From: Michael Scott Hancock
To: lauriehancock@digis.net
Subject: Re: from Mom
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 15:24:20 -0300

We actually spend a lot of time, even more so recently with less active members and we keep finding more and more just door knocking. We´re trying to get them to the church, but it´s just been really slow the last couple weeks. We finally got our confirmation done yesterday. He´s now officially a member! Wahoo! It felt good.
Sounds like some fun weather, finally looking like summer. Here it´s gotten cooler... but it´s still pretty on and off. We´ve had some chilly nights and stuff.. but nothing really bad yet.
So other things for this week. I actually saw Spiderman..... no joke! I saw Spiderman in Uruguay! and if I would have had 100 pesos on me at the time, I could have gotten my picture taken with him, I was so sad I didn´t! But it was pretty much the coolest thing I´ve seen this week! I´m still going up in weight apparently, last time I checked I was about 172 lbs. I don´t feel like I´m putting it on... but oh well. In Spanish I´ve read up to Jacob 3 in the BOM, and in English I´m at 2 Ne 15.... ya, love reading! I went on divisions for the second time, this time I stayed in my area, so I got to lead the way, it was great! I went with Elder Empy, he´s in his third change, just one above me, so it was pretty intense. It actually started a little rocky, heading toward the house after changing companions, I realized Elder Roney didn´t give me the keys to the house.. so we knocked on the door of the Hermana we rent from... but she wasn´t home! So we walked with all our stuff to our lunch... turns out they forgot about it.. and so we ended up walking back, the Hermana was home by this time and so we were able to get a spare set of keys and get it... then we made some egg sandwhiches.. then I realized we left the gate open and we had to go track down the Hermana´s dog, found him, and brought him back. It was turning out to be a pretty good division. Then we started the work and it actually went pretty well.. we ended the day with only 1 lesson with a member, but it was really cool, we talked about a bunch of stuff and taught about the priesthood and I had my line of priesthood athourity that I showed.. and it was all in Spanish of course... pretty sweet! We had 2 other lessons, found a less active member and one other new investigator.. and knocked abunch of doors... not bad for 2 juniors :) Ended the day eating some jello! alright!
Other that that it´s been a pretty average week, working hard... We actually have run into a few suicide situations this week. A nephew of one of the members, just living down the street from us, he cut his throat one night and died... something about his girlfriend leaving him and taking his daughter... not sure exactly. Then the girlfriend of one of our investigators ate rat poison because she didn´t like the way he was treating his brother or something like that. And one day, while we were contacting, we knocked a guys door, had a regular contact, but he was about to leave so we couldn´t really talk. As we turned to walk away, there was a lady right there! Like in the movies right infront of our faces when we turned, she just looked at us and said, ¿Qual es mejor, la vida o la muerte? What is better, life or death? And then she just said a bunch of other stuff like ´Where´s your God?´ He doesn´t care... He took away my husband and my kids... He doesn´t exist.. ect. Then she showed us a rope in her hand and told us she was going to go hang herself and was asking us if God would accept her... We tried to talk with her and my comp was pulling out some scriptures to try and share with her, but she didn´t want to listen, she just kept telling us that she was going to kill herself and told us to pray for her... just then the guy that we tried to contact earlier came out and told us I´ll probably go to your church this week and then got in his car and drove away, when we turned back to talk to the woman, she had already left... It really just kind of left me with a sick feeling... was there something more I could have done or said to try and help her... I probably won´t ever know... I prayed for her a lot that day... and for a lot of other people... I´ve tried to focuss my praying more on other people recently... especially those who are struggling the most... it´s really hard when you can´t really do much more to help some people... they just have to make the decisions for themselves... and I´ve just thought a lot about all these suicides and how fragile this life is... how hard it is for people.... but you know... it´s always gonna be hard... there are two paths in this life, you can choose the hard path or the even harder path, becuase salvation isn´t cheap... cost the best blood ever... it wasn´t easy for him.. so why should it be for anyone else... that´s why the message is so important.. to give everyone hope... hope for the better and to give them support in these trials... you choose your attitude... your trials can bring you closer to God.. or they can destroy you.... it´s the choice everyone makes every day.... it´s just sad when they make the wrong one... anyway.. those are just some of the thoughts of this week. Pretty crazy.
I hope everything is just going well there! It sounds like the summer is starting off pretty well :) Keep up the good work, keep reading and praying! and keep me informed! I love you all!!!!