Good Morning

Hello Everybody!
        Welcome to another Monday of listening to my rambling! I just checked
and you only have to suffer through 70 more of these emails!
Muuuahahahahahah!!!!!
        Anyways, 'Twas a slow week for missionary work though our ward has
been cracking down on Home Teaching! They wanted to get 100% home
teaching from now on which is quite the feat for a ward that is as
spread out as this one, and with several people who aren't very open
to being seen! Our Bishop set it up with our front line being the
actual Hometeachers, after that comes the organization leaders and
then us missionaries and the young men, then the bishopric!
        Being that we started that this month there was a lot left over. Our
ward is separated into 4 areas. Frenchtown, Flemington, Clinton, and
Washington. Each area includes a large chunk of members. The Bishop
asked us to visit everyone in the Flemington area that hadn't been
seen yet.... Which was a lot! We ended up spending all day Saturday
and about a 100 miles worth of driving going to every one of these
members' houses. It was quite exhausting! But it worked greatly and we
were able to see most of the people we went out to find!
        By the way people... Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching is Super
Important!!!! I swear New Jersey would not have as severe a Less
Active problem if people just knew the ward actually cared about them
personally!!! So do it!
We did have the Mission Summer Conference and that was super fun!  It was ridiculously fun and
tiring. I was sore for 4 days afterwards though. I spent the whole
time playing soccer and talking to people. The food we had was
imitation Cafe Rio... It was a nice attempt, but nothing beats the
real thing.... And then we sat down for a 2 hour training from one of
President Taggart's sons about Prayer, humility, and power.
        So it was a pretty great experience all in all.
Not a super eventful week but not a bad week looking back. Cup half full right?
Love you all, and keep staying awesome!

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

Double Hicks power holding up the one with the speakerphone.

Surprise Meetings

Good Early Morning everybody from the Homeland(Unless you're not in
the homeland, then hello to you too.)
   This was a fun week! Lots of Random experiences!
To start I finally got a new iPad.... For those that didn't know my
last one sucked.... Due to repeated beatings and uses as a bludgeoning
weapon it was having some serious problems. So after a couple days of
trying to finagle with Apple and the Church I had to submit and deal
with "policies". Which included me forking up a painful amount of cash
for a new iPad..... But it's over with and my life is much easier now
so yay!
   We had a funny run in with one of our investigators this week too.
This late is super busy and so we've never been able to schedule
anything with her. So one night we decided to just stop by her house.
She was actually there! And so was her boyfriend, and 5 minutes 2 more
of her friends. Apparently we showed up in the middle of their band
practice. Now you don't run into that every day so we showed support
for our investigator and stuck around a little to see if they were any
good ;)
   For the last 2 weeks we have been spending some time helping a
member paint her neighbor's basement. Her neighbor is going through
some serious medical problems with her husband and so she is trying to
sell her house and run back and forth between hospitals and
specialists. So she doesn't have time to prepare the house for sell.
This week we managed to steal a few young men to help us out. It was
really fun though handing teenage boys rollers and free reign on a
room that you can't really make a mistake in painting it is a bad
idea.... Two hours later we had 2 boys covered in paint and a 3rd
trying to peel it off of his arms, which were completely covered. So
we made them sit out and dry for a few minutes before we had to take
them home.
   Now for the highlight of the week!!! TEMPLE!
       The ward had a youth temple trip and our recent convert Bridget
who got baptized a couple weeks ago managed to get everything set up
for her to go with! We met all the qualifications to allow us
missionaries to accompany her and it was super great! We got to drive
out to Good ole' New York City... Still don't like the city... And go
to the temple to do Baptisms with her. She also had the names for her
Parents, Grandparents, and Great Grandparents! So her first time doing
baptisms for the dead was for her mother. She gave me the honor to do
it for her Male ancestors and that was super cool! The spirit fills
that building everywhere and it was an amazing opportunity to be a
part of that!
   Another crazy thing that happened at the temple.... Apparently the
Riverton High School theater was on their annual New York Trip and
they happened to be at the temple when we got there! I got to talk to
a few friends from home for a minute! What a small world we live in!

       Now for my Father's Day rant....
   So many of you heard it from me back from conference.... But I'm
just reminded constantly of where fatherhood is going in society.
There are too many families that are broken and/or fatherless. Too
many children who don't even know who their dad is. Too many without
that example, who will grow up to continue the cycle. With all the
amazing father figures I've had, and my own deep opinions on the
subject it hurts me deeply. Especially as a missionary when one of the
first principles that we teach is the God is our "Heavenly Father".
Many that we teach have no comprehension of what that means. They
don't understand the learning, the strength, the guidance, and the
love that a true father is.
   I would just like to thank all the Father Figures I have. My Dad,
Stepdad, Uncles, Grandfathers, and family friends who have been there
to teach me, and guide me into the man that I am becoming today. I
thank you all and love you so much. Never forget the impact you have,
good and bad, on not only your own children, but all those around you.
   I love all of you. Have a great week.

