This week we have seen a lot of success. Yesterday Fiorella and Samantha both got baptized. Fiorella has been an investigator for quite some time off and on, and yesterday she was baptized and seemed to be really happy. Hopefully her siblings Emily and Brian will get baptized soon as well.
This week we set two new baptismal dates for the 24th of April with our Investigators Christian and Trixi. They are two very prepared souls. One is from Columbia and another is from El Salvador. They have such a great desire to learn, and I think they really love the message. Sadly they haven't gone to church at all because Christian works, and Trixi is very pregnant, like going to have the baby just any day now. But they are doing good and I think will continue progressing.
I had another great opportunity to return to my Birth Area last Tuesday. I went on an exchange and was working with Elder Flake in the Bayonne/Jersey City area. We were able to go see Hermana Aranda (The older lady from Bolivia) which was a great experience. She didn't really remember me very well, but it was great going back and seeing her. We also got to go see Patricia and Leonal, the two investigators that me and Elder Yates re-found at the end of my first transfer that had a lot of great potential. Leonal was baptized, and just recently passed the sacrament for the first time, and the other elders have been trying to work with Patricia as well. Elder Flake and I went there and we set Patricia with a new baptismal date, and she wrote down a few things that she would have to give up in order to be baptized, but she seemed pretty sincere, and I was so happy to be able to see them again. As I was leaving their house it was kinda sad knowing I might not ever go back, and I really felt a great love for that family.
This week we taught Yolanda and Hector again and they seem to be doing great. Besides the fact that they have a few trials hitting them, I think Hector has progressed a lot. He seems so interested in the Gospel and we are still hoping that they can be baptized on the 10th of April. Elder Hannah was saying today that maybe Hector can just get baptized on the 10th, and then a few weeks later he would be able to baptize his mom and grandma. That would be cool for sure, but we need to get permission from Yolanda's Husband for her to be baptized.
Also, Brian Martinez left today for his mission which is kinda sad. He's really helped me and Elder Hannah out a ton, and has basically been our 3rd companion for this entire transfer. But he's gonna do awesome on his mission.
Becca asked for funny stories, but I don't have any really funny long stories but just funny little experiences or just things where I could say "That would only happen to me". Just like the subject of this e-mail. We were walking by a couple of kids and once we passed them they were like "'Why is everyone dressed like that so tall?" Or another experience where I was walking into an apartment and my foot accidently knicked some thing and it fell and made a loud clanging sound. Or at a dinner appointment I picked up the salad that was in a strainer bowl and as I was serving some salad to myself, it was dripping from the bottom onto the floor and chair. Or a cat walking by my leg during a lesson and getting it's hair all over, or me sitting down waiting for Elder Hannah coming to plan and seeing something move in the corner of my eye only to find a mouse running across the floor and under the fridge (kinda like last year huh?) We have traps set up though and hopefully we'll catch him, but I guess you gotta just love it all.
I really do love it here in Union City though. Elder Hannah and I are getting along better than ever. We've been trying to work with our Recent Converts, but Diana still didn't come to church this week, and neither did the Ramirez family, but I guess everyone has their agency. It just gets dicouraging at times when you feel like people are just not doing what they know is right. As is said on the PMG DVD's and everything I felt this way yesterday. I was sitting in sacrament just kinda frustrated that certain people didn't come to church, and then I thought about how going on a mission really does help you try to become more like Heavenly Father. You love the people and you try to teach them what's right and really hope that they'll follow through, and sometimes they just don't and they make the wrong choice. It makes you feel sad and dissappointed because you love the people so much, and then you just think about Heavenly Father and how he feels when His Children are taught correct principles, and still fall to the natural man and make wrong choices. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be serving a mission, and all the great experiences I'm having. My Spanish is getting better little by little, but I'm still far from being fluent.
Thanks again for everything!
The Gospel is True!
I love you all! (Les Amo Mucho!!)
Love, Elder Hicks
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