Earthquake, Hurricane, and upcoming Baptism!

Yes, I did survive so no worries. Thanks for all your prayers. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be but it did cause some pretty big flooding here in Passaic.

This has been a pretty good week overall.

We finally got to go see the Saenz family again, and they are so cool. It's pretty amazing having a whole family sitting around and listening although it does get a little intimidating. Then it gets kinda difficult cause you have to explain it in Spanish and then English so the kids can understand. But we had some great lessons with them this week. We were able to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and talk a little bit more about the Restoration. I asked them what they would have to do if they found out this church is true, The mom responded that they would need to be baptized. The lesson before, we invited them to be baptized and the Mom sounded like she really wanted it for her kids, so we'll see how they keep progressing.

On Tuesday we were able to go up to new city for a district meeting, and although we didn't feel it, there was an earthquake. We were driving so we didn't get the experience, but we've talked to many who did feel it. I was able to get my flu shot as well on tuesday so no worries there. About a week ago, I got a call from someone in Utah who wanted us to go and visit her nephew who is going through a hard time. So we headed out to see Ramon from Honduras. He's is such a good guy. He really is going through a hard time, with problems in their marriage and everything. He has to leave his son and wife to move out, and he's headed to Georgia. He didn't know too much about religion, and as we explained the Atonement and a little more about Jesus Christ, you could see some light coming into his eye's. He sounded like he was prepared to be baptized, but he's going to Georgia, so it'll have to be the missionaries there. We got to visit with Hanz and talk about the Word of Wisdom some more, and he's going to try and live it. We were able to go see Ana, who has a date for the 18th, and teach her about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon daily.

Wednesday consisted of a move out, of one of the houses in Paterson, and then a trip to the dermatologist. I went into the office and the doctor had me take my shirt off. He took a stick, and scratched across my back with it, (Which actually kinda hurt), and was able to diagnose me just by the way my skin reacted to the scratches. Looks like we were right... I do have hives. So I guess here's a little explanation of what it is. He says that it's a disease that they don't really know what causes it, it just kinda comes out of the blue, and basically anything can trigger them. He has seen patients have them from anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. So the treatment... Well I have to go and get a blood test just to make sure that it's not from some other disease that I possibly have, but now I'm taking a Claritin each day, with Zantac. Now you may ask... Why Zantac, I mean it is a medication for Ulcers, but apparently Claritin + Zantac = something very synergistic in order to defeat hives. So I'll be on those medications for about a month, until I go and see the dermatologist again. I think the Zantac will be good for me, not only for the hives, but in case I do have some sort of ulcers or stomach problems, hopefully the Zantac can heal it.

On Wednesday night, we were able to go and see Sylvia (Baptismal goal for Sept 25th) and we began to teach her the plan. When we started talking about our life on earth, we began to talk about commandments. We decided to teach her the Word of Wisdom, and surprisingly, she was willing to live it, really no questions asked. I guess it's because her friend Hno Contreras had already explained some of it to her.

On Friday we were able to go to zone leader council again which was pretty awesome. They talked a lot about Leadership Skills, and really developing love for our missionaries. We also did a role-play about reproving missionaries, which was actually pretty tough. I'm still not very good at it, which I guess is good that I haven't had to reprove much before. The meeting ran a little late, and that sorta pushed our day back more. We were late to an appointment with an Inactive named Carmen Santiago from Panama. She kept talking and talking, but it turned out perfectly, because her daughter Cheryl (Member- Inactive) came in with her Boyfriend Camillo. He's a pretty prepared soul. We asked him what he knew about the Book of Mormon, and he told us about how it contains important stuff that is missing from the Bible. Something along those lines. We taught him, and he want's to come to church. Hopefully this will help Carmen and Cheryl be active again in the church.

On Saturday, we had a good district leader council with the district leaders about the zone goal for the month of September, and then we were able to go see some good member families, and see Alberto and Loordis again. We had a really good lesson with them, but had to get running as we were told we needed to be home by 7 o'clock because of the Hurricane.


