Week 12 - I Am A Happy Icicle

Heeeeeeeyyyyyyy everyone!! Greetings from the land of Fin! Or Finland. Both work!

As you all know CHRISTMAS WAS THIS WEEK! It was so great! I was able to meet with a lot of members and it was so awesome! I was so sad when it became the 26th but that's okay because Christmas will come next year too!!

Missionary work is the best! I love talking to people and that is my whole life! Finnish is still not the easiest but it gets better every day! 

Finland isn't actually that cold, at least down here in Helsinki, which is nice. The thing is the sun sets at like three and gets up at around ten so it's almost always dark, which makes me look at the sky and say 'why?' but I've been told the sun will eventually come back so woohoo.

Remember the purpose of Christmas is and always will be to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ! He is our Savior and I promise all of you that He loves you, He died for you, and His atonement is infinite! If you come unto Him I promise you that you will feel His love. I love this gospel and I love all of you!!

--

Elder Hancock

A Huge Thanks from Sam's mom

Over the past couple of days, we've received emails and pictures from wonderful people we have never met, nor are likely to ever cross paths with.  To you who have sent pictures and emails about Elder Hancock, please accept my deepest heartfelt thanks.  I can't express how much it means to our family to know that you - and others like you - are watching over our son and brother who is so far away right now.  It makes me appreciate the grand family that we all are.  As children of our Heavenly Father, we are all in this together.  Thank you for reaching out to us.  Your kind gesture bridges the gap of continents, brings us into his mission, and makes us feel close to Finland.  With the gift of emails like yours, this world is not that big of a place, and we feel so privileged to be a part of the work of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ and his restored church.  Merry Christmas!

Week 11 - It's Pretty Cold But That's Okay

Hello friends and family! This week was so awesome, and filled with great work. 

First off, I love Finland. It is so beautiful here and like I said, it's cold, but that just brings a sort of magic with it that I can't really explain. Helsinki is wonderful and I love it here!

So this week we were able to give a lesson to our investigator who was going to get baptized but then decided not to. We had a great discussion on faith and his own feelings and I loved it. We also had a lesson with a recent convert, who is one of the humblest people I've ever met, about hope, Christmas, and preparing him to go to the temple. It was so lovely! I love the people here.

This Christmas I hope we can all concentrate on charity and love. Charity suffereth long, and is kind and seeketh not her own. Remember this Christmas that Christ is the reason we can live with our families forever, but what does that mean to us if we aren't treating our families like Christ would? Sometimes I think it's easy to be kind to friends or even strangers, like Christ would, but he also held his mother in the highest esteem, and I know that he treated his family with that same esteem as well.

I love you all so much, Helsinki is wonderful, and make the place you are for Christmas wonderful too! In Paul's epistle to the Philippians he says 'Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am in, therewith to be content'. As we let Christ into our lives we can feel that rest and peace as well - if you remember, Paul was in a jail when he said that. Let us all do the same this Christmas season, and indeed, forever after.

I love being a representative of Christ. Christ said that He Himself is the Light of the world, and as we seek to light the world by emulating our Savior's example this holiday season, remember that if we have done it unto the least of these our brethren, we have done it unto Christ.

My testimony is of Jesus Christ. I know that He lives. 

I love you all!

--

Elder Hancock

HELSINKI IS SO GORGEOUS

Me and Elder Childers!

Candid moment at Forum today

Week 10 - Helsinki froze over!

Hahaha I'm funny. This week has been so flipping stellar! A little more detail than last week - I got assigned to Helsinki!! Yooo and it's awesome. I'm in the Neiytslpolku ward (Helsinki 3rd) and it's soooooo awesome. I love it! My trainer's name is Elder Childers, he's been out for six months and he's from Washington. 

This week has been the best of my mission by far. I love it. Yes, Finland is way cold, yes, Finns are really quiet, yes, Finnish is ridiculously hard and sometimes I feel really inadequate, but this is amazing. I've already fallen in love with Helsinki and the people here. 

We had a baptismal commitment when I got here but it fell through the morning of. It was sad, but I have faith that our investigator will continue to progress and eventually reach that point of his conversion. 

I have officially seen the sun a total of two times here! It's pretty much always cloudy or nighttime. Haha it's like I'm living in a snowglobe. I love it!

My Finnish is getting better daily. I can typically talk to people on my own, although sometimes I have to ask them to repeat what they said in simpler terms or get my trainer to help me but I'm getting better (and humbler :) ) every day. 

At Church on Sunday I got to give the opening prayer, pass the sacrament, and play the piano in priesthood! That was so exciting. I met a around 23 year old man named Saul and he's super cool, but when he said his name at first I thought he said Sauna. The two sound way similar in a Finnish accent and man it was funny.

One time I got two people on the bus to talk to us at the same time! My companion and I were trying to figure out the best word for water bottle (whether or not we had to put the word water in partitive and what that would do to the word bottle) and they saw us struggling and helped us out! That was fun. 

