Am I back in training?!

Aug 22 2016

Dajia Hao! Haha well people it's another week gone for us here. And let me just tell you how weird it has been to be back in Chinese work. I have never heard so much Chinese in my life and understood so little
of it. It's been a crazy week for us and I wish I had a lot to tell but unfortunately I don't. But I will try my best anyways!

So first thing - My companion is Elder Zheng and he is from Taiwan. He is sooooo awesome! Oh man I have just been so blessed to have amazing companions! He is so funny and we already have had some good laughs together. He helps me out so much with Chinese and with everything really, I feel like I am back in training hence the title, because I have no idea what to do, or what to say haha I feel like a brand new missionary, and It's been a stressful week, to say the least but nevertheless I am so happy to be here and to be using my Chinese again.



So on Tuesday I was traveling all day to get to Newcastle. And on the train ride there, I was all by myself! What ?! I know - first time ever, it felt so weird but it actually was really cool because I was able to sit next to a guy named Chris. He is so awesome. He started to talk to me and ask me all sorts of questions and we had an awesome like 2 hr chat about all sorts of things. One of the greatest blessings my mission has given me is the ability to have a conversation with complete strangers. It was so great and you know what we never even
got into the gospel all too much, but I know that it was both a blessing to me and to Chris as well.




However here is the down side. This is the time of year that all the Chinese people go back home because they finish school. And so it's been really hard to do the work here. I have never done so much finding in my entire life. We LITERALLY walk around for 6 straight hours trying to find Chinese people! especially when it's raining! Ooh I don't like rain! Ooooooh man and sometimes it can really have a toll on the body sometimes I get home and just collapse because I am so tired, my companion likes to laugh at me because of how tired I am. But two days straight in rained on us and wowza!  it was a cold windy day, but the Lord still blessed us with some success. But it's been really good to be able to meet some of the members here in the branch
and even though I don't understand most of what they say,  it's still been amazing. And not only that but this week we had a baptism in the branch the others elders baptised someone on Thursday, and it was awesome. Because of the whole branch being not very big, a baptism is like a baptism for all of us because we all have some connection with that person, so that is cool that the branch is still growing.

Church was a different experience. They made me and elder Zheng do the sacrament and that was cool! Our sacrament meeting is in the relief society room and so it's really small, but cool thing was just under half of the people there were non-members so SWEEET!!!!!! But then I got up and bore my testimony and introduced myself all in Chinese it was a bit rough but I thought it was okay! Then everything else for the next 2 1/2 hours was Chinese, so I was a bit lost but hey,  still really cool and the branch is sweet!!



I am sorry I feel like this email is just full of not so good things, because most of our members are now going home as well within a couple of weeks and so we are really going to be a small branch. But I am so happy the be here right now, because of the amount of people that are leaving we are working really hard to find new people to teach, which means lots of finding, and so I am praying that all of this hard work pays off. But I can already see an improvement in my Chinese which is really good because I need it a ton. Anyways so not much to report on this week hopefully I will be able to share a little more with you guys next week! Zài jiàn Nîmen!


Elder Hanks 韓長老

I assume this is a soccer stadium...!
 

Gray's Monument in Newcastle

THIS COLUMN WAS ERECTED IN 1838 TO COMMEMORATE THE SERVICES RENDERED TO HIS COUNTRY BY CHARLES EARL GREY K.G. WHO, DURING AN ACTIVE POLITICAL CAREER OF NEARLY HALF A CENTURY WAS THE CONSTANT ADVOCATE OF PEACE AND THE FEARLESS AND CONSISTENT CHAMPION OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. HE FIRST DIRECTED HIS EFFORTS TO THE AMENDMENT OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE IN 1792, AND WAS THE MINISTER BY WHOSE ADVICE, AND UNDER WHOSE GUIDANCE, THE GREAT MEASURE OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM WAS AFTER AN ARDUOUS AND PROTRACTED STRUGGLE SAFELY AND TRIUMPHANTLY ACHIEVED IN THE YEAR 1832.

Sacrificing body parts for a baptism date! oh, and there was transfers....

Why hello again everyone! What a fun week it has been for me and Elder Leavitt. Lots of fun things, finding new people, hanging out with missionaries, teaching some lessons, sleepovers, sacrificing body parts, broken utilities, and transfers. So with that all in mind let us go through the life and mission of Elder Hanks shall we!

