Feb 24, 2014

Well, it was due time for me to have a baptism. It was a long time since my last one! I know the Lord has blessed the lives of Mauricio and his family. I am so grateful to be a part of it. His baptism was remarkable. There were like 60 people there. I have never seen so many people support someone in  a baptism here. It was awesome! It is super comforting to know that the people the Lord helps us convert here in this ward will be very well taken care of. I can just focus on my work and the missionaries the Lord has put me in charge of!

This week was full of just getting everything organized for the baptism and trying to help or investigator Diana and her mom make the decision to be baptized for this week too. That is actually a cool story. I'll share it. So this week, we went with our ward mission leader who thank goodness is not less active like my last one in my last ward... And we went and taught Diana. We went to talk to her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ again, with the focus on faith. We told her how we need to act on our faith and the Lord will always bless us according to what we really need and when we need it. Out of no where our ward mission leader Hermano Estrada just starting pouring out a super personal story about his faith when he almost lost his wife and a set of twins when they were about to be born, but when he shared that story, the Spirit was just so strong and then afterwards we told Diana to pray, and then listen very carefully to how she felt. The very next day she called us and told us she was ready to get baptized. We didnt do it this weekend cuz she had a lot of things going on so we are going to be doing it this weekend!!!! We are soo pumped for her. I know the decision she has made will bless her life and her mom's life who is also an investigator. She isnt progressing as fast, but she loves us and goes to church. We just gotta explain things a little more simplified with her. 

We have been trying to also get out and visit more of the active families so that we can hopefully strengthen them even more and get them pumped up for the work of salvation. And to hopefully find some more people to teach. We found out this week at our zone conference (which was sweet by the way) that Elder Nelson came to Mexico and talked with all the mission presidents and their wives and that he sees a vision that we need to be baptizing every week! So that should be nuts! I know that if an Apostle has said that it can be done, it will be done, but with lots of work and lots of prayers with faith! We are going to try super hard this week to find some new people to teach so we can start doing that. One of the things we are going to start doing is when we go into stores and stuff we are just going to start asking the people if they want to hear a message of Jesus Christ or just casually ask the question if they want to get baptized just to start conversations! ;) We are very optomistic right now Elder Felsted and I. We just want to make the most of each day and enjoy our time together.

The zone conference was actually pretty easy. I thought it would be hard, but with my comp there it was actually easier than giving a district class in my opinion. So that was a blessing. The missionaries in our zone seemed to be extra motivated afterwards. So overall, it was a pretty legit week. I cant wait to see what this week has in store. I am pretty sure another baptism so we are soooo happy right now! :)

Hope you all have a good week! Keep working hard.

Love, Elder Hixon

Feb 17, 2014

Hit my 10 months today. Weird. 2 short months and I will be half way done with this amazing adventure! This week passed by super fast of course. When does it not? We had some miracles happen this week. First story, so we had some appointments fall through, and we originally had plans to visit a less active family as a back up plan, but my comp and I basically at the same time felt prompted to visit one of our investigators Mauricio and his family. We went and saw them and they were home :) We visited them and they promised us they would get married on the 14th cuz it is also Valentine's day down here and the marriages would be free for that day!! But they said they had gotten in a fight earlier that day, and they didnt want to get married anymore. But after we visited them, they said that they felt calm again and that they would get married. Well, they did get married this week and so that turned out to be a huge miracle!!!! :) So Mauricio will be getting baptized this Saturday and he is very excited for it. I am too! ;)

We also have some other investigators that can possibly be baptized this week. Their names are Diana who is 25 and her mom, Araceli. They have the church attendance necessary and love to go to church, they feel good every time they read the Book of Mormon, and they always feel better from the stress of everyday life after reading the Book of Mormon. So they should get baptized right? Well for whatever reason, they still kinda have a little bit of fear but we are pretty sure we will see them get baptized this weekend too. But prayers would be excellent for Diana and Araceli :) The miracle about them this week was that they have a store they have and they have been trying to sell it for quite some time this week and wanted to sell it even more to have more time to be able to dedicate to church and everything. Well, after lots of prayers, they found out that tomorrow it will be sold. So they are super happy about that! And we are super excited for them.

