Monday, August 30 2010

Wow it seems like alot has happened this week, and first of all im so glad that our prayers were answered for steph! Its too bad that stuff like that has to happen but man im glad that all is better! So I heard Camryn came home! Man time flies by! That is so sweet! Oh chunks! If only i could grow curly flowing hair down to my shoulders like he can! Haha i so would! ANd Lyndon got sent to Guatemala! Sweet! I hear that its a beautiful area! Not too hot but pretty humid! Man what a great opprotunity! And Brent Barker! Thats sweet, thats going to be such a sweet experiance for him!Ya Josh Ruckert is a cool kid, super wierd, haha, hes a great support for me in the mish, writes me every week and tells me how he wishes he was me! haha no hes a great man! Im glad hes trying to steal my family from me when i cant do anything haha. Another Chick Fillet run! Man im so freakin jealous! If chick fillet keeps making these there wont be any left for when i get back! Oh man i want to do that kind of stuff but dont worry, here in Santa Fe the work moves on. Slowly, super slowly, but surely, alot of the problems we are having here is because of me, im stil learning how to use the spirit and how to work and all of the stuff i need to remember, sometimes i feel like a robot which is not a good thing, so ive been fighting to try and become a better missionary, we just started my 7th transfer which will take me into the year mark! Thats pretty crazy!Time passes by way fast, but at the same time super slow, the key really is to stop thinking about time and just focus on what needs to get done, and im doing alot better with that. But it takes time to get over bad habits, so i have a bunch of patience and training to get doing. But man i love it here in the mission, I have a companion from Peru, we speak spanish and were in Argentina together, its just so wierd! Today we were 5000 miles from home playing monopoly! Its just so great! I really just want to improve myself, and thats what im trying to do! We are having troubles with bringing people to church but dont worry i have emergency investigators that come every week, they are twins and little brothers and sisters to Natalya, who was baptised a few weeks ago, the Investigators are not progressing that much and im having a tuff time helping them progress, im pretty much stuck, but dont fear ill get things into gear, its not so much talking with people anymore, its trying to get them to progress, to recognize that they need this, its tuff.But not impossible! Well im glad everything is great at home! Here are some photos of my life here in Santa Fe! Tell the family i miss them and thanks for the letters from Lindsay and Robin! Also from Grandma and Grandpa Horrocks! I love youall! Tell Dad, steph, collin, abbey and hannah hi! And where are some pics?! I would like one of the house and the nieghborhood with the mountains behind it so i can show people here my town! With loves!!

Monday, August 23 2010

Hey Family!! Hows life going!? Im here in Reconquista, but this week has felt like ive been on Tatooine, the desert planet on starwars, because the sky here is the color of sand, its pretty cool, i havent seen blue skys for a while. This week has been my most exhausting week of the mission i believe. Its amazing how hot it got so fast! Its really humid and super hot, like 93 degrees right now, and were still in winter!! But really it hasnt bugged me alot, im used to the head ache and the dreanched clothes, but man the people are really tuff here, everyday of the week i have just speant my time walking around, but with sacrifice comes the blessings, i have found four people that seem to really be great investigators, and they are trying to find their testimony so that makes me happy, im used to the back pains and the aching feet so i say that everything here is fine and dandy, through all of the tiredness and heat and all of the problems i have really come to find a desire to overcome everything! I really believe that god is with me all of the time because no matter how hard the day gets now i fight harder to find the happiness and to put a smile on my face, im finding joy in the scriptures like Andy said, i cherish them above all the world, and i am constantly trying to improve my knowledge. The homesickness has never left but i have learned how to over ride it haha. Im just starting to find the joy here, my biggest worry is how i will feel the spirit, because i feel like its so hard to recognize it. But im working on it. Well it sounds like one of the biggest changes back at home, collin starting 9th grade and abbey is starting 7th! And Steph went to college, and im sorry to hear that its been so tuff for her, ill definitly pray, just remember that i also had tuff roommates, i think thats just part of the Horrocks life, but ill defintily write her to help her. Thats pretty sad about the Nordahls, ill probably never get to see them again, but who knows. And wow thats really sweet about Tjs experiance, how cool is that! Well i dont have much more time this week! Thanks dad for your letter, i always love your help and consel. Next week im going to talk with Elder Foster, who is the 70 who talked about mothers know best in the last conference so im excited to learn from him! Well love you all and goodbye!