The Great Zone P-Day:
This last preparation day was a really fun one, because of the slight change of rules we were free to play sports as we pleased, so if you can imagine about 16 Elders most of which are American, who haven't played sports in a year or so, going outside and playing some American football, it got intense but it was really fun. That was a real fun day, lots of sports were played!

C.....& S........:
So we have been teaching this young couple named C.....& S......... And they are so awesome I could just go and talk to them like all day long. But they are really cool because every single time we go over there they look up stuff during the week and then they ask us questions about what they found and so our lessons have been just in the weirdest pattern- but hey! they are awesome and we are hoping that something good will come out of it.

All of our current investigators are still currently out of town so the original plan was to just do loads of finding this week, which can sometimes means for a long week. However it actually turned out to be the opposite. We have taught more lessons than usual this week which is really good and surprising. On Thursday alone we had lots of finding planned and we actually taught 3 lessons and we got 4 new investigators all in one day! It was like the best day ever! And we even had tea at a members house, and they fed us pancakes but with orange juice instead of syrup! And it actually wasn't that bad!

So to address the subject of this email I have to do some background info. 

So on Thursday this week, one of the elders in our district had to go to the doctor and it was all the way in Manchester.  A senior couple had to take him there early in the morning. So me and elder Leavitt went over on Wednesday night so his companion wasn't alone in the morning. So they came and we went back to our area to work because we needed to find some new people to teach.  In a trio we found loads of potentials and new investigators which was really good. It was a lot of fun too, because in a trio you can do things that you just can't do with two people. His companion was supposed to get back around 6 but with all the traffic and long distances, they were gone all day long, so we finally got back to their flat at 9:00pm. Now it takes us about 1 hr and 15 min to get to our flat from theirs, and because it was so late at night, public transport is a nightmare at night! So we thought we would just sleep there again that night and head back in the morning. Little did we know that the Slovak elders who live with them were on exchanges and so they had 2 more elders with them!  So there we were, 8 elders in a 4 man flat. This isn't a very common occurrence so we took advantage of it and played some games that night and then we all piled into this one room. And let me tell you, if you ever want to hear the most bizarre things ever, it's missionaries at 10:25 at night! The conversation turned to music that we used to listen to back home. Next thing you know we broke out into song! The first being  don't stop believing, Bohemian rhapsody, livin on a prayer, Billy Jean, Jesus take the wheel and many more. Yes simply picturing this in your head is making you laugh right now I know, because we were laughing all night! It was probably the funniest night I have ever had on my mission and after one of the greatest days on my mission, so needless to say Thursday was a great day. But it gets even better because there were so many of us, we woke up early to run down to the park to play some more football, and the Zone leaders even came over! It was awesome!

G..........: 

He is a miracle. So one day we were out and about as we normally are and we get a call from a number that we don't know. I start talking to this guy and he explains that he is from Nottingham and he just moved here to Sheffield, and he went to the Sheffield 3 ward last Sunday. And guess what..... he is not a member but wants to come to our church (because they told him he was in our area) and so he is now coming to church on Sunday. WHAT!!!? So crazy!

K............. & G.............:

They are this really sweet young couple who we found and went and taught this past Thursday and they have this dog that is a pit bull/ staffishire bull terrier and it was so hyper. So as we were trying to teach them this dog was just all over the place and it wouldn't calm down it was ruining the lesson. So I noticed it liked to bite things but I didn't have anything to give it, so this is where the sacrificing of body parts comes in. I just lowered my hand and the dog just started to gnaw on my hand, not hard enough to do damage, (every once and a while he would get me good) but it kept him calmer and in once place, so for the rest of the lesson my hand got chewed while Elder Leavitt taught them the Restoration. Haha not the most spiritual lesson I have ever had but I will do anything for a lesson to go well, and it did, we scheduled them for baptism! SWEEEEETTTTTT!!!!

A........... my Man!