Well, I think this was the first time Church was ever cancelled in my life, but I think it was cancelled throughout the whole state. So President Jeppson gave us permission to do the sacrament for ourselves, and Elder Jarrett and I did our own little sacrament meeting. We were in the house for most of the day because we weren't allowed to leave, but that gave us some good time to plan our Zone Meeting tomorrow. When we were finally allowed to leave, we went and did the sacrament with some of the other Elders, and some of the sister missionaries that wanted to take it.


And the night ended off with another Miracle. We were able to go see Martin (Date for the 4th of sept) and teach him a little more from the interview questions. Elder Lee finally arrived to do the interview... and Martin passed!!! I got a little worried because he wasn't quite sure about a living day prophet, but he has a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and is going to get baptized next week. We are super happy and excited for him!!


A picture with the camel Elder Jarrett gave me on my Hump Day (picture was taken today).

But yeah, that was basically my week in a nut shell. Thanks again for all your support!
The Gospel is True, and the Lord does have a plan for everyone.

Love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Hicks

One Year Later . . .

Representing BYU across the Nation

Wow, the week is here isn't it. This week I hit the year mark. In some ways it went by fast, but in other ways it went by a little slower. I'm sure the next year will just fly by. It's interesting to think back to different memories on the mission, and realize how long ago that was, and realize how long I've been a missionary.

But I guess I'll just start you off with some fun facts of New Jersey. Did you know that the New York Jets, and the New York Giants actually play in New Jersey? We actually drove by the stadium today. Also did you know that New Jersey is the Embroidery Capital of the Nation (Or world I can't remember). Pretty interesting right?

Things have been going pretty great here in New Jersey. It has definitely rained a lot, and this week, I've experienced some of the biggest lightening/thunder storms of my life. It finally starts to cool down a little which is nice, and fall is soon on its way.

Last Monday we got to go back to the Fear Buster. It definitely wasn't as dramatic and scary as I remember it. Probably for the fact that when I came, it was dark outside. So it was a little easier to do it in the light of the sun. Sadly the missionaries arrived pretty late, so it only lasted like 10 minutes. It was cool to have 4 our of the five from our MTC district be there again at the fearbuster, but not as trainees. My "street son" as I guess you would call it, was Elder Hoyt, from Utah. He actually went to WoodsCross, and said that he knows Savannah (Becca's cousin). It was cool to go around with him, and we met a pretty cool lady who was blind. She has a lot of faith in the Lord, and was yelling out loud her testimony. One thing I really liked that she said was "God can do anything but fail." It was an interesting outlook.

Tuesday was a pretty great day at transfer conference. Our zone has expanded a lot, with some area's being combined, and others added from different zones. We went from having 2 sister missionaries to 7, which is pretty great, cause sister missionaries do pretty awesome work. Our zone really got stacked with some great missionaries. Two of our district leaders were just barely zone leaders, and we just have a lot of great missionaries.

Pictures:
1. Goodbye Elder Christopher. One of the best missionaries I've known


2. Elder Potter


3. Elder Shaffer from Orem


4. Elder Simmons


Wednesday was a super busy day. We had to catch up with lessons because of the business of Monday and Tuesday. We had two delicious meal appointments, and we were able to see our investigator Sylvia, and set her with a baptismal goal for September.

On Thursday we went and saw out investigator Damilka. She's like a 21 year old dominican girl, but is actually pretty smart. We taught her the end of the plan of salvation, and managed to reason with in herself, the possibility of becoming equal to God, and therefore becoming God's and creating our own world. But sadly she doesn't really keep committments, and doesn't do the things she needs to really change. We'll probably have to drop her soon. We were able to go and see Hanz again, and he said that he is going to start paying tithing! Woohoo!! But I guess there are still more doubts. Now it is with the Word of Wisdom. He had questions about coffee and drinking beer. We didn't get to discuss it that much, but it shouldn't be too big of a problem.

On Friday, we got to go see our investigator Ana, we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and she committed to be baptized on the 18th of September.

