June 30

Dear mom,

Here in Argentina we can´t watch the games... but thats okay whenever Argentina scores we hear all the shouts and screams. Also, Thank you for the advice on how I should act, I always feel like I can do more so I want to run. thorughout the misson I have felt more calm and peaceful but I still think I can improve even more on how I preach and react with the people. It is so great to really be on the mission. Yesterady we went preaching with ELiana and WOW! SHe has changed so much and is so happy! We talked to her about going on a mission. LEt me tell you she shared her testimony the other day with a person in the street and after he person was so excited to learn more. Eliana is such a great friend and convert and person! 

Also this week we met a lady named Susana, She is so great. The sister missionaries in are area were preaching and met her while they were doing contacts in the street, She is literally so great. She is a little petite lady that everytime we talk to her is always smiling and happy, she reminds me a lot of jeannie.(I wrote that in teh letter to her) But we started teaching her and she is so amazing, she has so much love for all of the people. She reminds of Zeezrom a convert of Alma who says right after he got baptized he started preaching!

THis week I ahve leraned that it is impossible to try to think and panipulate the people going ot church, if they don´t have desires to change, now is not the time for them to go. For the reason we were talking with Susana and we had a great lessson with her thanks to my new companion ELder Jewett. But we invited her to pray for the first time, and in her prayer she asked for help to be able to go to the church. She is truly an elect person of GOd. THis sundayShe  went to the church and enjoyed every moment of it! even though it was a hard decesion for her to make. we are trying to help her to be baptizzed for the 13th of july and we are going to talk to her about it and i am sure that she is going to want to be baptized. Every time we leave something for her to read she always reads it and i truly Love her. I really wish I could show you a picture of her. But I am surly going to tak more pictures if her. also, Eliana lives really close to her and is helping her out to have a stronger testimony of Christ. 

Oh and I also have a new companion from Utah, His name is Elder Jewett and he has 8 months in the mission and is such a great missionary! And when i say great missionary I mean super great missionary and has so much excitement for the work here in bELGRANO! i TRULY love him also! 

I also bought a jersey last week of messi and it is such a great Jersey. He plays also for Barcelona in spain and i think when we went to spain we bought a jersey of his also, so it turns out i have 2 jerseys of messi! But thanks fo rthe reminder to buy one... I would not want to leave here without a jersey ot be able to show you when i come home... During the world cup people are always tellling us about the united states and how the y are doing and if we watch the games. Even though we can´t watch it we can feel the world cup spirit!!! GO Brasil!!... wait i mean Argentina... ummm estados unidos? ha 

the mission is so great righ tnow! the best thing i have ever done in my life! I love it and never want it to end I literally love it when someone feels the spirit while we are tlaking ot them and to see the change in them while we teach them. Th emission is the best and even though i miss you about every day... I still love this mission, and i want to help even more poeple here! the lord is preparing people everywhere, In each ward and in each town and neighborhood. All we can do is invite and let the spirit speak to their hearts. 

I lvoe you so much and I love Argentina. htis week while i was preaching some one told me that i sound more Latino... so i hope i am erasing my accent... eho knows? love oyu so much and i hope you can talk to at least one person about the gospel this week. or maybe even better! oyu cna go preaching with the elders! thank you so much for everything mom! you are the best. You are such a great example to me!

Love your son,

Elder Troy Hicks

Dear Dad,

I can not believe that you both went to see Maddie and that she is going to leave on the mission. Thank you so much for going ot see her and supporting her in her decision to serve a mission, It really means a lot ot me!

Dad Today in the mission we have set a lot of goals to be able to talk with more people and to spread the gospel message to all the people her in Belgrano!! !) It is truly great to be able to serve here and to be able to be in Belgrano. Sometimes the people are hard core and don't want to shake my hand... and other times they say thank you and don´t want to here are message and other times thy accept what we are saying and open up and then the feel the spirit and get baptized! That is how is should be done!! 

There are many people here who listen to us. It is so great to see how much the Lord Loves us to give a chance to preach to this pueblo! hah or people! 