First off dad, guess what your helping me out over here because I got to connect with this guy when I showed him a picture of your Harley!  He opened up to us after that, so thank you dad for being cool and having a Harley Davidson! So A......... is a really nice guy, he is a typical English lad who likes to smoke but we taught him about the plan of salvation and he just loved it! So we invited him to be baptized and he said he would think about it. We said a prayer before we left and after the prayer he sat there with his eyes closed. So we did a power pause, let the spirit talk to him-  as usual He did. I asked A........ how he was feeling, and he said, "I can't explain it any other way, other than just really good" You could say it was a really good lesson. It amazing to see how the gospel just makes sense, and brings so much hope into people's lives. I love seeing that hope in people that they can be with their families forever. 

It's been so amazing to work in this area. We have taught a lot of people, and seen a lot of miracles. With this being the last week of the transfer we have seen a really big spike in our teaching pool. We went from about 3 to 14 investigators, which is the most this area has seen in a really long time, or ever! It's amazing how the Lord always comes thru in just the right time to help those in need. It has been so amazing to see the progress of elder Leavitt, and to work with him. I can't believe his training is already over, but he is going to do amazing things on his mission, I wish I could say that I trained him but I don't believe I did. I think he trained himself through the guidance of the Holy Ghost, I just happened to say a few words every so often. Now onto the next chapter of this amazing experience.

Transfers:

So for transfer night me and elder leavitt made Sopés. It's a Mexican dish that our Mexican next door neighbors taught us how to make on Monday for a family home evening lesson. So we made them tonight and they are soooooo good! Anyways yeah it was a good night, and so for the news regarding


transfers........

Elder Leavitt: So elder Leavitt is staying here in Sheffield, and guess what!?!? 

HE'S TRAINING!!!! MY BOY IS TRAINING!!!! I am sooo exciting for him he is going to be amazing! Elder Leavitt is so good, he is so nervous because he just got out of training, but he is ready, and I know the Lord will bless him and his new Trainee!

Me: well my time here in Sheffield has come to an end. It has been a great 6 months here in Sheffield. But now it's time to see how my language study has helped, because I will be in a Mandarin Branch. That's right I'm going to NEWCASTLE!! My companion is Elder Liu. I am so excited and nervous. Nervous for the Chinese part, but excited to use my Chinese again, be in the area that I have always wanted to go to, and to start something new. I'm going to miss Elder Leavitt, but I know this is what the Lord has planned for us.

Hope you all have a great week. One last thing to add, is if you are struggling with a something, some sort of problem I invite you to do one little thing. Change your attitude and watch the problem disappear it will amaze you!

Love you all

Wô aì nîmen!

我愛你們

韓長老

Elder Hanks

1 AMAZING YEAR DOWN!

Hello there everyone! Just going to apologise in advance for this novel of an email! But this week was AWESOME!!!! I hope you guys are all enjoying the heat of August while we have some nice sunny and HUMID days here in England! It has been so fun so as usual, let's get stared shall we?

Ceremonial burning of the white shirt at 1 year!  

This week has been full of just hard work and finding, but we have been able to find a lot of really fun people and some really nice people, as well which always has a positive effect on the week! So something crazy happened this past week which just had a major impact on my mission and will continue to do so until the end of my mission. Now before I go into this all must know that I have a deep love and admiration for my previous mission president, President Pilkington. Since the beginning of my mission under the direction of President Pilkington we have had something called the Code of Conduct.  This has been a set of additional rules in this mission along with the guidance of the White missionary handbook. It  included some thing like no playing sports, or not using iPads to email, no card/board games, no instruments, and a bunch of other rules that President Pilkington felt impressed to use. However under President Turvey the Code of Conduct has been abolished!! Meaning we are now free to play sports and use our iPads to the fullest, play certain games and have instruments! It's so crazy it's like everything I originally knew is now gone and we can go and do things now! So this past week me and elder Leavitt have been running down to the park in the morning and playing basketball for our exercise now! It's been a blast! and I wish I had a ton to write about regarding people and all but I thought that I would just do a quick little summary of how this past year how's been so amazing!  But before I do that I just want to show you how good our Heavenly Father is! 

