I'm getting transferred!!!!!! And Happy Fathers Day‏!

1. HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!!!! I have so many lovely memories with my dad!! Thanks for being cool! ;) 
2. Thanks for the package mom and gramma! I'm enjoying the Chex mix and rice krispie treat goodness!!!! ;)

It's been a lovely 3 months here in Family History. I can't believe it's really been three months!!!! So usually with transfers, Sister Erickson calls us Sunday night to tell us where we go, who is our companion, and who is taking our spot. Well, Sister Erickson did not call me last night. She called me about an hour ago! I'm being transferred to COMAS (Coh-Mahs). My companion is Hna Antunes from Honduras. She's new and she just finished her training. And guess who's taking my place.... Hermana Prado de Sellers!!!!!! My comp from the CCM!!!!!!!! jajaja!!! :) I'm super excited to get back out into the field, I don't remember the lessons but i'll learn them quick enough!!! 

This week was truly a roller coaster. We had our last temple trip with Wiesse stake, Wiesse is always a little harder. The stake president was adamant that we had to do the trip Saturday but we had the trip planned for Thursday! We changed the trip last minute and my comp and I almost went crazy!!! We only had 11 people go to the temple. Wiesse's goal was 50 people. But it was nice to have a calm and not nerve racking trip. We (my comp and I) were able to sit and really feel the spirit. 

Oh funny moment!! Okay, this was truly hilarious... So for all those who know me, you know that I hate it when people try to scare me. The whole "hiding behind a corner" is not a good idea with me. And as many of my friends know, I punch when I get scared. Well, a poor Elder did not know that. He was hiding behind a corner and I walked by and he screamed and I screamed and I went to punch him and instead I kicked him. Now mind you, this all happened in a span of a few second.. He was on the floor laughing and holding his knee while I was on the floor crying and laughing. The Elder now calls me Jackie Chan and yes, he did share it with the whole zone. ;)

To end the week I had a cool moment with some investigators on Sunday.  I was teaching about the temple and I could tell that the sister wasn't really listening to me. So I decided to testify about the temple being the house of the Lord. And it truly is. These past 3 months in family history have been crazy, but every time I go to the temple I feel the spirit so strongly! I know that Christ walks those halls, the peace I feel there is strong and it's the same in every temple!! The temple IS the house of the Lord! 

That's all for this week! 

--- Hermana Hicken

My comp and I

The elders in another car (we were going as a zone to Independencia but in different cars) 

It is officially Winter!!! 

I SHOOK ELDER RASBAND'S HAND!!!‏                   June 13, 2016

Shut the front door!! Yes, I did shake an apostle's hand.... I'm never washing it again!!  This week was crazy. The biggest stuff that happened was Tuesday and Friday.

 

On Tuesday we had our LAST Training by Pres. Erickson.. It was bittersweet. we learned a ton about the atonement. And we did a practice about the law of chastity. Guess who came to sit by us... Pres Erickson! Dang it!! I had been avoiding having a practice with him my whole 9 months here and I had succeeded!! Until now... but it was awesome!!! He told me that I taught with the spirit which is the best compliment I've heard come from his lips. :) 

Friday.... Elder Rasband came. We were to have our training with him in the morning... now... We are very far away from Los Olivos (where the training would take place) and we had to be in the church by 6 AM!!! Guess what time i woke up... 2 AM!!! We had to be at a meeting point at 4 AM and the bus would leave at 4:30. but we're in Peru and there is Peruvian time so the bus didn't get here til 5 am. With strong words on the part of president Erickson, the bus driver almost flew us to Los Olivos. We got there in half an hour when it usually takes and hour and a half.

At 8 am Elder Rasband, his wife, Elder Hugo Montoya and his wife came. We all got up and all 600 of us shook their hands. (We were with two other missions) When Elder Rasband spoke he told us that before he got here he shook hands with Pres. Monson and so we literally were one handshake away from the president of the church! 

The main thing that I got out of the training was that we as missionaries and members can share the gospel without opening our mouths to speak... guess how... SMILE AND SPARKLE! Smile with your teeth and sparkle in your eyes. Others see that and they want that! 

He spoke about so many things and I would LOVE to share all of them with you!!! It was amazing and the spirit was so strong!!! HE truly is an apostle of the Lord!!  

I felt like a zombie afterwards and I looked like one too! ;) but it was an awesome experience that i'll never forget!!! The rest of the week was super normal!!! Thanks for all the love and support!! Have a great week!! I love you all!! (sorry, no pics this week... no time to send)

--- Hermana Hicken

I HATE VIRUSES!!!