Yesterday, our district caroled at a train station and this one older lady came to watch us, and at the end I went to go talk to her and she was so nice. She had seen our temple in Espoo and thought it was so pretty. Her name was Helena and we talk for a good ten minutes. It was great and I especially liked it because almost the whole discussion was in Finnish and my trainer wasn't with me! At one point she said she was a bad lady because she smokes and drinks alcohol and I was like YEEESSS TESTIFYING TIIIIMMMEEE and started talking about how Christ's healing power and atonement had helped me change so much in my life and how He could help her! When I get excited about something I start speaking pretty quickly for some reason and I was doing it in Finnish and so I was like oh boy, I'm speaking so fast, what if I mess up and get thrown off and forget what I'm saying, but I just had faith that the gift of tongues would activate in me and it totally did! It was a wonderful little miracle to me that I could talk to her and my District Leader came up to me after that and told me that after Helena and I had parted ways she had started to cry. I love her and the Finnish people and this beautiful language.

On a different note, last night I gave myself my first haircut and it was awful. Suffice to say I got a nice knitted hat from Flying Tiger Copenhagen and I keep that thing on. Oh boy, we have a dinner appointment tonight! Well, that'll make for a good story.

I love Helsinki, I love Finland, I love this Gospel and Christ and the Church and the ward I'm serving in and the little Finnish kids and the super kind older ladies and the newly married couples in our ward and my companion and my district and everyone here in this blessed land. I love Christmastime as well. I hope we can all remember that Christmas is not about getting presents or Santa or elves, but about He who was born to redeem of us our sins. I love Jesus Christ. I know that He lives.

I love you all as well! Have a wonderful week!

--

Elder Hancock

From Mom:

I got the following email today from one of the Senior sisters working in the Mission Office. It's amazing how a simple email from someone can mean so much.  I told her that it made it feel like Sam wasn't that far away after all.  I love it!

She wrote:

These are some pictures of the ward party held on Sat.  The missionaries did a skit "A Day in the Life of a Missionary".  It was very funny and so typical.    You may have seen the video that Sister Gamett put on the Missionary Moms, but I thought I would send you a couple of pictures.  We love being where the young missionaries are.  The build our testimonies and we are amazed with their knowledge of the gospel.  Your sons are working very hard to share "The Light of the World" with many people.  We love them and know they love the people of Finland.  They did a fantastic job of serving the riisi puuro (porridge) to all who attended.  They helped with the decorating and cleaned up after.

I know one of the pictures is not very clear, but the smiles are better.

Week 9 - FIIIINNNLLLLAAANNNDDD

Soooooo I made it to Finland! I have like two seconds to email, but we got up yesterday at 6 am and just got here a few hours ago! I have not slept literally at all since then so I am pretty excited to go to bed. We get our areas tomorrow and I could´nt be more excited! Also, the actual apostrophe doesn´t exist on the Finnish keyboard so sorry if that looks weird. I love you all!

--

Elder Hancock

From Mom:

My brother Jon had a flight just before Sam's, so Jon got to see him at the airport!  Jon had made him some cookies (he's a fabulous uncle) and brought him some fruit snacks, too.  Perfect.  Jon actually got there hours ahead of Elder Hancock and barely stopped to rest as he walked back and forth from Security to the Gate, looking for a group of new missionaries (they're hard to miss).  

When they didn't show up and time was running short, I played the mom-card and *cough cough* yes, called the MTC and talked to the Travel Office.  No, they weren't aware of any accidents and hadn't heard anything, so yes, the missionaries were still flying out.  In my motherly defense, it was a very icy morning with lots of reported accidents from an overnight snowstorm, and also road closures and traffic problems due to President Trump flying in at that very moment.  Obviously it all worked out.  Uncle Jon found Elder Hancock in the TSA line and got a picture.

Kudos to Uncle Jon for hunting down Elder Hancock.  The Elders were late due to traffic or something.  The kids stayed home from school, waiting to talk to big brother Sam.  We got to talk to him very briefly (thank you, Jon!) and Dad got a brief moment to talk from work, and it was worth every moment of waiting.

An hour or so later, I got a text from a stranger - who is now my new best friend, although I have no clue who he or she is - who so kindly shared a picture of the group of Elders:

The blessed Stranger texted: "These Elders were so sweet to let me stop them and make them take a picture. Such an awesome site to see these guys here at the SLC airport." 

Week 8 - Four Days Left / Congratulations, Bishop

Whhhaaaaallllleeeee it's that time of week again! ELDER HANCOCK HAD ANOTHER GREAT WEEK but IT'S ALL ABOUT TO CHANGE!

Well, I'd better rephrase that. I'm still going to have great weeks buuuuuut four days from now we're heading out to the North Pole Helsinki Mission! I think Santa is a branch president up there, I'll let you know. 

So anyway, this week has been, again, fantastic. I love my life here in the MTC and I can't wait to love it in Finland!

First awesome thing to note! I love the temple! My wonderful girlfriend took out her own endowment last week, which gave me time to reflect on the blessings that come from the House of the Lord. As I sat in the temple this morning I was so amazed at how much love God has for us to give us the ordinances that are in temples. Another principle I learned this week is that charity and love are endowments themselves! In Moroni 7, the prophet Moroni exhorts us to pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart that we may receive this gift ourselves. I've done that numerous times here in the MTC and have definitely seen God's hand in my life, helping me to more perfectly love the people I meet.

The Gift of Tongues works in amazing ways. In Finnish, I know that the word 'meidan' means 'our', but as I listened to my companion give thanks for our investigator in his Finnish prayer last weekend, I heard it as 'your' investigator. I didn't realize that he had actually said 'meidan', not 'sinun' (the word for your) (the words sound completely different) for a few seconds, and then realized that God had just helped me understand a wonderful principle - these are not 'my' investigators, they are God's. They are investigating our God. I knew in my heart, I could feel it, that God had switched my understanding of the word 'meidan' for a couple seconds so I could learn something so valuable to me.

