8/7 Transfers

Well today is the day for transfers everyone! I have been reassigned
to a new area in East Brunswick with an Elder I am not familiar with
named Elder Bailey. I'm super excited but also deeply saddened to be
leaving Plainfield!
I'm especially sad to be leaving my beautiful mini me companion Elder
Brinkerhoff but he gets to train a brand new baby missionary, I'm so
proud! (Tears in eyes)
This is my sad face below. And then a picture of me and elder Marz my
District Leader when we were on Exchange. And then lastly a video from
after a ridiculous rainstorm.
If you want to know more hit me up!
Have a wonderful day!

7/24 Hello!

Well hello all my people back at home! Just a quick update is all I
got right now! The work here in Plainfield is moving surely but
slowly. We've finally gotten into contact with a few people that we
hadn't heard from in a long time!
My big announcement that is super cool though is that the lady I
helped get to Baptism back in Clinton, Robin, just recently got
engaged to the first member that we introduced her to... there is more
to the miracles surrounding them meeting but that's for her to tell.
But it's super cool that I got to be directly involved in helping
those two meet up and bring them together in the church. They are
preparing to get married in the Temple and I am overly psyched!!! I'll
provide a picture of them below so you can see. Awesome!!
Other then that to explain the pictures we got to do some karate with
a few other missionaries and one of our cool members here who is an
Instructor.
And then lastly that is our picture from the meeting we had with Pres.
Hess when we first met him.
Hope you all have an absolutely wonderful week!!!

 

 

7/10 Pics and a vid

7/4 Happy America Day!

Happy America Day!

6/12 Sorry, I'm back now.

HI everybody, I apologize for my hiatus from writing the big weekly
email. I just didn't want to bore you all with the weekly ins and outs
of Missionary work. But now I've got stuff to talk about! These last
two weeks have been eventful for sure!

To start we had our big giant missionary conference last Monday for
the summer. It was weird too because it was President Taggart last
conference. Two weeks from now well have a brand new mission president
and it will be weird for sure. The other huge thing to mention is the
awesome temple trip I was privileged to go on. It was super epic and
deeply spiritual. The temple is awesome! You should go all the time.

Funny story for the week. Yesterday in church was an experience. So to
start off sacrament was normal and all the talks were focused on the
Law of Tithing. Sunday schools from my end of things went as planned,
we got to teach the young men and women's Sunday school about the
priesthood and that was pretty funny. Then during opening exercises of
priesthood, the second counselor of the bishopric asks for any
visitors to stand up and introduce themselves. Immediately without
hesitation this big classy dressed guy stands up and in a southern
accent "I'm Professor......... And I'm the whistle blower... (Insert
several political topics that I had never even heard of before
here).... That investigation was a sham! And it should be
reopened!....." As several of us are trying as hard as possible to not
bust up laughing the bishop gets up and just states "We will not argue
politics in the house of the Lord!" This guy this whole time is
walking up and down the aisle like he's giving a lecture and just
turns towards the pulpit "Well why not?" The Bishop restated himself
and the "Professor" walked out of the building..... So that was funny.
It goes even further in Elders quorum when after the Teacher finishes
summarizing a story a general authority told he looks at me "Elder
Hicks could you give us the meaning of all that now that I've
half-a**** that story?"... Probably my favorite Sunday ever. It's good
to know everybody isn't perfect.

Well everybody as per spiritual stories for the week I can't think of
anything very large besides the mission conference with President
Taggart. In essence it was his last training and guidance to us all
and it was amazing. It was such an experience to see their final
testimonies of this work. They'll be sorely missed for sure.

PS I'd love to get you all the video of the cheer my zone did at the
conference but I can't save it off of facebook.


                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

Here is a bunch of Pictures

5/29 My Minny Me!