Howdy.. No pictures this week, My SD card has a virus... I'm pretty angry about it.

Well this week was INSANE!!! I haven't felt so many emotions in such a short amount of time since.... well I don't want to remember the last time! I'm off topic, sorry! Okay so this week, Monday was fun! we went to a park that has grass, real grass!! What!!!! I enjoyed being in grass for a while! 

This whole week was crazy! So everyday we literally sit at the computers in the church from 11 am to 8:30 pm.  And it gets boring, but its awesome when the missionaries bring people because we're busy and time flies.. but Wednesday we only had one person the entire day.... ONE PERSON!!!! I was frustrated. The next day we had a zone meeting with another zone so I got up and shared D&C 128:15. I invite you all to read it. I'm not gonna lie, the spirit was very strong there, I felt and I know that the missionaries felt it too. We cannot live with our Father in Heaven without our dead! So let's help our dead. That's pretty much what I said. :) 

On Saturday we had a temple trip with Magnolias. We were super nervous about it at first because we heard that the stake had invited everyone to go. We had heard that about 80 people were planning on coming! We prayed that everything would go well and it did!!!! We got everyone on a bus (80 on a bus that sits 47) and almost everyone did temple work!! We came back (somehow) with even more people! We counted and had 100 people on the bus!! It was packed!!!! Truly it was a miracle trip! 

I learned a ton from this week! It was a hard week but I learned that trials are good and that we need them. We become better by them. I have a lot more faith in Heavenly Father now, I trust him to help us, and I know that he is patient and he is loving. 

Well, we ended the week with no church... Here in Peru it was the presidential elections. A woman against a man. Keiko and PPK. PPK won.. I think, we're still not sure. But here in Peru they have a law that you have to vote or else you get fined and all the churches are closed and no one can worship on Sunday. We sat in our room all day... Wow, I'm grateful for church and Sunday!! I am also so grateful for the sacrament!! I missed it this week!!  

Well, That's it for this week, if anyone knows how to clean SD cards without losing all the pictures please tell me!! Love you all ! have a great day!! 

--- Hermana Hicken

That awkward moment between your Pre-mortal Existence and your Resurrection

Hello! Wow, a crazy week twas this week... first, I am alive and well! After a week of tests they found that I have bronchitis. (I could’ve told you that) but, I am on another set of pills that will help me get of this... ;) 

This week was pretty good! On PDAY we watched Kung Fu Panda 3. It’s hilarious, I liked it.  On Tuesday we went to Independencia and I had my blood drawn and did a spit test. I am very impressed with the lady that did the blood test, I didn't feel a thing!! :) We then came back and had our district meeting. We learned all about being diligent and obedient to the Lord. The rest of the week was normal, on Friday we went to Independencia again and I that's when they told me about bronchitis... Oh on Thursday I hit my 9 month mark!! WHAT???  I can't believe I’m on the downhill now.... AHHH!!!! ITs not okay.... my companion and I celebrated by buying chicken and french fries... I also made a poster thingy. (see photos)

This week I learned a lot more about the plan that God has for us. He gave us about 90 years to learn and to grow and to become the best we can be, but he knew we wouldn't be able to come back to Him without someone to save us. So He gave us His Son. Jesus Christ paid the price, all he asks is that we follow Him and use His gift. I am so grateful for that gift, I love my Savior and My Father in Heaven. 

That’s all for this week! I love you all and Have a good summer week! 

--- Hermana Hicken

yes... that is one of the pills I take, and yes.. I drew a minion on it! ;)

Insert sassy title...‏

Well hello!!! This week was good! To get right on it, we had our temple trip on Wednesday with the Canto Grande Stake. It's two zones which always makes it interesting for us because one zone always brings a ton and the other zone... nothing. ;) This time we had 24 people enter the temple and do baptisms. This is the first time that I've done a temple trip practically alone and let me tell you it was crazy. It didn't help that I also lost my voice the day before so I quietly told my comp to tell everyone what to do. ;)

I have truly learned to love the temple and appreciate the fact that when I was in Utah, I had 4 temples within 30 minutes of my house. It takes us about an hour to get to the temple which isn't too bad when you think about it. I am grateful for the temple and I hope that we can become a "temple loving and temple attending" people. I love being here!

We had a zone conference with Presidente. It's his last zone conference with us and it was awesome! We talked a lot about revelation and how important it is to pay tithing. We did a practice about tithing and Pres. told us that he has never seen a less active pay tithing. He explained that that is a reason why they're less active. It was an awesome zone meeting! 

