Friday, December 26, 2014

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



 

Saturday, December 13, 2014

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!

Saturday, December 6, 2014

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! 
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