                     Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                 New Jersey Morristown Mission

 "Flirting with a lot of sister missionaries tactfully..... Just kidding.... Maybe..........."

 Money for the new IPAD

Transfer Doctrine......

Well we got transfer news last night everybody....
Drum Roll please.....
.....
....
...
.......
Absolutely nothing is changing.
Tuh dah!!!
So about my week....
Good fun stuff, had an exchange, started teaching a new investigator,
found out about an all mission summer conference coming up. Power
sprayed for the first time in my life. Etc.
I got a new haircut, that's always fun....
Anyways, to elaborate on the earlier stated events.
        On Tuesday had exchanges again and being that we only have one other
set of Elder's in our district it was the same except I had to lead
out for the first time in this new area. This very large, very
unorganized in it's roads and maps, and very full of bad wrong turns.
The GPS can only go so far. But it was a great exchange.
        The new investigator guy named Bruce! We taught him for the first
time a few weeks ago but he didn't show a lot of interest but we
decided to keep trying by. So me and Elder Jensen(who was on exchange
with) decided to stop by again. It turned out to be a really spiritual
lesson. He was going through a lot because of a divorce and it was
hitting him really hard. We talked a lot about faith and enduring
through trials. Then I got the prompting to show him the Mountains to
Climb video(P.S. I have yet to see anyone we show that video for the
first time not cry after it.) and it really helped him a lot. We
invited him to start hearing the missionary lessons and he really
seemed interested now. So I'll try to keep ya'll up to date on his
situation.
        So apparently there is an all mission conference coming up next P-day
and it's going to be all the missionaries hanging out and playing
games at a park! That will be super fun! So heads up to everyone I may
just send a short email next week because I probably won't have a lot
of time.
        Power spraying.... So every Friday we spend a few hours working with
the head Gardener of. Hunterdon County Parks & rec for service and it
is really fun. The guy, Jason, always keeps us busy doing good ole
outdoors work and this last Friday I got to power spray down an old
man made waterfall thingy in one of the parks because next week we get
to re-seal all the rocks together. I have never been so dirty or
soaked on my mission so far. If you've never power sprayed the trick
is to not let it ricochet back at you..... I didn't figure that out
for a good 15 minutes.....
        So that was some of the more interesting moments in our week.
        I hope you are all doing great and that you are staying awesome!!!
Keep Reading your scriptures and praying.... There missionary part of
the email done.
Love you guys, see you next week.

 Family Home Evening at Sister Kings house

The unexpected

Buenos Dias hermanos y hermanas
        How has your week been? How's life?... Well that's unfortunate...

        This week has been a fun week! Groundhogs can be added to my "Almost
hit list". I need a haircut. Apparently something happened in the
Basketball world because people kept asking us if we knew what was
going on. I went to my first YSA party. Unfortunately not as a YSA
though. Much less fun that way. And we got a crazy text from one of
our investigators...
        YSA Party..... We had a Giant Paella that a member in our ward made
for all the YSA in the mission and they had a huge party at his house.
I think about 120 people showed up. We got the pleasure to go because
first off we helped set everything up but we were also meeting some
new investigators there! That's how missionaries get into pretty much
anything fun. But it was awesome food and talked to a bunch of people
saying the exact same thing.... "Where are you from?" "Riverton? Is
that in the north? By Logan?" "How long have you been serving?" "What
areas have you been in? Just two? Really?"
Not kidding... Every conversation. And of course as a missionary we
can't do the one thing that YSA parties are for so we say down and
talked to the old married people half the time. Still really fun
though.
        Crazy text.... So we have this one investigator named Chris. He's an
older guy who has been investigating for 2 years now. We got to really
start thinking the other week by asking him what he liked about the
church and he was freaked out by how large that list was. And then he
FINALLY is reading the Book of Mormon, but he's been holding himself
back from progress because he is waiting for God to do something...
Anything really.
        So he started reading it about a week ago and has been loving it.
(This guy studies Theology hardcore) Friday night we have a really
good conversation about scriptures and how he's feeling about them....
And then Friday night as we get home we get a text "I know my
God and I know what I need to do. I want to get baptized! How soon can
we make that happen?"
        So as you can imagine me and my companion were a little surprised...
We obviously texted him back and will be laying out the plan with him
this week.

        That's all I got for this week...That I can remember...
Thankyou for all the love and support! Keep being awesome and Never Give Up!

           -Elder Anthony S. Hicks
  New Jersey Morristown Mission