El Bautismo de Las Uruguayas!

My Posterity! :  Elder Waite (grandson), Elder Jellen (Son),Elder Hicks (Father), Elder Peterson (Son)

Things here are going excellent. This transfer has definitely been quite a change from the last transfer going from having an experienced companion, to a greenie. My new companions name is Elder Connor Peterson. He is from Salt Lake City Utah. He's a fun loving guy, really funny, and if I would have to describe his personality from a movie character, it would be Jack Black from "The School of Rock." Elder Peterson is a rocker, it's true, and had his own band and everything before the mission. We definitely come from very different backgrounds which has turned out to be quite a challenge over these past few days, but it also makes for good learning and growing experiences. It was exciting to see Elder Jellen get his new Trainee, named Elder Waite, and he's still serving in Trenton. I included a picture of my posterity in the email to follow. Elder Peterson is a good Elder, and has the desires to learn and become a good missionary. As far as his teaching and spanish abilities.... He's definitely still learning. It was a new experience for me, especially since Elder Jellen came out with stellar Spanish, so now I'm just trying to find the best way to include Elder Peterson in lessons.

 Elder Ferrell and I with Mikayla and Nicole

SO.... Just got done playing some basketball, and I'm super fatigued. I hope I don't get heat exhaustion again.... So I'll continue with the letter anyway. The best news of the week... Mikayla and Nicole got baptized yesterday! I finally got to baptize someone from Uruguay!!! Just what I was hoping for! Everything went really well with the baptism, although there was a lot more preparation needed than I had anticipated. Like making the program, making copies of the hymns we were going to sing, because the chapel with the font doesn't have spanish hymn books, and so it was really just a lot of running around trying to get everything set up. The baptism was scheduled for 2 o'clock, but Mikayla, Nicole, and their family didn't get there until about 2:45. Whoops. But everything came together quite nicely. It was a good first week for Elder Peterson. He baptized Mikayla and confirmed Nicole. Thats a lot of ordinances performed on your first week in the field. We received a lot of help from the ward though, and they provided a lot of food afterwards which was really helpful. I had the opportunity to baptize nicole, and I must admit, it was really hard baptizing in english. The words just sounded so awkward coming out, so I said them with a lot of hesitation waiting for someone to correct me, but I got it all right the first time so I didn't have to re-do it.

Elder Peterson and I with Mikayla and Nicole

Transfer conference this past week was really crazy. So many new missionaries came in, and so many left. We had to listen to almost 20 or so departing testimonies from a lot of the legendary missionaries of Morristown.

 Farewell Elder Erikson

 It was pretty sad saying goodbye, and Elder Erikson is leaving this week with Elder Munk (The one from my MTC district) who is going home early for school stuff. There is actually about 4 or 5 missionaries from my group that are heading home 2 weeks early. Sometimes it get's hard thinking that I could have been heading home 2 weeks early which would have been nice, but I already made my decision and I'm here for a reason right? I'm pretty sure if I would have chosen to go home, I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to train Elder Peterson, and I would have missed out on a lot of growing experiences. I'm enjoying the work though, and we are still seeing good things in our area.

  

I guess I would say one of the cooler things that happened this week was when Mikayla and Nicole's step-dad Samuel (The one we are teaching that brought out all the anti stuff) came to the baptism! We taught him earlier in the week about the plan of salvation which was a little too deep to say the least, but he enjoyed it, and understood it. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and committed him to read and pray. On Sunday when he came to the baptism, he had already read, and said that he felt more peaceful after he read and prayed. I joked with him a little bit telling him that he was next (meaning the next one to be baptized in his family). Hopefully I'll be able to get at least one or 2 baptisms more before the end of my mission, but if we want that to happen, we are going to have to see a lot more progression with our investigators.

