Hello!
Today we went to the temple. It was so nice. We went to the Newport Beach Temple and it is absolutely gorgeous. But because of going to the temple, today is our P-Day instead of the usual Monday P-Day. So I'm sorry if people were wondering why I didn't write Monday.
Okay so this week has been great! Every week just keeps getting better! We have Charles' baptism THIS Sunday! He's really excited! There's a member baptism this Sunday as well so we’ll just have to figure out how we can work around that. But Charles is just such a golden investigator! We found him by a sheer miracle when we met his brother at that stoplight right before we headed home. He has just been so receptive and accepting ever since we first started teaching him. I think he's the perfect first baptism for me as a missionary because I've been able to practice all the lessons like they taught me in the MTC. Charles just accepts and lives it. It's great! I'm extra excited about him because we found him, taught him, and are going to baptize him-the whole works! As opposed to me having picked up in the middle of his progress like I did with Carol and Steve when I first got here. It's such a good feeling!
Speaking of which, Carol is doing great as well! So enthusiastic, such a love for the church and the gospel already! She talked to her boyfriend about getting married and we actually got to meet him. Pretty scary dude though. We asked if we could help explain things to him, and so Carol goes and gets him. Down the stairs comes this 6 foot bald guy in a tight, wife beater type T-shirt, with tattoos all up and down his arms. Still not sure if he likes us very much or not but we just told him briefly what the law of Chastity was, why it was important, and that they either get married or separate. He actually took it quite well. He'd said he'd talk to Carol about it that night. We’re still not totally clear on what they decided, but overall he seems like a nice guy. Although Elder Skidmore and I just don't have a very good feeling about him. It's worrisome for us.
I'm sad to say that we may need to drop Steve as an investigator for now. It's always been hard because he doesn't read very well, so it's difficult for him to read and gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Our last two appointments have fallen through. And even though he says he’ll meet with us, when we stop over there he's gone. But we still haven’t given up on him. When we're in his neighborhood we stop by, see if we can catch him and help him get back on track.
Overall however, everything is going really great! We have some really awesome potentials we're excited about! All of whom are Cambodian speaking so it's real good practice for my language skills too! We're planning on having Miing come with us and she is just so amazing. Whenever she is there good things happen! Elder Skidmore said she easily has taken part in over half of the Cambodian missionaries' baptisms. She is just awesome!!!
Okay quick like—here are some interesting things about what goes on around here :) First, we try to have members at every lesson possible. However a lot of our members are formally gang members so they can't always come to our appts because it's in "enemy territory" or where a rival gang hangs out. Interesting, huh? Also, being Cambodian speaking missionaries we are aimed at teaching the Cambodian people in the U.S., so we have to be good at finding Cambodians. When tracking this is what we look for: 1. Banana Trees 2. Dragon Bone plants 3.Milk gallons being reused as water containers 4.shoes outside on the porch. These key indicators are fool proof. Almost 95% of the time we already know they are Cambodian before we even knock on the door. It's an efficient way to find Cambodians. Also, since my companion and I are SYLing and 95% of our contacts are Cambodian we're basically speaking Cambodian 95% of the day. Super helpful for my language progress, which by the way is continuing to improve. I feel like I'm really getting into a grove of language learning. Elder Skidmore quizzes me every night on new vocab words-things I've written down and learned throughout the day. Then he will read the book of Mormon with me in Khmer as well for a half hour each day. It's so helpful! How great it is to have an awesome companion and to see the Lord helping me learn this incredibly difficult language!
OK gotta go! everybody is waiting for me! Love you all!!! thank you for your prayers!
Love Elder Hicken
THANK THANK THANK YOU!!! AGAIN! I got the package! it didn't get stolen. Just normally it’s good to send it to the mission office first. But thank you so much! Everyone loved the homemade lemon bars!
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