Travis' Travels: "Half a Transfer Done and Loving it!" -- October 3, 2016

!Hola¡

¿Còmo le va? I had an amazing week. Things are beginning to look up I think. Training is going a little better. I´m starting to feel little more comfortable speaking Spanish and improving ever so slightly in being able to understand people.

Elder Garcia and I have been working on his English a lot. I don´t mean to brag but he probably has the best English out of the all the other Latinos in our district. They had a little exam to do where they heard questions on the computer and had to answer them. Elder Garcia rocked it! He´s been starting to pray in English. He´s so cool.

We´ve been teaching this family called La Familia Soria. They are such a sweet family! We met them on the street during my first couple of days here and they ended up letting us into their house to teach them lesson 1. It was sooo cool because that like never happens ever. The Spirit was so strong and they invited us back the next week. They had some trouble with reading and praying to know if our message was true but this last time we visited, they had read all of 3 Nephi 11 and had really good questions. We ended up teaching about the Word of Wisdom because Beatriz, the mom, had heard rumors that we weren´t allowed to eat meat. We cleared things up a bit for them and they felt a little better. We think Luis, the Dad, might have a problem with it because Beatriz kept giving him a look whenever we would talk about some of the things we can´t have. We didn´t get to find out for sure because they had a guest over who went on for like 15 minutes about pretty much nothing. I heard him say something about a goat on a mountain and the end of the world. He said "fires of Hell" and "we are not prepared a lot. I don´t even know. That kind of thing happens a lot here. But I´ve realy grown to love them and look forward to teaching them each week.

We have a baptism this Saturday. We´re baptizing two people: a man named Manuel and his eight year-old granddaughter, Heidi. When we asked them who they would like to baptize them, Heidi didn´t hesitate to choose Elder Garcia because he "knows Spanish better and his more her height". Manuel shocked me when he straight away said he wanted me to baptize him because he said he had prayed and felt strongly that it should be me. I was so honored and am so excited. They are so nice and absolutely ready for it!

Oh my goodness, General Conference was SO good. It really is a different feeling watching as a missionary. I was fortunate enough to watch it in English on the computer in the secretary´s office. I went on splits with Elder Waldie, one of our zone leaders, and his his companion, Elder Arrambari, went with Elder Garcia to watch it on the big screen in Spanish. It was a little cramped and hard to hear, especially during Priesthood Session when there were eight of us in there. Nonetheless, I learned a lot and found a lot of ways that I can improve as a missionary and a disciple of Christ.

One sort of common theme I noticed throughout was that they seemed to be stressing the importance of members in missionary work. I´ve seen this first hand out here. We have a really big problem here in Oriente Quiteño with people who get baptize, start coming to church and then just stop after a while. We problem teach more less active families than we do investigators. Guys, if you know about a family in the ward who is looking at maybe investigating and possibly joining the church, I would encourage you to reach out to them. It can be scary to go to a brand new church with a still developìng testimony and not know anyone. Ask the missionaries what you can do or if you can accompany them on a lesson or a visit. It REALLY makes a difference.

Thank you so much for your love and support. I love you all so much! Be safe and stay todo cheverre.

Elder Travis Hicks

We went on a little hike as a district for our P-Day today and I have some good pictures.