   

The Rayon family is doing good, but we are still moving slowly with them. They said they were going to come to church, but didn't end up coming which was a little disappointing, but they said they would be coming next week so we'll see. Believe it or not, I left my planner at the apartment, so I can't remember a lot of the happenings of the week, but I guess another good experience we had this week was when we did service for a member up in Sparta. Elder Peterson, Elder Ferrell and Elder Romrell (Elder Ferrell's trainee) went to help the Bravo family. We worked on chopping wood and stacking it all up. To say there was a lot of wood would be an understatement.  He had this really cool wood cutting machine that sliced through the logs like they were butter. It was a way good experience though.

    

This is going to be a good transfer though. I'm going to learn a lot, and teaching Elder Peterson is going to keep me focused and busy for these next 5 weeks. President Jeppson went back to Utah yesterday for another surgery he's getting on his back, but he's set to come back in about 2 weeks, so I'm hoping he'll be here when I head home. But that's enough of that talk. 

  

I do love you all very much! The Gospel is True! It's so interesting to see how Heavenly Father provides everything we need to become who he would have us be. I know it can sometimes be difficult to understand why he does some things, but I really like the scripture in Isaiah when the Lord basically says, 'Look, My ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.'  The Lord knows exactly what we need, and I'm a witness of that here in the mission field. Even though times get tough, I know it's all for my own good.

Until Next Week!

My Last Born in the Wilderness

(Letter July 16, 2012)

Ok, so we've got some pretty big news this week. Friday night came around and we received a call from President Jeppson. He asked Elder Ferrell to put the phone on speaker. He did and President Jeppson extended a call to both of us at the same time to be trainers for this upcoming transfer. We both agreed, and what's about to happen is pretty crazy. So there are 4 missionaries in Dover. Dover North and Dover South. Well, the Dover South Elders are getting doubled out, and Elder Ferrell and his Greenie are getting doubled in! Isn't that crazy? So Elder Ferrell and I will still be working in the same ward with our 2 greenies. But get this. The next day we went to the trainers meeting at the mission home, and much to my surprise, my first greenie Elder Jellen was there... He's Training!! Already? Can you believe it? This is his 4th transfer. I'm really proud of him, and he's going to do a great job. So in my family tree this week, I'm getting another son, and a grandson! Yeehaw!

    So that's the biggest news of the week, but I must express and share another tender mercy of the Lord. So at the beginning of July, I fasted that we would be able to find a family to teach and to baptize, because that is one of my ending goals for my mission. This week we went to check out a referral from a member, and we were told that it was a family of 5, which I was pretty excited about. We went over for our original appointment, but they rescheduled for a different day. We went by on Friday, and taught the whole family, all 5 of them. They seemed pretty interested, although the dad and the 17 year old daughter are a little more "duro"(hard). There names are Vicente (Dad), Elvia (Mom), Gustavo (Son, 24 yrs), Rachel (Daughter, 17 yrs), and Auri (Daughter, 9 yrs). The even greater part of it... 4 out of the 5 came to church yesterday for the first time! They seemed to like it, although it was different than what they were used to. We hope that by the next time we see them, they will have read and prayed about the Book of Mormon! 

   Also, we have Makaela and Nicole's baptism this weekend. Nicole passed her "Child of Record" interview yesterday with the Bishop, and showed me her tithing receipt of 62 cents. Isn't that just so cute? Nicole is awesome and she said she wants me to baptize her. So that will be the exciting thing for Sunday. So we just started teaching Makaela's and Nicole's step-dad Samuel (Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico). He's a pretty curious guy, and we teach him in English. He had so many questions, and unfortunately did some research on the web. After we answered his primary questions, he opened a packet of papers that he printed out full of anti-mormon stuff. Before he started going through it with us and said a little prayer in my heart that my testimony wouldn't be shaken by anything that may have come up. We answered the majority of the anti-mormon stuff, and he seemed pretty satisfied with our answers, except for one that he thought was a little funny. But we'll see where he goes. That would be sweet if we could turn this part-member family into an eternal one.

Unfortunately we didn't get to see Soy this past week, but she did end up going to Cumorah with the ward, as well as one of our other potential investigators that we've taught English to a couple of times. You can definitely put your money on Cumorah for helping someone gain a testimony. So we'll see how things go when we see her this week. 

