New missionaries are like puppies.....

Now that I'm a DL, it's tough dealing with missionaries in a Christ-like way sometimes, but it's going good and everyone is getting along better.

My trainee got to baptize his first person on Saturday haha! We flipped a coin for it but I was hoping he would win so he could have a baptism in the first couple of weeks of his mission. I also had him do the confirmation. I told him he was going to do it right before it happened, he kinda got really nervous so I told him "only if you want to" cause I was supposed to. But he did it and it went really well! He is finally starting to break out of his shell a little bit. He has had a baptism every Saturday of his mission so far haha! and he just missed the one the week before... It's not looking like we are going to get the J. family baptized this comming Saturday, but they are still looking promising in the future.

It's tough being a trainer though and turning lessons over to him when you can tell he has no idea what to say. So we have been working on teaching and he's getting there.. haha! We're working on going 50 percent teaching from both of us instead of 98 percent of me teaching and 2 percent him.. But he is finding his place and starting to get out of the jitters a little bit. It's kinda like having a little puppy follow you around that has absolutely no idea what to do, but like puppies, they grow up fast.

Tell Sophie to wait a couple months to have her birthday and then I'll be happy to do it haha! (Sam's little 6 year-old cousin told her mother she was going to wait till he got home to baptize her, but she turns eight in November and Sam won't be home until February.)


I got to give my first instruction as district leader in district meeting (we have district meeting every Tuesday and the district leader instructs for an hour) I think it went really good!! I did it about the Book of Mormon and emphasised how it along with the spirit, is our best tool for conversion and then I read Alma 37, I think it's the last 10 or 12 verses of that chapter where it talks about the liahona and you replace the word lihona with the words Book of Mormon and it's really cool.. But it was really cool giving a good lesson and I had planned to give it on desire but when I got there I just decided to wing it on the Book of Mormon instead, it went really well though. It was definitely the spirit and not me...

Well it's getting a little cooler down here. It's been raining ALOT! We usually have a pretty good storm every afternooon and it makes it humid but it take the temperature from high 90's to mid 80's so thats nice. I don't really notice the humidity to much any more though except after it rains and the windows on the car always fog up on the outside, it's like driving in a sauna.

Oh, tell Collin's and Dillon's families thanks for the email forwards. It's nice to hear how they are doing, haha, it's weird to think they are in another country now, it still feels like they are just at home doing what they always do cause I didn't get to see any of them leave, but it sounds like its going pretty good for them! Hard but good! I live with the Spanish missionaries and it makes me appreciate missionaries that learn a language so much. I wish I would have been able to learn a language but I've been able to learn and hear about so many other countries and hear so many languages I feel like im in another country.. haha! I decided Africans are my favorite though, they are just the coolest people! We have a family that is from a tribe in Togo right by Ghana and they just tell us about it all the time and there are members from Nigeria and Liberia and we ran into a less active that went on a mission to South Africa that spoke some crazy language that they don't even teach missionaries anymore and he brought out his mission scriptures they were sick!! haha!

I'm kinda obsessed with scriptures now I've been living on ramen noodles cause I bought a giant quad this month that cost 70 bucks haha! I have like 3 pairs of scriptures now haha! I have a pair I color that is just the cheap kind we give away and I've colored it with my highlighters but it's probably my favorite to read cause I have some of the coolest highlighing! I've read through the B.O.M. like 3 times since I've been here!

Oh! they took away the rule of only motab, so send me some good music sometime. I want some Enya! and whatever else you think would work.



Well, thats about all I've got right now!
love ya,

love elder ritchie