Tuesday, August 17 2010

Hey family!! So yesterday was a holiday here so we had to work so my pday was today, so the week felt way long! But really it flew by! This week has pretty tuff mostly because i felt so stressed about the lack of progress i am having, i feel like its really slow, i havent been able to visit with any of the investigators that have baptismal dates because they werent home, but i did give it my all with all of the troubles i had this week, but best of all i had a baptism!I kind of forgot to say that last week but ya, we finally got permission from the father of the three kids we are teaching to baptise the oldest girl, who is 15, so that was awesome i was pretty excited, it was a really spiritual baptism, the strongest one yet. And the father who didnt want anything with us is now listening to us and im sure that he will start to change, thats the effect the spirit has on people! So i am really seeing a difference from when i got here, there are days that we dont enter one house but somehow we are finding those that need the gospel. slowly but surely, once i start getting my planning down im sure that i will be able to see alot more blessings, we are finding the elect, but man it takes my patience, thats really been a help to live with the zone leaders because they can help me with my defects, my comp lacks alot of initiave, which we are working on, hes really gotten better and ive grown alot also, which is awesome!So i am attaching a photo of a picture that looks like its nighttime, but its really 9 in the morning, it was super sunny and it seemed like it would be a pleasant day, and as i was studying it started getting darker and darker until we couldnt even see our books of mormon! So i ran outside to see what was wrong, i kind of felt like the sun turned off! But the clouds came so fast and they were so thick that the light couldnt penetrate at all! ive never seen anyhting like it! Man! it was cool, but man it was so muddy afterwards, well i dont have much to say, its been tuff but ive grown a super lot, its starting to warm up again and my nerves from remembering the last summer are starting to jump, but i think ill be able to handle it alot better! Well i love you all! Steph have fun! its the greatest time of life if you make it! Be safe and choose the right! BYE

Monday, August 9 2010

Well first off before i forget, because its always so stressful to write home, so much is on my shoulders haha. The church that is in centro in the other missionaries, and we live three blocks south, on the road named lobato, which has a divider down the middle, we live two blocks east from the main highway. I think, if that helps let me know whats there. This week has been tuff, because i wasnt really focused on my goals, i just worked all day but not really effectivly, but i did find a few people that are way cool, i have seen a few miracles here, the people seem to be changing just a little, not everyone but less people are rejecting us, and we have a baptism this week, the first of many, because we have the goal to baptise every week, we have 7 people that have agreed to be baptised and we have 14 people who are looking forward to it, the 7 are amazing! The girlt hat is baptising this week is Natalya, a 15 year old who has waited forever to get baptised and her dad just gave here permission, so were pretty excited! Than we are working with a 21 year old named Ever, hes tight and has a huge testimony of Jesus Christ, he told us he would do anything for christ so i asked if he would get baptised for him and he said yes! Our mission president is teaching us how to help people recieve an answer from the book of mormon that is super powerful and helps the people want to read the book, its so simple but it works so well, the whole mission is changing, Preach My Gospel has changed as well, everything is so much better and im seeing a huge difference in people! HUGE! Dont worry i got to go to chruch this week, i know how to work and to have faith, the only time i dont have an investigator at church is when im unrighteous. And then ill be humbled haha. There is not many new stories, i love living with the other elders, after a super tuff day its always good to go back and laugh it off, its a huge blessing. Im now a master at omlet making, i might be a competition for dad, hehe. Ive been working out every moring a bunch so im always starving! So what better way to crave hunger than by omlets!! Today i had a strawberry milkshake for the first time in my mission! oh man i was sooooooo excited! Then i cut my hair but its lopsided so ill have to try again... hehe. Wow sounds like a way fun week!!! I really missed out! But i wont believe that you went until i see some pictures! What happened! i havent recieved any for a while now! haha. Well collin its like you read my mind, i was going to tell you to buy that game, man ive missed you kid, ive dreamed alot about you. But dont worry, im almost half way hehe. Well family i love you so much! I have been blessed so much! Oh one quick story, today we were walking from the icecream store and i saw a house that was huge! HUGE! and we stopped to look at it! and i realized that it was the size of our house, ive really forgotten that we had a house that had more than one room! Man ive gotten used to living here, and were so blessed! Well i love you!! Im so happy!