 Hmm... That's about it for big news. I'm really excited for this coming transfer. I can't believe the last one is actually here. I'm sure this next 6 weeks are going to fly by like no other transfer. Actually just 6 weeks ago when Elder Ferrell and I got put together we said, "Man, this transfer is going to cruise by." And look where we are now. It's pretty crazy

   

But I'm happy to be here, and I'm excited to work with a new missionary. I think that will help me immensly with not getting trunky, because I can't afford to with a new missionary, and he'll keep me at my best. It's so interesting to watch how the Lord's will plays out, and I feel so immensly blessed to be finishing my mission here in Dover (aka the Wilderness)  and for the opportunity the Lord has given me to teach a family. If anything wrong goes with the Rayon family that we found, I know that a seed has been planted. And that's what it's all about here in the mission field right? To harvest those that are ready, and then to continue planting seeds to be harvested in the future.  The face of our mission is beginning to change…big-time.  20 new missionaries this month, and 30 more in the next two transfers.  Did you get that?  50 new missionaries between July 17 and October 8.  

 " It’s time for us all to step it up.  We need you all…and we need you “ALL IN”. "
(quote from President Jeppson's weekly letter)  
Definitely some big changes, and it's pretty exciting. 

Thanks again for everything! 

I Love you All so Much!!

The Bombs Bursting in Air!

(Letter July 9, 2012)
Hola Familia!

I'm happy to hear that all is going well, and that everyone is having a good summer. I must say, I was quite shocked to hear about the news of Julia and Steve. I thought the whole Denver thing was a sure deal. It's ok Hermana, No se preocupe (Don't Worry) everything will work out. It just means you'll find an even better dental practice! This week has been pretty speedy, and now it's week 6. Most likely Elder Ferrell's and my last week together before I enter my last transfer of the mission. We'll find out this week if I'll be training again or not. More news on that next week. 

As far as our teaching pool goes... We had to push Makayla and Nicole back one more week to the 22nd of July because the majority of the ward is going to Cumorah on the 14th and 15th. I thing the change of date will be for the best though, because Makayla and Nicole missed church again yesterday :(. I feel like I've been jipping you all of with my letters lately, so this week I'm going to copy my journal entries in and expound on them, to see if that gives you more about my week. 

7/2/12
   Today was an extraordinary P-day. We did all the normal stuff like shopping, Laundry, etc. We also got to play some b-ball with the assistants which is always fun. We found 2 new investigators! Our finding drought is over! First we taught Beatriz (From Ecuador, she contacted us the other day in the street wanting to learn English) English and then a little bit about the Plan of Salvation. We also got to teach Soy Esperanza de Consuelo (Her name literally translated is :" I am Hope of Comfort." Cool name huh?) She is super prepared. She was a member referral from our ward mission leader, and she's totally going to get baptized. This is the same lady we taught English a week before, but now she's been to church twice, and she is planning on going to Cumorah with the ward next week! Yeehaw!

7/3/12
   Happy 4th of July! oh wit, it was only the 3rd... But we did get to enjoy some fireworks tonight as we stood on a deck overlooking all of Dover. It was amazing. The only bad part was that everybody around us was drinking beer.

Oh well... We had an awesome zone conference today, and Sister Jeppson dressed up as a pirate to teach us about having manners. Her slogan was "Mind Ye Manners." (Think of her talking with a pirate accent, an eye patch on, and a stuffed parrot on her shoulder. She's such a funny lady. It was a great zone conference, unfortunately it was be my last :(

7/4/12
Happy Independance Day! For real this time! I have to admit this was one pretty awesome 4th of Jly. The morning started w/ the usual routine, and before we went to zone mtg, we went to Cliff's Ice-Cream. I didn't get anything, I'm kind of boring. But zone mtg was awesome! We did some role-plays, and afterwards we headed to Fudrucker's which was quite delicious. We didn't really get to teach anyone because nobody was home on account of it being a holiday, but we had a really good lesson with our investigator Juan and headed out to see more fireworks in Chatham. The fireworks there were super amazing, especially the finale which was full of amazing explosions. Probably one of the craziest firework finale's I've ever seen. Luckily I got it on video. I'll have to show it to you one day.