On Sunday a few interesting things happened: 1. Gary Crittenden's devotional helped me recognize some weaknesses of mine - namely, things I hadn't given up out of my past life that I still needed to! 2. I watched Jeffrey R. Holland's 'Missions Are Forever' talk, which was given here at the MTC a while back. It was amazing and taught me to consecrate these precious two years (now 22 months) of my life. 3. I got proclaimed as Most Likely To Be Seen On the News For Climbing Up Somewhere and Preaching About the Book of Mormon (a title I'm infinitely proud of, and definitely going to fulfill).

President Watson (the previous mission president for Finland that was serving while I got my call) came to our residence a couple days ago! I knew he was here serving in a Branch Presidency, and I've been praying for weeks that I would get to talk to him. It was amaaaaaazing and I'm so excited to serve in Finland! He talked to us about our questions/concerns and was an answer to most if not all of our prayers.

The Primary General President, Joy D. Jones, came and gave an amazing devotional this week! A couple takeaways - 1. Her husband said something really amazing. He was talking to a young man who said 'A mission isn't for me'. He replied 'I'm sorry, were you under the impression a mission if for you?' A mission is so not for us as individuals! It's to serve our God and His children! 2. Sister Jones brought up that the last three talks from President Monson have all focused on us being in war, having a last hope, and getting rescued by Priesthood power. I loved it and President Monson is the living prophet on the Earth!

Yesterday we watched a 'play' for In-field Orientation. In Ward Council, the Primary President gave the Bishop a gold star for being 'good', and Elder Sharp in the play immediately got up and shook his hand and said 'Congratulations, Bishop, what an honour!' and then sat back down with the straightest face ever. I laughed the hardest I have in weeks and you all probably think I'm crazy now! Oh well. That made the subject line!

We had our last lesson with Karina and we have one more with Miro. We have grown to love them so so so much and I'm so sad to leave them (even if they aren't 'real'). Love is the greatest thing we can have, my friends.

Keep being amazing, all of you! This Church is true. I know it with all my heart, and I can't wait to go proclaim the glad tidings of great joy in Finland next week.

Love and Godspeed!

Vanhin Hancock

--

Elder Hancock

1 - When it's November and there still isn't snow

 2 - The Elders in our district

 3 - our full district

Week 7 - I Really Don't Like Egg Nog, Sorry

What is UP my people? This week's been great and I'm so excited to tell you all about it!

We started Skype TRC last week, and that was pretty much awesome. Our 'investigator' taped our lesson, so if you want to see my comp and I speaking Finnish, here you go!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-ueuQNjz6MYWOOslV9pg9tg5kJuMr16B/view

I hope it works! If not, just imagine that my Finnish is perfect and I looked impressively attractive in that video. Yup. That's totally how it happened.

Aside from my broken Finnish and increased amount of confused looks on my face, Finnish is definitely coming super well. It's all in the gift of tongues, I promise you. I've been reading the Book of Mormon stories book in Finnish and understanding most of it, so I'm proud to announce that my Finnish reading skills are approaching those of a young child. *bows*

I used the ghostbuster vacuum in service last week! Whoever said missions weren't fun was a complete liar, I swear. Best day of my life.

I played a musical number in sacrament meeting, accompanying a Swede on the violin who left on Monday. That was cool. Music brings in the Spirit so well! (if it's good music)

 I watched the Testaments movie last Sunday. Man, it was good! 10/10 would recommend.

Cool experience! So on Monday I was working on our TALL language program for so long (I did about 100 words) and it just kept going and going and no one else in the lab was working on it but the gift of tongues only activates when you work! So I kept working until 9:00 pm like we should be as hard as I could, and when we took the elevator down we were talking with our teacher in Finnish and someone asked him what his major was. He responded in ridiculously fast Finnish that no one understood, but somehow I understood that he said 'I'm majoring in international relations' and no one else got a word of it! I also had no idea what he said (i.e. I couldn't repeat it back to you) but the phrase just directly translated in my head, and I was like, 'wow, international relations!' right after he said it and he was really impressed. Gift of tongues is real, my friends! That was awesome.

Also, for the Tuesday devotional, Elder Nielsen (the previous BYU quarterback in like the 70's) and he brought Janice Kapp Perry (who wrote We'll Bring the World His Truth and I think the music for As Sisters in Zion). That was awesome. She was soooooo funny, all she wanted to talk about was football and Elder Nielsen was like 'what is going on' and she brought her signed football and refused to talk about hymns for like five minutes so she could talk about how much she loved BYU football. I love that woman. Elder Nielsen talked about how important the Book of Mormon was. Hey all of you, did you know that the last thing President Monson said in conference was that we should read the Book of Mormon every day? Well, he did. Are you? I certainly hope so. If not, start today. Read that book every day. I promise that you'll be blessed for following the words of the prophet. Please do so.

We got our flight plans this week! We leave on December 4th (ten days) and fly from Salt Lake to Dallas, then to London, then to Helsinki! So basically yo boi is going to England in ten days wazzup. I'll get some pictures.

