There is still snow here but it does feel a little warmer which is pretty awesome.
This week has really been probably one of the best weeks of my mission. The Lord has blessed us so much and we have seen some pretty great success.
One great story is with our new investigator Maria. Last Saturday Elder Sopena had to meet with the zone leaders and so he assigned me to work on calling some former investigators. Most of them didn't answer, but there was one named Maria who answered and said we could come by on Monday. We looked at her Teaching Record and it said that she was a pretty awesome lady. We went there Monday night and basically got to know her and taught her about some of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She has a lot of faith and really wants to follow Jesus Christ. We soft commited her to baptism (Which means that we asked her if she'll be baptized when she comes to know the gospels true) and she accepted. The next day Elder Pettus and I were on an exchange and we went to go teach her again. The lesson was pretty rough because Maria's "Esposo" but not really married to him was asking us a bunch of different questions off topic of the restoration. We still gave her a Book of Mormon though, and invited her to read and pray. The next day was pretty great. We went to her house and asked her how her reading and praying went. Then she told us," Tenia un sueno" or something like that. Meaning she had a dream. I'm not all too sure what the dream was about, Elder Sopena told me it was something about how she could cast the devil out through the word of god, the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I'm not sure exactly, but she took this for her answer and said she knows the Book of Mormon is true. After she said that, Elder Sopena told me in English to set her with a baptismal date. So I asked her if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. She nodding yes. I then told her that we would be having a baptismal service on the 27th of February and asked if she would prepare herself to be baptized on that day. Again she nodded a yes. We were so happy to hear that, and we're really excited for her.
The next day I think it was, we did a split. Elder Sopena went with a member to an appointment, and I went to Maria's again with another member. We had the opportunity to teach... The Law of Chastity. We basically just read from the Pamphlet and I think she felt pretty uncomfortable, but she did agree to live it. Now comes the sad part of the story. She lives with a guy named Gabriel who's like her "esposo" but they aren't really married, and Maria is still married to some other guy, but they just never really got a divorce. So it makes things a little tougher to the situation. She said that she is going to get a divorce with the other guy, but we're not quite sure whats going to happen with Gabriel because they either need to casarse (marry) or separarse (separate). We're just not entirelly sure that Maria wants to marry him so it might be to separate. I feel kind of bad because he is kinda like the dad in the house where 2 other kids live. But we gotta keep the commandments. It will all work out eventually. It's been kinda weird talking to them about the situation and about marriage, but luckily Elder Sopena does most of it. They came to Stake Conference yesterday though, and Maria read and prayed about Joseph Smith and knows that he was a true prophet.
Our other main investigator Ruth is progressing pretty well too. We've taught her a lot but she still isn't really taking what she's felt as an answer. She's felt the Spirit we're pretty sure, but she's looking for something specific. Last night we taught her more about the Book of Mormon, and Elder Sopena and I discovered that she's not really reading the Book of Mormon every day like she should and that's probably why she's not receiving a clear answer. So we're going to try and focus more on the Book of Mormon and hopefully get her to read it each day.
Diana is also one of our progressing investigators. We went and taught her the restoration and about the Book of Mormon. Then we had a member who was with us extend the baptismal question. She said she would need to know more, but agreed to be baptized on February 20th. Elder Sopena told her she would need permission though to be baptized (yeah she's pretty young, she just had her quincenera on Saturday) but after the lesson she went to her mom and asked her for permission and her mom said yes, so I think that's a good sign. The only problem is, is that we haven't gotten to teach her a lot yet and we don't think she's been reading the Book of Mormon, so it's possible that we'll have to push her date back to the 27th, but I think she's a pretty solid investigator.
So our transfer goal of baptisms is 3, and so far we have 2 set and we are really hoping to set Ruth with a baptismal date soon. We've got a lot of work to do though for sure.
Yesterday was a pretty cool day. We went to West New York for Elder Sopena to do a baptismal Interview. After the Interview we took some pretty cool pictures of the view, and then we walked back to Union City.
The walk was pretty far, but it was pretty cool walking with the view of the skyline to the side of us.
Elder Sopena is down to 3 weeks left in his mission and he has a great desire to work hard, so he's really keeping us going.
This week we had a visit from Elder Johnson from the 70. He talked to us about learning to recognize the Spirit. It was definitely something that I needed. One thing that Sister Bahr was mentioning in her talk was that All the people we know are material for us to practice our Christianity. It's so true! We can truly learn and develop Christlike attributes with everyone we know, especially companions. Sometimes problems erupt in a companionship, but you can learn how to get over those and learn how to be more Christlike in those situations.
Another cool thing I learned this week was in a talk from Elder Bednar called Learning by Faith. He talked about how our learning by faith grows through 3 interconnected things. 1. Assurance 2. Action 3. Evidence, and then back to greater assurance. That's really how our faith grows. We first have the assurance that something is true, and then we act upon that assurance according to the commandments and cousel that we receive. Then we see evidence in the form of blessings or happiness that that principle is true, which gives us a greater assurance that the things we are learning are true, which leads us again to act according to those principles and see more evidence.
The Gospel is true, and I'm loving working out here. It's true that I get homesick at times missing my family and everything going on there, but I know this is where I'm supposed to be, and this is truly where I can learn to apply principles and Christlike attributes that will help me be the person I am supposed to become.
Thanks again for all your support. I love you all so much!!!
Love, Elder Hicks
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