Eating Cajun Catfish and Teaching

I got the package, thanks! But I haven't gotten the card yet. That's to bad about Nolan... hope he gets better, sounds like everyone is just having back problems these days. I was just thinking a couple weeks ago about how cool it was going to be to when Nolan got out and all four of were all on missions and now we are back down to two. I hope they are both able to get better especially without surgery cause that's never good.  Hopefully Collin's and my backs hold strong.

 

I think we are going to go play soccer with some of the youth in our little group. There is a family that is origonally from Idaho that lives here and all the kids play soccer and they don't have schoool today so we are gonna go hang out with them for a little bit. Other than that I'm not sure what we will do for P day.  I don't have all the options I did in Baton Rouge, or all the other missionaries, or a car... but I hear there is some really good fishing around here so we might try looking into that, it's just hard when you can't go in a boat.

 

The work here is going really good. We have got some good people we are working with, we just started teaching a man named Terry that has a wife and kid that are members but he never joined and now that he and his wife have been separated he has really become interested in the gospel and wants to do better.  He was telling us how he wanted to get his family sealed together but because of everything that is going on right now he's not sure how far that will go but he says he just wants to work on himself first and then that will come or it won't but he wants to put it in the Lords' hands so he is super solid. We have been reading in Mosiah with him and we really hit home with the atonement in our lesson last night the Spirit was really strong and you could just see he wanted the atonement in his life just from his countenance and you could tell he was feeling the spirit. He is really excited to get baptized. He's working toward November 19th right now and I'm pretty sure he is going to make it. We are also teaching one of the friends of the senior couple we are staying with. Her name is Sheila and she's from England and has had a very hard life! But she sounds like she is doing very good and she is friends with alot of the members and she has come to church the last two weeks with us. Sheila and Terry have both been going to church and other church programs to help them out.

 

I ate something new this last week - fried cauliflower, and we had fried catfish but it wasn't fillets, it was just the skins and heads with the  guts cut out.  Just the head and the tail. The guy that came and cooked for us showed us that you can eat the tail of the fish after its fried and it tastes just like eating a potato chip and has the same crunch. Kinda cool, haha! Cajuns are crazy!

 

It's been cold here these last 3 days. It's been in the 60's and even down in the 50's at night. It's not like the 50's and 60's back home though, it's different and cuts through you especially if there is a breeze. But every thing for the most part is still green, there are a few trees that are a little yellow but not much.

 

Well I'm not gonna lie Mom, your emails have been kinda lame lately... but I guess thats alright I did just get a package!

 

love ya

love elder ritchie

Sermons in a small town

I'm out of the city now, it's nice to be away from all the traffic of Baton Rouge.... but I do miss it already.  But so far Abbeville is awesome, there are some really cool people out here. We don't have a church here but they do have a group that meets twice a month in the house where we live. We are living with a senior missionary couple that is doing a service mission.  They use their house for the group meetings. The closest church is in Lafayette so we went there yesterday and it was really great, it felt alot more like a home ward than what I've been accustomed to in Baton Rouge or New Orleans. But is still had its differences.  The people here are really nice, I forgot what it was like to be in a smaller town and how people on the street just talk to you.

 

We have had some really good progress here, we found a bunch of new invesitgators. It was kind of like we got double transfered into the area, both me and  my comapion Elder Limb.  The President called me last week to come to the mission home to have a chat and he told me about the situation here and  that I would stay until December and then I'm probably going to be training again after that.  So it's kinda been a different experience.  But we have gotten some work done in the 3 days I've been here, found 4 new investigators and had one to church and 3 have baptismal dates so its been alot of fun! 

 

We have a big FHE every Sunday afternoon as well and it usually brings out about 30 people. We ate a lot of food and then had dessert and I was in charge of the spirtiual thought or lesson so I did a lesson on "bondage and repentance" and how sin puts us in bondage. We read some good scriptures and then got a volunteer (there were a bunch of kids there so I did an object lesson) we had him come up with us and we had a giant bag of candy and we said that the bag of candy represented happiness or eternal life.. and then we asked if he wanted that candy and he said of course.. but we told him he had sinned so we had to put him in bondage so we taped his hands together so he couldn't grab the candy, then explained he had to repent to get the candy and we cut him free.  It went over great.