We taught Karina that day! We talked about how faith is a principle of action. You can have all the belief in the world but if you don't do anything about it what gives? You aren't going to get anything from it. Act! You'll be blessed! I certainly am!

okay then but THANKSGIVING THOUGH!!!!! 1. My sister turned 13. Wooo! 2. Elder Bednar came and gave the best devotional ever. 3. We did service packaging food for hungry children. 4. We watched Love, Kennedy (best movie ever) and I fell apart bawling. Four times. 5. The Nashville Tribute BAND (whaat?) came and gave a concert (whaaaaaaattt???) 6. They turned on the Christmas lights here and they are SO PRETTY!!!!! And played a bunch of music! 7. We had egg nog during our thanksgiving lunch and it was pretty awful, so I guess that happened. (I don't know why out of all the subject lines I chose that, but that's what you get). 8. I brought in one of the band member's mother! (she thought Finland was basically Ukraine, and having been there I had to sort of help her out with the difference, but she was super nice) 9. I bought some Powerade! (okay I'm done)

THE SPIRIT IS REAL AND CHRIST DIED FOR US AND I LOVE THE CHURCH READ THE BOOK OF MORMON EVERY DAY AND YOU'LL BE BLESSED I LOVE YOU ALL!

--

Elder Hancock

Week 6 - I Can't Think of a Subject Line Because All Our Days Are Pretty Much The Same

Not that that's a bad thing, though. Every day in the MTC is awesome, and full of hard work and progression. I have a little less time today so I think this is the week I'll transition from daily summaries to highlights of my week.

So every day my Finnish continues to improve, which is interesting to see. Comparing my ability to before I left for the MTC, my ability has skyrocketed. It's not an easy language, certainly (Sister Martino, the MTC president's wife, said it's the hardest one here) but it's so much more logical than English. All I can say is that it's a language that once you pass the point of understanding, it just all makes sense. I love it. I've gotten to the point where I don't think I'd really feel the need to speak English if I went to Finland right now, because I can say pretty much everything I want to in Finnish now, it's just the understanding of native Finns that worries me a bit (although, my I-don't-understand-what-you-were-saying-please-repeat-as-if-I-were-a-three-year-old face has certainly improved as well).

I finished the Book of Mormon on Saturday, then decided that I would read it in every spare moment I got (which aren't very many, as you might have noticed) and see how long it would take me to read. I ended up finishing (I didn't intend that as a pun, I get that at least five times a day, please don't take it as one) the Book of Mormon in two and a half days. It was wonderful and having the flow of the story rather than spreading it out between a few months was so cool. If you haven't read the Book of Mormon like that before, I challenge you to do so. That book has so much power and blessings just waiting to be unleashed.

Our investigators have experienced a lot of growth. Improved Finnish means improved decorum, less fishing around for words, and much less sounding like a monkey. An actual monkey. Ooh ooh, aah aah. We've been having actual discussions with these people and helping them understand that Heavenly Father truly loves them. It's wonderful to see the change in people when they realize how much the Gospel can bless them. 

The Danish missionaries left this week. They came in the same time as us, and we were really close. That was sad. Elder Anderson, if you're reading this, I love you. I forgot to get the rest of their emails. Tills vi ses igen!

I seem to play the piano in sacrament every week for some part of the service. Blessing or a curse? Hmm. I'll choose the former!

If you know Do-young Park, he was my best friend in 3rd grade, and he's here! He's serving in California, speaking Cambodian!

In other news, Elder Parrella of the Seventy (I think he spoke in General Conference this last October) (I just checked and he did) gave the devotional on Tuesday and it was amazing. He said just what I needed to hear.

I love you all, have a great week! I'll send a few pictures later, we're about to gob mob the lunch room.

--

Elder Hancock

1 - They love me so much they named a building after me!

2 - Elder Skinner snagged a picture of me in the lab. *jazz hands*

3 - The exercise crew! 

4 - The Finns & the Danes 5

Week 5 - FREE GOLD and PRESIDENT NELSON!!!

Joo, jos se ei ole suosikkini ihmiset!

This week has flown by! The MTC is great, I think David Archuleta is singing with us in a couple weeks, but we'll hear about that later!

Last Thursday I got my first haircut here! It was fine, I guess, and free, so there you go!

On Friday I gave the sermon on the bed! I talked about the time I was saved from drowning in Hawaii and then related it to a time I was figuratively saved from drowning, it was nice. I also did a flip, so, uh, there you go. We taught Miro and got him to commit to come to church!

Saturday was great, we got to show Miro around the 'church' and had just an all-around fun day!

On Sunday I passed the sacrament, which was a fun throwback, and bore my testimony. Our choir director gave the devotional, which was awesome, because he's a seminary teacher who really knows his stuff and he's super funny. He talked about William W. Phelps and how we came to the Church, had one tiny problem that grew to a huge deal to him, left the Church, wrote a whole ton of fake testimonies against Joseph Smith accusing him of murder and blackmail, which got Joseph Smith thrown into Liberty Jail, and then later William W. Phelps was just completely broken when the missionaries found him, and he wrote a letter to Joseph apologizing for the awful things he'd done, and Joseph welcomed him back completely with the most genuine, kind letter I've ever seen. William W. Phelps came back to the Church and was one of Joseph Smith's best friends. After Joseph Smith was martyred at Carthage, he wrote the song 'Praise to the Man'. After Brother Egett's devotional, we watched the Restoration movie. I appreciate the life of Joseph Smith so much more know. He was one of the kindest people to walk this earth, never seeking for his own gain, ever. He got tarred and feathered multiple times, so many of his children died, never ever got rich, and died for what he knew was true. I loved that movie. One of my favorite sayings from him was "My mission is to testify of Jesus Christ. I know that He lives." It's so simple and yet so applicable to my life now.

