Do what you're told and you'll get the blessings!

This week was awesome!!! Seriously! 

PDAY we had a food buffet! Every companionship had to cook a plate of food from their country. We cooked something from Trujillo, Peru. We have two gringos as zone leaders so guess what they cooked... Grilled cheese sandwiches. Oh how amazing! :) I'll just say that I didn’t eat for a while! :) 

The rest of this week was awesome too! We completed all of our goals AGAIN!! 35 lessons, 15 references, and 75 contacts. And we have been blessed how? I’ll tell you... 

1. Sadly our investigator who had a date for the 30th will not be baptized. 

2. But! We have another investigator. His wife is a member and she’s the only member in her family. Our investigator has always turned away the missionaries, even when I was with Hna. Aguilera he said no. But we visited one night, hna Morillo y yo, and decided to teach slowly and not pressure him. We've been teaching for two weeks. Last Monday night, we invited him to be baptized! HE said YES!!!! He said he wants to follow the example of his wife! AHH! The next day we had the strong impression to talk to him. We had a meeting with our zone and our zone leader told us that Satan is going to work HARDER than EVER to make our fechas fall. So, we went to our investigators house. We were a little nervous but we asked him..  And he accepted the fecha of 30th de enero!!! We’ve taught him every day since and he is so ready for baptism! 

3. We have another investigator, whose wife is a member but he isn't and they aren't married. We taught them this week about the importance of the temple and he wants to be married!!! We are seriously working miracles in this area! It's so awesome! 

We have a lot of new investigators that we are really excited to start teaching. I know that when you do the things that Heavenly Father asks, you will be blessed. He has asked our mission to have more references and more lessons, and because my comp and I are completing our goals, he is blessing our area. He is putting more people in our path to teach! 

How awesome is the Plan of our Heavenly Father?? 

I'm sorry I don’t have any pictures this week, I'll make it up next week. :) I love you all and thank you for the prayers and support!! 

--- Hermana Hicken

Stardate: 18120.16‏

¨Perú the final frontier, these are the voyages of the star ship Perú Lima Norte. It's continuing mission, to baptize people and share the gospel. To seek out new investigators and new food. To boldly go where no missionary has gone before!!!¨

Sorry, I’ve always wanted to do that. :)   Well this week was good! We worked super hard and completed all our goals. Sadly our investigator is not ready for baptism on the 23rd but on the 30th!!! I have faith that'll he'll be ready for the 30th! 

On Thursday we had a Multi Zona meeting. Presidente talked to us about the importance of the plan of happiness! I learned that there is one word that you can’t find in the bible but it’s in the Book of Mormon, God has one and Satan has one... What is it?  Can you guess? Plan. God has a plan and Satan has a plan. WE can choose to follow Satan or Heavenly Father, but you can't serve both. :) It was an awesome training! 

We drank a lot of Chicha Morada and OH MY was it HOT this week!!!!! :)   I had a cool experience... We have an investigator, the first time week talked to him, he didn't want anything to do with the church, but we asked him to pray. The second time we met with him, he said that he started to have faith, and this last time we spoke to him... HE WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED!!!!!!! 

The gospel can change lives. Enough said. :) Well, that's it for this week, it was a normal week in Perú! I love you all and I hope all is well!! 

¨Fruit salad... yummy yummy¨

--- Hermana Hicken

La Fe.... El Primer Paso

Hola Mi Familia! Bueno, estoy todavia aqui en Perú!  (This is Jody – I had to use google translate: Faith .... The First Step
My Family Hello! Well, I'm still here in Peru!) 