7/5/12
Amazing walking day today! It actually wasn't horribly hot, but I think a big part of it is that we taught 6 lessons today, so we didn't have to spend much time outside walking around. Hermana Vasquez is doing awesome! She quit drinking coffee and she's slowly reactivating. I guess the big miracle of the day is when we taught Ines. We were teaching a less active named Yetlennesi and her uncle about he parable of the sower, and as we were about to close, the daughter of the uncle came in to listen. We taught Ines the restoration w/ the Bishop, Edwin, and the girls dad helping out. She was really receptive, and I think she will get baptized in the near future. Hopefully the Elders in NY will follow up with her. We had a really good English class w/ the help of the Ariola family (from Paraguay) as we taught Beatriz. The night ended with some Domino's at Fausta's. 

7/6/12
Today was excelente! Although it was super hot, we didn't get too fried. We took a trip up to Newton again and visited with Papi. We're still a little unsure if he's accountable or not. He remembered some things but other things not so much. etc... Noting else really interesting on this day...

7/7/12
Today was a super exhausting day. This morning we went and played some B-ball which got pretty intense. There were a lot of really good players there and E. Smith and E. Tippetts invited some guys that played b-ball in high school. We were a little disappointed today w/ the number of appointments that fell through. We had a pretty crazy lesson with an old member. Taught an awesome lesson about conversion to some teenagers in the ward, and then had an awesome FHE activity in the church. We talked about the Apostasy and Prophets, playing 2 different games. First we played telephone which turned out to be hilarious. One of the funnies was one that started out with "Joseph Smith went to a grove of trees to pray." changing to  "Prophets like to dance!." Don't tell me how that happens. I guess in Spanish it get s a little more confusing. We played some Simon says changing it to "the prophet says" which also turned out really well. I even got my first watermelon today! Not a bad day, although I might have gotten heat exhaustion from the crazy humidity when we played basketball. 

7/8/12
Today was a rough day.... The first day in my mission where I have had to stay in from working. I may have got some sort of flu bug, or heat exhaustion yesterday, or a combination of things. I didn't end up making it to church, and so I sat home all day, slept, watched church videos and the such. Elder Smith was nice enough to stay home with me all day. I went to bed at 8:40 pm which was really good for my body, even if it took forever for me to get to sleep. 

And here we are today, I'm feeling a lot better today! Sadly Elder Ferrell got sick yesterday too, and was pretty sick this morning. But now we are both feeling better, we just need to stay out of the heat, and take it easy for a few days. 

I'm so grateful to be a missionary. I love the gospel, and I'm so grateful for the kind of person the mission has made out of me. I hope that for these last 7 weeks I can do all that the Lord would have me do. I love you all so much. You're all in my prayers!

Independence Day

(Letter July 2, 2012)

I'm sad I won't be home for the 4th of July, but I guess I'll have to settle with all the fireworks here. This week has been really great though, full of fun and work all at the same time. 

I guess the highlight of the week would be the all mission activity we had on Friday. We woke up and headed to Morristown and that's where the fun began. We all got our "Morristown New Jersey Mission" T-shirts, and played a few games of Ninja Destruction while we waited for the leadership meeting to be over. Chester Elton was our visiting speaker, he has 6 books that were on the New York Times Best Seller list. He came and talked to us about how team work is so important, and how we should root for each other and seek to build each other up. 

After the first part of the activity, we ate some lunch and watched zone skits. Our skit was about what sisters do on P-day, and so we would give Ideas of what sisters do on P-day, and they would say different things that Elders did. Elder Ferrell's and my part was about practicing to propose to our girlfriends. This is basically the script, although it was a lot funnier being able to see it.

E. Ferrell: "Elder Hicks, you've been talking about Chelsea every day, and you don't even know how to propose to her. How do you expect to be able to do it on your second day home? We need to practice." 

E. Hicks: "Correction, you mean my first day home. You know, I'm just not sure how to do it. I mean, do I kneel on one knee, 2 knees, sitting?"