Well hello again on this fateful Monday morning!
I hope Ya'll are having a dandy time wherever doth art.
So this week was pretty fun! We did a lot of different things. The
theme of this email though is how awesome my companion is. I don't
joke when he is my Minny me. I even had him take a personality test
and he got the same thing as me. Now he is my "Minny" me and not my
twin because I weigh 70 pounds more then him.... We are too much a
like and it's causing problems. We got distracted and spent a good
chunk of time the other day talking about politics and got carried
away. I am training him to be the new me once I'm gone in the mission.
I refuse to be forgotten.... Muuuahahahaha
But anyways our new area is going great, the members are pretty sweet.
We've been mostly trying to find new investigators to teach but it's
all good.
No crazy stories this week or anything super duper spiritual. Just the
usual, but I'll try to do something crazy to talk to you guys about
next week!

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

We killed a spider.....

5/22 Plainfield, USA!!!!

Hello all my people that are still out there listening... somewhere.... in the lost netherreaches of my memory. How are you? That's great to hear! I'm doing great too.

So this week was awesome! Elder Brinkerhoff (Boise, Idaho) and I put in a lot of work this last week trying to understand our new area. We got "Doubled In" which means that both of us are new to the area and there were Sister missionaries there before. All I'd Like to say is that this ward is AWESOME! In the first 3 days we were here we got fed three times by the members which was awesome, Thankyou very much everybody, that made it for us. It also helped that My New Jersey Mom Sister Wimmer put in a good word to all her friends in this ward to watch out for me and Take care of me and my comp.... So we've been doing really well here.

Sidenote: Our apartment is HUGE. Like super huge, we have two bathrooms and it's the first apartment I've had where I have to yell at my companion because if we are on opposite sides we can't hear each other when we are talking to each other across the apartment.

Elder Brinkerhoff is sweet! We get along super well and he's like a miniature version of myself. Except maybe a little less bitter and sarcastic. He's pretty young in the mission though so it's an opportunity for me to teach him a lot because I'm an aged old man.

Here are some pictures from my last week in Englewood that I didn't get a chance to send last week.

Hope you all have an amazing week and that you enjoyed the snow because it was stinking a 100 degrees on thursday and Friday.

 

 

We pulled out a second shopping cart, this time in only 2 hours...

 

 

5/8 Nerf Wars, Broken Backs, And Feelings Expressed....

MuWell hello again my weekly readers!

     This week we have a few great Highlights! To start from the pictures below!

Starting from the bottom, the last few P-Days to make it more fun for our zone we've been trying to come up with fun activities and stuff so people can relieve stress better. We had a Nerf War! and it was awesome! we played capture the flag and zombies. Growing up my whole childhood with Nerf Guns I don't think I ever had as much fun as I did last monday. It was a blast and everybody loved it, even the sisters!

     Next picture up was from our community service on Wednesday! It's at a nature preserve clean up place in the middle of our area. It used to be an old dump 100 years ago and they've turned the whole place around in the last several years. A couple weeks ago when clearing vines off of trees we found next to a small creek this shopping cart. Or at least all we could see at the time was the wheels sticking out of the mud. Elder Layton and I made it our mission this last Wednesday to finally remove it. After 3 hours of digging through mud, redirecting the creek, clearing water from the pit we were digging, and ruining our backs, We finally got it out! 

     Side note, I could barely walk the next morning because my back hurt so much.... and I may or may not have shifted my hip out of place for the 4th time.

     And then for the last picture, the one directly below, let me describe.... After a long planing session that we were super confused and not sure what to do and my companion said a snarky remark to me. So I wrote that on the board and gave him a lesson on my feelings towards humanity! Muahahahahah

 

 

The Grind continued....

Hello Everybody! This week has been a little crazy with exchanges and everything.

But here is my fun story from the week:

     As we were leaving the church on Friday night at like 8:45 we hear this person yelling, but we don't really register it at all. We get in our car and start driving out of the parking garage. I decide to role my window down because it's super hot in the car and I'm dying because I hate the heat. We pull out and this guy is yelling at us and flags us down. I stop the car and he's like "When is the church open?" And I was like, "Oh, mostly just on Sundays." "Ok what time, I've been trying to find a church and I just live down the street, am I allowed to come."....... So you know, Sometimes miracles come out of no where....

