Transfer Doctrine!!! And epic Heat Wave!!!

Hello all the people from my Past Life!!!
This week was a fun and random week. Solid mixed week of knocking
doors and helping members!
        Wednesday we picked up one of our smaller members. His name is
Eduardo. He's in Teacher's Quorum but looks like he should still be in
his middle years of Primary. But he asked to hang out with us for a
bit so we picked him up and went and knocked some doors! So exciting,
I know. But hey he managed to be around when we went to a dinner
appointment so he got free food. Nothing to complain about there! Then
we got invited to go to the Young Men's activity especially because
they were supposed to have some Less actives and Potential
investigators there... But none of them showed up. Eh... It happens.
        Friday was pretty eventful too.... We went and talked to Joni, who's
in a part member family and us and her husband are trying to get her
to church but she usually doesn't like the missionaries so they could
never get in. But guess who was able to get her to talk to us and
basically spill out her life story...... This guy with thumbs and a
name tag typing away at this keyboard.... Also my companion, he was
there too..... But ya we ended up giving her a blessing and she didn't
seem totally convinced of it. But here comes the funny part. The next
day we get a call from her. We couldn't answer because we were busy
but she left a message saying that "Whatever prayer you guys said
must've worked, because I woke up all happy today!" So hey, Blessings
work. Just sayin.
        Saturday was the day I thought I would die..... So we were helping
one of our Investigators flip a jacuzzi over because he had to rebuild
it's frame. Those things are ridiculously heavy by the way. It was
also like a million degrees and like 200% Humidity. More water then
air.
        We were sweating so bad that we went and changed our clothes before
we went to the ward Pioneer Day activity.... Which we ended up just
sweating buckets at anyways.... But it was super fun! And not good for
me.... One of the members(Who also plays the piano and organ for
sacrament) brought a Ukulele for a small skit she was doing for the
kids. I mentioned to her that I was learning how to play it and she
forced it into my hands and made me start playing it.... Within 15
minutes are was as my mother likes to call it "Voluntold" to sing in
sacrament the next day. So guess who sang "Abide with me Tis Eventide"
in front of the whole world alone yesterday?.... But everyone said I
did awesome so I guess I can take their word for it I guess.
                Now for transfer Doctrine!!!!
I'm still in Clinton! But I get a new Companion tomorrow, Elder Owens!
Goodbye Elder Reese!
But the bigger thing.... I'm a District Leader now!!!!! Who thought
that would be a good idea? They think I'm responsible enough to be
responsible? Like I know God doesn't make mistakes or anything.... But
maybe someone read a prompting wrong?.... Now I have to give
trainings!
        Anyways.... Exciting times. Live long and prosper people from the Non
Humid part of the country, because I'm probably gonna die here.
        Love you guys! Thanks for all the support.

Sweat or Rain?

(From July 18th email sorry for the late post. Love, Holly)

Wow, this was a crazy week!
        I'm pretty much exhausted right now....
So to start it was an interesting couple of days early on because we
got the privilege of having the assistant on exchange with us for 3
days.... Which is kinda stressful but very helpful at the same time!
Stressful because you feel like he's watching your every move waiting
for you to mess up, but helpful because he offered some great tips to
help us work our area better!
        Wednesday was Zone Conference and it was especially different because
a big announcement was made..... This mission has been approved to do
Online Proselyting.... In other words means that we are getting
Facebook!!!! Now a lot of us have very mixed feelings about it but
it'll be interesting to see how this works. Now we can stalk people in
a whole new way! I'm pretty sure Missionaries are the best Personal
Investigators out there.... Now that we have access to Facebook people
can never escape us! Muuuhahahah......
        So ya, that's pretty good news. It opens up to us in the first week
of August so everybody be prepared for a whole new world of
missionaryness!!!!
        Now for my week..... Thursday was the big day..... So Thursday is our
walking day, or at least for us, "Biking Day". And luckily we had a
third bike so our assistant could keep up. We decided to try and bike
to an area that we hadn't knocked before...... It was very rough,
turns out that google maps doesn't inform you that it was pretty much
all uphill. Thursday also turned out to be the hottest and most humid
day of the year so far. So I was very much hating life.
        After a good hour bike ride uphill we finally arrived at our
destination, completely drenched in sweat..... Best door knocking
condition possible! But luckily the Lord is great for providing
excuses. The weather suddenly turned and dumped rain for about 2
minutes... Like literally dumped! So now we had an excuse to be
completely drenched, "It's not sweat, just rainwater now!" So that
worked out.....
        As we continued to knock we ended up coming upon this awesome Indian
guy named Kk who had recently converted to Christianity from Hinduism.
This guy had some serious miracles in his life and loved anything to
do with Jesus Christ! It was awesome. We are now currently trying to
acquire a Hindi Book of Mormon to make his faith explode even more!
        We then got the opportunity to ride our bikes back home.... All
downhill, much better.
Another interesting thing that happened...
        On Saturday the Stake Family History people put on a presentation for
Leonard Lance, who is in the New Jersey Congress. We got to go to that
and it was pretty cool, had a chance to talk to him and found out how
much he respected the LDS Church. He was friends with Mitt Romney and
kept saying how much he respected the guy and was angry that he didn't
run again for the presidency. So that was pretty cool.
        Other then that nothing too eventful for the week... Taught some
lessons... Knocked a lot of doors... And didn't get enough sleep....
The life of a Missionary.....
                Hope you all had a wonderful week! Love you guys and Thankyou for
all your support!

