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!