My Oh My How it Rains in New Jersey

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

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".

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.)

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. 2 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.

I don't really know much else about what we did that you would be interested in. 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. Not really any other funny experiences or anything. 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