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!
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