazing opportunity we have to hear our prophets and apostles speak of Him. I'm so excited. I hope you are as well, and really pay attention to their words!

Have a great week!

Miracles and transfers!

March 20 2017

Well hello there everyone. Hope you all had as good of a week as I did. This week was just awesome trying to get elder Ferrell all sorted and seeing investigators and all the stuff that we missionaries do,  so let's start shall we! 

So first miracle! We met with our investigator A........ who we haven't seen for a month. So we saw her for a bit and just talked to see how she was doing,  we really felt that we should teach her the atonement. So on Saturday night we took A.......... to a members house and had THEE MOST POWERFUL LESSON EVER! So as we taught about the atonement it was so powerful the spirit was so strong and A......... got teary eyed and it was great. So A......... will be baptised in April. April is looking like a great month. So that was awesome.

On Friday we had a cool experience. We have a recent Convert L........ who is a boss! She introduced us to her friend Y.........who came to church last week and so we met up. And we taught the whole lesson in Chinese!
I haven't done that in like 5 months! It was amazing. So Y....... is great we didn't get her on date for baptism but we will soon. It was awesome! She is going to come to church again next week so that's awesome!

And so that was the majority of our week a really short email but,  hey- it was great next week will be much more exciting because we have Zone Conference and it's going to be a great week.

Hope you guys have a wonderful week.

Love ya

one more of E. Norton......

Elder Hanks 韓長老
sent from my iPad.

March 13 2017
Well family this week was such a fun week with so many miracles. Wow this week was just amazing so let's get stuck right in shall we.

Monday was historical for the YSA here in York because we were in charge of the FHE activity and the standard is now set high for activities. See pic and video for more details about the activity.

YSA  FHE activity...it was hilarious!

Tuesday was amazing. We had a lesson with our Chinese friend L......! And we taught her the Plan of Salvation and she had loads of questions and she really likes it. But at the end of the lesson we asked her
about her thoughts and she says these words.... "Well I think I had a a funny experience, but I'm not sure. hmmmmmm... I'll tell you next time."  Hahahahaha what no....... you can't just say that to missionaries!!! Experiences are what we live for. So she talked about how she doesn't sleep well and one night she decided to
read her Book of Mormon, and she had the best night sleep she has ever had in England and said how peaceful she felt. SHE FELT THE SPIRIT!!!!! Sooo cool now the next thing is church.

On Thursday this week we were on exchanges, and I was with elder Price from Sunny Cali! (See pics for more details!)  

Taking the train with Elder Price

And we had a lesson with our investigator S........., and he brought his friend (S.......) and we taught them the first lesson and it was chaotic. For two reasons. 1. S........(the friend) asks loads of questions. 2. Because we teach at their house of NINE uni students so lots of noise. But when we got to the first Vision., as soon as elder Price started to talk about it, THE ENTIRE HOUSE went dead quiet. The whole time and when it finished, everything went right back to normal. NOT EVEN JOKING it was just the coolest thing ever! So yeah sweet, spirit filled lesson and they should be coming to church next week.

Also bonus, a recent Convert Chinese girl named L.........brought a friend to church out of nowhere named Y........ And so we talked to her after church and I asked her what she thought of it. And she says, "I felt
good. But can't describe it. It was very peaceful." WHHHHHAAAATAAATATATATATTTTTTTTT!???!???!?!?!??!???
Working through L........ to meet with her this week! Sooo crazy!

Alright so transfer info I know that's what all my friends care about. So here's what's happening. 1/2 the Zone changed and that means in our flat-  big changes. So elder Winegar and Sicardi are both leaving the York area and no one is coming in so we are picking up their area. Elder Norton is also leaving me! Only one transfer together. But he is going to be the Zone leader over in Huddersfield. So my new companion is Elder Ferrell. I'm soooooo pumped!!!! This is going to be he best transfer ever and also it's going to be a bit lonely in our house
because now it's just two of us!

So yes it was a great week for us and you could say I am really looking forward to next weeks! Love you all, enjoy the pictures. 

ummmmm......strange english sightings......

exchanges, Zone conference, hospital trips and evil spirits...!

March 5 2017

Well friends and family, what a week it has been. I know they aren't going to read this but Congratulations to my Sister Hailey on her wedding last week. Really Happy for you guys, make sure you give them a high five or something next time you see them. So happy for you guys.

Well for us, I think we spent the majority of our week in the car, haha wow we are so lame but hey, not much we can do. But some updates for you guys So S........ is doing good, we are working hard with her, she really wanted to strengthen her faith before she got baptized so we are focusing on that faith of hers. So please pray that she will have more spiritual experiences and have a stronger desire for baptism.

L...... is good. She is reading and praying a lot for a Chinese student so we are right happy with her. Our next goal is to get her to the chapel for a tour this week and then church! So pray for her as well.

Just in case you were wondering.... and you shouldn't be! 

Cool experience for y'all! Sorry I'm typing quick because we are doing a YSA activity tonight so I'll send some pics and videos for you All! But back to the cool experience. So me and elder Norton because we had to take 2 missionaries to the hospital like 4 times so that is what we did almost every morning this week between our meetings. So we didn't have much finding this week so what did we do, well we prayed and said show us where to go. Went to a street felt we should do left side! Knocked on some doors, and F..... opened up the door. A young uni girl from Leeds! Start talking and out of the blue says, "yeah I'm catholic but I'm looking for more positivity and optimism in life and know that a God can help me! Miracle! Heavenly Father really does direct this work! It's been such a blessing to be apart of it!






Okay weird thing! So we found this guy named N........! Now at first N.......... seemed like a normal older man. He loves the bible and was so down for us to come and teach him. So we show up and it's him and his son so we were like "double bonus!" So we start to teach the lesson using the bible to teach and relate to him and the spirit is strong going well, they are asking good questions and it was going so great! We got to the part of the restoration and Joseph Smith. No issues yet, when I start to recite the first vision and all of a sudden out of nowhere!! N........ sits right up and starts to yell, "BLASPHEME! I WILL NEVER WORSHIP YOUR SMITH................." we won't go into gruesome details and then sits back down. The spirit it totally now gone and bad feeling arose and After about  30 seconds of silence N........ says, "sorry I have to go somewhere, but I would love for you guys to come back, I love speaking with you." Almost as if nothing just happened, so we got up and left, with the feeling of I don't even know how to describe it but yeah it was a first on the mission.



At MLC (mission leadership council) this week, it was really cool. Because we had the sister in our group going home this transfer so it was her last time there so we took a group picture and it turns out that out of the 30ish people that were there, about 20 of them were from our group! So that was so cool to see. President asked if they sprayed our group with magical leadership dust or something! Hahaha it was great! I'll send some pics to show you all! But sorry this weeks email is quite lame but his next week is the last week of the transfer so we will work hard and get some miracle for you all so I can have some stories to tell.

But to just end, can I just say this gospel is so true! I noticed that we are so blessed to have the knowledge we do about our father in Heaven. We know that we will experience challenges in life right before our greatest miracles so rely on the Savior and his Gospel and you will never go wrong! This truly is His church. I'm so grateful to be able to share this wonderful gospel with the people that I come in contact with!

I love you all! Have a wonderful week of March! Can you believe it!!Love  Elder Hanks韓長老Sent from my iPad.

 

The elder I trained is now a District Leader ! 

Feb 27 2017

I think this was one of the fastest weeks of my entire life! Wow if every week keeps going like this I don't know what I am going to do. But this week was busy, we had lots to do. 

So this week we found a new Chinese girl named L…….. She is awesome, but the first thing that she said to us at the lesson was "don't push me, I don't like being pushed" haha so obviously we are taking it slow with her but she is awesome, she cancelled on us this Saturday and wrote us this massive apology text afterwards so I hope it all works out. Pray for her, and for S……. as well, our two Chinese investigators. S……. won't get baptized this week, we have some new concerns to deal with, but hey we are optimistic!

This Thursday we had an amazing Zone Conference with York and Leeds zones. It was so good we focused on working with members and hope to get members to do more missionary work. So you all better be giving the missionaries some referrals! It was great and my favorite part was we had a testimony meeting with all the missionaries and it was such a powerful experience to see missionaries from all over the world, get up and bare their testimony about the Savior. It was absolutely amazing! 

On Friday it was really fun! We did exchanges with the assistants and went to Leeds for the day. And I was with elder Klingler and he is such a funny kid. We had an awesome time knocking on doors in Leeds.

But we found this funny kid named T......., had a good chat with him so the assistants are going to start teaching him. And the best part was we woke up early on Saturday to go play basketball for an hour or so, it was awesome. Only to end off the day with another exchange with the lads in our flat, so I went with elder Sicardi and we had loads of fun there!

Sunday was also a really good day because this Sunday we were able to participate in giving a recent convert I….., the aaronic priesthood and it was such an amazing experience. I love the power that the priesthood brings into our lives and it was so great to hear the bishop explain to I…..the role of the priesthood and how it blesses others. I'm so grateful for the chance to be a priesthood holder, so all you priesthood holders out there, you better honor your priesthood because that's what it deserves. 

Doesn't sound like too busy of a week but it was. It has been a good week and next thing ya know I'll be in my last transfer so I hope this time slows down!

Love you all, have a great week and don't let it go by too fast!

Elder Hanks 韓長老

Here's some pics,

Went to the coast this past week. Look at it........ so cold!