It was a Tuesday evening, we had just concluded a tea appointment with one of our amazing members, the G............. and we had to leave in order to catch a bus to get back to the chapel for our Ward Coordination meeting. We had to walk about 10 minutes to get to the bus stop and we had looked at the time and knew when it was coming, well we thought we did!  So buses here will not stop for you unless you are at the stop signalling for them to stop, not even if your close or running your guts out to beat the bus, they will NOT stop! Got there and the next bus was in like 25 minutes and that would make us late to our meeting, which is not first class service. So I got all upset that we were going to be late so I thought maybe we could go get a ride from a member to the chapel. While walking to a members, a bus came around the corner and it said, sorry not in service! Which actually happens a lot, Nevertheless....... It started to slow down while passing us and then eventually stopped in the middle of the road. "Beep beep" we went over and the driver opened the door and said, "are you those Mormon lads from Grenoside?" (where our church is) 

"yeah" never knowing if this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing...right?!

"hop on,  I'll take you there!"
And guess what he drove right up to the doors of our chapel, and dropped us off! What a miracle! And yes we made it to the meeting on time! Bless that wonderful bus driver!

So not much to write about this week I regards to missionary work but something good that did happen was we found this really young couple named S...... and C........ and they are the coolest people ever! They are probably the nicest English people we have ever met and what's even better is, after we left they looked us up online and found out about tithing! So when we came back we taught about tithing as a second lesson, which isn't a normal occurrence and normally people always have problems with this one, but they both agreed with it,  that it was a good thing to do! hahaha what a miracle. They are really awesome!

C........! We have this awesome investigator named C........,  she is the best!  She just loves to talk and is just the nicest person ever. When she found out that I was hitting my year mark she made us cupcakes because she's a baker! And let me tell you her cupcakes were sooooooo good!! so she has had loads of missionaries around her because when she was 9 her dad was investigating the church, they came to church a couple of times, and at 9 yrs old she went to the Preston temple open house (still remembers the celestial room by the way!) she is so cool, loves America which always helps and her dad even says we can come over whenever we want to teach both of them. Now amongst all the good here, there is one bad thing. She like all our other investigators is on holiday for 2 weeks. So this next week is just going to be loads of finding people. Which is sad because transfers are on the 16th and I think I am leaving so I might not ever see any of those people again:( sad day!

Osmonds: so yeah crazy cool thing happened this Sunday. We had a stake fireside and the guest speakers were the Osmonds-  yeah I know pretty cool! The whole week we just invited tons of people to the fireside and Merrill Osmond asked all of the non-members to raise their hands and there were so many of them!  But to make a long story short Merrill just praised us missionaries and asked all the non-members for a favor to let the missionaries into their homes to simply explain why we do what we do. Sooo really cool that we have the Osmonds backing us up now! So there was Merrill, Justin, Nathan and Kristy Osmond who spoke and sung to us and it was so amazing - the spirit was so strong and they bore some powerful testimonies of the Gospel. Afterwards we were at the doors saying bye to people and two people willingly -for the first time, take a book or Mormon from me and asked us questions all on their own! It was such an amazing night! And to top it all off, all the missionaries ONLY in the Sheffield area got to come and then the Osmonds came over and hugged and thanked all of us-  so that w

as soooo cool, I have hugged the Osmonds! They shared a lot but I just want to share I story that Justin shared, so I want to share it with you.

A man driving down a long stretch a road, when all of a sudden his car breaks down. The man pulls over and begins to attempt to fix the problem. When he noticed a black limousine pull up behind him and a man in a business suit walks towards him.

"What seems to be the problem?"

- "I don't know, it just seemed to quite on me."

"Well I'll take a look, go start it up."

The man got into his car and instantly the car started up again.

- "amazing! How did you do it?"

"I know a little bit about these cars"

-  "Well why did you help me in the first place, clearly you are a successful man why would you stop to help me?"

"Son my name is Henry Ford, I am the creator of this car. And it breaks my heart to see my creation on the side of the road, not doing what I intended it to do!" 

Got back into his limo and drove away.

God is our creator and it breaks his heart to see his creation on the side of the road, not doing what he intended it to do! 

Obey the commandments, stay on the straight and narrow path (road) he will take car of us. God knows our problems and he knows how to fix them, if first we will be humble enough to listen and allow him to work miracles in our lives.

Sorry this is a long email, but quickly just wanted to say that this past year has been such an amazing year! Being a missionary is the greatest thing a person could ever do, it has changed my outlook a lot on life. I have seen miracles, felt the spirit so much and has seen the gospel change lives. It's so exciting and very sad to think that I have only one year left of being a missionary. The church is true people it really really is! Hope you all have an amazing week. Try to eat healthy, me and elder leavitt decided that we needed to eat healthier so we tossed all of our sweets, biscuits, candy, junk food, all the bad and we have eaten so much better hence the watermelon and salad picture. It makes you feel 10 times better and I am finally losing all that weight my Chinese companion gave me when he made us food 24/7!
Love Elder Hanks
韓長老

Craziest week ever!