This week shall be a super quick one as well. On Wednesday Elder Felsted and I are going to be giving a 2 hour training to the zone. The whole zone conference will last 6 hours, but President Egbert and his wife are gonna help us with the other 4 hours and we will be eating too!  We made a sweet powerpoint for a few of our companionship studies and we are excited and I am a little nervous for the whole thing! 

This weekend we had our stake conference, it was my first one in my entire mission! I think I have been changed to a different area right after all the conference happened so it was the first time. It was excellent. They talked about the work of salvation and some of our investigators went and said they really enjoyed it. I love this Church and I know it is the true church! I love my Savior and know that it is essential to listen to the promptings of the Spirit... If we hadnt followed the one with Mauricio, he wouldnt be married right now and he would not be able to enter into the gate that leads him to eternal life if he had not gotten married. Pretty amazing what one prompting of the Spirit can lead too! I know that the Lord still works miracles everyday and that miracles can only happen if we have faith! I hope that every one of you can find a miracle this week according to your faith. I love Mexico and I love being a missionary!!!

And yes, I love you all too and miss you too,

Have a great week!

Elder Hixon

Ps, we talked to President Egbert this week and he said that we have to go to MOLANGO to do divisions with the Elders there! I am stoked out of my mind to be able to teach and visit the people I have once served :) One of these weeks we will get out there. It is just so stinkin far. 

Feb 10, 2014

Wow, so the changes! I am now a Zone Leader here in the Pachuca Centro zone. It is the zone that has Molango in in, where I started my mission! So I guess there is a possibility that I go back there. That would be super sweet huh? My new companion is Elder Felsted from Utah. He is AWESOME! We are so happy to be working together. He has about 14 months in the mission and he only has one transfer as a zone leader! He is a really funny guy... We are constantly laughing and cracking jokes. We laugh at ourselves too for how ridiculous our English is! We talk in super spanglish and it is so funny! He loves to play soccer too so automatically we are best friends! The best part about this area is that we have BIKES!!!!!! We totally cruise on our bicicletas ;) I cant help but think of what the people think about us.... Two white guys in white shirts and ties riding around everywhere on bikes. Haha, I love it! The bikes are super sweet and new too. I guess there is one rich guy in our ward that bought 4 of them for us two and two other missionaries that split the ward with us. It is called the Revolucion ward. I cant help but think about Magic Mountain every time I hear the name. ;) It is a really big ward... Yesterday we had 199 people go. And when I showed up the bishop asked me to give a talk. So I gave another talk yesterday and everyone told me that it was an excellent talk and they were really surprised to know that I only have 9, well almost 10 months in the mission cuz I guess I speak pretty well.

Anyways, this week has been one of the best I have ever had in the mission. I am so happy to be here in this ward and the house we live in is pretty sweet. I hope that next week I will be able to send pictures. As a zone leader we literally have zero time to do anything. We are working from 6:30am to 10:30pm if I wasnt already doing that earlier! Some of the things we gotta do is take reports from all the Elders in the zone, the numbers and their well being. We literally were taking reports yesterday from 3pm until 8:30pm and then we went and rode our bike super fast up and taught a less active! It is crazy, and it is like that everyday. We work everyday like normal and then we get home and plan and then the phone goes off like crazy and we are getting the missionaries pumped and helping them with their struggles and trying to know the names of their investigators. Honestly it is a lot but I am loving every single minute of it.

