Spiritual Thought this week

Here´s the spiritual thought for the week: Helping Others Find Faith in Christ

If you´re too busy to read the whole article, or just in the mood for a video, or you´re on top of things and have already read the Esign message, here´s a wonderful video that edifies my faith in God, and his prophets: Free Forever

Love, Elder Hicken

Skyping with Family on Christmas Day!

It was great being able to Skype with Talon and Kai on Friday. It was Talon's birthday so we sang to him. I especially enjoyed the time when both Kai and Talon were on Skype together and they could interact. It is wonderful having both of them serving the Lord full time at the same time.

Brent

 

Hola de casi navidad [almost Christmas]

Well December is going by like water in a salt flat. I just don´t know where. 

Todo está bien aquí en la Oficina! 

Fun fact for the day! Kai´s trainer, Elder Hurtado, has a brother on a mission. In Peru...Lima...Central Mission. He just got here last week, and I talked to him for a while on the bus from the MTC. We just had a training meeting with him and his trainer yesterday. He has been sick for about 4 days with food poisoning. Interesting connection! Small world!

I mentioned to the President the day before yesterday that air traffic controller came up on one of the aptitude tests that I took in my career development class at BYU, and he´s been on the topic nonstop since then. He even gave me special permission to look up some information today during pday.

Today my companion is going to Las Flores (if you don´t recall, he was my zone leader there this time last year, and we lived in the same apartment) to attend a baptism. I´ll be with Elder Chatwin, and I think we´re finally going to go see a museum!

We´re working hard on getting our Christmas party ready! We´re doing several video productions that are going to turn out pretty darn Christmassy. I´m excited. I´ll get you the links to see them once they´re ready.

Ok, Christmas is coming, and that means it´s almost skype time. What does your schedule look like? We don´t have anything figured out yet, but we´ve got all day, and plenty of computers to go around, so I´m pretty flexible this year. What time would be best for you?

Yesterday we finally had some time to go out and teach, and I went with Elder Carmona, the financial secretary. I found two of the questions he asked the taxi driver particularly interesting:

1. Why do people forget about God?
2. What can we do to make sure we don´t forget about Him?

I would love it after pondering the first question, you would send me a short response to the second question. What are you doing, or what do you need to start doing to make sure that you "do always remember Him, that you might have His spirit to be with you."

I love covenants, and I am so grateful for the Spirit which will not cease to strive with man, as long as we give heed to it´s promptings.

Don´t forget to share the Gift through social networking! It´s super easy to set a cool facebook banner with Picasa. Or to set a new background. I was pretty picky making this one nice, and it only took me 10 minutes! Share the Gift!

 #ShareTheGift

Feliz Deciembre!

 I´m so happy that change day is done and over with. It was such a crazy week. But the rest of this change is going to be just as crazy. Did you have a Christmas dinner with the president? We´re trying to get all ready for ours, but we also have to organize all of the interviews as well. We just finished specialized training meetings last week! My goodness!

Well I have to admit that this week has been tough physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. What has been of greatest help has been remembering my close relationships, and trying to strengthen them. As I stopped focusing on everything that was going on, how I was feeling, what needed to be done, etc. I started to focus on how those I care about were feeling. My companion, the president and his wife, My former companions, etc. As I looked to make them happy, I´ve felt relieved of my own burdens. 

The pivot point happened as I led the mission council in reciting our missionary commission:

Soy llamado de Dios. Mi autoridad está por encima de todos los reinos de la tierra. Por revelación he sido seleccionado como un representate personal del Señor Jesucristo; él es mi maestro, y me ha escogido como su humilde siervo, para ponerme en su lugar; para decir y hacer lo que él diría o haría si él peronalmente estuviera ministrando a la gente a la cual él me ha enviado. Mi voz es su voz, mis actos son sus actos, mis palabras son sus palabras, mi doctrina es su doctrina. 

Mi comisión es hacer lo que él ha hecho, decir lo que él ha dicho para ser un testigo actual de su palabra en su grande y maravillosa obra en estos últimos días. 

¡Cuan grande es mí llamamiento!

[I am called of God.  My authority is higher than all the kingdoms of the earth.  Through revelation I have been chosen as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ; He is my master, and He has chosen me as his humble servant, to put me in His place; to say what He would say or do what He would do if He personally were ministering to those to whom He has sent me.  My voice is His voice.  My acts are His acts.  My words are His words.  My doctrine is His doctrine.  