Saturday was not my lucky day. It was full of "That would only happen to me experiences." The first one was when we went to eat at a barbecue that a member was having. I was trying to put some ranch on my salad, and was trying to get it out from one of those little packets. I didn't tear the top very much, and so I was just trying to force it out. My instincts told me that I was going to spill all over my pants, but I guess I didn't listen to them, and so I squoze (is that a word?) the ranch, and guess what, got it all over my pants. Then, we went to go see if we could help the other elders with some service they were doing. We went, and one of the guys said we could go drink some lemonade. As we walked to the stairs, the other elders held out some glasses to us (I don't know why they gave them to us) but as they handed them to us, they kept repeating "Iced Tea, Iced Tea" but the missionary that handed mine to me is a joker, and so I didn't pay too much heed to it. I put some into my mouth, and then he told me even more so that it was Iced tea. Fortunately I didn't swallow, and I just spit it back out in the cup. It's kinda messed up that they handed us the glasses in the first place. I guess that was the majority of "That would only happen to me experiences" but let's be real, who else would those things happen to?

Sunday turned out to be great with Martin, Manuel, and Ana all coming to church. We taught a preach my gospel class to the branch missionaries, and were able to go and review some of the baptismal interview questions in order to help Martin and Manuel prepare. We got caught up though, because they were to familiar with the fact of a living day prophet. Manuel was pretty amazed. He was like "There's a prophet today, like living, like... alive" something like that, but they are going to pray about it.

Today was pretty great, we got to go play some Football and Weehawken, and I've included some pics.

I really liked something that was said this week at Transfer Conference. Elder Potter, who had been the assistant for the last while, was talking about how President Bahr had counseled him and Elder Christopher to not let their missions pass by, as if it were a dream. He explained more about that. Dreams are a curious thing. We can wake up, and can ignore what happened in the dream, and continue to live our lives as it was. Hispanic people especially, have dreams (when it comes to the gospel) that ultimately can change the course of their whole lives (Like finding out that the church is true). The same thing can apply to the mission. It can go by pretty quick, and can feel as if it were a dream. So when we wake up (return home), what will we do with it. We can ignore it, and go back to the way we were before, or we can use that dream to shape and change the course of our lives. I hope to choose the latter when all is said and done. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be serving a mission and I'm so grateful for the Gospel. The Gospel is true!!! Love you all so much!
Love,
Elder Hicks

Thanks again for everything. Much Love.

It's Raining and It's Pouring

My oh my, how it rains in New Jersey. It's pretty nice though, especially since it cools the weather down a good amount.

It's true that I'm 20 years old now, which is pretty weird. It was a pretty good birthday, although not much different than any other day. After getting out of the shower and dressed, Elder Jarrett sang happy birthday with some blueberry pancakes that he made for me, which was super nice of him. Then we went to District Meetings, and the whole zone sang happy birthday to me. That was about the extent of my birthday celebrating though. At the end of the night we got to go eat some delicious mangu at the Matos Family's. (Mangu is a dish from the DR, consisting of mashed up plantanes, fried cheese, and fried salami, It's pretty good.)

Well here's the news about transfers... I'm staying in Passaic and so is Elder Jarrett. We were actually the only companionship in the zone of 7 companionships that didn't get changed up. Things will sure be different as far as the zone goes. 3 companionships in the zone got doubled out (meaning that both missionaries are going to different areas) and the other 3 companionship have somebody being transferred. So it should be pretty interesting to see what happens with the zone. We still get to go to transfer conference tomorrow though which will be pretty fun, and Elder Jarrett and I were invited to go and participate in the fear buster tonight with all the new greenies. That should be pretty cool, and hopefully I can be a good "street pops".

We did find some great new investigators this week, and I'll just give you an update on them, and our other investigators.

Victor: Well Victor got confirmed yesterday, and he is doing well. Not much else to report there.

Hans: Hans is actually doing really well. We had some great lessons with him this week. He says he knows the Book of Mormon is true and that the church is true (I think) but there was still something keeping him from being baptized. We finally got his doubt out, and it was about Tithing. Hans doesn't make too much money, and he was concerned about having to pay tithing. We explained what it was, and the blessings that he would receive. We sent him home to pray about it, to see if it was true, and although we haven't gotten to follow up about it, I think he was a little more accepting of it, and he did end up coming to church yesterday, which is really good.

