Hello!
Okay so I'm here in Long Beach! I finally made it!! It's
been absolutley crazy! Everything is still a mess in my head trying to get used
to a new habitat, remembering everyone’s names, the language, new vocab I'm
learning, streets, who's a member, who's less active, who’s investigating, their
situations, all the rules, who speaks Cambodian, who doesn't, how to make my own
food again.....holy cow! But things are getting a lot more clear.
The weather is great, yet wet compared to Provo. I’m often sweaty, feel like I
haven't taken a shower all day, even though I have. But our mission president,
President Bubert, said that 320 days of the year here are sunny with clear
skies. Oh yeah! And it's really not overly hot either. There's always a
nice cool breeze. It's just perfect!
To give you an idea of my part of Long Beach, I think
I've seen 4 white people so far besides police and other missionaries. I love
it. It's really ghetto. I almost got my bike stolen already. We turned the
corner heading back to our bikes and sure enough there were these two kids who
had taken off my wheel. They were about to run off with it but we caught
them just in time. Please don't worry though! We are perfectly safe.
Everyone knows that we are just trying to do good so they generally leave
missionaries alone.
I don't know where to begin! My companion and trainer is
named Elder Skidmore. He is so great! He's been out for almost nine months and
is fluent in Khmer. He is the only one out the six of us who is fluent
even though there's three elders who have been out longer than him. So I'm
really lucky to have such a great trainer. Right now, about half of our lessons
are in Khmer and the other half are in English, so it's going to take a lot more
effort for me to learn this language in the states, but I’m going to do
it. I want to be fluent like Elder Skidmore. I have SO much more
language to learn though. I’m picking up bits and pieces when people are
talking to me and I can usually say what I want to back. Most of the
trouble comes when I'm not talking about the gospel, which is maybe a good thing
because it forces me to talk about the gospel with everyone I run into!
It's so amazing to finally be doing real missionary
work. Elder Skidmore and I have set a goal to talk to EVERYONE. We are only
allowed to teach Asians but we still talk to everyone! If they
are intersted we just give them the info for the English/Spanish Elders. We've
actually been doing really well together! So far there's only been one baptism
this year between all 6 of the Cambodian Elders. But just the week before
I got here, the other two sets of Cambodian Elders got one baptismal date each
and now Elder Skidmore and I already have 2 baptismal dates set. In fact,
I think we're going to have 3 soon! We've been praying to find people to teach
because we started off with zero investigators. And let me quick mention,
talking to everyone has been so great. Good practice for me language wise, plus
we have a list of like 12 potentials now! I'm so excited to follow up with
them!
One of our potentials is a guy named Steve. Elder
Skidmore and I visited him on my first or second day and he invited us to come
back for a lesson. We taught lesson 1. At the end of the lesson we
committed him to baptism and he accepted for June 10th! It was a such a goood
lesson! Elder Skidmore and I seem to teach well together! Really awesome!
Oh and Steve’s going to let us teach his son and daughter next week as well!
(Sidenote: mission goal is to always commit to baptism in the first
lesson).
Then we have another investigator, Carol...she is mentally handicapped but
has above an 8 year old intellect so we are allowed to teach her. Cool.
Friday we went on splits so I wasn't actually at the lesson with her but the
elders were able to commit her to Baptism as well! However, there’s a
problem. She is currently living with her BF. We're teaching about
the Law of Chastity on Wed. In order for her to be baptized they're going
to have to be seperated. Yikes. Pray for that situation.
Okay, before I move on I have to tell you about Sunraa,
this AMAZING 53 year old Cambodian lady who is a member. She is just this
awesome resource we have. She is ALWAYS willing to come with us to teach a
lesson, or give us a ride anywhere, or feed us any night! One month she fed the
missionaries every other day, 15 out the 30 days! And she is poor! She just says
she will be blessed. What incredible faith! Last night we were eating at her
house and we asked her totally last minute to come with us to visit this
potential investigator Elder Skidmore and I found one day tracting. Of course
she said yes. So, we walked up to this Om's (grandma) house and this lady just
goes off. Then, Sunraa slipped off her shoes, walked right in, and they
became friends immediately. We watched the Finding Faith in
Christ video with this grandma lady and she loved it! She said she
wanted to watch it again and show her grandkids! We had to go but we said we'd
be back. Just so neat!
And then another night we went back to Sunraa's house
and taught a less active member to help him with his decision about going on a
mission. It was a really good lesson too and he committed to start his papers.
The other night Elder Skidmore said that we are doing really well. He said
he hasn't had an investigator for a long time. (And we almost have 3 already!)
Wow, I feel like we are doing what we are suppposed to be doing, trying to do
our very best, and we are just being so blessed!
Another quick cool experience, so there's another Elder,
Elder Burbank, that is from Canada that also speaks French. I just happened to
be on splits with him and we just happened to run into the first French person
he's ever met in Long Beach!!! This guy just got here from Cameroon. We
taught him and he invited us to come back! So I got to use my French after all!
Going forward though, we're kind of unclear on things, if we can teach him and
who will teach him, because he's technically not in our area...but I just wanna
teach him so bad!! I'm thinking about asking president in my letter to him
today. Speaking of which I need to get going on that and get out of here.
Love to you all, and I thank you for your prayers! The
Lord is truly blessing me and E. Skidmore in our efforts!
Elder Hicken
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your letters. You're the
best!!!
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