On to 2012!

(Letter December 27,2011)

The Facetime wasn't all too mind blowing, although a little different than normal. It was great to see all of you and see that you are doing well. I must admit I was a little nervous after the brief cliff-hanger of my dad almost passing away, but I'm glad to hear all is well.  Wow, my mind just keeps getting blown every week with all this bad news. I'm grateful that everything is alright with Dad, that sounds like a miracle. I'm sorry to hear about Melanie Kau, but I'm sure she had been going through a ton of suffering and now she is in a better place. 

Well, the last week of my consecrated year is here... Can you believe it? 2012 already? It truly has been a great year, full of just about everything. Learning Experiences, sad moments, stress, joy, love, fatigue, and everything else needed to have a good mission. It's crazy that I only have 8 months left. It seems like a lot, but then at the same time, it is going to pass by really really fast.

I've given you a brief update of how my Christmas week went, but I guess I can recap it a little bit more. Friday was a pretty memorable experience of going to all mission conference. We arrived to see in the cultural hall hundreds of packages wrapped in wrapping paper, as if we were in Santa's workshop. It was indeed a sight. We enjoyed wonderful testimonies and messages from the assistants, President, Alex Boye, and the 4 stake presidents here in New Jersey. It was great to hear their inspirational messages, and later to hear Alex Boye sing us some amazing songs. It was an amazing experience, and just continued as we went Christmas caroling as a zone on Friday night. We went to this apartment complex in the shape of a U, and in the middle stood the choir, and 2 elders went running to ring all the doorbells. We had some people out on their porches, others watching from their second story windows. Although caroling can be a little awkward, it was a really great experience.

Saturday arrived, and we headed to Walmart to order some Christmas cards, and then made some brownies to take to some members. We delivered some of our Christmas cards and headed to Fardale to do even more caroling. This time was pretty grand as well, including a few carols with Santa Claus. 

Sunday, Christmas morning arrived and we ate some pancakes and opened the presents that we had left. Elder Ream and Elder Turner had basically opened all of their's prior to Christmas, so there wasn't much to be opened. We made visits to different members, but over-all it didn't feel too much like Christmas. Must have been the lack of snow... It was a great weekend though that involved many choice experiences.

As the area goes... our main investigator is Jimena still. She is doing quite well. She came to church this past Sunday, and she is reading in the Book of Mormon every day. We still weren't sure why she was doing all these things, but we have recently come to the conclusion, that she doesn't really know what she is doing with all these commitments. She doesn't see the overall picture, or a changed disciple of Jesus Christ. So we really need to work on helping her understand what the Lord expects of her.

Our area still doesn't have too much going on, but hopefully this week looks upward, and we can find some more great people to start teaching. Today we went to the hospital to give a little girl with Pneumonia a blessing, and we got some funny comments from people about being "The Mormons." Like a lady walking out of the elevator and saying something like, "Look, its the Mormons." Probably because there were 5 big missionaries wearing suits in a children's hospital.

And here I am sitting in a library at 4:30 in the afternoon, the sky getting dark, and the wind and the rain falling. Now it's time to go fill all those I see with cheer and happiness, as they come to know the truth of the gospel. I know that the Gospel is true. I know that miracles follow faith, and that the Lord will try our faith to see what we will do. One quote that I really liked that was shared in a district meeting a few weeks ago, was from Elder Nelsen, who quoted from a book by a man who was in a concentration camp. It goes roughly like this, "The only thing that can't be taken away from a man is his ability to choose his attitude" toward something that happens. That's so true! Adversity strikes, things seem unfair, someone may offend us, but the only thing they can't change is how we respond. I hope to take that as I try to remain positive, happy, and cheerful to everything that happens here in the mission life, and I hope all of you can find some way to apply it to yourselves. I love you all so much!

Until next year... :)

 

Love,

Elder Hicks