Week 2 is over in Ireland: 1 Month Mark

Well while you guys are all sound asleep, I am writing this email to you. It's about 10 after 11 here so about 3:10 in the morning there. But another week is gone. Well I have reached my 1-month mark YEAH!! I have been out a month and two days so that is crazy to think about.

Well, this week there hasn't been nothing too terribly exciting happening.
We have been teaching an African named Sammy who was just recently baptized, right before I got here, and he has such a strong testimony. I am amazed every time we go over there, I feel like I am learning more from him than he is from us as elders. He quit smoking and drinking cold turkey about a month before he was baptized and hasn't had any problems it is just amazing.
The Irish people are very proud and will hardly ever let us begin to talk when we knock on their doors. We are always excited when a black person comes to the door because they will ALWAYS hear our message at least before they say they are not interested. They are very humble people and I love them. Because there's not really any emigration laws here there are lots and lots of foreigners. I bet we meet more foreigners about than Irish. Lots of Polish, Lots of Czech, but especially lots of Romanians for some reason. And of course, tons of Black African's. Because of this there are not very many jobs left and so there are a lot of people struggling.
I had a cool experience this week we were going over our plans for the next day one night and my trainer said okay you are picking where we are going tracting tomorrow. So, as we knelt down to pray after planning, I asked for guidance to where we needed to go tracting. When we got done praying, I looked at a map and a certain street popped out at me, so I told my companion that was where we needed to go tracting the next day. So, we went, and we didn't have huge success there, but we found three potentials and one lady we talked to for about 30 minutes, and we are going back to teach this week hopefully. So, three potentials that is as many as we had the whole week combined. So that was a testimony for me of prayer and following the spirit. I know that Heavenly Father wanted me to be knocking doors at that area at that time it was awesome.
Another experience we were going down an old potential list and we stopped by a house the guy we were looking for was Romanian and didn't speak very good English, but his friend came to the door and spoke pretty good English and invited us in. When we walked in there were beer bottles everywhere and everyone was smoking and there were six big Romanian guys there, they were watching football (soccer) and kind of having a party, so I was kind of a little worried. But we went in and the one that could speak English just started talking to us and he was really, really interested. He kind of just tuned all his friends out and listened to us. So, we taught him around about first lesson pretty much just though his questions. When we told him that there was a prophet on the earth today, he got kind of excited and said "There iz a prophet on de eart today" Then he went over to his computer and looked up Thomas S. Monson. But we eventually committed him to reading the Book of Mormon and praying and we are going back later this week. At what first seemed like a dark situation the Lord let us through to a where we could bring this person the truth it was really cool.
Well, I have had two dinner appointments in two weeks, and it has been by the same family the Mcmannas's and they are an awesome family, and they feed us every single Tuesday. I lied we kind of got fed another time we went to see a less active sister and she sent us home with a whole bag of food with all sorts of things it kind of looked like she just cleaned out her freezer and gave us it all, but she wanted so much to serve the missionaries, and I was touched by her service to us.
Well happy birthday tomorrow to Tyree. I wish I could be there for the baptism but just know I will be thinking about you on your special day, and I am so proud of you.
I was sorry to hear about Uncle Elmer. And shocked that Uncle Clint gave the Eulogy that's amazing. So, kudos to Uncle Clint.
Thanks, this week to Grandma Hancock, Hal, Lindsay, and Magen G. for the letters. Mail is a little slower here the post is closed Saturday and Sunday so it does take a couple more days so I'm sure mom and Jamie I will get your letters today or tomorrow. Thanks Aunt Kathy, Jamie, Tommy, and Rinda for the emails. A big thanks also to Lindsay again for my first package. I loved it and was so excited to get it so thanks you and Shawn so much for the package.
Also, for some reason this never gets to Rinda and Wyatt, so somebody pass this on to them.
Well, I hope you all have a good week I miss you, but missionary work is good, and I love it. Next week I will email on Monday because of Zone Conference so it will be a little bit early. I hope all is well keep sending letters to tell me what's going on. Love to all you guys
Elder Hancock