Holy Moly! What a crazy and busy week this has been for me and elder Leavitt the past couple of days, lots of things have been going on so we will get right into this week! shall we!

Tuesday! We had our zone training which is always a good thing to have, because you get to learn so much and see all of your buddies that you make out here on your mission! But we had a really good training on making goals and setting visions for ourselves and our areas, really inspiring and lots of funny events happened! But President Turvey came and he spoke to us as well about being our best! To be obedient! At first I thought that it was going to be really hard to have a new mission President, but it has been a really good experience President Turvey is such an inspired man! It will be a good year with him! Then all the departing missionaries who finish their missions bore their testimonies and they were really powerful!

Wednesday! We had our interview with President Turvey and his wife! They are just the best, you can tell how much they already care about us and to help us in anyway possible! The funny thing that always seems to happen as it did this last interview was we spoke about Chinese for 90% of the interview and with Sister Turvey after! So I am almost certain that I will be going Chinese again! Not quite sure how I feel about that, because I love Chinese people and love learning Chinese but I am not very good at it and because I haven't used it in 6 months so we will see what happens!

Thursday! We went on exchanges with our Zone leaders out in a place called Rotherum. I went with my pal elder Smith. And we had a lot of fun together! In one of the lessons that we had, their was a weight bar in the room and half way through the lesson we got challenged to see who could do the most reps with it. Hahaha and elder Smith played American Football and is a solid 5 inches taller than me and the guy we were teaching was just as big! So he went and then elder smith! And elder Smith won he got 13! And then the guys son says to me "you got to do it now!" There was no way I was going to go and embarrass myself. But after all four of them effing me on I went and well I totally won! I got 17! Hahaha I guess size doesn't matter after all! Anyways that was just funny and something to use against all those American football players who say that soccer is a girls sport! WHAT NOW!!!! sorry that's harsh but yeah European football is the true sport!

Friday! Was a really good day and I will tell you why! we had a lesson planned with our investigator named C.......! and she is the best she is just super nice and it has been so fun to teach her. So we went to her house and it was a downpour of rain so we really wanted to get in! We knocked and waited and knocked and nothing! she wasn't in! So back on went the hoods and we were walking away and after we had crossed the street and had walked about 20 yards, over the sound of the rain on my hood and over Elder Leavitt's voice, I heard "turn around!" So without any hesitation I did, all of a sudden - it kind of scared elder Leavitt! And there was C..... in her doorway with her little baby waving us back! Such an amazing experience and we were able to have an awesome lesson with her. unfortunately she is now going on holiday so we wont see her for 2 WEEKS!! such a long time! keep her in your prayers, that she will continue to read the book of Mormon!

Saturday! Alright so not much happened on Saturday, until the evening time! We had a lesson with our Investigator named P.......! and previously our lessons with her have been going alright, she wasn't too keen on the idea of a loving god, but that didn't stop us. So we felt that we needed to go back over the restoration! As we were teaching I felt like we needed to show the restoration video to her again, and we then talked about how we can receive answers to our prayers! And she just broke down into tears, the spirit was so strong and she told us all that rubbish that has gone on in her life, and we sat and listened and then Elder Leavitt bore a powerful testimony on the power of prayer and it was amazing!!!! Such a good lesson! The spirit is the best thing ever, and helps out soooo much! Now only one problem, she is also going on holiday for 2 WEEKS!!! What is going on with all these holidays! but still really good!

this week we weren't able to teach J..... he had a lot of things going on, but we will get him this week don't you worry!

Sunday! Well this started out with the greatest thing ever and then it went downhill. So we showed up to church after inviting all of the less actives and gators to come to church and no one had responded at all. So we walked into the chapel and there on the second row was D.......! One of our less Actives who hasn't been to church in 3 years!!!!! SOOOOOOO amazing! ahhhh it is such a good sight to see! We have done a lot of less active work over the weeks and we have one guy named D......, and he has come to church for a full month now!! SOOOo good! ahhh the church is true!! 