     I also got the joy of Driving around all day Thursday. We were on exchange and I had to chauffeur missionaries between baptismal interviews and doctors appointments because we were the only ones available and have a car.... Joy... So I spent all of Thursday cruising around West New York and Paterson. Paterson is a lovely city, needless to say we decided to get McDonald's 2 miles away instead of the one right in front of us because... you know.... Paterson.

      Hope you all have a wonderful day, I miss ya'll so very much.... Oh and Today is the beginning of the so titled by missionaries "6 Months to Sexy" Meaning that I only have six months to get myself together so I don't go home looking like a fatty.....

 

 Missionary Lunch after Service at the Dog Shelter

 When you realize you have to buy all the snickers because they all describe how you Feel.

 I've Self titled it.... the "Meatwich", or Ultimate "Manwich". Cousin to "The Heartbreaker"

 After Game photo of our Chair Quidditch Game....

 

 And Finally a Time Lapse of the Game:

 

Service

Hello Everybody! I don't have a ton of time to write this week but there is something specific that I'd like to highlight! Community Service!!!

So right now Me and Elder Layton have the opportunity to be part of 2 different services. We help out at a local Animal shelter with the Dogs and then we also help out with a nature park clean up every week in Teaneck.

This last Saturday though, we got the opportunity as all of zone 2 and 3 (about 45 missionaries) to go help clean up a riverside park on Earth Day! It was super fun and we got to help out a lot. I got to dig out an old tire, three foam pads, a carpet, and much much more. We as a whole found 12ish syringe needles (gross right). We cleaned up a ton and helped out a lot.

Now to talk about service, if you back home aren't finding an opportunity to serve the community in some way for at least an hour or 2 a month you are dumb, fix that. Service has become one of the more delightful things to experience on the mission. To help others and expect nothing in return! Go do Service!

 

 

 

The Grind.....4-17-17

  So unfortunately we are in a finding phase of the work, which
means a lot of knocking doors and doing anything to find people to
teach.
     To help out with that we Zone leaders get to go in exchange with
all the elders in our zone. How they want doing these exchanges is by
bringing both of the Elders into our own area so we can show them what
we are doing. This is called "Double Working". Original I know. So
anyways we went on two of such exchanges this week. I got the
privilege to spend a day with Elder Jean-Baptiste from Haiti in which
I learned all the important things to know in Haitian Creole. Now I'm
not going to bother Write them in Creole because that's super
difficult, but I learned "He's chill/ chillin, I'm cold, I'm hot(and
to be careful with that one because it has a bad connotation...), I'm
hungry, I'm thirsty, and Dude. I was informed that these are the
important things to know in Creole by a real Haitian so I guess I'm
set.
      And then I got to go on exchange with Elder Aybar from the
Dominican Republic, but also technically from Orem, UT because he
moved there at his junior year of High school. That was a funny
exchange. Though we spent most of it trying to find people.
     OH and Happy Easter everyone!!!
We got to go eat dinner at Mamma D's house for Easter dinner and it
was awesome. It was a party. A ton of the hood kids in the area were
there so it was Elder Layton and I, and a whole bunch of Thugs. Quite
entertaining and the good was amazing but it wrecked my companion...
The food wasn't very healthy to say the least.....

