Monday, November 17, 2014

Pure Happiness Nov. 17, 2014

Dear Mom, Dad, Family, and Friends,

Well, to start off, Mom, thank you soooo much for all your devotion to getting this BYU stuff firgured out. I know it must be a hassel but I am so grateful! So, yes, I agree that the girls seem a little old in that apartment building. Oh, and also, I totally understand about the whole cell phone thing. I thought it was a little sketchy as well. Oh, also, I´ve heard that the Riv is a little sketchy...

I know it must be hard to find a winter only contract. If worst comes to worst maybe you´ll just have to buy a contract with spring as well and I´ll try to sell it when my other friends get back or something, I don´t really know how it all works. 

I think the only priority is that I would like to be able to walk to campus. I would also like to share a room but if that doesn´t work out I would be fine with a private room. But really, Mom, thanks for all your dedication and don´t worry, I´ll start saving up some Brazilian nickel (centavos) for all the times you type my password, haha. 

Dad: Glad to hear that you are doing well and that your trip went well. I´m sure you must be pretty exhausted. 

I´m so glad for photos as well and I´ll definitely be showing you all a lot of photos. 


So, this week we had a special training with Pres. Nogueira. He talked to us about a few changes that the First Presidency has made in Preach my Gospel (it´s been a few months) about how now the full-time missionaries are responsible for teaching the 5th lesson before and after baptism and other things. It was great because it was a 4-zone conference and I got to see Sister Stolk and some of my other friends! 

Also, I received letters from Camilla and Danilo, two of my recent-converts from my first area in Queimadas! They are doing so well and wrote that they are excited to be able to see me and meet you two! They are so great, I´m so excited! 

Well, yesterday was a pretty good day. So, we have been working with and teaching an inactive family. Well, yesterday the four of them, the mom (Tereza (different Tereza than the phone one) ), the dad (Fernando) and their two daughters, Alice and Estephany. It´s so great to see the fruits of your labors and it really is pure happiness. We´ve been listening to the Book of Mormon with them because Tereza doesn´t know how to read. It´s so great to see how reading the Book of Mormon daily and having family prayer really does strengthen our families. 

Also, a little girl, Marília, went to church yesterday. She´s 11 years old and was baptized last year with her sister. Well, it was so great to see her at church and she made friends with the other Primary girls. 

Also, Tereza and her family (that we are working with) brought a friend to church, their neighbor, Vera. She´s not legally married but we´re going to start teaching her. 

Also, Saturday night we street contacting and we talked to a man named Edivaldo. He said that he had already visited the church but that it had been a while. He said during the contact that it was hard for him to believe in the Book of Mormon. We explained what the Book of Mormon is and invited him to go to church. Well, he said that he wasn´t sure if he would go. So yesterday, all of a sudden he appeared during the sacrament meeting (sacrament meeting is last) and I was so surprised. Well, afterward we showed him the baptismal font and invited him to prepare to be baptized this coming week but he said no because he was already baptized in another church. Well, we´re going to start teaching him and tonight we´re going to have a Family Night at Tereza´s house and he´s going to go. Please pray for him so that he can have an open heart. 

Well, Luma didn´t go to church yesterday but we´re going to keep teaching her. She´s a really great girl and just needs to stop smoking and feel more ready to be baptized. 

So funny story of the week: Saturday we had lunch at a member´s home, well apartment. So this apartment building is huge and there are 32 floors!!!! So, the doorman told us to enter the elevator and type P1 (yes, you type the floor and hit confirm) Well P1 is just the "leisure floor" that has the game room and other stuff. Well, we wanted the 1st floor and we couldn´t figure out how to work the elevator. Then the elevator just started to go up and up and up. We saw on the screen, 15th floor, 20th, 25th, and that´s when we started laughing, but laughter because we were so scared, then 30th floor, and we just started screaming, finally it stopped on the 32nd floor and we just jumped out of the elevator when the door opened! haha, we thought it would never stop going up. So the man told us how to get to the floor we wanted. But I`m sure the doorman was laughing out loud because there´s a camera in the elevator and he probably saw us freaking out, haha, it was pretty hilarious. 

Well, to answer your questions with the time remaining:

What is the one principle of the gospel that seems to resonate with the most people you talk to or is it something different that touches each of them?

I think the message of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. I love teaching the Restoration because the Spirit truly touches them.

aah, my time ran out but I promise I will answer the other questions next week! 

I love you all the MOSTIEST!!!

love,
Sister Hicks

oh, so funny that you sent the photo of Greg sprinkling because I told the other sisters this week of how I always sprinkled but now Greg does it, haha :)

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