My commission is to do what He has done, say what He has said to be an actual witness to His word in His great and marvelous work in these last days.  

How great is my calling!]

 

How great it truely is. I am so grateful that the Lord provides his gospel to all of his children. Today for the first time in a long time, I had the opportunity to share the gospel with people who wanted to hear. It may be Pday, but I just loved going around the park with Elder Chatwin and contacting a few people who looked at us with a desire to learn more. We gave out a bunch of Dádiva cards. I love this new phase the church is going into. It´s incredible to be so close to the Apostles and Prophets. 

 [#ShareTheGift Cards]

How great the blessings of fasting. I truly seek to be able to receive the promises from this past conference, so that I can call upon the Lord, and he will respond: "Heme, aquí."

Dive in headfirst with the church´s Christmas video program! 

He is the Gift

What a special opportunity! Elder Evans of the 70 says that this is the best time to be involved with missionary work. Are you involved?

Love,

Elder Hicken

Family is Sacred

Right now is kind of a sad moment in the office. As I was joying in how wonderful my family is, with a Grandpa Steimle fan club, when one of the elders found out his brother got in a pretty bad skiing accident and will be in recovery for at least several months. It´s had to watch elders suffer, especially if you know them personally. Each one has such sacred desires to be serving other families, with a sacred trust in that his will be perfectly protected. The mission makes family sacred for us, and unless you´ve been through it, it´s hard to understand just how important we come to understand it to be.

What a touching video: The Refiner´s Fire

Love, Elder Hicken

Hola del dia #623

Well after a week without a president, we´re still alive! I can´t say it was easy! 

This afternoon our touring and transportation company is going to take us out for football and lunch. Fun stuff! Office bonuses.

 

After football, the tour guides took us to Papa Johns!

It was very interesting to serve with non-members this past week. It was much better organized than anything I ever remember seeing, and made me miss my country, and our people. When you put together a service-loving group of professionals and let them do what they love for two weeks with people who need it, tender mercies are commonplace. It was a new experience to see people get emotional for positive experiences apart from bearing their testimony in some church activity. 

Elder Casanova and I in our OneSight shirts after the eye health campaign these past two weeks.

At the end of the whole experience, there was a closing meeting with all of the volunteers, and they gave us all shirts, and we gave as many as we could a Book of Mormon in English. There aren´t a whole lot around here. It was an interesting experience: as one of our sisters said: "It´s so awkward sharing the gospel in English, I like Spanish better!" I gave one to the head doctor, Scott. He didn´t seem like the type to be interested, but accepted it, and I believe he felt how important the book is to me. It hurt not to have one for Steve, one of the coordinators that helped train me with data entry. 

Many times it hurts to not have materials for those who need. It makes me think of the spiritual application of the same; the feeling of guilt and pain that one encounters when lacking a testimony to share in another´s time of need is a cringing experience. It is not as easy as asking a companion for an extra pamphlet, or looking for the extra you always keep inside the cover of your scriptures. 

I urge all who are within the reaching of my words to prepare themselves. There is not much time before the Lord will require your testimony. The days are accomplished that the battle front has disappeared. The enemy is within the walls, and we must sleep on our swords. There is no child too young, no soldier too wounded, no scout too lost, and not one too weak to be strengthened by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We all need it.

Thank you so much to the Kansas Steimles! I got the package, and loved it! I tried out the socks yesterday. I forgot what it felt like to have new socks! What a great feeling. 

You might not know that sister Borg has a blog. You can find it at patriciaborg.blogspot.com. She only updates it every once and a while, but it´s nice because it´s basically all pictures. Good to know for the home stretch.

We´re up for another week of specialized training meetings, which will be different than ever before. Sneak preview: the president wants to teach in pairs, one of the each of us with him at a time. Like companions. How would you like that? The relationship of teaching in a companionship can be stressful at times. I can´t say I´m not a little nervous.

Now it´s the afternoon, and I´m a little sunburned. It´s been a long time since I´ve been sunburned.

Here's a pic of the week:

Elder Casanova and I on the top floor of our apartment building. It´s pretty far down from the 20th floor to have open windows (no screen, no glass, nothing but wind). 