This week we had a bunch of really cool teaching experiences. We found on two different occasions, two different less active families that really needed our help by the guidance of the Spirit with the ward list we have. It was pretty sweet. I unfortunately dont have the time to tell them in detail but I love being a missionary for that reason, to be so close to the promptings of the Spirit and then listening and acting! The blessings we recieve from being obedient are innumerable! I am so so so happy right now and super excited for my new assignment as zone leader and my companion is such a CHAMP!!! Oh and right now we have 6 people with baptismal dates. We put 3 new dates this week and they came to church! :) That made me super happy. Next week is the Pachuca Centro's stake conference, the first stake conference that I will be in in all of my time here in Mexico. Crazy huh? I am kinda excited for that! Being in Pachuca is pretty sweet cuz today played soccer and then we went to a place really close called Peter Piper's Pizza which is a pizza buffet. I ate a ton of pizza today. Super delicious :) 

Well, I had an amazing week, I sure hope you all have a great week. I know I will! :)

Elder Hixon

I promise pictures next week :)

Feb 3, 2014

Happy February! Well, I found out today that I have changes. I will be going who knows where tomorrow. I will not be with my son anymore so that makes me a little sad! But I know he will continue to do many great things here in Plazas! He is my little champ ;) I will let you all know next week about my changes. We will see what happens right?

So this week was a little hard... We only got 29 lessons this week. Haha only... After hearing the expereinces of Trevor and Jake Hixon I am exrememly grateful for the 29. My companion got a little sick on Monday afternoon and so we were kinda limited as far as the work went this week. At least to start the week. It is no fun to see your companion struggling. But I did have a cool experience, he asked me for a priesthood blessing and I gave him one and it was the first time I had given a pristhood blessing to a companion. It was a really cool experience because it let me know that he had confidence in the priesthood I hold and we definitely grew closer as companions after the blessings. I am seriously going to miss working with Elder Vazquez. 

So this week my studies were amazing. Right now I am reading the New Testament and I am loving it! I really appreciate the example of our Savior. He was the perfect teacher! I love being able to represent Him in everyway. I love how simple He taught and how powerfully He taught too! Also in my studies this week I have been reading the General Conference talks from October 2013. I came across the talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard, I challenge you to read that talk this week and you will know what to do! Such a powerful talk. 

So one quick legit story and I gotta go... So last night we were teaching the Rodriguez Gaspar family and we watched the Restoration video. Cool story huh? No just kidding, after the video we were testifying and we invited the family to orar (pray) to see for themselves if the Book of Mormon was true. And my companion invited them and they kinda hesitated. So I felt prompted again to testify and I did, then I felt prompted to invite them all individually. I started with the Hermano, and he said he would. Then when I asked the wife, she told us she had a dream the same night after we left and taught them last. She told us that she had a dream that she was in a room sleeping with her family in one bed, and then her parents were sleeping in another bed in the same room. She said that in her dream she saw a man walk in and started to attack her mother and that she started saying her memorized prayers and call the Virgin Mary cuz she is Catholic, and that nothing happened. Then out of no where she said, in her dream, ''In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to leave!'' And it left... I told her that I was no pro at interpreting dreams, (even though it would be pretty cool to pull a Joseph in Egypt thing) and I testified that Jesus Christ is the only path and then asked them the question if they would be willing to leave all their traditions and beliefs if they know that the Book of Mormon is true. And they said YES!!!! I was so happy cuz we have invited them to baptism twice and they just said that it was the same. That it is the same God and that they were fine where they were. But this lesson changed everything! So we will invite them to be baptized next lesson. So exiciting. I love feeling the Spirit working through me. It is the coolest! So that was my super cool story for the week. 

I love every single one of you and pray for you daily! Be jealous that I am down here eating cow eye ball tacos! And also cow tongue tacos. They are pretty tasty. I am pretty convinced that anything in a taco is tasty! :) Alrighty, well you all have a great week. We will see what happens with me haha!

Elder Hixon

Jan 27, 2014

We are getting pretty darn close to Febrero and it is freaking me out kinda a lot how the months are just passing by right now. It has been over a month since Skyping the family and we only have about 2 and a half months before we listen to General Conference again! So stoked about that not gonna lie haha....