The rest of the week was really good. I am continuing my battle with my sickness. I went to the clinic and got x-rays and then on Tuesday I got some blood work started. They hope to have the answer by this Friday. I have pneumonia like symptoms so they started treatment with three antibiotics. Hna Erickson thinks I have asthma because the air is so dusty and dirty here.  The doctors think I have a bacteria infection. That was really my week! I love you all and I hope that you have a great week!!! LOVE YOU thanks for the love and support!! 

- Hermana Hicken

my comp is as tall as me

temple trips!!!

my daily dinner - I went out  saturday night and bought top ramen. ;) 

my nest. .. it's where I do my studying when I get a fever

Eventful Week

Well hello! I'll jump right into it... this week was crazy!  I have to say that I have the best companion in the world. She is exactly like me - she has 4 siblings, she the oldest, she likes maté. (If you don’t know what it is you should look it up) and  she's always happy. HNA Jimenez, she’s from Argentina. LOVE HER! 

The beginning of the week was pretty uneventful until Thursday. We didn't have internet until 4 pm which was annoying because we do everything on internet! And then later that day we had this kid come in... He didn’t want to do his family history but we helped him do it. We got to his great gramma and realized that somebody had continued the work for them... we kept going and going on his line. We got Muhammed the prophet, Ruth, Boaz, Ishmael, Abraham, Isaac, Noah, Enoch, Enos, Seth, and ADAM AND EVE!!!! We were so excited! and then we decided to see if someone had gone past Adam and eve... yes, they had... the father of Adam is... THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY... I died... :)

That was a lovely way to end the day... but my week doesn't end there. On Friday we were helping people and all of a sudden... no electricity. NOTHING! For an hour. Somehow we kept going.  We thought that the next day would be easy... nope. We didn't have internet again. Being a family history consultant without internet isn't that easy.  But we did teach a lot of lessons.

On Sunday after the sacrament meeting the bishop burned the ward. He likened the ward to the parable of the two sons. One son says he'll go and do the work and doesn't and the other son says he won't do the work but does. He says that the ward is like the first son because they said that they would clean the church and they didn't. The church was a disgusting mess, so we took 20 minutes and cleaned the church. Yes, on Sunday. It was lovely.

Finally we went to a different church that looked like it was from the 70’s. We only had one computer so that was crazy but it's all good. 

Well, that’s my week!! I love you all!!! :)

--- Hermana Hicken

I drew the plan of salvation... 

I bought peaches... first time in almost 9 months

my comp!

Cambio, Compañera, Capacitando...‏ 

(transfer, companion, training - per google translate)

Well, we've got changes!! My comp is leaving and I'm staying here in Canto Grande. I'm literally in charge of family history for half of the mission... and I am training, not a NEW sister, but a sister who knows nothing about family history... That will be fun... ;) 

But I am super excited for this change. My new comp is Hna Jimenez. She came in one change after me. We were in neighboring zones so I know a little bit about her. I am excited!!!! :) 

Well this was a good week! We went to the temple again! This time with wiesse (the zone). As you can tell... Elder Parra was very excited to be on the bus.... Yes, the one in front... :)

A cool thing happened. I’ve been looking at my family tree and I found an ancestor from 1500's that hadn’t been baptized. So I got him baptized at the Lima Temple! That's super cool to me. :) I love going to the temple! There is so much peace there and I truly feel such love from being even near the House of the Lord!! 

Also, since it is cambios (transfers) I had to say goodbye to one of my good friends from my mission. Elder Melgar is dying... mission wise, not health wise. He was my first District Leader and I followed him here to San Juan. So it was crazy. It’s crazy when the people you get to know start leaving... 

Well, I also got to talk to my dear mother yesterday!! It was so good to see you all. I’ve missed you all a ton!!

On Sunday in Relief Society the primary came in and did a special program for all the women.. Both my comp and I got roses. A little girl came up to me and said, "one day you'll be a mom" WHAT??? That was interesting... 

This week was an awesome week for me and my comp... :) It is getting colder which is annoying, but it's fine. :) I love you all. I hope you had a great mother’s day! I love you all!!!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

--- Hermana Hicken

(I asked Sarah where she was for this picture and she told me she was the third one from the right.  I told her I could pick my daughter out of a group of six missionaries - I was wondering what building they were in!  Maybe next week I'll find out.)

Bus trip to the temple (it takes an hour because of traffic)

Talking with Sarah on Mother's Day