E. Ferrell: "Haven't you ever seen a romance movie?"

E. Hicks: "No... My parents never let me watch anything but disney movies" (Laughter)

E. Ferrell: "You know what, it's all about the committment. So you kneel down on one knee, and you give the committment which is?"

E. Hicks: "I'm not really sure."

E. Ferrell: "Well you are asking her to marry you, so the committment is, will you marry me?"

E. Hicks: "Oh Yeah, that makes sense."

E. Ferrell: "The committment is what we've been studying for 2 years, chapter 11 of preach my gospel says it all."

E. Hicks: "You know what, forget it, I'm just going to text her and ask her." (More Laughter)

You just had to be there for it to be funny.

Anyway, after the skits we headed to a park to play some famous Sister Jeppson games, which included broom hockey, gadianton robber balloon popping, bubble gum blowing obstacle course, and scripture mastery contest from the president. It was a day full of fun, but also full of a lot heat. Especially since I was out in my jeans. I don't think there is going to be any way for me to gain weight this summer. The humidity is so killer. 

We've been involved with a lot of service this week too which included painting someones house, and helping someone move in. We also had to go help take town the dividers in the old mission office and take them to the assistants house. That gave us less time to focus on proselyting, but things in our area are still going pretty well.

   

We had a really good few lessons with Gino and Josue from Mexico. They are super awesome and Josue is especially prepared. He's been reading and praying and says he feels good. We tried setting them with a date, but they had a few doubts that we didn't have enough time to really cover, so unfortunately we weren't able to set them, but maybe the next lesson we have with them.

   

Sadly we got dropped by the seventh day adventist Victor. From the looks of it, he's got a lot of family opposition and for that he'd rather not get mixed up in learning the Gospel. You can tell that personally he wants to learn, but the timing just isn't right. We were pretty sad to hear it, and hopefully one day some missionaries can harvest the planted seed.

We are also teaching a guy right now named Papi. He's really old, and is borderline accountable, but he accepted a baptismal date, and understands he needs to be clean of his sins. It could be super difficult to teach him though because he can't remember much. We were hammering the steps to prayer into his head, because he kept thinking it was "in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost." We were trying to get him to remember, Start with Heavenly Father, and end in the name of Jesus Christ. We'll see how he progresses. He has a date for August 5th, but we'll see if we can even make it by then.

Sunday came to a nice close as we went to see the Linderman family. They gave us a humongous piece of steak, some yummy potatoes and fruit. Then we finished it all off as we entered into the basement to open up the freezer full of quarts of ice-cream. Brother Linderman loves his icecream, and he must have had like 50 quarts to choose from. It was pretty delicious.

Mikayla and Nicole are still set to get baptized on the 15th of July, and we finally got them to church. Elder Ferrell and I just need to focus on finding. I guess my biggest goal at this point would be to find a family to baptize before I get home. I'm running out of time, but hopefully through faith, diligence, and obedience, we can make miracles happen. 

Thanks so much for everything. I love you all so much and I hope you have a happy fourth of July! 

Love,

Elder Hicks

A trip to New York

 I'm happy to hear that all is going well. I'm especially happy that you are doing OK too mom. As you know, I'm a bit of a worrier, so I called sister Suzuki (the mission nurse) and asked her if she could check on you so that I wouldn't have to wait until monday for the results. If it makes you feel any better, I put your name on the prayer role at the temple in Manhattan when we went there on Wednesday. 

This week has been full of some up's and some down's but I guess that's how every week is-- no?

   

So let's take a look...