Anyways so it was another busy and quick week. We barely hit the 40 lessons this week on the dot! We were worried that we wouldnt make it, we needed 7 on saturday but we got all the 7 we needed and we really happy to know we did everything possible this week to reach that standard of excellence! :) 2 weeks in a row baby! Gonna make it three this week for sure. It is amazing what we are capable of doing when we are diligent and obedient and then basically challenge the Lord to do His part with our prayers with faith. One of the greatest testimonies I have gained here in the mission is being able to pray with faith! My companion and I have definitely been praying with all our hearts this week. It isnt easy to reach the standards President Egbert has put. I love that man! Speaking of President, I was talking to Sister Egbert today and she was telling me some stuff I didnt even ask her to tell me but she was telling me how there was going to be a ton of changes for next week! I believe it cuz our mission is going to be growing in these next couple months. And with that growth there will be a new zone created this cycle I believe. Exciting stuff and it is so cool to be part of this amazing work! 

So this week we went to eat with the García family which is an awesome family and when we got there, they told us that their neighbor Clara, (yes, Clara I did tell her that was my sister's name ;)) wanted to talk to us. We were still eating when she came right on into the García's house and she basically just told us of a ton of problems she has had in her life. One of her sons doesnt live with her, but with her parents, she has had problems with drugs and smoking in her life and she was homeless for two years, she said she has considered suicide a number of times and the only thing that keeps her from doing it is her 3 year old daughter that she has.... A ton of other things that I dont even want to mention but just know she has a crazy history! Well, we listened to her for about 30 minutes and then when she was done talking, my companion and I just felt such compassion for this woman and we explained to her the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how God is our loving Heavenly Father. We didnt even teach one of the lessons and then we committed her to be baptized for the 22 of Feb. She said YES! And the best part was that she actually came to church! :) We had 4 investigators and church. All different ones from last week. This place is crazy :) Erik Palacios was there with his family and Irais and 3 kids were there too. Max, Irais's husband wasnt there cuz he had to work! :/ The economic situation here is rediculous! Sometimes the people just have enough to eat for the whole day with $15 or $20 pesos or roughly 1 or 2 dollars. We really are blessed huh? :) 

Right now I am just super happy cuz we have lots of people to teach and they all love us so much and I love them. In fact, some of our investigators are praying that we dont have changes cuz they dont want us to leave! It is the most humbling thing ever to know that these people really appreciate our visits and that it is definitely worth my time to be here helping as many people as I can! The feelings of joy and happiness I feel right now cant even be put into words! :) Yes we are even finding time to goof around. I will send una foto of my pretty smile.

Love you all so much! Keep praying for me. I have seen the effects of those prayers for sure. I pray for all of you! Have a safe week :)

Love, Elder Hixon 

Jan 20, 2014

What a week! Honestly I dont have much time to write but I am so happy to be here and to be working my absolute hardest!! This week my son and I taught 42 lessons :) Thats right, we reached the standards of excellence and even surpassed them! I still do all my stuff as District Leader too! SANTA VACA (holy cow) just so you know they do not say that here. Its just something I sometimes like to say! I dont think I have ever felt so tired in my whole entire life. But at the same time I cant look back and think of a time where I have ever felt such happiness!