Also I am so excited that Argentina is going to play tomorrow and I hope the good ol` United states win!!! hopefully we can preach if they play each other!! !) 

Love you Dad so much, How is work going? 

And can you tell mom that maybe the package won´t arrive for a while because they have problems with the border here in Argentina... who knows? but I am praying and hoping it gets there soon!!!

Love you so much,

Elder Troy Hicks =)

June 23

Dear Family,

First of all, I would like to thank you Mom for the E-mail and for the tips on how to be a better companion! I really appreciate the help. Also Dad, I talked to president and he said it would be great for the family to come down, to be able to set it up, it would be better for you to talk through the offices. (you can address it to offices of the mission Buenos Aires Argentina, I am pretty sure that Elder Lines from the offices will answer your email, he is a senior missionary here). 

Love you!

This week also has been a great week and a little crazy! We have visited so many families! I mean so many families! We put a goal to help someone be baptized at the end of this week, and we went to every house that we knew of people that had already gone to the church, we looked in the area book, in the progress reports and we visited all of them. And guess what happened! ... FOR now we did not find anyone. It was pretty fun making a set plan and then executing it but we did not find anyone that wanted to listen to the message... But I learned so many great things from this lesson. Even though we did not have super much success, like Thomas Edison said after someone asked him about how he felt when he failed 100 times trying to create the light bulb.. he said ¨I did not fail, I found 100 ways NOT to make a light bulb¨ This week and every week in the mission I find many ways not to do missionary work. 

Something that was so great is that the Father of Santo came to church! YAY for MIRACLES! hah As missionaries we always see so many tender mercys of the Lord... We are so far away from perfect but the Lord is always helping us to become better and he alwas, ALWAYS forgives us. The song of come thou font really wraps up how he makes me feel… 

"O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!

Let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee
Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above"

Sometimes as missionaries and people we just want him to make us do what is right so we can enjoy his great blessings. and the wonderful prescence of the Holy Ghost. 

I certainly Love our Lord Jesus Chirst and his love that he has for us as human beings and as his brothers and sister

Have to go! Love you so much!

Love,

Elder Hicks!

Mom,

One more thing,

I sent the package and I really hope it arrives... It has some the things that I made for you on Mothers Day...  thanks Mom!

Happy Father's Day

Dear Dad,

I just wanted to start by saying happy Father`s day! Dad, YOu have changed my life in so many ways it is impossible to count. you are my earthly father and nothing will ever change that. I wanted to share with a couple times that you have changed my life and helped me to be a better Person a better son of God: some special experiences that we have had that not only shaped that time but my whole entire life.

Experience 1: I remeber one time I came home with a problem, something was bothering me and I had not idea how to solve it. In this time of my life I was thinking way to much about girls. And I asked you if we could go on a walk... so as we walked we talked about the problem and how I could do better. I don`t even remember what was said but i remember the love i felt from you and I also remeber the example you sent to me.

experinec 2: their have been a couple nights like this but some nights I would come home angry and I would be upset with something about my life... But in one instance I had a problem with ?... and I had no idea to fix it. And we talked in the backyard for some 15 mintues and you helped me to calm down and gave me some great advice and tips to be an even better person.

experince 3: Is you always made time to hangout with me, We would go to games and also we would go shoot, and we also would play pingpong (treasured memories) All those times that you would do things for me are so treasured. I am so greatful and glad that you are my Dad and that we have been able to do these wonderful things together.

And dad don`t think these days are over. I want you to be sure that you will ALWAYS be my dad and will always be there to give me tips. I`m not sure HOW I would do anything without you. I Love you so much and I am so glad that we are going to be an eternal family.  ALSO, you must remeber dad, that we are always going to make even more memories to remember throughout the eternities! 

Happy Fathers day Dad!

Feliz Dia Del Padre!

Love,

Elder Troy Hicks

This week the mundial started or the world cup in soccer. and last night as we were preaching there was literally no one in the street and when argentina scorred a goal is was like the whole city went crazy! We could hear GOL!!!! from each building and it came in a huge wave ( you know that when your team scores a goal you need to scream goal!!!) hah i just wanted to tell you a little about the culture here.