Monday: Monday was a great half-pday. We had to take a half p-day because we were going to be going to the temple later in the week. We finished our preparations, I got a hair cut from one of the sister missionaries who's a cosmotologist, and then Elder Smith and I started our exchange. Elder Smith is one of the zone leaders that we live with, and it was really great to work with him for the day. We had quite an experience while we were together. So we went to visit this really nice lady named Nori, who I taught once right before I left Dover a year and a half ago. It looks like the missionaries never went back after that, so to her, it probably seems like I never even left, but anyway.... We started talking to Nori and invited her daughter to come in and join us, and that's when it got a little awkward. We were talking about God, and who he is to us, and then we we asked Nori's daughter Kiera, this was her reply, "Look mom, hmmm, well I was waiting to tell you this, but... I don't really believe in this stuff... I'm an atheist." We were pretty shocked that such a confession would come right then, but the mom didn't seem too shocked as her brother had told her that before. We continued on with the lesson, and Elder Smith entered super spirit mode. He talked right to Kiera and told her how he knew there was a God, and he knew that she knew there was a God. I think the spirit must of pierced her, because she got up and left the room crying. We weren't sure if she was going to come back, and she didn't, but we continued talking to Nori and talked about how much this message would bless their family, and help Kiera come to know that there truly is a God.

Tuesday: On Tuesday I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Jernigan from the other Dover area. We went and saw a returning less-active Sister Vasquez. We decided to talk about the Word of Wisdom with her due to the smell of smoke in her house. From what I've seen throughout my mission, it seems that members, especially less-active one's don't understand the word of wisdom, or don't even really know about it. Hna Vasquez said that she drink a lot of coffee, and so we set out a plan for her to help her quit. Later in the week when we returned to follow up with everything, we took half her coffee away and got rid of it. We shall see if she can overcome.

Wednesday: Wednesday was a pretty crazy, hot day. On wednesday we headed out early toward Harrison New Jersey to take the "Path" into NYC. It was pretty fun going on the path and then walking from 33rd up to the temple.

The only bad part.... It was like a bajillion degrees outside and we were all wearing long sleeve shirts, and dark suits. I was sweating like crazy out there. There are so many cool sights in New York, but a lot of things you have to watch out for. And then the big relief comes as you enter into the peaceful beautiful temple. 

We had no Hecklers this time around, so it was a successful trip. We finished the trip off with some delicious 5- Guys back in Harrison and headed back to work.

Thursday: I guess I just have one funny story for Thursday. So on thursday Elder Ferrell and I headed to North Arlington so that I could see a Doctor about my IBS. They drew blood to test if I was allergic to anything, and after some talking, the doctor gave me a perscription with the warning that my insurance might not cover it. I'll say... So we went to the Pharmacy, and the doctor entered in the insurance into the computer. This is what she said... "John, this is a very expensive drug... Right now it's saying that your co-pay will be $956.... and the drug normally costs about $1,150." I was awestruck. How could a medicine cost that much? So obviously I didn't pay for it and the Pharmacist and my doctor were going to negotiate maybe using a different drug. I ended up called sister suzuki to see what I was supposed to do, and she said that she just needed to call mission medical and get the drug cleared. She did, and the co-pay went down to $10. What a relief right? wrong. So I called the pharmacist again telling them to go ahead and order the drug, and this was the reply, "So just so you know, this drug is normally used for women. There has never been a cllinic done on men, but maybe your doctor tried it with some of his patients and it worked." Hmmmm.... So then I started having second thoughts about this whole medicine thing, I mean, I didn't want anything weird to happen because I was taking a medication for woman, and sister suzuki agreed explaining that I probably wouldn't want to start getting a really high voice and such. So she said she would call my doctor and find out a little more about this drug.... So that was the crazy story of Thursday. I'm not sure if I want to make the church pay for a drug that expensive, and I don't want the side-effects to be worse than the symptoms I already have. So we'll see where things go from here.

The weekend came to a nice close. First with a trip to Newton. When I was here a year and a half ago, we found this awesome investigator named Ider from Ecuador. He was taught after a left but then got dropped. On saturday we returned, and although Ider wasn't there, we started teaching his kids Ider Jr. and Estrella. Estrella had tons of really good questions, and I think would get baptized pretty quickly, the catch is.... Next thursday she's going to Ecuador for the summer... Ug... Que Suerte.... But maybe we can plant the seed enough for her to get baptized when she gets home. Later that day we had an awesome Father's day party with tons of delicious food and mariachi singing hispanic songs.

