Week #4: Missing: My calling, My Flashcards, and my good-ol-fashioned English

    Another good week to report! I was released as District Leader which was a relief. Just less on my shoulders right now. It was such a good learning experience though!  I’m glad we all rotate callings in this church. I can definitely relate to the verse Ether 12:27 (favorite scripture to put on plaque) about weaknesses and that He will show them unto us! But I was also able to see that if I would humble myself and come unto Him in prayer, He would help me and my weaknesses become strong! The last district meeting I planned went so well and I truly believe that it was completely due to the fact that I prayed about it and God helped me. 

    On Tuesday, Elder Oaks came to speak to us for our weekly devotional. We just lucked out in that we decided to get there extra early this time and we got the chance to sit in the sixth row, only like 50 feet away from him! He talked about having the spirit with us in our teaching. I don't really remember the details but I do remember how I felt and the spirit that was felt by simply having an Apostle of the Lord in our midst. 

    Funny story, all my flashcards fell into the toilet yesterday. Although I am sad for the loss, it was pretty funny in the moment. Also, one of my companions got a cassette tape from his girlfriend and went to the bookstore to buy a cassette tape only to find that they were out of stock! And that they don't know when they will get more because their products just come in randomly. Again it was kinda sad, but we were all laughing about it. It reminded us of best two years, but hopefully it won't be the same outcome!

    Our investigator is doing much better! We taught him yesterday about the restoration and it went so well! Our teacher even pulled us out of class to tell us that Lookpu said to him how awesome of a lesson it was! He's now praying daily and has committed to reading the Intro to the Book of Mormon as well as start on the Book of Mormon stories book to help him understand because he can't really read very well. (Thank you Mom and Dad for getting that!) We're planning on giving him the baptismal challenge on Friday hopefully so hopefully that works out! I feel we have truly been blessed! 

     The language is coming along, and we can see that especially last lesson we taught because we could understand Lookpu a lot more and it seemed he could understand us. That's always helpful. It's amazing to look back and see how much more we learn each week and how much we progress. We're staring to do SYL (Speak Your Language) this week every morning from the morning we wake up through Lunch. If we don't know a word we can say it English, but we have to write it down and look it up later and then add it to our flashcard deck. I think this will really help. I'm excited to see the results that come from this!

    ANYWAYS (Shout out to Jonathan:) ) I have to go, but thank you all for your prayers and support!

Love, Elder Hicken

Love you guys!