Elder Hicks Preaching On The East Coast!: I'mmmmm Baaack!

Alright so here's the big news, and I must say it was quite a surprise for me as well. Elder Hicks will be finishing his mission in....... Dover New Jersey! That's right, I came back to Dover, the exact same area I served in a year and a half ago! I was so amazingly excited that they sent me back. I remember I was really sad when I had to leave the first time, and I didn't understand why I only stayed for one transfer, but now I'm back in the beautiful town of Dover.

It's quite a contrast from Trenton where there's lots of trash, and it's a little more scary. Dover is so "tranquilo" and I feel so safe there. One of the best parts of coming back to this area, was when Fausta (My recent convert that went to the temple a few weeks ago) was asking my companion who the new missionary was, and he just said, You'll see. On thursday I knocked on the door, and when she opened it, she had such a surprised look on her face. It was pretty amazing!

Here's an even crazier part. So remember how Elder Ferrell and I were both in each others area's both working to get each others recent converts to the temple, and they ended up going to the temple on the same day. Well... Now Elder Ferrell and I are companions! Can you believe it? We were both pretty shocked, because we thought we would be with younger missionaries as we both just got done training. But I guess the Lord wanted us to be together for at least one transfer to see how things went. So things should be pretty amazing this transfer, and I'm way excited to work with him. My new address is 309 Washington Ave, N3, Dover NJ 07801. Things should be just fine to send right to my apartment.

So I had a crazy realization one of my first days back in Dover. I've always wanted to baptize someone from Uruguay on my mission, mostly because that's where Caleb served. I knew that the only way that would be possible is if I went back to Dover. And look what happened? Not to mention the fact that our next investigator with a date Mikaela (10 yrs old) for the 24th of June is from, you guessed it... Uruguay! I'm just so happy to be back, and although a lot of the members don't remember me all to well, they say that I look familiar. I had the opportunity to give a talk this week in church (What a nice welcome back huh?) and I chose to speak about developing good family habits- things like FHE, Scripture reading as a family, and family dinner. It went pretty well. The funniest part of the whole things was the fact that Elder Ferrell and I were both speaking, but on the program it said first speaker "Elder Ferrell" and the next speaker said "Adler Hick". You think they would've had the idea that the missionaries were speaking, and my first name would be Elder... Maybe not :) It was pretty funny though.

1. Luis Paz (A less active we've been working with)

Benjamin Paz

It's been pretty crazy trying to get to know the area and all the investigators, but things are looking pretty good in the area. In the past 2 weeks Elder Ferrell and his Companion had 5 baptisms, so now we are just on the look out for some new investigators. Mikaela and her little sister Nicole (child of record) are both super excited for their baptism in 2 weeks, and we've found some other great peope this week through members. We found a guy named Evert and his friend Maribell through a lesson at Fausta's house. We also started teaching the daughter of a member named Viviana who's never been open or interested in the church before but decided to hear us out.

I feel like I have so much to explain, but hopefully what I've written will suffice. I was pretty sad saying goodbye to all the amazing people in Trenton, but I'm happy to be here, and develop great relationships with the people here, that I never had the chance to a year and a half ago. This is actually my first time in a long time where I have 0 leadership responsibilities. I'm an RPM again (Regular Proselyting Missionary), but I'm not sure how long that will last, because supposedly there are lot's of new trainee's coming in next transfer. I guess we'll have to wait and see. But I guess for now, I can enjoy just focusing on the work, and not worrying about other things.

The Church is True! I love being a missionary a lot, and I know that the Lord has a plan for each one of us. Hope you all have fun at the family reunion this week, sounds like a blast! Love you all mucho!