Also one more thing about Eliana. Yesterday while she was being baptized i felt the spirit so much, It was literally so great to be able to see one of our sisters enter into a covenant with God. I was so greatful to be able to take part and to see the baptism. THis sunday she is going to be confirmed  a member of the chruch. It is like the door way to salvation is finally being opened up to her and now she really is in this straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life!

Love you!

Mom and dad,

This week if you can, I would really appreciate it for some advice on how to be a better companion and to be a better missionary. Or maybe some help on how i can be better and follow thorugh with the projects i start. I feel like i can do more but I need some help. Love you so much,

And I am so thankful for you heartfelt prayers. I feel them everyday!

Last of all, Bear dog looks so great Dad!! he looks a little fatter. hah

Also Mom, I will pray that you can win in your war against the flowers.!) ha Ha just kidding! keep your great smile my mommy! 

June 9

Dear Family,

this week has truly been well... amazing! we have seen a handful of miracles. But first i wanted to share something with you that has not only changed my life but will change all of my eternity. 

I'm not sure if you remember mom but in my patriarchal blessing it says i will be influenced by many of the prominent leaders of the church while on my mission. Well this week, My life changed, We were eating with the president of the seminaries and institutes of argentina paraguay and uruaguay. I'm telling you this guy is such a great leader, His name is Brother Varas, and in my opinion is one of these promnent leaders. For his calling he talks to one of the seventises named Elder Gonzalez (who also is in our ward), and is always runnig.  While we were eating, We started talking about him and also his life with his spouse. While we were talking I asked him what has been his drive or what pushes him to be better. He told me something that really hit me. He said ¨THE ETERNAL LIFE¨ he told me¨i want to live eternally with god and Jesus Christ...¨and while looking at his Wife he said¨with my queen.¨ I´m not completely sure why but when he said this the spirit hit me and filled my whole mind and soul with understanding and my patriarchal blessing came to my mind. This moment was and is an eternal moment for me.

I was really looking forward to share that with all of you. It is something that is very special and i am so glad happened. I think right now in this ward is the time where i am influenced by these prominent leaders. In our ward live 3 elders from the first qourum of the seventy, all of them you can see in the page in the ensign. It is truly crazy. 

Also we are going ot have a baptism this week!! we have been teaching Eliana and during the week we diecided to watch the restoration. and then at the end of the lesson we invited her to prayer about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and then she did... after she prayed she said... so how are you supposed to feel after you pray.. and we said well... Happy... uhh hhuh and calm unhuhh and well good.. uhhuh with every adjective to explain the holy ghost she said yes and uh huuh and then she got really excited and said she knew that it was all true! It truly was an amazing experience. Eliana lives with a member family and they are helping her prepare for her baptism. She is from Colombia and her mom does not want to her to be baptized, and a couple nights has called us crying but my companion, elder garcia is really smart and helped her a lot to be able to feel calm,

Also with Kevin, He went to mutual this week but has not wanted to talk much more about religion with us.

Also we are teaching a family from Peru, THe dad is a less active whos name is Miguel and the mom and daughter are named Roxana and Leslie. Ther are truly so great! We have visited them quite a few times this week but at the las tmoment( by last moment i mean sunday in the morning) decided not to go to church... We are wokring hard iwth them to help them go to church and focusing a lot on the BOok of mormon. Thorughout my mission i have seen much power in this book.( maybe you can give one to somebody and write your testimony in the front of it) anyways this week Miguel does not have to work and sundays, In fact he does not have ot wokr on sundays for 3 weeks ( just enough time so everyone can be baptized !) and then hopefully his testimony can be strong enough so he can change his Job! But we are working so hard to keep them improving. 