On Monday we had Chick-fil-A! Woo! And During volleyball I kept spiking the ball so hard I had this huge bruise on my wrist, so rip to me. Also shoutout to Oliver and Andrew! I saw them working on their case all the time and they work so hard, so it's awesome to see that their work is paying off. And great job to the rest of the debate team! Whee! Monday was when I heard about all that. Anyway, so we taught Miro and the Spirit threw us off of our lesson plan completely, and we ended up to where he said that he knew the Church was true, wanted to follow Christ's example, and get baptized! Wooo!!! The Spirit was so strong and it brought back the full baptismal invitation in Finnish to my memory. I loved it. 

Tuesday it snowed! Yay! I've missed snow so much, I love it. I've only ever lived in Utah, Minnesota, Idaho, and now Finland coming up in three weeks and four days, so I was pretty happy. I'm going to miss snow machining but every thing has their season. (if you got that reference and why it was funny, I love you. hint: Ecclesiastes) So that night, choir seemed to be a little more special than normal, and it turned out that was because PRESIDENT NELSON CAME AND SPOKE TO US!!! He has like 120 great-grandchildren, did you know that? He was really fun about it and spoke about how we're living epistles of Christ. His wife also referenced the chain on the Baltic Way that was made when the Berlin Wall fell, stretching from Lithuania through Latvia up into Estonia's capital, Tallinn, which is about fifty miles from Helsinki, so nice shoutout to the Baltics there. She spoke about how we make a chain of covenants, it was awesome. 

Wednesday I hosted Sister Ashley Burt! It was crazy because Elders hardly ever host Sisters, only when we're completely out of Sisters to help host, so I got told to go take a Sister car and I saw it was from 1M and was like, hey, maybe I know them! Yeah, so it was Sister Burt, who I've known since like 3rd grade, so that was cool. I thought a lot that day about D&C 4, talking about serving with all your heart, might, mind and strength. I heard a lot about the new Thor movie, and we were talking about it in our dorm. I think that if you're on your mission and wish that you could watch a movie you couldn't then you're doing your mission wrong. I love being a missionary! My life is amazing and there's nowhere I'd rather be, except maybe in the field. ;) We taught at the TRC for the last time last night before we start Skyping Finns and it was great!

I was able to do initiatories today and I loved it! I love this gospel and this mission and I know it's true! I love you all! Email me, I love hearing from you!

Rakkaudella, 

Vanhin Hancock

--

Elder Hancock

1 - Icelandic to Finnish conversion chart that I made! 

2 - Elder Ames drew a picture of me.

 3 - another mountain picture

From Mom: Sister Ashley Burt's mom texted me this picture of Elder Hancock meeting Sis. Burt to walk her in to the MTC.  How fun to see an old friend!

Week 4 - Rauha! Yksi rakkaus!

Hello, everyone!

The subject line means 'peace, one love'. I heard one of my teachers throw it out this week and I loved it so there you go!

Every day Finnish gets easier and Finnish gets harder, so sorry if I start making weird sentences or something in advance!

Last Friday I went to the health center and got some medicine - pseudophedarine, some random prescription, some other bottle of pills I forgot about, and uh, another one. I don't know why I remembered Sudafed. Oh well! 

Saturday I started feeling better, probably because of the medicine. I learned 60 Finnish words that day! The next two days were spent learning about ten and reviewing those 60. I love Finnish, did I mention that? I have a really weird pseudo-Finnish accent now that I can't get to go away, so speaking in the English language sounds strange sometimes.

Sunday was beautiful! I got released from my position as District Leader (three week rotations), got our sacrament meeting moved to T4 (the big new building), played in Sacrament, watched the video Legacy with our zone (we all lost it), strengthened my testimony of Joseph Smith being Christ's prophet, and my favorite part, Mitch Davis gave our devotional! He directed the Other Side of Heaven. He talked about how missionaries need to Get Called, Get Courage, and Get Lost! It was wonderful and we got to see a couple clips of the Other Side of Heaven as well.

Monday I was even less sick yay! We learned of our new investigator Karina, which was great! We also got to teach Miro again that day.

Tuesday was amazing. I slept so well, and then the day was great and then Elder Christensen from the Seventy Presidency gave the devotional! In our discussion after, I got so pumped for missionary work that I was literally bouncing up and down in my chair and since I can't go out and tell people in Finland that the Church is true yet I ran around the MTC and told everyone I saw that the Book of Mormon is true!! I got some weird looks but I don't care because I know it's true and I would legitimately die testifying of it (although I hope it doesn't come to that). 

Yesterday was great too. Some people in my zone started talking about awkward date stories and I felt so strange hearing them, like, going on dates is such a thing of the past for me now. I know my purpose, I know what I need to know, I know what I need to do to get there, and I know that I love Christ! I'm so glad I'm serving a mission, this has been the best month of my life. 

A month! Wow. That's crazy, I'm serving a 23 month mission now! And I'm loving every minute of it. I've matured more this past month than I did my whole senior year, and I've loved putting who I am into God's hands so He can make of me what I need to become.

I love you all! Suomalainen kieli on niin mahtava, mä rakastan se. Mä just haluan olla Suomessa, mutta mä tiedän että mä täytyy ole tassa... nyt varten. Rauha, yksi rakkaus!