While I was teaching Hans English with a member, Elder Jarrett teamed up with some other members to teach a lady named Sylvia, who is a friend of the ward mission leader. She came to the baptism last week, and Elder Jarrett said the lesson went really well with her. She is super prepared, and will be baptized hopefully. She just has to find out how to get work off on Sundays.

We had a finding miracle this week from another member referral. We have been having trouble finding this whole transfer, but we went and checked this member referral Noe. He allowed us to come in, and then they started gathering the family. We had all 6 of the family members in there listening to the message. Two are too young to be baptized, but the Mom said that we were always welcome in her house, and she fed us before we left. The problem with them is going to be working on Sundays, but things will work out. The kids that are investigators are pretty cool too. Noe Junion is like 11, and Roy is 10 or something like that.

Later this week, we went and checked on a referral from the other Elders. There we met Alberto and Loordis. They are pretty cool, although they don't have too much previous religious experience. They seemed pretty interested though, and invited us to eat with them next time we come over.

We were contacting this lady on the street, and then the cops pulled up, and I thought they were wanting to talk to the lady, but they kept yelling, "What are you doing?!" Then they told me to come over to the car. They asked me again what we were doing, and I just told them we were sharing a message about Jesus Christ. They understood, but just told us to be careful in that area because people weren't very receptive or something like that.

Things are still going really good here in Passaic, and I think this coming month we should have some good success.

Thanks again for all your support and all that you do for me. Thanks again for all the Birthday Gifts. School is coming up soon. Enjoy! The Gospel is True!

Love you all!!

Love,
Elder Hicks

Another year older, and wiser too!

Hola Familia, Como Estais?

Haha, thanks so much for the birthday wishes. Thanks so much for the birthday packages and things. I really appreciated them. I opened them today because we really should only open mail on P-days, so I had a pre-birthday celebration I guess you could say, although it wasn't quite as exciting. Maybe I can share of the goods tomorrow with the zone during district meeting.



But I do have some great news... Victor got baptized yesterday!!! It was pretty great. After reviewing the interview questions with him multiple times, he prayed about Joseph Smith, felt good about it, and passed the interview. More details to follow.

Last Tuesday Elder Jarrett and I did our first zone meeting. We introduced the zone goal to the zone, did some training on the importance of member work, and then had a KFC lunch to finish it off. From there we went on an exchange with a companionship that has been struggling. I had the opportunity to go with Elder Meyer from Canada. We went to this lesson with a member, and he had found something in the Book of Mormon about wine, and so that brought up the question of why we can't drink wine/ or why don't we use wine for the sacrament. We tried explaining the word of wisdom then got into the grape juice thing, and yeah, it was just too much time spent on something not too important. We did have the opportunity to go and visit the inactive guy who sent in a referral for himself because he wants to turn his life around. It was good to go over and talk to him, and get to know him. I'm happy that he has decided to change. At the end of the night, we got to go see the Tanner family. It was nice talking with them and getting to know them.



Wednesday was pretty great. We were able to have a zone conference about working with the leadership of the ward. We did some role-plays about meeting with the bishop for the first time, listened to Sister Jeppson sing a song about being healthy accompanied by President Jeppson on the guitar playing the tune of Michael Jacksons, "Beat it." It was pretty hilarious. We talked a little about health as well. The new music rules. President Jeppson switched it back to what is said in the Missionary Handbook, and does include EFY music. He also cleared Ipods for use, as well as musical instruments. And, they had a little mending room for all the missionaries to bring in clothes in need of sewing and stuff, so I got my pants mended which was pretty great.


We were able to go see Hanz, teach him a little English, as well as the gospel. He still couldn't quite put a date on the baptism, but he's getting there.

Thursday turned out to be a pretty great day as well, although after weekly planning we only had a few hours to work until Caldwell Correlation.