Monday, August 2 2010

Well hello family! It feels like yesterday that i wrote this letter, this week has been a fast one, and the most exhausting of my life. So i have what most people call a little bit of a gut, so everymorning i have been running stairs for a half hour to try and get that fat off of my body, because its draggin me down! haha so ive been walking with stiff and sore legs all week. And not only that, this week has definitly been the hardest week of my mission, yet there was not one time that i actually felt depressed or let down or any negative feeling, it was the wierdest thing of my life. 4 of the 6 days of work we just walked all day, and no one let us in, i had one sit down lesson where we actually taught once a day. And that just killed my back and my feet, i couldnt really walk that well this morning, i feel like i broke my foot haha. But not to worry, i really pulled out the hard worker in me, we completed with all of our goals and more, im really satisfied with this past weeks work but i know i can do better, we only have 3 progressing investigators who are kids, so im not happy that noone else is progressing, but im trying to figure things out, its been a different experiance with my new companion, if one of our teaching appointments drops, he looses all desire and falls into depression, so i think thats why i havent had a hard time here yet, because im here to help him, and its really helping, even though he is my leader ive been teaching him and stuff hehe, i kind of turned the tables. The people here are really stubborn, super closed and dont want nothing to do with us, so i have been trying many different ways to try and spark their interest and the best thing i have found is to talk about the things they need and are important to them, and i have seen a huge difference, the other religions cant satisfy the thirst of the gospel. Even though its super tuff here i am in love with the work, i am loving helping my companion, the people, the members, i love it love it love it. Sunday brought a huge wave of homesickness more powerful than i have felt since i got here but i ignored it and got to work, something that was so hard to do in Posadas! To answer your questions mom and dad, there are dogs everywhere, everywhere, more dogs than ants haha. Dead dogs, living dogs, crazy dogs, big and small. But dont worry all have a fear of shoes and stones. And no i wasnt in danger at all, thats why i was laughing! About the sacrament, i cant be in the church without an investigator. If there is not a investigator in the church i cant take the sacrament, the president is super tired of people not making progress, and like i said before he knows we can complete, since God said we could bring 4 every week. So im not worried, president says we need to take it once a month if we can never bring an investigator. And to close a branch there needs to be less than 10 members and no priesthood. And here in Reconquista there is a curse or something, they just dont have the priesthood power, every branch president goes inactive and wants nothing with the church, the same with all of the district presidents. I dont know why its like that here, we have 70s come here all the time to help, like once every 4 months, but i dont understand why the priesthood isnt strong here. Well today i played alot of soccer, and i can say that ive improved from running up and down the side lines, im not near as good as the latinos but id say i can play the sport haha. I love it, im pretty excited for this week, im hoping to find a family to baptise this week, please keep praying for this people, one day they will recognize, well i love you so much, dont forget me in your prayers! haha just kidding i know you cant forget... I LOVE YOU!
Oh and thanks for the envelope! and they didnt charge you can send those full of sweet tarts! oh man i love sweet tarts! And maybe you can send me a flag of the united states also, not too big, but not small also, just for fun! Remember i cant recieve more than 4 packages but i can recieve envelopes, so bring on the sweet tarts! haha with love again!