Sunday came to a miraculous close, with a miraculous find. So as we entered the late afternoon, we still hadn't taught any lessons. We tried some less-actives, but to no avail. Elder Ferrell thought we shoud go try some other less-active that he knew across the way. We began walking over there, and saw a guy sitting a park bench (Perfect scenario right?) and we started talking to him. He said that he was a 7th day adventist but hadn't been real active. We testified and explained the restoration, and he seemed to be really receptive. After we explained the book of mormon, he began asking us if we were selling the book or something because he was curious to read it. You should have seen the look on his face when we gave him the book of mormon free of charge. He couldn't believe it, and he was so excited to read it. As we walked away from the lesson, we saw him open up the book and begin to read. He's super prepared, and I think he's dealing with cancer right now which makes this message all the more important. It was a great week!

Time still continues to fly by as the transfer is half over now. This week is going to be awesome with an all mission activity on friday. We get to go listen to an inspirational speaker named Chester Elton, and afterwards we are having like a field day with games and the such. I'm pretty excited.

I hope you all have a great week! The gospel is true! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Hicks

(Elder Jiks) - {I ordered a name-tag that says JIKS to see if that will help hispanics know how to say my name}

Hmmmm.....

Letter: June 18

 

The mission and time are mind boggling. Every new day on the mission seems to compress the earlier months into tiny files in my memory bank. It's starting to get hard to remember my time with Elder Jellen. I feel that those 3 months together was super short. I don't know... It's a weird phenomenon.

   

This week has been pretty great here in Dover. I really do love this area a lot, and it has so much potential. Elder Ferrell and I are doing a lot better together, and our teaching in Unity is getting so much better. As far as our investigators go, there isn't too much going on as of now. We had to change Mikaela's baptismal date to the 1st of July so that we have more time to teach her and prepare her for her baptism. This week we got to teach her about the word of wisdom, and her and her little sister Nicole were pretty sad about the whole ice-tea thing, but they agreed to it. It was pretty funny during the lesson when we were talking about it, the little brother tried to be funny and went and grabbed a gree-tea juice box and started drinking it in front of his sisters.

   

Two of our roommates Elder Smith and Elder Tippetts have been trying to get over poison ivy this past week. They had it so bad. Luckily neither I nor Elder Ferrel have been afflicted.

    

We've been working really hard this week as we set a goal to teach 30 lessons this week. We got really close with 27, so next week hopefully we can hit it. We just need to start finding some new people that actually want to hear the gospel instead of holding onto a bunch of people that don't want to progress. I get so tired of the excuse from our investigators that say, "Yo les llamo" which says "I'll call you." I don't think I can count how many times that has been said to me on my mission, and I don't think anyone has ever even called us. So it's time to do some family hunting to find a family that is ready for the gospel.

   

I think one of the biggest things I'm trying to develop now as a missionary is really teaching from the heart. After 22 months of doing the same things day after day, it can be pretty easy to go in robotic mode. I'm trying to be more dynamic in my teaching, using examples, telling stories and the such to make our teaching more powerful.

    

We went and visited this Uruguayan member this week, and she fed me my first uruguayan dish. I'm not sure what it's called, but maybe caleb would recognize it by the description. It was basically ground-beef wrapped in crepes, with tomoto sauce on top. It was like uruguayan lasagna. After we ate she pulled up this 15 minute uruguay promotional video about how cool the country was. The best part was when the guy said "So what's so special about uruguay? Well Nothing really." and then he just goes onto explain how it's a nice tranquilo place to live. I'd like to visit there one day.

 

This week should be pretty great. We have our semi-annual temple trip on Wednesday which I'm excited about. It will almost be exactly 2 years since I went to the temple for the first time, crazy right? 

Hector called me the other day on the phone and asked me when I was going home because he wanted me to come to the temple with him after he gets his mission call. He said he'll try to put his papers in as soon as he can so he can get his call and go to the temple. That would be a pretty incredible experience if I could go do that with him. We'll see :) 

 

My mission is moving quickly, and after this week, the transfer will be 1/2 over. I can't believe it. It really is all going by as if it were a dream. Last night I had some memories of things back home, and they seemed so familiar to me, as if it had only been a few weeks ago, and I was shocked to think it's been almost 2 years. I don't understand how it works. I guess that's what happens when you are busy all the time.

