It's My Birthday and Great videos!

    Hello everybody! Thank you so much for all the happy birthday
wishes! It made my day on Wednesday! Especially because I was in a
sour mood and wanted to kill everyone. You kept people in New Jersey
alive so good job!
   We had a busy and stressful week with transfers coming up. We found
out that our area was getting split in half and another set of Elders
was going to come in so it was really frustrating trying to figure all
that stuff out. We got some awesome new investigators though!
    We found a family in Hackensack that is super cool. Their kids are
really interested in learning and have tons of questions! Another one
of the investigators is a mom that the Spanish sisters gave to us! She
is super cool and has learned from the missionaries awhile ago. And
then finally we had a young woman who met missionaries in Newark who
lives in our area so we were able to talk to her and schedule a sit
down! I don't know what we're doing to be blessed!!!
   We also ended up giving two really spiritual blessings to
nonmembers which was a surprise!
A big plus for the week too, is that our zone hit our Baptismal goal
yesterday of seven! That's really great because this zone has
struggled with that in the past and we still have another weeks worth
of baptisms coming up! We are killin it!
    Me and my companion made a video as a reward for our zone...
you'll find it below...

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission
The final picture is our camera stand for filming.....

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Hello everybody!
This week was eventful!
    Forgive me for lack of details because I can barely remember
anything anymore. Probably because I'm starting to become an aged old
man in the mission.
Our investigator got confirmed! So he is now a member of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Pretty cool, I know.
    It snowed a ton on Thursday but we had our service planned at the
animal shelter. We showed up and nobody else came besides the actual
workers so they were super happy we came! Every freaks out over snow
here in New Jersey! So I supply this video below to tell them all to
chill out.
    I got to go on Exchange with Elder Combs the young missionary! He
is super cool and companions with the one person I'm grabbing when red
dawn happens, Elder Miller. They are super funny guys!
    We went on Exchange with the Assistants to the President this week
too! That was an experience. We did a table stand on a Main Street in
Elizabeth and talked to a ton of people! We got the information of a
ton of people who were interested in hearing more about the Book of
Mormon! So that was pretty cool!
    Experience of the week though.... I got to participate in the
Baptism of the Spanish sisters investigator! She's the lady that me
and Elder Trask found a couple months ago and they asked me to Baptize
her! It was super cool. I also had to do it in Spanish which made it
interesting. The font at our church is weird too so we can never get
it to be even remotely warm. So all these Spanish people were freakin
out because it was so cold and I was like "Room temperature? This
feels great!"
Anyways sorry for the lack of content, I'm busy, and I can barely
remember this week.
You guys are great and thank you so much for everything!
Oh and Happy Birthday to myself on Wednesday.🤘😜

30 hrs of meetings and Home Sweet Home.....

Hullo Everybody! This week was really rough on the exhaustion scale....
        30 Hours of meetings all together can be really painful starting with
District meeting and a special training, Stake Coordination, Giving
Trainings at Interviews, Mission Leader Council, and all the driving
and planning that went into all of those... I want to die. But it's
all good and necessary and enlightening.
        Other Random information, WE FINALLY GOT BACK INTO OUR APARTMENT! It
was honestly such a drag to be in another apartment. I can't tell you
why, but it was different and uncomfortable. For some reason we just
couldn't settle over there and it didn't help that we stayed there a
whole week longer then we were expecting to. It's good to be home.
        So this week was super good.
Story of the Week!!!
        So we got into contact with this investigator that I had taught a
couple months ago. And we met at their work! It was kind of awkward
and loud and me and Elder Peterson didn't know what we were gonna do
about it because you can't expect to feel the spirit when a Spanish
Soccer game is blaring in the background. We go into the lesson
anyways and start talking to them about the importance of Baptism and
the Authority of the priesthood. It really hit them and told us that
we should all set a goal to work for. Specifically a Baptismal Date!
Super cool. So we decide we should pray to confirm the day that they
had chosen (Because it was pretty far out) and Elder Peterson and I
were concerned as to how far away it was. We asked her to pray and
the second she starts praying she starts crying and the spirit hit
like a slap to the face.... We wanted a date closer to now but the
spirit was all for the day She had chosen. It was a testimony builder
for myself that sometimes you aren't going to get answers you want and
that you're gonna just have to be patient. She was full of emotion
after the prayer and it was such a spiritual moment....
        Then Yesterday we had a Baptism!!! It was so cool and the spirit was
definitely there... I still feel bad because the Font is super weird
at this church so we can't get the water to be warm, so the guy
getting baptized was obviously super cold.... but either way he was
super happy afterwards and told us he felt different!
        So after a slow week full of meetings we finished off strong with a
super spiritual experience and helping another one of God's Children
to the waters of Baptism!
I'll call it a success.

Until Next Time my Dear Compadres!

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission

1-30-17 Evicted........

So, we got kicked out of our apartment this week.... I told Elder
Peterson we weren't allowed to play with fire in the apartment but he
didn't listen....

Just kidding... maybe.
    Last week our landlord left a note on our door talking about how
they are doing repairs to the apartment complex and we'll have to be
out of our apartment for a couple days. He also stated that he would
let us know before the repairs start so we can pack up and leave. Cool
whatever, that's fine, we'll figure it out. And then last Monday he
comes in and tells us we need to be out by Tuesday night and that the
repairs will take at least a week. Awesome, great, that makes things
wonderful! Luckily there was an empty church owned apartment int the
south end of our area so we had to emergency pack up and gun it over
there! So that was a fun event for the week!
    There have been some blessings of being in that new apartment
though..... because we found a skateboard.... videos provided below.
    Me and Elder Peterson are killin it here in Englewood! We are
teaching tons of peeps and having a blast. I also haven't had so many
intellectual conversations with someone since I was back at home, best
companionship ever!
    We also got to eat Korean food twice this week! And we aren't even
Korean missionaries in the slightest!
    I got to go on exchange with Elder Draper. He is a brand new
missionary! In fact I was his first exchange ever. I feel sorry for
him, I set such a high standard. No exchange will ever live up to it.
But he is super cool. From Springville Utah and is super excited to be
out here doing missionary work. I'm really glad we have a bunch of
young fiery missionaries here to lead the charge! Keeps me going.
    Random cool thing that's come up. So an investigator that the
Spanish sisters are teaching is gonna get baptized in 2 weeks. She is
someone that me and Elder Trask actually found and only got into her
house because I started speaking in Dominican Spanish slang. And they
asked if I would do the Baptism! So I'm not even a Spanish missionary
but I am going to baptize someone in Spanish! Super cool and I'm
absolutely and utterly humble about it.
    So miracle story that happened last night.... Right before we were
gonna go to the Raddatz house for dinner(they are my people) we had a
few extra minutes so we decided we were gonna stop by Sister Schroeder
because we didn't know her very well. So we knock on her door and she
opens it and immediately starts yelling at how much of a miracle it is
that we show up at that time. So we go inside and her nieces are there
and apparently one of them was going through a really tough time
because of anxiety and stress stuff. So Sis. Schroeder asked us to
give her a blessing and immediately the spirit fills the room. We
proceeded to give her a blessing and it really hit! It was such a cool
experience and we referred them to the missionaries over in Sparta.
Miracles happen.

                      Elder Anthony Sleigh Hicks
                  New Jersey Morristown Mission
I call this concoction the "Heartbreaker"

1-23-17 Blessings!!!

Hello my loyal Monday followers!
How Y'all doin?
      Anyways! This week has been awesome missionary work wise. We
have been blessed. Who ever is doing the extra praying for Englewood
please keep it up because it is working! We have had 3 investigators
just be handed to us this last week that are all super sweet and want
to be Baptized.... we have 9 people progressing to be baptized in the
coming weeks... which is a ludicrous number by the way. Not about the
numbers of course, but it's just crazy! The good times are coming in
for Englewood. Elder Peterson and I have been freakin out! God's
Kingdom is ready to grow here!
      One of our investigators in particular is a really interesting
and no coincidence situation. We taught a young lady yesterday who had
recently had a Baby, which completely turned her life around. She
didn't grow up with much religion in her life but she knew it was
important. How we met her was that she ran into other missionaries in
Paterson. In fact it was Elder Trask my old companion. But anyways we
get her information and we saw her yesterday. Afterwards Elder
Peterson was freaking out because a lady he had taught and baptized
back in Cedar Lakes, his last area was in the exact same situation
when he met her. Apparently this lady we are teaching said almost the
exact same stuff, is in the exact same situation. It was super cool. I
would love to tell you more but you know... privacy and stuff. Kinda
important. 😜
      We also got to go to Zone Conference which was super sweet but
also sucked... a lot. Super sweet because we got to learn a lot and we
also gave one of the trainings because we are awesomely superior,
pridefully amazing, and perfectly humble Zone Leaders. It sucked
because both me and my companion were pretty sick, and fasting for an
investigator on top of it all. So we had no energy, I had an explosive
headache and we were totally scatter brained. So it was a pretty great
day.
      All in all it was a pretty great week!
Thankyou all for you support and adoration. Keep on keepin on!

To explain the pictures. First picture is of the best lunch I've ever
made on my mission. If you ever want to know how Elders eat in our
apartments... There you go.
Second picture... last P-day Elder Peterson and I organized a Zone
Ninja bracket match championship. And Sister Dean from up in New City
took the win. Yes, I was beat by a sister.

1-16-17 Comp Untiy, New Missionaries, and Korean Food

  Good Morning everybody! I Hope all is well in thine own abodes!
        This week was pretty awesome. Starting off with a lesson in Korean
food and the lack of love thereof from myself. I can see the appeal,
but I don't like it.
        We had some awesome lessons this week and have been working with some
cool people. Lately we started teaching a lady who moved from Haiti
several years back that was taught by missionaries there. We had a
super spiritual moment with her when she expressed her sorrow for not
trying to find the missionaries here in America sooner. She promptly
set a date to be baptized so the future is looking good!
        We also have a few other people that we are working with that are
progressing towards baptism which is super sweet! This ward needs it
here.
        Because of all the different ethnicities here in Englewood area I'm
learning how to say Hi in several languages. Creole, Korean, Spanish,
Patua(Jamaican), French.... the List goes on, but it's sweet.
        My new companion and I, Elder Peterson, are getting along Swimmingly!
I think I mentioned it last week but we were already best buds before
from when he was my Zone Leader In Clinton. We do super well together
but can get pretty distracted sometimes because we talk and care about
a lot of the same stuff... super funny let me just tell ya.
        So... all the missionaries in this Zone are super young now. Our
whole zone got switched around and it's all missionaries that have
been out for only 6 months and they are all training brand new
missionaries.... in District meeting this last week I got really
freaked out.... I looked around and realized that I have been on my
Mission for at least 5 months more then any of the missionaries there.
It was an old moment, and I'm not even that old in the Mission!
        Because the zone is so young and full of trainees me and Elder
Peterson have spent a ton of time brainstorming on how we can unify
this zone. How we can make it a family. To motivate people, to make
sure they feel loved, and to deter homesickness in the new
missionaries. So that's one of our main focuses as our Zone Leadership
goes this transfer.... updates to come.
                Sidenote.... Another missionary was convinced he could teach me how
to do a backflip......... My neck as been sore for a solid week
now.........