--

Elder Hancock

 

Week 4 Pictures:

1 - Me, Vanhin Skinner, and the Danish Elders (Ældste Danielson-Jensen and Ældste Anderson ) at the temple today!

2 - Moroni 10:4-5 suomeksi!

 3 - I was a witch for about three seconds on Halloween. Creepy, eh?

 

Week 3 - Obedience Brings Blessings! / I Am Not a Frog!

Tervetuloa minun kirjeni, jokainen!

I honestly had no idea what to call this email, so the two subject finalists have both been displayed. Whichever one you like better, you can have it. Both are true!

This week has been one of flying tomatoes and steady progress. It's a parable I just made up right now. Tomatoes don't normally fly, but I don't normally speak Finnish! Finnish being ridiculously hard, and tomatoes being ridiculously hard to make fly, the two are basically the same. You have to be diligent if you want to do it! As I've done such, I've been able to make my Finnish fly and my tomatoes speak. 

That was an awful parable, so I'll try to make the rest of the email better.

Last Thursday I decided that I was a twig and needed to get ripped, so I lifted weights! Then came the eating a bunch of meat part. I think I ate around maybe three ounces of chicken and half a potato that night, so, uh, we'll see how that goes. The problem is that night I got sick and haven't been much better since soooo exercising is a bit tough at the moment, since I just cough a lot. Oh well. We taught Miro that night and it went pretty well!

Friday I memorized some verbs. Woo. We use an acronym entitled HAVE YOU SLAPT JJAMS and it works surprisingly well! 

Saturday our lesson wasn't as great. I got too caught up in speaking Finnish almost as rapidly as I could speak English and totally didn't invite the Spirit. 

On Sunday a number of things happened: I was the chorister in Sacrament, taught my district about obedience, was the subject of an object lesson in Priesthood, sang 1st tenor in the MTC choir (converting from bass, whee), watched the UVU President give an awesome devotional, and saw Meet the Mormons 2! Such a wonderful day.

On Monday the English speaking missionaries who entered the MTC with us left. Sigh. It's okay, though, because Finnish is still coming more and more every day! I still can't wait to get out into the field, though. In our lesson that night, I wanted to badly to have the Spirit, unlike our last lesson, so the whole time I was pleading that Miro could feel it, because he was struggling, and then I felt that I should bear my testimony about the Atonement, so I did. And let me tell you, there is no substitute for the Spirit. No amount of stellar Finnish from me or Elder Skinner could've achieved what the Spirit did that night. We all felt the truth of it, that Christ really did suffer for our ignorance, because He loves us.

On Tuesday ELDER STEVENSON CAME!!! It was a wonderful devotional, he talked about how amazing Preach My Gospel is and how we can better use it. I was so enlightened. I was also singing in the choir, and got on the big screen more than once!! The cool thing is that it was being broadcast to all the other MTCs, so they all saw us sing. We sung Hope of Israel, and it's wonderful, we who know the truth of the gospel really are the hope of Israel. Ask yourself, you being the hope of Israel, knowing the truth of the gospel, what are you going to do about it? I exhort all of you to don't falter, fight for your brothers and sisters. We aren't fighting a physical enemy. We're fighting FOR each other. I'm going out to Finland to get Satan off the backs of my brothers and sisters. What else can we all do? I'd invite you to think about that, ye hope of Israel.

Wednesday we taught at the TRC again! That's where we teach Finnish-speaking volunteers, typically members. The Spirit and Gift of Tongues came to both me and my companion, and we had a blast. I can't wait to be in the mission field.

This morning we went to the 7:00 session, and I went to the BYU Student Health Center to get some medicine, but they sent me back to the MTC to get something so I have to go back tomorrow morning. Now I'm here! Whee! I love my mission, and even though I've only been out three weeks and a day, I know that I've been changed forever. I love this gospel like I never have, and I love being a missionary.

Minä rakastan te kaikki! Minä haluan teille on tosi hyvä viiko!

I love you all! I want you all to have a super great week!

--

Elder Hancock

Week 2 - Kärsivällisyys eoisyksessä!

Terve, kaikki! 

If you're one of the 7.5 billion people in the world who don't speak Finnish (unlikely chance, I know, but BOY SCOUTS ARE PREPARED HOOOOYAH) then you're probably wondering what my subject line means. Kärsivällisyys eoisyksessä means 'Patience in Progression' and it's sort of become my motto this past week. With all the things we want to achieve in our futures (e.g. for me, learning Finnish fluently) we can sort of get caught up for a bit and forget that to get to those points we need to work on the present! So recognizing that true progression takes patience this week has been great for me, since growing up I had a problem with patience, wanting to do everything now now now.

Also, I realized that I added around ten of you to my contacts in MyLDSMail but then totally forgot to add you to my group email list! So I took care of that, and if you'd like to see what I wrote last week (or even before then, my thoughts before my mission and random entries) I have this mission blog!!! My Mom keeps it up for me now (thanks mom) so you can check out any week if you want.

Aside from that, I'd like to share a couple things about MTC life! First, we are not only allowed but encouraged to check our emails often, so even though I can't actually write until P-day, I definitely see all of your emails. That's been great. We have vending machines here and they're heavenly. I actually think they may be a lesson on frugality in disguise, since we only get six dollars to use a week and they have super good stuff. I also think that sending my pictures in the same email could be causing some problems for some people so I'm going to be doing that separately from now on.