Anyways you might be thinking why would she come now, of all days! Well I was assigned by our lovely new bishop to give a talk! He told me that it would need to be 15 min! No big deal and that I would be the final speaker and my topic was "Reaching our Potential through the Example of Jesus Christ." It was a really fun topic to speak and study! Anyways so we used that to invite people to come listen to me speak and one came!! hahaha nice to know that I am loved! no but it was good to see them at church! 

So after the sacrament I go up to sit on the stand all by myself! "thoughts start to go through my head like "oh noo I am going to be the only speaker!" "my talk isn't long enough for 45 min!?" Luckily the youth speaker had to just go get his talk from his mom, so he was first and he spoke for about 2 min! Really nice talk by the way! then came the other adult speaker and she spoke for about 10 min! Really nice talk heartfelt and really good I enjoyed it. Then came the intermediate hymn and during the hymn I look at Elder Leavitt who is laughing and then comes the bishop sliding towards me on the bench! at this point I knew that this wasn't good. I glanced at the clock and it says 10:30 people! 10:30!!!!!!!!! bishop says, "hey if you could just try and make it as close to the hour as possible that would be great!! 35 min people! I prepped for like 15 min! and now I had 35 minutes!!! It was a real test of faith because I know that my talk shouldn't of lasted that long, but thankfully through divine intervention, I was able to get up and speak for 30 mins and not one person fell asleep on me, trust me I was watching! But wow that made for a rough sacrament meeting, and then people came up to me and were saying how they liked my talk, the bishop said "that was exactly what our ward needed to hear" So I think that it went well but not something I wish to do again!

hahahah yeah so that was the week for us! lots of things needing to be done, and most of them were accomplished! I am just glad that this next week is a normal week and we can buckle down and get to work! The church is true people I know that it is!!! A mission is the best thing that anyone could do! I am so grateful for it!

last thing! is happy birthday to my brother in law AJ on Friday!! Your awesome AJ thanks for being the best brother in law ever!!!

Take care!

Elder Hanks

A-up laddy's !

July 24 2016

Happy without our suit coats- it's actually hot !

Found a new English phrase called A-up and it’s the best thing to say, hahah you feel just so funny and well its cool. Anyways holy moly people can I just say hottest week of my life, for the first time on my mission, which has almost been a year people, ONE YEAR, I went outside for the first time without a suit coat!  It was so hot that we went without suits for 3 days straight! I know crazy defying the laws of weather here in England! It was amazing but felt so weird I forgot what it was like to not wear a suit! But the weather definitely was a bonus for this week, and also I guess this thing called Pokémon Go? ever heard of it! yeah it makes missionary work so hard because people are too worried about catching their Pokémon but hey its getting people outside and in our paths so that's really good I guess! So let’s give you some updates on the gators shall we.

This car has 3 wheels...! 

                     

J.....!

well he is still j.... we are still working with that funny lad. He is planning on coming to church this next sunday and he loves his quad bible! We gave him one and now he uses it to brag to his Jehovah witness friends that the bible we gave him was better because it has more, so that was sooooooooooo good to hear!!! But we are taking our time to teach him - but things are still going good for him.

C......

so this is one of our new investigators and she used to have missionaries over when she was nine now she is like mid 20s' but she is the best! she loves to learn about god and loves to meet with us brings back lots of memories and the best thing about her, is she is obsessed with America so she loves our accents and when we talk about home so we will have to see what she is like more when we teach her this week. The only problem is she’s not a fan of church because of her childhood-  which is a really common response, so we will have to work around that little bugger!!

P.........!

She is soo funny she always talks about how she loves jesus but hates god, why,  I am still not sure -she hasn't explained yet but we gotta work on that! people don't hate God- not good. But she has a little 10 yr old and he is cool we talk about soccer (football) all the time and now he loves us because I played it and he always talks about what is happening,  so I get all the updates too, so it’s a win win for the both of us!

English gardens...?

        

Hahaha we have more investigators but for the sake of time and for me, I  wanted to share something with you guys so I will have to skip them. But this week was sad because we had to drop 4 investigators! holy moly soo many but yeah it was really sad!!

And you thought we rode bikes in England...