And I guess I'll just give you the news about Marilu. It is true that she was supposed to be baptized this week, but I told you about the doubt about coffee. Well last Sunday, she got sick. As she did last year when she got sick before church, she thinks that the sickness is a sign or answer from God about the truthfulness of the church. Satan is working on her pretty hard. Besides getting sick, one of the guys that was paying rent for a room in her apartment got caught by immigration, so she's taking that as another sign, and lastly, her brothers came to her and told her that she couldn't be baptized again, cause she was already baptized in the Catholic church and God wouldn't be too pleased. So there is sign number 3. We went over with Nephi to talk to her, and she just listened while we bore testimony of the church, and how she needed to be baptized for her own benefit. She didn't end up coming to church this week, so we 're not sure how things are going with her, or what exactly is going through her mind.

On Friday, I headed out on another exchange with Elder Watkins, and had some interesting experiences there. We had the opportunity to go teach this older gentleman named Mr. Rogers, and it was pretty tough. I think I got too much into the habit of trying to convince him, and I wasn't really throwing down, but I wasn't exactly teaching in the way I should of. I guess it gets hard to know what is boldness and what is overbearance. Later we got to teach this guy from the middle east. He was super smart, and we tryed teaching him about God being our loving Heavenly Father, and about the Pre-earth life. We weren't able to get much progress there either. They are really great people, but it's definitely tougher.

On Saturday we went and helped a family that is moving to Idaho. We helped pack up the truck, although I heard that yesterday they had to unpack it all, and repack it or something like that. Sounds pretty stressful.

Sunday was a pretty great day. Hermano Chachuka asked us to teach Elders Quorum right before it started, so we had to come up with something to teach, but it actually went pretty well. We were able to teach about Member missionary work.

Then the time of the baptism came. I was priviledged to do the baptism for Victor. We had two baptisms at the service. One for an 8 year old girl, and another for Victor. We didn't really work with the 8 year old because she is a child of record I guess you would call it. Hanz was able to come to the last 2 hours of church, and then to the baptism. Martin was able to get off work so he could come to the first hour of church.

It was a pretty great week, and this week should be great as well. It's actually the last week of the transfer. I'm pretty sure both Elder Jarrett and I are going to stay, but things should be switching up as far as the zone goes.

Well, my last day of a teenager is coming to a near close. 20 years old huh? I don't feel quite that old, still like a teenager. I still have a lot of growing up to do I think. But I guess that's why I still have a whole nother (why do we sometimes say it like that?) "Another whole" year of mission left. Thanks again for all your support and love. I'm glad to hear all is going well.
Love all of you so much!!

Love,
Elder Hicks

Buen Dia, Buen Dia!

Hello family!!!

It's good to hear you are doing so well. I'm happy to hear that AJ is back from the hospital and doing well. I hope you are all continueing to have a great summer as it nears it's end.

Can you believe I'm almost 20 years old? That just seems so much older than 19. I'm finally leaving the teen years, but I still kinda feel like a teenager. I guess life goes on, and so do we.

Well I guess it's time to give you a quick brief update on the week. As for the progressing Investigators...

Marilou: Marilou has been better. She was still looking good for August 7th. We went by this week, taught the Word of Wisdom, and I think she had a hard time understanding the coffee part of it. We brought a member by the next time, and she didn't seem that against the Word of Wisdom, but she told us that she doesn't feel ready to be baptized. She's received an answer that this is the true church, but doesn't feel ready, so hopefully we can continue helping and preparing her for the 7th.

Victor: Victor is still doing really well. He's a pretty hyper kid, and it gets tough trying to really get him to focus during the lessons. I think he'll still be good to be baptized next Sunday, although you never know when it comes down to the parents actually signing the baptismal form. She said he would be allowed to, but we don't have it in writing. I guess we will just see what it comes down to. He seems to enjoy church, I guess as much as any 10 year old would, but I think he's excited to be baptized.