THE BEACH!  Don't ask me how hard it was to not go swimming.

Hola de Buena Vista!

This week has been amazing!

I´m not actually in buena vista, but we´ve been involved with a ocular health clinic here in our mission. They´ve needed translators for these two weeks (last and next) and we´ve organized the team! It´s so much fun to mix service types!

Here´s a link to an article with a picture I took as the headline!

http://www.luxottica.com/en/patients-touching-our-hearts-day-2

Can also view the article here.

Anyway, what we do ("we meaning OneSight, GOM, and us translators) is we give out free glasses to about 500 people daily, and sign them up for free surguries if they need it (cataracts, pterygium, glaucoma, etc). Out of the 40 doctors, one is a member. We are sharing a lot of the gospel, and next week we´re going to bring a box of English and Spanish materials including Book of Mormons to give away. We´ve had quite a few great experiences, such as one lady who had never ever seen in her life. She ended up with a prescription of -8.00 (which is basically unheard of, and far past legally blind) but each time the doctor bumped up the prescription with the machine, she would get super excited and tell her that that was good enough. Then Karen (that was my doctor´s name) would bump it up once more and she would excitedly yell: "¡allí, allí, allí, allí!" (meaning: this one! This one! This one!) It will be incredible for her to finally be able to see after more than 60 years of being blind. 

Helping people see physically isn´t too different from helping people see spiritually. Only that physically happens much faster, and therefore is much more instantly gratifying. However, with the two of them, we have to trust in the feedback from the patient to be able to progress. 

There was one patient who refused to look in the eyeholes correctly. She would repeatedly tell us that it was blurry in the right eye and so she wasn´t going to use it anyway. She just couldn´t understand that it was precisely for that reason that we were going to give her glasses. It was sad for the both of us when the doctor gave up and decided to just give her a common prescription. It will help her see, but it won´t be perfect 20/20. It will be something like the Telestial kingdom for those who want to live the teachings of Jesus without performing the ordinances correctly, and under the right authority. 

I learned a lot about eye health yesterday. I was put on the data entry team to start out the day, and then they were low on translators, and asked if I could do the two at a time. I obliged, and boy was it fun! 

I´ll try and get the journalist from the team to get us a link to their pictures so we can give them out to the missionaries, and so I can get them to you.

Here is a link to a blog post about one of Dr. Karen´s patients that I translated for...my part is limited to "Final prescription writing was done in the next room by Dr. Karen from Canada. Using the dials on the phoropter, and asking “which is more clear? One? Or two?,” through the translator." Steve (from the story) trained me on the data entry and inventory system yesterday, and Xacobe is...well...fun to talk to. One of the few doctors who speaks spanish. (Can also view the post here)

It´s tough not being out in the field, but this week has been very satisfying to feel the instant gratitude for our hard work!

(PS: it is easy to translate from English to Spanish, but I didn´t realize how hard it was to go the other way!)

Here is a picture of our ward activity earlier today! Mistura! Basically a potluck. I´m still full!

  
My companion being all executive in a chifa (bien pituca éste chifa-estamos en san isidro) it has huge fish tanks in the stairway.

My tastes have changed a bit in the mission. And by a bit I mean a TON. I eat one halapeño with each piece of pizza. I´m ok with peaches, fish, pig foot, intestines... But I still can´t stomach tomatoes.

I love you all! Thank you for your efforts in the work of the Lord!

Go crazy in the work of salvation!

Finally!

Hello family!

It´s so great to be able to write you! This is my first pday in over a month! 

My whole life has changed since we last talked, or so it seems. My new companion is named Elder Casanova. After months of anticipating being his companion (he was my zone leader in Las Flores, my first sector in the mission) now we are finally together, and I love him. He is teaching me how to serve missionaries with love. He is from my group, which is why I asked a while back if I could extend. So I´ll be finishing my mission in the office. Which means I´ll be taking Elder Castro and Elder Casanova and Elder Cooper (from BYU) to the airport, and I´ll be going to the airport with Elder Fankhouser, Elder Burgos, and Elder Whitton (all (except Elder Cooper) have been my companion), just to mention a few.

I got the chance to read through Kai´s blog and his farewell message. I would be honored to have link on my blog that links to Kai´s blog. We´re an international team! I´m proud of him for all he has done. Although I do not know what he has done, I can feel the spirit testify of the truths he shared. I feel what he has become.

When Tad R. Callister mentioned the importance of morning prayer, how did you feel, Dad? It made me think back and realize that I don´t remember ever missing a day of morning prayer, headed off to seminary, or morning practice, or I think even band camp, lo que fuera. I remember sometimes being annoyed by the dilligence of it all, but it´s a dilligence that has blessed me ever since then. Thank you.

Here is the article of the week [Sacred Homes, Sacred Temples by Gary Stevenson]! "The temple is the most sacred place on earth.  Only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness."  I love the comment in last conference that we should do whatever possible to make our homes feel like how the temple feels. That will be a goal of mine. One day.

I love you! Thank you for your support!

The office (before transfers), President and Sister Borg, and 3 of their grandchildren, who are actually related to us as well. Their great great grandfather was Cyril Hicken through their mother´s side. (she was taking the picture)

Elder Castro and I walking to the Temple, and it looks the most like home that I´ve ever seen here.

My new companion, Elder Casanova.

RE: Letro Numero Uno

Well last week this got left in my drafts, sorry!

I thought Kai would like at least something [referring to the package that Talon sent to Kai at the Colombia CCM]! He won´t be getting packages like I did in the MTC. I sent the package with a young man in my last sector who is going to Bogotá. His name is Elder Gonzalo Alvarado. Super great young man.

Could you send me a copy of the letter that got sent home when my companion and I acheived excelence at the beginning of my mission while I was in the WVCM? That would be awesome; we want to copy it here.

I got the bank card! Thanks for sending it! Just in time!

The article for the week is about family home evening, called 8 Tips for Successful, Effective Family Home Evenings! What great advice! Find it here!

I love you all!

Elder Hicken

Letters from our 12 yr old Primary Class

Dear Elder Hicken,

 

Hi, this is Olivia Wilson. You probably don't know me as I moved in about the same time you left. How are you? How is your mission? Do you enjoy where you are? What is it like? 

Chevie W. wrote (got deleted) about what is it like in Chile, and how are the people. 

As a class this month we are studying how best to invite others to hear of Christ. What are some ways that we can do that? What have you been successful in doing? We are grateful for your service and pray for the spirit to be with you.

Bro Alvidrez

Thank you so much for your messages! I love it here in Lima, Peru. It is very different, and I have learned that we are very blessed to be physically and economically able to keep the commandments. I am doing very well, which is not easy during the cold, damp winter whether of the Peruvian coastline (the seasons are reverse down here). The people are very nice, and they love the missionaries in a way I´ve never seen before. Love the missionaries in your ward! They depend on you to have successful missions! You can invite others to hear of Christ by being kind to them. As our beloved prophets have taught us, kindness is power. Anybody can talk, and some can preach so we feel "good", but only through the Holy Spirit can we listen, and ask inspired questions. When the Spirit reaches the heart, it changes, and that is the moment when we must present the missionaries. 

Thank you so much for your prayers, they are dearly needed, and greatly appreciated!

Love, Elder Hicken

Hola de lunes!

 Todo está bien aquí en Misión Lima Perú Central!

This week the Lord saved 63 souls in our mission! A whopping number. 

It´s been a busy week, and we´re ready for another. Just letting you know that I´m alive and well, and that the Lord is speeding on his work. What a great opportunity to see it in HD, 3D, real-time and with 100% spiritual effects.

Here´s the spiritual thought of the week:

Thank you all for your hard work to choose the right!

Love, Elder Hicken

Hola de la semana loca

Todo está bien aquí en la oficina!

Well this week has probably been my most crazy week in the office yet. We have done everything from run around the golf course to sit for hours in the airport. But while in the airport, who should we run into but Victor Hernandez and his family (my ward mission leader from Precursores with E´Castro) who were finally on their way to Rockland, CA. It was so great to wish them on their way-definitely a tender mercy for us as well as them. 

They are amazing people and their family has changed so much since when I got to their ward. It´s amazing to see how the Lord took them from trial to trial like a stepping stone trail (with the stepping stones sometimes seeming very close together if you ask them) until they could be led to their promised land. I´m so excited for them. While in my mission, I´ve never felt so much like family than I did with them. 

Big news: We got a new projector this week! It´s about as thick as a ream of paper, and runs wirelessly with our laptop. It´s pretty awesome.

Other big news, I did my first vicarious endowment for a family member! 

 

Outside the temple about to go through for Johan Simonson (my 4x great grandfather)

 

It was an interesting experience. It is so important to help our ancestors on their way to the celestial glory. I had the opportunity to feel like how one of them might feel, sitting outside of where great and sacred acts are brought about, wondering what was going on, why, and why everyone was so excited but at the same time focused on bringing to pass some important, urgent work. I felt so anxious to know, and to know how I could participate. Maybe I could help, but I didn´t know what to help do, or who to offer my service. Why didn´t I know what to do, or why? I know there are many people who are kept from the truth only because they know not where to find it in this world, but I am aware now that the number might be much larger in the spirit world. 

Here´s a picture of the office in front of the temple. Me, Elder Chatwin, Elder Vergara, Elder Cornejo, Elder Castro, Elder Gonzalez

We trained the new missionaries yesterday morning. I used a video that the President liked a lot. 

This morning I tried a new food! Fried banana with cheese. It was pretty good! I didn´t ask for the recipie though, sorry. 

Thanks for everything you do! I love you!

 me eating a pela-pop (never seen that before, have you?)

  E´castro and I with a monkey (which punched me in the face shortly beforehand) 

in Gamarra this morning.

Love, Elder Hicken

Tyler Balli and JWs

 The arrival of new missionaries from the CCM, Sept 9, 2014

[Talon refers to the letter he received from Brent where he shared some gospel sharing experiences he had last week with some Jehovah Witnesses.]

 

What amazing experiences! I love it!

I´ve still got 5 more weeks with my companion, and we´ve got plans to have as much success as possible, both in our sector as well as the mission!

You have a member missionary class? How does that work out? I would love to try and involve that here if it´s working there! I have seen that book on your shelf, you got it for Christmas recently, am I right? 

Yesterday we trained the Callao zone. It was incredible, because we have 4 hours of straight training. My voice was absolutely dead at the end of the day. We taught them how to plan for miracles. I see miracles every day. We saw the miracle yesterday that although we basically singed their spiritual eyebrows, they loved it. I thought they were bored, but apparently they were feeling the spirit. 

Afterwards the President took us out to a expensive restaurant. It was incredibly good, and he bought us the buffet. I ate 3 platefuls. I´ve got a big bellied reputation in the office. Sister Borg loves to tease me about it. 

We certainly have our share of JW experiences. There are all different sorts, just like there are Mormons. Some of them love to see us out working and consider us part of their team against sin. Others won´t respond even if we just say hi as we go by. In our old house they passed by about once a week, and some tried to share a scripture before running (sometimes literally running) away from our house. Many of them are quite afraid of us. I don´t want to know what their preacher tells them. I have always wondered what it would be like to have an experience similar to yours. I had never noticed them in the states. Then again, I hardley noticed our own missionaries in the states.

I´ve got one question, were you nervous when you invited them in? 

I love you! 

Your son,

Elder Hicken

Hola de [Mom's Visit in] California

Man you guys are the best!

Mom, of course I´m jealous that you´re driving the truck. There aren´t very many of them here, but whenever we see one, the president and I get excited. President misses his truck.

I sent Chris an email, but he hasn´t responded yet. I don´t want to add to his stress, but if you can find out if he at least received the message that would be great.

Tonight there are 12 baptisms in my old zone with my old companion. I want to go see, but I think we might be looking for a new apartment still for the new missionaries. It´s change day this Tuesday! I don´t have a change. I know that, but Elder Castro only has one change left here before he goes back down. He wants to be a district leader again. Things are pretty crazy. I´m writing today, but we don´t get pday this week. 

Pouch mail, I´ve gotten letters/pictures from Lily through pouch mail. This week I actually got a lot of letters! I got the picture from Grandma, my companion didn´t recognize me. I got the letter from Shaun and Suzan, and yesterday I got the package with the pillowcase! I slept on it last night-never slept better in my life! I also got the letter from the 11 year old class from church (thanks Millers!) and the letter from Renen and Noah. Looks like all of us have converted to the all capital handwriting like Dad. Noah reminds me of Renen´s handwriting a year ago, so I guess he has hope for future improvement. 

I love to read your missionary experiences. I´m sure you´d like to tell me the same, so here´s one for you. This past week we presented "Missionary Contacts": the new referral system run by the MTC. It's a huge network to get referral data from mission to mission, or sector to sector, or Mormon.org to missionaries, etc. It´s a huge project, but now that we have access to the sometimes year-old referrals, I set up one appointment for yesterday morning. Turns out he works right next door to us! We went over and talked to him, and he excitedly shared that his friend gave him a Mormon.org business card and he checked out the site. He loved how happy the families are, and wants his family to be just as happy! That was two months ago, and he forgot about it until we called him, but when we met him he asked us for "one of those books that we have that help people be more happy". I knew exactly what he was talking about of course, and we were more than happy to share it with him.

Later yesterday evening, we took a taxi to get some of the new apartments ready for the new missionaries. The taxi driver jumped right into religion and we started talking about his beliefs. He condemned worshiping images and praying to saints, and told us that he was just too plain lost to be corrected, literally "you can´t make a crooked tree grow straight". I shared my testimony about the Book of Mormon and the divine power that it offers; he was intrigued. I gave him one, and he was touched and expressed his sincere desire to read it. I was impressed by the spirit that inspired him to accept the book and have the desire to test the promised that I have received. Although I don´t know if he´ll be baptized in a month, I know he´ll read the book. I am so grateful for Joseph Smith and his diligence to provide us this powerful and ancient record.

Mom, how much time did you have in the mission when you wrote these? I especially like your opinion of senior and junior companions. In our mission we don´t have senior and junior companions. What do you think about that? Of course, they exist for us in the office, but the Elders and Sisters don't know who is who.

Speaking of President, or Elder Grow, he invited us to do exactly the same: open our mouths. Did I tell you that he remembered you by name? You must have been a great missionary. I love to use those same lines, mainly with taxi drivers. I guess I was present in that zone conference as a spirit child. I have the goal of always having a Book of Mormon to give away.

Kai´s a temple worker? What! That´s awesome! I wish I could have done that. One day for sure. He´s sure on a much higher road than I was getting ready for takeoff.

Well, I love you. You´re the best. I hope you are loving life, because it´s the best. Share the gospel while you can, the days go by fast! Don´t achieve meaningless goals! Be smart, don´t do dumb things! Pray daily! Plead bravely! 

Love, Elder Hicken

Hola despues de la communion

Today we met with President Soares of the Presidency of the 70. Great man. He´s Brazilian. Surprise: I can understand almost 95% of Portuguese now!

On August 23, 2014 we were blessed to have President Soares with his wife and President C. Scott Grow visit the mission.  They are both members of The First Quorum of the Seventy. 

Elder Grow also came (Mom, he remembered Sunny right off the bat when I met him) and in his talk shared the same scriptures and the same principles as Elder Castro and I in our capacitationes this past month. Incredible. 

Needless to say, praying for the answers to questions, and then listening with faith, produces testimonies and spiritual experiences.

One of my questions was with regards to the relationship between the two Christlike attributes of patience and obedience. Up until now, that has been a big question in my mission. A question I asked my first President and he responded with a "only time can tell" answer. Now I am beginning to understand. It has to do a lot with charity. Everything is un gran giro eterno [a great eternal round] and everything ties in. The spirit makes connections that we ourselves as veil-experienced humans cannot make (such as the comprehension of "eternity"), through the which we can testify of and teach eternal principles to others--always depending upon the connection that can be made if our words invite the Spirit to do it´s work.

Both President Borg and President Soares talked about their wives. Many times I have experienced a type of love that comes from within me, but from a source much greater and much more powerful than myself. It´s a feeling that doesn´t translate well into telestial terms. It was interesting to see my President feel that same big feeling of love and try and let it out. It seems to me that it is most frequent to feel in such a way in concordance with a foreign demonstration of piety.

3 Nephi 19:34

 34 Nevertheless, so great and marvelous were the words which he prayed that they cannot be written, neither can they be uttered by man.

I love the mission. It is nothing like what I wanted, but my Heavenly Father knows me better than I do, and certainly better than I did. I had no idea what he had in store for me. I am beginning to realize that my most wildest dreams are really not as far away as they´re made out to be. 

Love, Elder Hicken