It's getting hot! And the sun is very bright!! But it gives us an excuse to drink a lot of chicha marón y eat chupetes! :) Chicha marón is a juice. It’s purple and it’s made from corn! And chupetes are pretty much fruit popsicles! They are really good! :)

I'm doing great! This week was awesome! We made all our goals AND!!!!!!!! WE HAVE A BAPTISM DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the 23rd of January!!!!!!!! Our investigator is great! He's got a good testimony that he’s strengthening every day! :)  

This week I learned a lot about faith. We all know that it’s not just believing but it's also doing. "Faith without works is dead" right? And this week I learned that faith is extremely important. You can’t repent and you can't become a member of the church without having Faith. It’s pretty awesome!  Yesterday, for example, I had faith that we would have INCAS (investigators) at church. I prayed and we called people and guess what! We had 3! It's the little things that count!  It was pretty awesome! :) 

For pday last week we went to Central de Lima! It was awesome! I shall include some choice pictures for you to gasp at! Why? Because we went to the museum of inquisition!! :) Catolicos! :) It was pretty cool to get away from my mission boundaries and explore another part of Lima! :) 

We also had to move this week, and that was an experience. We’re right around the corner from where we used to live.  We're only living there till February so that'll be fun! We moved because the daughter of our landlady is here and needed a place to live.

 Well that’s all for now! I hope all is well! I love you all! - Hermana Hicken  

A new year, a new COMPANION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!‏

Bueno, Hola everybody!! Happy New Year! I can't believe that another year has come and gone!! I'll just get right into it! This week was awesome! I haven't worked this hard in a long time! I have been exhausted EVERY night!! Also, it’s been extremely hot every day and super bright so we come home exhausted!! :) 

Monday, we found out that HNA Aguilera was getting transferred to Independencia and I was staying here in Chinca! So she had to pack, that was interesting. 

Saying goodbye to my comp

Tuesday, we had cambios (transfers). It was blistering hot and super bright! But I got a new comp! Hna Morillo! She's from Trujillo Perú! She came in two weeks before me which means that we're leaving together! That's pretty cool. We then went straight to work! 

Meeting my new companion

New Year ’s Eve was awesome! We ate dinner with our neighbors who aren't members and then watched world war 3 happen! It was crazy! Fireworks EVERYWHERE!!! I loved it... 

New Year's Eve fireworks

The rest of the week was great. We taught a lot of people and hopefully we'll have two or three baptisms this month. We're praying and working really hard! One thing that I learned this week is that everyone can change. Right now is a time a change. It's the New Year! We have the chance to change. And that's the message that missionaries share with the world! You can change and follow Christ. It's pretty awesome! :) On one final note... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I can send pictures this week so be ready!! I love you all!! :)     --- Hermana Hicken

My new comp and I TRIED CUI! (guinea pig) SO good!! Ya'll don't know what you're missing!! :) 

American soda at our Christmas Eve party!

Christmas Eve mission party

Paneton - a type of fruit bread.  

It was really good.  I like it.

(this picture didn't send correctly)

Happy New Year!!!! ;)‏

Merry late Christmas!!!! I hope your Christmas was as great as mine! ;) It was so awesome to be able to talk to you guys for Christmas! I forgot how much I missed seeing everyone!!! This week was good! 

We had exchanges with the hna capacitadoras which was awesome! The rest of the week was really normal. On Christmas Eve we had PDay. We played dodge ball as zones, ate real hamburgers and hot dogs and real American soda, and then did skits. Our skit was about dear Johning. We got second. The zone that won did their skit on the 12 days of Christmas - mission style. It was awesome! ;) We then had a talk by Presidente in which he screamed "You shall not pass" and told us that we completed the goal for the year!!! And we still have a week to go!!! :) The goal for the mission is 1600 and by Thursday 1603 people were baptized! How crazy is that? It’s awesome! :) Anyway, we then watched Home Alone. I’ve gotta say, I was super trunkie. ;) Anyway, we then went to work and at 9 pm we went to our apartment. We stayed up til midnight to watch the fireworks. 

Navidad is different here in Perú. They practically blow up the mountains because there are so many fireworks. It was so awesome, it was like world war 3 but happy! :) 

Anyway, the next morning, we woke up and worked until it was time to talk to families! After I talked to you guys, we went back to work and taught lessons about Christ and his importance in our lives.  The rest of the week was pretty normal. I’m done with my training so that’s awesome!! :) 

I love you all and I'll try to send pictures but this computer doesn’t like me. I love you all. Have a great week! Love ya!!! 

--- Hermana Hicken