Eduardo: So Eduardo is the guy that went to the Cumorah Pageant with the Bello family. The Bellos are super awesome, super active. Eddy went to the pageant with them, got touched by the spirit and started meeting with the missionaries again. First lesson, he was a little hesitant about the whole baptism thing. Second lesson came around, strong spirit, talked about baptism and confirmation and Eddy accepted a baptismal date for August 28th. Next lesson came around, taught him about the Plan of Salvation, and seemed to really like it. He asked a question about what happened to all the people who never received the Gospel, and Hermano Bello explained temple work to him. Called the Bello's on Saturday night to ask if we'll be able to see Eddy on Sunday. He said no, that Eddy is actually in Jail... What?!!! No way, he was progressing so well, and was wanting to make changes. So I guess Eddy got in a little trouble, not sure exactly what he did, but I guess working in the United States with Hispanics, something like this would have to happen. Immigration got him. So now he's in jail in Newark, and will most likely be sent back to Mexico. We were both pretty sad to hear of the story, and I guess the devil will do whatever it takes to keep people from being baptized. Hopefully Eddy will remember what he's felt, and be baptized sometime in the future.

So it definitely wasn't our best week, and I think has been a week of testing our faith. This coming week should be good though, with a zone conference and everything.

Elder Jarrett and I are doing really well together, and Yes we are both zone leaders. It would be pretty hard to be a zone leader by yourself. We were able to go to zone leader council this week in Morristown, which is like 30-45 minutes away. It was great to be there and receive some training, and have a council on how things in the mission can change. President Jeppson talked about how we need to make the shift of coming on a mission for a sense of duty, to staying on our mission because of our love for the Lord and the people we are serving. I really do love the people here even if they are sometimes different. I'm really happy to be a missionary, and am continually striving to become the best I can be.

Something cool that did happen this week. When I was in Union City, we started teaching this guy from English class named Hans from Peru. He had never come to church, but was reading in the Book of Mormon a little bit. Well, Hans moved to Garfield for a time (Coincidence right) and now we have started teaching him here. Sadly we don't have an English class set up for him to attend, but we are just going to start teaching him English and about the gospel. He came to church for his first time this Sunday and stayed for all 3 hours. He seemed to like it, and hopefully we can keep helping him progress.

I guess just so you know, the zone leader duties include... Sending in the numbers for the zone, filling out zone leader eval forms, writing down the district leader evaluations, baptismal interviews for people taught by district leaders, or people who have been taught by the district leaders in the past, exchanges with the district leaders and with other members in the zone if needed, collecting info about baptismal dates and candidates assigned to be baptized each week, etc. It's not too hard, but we are usually pretty busy.

Sadly this week we had to take the car in to get the water pump replaced, so that took away from Wednesday, but overall not a bad week. Tomorrow we have Zone Meeting, which is basically District Meeting, but by the Zone leaders with all the zone. So tomorrow we will be giving a training about Love, the importance of members, and talking about the new zone goal this month focusing on working and finding investigators through the members. Our zone had 9 baptisms this month which is really good, and all 9 of those baptisms came from member involvement I'm pretty sure. (Referral, Part-Member Family, Friend, etc) I'm not sure the story for each one of them, but members are so important in this work! I'm excited to be able to do missionary work when I get home, cause I never really did it before my mission. Yeah there aren't that many opportunities in Provo, but there are some right? But I guess member work for me is still far off. It's crazy that it's already August again. Almost a year has gone by! It flew! And what are we to say about the next year, supposedly it's supposed to go faster, but there is still much I need to learn, and a lot more growing I need to do. The transfer ends in two weeks, and my guess is that Elder Jarrett and I will both stay here, but you never know. Thanks again for all your support.
The Gospel is True!

Love,
Elder Hicks

I can't think of much else for my birthday. There aren't a lot of things I really need. I guess a missionary can always use cool ties, but I do have a good amount of ties already. But surprises are always nice too! Whatever you think is good. Thanks again. Write ya next week! It's time to go play some Volleyball!

Happy Pioneer Day!

Hello Family!'
It's so good to hear that you are all doing well. I don't know how long my letter will be because of the tight writing restrictions at this library or only 30 minutes when there is a waiting list.