Now people what I have been waiting to share with all of you. I have been thinking a lot about the temple recently and I have learned sooo much about the temple and how amazing it is. I have always loved the temple but now I love it even more, and my thoughts have gone this way because of many reasons such as friends getting married, me not having a temple to go to, reading conference talks about temples and more and more. but this is something that I came up with after hearing this quote,

"The temple is the greatest University the world has to offer" so I started to think was does a university offer and what does the temple offer! this is what I came up with and look at the difference between the two.

                               University                                                               Temple

                         -hundreds of degrees                                           - one degree of Glory

                         - thousands of classes                                         - one celestial class

                        - hundreds of teachers                                          - one Perfect teacher

                        - a chance to get away from home                       - The closest place to home

                        - meeting new people                                           - serving people

                        -  social life                                                            - Eternal Life

                        - stress, homework                                                - Peace and solace

                        - long lasting friendships                                       - Eternal families

"I love to see the temple, i'll go inside someday!" Please take advantage of the temple and go and see how the lord can instruct you to be better! I love this gospel and love being a missionary! The church is true!!

love Elder Hanks

one of my souvenirs from my family's trip to Singapore 

A boxing offer and our frozen freezer & That make so much sense!

July 18 2016

Alrighty everyone this week was an amazing week! right now its sooo hot that English people aren't wearing clothes Jk mom that was a joke it’s okay! And dad don't worry I am keeping elder Leavitt safe and away from the evils of the world! alright so let’s go into the week shall we, I hope you all had a great week like we did.

So first with J....., or Jehovah witness guy! So we went over to his house early on this week to see if he had made any progress with his reading of the book of Mormon because he had read some before for the first time and so we wanted to see how he is doing! So we go in have a lesson about faith using ether 12 to teach and read with him, when we are about to leave and then he says, "Wait you got to give me more to read, if I am going to be reading this book every night I am not going to read the same thing everyday!" You could say I almost started to dance right in his living room it was the best thing ever! now we got to work on his church attendance but we will get him don't worry! But yeah that was just the best thing to hear from an investigator for sure!

A cathedral for Pday

Interesting thing that happened this week. We had a lesson early on Monday this week with a less active named D....., who is now our missionary wingman! It’s awesome we just say wingman we need you for this and he comes! hahaha he has now been to church every week for the past month! Now he is working on some commandment issues but he is now an active member of the church again! Which is the best thing ever to see someone come back to church and receive the blessings or it! Anyways so we are up in this area, knock on this door and a guy opens up and says this, "I have been to your church before" not a usual response for sure but then he expounds. " It was your big white one in Preston and they wouldn't let me in, now what kind of church builds something like that and then doesn't allow people in?" so I quickly explain that it’s a temple of ours and the sacredness of it, and how we use the temple as one of the most sacred places to us. I thought I explained it in a good way, but obviously not when the guy responds with "that doesn't sound like a Christian church to me!" and then slams the door! Ouch! it hurt a little bit not going to lie!

A cathedral for Pday

Then another encounter however this one was a bit different. We were there knocking on some door when we got yelled at from behind and we looked back and there is this guy sitting in the nicest Porche ever!! He calls us over and tells us that he wants to give us some advice. by the look of his car I didn't object, but he continues to tell us that they only way we can ever really know who God is, is through prayer, and how we need to gain a relationship with our Father in Heaven. For a second there I thought he was teaching me the Restoration but he wasn't. And told us his whole life story about how he was born Muslim but came to England learned English and then became a Professional Boxer and now drives porches around for fun! But he started to ask us all sorts of questions until we stumped him when he asked, "how much do you get paid to do this, and why do you tell people they are wrong?" So I quickly responded with the fact that we contribute our own money, how none of us get paid and that we simply invite people to read and pray to find out who god really is. His jaw just dropped. After realizing what we were doing he offered us the craziest stuff ever. Free boxing classes everyday whenever we want, he wanted to take us out to eat at this crazy nice place in town and offered to give us a lift in his super nice porche! He just started to shake our hands and just gave us so much praise, (it felt uncomfortable really) but it was unique to have praise rather than the other harsh stuff! But that was awesome! so we are going back to see S......  K....., the Professional Boxer  once he gets back from America! hahaha ooh the people you will meet on your mission.

