The Gospel is True.

Dear family and friends,

            I hope everybody had a great week! We sure did! We got the bounce back in our step and we're rolling full speed ahead! Our "baptismal formula" has really re-motivated us.  It has given us the boost that we needed this transfer. I was noticing yesterday how there is such power in sincerely setting goals and working toward achieving them. There was definitely a significant difference in our work from the last few weeks to now. We're hustling more to and from appointments.  We're teaching every night.  And overall we just have a rejuvenated excitement about what we can accomplish here in HB.  We want to maintain this enthusiasm and success as the transfer continues!

            Something else I’ve noticed is that God really helps us as we do our best to achieve our goals. So, one of the points on our baptismal formula is to teach at least 1 lesson every day. As the week went on we started to recognize that it wasn't until the later hours of the evening that we'd finally get our opportunity to have a lesson with somebody. Thursday night we’re hoping for an opportunity to teach 1 lesson but things looked extra shaky. It was like 8:50, 10 minutes before we had to BE home and we still hadn’t taught a lesson. Elder Jolley and I both knew if we didn't find someone in the next five minutes we would ruin our streak. So we're like power walking between houses. We were knocking on doors, extending invitations to learn, asking if anyone will let us in, but nobody was receptive. Some people were even a bit mad that we were knocking their door that late! I don't blame them, we made sure to "apologize profusely" (shout out to mom!). Anyways so we walked back to our bikes and starting unlocking them when I looked up.  There we saw a guy just chilling on his porch enjoying one last smoke before heading to bed. We found out his name is Abe. Abe is a younger guy.  He's Jewish and lives in this little apartment with his wife. He researches greenhouse gases and different ways to prevent global warming over at the local college. Anyways, after talking about that for a bit we were able to direct the conversation to talking about his family and his faith and connecting it to what he does at work every day. Before we know it we were teaching him from the Book of Mormon.  He loved it. I don’t even really remember how we got to that point, or what we shared exactly, but the spirit was there and I remember that! He accepted a copy and said we could stop by and follow up with him later. It was awesome! So the streak continues....haha.

            The gospel is true. This is the Lord's work. "Ye shall receive no witness until after the trial of your faith". We've found that we just need to endure, endure, endure, and have faith. Then BOOM. The miracles and blessings come.

I love this work.  Have a great week!

Elder Hicken