This week We ate with the Spallino Family. A family that is fromn Utah but has a job here with the church, and we invited them to give a book of mormon to their door guard and Sister Spalling shared a story with me after we invited them. SHe said that one time as she was trying to share the gospel she asked on eof her friends if she would be interested in having the missionaries come over ot ehre a gospel message and to ehr surpise... her friend said yes... LAter that same friend got baptized. I hope you know that to share the gospel is to only invite others. THis week with a spirit of prayer you can do the same thing, while you are doing it don´t think about what might happen but think about how much joy will feel the person that you are going ot invite, think baout the change it will make in her family. The wife of Elder Gonzalez( one of the 70s in our ward) is a convert that got baptized at 12 years old) who knows? maybe oyu will invite someone and change their eternity. 

Mom and dad and Makenna and Brennan, I love you so much and am so greatful for your example to me. Thank you for your love and for your support. Please keep smiling everyday, and keep reading hte Book of Mormon everyday. At least for 5 minutes it will change your life, for small and simple things bring about great things and even confound the wise!

Wiht all my love,

See you soon my dear family!

SWABH(Maybe bigger and storonger than DADS(=)

ELder Hicks}

P.S. Thank you so much Mom for the Email, And for setting up my schooling already, when will i go to school? 

Also I wish you could of gone to see the fairwell talk... but that´s okay. I truly hope you start feeling better mom, maybe you can get a blessing,,, and keep taking those pills!) jaj I love you mom you are an example in my life and I am so glad for any sugestions that you have for me. I hope I can keep making you proud! tell me if i need ot do anything better... I am really sorry about the píctures. I was thinking i could send you in the mail one of the memories and then you can send it back to me.. I'm not sure.. What do you think?

Dear Family and friends,

we are going ot have a baptism this week!! we have been teaching Eliana and during the week we diecided to watch the restoration. and then at the end of the lesson we invited her to prayer about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and then she did... after she prayed she said... so how are you supposed to feel after you pray.. and we said well... Happy... uhh hhuh and calm unhuhh and well good.. uhhuh with every adjective to explain the holy ghost she said yes and uh huuh and then she got really excited and said she knew that it was all true! It truly was an amazing experience. Eliana lives with a member family and they are helping her prepare for her baptism. She is from Colombia and her mom does not want to her to be baptized, and a couple nights has called us crying but my companion, elder garcia is really smart and helped her a lot to be able to feel calm,

Also with Kevin, HE went to mutual this week but has not wanted to talk much more about religion with us.

Also we are teaching a family from Peru, THe dad is a less active whos name is Miguel and the mom and daughter are named Roxana and Leslie. Ther are truly so great! We have visited them quite a few times this week but at the las tmoment( by last moment i mean sunday in the morning) decided not to go to church... We are wokring hard iwth them to help them go to church and focusing a lot on the BOok of mormon. Thorughout my mission i have seen much power in this book.( maybe you can give one to somebody and write your testimony in the front of it) anyways this week Miguel does not have to work and sundays, In fact he does not have ot wokr on sundays for 3 weeks ( just enough time so everyone can be baptized !) and then hopefully his testimony can be strong enough so he can change his Job! But we are working so hard to keep them improving. 

This week We ate with the Spallino Family. A family that is fromn Utah but has a job here with the church, and we invited them to give a book of mormon to their door guard and Sister Spalling shared a story with me after we invited them. SHe said that one time as she was trying to share the gospel she asked on eof her friends if she would be interested in having the missionaries come over ot ehre a gospel message and to ehr surpise... her friend said yes... LAter that same friend got baptized. I hope you know that to share the gospel is to only invite others. THis week with a spirit of prayer you can do the same thing, while you are doing it don´t think about what might happen but think about how much joy will feel the person that you are going ot invite, think baout the change it will make in her family. The wife of Elder Gonzalez( one of the 70s in our ward) is a convert that got baptized at 12 years old) who knows? maybe oyu will invite someone and change their eternity. 

If you keep inviting others to learn aout christ you will be so happy!

Love,

Elder Troy Hicks

The Gran Mission

Dear Family,

First I have to say Happy Birthday Brennan!!! The big old 22 years old! I hope you feel great about being 22! It is so good that you are growing up so fast! I sent you a letter but it might be a little delayed and should arrive to the house in around 3 weeks... sorry.

