Holy Week

Hello family! Knowing everyone is currently out of town, im sure things are going well. You`ll have to tell me how it goes in Colorado and Utah. Btw everyone thinks im from Utah down here. Its like, ¨Where you from? Utah?¨

Anyways, this week was Holy Week. That means there was lots of traditional Holy Week food and decorations. The typical drink is a type of squash called chile cayote liquified. Its not too bad but one must be careful about drinking too much or else its stomach aches for a week.  The typical food is fish and a special kind of bread. All of the Catholics put up purple banners. However, nobody seems to know the meaning or purpose behind putting up the banners jaja,  at least nobody we asked. Starting this week, we saw people dressed up reenacting the last week of Jesus life. We've actually been teaching a guy named Jesus, and his wife for a few weeks. Anyway, when Friday came around, there was a huge procession. We didn't actually see it. But we did see the beautiful ¨carpets¨ they create to pave the path for the procession. They use chalk and dyed sawdust to make the ¨carpets¨. I'll attach a few pictures. It's amazing!

A lot of investigators that we have went out of town for the holidays.
We continue working with the ones that are in town and we were able to find a few others. One in particular is named Leslie Morales. She is the cousin of a member. She has one little girl and is interested to learn more about the church. The first time we visited her, we showed her the Hallelujah video. She really liked it and accepted an invitation to go to church this Sunday.

I went in for another check up about my head injury. After taking another look, the doctor said that everything was fine. I'm fine mom. I'm gonna live!

Like I said last week, Im excited to hear from the general authorities of the church. I would encourage everyone to look for someone, perhaps less active or non member, to go to at least one of the general conference sessions this Saturday or Sunday. Their and your faith will grow in our Saviour Jesus Christ and in the truthfulness of the Restoration of the gospel.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Peace

Elder Hicken

Hospital stay, but ok

Great basketball season Jonathan! Lamb of God sounded amazing. Miss playing in the orchestra.

Thanks everyone for your prayers. I'm alive! Honestly the head collision wasn't as bad as it may seem. I received a priesthood blessing and I know that I was blessed. I just fell in my apartment and hit my head.  A member took us to the hospital. That sure was a blast. They pumped me all night with some pain medication. After leaving the hospital here in Huehue, my companion and I went to Xela to get checked by a neurosurgeon there. He reviewed the results and said I was clear to go. The skull fracture is minor.  I have 5 stitches above my right eyebrow.  They thought I might have needed more but I didn't. I have follow up appointments where they will take another scan and check to see that everything is o.k.  Right now I'm home and doing regular work. It's all good.

So, we had a great week. Coming back from the hospital, my companion and I headed out to go visit a family. We felt to contact a few houses before going to visit this family. We came across a man named Rudi. He said he would attend us for 10 mins. It was very clear he was Catholic. As we began to speak, we were direct in explaining our purpose as missionaries. We explained briefly the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He thought otherwise. At one point he even called us liars. But we stood strong and bore our testimonies as powerfully as we could. We testified of the truthfulness of our message. He was speechless. He said he would read, pray and accept another visit for Tuesday. Exciting! It was an experience unlike any other in my whole life. I'm so grateful for the Spirit, the true teacher.

We've been praying to find a family to teach and we were fortunate to find a family that very night. It's the family Palacios Samayoa. The dad is already a member, baptized years ago. However, the wife and 2 daughters are not. We shared a quick video about what the world would be like without a Saviour 

and we bore testimony about Christ and His atonement. They committed to read and pray about our message. We can't wait to teach them more.

Pretty soon we`ll be starting to use the Easter initiative pass along cards and video. Everyone can look it up at followhim.mormon.org   And share the video with all your friends and family. It's awesome!

 I love Jesus Christ. I know the gospel is true.


Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Hicken

Progress

Wisconsin Dells looks so fun!  And I printed off the talk by Elder Callister that you mentioned in the weekly letter mom. Thanks.

This week has been great! We`ve continued to work with José and Joonathan.  We`re hoping they both can go to the temple soon.  Quick side note. We called Joonathan on Sunday to invite him to a special priesthood meeting but he said he was in an interview. Later he called us back to tell us that he`d been called to work in the stake young men`s presidency. awesome! He's so excited.  

Anyways, changes are tomorrow but I'm sticking with Elder Rojas. We`re excited! The assistants remade the districts so that everything's a lot closer. Both district leaders have changes as well so it'll be interesting to start working with two new district leaders.

Hooray! We have a stove that works! We`re sure taking advantage of it. Our stove hadn't been working for about 3 weeks so we took it to Xela to switch it out with one that worked. Turns out we ended up taking one that was worse off. Anyway we have a new stove now. Elder Rojas made some great spaghetti the other day since we didn`t have a lunch appointment with the members. Yum! It was so good.

Last week, a member family took a friend to church. His name is McBryan.  He really liked it. It's so great when members invite their friends to church. We visited McBryan later in the week, ended up meeting his mom and 3 brothers. They`re a great family and they are really open to listening to our message. We have a family home evening with them tonight. We're excited. Love teaching families!

Hope y`all have a great week!

Elder Hicken

P.S.  Fotitos--everyone who's been Rojas`s companion, I was with Hohman,  

 Hohman with Rojas and now Rojas with me