This week we only had 5 investigators go to church but I was still happy. I know I did everything I could this week! We also figured out this week that Erick Palacios needs to get married and also another investigator named Miriam. I think I mentioned her in my letter last week. I am so sick and tired of hearing that so many people arent married down here in Mexico. One of the biggest problems down here is the people just dont see the importance of getting married. But nothing can stop me from working hard and helping these people down here see the importance and that it is a commandment of God to be chaste. It also just kills me to see how poor these people are here. They sometimes barely have enough to buy food and diapers for the babies! I know that if they just put their faith in the Lord and live the commandments that they will be blessed spiritually and temporally. (Mosiah 2:41) That is one of my favoritest scriptures.... Favoritist? I dont even know if that is a word haha :)

Right now I cant think of any one thing that stood out this week. I just remember we taught and taught and taught! It was super fun and that I want to keep working hard and helping as many people as I can. I passed my 9 month mark on Friday! Weird huh? Well, I love all of you. Just know that my testimony of the Savior has grown so much this week, I know that as I put my faith in the Lord and say lots and lots of prayers with faith, anything is possible. I felt like a true instument in the hands of the Lord! I wish I could tell you everything that happened in the week but it is just impossible! 

Make this week a good one! Talk to you next week :)

Elder Hixon

Jan 13, 2014

¡Què una semana! What a week. I would say this week has been one of the most gratifying weeks I have had here in the mission. All of the hard work and diligence and obedience was giving back to me in so many blessings from my Heavenly Father! First off, I am pretty sure I mentioned in my last weeks letter that our standards of excellence had been raised to 40 (25 with investigators and 15 with less actives or recent converts) and no my companion and I didnt reach that goal but we taught 29 lesson this week, the most I have ever taught in this area! And there is nothing that is going to stop me this week from having more and inviting even more people to be baptized!!

This week my companion and I had 14 people that had baptismal dates and commited to be baptized either on the 1st of February or the 8th... Well, 7 of those people showed up this Sunday so those people will keep their dates! Of those 7 people, Max and Irais and thier daughter Melani were there. That is a story I will share in just a sec... Also, Roberto and Erika were there, Erick Palacios, and a lady named Mirium. So 7 people from 4 different families were there! You should have seen how pumped Elder Vazquez and I were when each one of them walked in to the chapel!!! I couldnt stop smiling haha! So, for the story about Max and Irais... I called them on Saturday night at about 7 to tell them that we would be running a little late to an appointment we had with them and Max told us that he would be leaving the house shortly. So I told him that maybe it would be better if we just saw him at church the next day. He then told me that he didnt think he would be able to make it to church the next day. I became really sad and told him, ''Max, you know the reasons why it is important to go to church, and you know that faith is super important and that you will be losing those blessings if you don`t come to church tomorrow.'' Pretty sure those words werent my words because normally I dont talk so sternly. But my comp felt impressed before we left the house that afternoon to bring a white shirt and tie for Max. So we decided to book it to their house and we made it and taught them a super quick but powerful lesson and gave Max a shirt and tie! At the end of the lesson, Max said... ''Yeah, were gonna go to church tomorrow.'' I was SO pumped! And they showed up. So it just goes to show you the importance it is to follow the promptings of the Spirit ALWAYS! :) 

Other than that, this week has been filled with an interview with President Egbert. He is an amazing man! It was so great to hear from him personally that I was a worthy missionary in every way and that he wished that all the Elders here in the Pachuca mission were Elder Hixons. Haha that would be really boring! ;) Also the very next day, I had a leadership training meeting and those are always filled with the Spirit and I was so pumped again to be working again with everything I got! 

Oh, just a really quick story that I thought was pretty hilarious. So Erick Palacios is one of our investigators and he is absolutely awesome, he came to church one time in october and then had like 5 weeks of training in his work and then his wife was really pregnant so they didnt come to church for a really long time, but last week and this week they came to church. Anyways, last week he actually gave us a ride to church and their 4 year old daughter when we rolled in to the parking lot said ''Uhhh por fin llegamos a la capilla!'' (Uhhh finally we came to church!) It was great! Really to the children of such is the kingdom of God! :) 

Well, basically had an amazing week and look forward to see what the Lord has in store for me this week!!! Love you all and apreciate all the prayers that head my way. Keep being the best ever!

Elder Hixon

Ps... The picture is of the Flores Family. He is the bishop of the ward and his daughter got baptized! :) Isnt she so cute?