Anyway, on to my week! I'll try and shorten it up a bit this time buuuuut we'll see how that goes.

Last Friday I became a basketball legend. I'm basically LeBron James now. Haha not really, but for some reason I just got way more competent at basketball this week. Also, the new buildings were dedicated on Friday! That was so cool! President Eyring came. He brings in the Spirit really well and he's very obviously a man of God. Anna turned out to be our teacher! That was pretty wild. Sometimes the investigator really is the teacher! *shrug* She's Sister Ross now, and she's so great. Other than that, we had pizza that day! It must've been good, because I wrote it in my journal.

On Saturday I wrote my first talk in Finnish! A good chunk of it was me quoting President Uchtdorf (I love him so much) but I was pretty proud of it. It was about obedience, which to us as missionaries is absolutely paramount.

Sunday was mahtava (awesome in Finnish)! I taught the lesson in Elder's Quorum, about the restoration. We spent a lot of time on how Satan fell upon Joseph Smith as he was praying, and how Joseph Smith exerted all of his energy to call upon God and was delivered. We need to do the same, when we have trials or darkness in our lives, we need to call upon God and He will help deliver us. We also had a devotional from Brother and Sister Dalton (She used to be the general Relief Society President). They talked a lot about missions, and we all loved it. We then watched the Mountain of the Lord video (about the construction of the Salt Lake Temple) and had a wonderful discussion on God's love. We also had our nightly Sermon on the Bed (our zone does it, every night someone different gets on a top bunk with the rest of our zone crammed in the room and that person gives a thought). It was about Christ being our big brother who went out to serve a mission, and we really missed him. We heard about him being persecuted by the people he was serving and he was killed by them. The people our big brother was serving killed him. Our big brother was killed on his mission for us. That really touched me and I cried a bit.

On Monday we got a new investigator! He's actually our teacher Veli Ryan, but he portrays a man named Miro. We already love him. He's really shy but he loves families so we focus our lessons on that a lot. Our Sermon on the Bed that night was about how God sees us as His children and He wants the very best for us, He loves us and wants to help us.

Tuesday was bittersweet. One of the elders in our mission went home. Interesting story, so I had no idea that he was going to leave, but that night I had a dream that he left and that the Finnish missionaries were connected with and comforted by an older man in a suit and told that we had the strength to make it through our own missions with Heavenly Father. Well, I woke up and the elder had left at 3 am, and that night our devotional was with a Seventy who served his mission in Finland. He gave us so much strength, and by the end we knew that even though we didn't know everything we knew enough to serve a mission, and that God loved us and would strengthen us. I was able to share that in our district discussion that night and we all felt the Spirit. 

Wednesday we taught Finnish speaking members (who weren't our teachers) for the first time... and lo and behold who do we end up teaching but my companion's cousin!! It was great. We taught two lessons and they both were great. 

Thursday (today) we woke up early to get to 7:30 session. Quote of the day: why in the blasted tarnation are we up at six am, what am I, a shepherd? Yes you are, Elder!! Someone forgot to tell him why we woke up at six. Temple breakfast was greeeeat. We exercised for a bit, had lunch, and now I'm here!

I love this gospel so much. It's true, I know it. The Holy Spirit is real and touches our hearts if we seek it. There really is meaning to this life, and Christ really is our Savior and King, God's Son, our big brother, who loves us and died for us. He died for us. He. Died. For. Us. A perfect man. Serving in his place has got to be on of the most humbling things ever, but with His help I can help other people in Finland feel His love too. 

Have a fantastic week, everyone!!!

--

Elder Hancock


From Mom:
Our friend Brigham Taylor who used to live here in Rexburg (he has kids that are my kids' ages) texted me yesterday with a picture of him standing with Elder Hancock at the MTC, texting me as they stood there together.  Brigham was at the MTC doing some training for senior missionary couples and just happened to run into him.  It was such a wonderful surprise.

Week 1 - CALIFORNIA BABY and the MTC!

Don't worry about the subject line, I didn't leave my mission and run off to California! Well, not for very long, anyway. :) This week has been amazing!!

Last Wednesday we got in and immediately started working on Finnish. I was like "ah ah ah!" but it's been great! That night was fine but my mind was so full it was tough to get to sleep.

A week ago (Thursday) I was sitting in our branch meeting super tired and wondering if I'd be able to survive the next two years being so overwhelmed with new things when I got called to be the District Leader! That was quite humbling of an experience, I'll tell you what. But I've loved serving the elders and sisters in my district and have come to love them so much.

Friday was pretty full! Finnish went super well. The others elders seem to always ask me questions about Finnish which is pretty cool at some times and a little stressful at others, but I'm so glad I spent so much time studying the language before coming out here to the MTC.

Saturday was Oliver's birthday! Shout out to him for being 16! He's single as pringle, ladies, so don't be shy. I taught my first lesson (in Finnish, no less) that day! It went really well, although I couldn't remember the word for 'read' (lukea) so I sat there for five seconds trying to figure out how to get our investigator Anna to read the Book of Mormon, so I eventually just went 'minä haloan sinua katso kaikki Mormonin Kirja, okei?' which means 'I want you to look at all of the Book of Mormon, okay?' It probably seems a little trivial but it cracked me up, possibly because I was waving my arms around trying to describe it while I was speaking.