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

Service!!!!!

   Hello my dear Monday subjects, I hope ya'lls 4th of July was as
deliciously explosive as mine was! Last Monday for me consisted of
feeding some deer and apple, eating some great food, driving hastily
for 30 minutes to a firework show that we showed up late too because
it started early due to the rain that was coming down. We then
proceeded to get rained on the whole show but it was still super cool!
We then went to one of my favorite family's house for some cheesecake.
Our Fourth of July curfew was to be back in our apartments and getting
ready for bed by 11..... Me and my companion arrived on our front
porch at 10:59..... I'd say that is time well used!
   Now for why I tagged this email as "Service!!!!"......... I feel as
if that was the theme for our week. To start, Monday in the morning we
helped one of our members move rocks to build a rock wall in his back
yard for a few hours. Tuesday we helped our recent convert put in her
new window AC units, Wednesday we also helped another member move her
couch and Entertainment center from her old house. Wednesday we also
helped that favorite family mentioned up above completely tear out
their old garden which was really fun!
   Thursday falls under the "Service" category because we had to get
our car serviced...... But because of a bunch of little things that
fall under "Policy" we had to drive 35 minutes away to a pep
boys...... And then proceed to sit there for 5 hours while they
changed our oil... Then changed our front tires and the alignment....
That was pretty terrible but we did talk to a lady and refer her to
the missionaries that covered that city!
   Friday we painted and investigators basement! This is a lady that
we are subtly trying to start teaching her because her son and her
mother are both members and she seems at least slightly interested so
we jumped on it when we found out she needed help!
   Then Saturday morning we continued to live up to our nickname the
"Mormon Movers" and helped a member and his family move from their old
house to their new one........ I am thoroughly exhausted from this
last week!
   Luckily in between all that we were able to teach some great
lessons! Our investigator Bruce came to church for the first time
yesterday and that was a big boost!
   Now all of you go out and find some service to do because it is
great and makes you feel good! Don't ask questions just go do it!
   Love you guys, stay awesome, and Thank you for all your support!
                     Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                 New Jersey Morristown Mission

 This is a picture another missionary made of me and sent it out on the 4th.....

The front few from our relief Society president's front porch,

 the fog was rolling in and I felt like zombies were gonna start coming out of the tree line any second.

 One of my favorite families in the ward here in Clinton! They are awesome!

 The next 2 are more from our service on Monday.

America Day!!!!!!

Now that we've started off on the right note for today. HAPPY AMERICA DAY!!!!
        Nothing gets me excited like the smell of Gunpowder and the National
Anthem blasting in the background! The distant booms of explosions
just bring a tear to my eye. And since my spirit animal is an
Eagle(That's what people keep telling me) it is even more special.
        Anyways..... Twas a good week! We taught some awesome lessons.
On Wednesday we ran into a lady that was a referral and talked to her
about trials and how she can find help from her Heavenly Father. It
was really spiritual and you could tell she really needed it. We
scheduled another appointment for Saturday.
        Saturday comes and we go over and end up teaching her, one of our
former investigators that lives in the same building, and then another
guy who just walked up off of the street to listen to what we were
saying, it was really cool. Though at first we thought the guy off the
street was coming to bible bash us. Turns out he was actually
interested in what we were teaching though not interested in changing.
He was a "Progressive" Christian. From what his shirt said "Got Stoned
in Salem" and from the potent aroma that he must use as Cologne,
because it was thick, I understood what he meant.
        My other exciting moment for the week was Tuesday night. It was the
most awesome rain storm I have ever driven through.... I'm starting to
learn that the rainstorms here are epic. I felt like a race car
driver...... Dodging falling trees and 2 foot deep drainage puddles
that would swamp our little Corolla and slowing down to hear the
thunder boom. Twas a good week indeed.
        I hope ya'll are gettin' your patriot out and I'm currently scolding
myself for not having an America tie. Bad Elder Hicks!
        Once again happy America day.

                     Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission