LAST PDAY IN EL CCM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey all! It´s been a great week at the CCM! In fact, it's my last week!!!!! :) YAY!!!!!!!!!

I'll start with last Thursday. I got sick, again. This time is was worse. I went to Hermana Gonzalez (CCM President´s wife) and she gave me these magic pills that really work! So that was great. Funny story... so Hna. Tangren is one of the hnas in my district. She is terrified of spiders. So in her lesson she of course has a spider crawling on her shoulder... Her companion tries to brush it off and whispers "spider". Hna Tangren THROWS her books up in the air screams and starts jumping up and down. Somehow they calmed down and their investigator said the closing prayer. Apparently, he asked Heavenly Father to bless the Hnas with their spider problem. After her lesson she sprinted out of the house, screaming and ran into the bathroom. We all heard and ran out of our classroom to see what was going on. It was hilarious!

Friday: we taught our new investigator, Yennifer. She's 15 and in high school. She’s awesome! We've only had one lesson with her buts she's cool.

Saturday: We started our fast and because we started our fast we didn't have dinner. So instead of dinner we sat in our district room and watched Mormon Messages about addiction recovery. It was really cool to hear those stories and learn about people's lives. :)  Hna Rivera (worked at the Mexico CCM with G&G Hicken) is getting married and we saw her wedding invites. That was cool. She’s best friends with our teacher so she's in there a lot.

Sunday: Fast Sunday. Our whole district bore our testimonies. I love Sundays in the CCM! It’s so spiritually enlightening! That night we listened to Elder Ballard and Oaks speak. They were so awesome. They both talked about loving your investigators and listening to the spirit. After the Devos we had a district testimony meeting. We talked about our conversion stories and that was cool!

Monday: Today we took district pictures, we learned grammar and how to teach people not lessons and then we watched Elder Scott’s funeral. Wow, it was beautiful! I really started to miss Utah again!! Oh well. I love how Elder Christofferson said that he was a man who could look up to God with a pure conscious. After that, it was a normal day and I learned that the gift of tongues is real. It is so real!! :)

Tuesday:  a normal day in the CCM. We watched another Devo and Elder Oaks spoke again. He talked about how the Plan of Salvation should be central in our lessons and that we can receive the companionship of the Holy Ghost everyday by partaking of the Sacrament. That was cool!

Today: I LOVE THE TEMPLE!!! So, cool experience... we were sitting in the Celestial room and I looked over and this sister was sobbing. I had the distinct impression to go over and talk to her, so I did. She is Latina and knows NO English. I knelt down next to her and said in Spanish "Hermana, I know I don't know Spanish well but I know that Heavenly Father wants me to tell you that He loves you. He is so proud of you, and He is listening to you" she smiled and said thank you. I received such an overwhelming feeling of love for her and I know that was Heavenly Father. And, I was able to say it in Spanish. I've been on cloud nine since!! :) I love you all! I can't wait to get out to the field! Spanish is going well and I’m learning more every day.. Except I despise Subjunctive.... that's just a terrible tense to try to learn... :) love ya!

- Hermana Hicken

Our District

One Month Down!!‏  (note from editor/mom: This letter was sent September 23)

           Hola everyone! It´s been a crazy week! First off, I'm sad that Elder Richard G. Scott passed away but he's finally at rest and we all know that he is happy and with our Heavenly Father. I want to share this quote with you that I love! "My mission belongs to the Lord with all my heart I give my energy and my time to the Master, because I love HIM. Therefore, ´'m going to look at everyday not as mine, but as His. And I will treat each minute of his time with respect and focus and the dedication that it deserves." - M. Rusell Ballard.

            I love that quote and it is so true. This isn't my time, it's the Lords. Well, this week was kind of slow.  I´m getting sick again :( but hopefully I only get sick in the CCM and never in the field! (knock on wood).

 I'm going to start with Saturday because that was a crazy day!! We proselyted on Saturday. So around 1:30, my district and some Latinos drove to the Lima East Mission. We got there and my companion and I were put with a member and an RM that teaches at the CCM. Our goal was to find all the less actives on our list and invite them to stake conference.... Easier said than done. Why? Because all the houses are on the sides of mountains and an address system is non-existent!!! After the first two attempts, we decided to just start contacting. It was awesome. I was in complete shock for the first half hour but I could kind of understand the people and I shared the Restoration with a lot of people. It also helps that we had some people that actually knew the language.

We were supposed to be done by 5, so at 4:30 the RM said that we had one more chance to contact. My companion and I saw this lady doing her laundry outside and we both felt the need to talk to her. We walked up and when she saw us she was beaming! Apparently she is the sister of a Bishop. She went on a mission and married a less active and now she doesn´t go to church. She invited us into her home which is really a rectangle room that fits two beds and a couch. She gave us water and we talked to her about coming to church on Sunday. She said she would!! She was so cute, she had the cutest little kids and they were so funny!! They were so cute! :) It´s awesome to see how the Lord works in people's lives. He knew that we would be climbing up a mountain and He told us that we needed to talk to her. All in all, it was awesome! We placed 4 Book of Mormons and 6 pamphlets. I was SO sore! I was also in shock at how humble and kind the people are. They have nothing and yet they love their lives so much.

On Sunday, we learned about how to study the scriptures better. I´ve decided that I’m going to try to visualize the stories when I study. Pretend that you are there while Ammon is teaching King Lamoni, or while Nephi is building the boat. I have found that I pay a lot more attention by doing that. And I have found that I LOVE the book of Alma!! It´s an awesome book!! :) New people came which means that I´m an avansado!! One more P-day and I’m out!

Camila AND Jose (our teachers) are going to get baptized so that's cool. It took a lot of patience on my end but hey, they're happy!

One of the sister missionaries here is a convert and when we watched The Testament (a beautiful movie about the coming of Christ to the Americas) I told her that it was amazing that we are teaching those people. She didn´t know that the South American people are descendants of the Lamanites. She started crying, and the spirit was so strong! it was awesome!

So today... apparently the CCM forgot that only 20 people can fit inside a session room so they schedule 2 groups of 20 to fit in one temple session. So my group didn´t get to go to the temple today. :( Instead, we sat in the visitor's center and read 3 Nephi 11 and 12 as a district. That was awesome.

I'm starting to get tired of the CCM but it's alright, I’m just learning patience! I love you all! The Language is Muy Bien! Have a great week!!  - Hermana Hicken

Mi compañera and me.

Hna Perez (orange shirt) and Huber, they helped us get used to the CCM.

The Lima North mission is TINY (under her fingertip)

One elder is also going to Lima north but you can't have one elder in a picture with all hermanas,
so his companion had to be in our picture. It was hilarious!!!

Our wonderful elders!

Llama ties for dad, brothers and friends

My Spanish scripture cases!

Qué en el Mundo

Alrighty!! All the North Americans taught the Latinos how to say "what in the world" and now, all the Latinos, including our teachers, say Qué en el mundo.  So there you go. 

Hi everyone!!! I'm doing pretty well. :)   So... remember the sister who didn't fly with us on August 26th? Well apparently she read her flight plans wrong and thought she left on a Wednesday not a Tuesday, so she had to go to the Provo MTC for two weeks, but now she's here so it's all good! 

We got new principantes which means that I’m an Intermedio!!! Funny story... so last Monday night I woke up at around 2:30 AM to someone in our room but I went back to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, there was a random sister in our room sleeping on the floor!!! I politely asked who she was and she woke up and introduced herself. She’s American and she flew in a day early... it was so weird!!

I’m going to go out of order. Sorry. 

So people in our district saw my music book and really wanted to sing the “As Sisters in Zion” medley. So we did and oh my, the spirit was so strong!!!! Also that Sunday, I bore my testimony to my district about the fireside we had had that night and the spirit was super strong there! We watched a fireside by Elder Cook and I took away a lot of great things, mainly just that a mission is an act of unconditional love. We also talked about how we always need to have the spirit with us to preach the gospel!  

My voice is better!! Yay!! Oh funny story... so, when we don’t want a ton of rice at dinner and lunch, we say "poco arroz" but one elder in my district said, "por qué arroz" which as we all know means “why rice”? It was hilarious.

It´s amazing how much you learn in one week here. I’ve memorized the first vision, the restoration lesson and the plan of salvation lesson all in Spanish!!  I also learned this week that we need to pray all day every day!! CADA DIA!!!! Es MUY importante!!! Heavenly Father wants us to talk to him and if we aren´t talking to him then we aren´t progressing and we aren't learning as much as we could be. In the field you pray 18 times a day. And that´s not counting the lesson prayers, the prayers in your heart, and the random prayers! Pray cada dia!! Another thing I learned in church is that the fullness of the gospel is here on the earth but every Thursday, the first presidency and the quorum of the 12 apostles receive more revelation. I thought that was cool... I can´t remember if I’ve said that before... :) José is crazy!! I don´t know how I feel about him but he likes our message (José is her teacher). We also got a new investigator named Camila. She´s awesome! We´ve taught her the restoration and the plan of salvation and she´s progressing. It´s crazy here, but awesome! I have pictures but I think I’ll send them to my mom and she´ll put them on my blog. I love you all. Thanks for the support!!! :)

- Hermana Hicken

The park outside the CCM

The Metro has things like what you'd buy from street vendors, that's where we got the crazy pants.

Casasitas- that's where we do the teaching

Me and my compañera

CCM water fountain

Está bien!

Alright! So I´ve gotta explain my subject line first. Our district leader, Elder Miller, started it. Every time something bad, annoying, sad, or anything really happens he just says, “Está bien!” Anyway, so every minute of every day we´re all saying, “está bien”. When we didn´t say the right thing! Está bien! When we play volleyball and someone messes up, está bien! it´s great! :) So está bien!

I´ll start with p-day last week. I can´t remember what I said last week so lo siento pero, está bien :) Oh, apparently there was an Elder Hicken that was here two weeks ago... so that is interesting.

 Last Wednesday, we went to the temple, went to Tottus (it´s a very large Walmart) and then came back and emailed. I bought Sublime (Grandpa Hicken said that it´s to die for!) and it is... it´s amazing chocolate and I love it! I’ll bring some home with me okay? It´s like a very rich Crunch bar and it´s great!!

Thursday! So every day we do physical activity for an hour. The elders in our district decided that we should do physical activity as a district, so we played Volleyball! Oh my, it was so much fun!!!! I´m not that bad at it, which is good! :) We laughed more than we played but it was a lot of fun!

We taught José (our teacher) and we asked him to be baptized. I memorized the baptism question in Spanish so that I could look at him when I asked him. The spirit was so strong, and I was so nervous, but está bien. Guess what he said... he said no. We bore our testimonies to him and left.

Friday... we had to go to Interpol so that they can make sure that we aren´t criminals. That was interesting. They checked our teeth, did fingerprints, and took our pictures. There were a ton of people and we were there from 6 am to 1 pm.  There was a little family of cats and that was great entertainment! We didn´t get any breakfast though so yeah... :(

Saturday was boring. I fell asleep in language study, and my brain is about to explode! está bien! Oh! I’m gonna be honest.... I looked like death. So at like 8 pm my teacher looked over at me and said that I looked like the Walking Dead... so yeah, that was great. I did learn today that if we can´t endure to the end we can at least endure to Sunday. So I’m going to try to endure to Sunday. :)

Sunday was good! It was fast Sunday. In Sacrament meeting, all the Advansados got up and bore their testimonies. They took so long that we went over by half an hour. está bien!  We watched Meet the Mormons. Good show. After church we watched an Elder Holland talk. He is awesome! He talked about how our first conversion is our self. He also said that we cannot preach the gospel without opening our mouths and letting the spirit guide. He told us to find 20 “open your mouth” scriptures. The example he gave us was the first vision. I found a few and they are awesome! I’ll share them with y’all next week. I bore my testimony to my district and I felt so awesome! Church is true!

Monday there really was nothing, except a few funny things I noticed. As always, the elder’s have their spices (they bring to mealtimes), and you really do need them... rice twice a day EVERY DAY is a little annoying. It NEVER rains, it mists... And our classroom is bipolar. Our district is kinda having a fight over the thermostat... one minute it’s cold, the next it’s hot and humid. Está bien!  

Tuesday, I got SICK!!!!!! It´s been going around which is great.... Don’t worry mom, I’m fine! I’ve been drinking down that stuff grandma gave me and it’s helped. But I lost my voice like I did when we were at Disneyland, so that’s lovely!!!

Today! We went to the temple. Went to Tottus. We handed out some pamphlets and now I’m here. :) But let me just say.... y’all have NO IDEA what it’s like to be in a tiny bus with 50 other people. I was standing on people, and I can{t even explain it! I’ll try to get a picture of it so that I can show you how crazy it was. Oh my but it gives a whole new meaning to sardines in can (or whatever that saying is.)

One last thing... singing is amazing!! I love it! Sadly I’m sick, but one day, my whole district was falling asleep. so our district leader got up and we sang some primary songs and hymns. It was awesome! :) Oh!, read or listen to the song, “hark all ye nations”. It’s my new favorite song!

Well I love you all. The language is coming along great. Thank you for your love and prayers.

- Hermana Hicken

The Latinas that we got close to.

A typical hallway in Lima

That´s 3 liters of Tampico!

Inca Kola truly does taste like bubble gum

Hermana Dickman went to Snow College and was in Woman´s Choir with me

 The tan shirt Latina is amazing!!! She nicknamed herself Hermana Swift. Taylor Swift. She´s hilarious! Love her!!!

Sarah's Mission Pictures

So Sarah and Sister Tesch (from our ward) surprised us by getting pictures taken without us knowing and making us a book.  They turned out great and I wanted to share some of them on her blog.

Hola everyone!!!                                                                                           

It’s been a crazy week here at the CCM!! I don't have a ton of time so this'll be short and sweet :) so, I got to Lima at 12:30 a.m. Lima time. Somehow, all my luggage got here safely!! That’s a huge blessing. Then, we got to the bus but two sisters were missing. They weren't on the plane to Lima!!!! So we had to wait for another 30 minutes until they figured out what was going on. We got to the Lima CCM at around 1:30 am. But we couldn't go to bed til 3:30 a.m. because they still didn't know what was going on with the missing sisters and we had to watch an orientation thing. Luckily we got to sleep in a little bit the next morning.  We found one sister, she had come a day early and went to her aunt’s house. The other sister went to the wrong MTC, she went to Provo not Lima.... she'll be here in two weeks.

Wednesday!!! ELDER BEDNAR CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh, it was amazing. Four different missions were there so guess how many missionaries... 800!! I'll just say that the singing was awesome!!! He gave us a lot of good tips like: write on small plates not big plates when you write notes during church. In the BOM the small plates are used for spiritual things and the large plates were used for history. So make sure you use small plates and listen to the Spirit! He also said to be an agent in the gospel not an object. "I will go, I will do, For I know" like that. The one thing I loved though was this... he said that the one big problem in the church is that people aren't steadfast in the church. Example: you want a temple in your area. The church announces the temple in your area. You go every week to the temple to see it being built. You’re there for the ground breaking, the open house, everything, you go to the temple for the first week, and then never go again... muy triste. STAY STEADFAST. Elder Bednar gave us a tip: buy the cheapest scriptures at the store. BOM. Read it and mark everything about being steadfast or steady or anything like that. When you’re done write a one page summary about what you learned and put in your bom. On the spine write "steadfast one" do it all again, and then again. Go back and read your summaries and you will see how much you learn! You should have dozen of steadfast BOMs by the time you’re Elder Bednar's age. He treasures all of them! He has TWO bookcases of those BOMS. Elder Bednar also said that you get to have a bad day when you’re on your mission. not okay! :) He said a lot more but i don't have time. BTW I’m sorry for the terrible punctuation, this keyboard is Spanish... :) 

Okay! My companion is Hermana Prado de Sellers! She's from Colorado and she's tiny. She’s awesome and nice and really cool. I love her. She doesn't know Spanish at all so that's nice......

Oh... We had an earth quake on Thursday!!!!!! Like a REALLY big earthquake. It was AWESOME!!! The whole room started shaking :) all the elders were under the tables... :)  So, the Hermanas are kinda perfect here at the CCM so that's cool. :)

OH, I met this guy named Hermano Moreyra. Apparently he knows grandpa and grandma Hicken!! :) that's cool :)

So we have one investigator (he's actually our teacher-sorry to ruin the fun). We call him Jose and he's hard to teach. He sleeps in every lesson, and I don't know enough Española to say anything!! But we taught him about the restoration and families and tonight were teaching him about the plan of salvation. He feels the spirit and he likes what we’re saying but the language barrier is hard to deal with!! 

Sunday was fun but hard. I missed my family a lot... but the spirit was SO strong!!! The branch presidency spoke and that was awesome... :)  OH so yesterday... we had to go to migration and apparently I was in the wrong group.... so Í had to go earlier with another group but there was no room for me... so!! I was in a car by myself with a crazy driver. Peru is HUGE!!!! And I will Never complain about Utah drivers... You don't know what it's like!!! PERUVIANS ARE CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!! I'm officially allowed in Peru!! :) Peru is very pretty and it wasn't very cold this week. We went to the temple today. It’s a tiny temple but very beautiful. The whole session was in Spanish so that was interesting! We also went shopping and it was crazy! But a lot of fun!! All in all, it's been a crazy roller coaster but it's been awesome!! I'm doing okay. I've just accepted the fact that I’m going to be fat when I get home. SO MUCH RICE!!!!!!!!!! EVERY MEAL!!!!!! but esta bien!! I LOVE YOU ALL! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!!

 

- Hermana Hicken