This week has been absolutely great! We had interviews with president, we had tranfers (elder Garcia and I are staying together!) and we have preached the gospel and found a family that we invited to church. 

Some things that were a little sad is that Elder Barragan is going home this week. HE told me he was going to call you and also he was going to visit our home, him living just around the corner in Mesa is such a great thing! I never thought the mission would pass by so quick or that he would ever finish but now that it is here... I just can’t believe it. There are not anymore sad things besides that! ja Well apart from Makenna being sad in her picture while she is doing her Homework.... ja( don’t worry Makenna just remember happiness is a choice! ha)

Anyways this week Elaina went to church but she still has not decided on being baptized, Also Kevin still we have not seen him! but don’t worry we will never give up!

Santo is also doing so great! I passed by yesterday to see him and we had a great lesson about the restoration with his whole family!( besides his dad, I am not sure if I have told you about his dad but he does not like it when I teach but, I still try to teach a little bit, And then in the end give him a lot of love.) The Santo’s dad is named Carlos and ever since we have been passing by he has not wanted to really listen to the message, But he did go to the baptism and started to cry, I know he felt the spirit there and he will never be able to deny that! But the Lord has really humbled him and it is kind of hard to see, Right now Santo’s dad has no work and smokes a lot. We are trying hard to help him find work, there is a place here that helps the members of the church and others find work and I think he is going to go. He just needs a lot of love because he has a lot of trials! his wife Raguel truly is so great! She has to work a lot because carlos does not have a job and she cannot be baptized because Carlos has refused to get married! She is always reading the Book Of Mormon and loves to go to church. It is such a great family. If you can I would love for you to pray especially this week that the heart of Carlos can be softened and we can really help him. I would LOVE for them to be able to get married!! so would God!)

The temple last week was a great experience, I love everything about the temple and I learned so much as we were there. I know for sure it is the house of lord. I’m sure as you feel when you go, I never want to leave while I am in there and I think to my self how can I have this feeling with me while I am out of this `place why can’t I always be so willing to hearken unto the lords voice, The first time not the second or the third, But the first! But I absolutely love the temple and I am so grateful to actually be able to have one so close during my mission! 

Something super great: This week I was able to go on divisions with some missionaries in my district and we went into another villa and it is the villa 31, It is right on the coast of Buenos Aires and it huge! but everybody their is so much more humble and wiling to listen to our message. 

Also this week their is this kid that always sings in the trains here and while we were riding on the train after he sang and he was collecting money he asked me: ´are you German? /(people always ask me that here!) but as everybody was looking at him and I ( it was right after he sang and everybody applauded for him, so they were all looking at us) I gave hi a pamphlet about the restoration and talked to him and Joseph Smith in front of all the people that were on this part of the train.. I was super nervous.. After the encounter I was a little perturbed for being nervous. but that is okay I just need to learn from my experiences... who know maybe I will have another opportunity to talk in front of people on a train! 

This week has been so great and I love the mission more and more each day. I hope you know that I love each of personally and am so glad to be part of this eternal family. Thank you for your support and Love! 

Mom, I love you so much and I hope this week you are doing great and ALWAYS have that beautiful smile of yours. thank you for ALL that you do

DAD: I am so sorry I still have not talked to president! I have seen him a couple of times but I will do it this week I promise! I hope you can ask me again next week! Also I hope you are looking forward to fathers day! right around the corner!

Brennan: I love you so much and I hope you know that Elder Barragan wants to meet you to! I hope you can be there when he comes!

Makenna: Have so much fun in Europe be obedient while you are there and remember that I love you and am so excited you are going to Go to anouther coundtry!!!! You should try to speak all the languages and learn them while you are there! Love you!

With ALL my Love,
ELDER Troy Hicks

2 things (about a picture we sent Troy of Makenna doing her online class)

1. she looks pretty sad, but super cute!

2. Where are her pants!! haha 

Love you!

Elder Hicks