Sunday was sooo looong. Fast Sundays are something else at the MTC, goodness gracious. I couldn't eat food so I consumed Finnish all day and felt like I had a headache. We had a lot of meetings, but in Sacrament meeting the Weegies (Norwegians) and Swedes, who are in our branch, sang the EFY melody of As Sisters in Zion/We'll Bring the World His Truth in Norwegian and Swedish with English for the last verse which was so beautiful that I literally lost it at the end and became a shaking fountain of salty tears but it was okay because I wasn't the only one!! If you want to hear what the song sounds like it's on YouTube. Also, we had a devotional from President and Sister Martino (MTC President and his wife) and that was fantastic. We then watched Elder Bednar's address to the MTC some years ago entitled the Character of Christ. It was phenomenal. The essence of the talk is that without Christ's outstandingly, completely perfect character of selflessness, the Atonement could not have occurred. There's a shortened version of it on YouTube because he gave a similar address at BYUI, and I would highly suggest finding it. I can't even explain the Spirit that comes from that talk.

Monday flew by. I finally started to recognize that missionary life IS my life, and once I had that ingrained into my mind, my outlook got a whole lot brighter. I don't have to be perfect at Finnish, even though I certainly was trying to, because I just need to bring in the Spirit. THE SPIRIT IS THE TEACHER! :) Speaking of teaching, we taught another lesson on Monday! Finnish just came to me and I didn't have any problems with it, which I thought was nice being in here for five days! The gift of tongues is so real, my friends. If we live worthily, desire righteously, ask sincerely, and act with totality, we all can access it. The Weegies and Swedes left on Monday, which was sad, but they're in a better place. I'll miss playing volleyball with them.

Tuesday was LA DAY! We woke up at 2 am and somehow got ourselves dressed and over to the travel office to get on a bus. We got to the SLC airport and realized that Elder Christensen had forgotten his driver's license! Whoops. We said a pretty intense prayers that it would work out. He got in (yay) and we flew to LAX, where our shuttle was nowhere to be found. It was supposed to be there twenty minutes before we were. We waited for 45 minutes and said about five prayers in that time when it showed up! We drove to the consulate and saw the LA temple, which was cool, and met with this lady about three minutes each who took our fingerprints and then we were done! So our phone stopped working and we had no idea what to do, since our itineraries dropped off at that point, and we said another prayer, worked some weird things with the phone, and it started working again! We called Church Travel and told them that we were Finnish missionaries stranded in the middle of Los Angeles and they told us they had scheduled a bus for us, coming two hours later. Soooo we got some food and studied, and met an ex-Mormon who a pretty nice guy (I think he left when he was about thirteen, he told us about being a deacon and doing baptisms for the dead) and eventually got back to LAX, where we met two Finnish ladies and a Finnish RM! That was so cool. We got back to SLC around 7:30 and got some burgers, then made it back to the MTC around 9. The same missionary who had been so happy about "leaving this spirit prison" that morning was equally happy about returning, we were all so tired.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was awesome! We got some new Swedes and Weegies (including Sister Julia Kimball from Rexburg). I jammed my finger playing basketball so I ran for exercise time, which was pretty nice, although the corners on the track are so tight that any mile under six minutes makes you feel like you're going to fall down. I got to play the piano in the new building, which I LOVED, I LOVE THE PIANO, I FELT THE SPIRIT SO STRONGLY AHHH, so that was great. ;) I taught Anna (our investigator) again today and my Finnish went so well, I had zero problems whatsoever, even when we extended the baptismal invitation and she asked why she needed to be baptized again, she'd been baptized as a baby. I went on this thing about asking her if God is a God of order, and if being a God of order, which she had said he was, would he have mutilple churches on the earth or one? So if like Christ says in Johanneksen Kirja (the book of St. John) that we need to be baptized in order to return to Taivallinen Isä (Heavenly Father), would he want priests of the world determining how baptism was to work or determine it himself? He would determine it himself, so I then talked about Priesthood authority being restored with Joseph Smith, which allows order to come to the baptismal process. This was all in Finnish!!! I wasn't even paying attention to trying to look for words (well, maybe once or twice) and asked her if she felt that the Book of Mormon was true (since God has one church and our church has the Book of Mormon), by really studying (not just reading, that never works) all of it and doing as Moroni says and asking God if it was true, if she would be baptized? And she said yes!! So in my closing prayer (again, in Finnish) I poured out my soul asking Heavenly Father to tell her that it was true as he had told me and started crying, and then when I got back upstairs to our classroom, excused myself and started crying again. I felt the Spirit so strongly, and it didn't matter that I was speaking in Finnish, it was the same true gospel. If you're wondering if you should serve a mission, this one week has already been the best week of my life, and Heavenly Father will bless you so, so much for it.

That night, at dinner, President and Sister Martino with their grandchildren came at sat with my companion and I! We talked to them for about 45 minutes, it was so cool. We talked to them about their missions, being the MTC President, Finland, why we came to serve missions, and taught their grandchildren some Finnish, which they loved (they were all about three to six years old, so so cute, I love kids). That was a wonderful experience.

So overall, I love it here. My district, and well as the Danes and some other missionaries, here, are so wonderful. We're all working together to learn how to serve best our Savior and King. I am so beyond humbled to have His name on my chest every day. I love Jesus Christ so much, with all my heart, and even though none of us are perfect or have perfect Finnish or even perfect testimonies, Christ is perfect, and nothing else matters to me except doing my best to become like Him.

I love you all!

--

Elder Hancock