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

So....ya.... 4/10/17

Hello everybody.
I'm going to give you my deepest apologies but I'm really lazy today
and have no motivation to try and remember this last week. (Please see
video below.)
I love you all, and thankyou for your support and love and kindness and stuff...
Email me if you want to know more. 🙂🙃😉😴😴😴😴

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

The End of our Reign

     Today is the last day of the Transfer... and we got the dreaded
call last night. Elder Peterson's reign as a Zone Leader and time as
my companion has come to an end.... all good things must come to an
end. He will be sorely missed and he is being banished to the south
end of the mission. 😢
     This week was weird. Between stressing about certain things
happening with our investigators and stressing about transfers and
what's gonna happen we are beat! We haven't slept at all. So it's been
kinda rough.
     But despite it all! We had Conference! WooHoooooo it's like the
Super Bowl for missionaries! Their were a ton of talks that spoke to
me but I literally can't think of them right now. The thing I do want
to highlight is that I noticed several talks that seemed to focus on
the Investigators of the church. Reaching out to nonmembers!
      Sorry for the short email.... instead I'm going to give a
tribute to my bond with Elder Peterson.
                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

The Realities of Life

Good Morning Everybody!
      This week I don't have much to write about but I do want to
focus on a few highlights.
Wednesday was super interesting because we had to loan our car to some
other missionaries so they could go to a meeting in Morristown. We
used it as an opportunity to go out with some of the missionaries in
our zone! So Elder Peterson and I split up and did trios with other
sets of missionaries.
     I was with Elder Holmes and Draper all day up in Soldier Hill and
that was an experience. I'd never expect to find two people who are
exactly the same as each other being companions. But they were! 'Twas
quite entertaining.
     We also got to go on exchange with the APs Wildman and Follett.
It was a super funny exchange! We did a table stand trying to hand out
the Book of Mormon to people on a Main Street in Elizabeth. It got
really weird because this old Spanish guy kept coming up to me and
telling me dirty jokes. It was really annoying when I was trying to
talk to other people! Luckily the bus finally came and he left.
     Lastly I want to highlight a story I heard. I can't tell details
but there is this man that we are working with who told us his story
and the things that he has been through. I came to two realizations
from the unbelievable hard life he has lived. My problems are nothing
and that I've had the easiest life in the whole stinkin world, and how
important just one good influence on a child's life could do. This man
by the time he was 16 had done everything you can imagine from Jail
time, fugitive status, all the drugs and everything that comes with
that, and much, much more.
     Understand that your problems are small in the eternities.
                               D&C 121
7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine
afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou
shalt triumph over all thy foes.
9 Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with
warm hearts and friendly hands.

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

We've gotten so tired we've resulted to rolling around.

Snow Day! And some Early Morning Justice....

Guten Morgen meine Fruende!
     This week was weird but not at the same time! Everything feels
like it's slowing down here in Englewood. We've unfortunately baptized
all our investigators.... so we are having to switch gears to find
more people to teach. Which is a struggle because me and Elder
Peterson spent some time analyzing different types of missionaries and
we fall under the classification of "Closers" not "Finders" but I
guess it's a chance to grow right?
     Last Tuesday was rough! It was a "Big Snowstorm" so everything
got shut down and we were told we couldn't use our car. Which is
annoying because we don't have shovels and nowhere to go, so it felt
like a very unproductive day.
     So the big thing this week was Planning! Elder Peterson and I put
in a ton of time planning ways to find new people, Planning for the
people we are teaching, planning for future trainings we have to give,
and planning on ways we can best help our Zone. Hours upon hours. We
decided that one of our strengths is that when we sit down to plan
something we don't stop until it is all figured out, however insane we
get do to exhaustion.
     Now for the Justice. One of the District leaders in our zone,
Elder Spencer, doesn't have a car. So on p day and for all meetings we
drive him and his companion around. This last week he has jokingly
complained that we are always late to picking them up on p day
(Hardly, "A wizard is never late".....) And that p day is not a day to
chill. So he asked for us to show up earlier....... He didn't know
what he was asking for. So we made a plan, and committed to it. It was
a stretch for us, it required sacrifice. But the Justice was worth it.
 We set our alarm for 5 o'clock in the morning.
We found out a way to break into their apartment.
We snuck in at 6:27 and waited until their alarm went off.
Stormed into their room screaming.
And this morning, justice was served.