A cathedral for Pday

Then to end this email I should of taken a picture but I didn't! We had to do one of the hardest tasks ever!  It was lunch time and so we went down to grab some food! I was planning on having rice and chicken and veggies, cause got to be healthy right! well I go to open the freezer for my chicken and the drawer wouldn't open! it was frozen shut! I being the persistent kid that I am was determined to get my chicken out. So I finally got the drawer out and saw the excess amount of ice in the freezer and thought we need to defrost this thing quickly before we have to go. So we pulled all the food out, which wasn't much. Defrosted all the drawers with warm water and then we started to chip away at the ice inside to get rid of it all. After about 15 min of this I realize that we were running out of time and we needed to go faster so what did we do. we got creative! First came the bottle of hot water which slowly melting the ice away but not quick enough, so along with the bottle of water I had this amazing idea! You know how most irons have steam in them! hahah yes picture this in your heads! SO YES I got our iron and turned in on and loaded it up with some water! Stuck it in the freezer and closed the door as much as possible! And started to rapid spray the steam into the freezer, trying to make it like a sauna. Haha and it worked! We a solid 30 min we sat there filling up the iron and used the steam to melt it all away! it was awesome! Hahah I left the flat all wet from the water and the steam but it was a great time, definitely one to remember! Well that's all for me this week! hope you all have a great week!

 

love elder Hanks

 

July 11 2016

Hiya there everyone! hope that you all had a wonderful 4th of july last week. We had a successful BBQ with the missionaries in our zone and said goodbye to some of our missionaries who were going home from their missions as successful elders! So that was sad to say bye to them but overall the BBQ was a success all thanks to my wonderful mother! I love that lady she is the best!! But this week was an alright week for Elder Leavitt and I. We didn't find any new investigators this week but we are working hard to getting some more people to teach so don't you worry we will get them but I will share some experiences that happened this week.

4th of July BBQ

4th of July BBQ

First. J..... our investigator who is being taught by Jehovah witnesses. Once again agreed that our church "makes so much more success!" But this past week we went to see how his reading and if he had prayed about the book of Mormon, and he hadn't so me and elder Leavitt in our distraught! Were edified by the spirit and we both received and impression to share with Jed the first lesson again and at the end of it we shared a video called "testimony of the book of Mormon" by elder Holland and it was sooo awesome! The spirit was so strong that I almost started to ball in front of this former navy/army guy and elder Leavitt said that he had Goosebumps the whole time. Then we both bore our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and it was such an amazing lesson, the spirit was so strong there! AHHHH THE church is true and the BOOK of MORMON is amazing please read that book everyday it is the best thing ever!!!!!

Our Sheffield area board drawings...! 

this is what Sheffield looks like on a Sunny day! 

Then we had to say our goodbye's to elder Poho and Elder Bowen in our flat. It was a sad goodbye after living with them for almost half a year, its was a sad departure. But now the flat is really quiet and I am not sure that elder Leavitt is a fan of my singing but he has to deal with it for the next couple of weeks right! But its been alright its been nice to have a little bit of EXTRA space because the house is just way to big for us! but yeah sad day there!

Next up that happened was with this man named J.... Now J..... let us in with the kindness of his heart because it was raining and me and elder Leavitt forgot our coats as usual, and we were just drenched so he let us in. He started to ask us all sorts of questions which lead us to teach about the Plan of Salvation and at the end of us teaching him, normally we ask them questions to see how they understood but J...... recapped the whole thing like almost perfectly. It was awesome we were so excited to invite him to baptism and he even said, "Wow, this makes so much more sense!" I feel like that's going to happen a lot on my mission! But then all of a sudden he looked at his watch and said "oh no I need to go and kicked us out and then ran past us down the street before we could set up anything, like a return appointment or inviting him to baptism, but at least we committed him to read and to pray if our message is true! So that was really good.

Then I had an awesome experience just last night as we were walking back to the flat at night to go in for the night. We ran into this guy named P.....! now with P..... we met him about 4 months ago with elder Cottrell and he wasn't interested but we had a really great conversation with him and at the end of talking to him he gave me some of the best compliments an English person has ever given me, a man that I barely knew, but he told me some really great things, and one of the things he said, was a fulfillment of my Patriarchal blessing! It was awesome. God really gives us his promised blessings in his own time! I love this gospel and know that this is his church on the earth today!!

Please read your Book of Mormon it will change your life!!

love

 Elder Hanks