 

Thanks so much for everything. Thanks for the package! The Gospel is True!  I love you all muchisimo!

 

I'mmmmm Baaack!

Alright so here's the big news, and I must say it was quite a surprise for me as well. Elder Hicks will be finishing his mission in....... Dover New Jersey! That's right, I came back to Dover, the exact same area I served in a year and a half ago! I was so amazingly excited that they sent me back. I remember I was really sad when I had to leave the first time, and I didn't understand why I only stayed for one transfer, but now I'm back in the beautiful town of Dover. 

It's quite a contrast from Trenton where there's lots of trash, and it's a little more scary. Dover is so "tranquilo" and I feel so safe there. One of the best parts of coming back to this area, was when Fausta (My recent convert that went to the temple a few weeks ago) was asking my companion who the new missionary was, and he just said, You'll see. On thursday I knocked on the door, and when she opened it, she had such a surprised look on her face. It was pretty amazing!

    Here's an even crazier part. So remember how Elder Ferrell and I were both in each others area's both working to get each others recent converts to the temple, and they ended up going to the temple on the same day. Well... Now Elder Ferrell and I are companions! Can you believe it? We were both pretty shocked, because we thought we would be with younger missionaries as we both just got done training. But I guess the Lord wanted us to be together for at least one transfer to see how things went. So things should be  pretty amazing this transfer, and I'm way excited to work with him. My new address is 309 Washington Ave, N3, Dover NJ 07801. Things should be just fine to send right to my apartment.

So I had a crazy realization one of my first days back in Dover. I've always wanted to baptize someone from Uruguay on my mission, mostly because that's where Caleb served. I knew that the only way that would be possible is if I went back to Dover. And look what happened? Not to mention the fact that our next investigator with a date Mikaela (10 yrs old) for the 24th of June is from, you guessed it... Uruguay!  I'm just so happy to be back, and although a lot of the members don't remember me all to well, they say that I look familiar. I had the opportunity to give a talk this week in church (What a nice welcome back huh?) and I chose to speak about developing good family habits- things like FHE, Scripture reading as a family, and family dinner. It went pretty well. The funniest part of the whole things was the fact that Elder Ferrell and I were both speaking, but on the program it said first speaker "Elder Ferrell" and the next speaker said "Adler Hick". You think they would've had the idea that the missionaries were speaking, and my first name would be Elder... Maybe not :) It was pretty funny though.

   

 1. Luis Paz (A less active we've been working with)

  Benjamin Paz

It's been pretty crazy trying to get to know the area and all the investigators, but things are looking pretty good in the area. In the past 2 weeks Elder Ferrell and his Companion had 5 baptisms, so now we are just on the look out for some new investigators. Mikaela and her little sister Nicole (child of record) are both super excited for their baptism in 2 weeks, and we've found some other great peope this week through members. We found a guy named Evert and his friend Maribell through a lesson at Fausta's house. We also started teaching the daughter of a member named Viviana who's never been open or interested in the church before but decided to hear us out.

   

I feel like I have so much to explain, but hopefully what I've written will suffice. I was pretty sad saying goodbye to all the amazing people in Trenton, but I'm happy to be here, and develop great relationships with the people here, that I never had the chance to a year and a half ago. This is actually my first time in a long time where I have 0 leadership responsibilities. I'm an RPM again (Regular Proselyting Missionary), but I'm not sure how long that will last, because supposedly there are lot's of new trainee's coming in next transfer. I guess we'll have to wait and see. But I guess for now, I can enjoy just focusing on the work, and not worrying about other things.

  

The Church is True! I love being a missionary a lot, and I know that the Lord has a plan for each one of us. Hope you all have fun at the family reunion this week, sounds like a blast! Love you all mucho!

The Umana Family

The Trenton Elders

 Bowling. I went bowling for the first time today of my whole mission. 

The first game started out rough and I only bowled an 86, but come game 2, I bowled a 131! Yeehaw!