Feb 3

dear Family,

I can`t beilieve that Elder Fernandez wrote you. he literally is one of the coolest District leaders and he loves to learn and to have fun. He is from Nicaragua, and i literally love him.

right now yes i am district leader. I have 6 elders in my disrict. they are all so great. Elder Pino(Chile), Elder Miles( Utah), Elder Damitz (Utah), Elder Berrio( Chile) Elder Barragan, Elder Engebretsen(he is in my group of the MTC), they are the zone leaders but are also part of my disrict.

This week  with Elder Rodriguez has been so great. I have learned so much from him and i absolutely Love him. He is such a hard worker!

This week in my new area it was like i entered a new world! We have something called a villa or village in our area. A village is a place where a lot of people live and they have built there houses on top of the other house and they are a poorer group of people. in the villa there are corridors and passages that you have to walk through to go to homes of the people. It is really so great to work here. As we walk through the villa we say hi to everyone. What is so great about the villa is the people are so humble that live there and they are willing to listen to the message of the gospel.

This week really has beeen so great! and i have met so many people! At the end of this week we are going to help a boy named Benja be baptized. Yesterday as we were talking to him he did not want to learn much more about the gospel, he said he prayed about the book of mormon and that God told him to wait to be baptized, but we kept insisting and we kept explaining that when we pray God will help us to feel good about ourselves he is not going to say that we need to wait to be baptized. at the end of the lesson we explained to him the nature of Christ, and how he can return to the prescence of God only through the gospel of Christ. He told us after that he is going to pray about the book of mormon and is goingto be baptized this weekend! now all we need to do is help is mom and his dad listen to our message. I really hope they can change and they are willing to listen to the message.

This week we also went to a lunch with a young man that is 21 years old and who has not had the opportunity to serve the mission. Elder Pino, Elder Miles, Elder Rodriguez, and i went to the lunch. At the end of the lunch i had the opportunity to share a scripture with him and i decided to share Alma 13:24 after he read the scripture. He started talking about his desires to serve a mission but that he felt is he left now he would be behind everyone and if he would have left when he was 19 everything would have been much better. Also right now he says he has to work and to study. After he told us, you must of known what us 4 missionaries were thinking( wow we have to testify right now!!!!) ha all 4 of us testified to him that the decision of going on a mission is going to change his life only for the better. we commited him to continue filling out his papers at the end of the lunch. I know this church is true and i also know that the decision to serve a mission is never going to do me wrong and as we keep serving the Lord throughout are lifes we will only be blessed for doing it.

also this week i had the opportunity to do my first interview as disrtict leader. I interviewed a young man named Gustavo to be baptized and he was so excited to be bapitzed. I literally Love the mission and i love our Lord

I love you all so much!

 

Love,

ELder Hicks

 

PS mom and dad I love you and i hope you are doing great! Makenna i love you too

Brennan

You are such a stud and i hope you are doing great at selling! i am trying to learn right now how to sell also, if you need some tips i am always here to help!

 

PSS and yes dad we did play tennis and i did pretty well... i had lost a little bit of skill, and we lost a lot of games...it was my partners fault!) ha but that ok the church is stilll true. love you