Congrats again on all the new baby stuff, that is pretty exciting. You see so many cute little kids on your mission that it gets you sorta excited to have kids of your own one day.

I guess to start off with something funny that I forgot to include in last weeks letter. After district meeting last week, we were standing outside. We were just talkin and the such, and I felt something drop onto my head. I was kind of scared what it was, I reached up... and yeah, you got it, I think the first time a bird has ever left it's droppings on me. It was pretty disgusting and pretty embarrassing, but I guess that was my warm welcome to a new area.

Our investigators are doing pretty awesome. Marilu is still doing really well. She came to church an hour early again this week, and really enjoyed it. She is preparing to be baptized on the 7th of August. We haven't started working much with her kids yet, because they are kids and are hard to really teach. I guess we will just focus on Marilu, and then we can start teaching her kids after she is baptized.

Victor is doing really awesome as well. He kinda reminds me of Daniel Laruso from the karate kid, although smaller and younger. But he kindof looks like and sounds like him. He's a really good kid. Only 10 years old, but he seems to enjoy learning, and he came to church yesterday which was really good. He's still preparing to be baptized on August 7th as well.

Last night we went to go visit one of the recent converts Marselino, and got to teach his cousin Martin again. Martin is really awesome, and knows the Book of Mormon is true. He just has so much work that it's hard for him to come to church, but we did talk to him about faith, and we had to push him just a little, but we set him with a date for September 4th.

But yeah, this week has been super busy. We had another baptismal interview on Saturday, but last Tuesday we had the opportunity to have interviews with President Jeppson. It was such a great opportunity to talk with him one on one, and get some advice on how I can be better. He really helped to encourage me, and overall it was a really great interview.

I told Sister Jeppson about my hives, and she sent me the names and numbers of some doctors I can go see to get them checked out. It really started to heat up this week, possibly the most heat I've ever felt in my life. Especially Thursday during walking day. We left the house in the hot hot hot, but luckily some guy picked us up (inactive member) and took us into passaic, but I don't think I've ever sweat so much. My white shirt was super wet. It's ok though, I'm really grateful to have a car with airconditioning on the other days.

We found a pretty cool new investigator this week named Manuel, who is the nephew of a member. He went to the Cumorah pageant, and really felt the spirit strongly. We have started teaching him again, and he came to church yesterday. Hopefully we can continue working with him and see some great progress. We've been getting a lot of member help with Nephi this week. He's a super awesome member who served a mission in Mexico. He really has a way with people, and he is a big part of our success this week.

Saturday consisted of a pretty big event, called "Embelleciendo Passaic." This service project has been in planning for quite awhile, and the church had teamed up with the mayor and everything. We put up a lot of signs for it on Tuesday, and although most of them got torn down, there was a great turn out. I was worried, and so was the city about the heat and everything, but the Lord really answered our prayers, and cooled the temperature down a little bit to make the project bearable. We all got to wear the Mormon helping hands vests and shirts, and there was over a hundred people there to help out, including about 60 missionaries. The mayor declared it a day of service, and he came to the opening ceremonies, and at the end of the project seemed to be really happy. His wife said that if we have any more activities in the church coming up, she wants her sons involved. We focused on really cleaning up the streets of Passaic, and then finished the day off working in a park that was pretty sketchy. I guess there is a playground there, and the bushes were like 12 feet high so you couldn't really see the playground, and the circle kind of acted as a den for inappropriate behavior, lots of alcohol, and some drugs. I've never picked up so many empty alcohol bottles in my life. We all worked pretty hard, and even President and Sister Jeppson were very involved. I think it really helped our mission grow in unity.

You should be good to just send a package right to the house. Garfields not too crazy of a place. I would surely appreciate some more white shirts though, especially because my shirts are beginning to turn yellow. But yeah, I turn 11 months old today. Can you believe it? It's almost been a year, and oh what a year it has been. I'm really loving it out here, and it's kinda nice being busy all the time. Thanks again for all your support and for all you do! I sure do love you all!

The Church is true!!

Love,
Elder Hicks

Times up, Until Next Week! Stay Tuned!