 

Oh, you know how  I said we didn't have to worry about traffic any more, well one of the big reasons is because I'm on a bike now...haha!  I went from unlimited miles in our giant van and driving different cars all day and driving  new cars right off the lot with only one mile on them.... to my bike! haha!  Oh well, at least I have the memories.  But I was missing teaching because we didn't get to teach hardly at all in the office. So I was pumped when I got here and got to go back to full time proselyting.

 

So Dillon is home, crazy! Hopefully he makes it back out! Tell him if he goes state-side to request Louisiana haha! Come teach some of these cajuns with me!

 

So Alisha is engaged! Haha! That's funny cause I think Elder Salizar wrote here a letter, he wanted someone to write and I know Alisha likes writing missionaries. Whoops!

 

Anyways tell Taylor and Nolan and Joe good luck for me.

 

love elder ritchie

Change of Plans

Hey, so false alarm! I am getting transferred!

 

There was some stuff that came up in another area and President said I'd be a good fix, so I guess I'm going to Abbeville to serve with and Elder Limb. So if there is anything you were planing on sending send it to: 

 

1630 Prairie Ave.

Abbeville LA

70510

It looks like my days as an office Elder were short lived but we had fun and I  got to meet some cool new missionaries, some that were shipped off today espeicially Elder Klem, haha! Tell Peter that I served with a legit Elder Klem, he might get a kick out of that. But I get to go be in a district with one of my favorite  missionaries that I was companions with in the MTC, Elder Bennett, so I'm looking forward to that. It's gonna be sweet!

I can't get my camera to send pictures right now, so here is a picture from someone else's camera.  Enjoy!

Driving Cars for the Mission Office

Hey Mom, your old! Sorry but 50 is old. But there is nothing worng with being old though, old people are good at some stuff!

 

Everything is going good here working in the mission office, we get to do all the dirty work.  We get to run the fleet of cars, 51 of them and we get to drive a 14 passenger van around! Even when we go out and proselyte.  So that's pretty sweet, we  can just run people over now if we want. My companion is from LA and he is almost done, he goes home right when I hit a year.  We are doing great, we don't get a lot of time to work with the people here now since we work in the office from 10 to 5 from Tuesday to Friday and then we get to go out and teach on nights and weekends so hopefully we get some spiritual work done too. It's a little different, we got to drive to New Orleans last week, it kinda made me feel home sick. I hope I get to serve down there agian some time. Maybe I'll get to go to Chalmette while working in the office since we get to run all over the mission and deal with cars and help with apartments.  We even get to sell cars! So, I've been driving a lot of cars lately.

 

The Jackson's are doing great they weren't able to make it to church though, so that kinda stunk. But we're still seeing progress. Well I hope you all liked your birthday presents. I forgot when Rebecca's was actually, I don't think she ever told me. So happy birthday Rebecca!

 

Well,  love you guys, miss you

Love, elder ritchie

Finding a Big "Golden" Family

Hey, it looks like I'm staying here another transfer?? Guess I still have work to do here haha!

 

I'm kinda glad I'm staying though, we found a really cool new family last week! A family of 7 and we're able to commit 6 for baptism. They have met with missionaries before and the thing holding them back was not being married and the dad was smoking, but in the 2 years since they met with missionaries they were able to get married and he quite smoking so it has been a giant miracle. It's a crazy story of how we ran into them, we were reffered to someone else by another investigator we have and we tried to talk to them but we got the wrong person who said somone in a house down the street used to meet with the missionaries and to try down there. So we went down the street and played the guessing game of which of the houses it was. We ended up finding a girl in the first one we picked that said she had not met with missionaries before but we had a good lesson with her and she said she would like to get baptized and then we went back and taught her again and that time we invited her little sister that was 14 to listen and she was really excited. Then we stoped by again and they said they had talked to their mom about us and their mom was excited to meet us. We ended up meeting her a few days later and she said she had met with us before and she wanted to learn more but they were talking their baby to the hospital so we set up another time and we went back. When we got there the whole family (6 of them at the time) were gathered waiting for us and they were all asking really good questions and the father was  saying how he would really like to see all of his kids baptized. We had a member named Johnathan B. (but every one calls Whoop) with us. He is a convert of 2 years and is getting his mission papers ready so we have had him out with us whenever we can get him. Our ward hasn't had a missionary in years. Anyway, when the dad said he had been baptized before in another church, Whoop chimed in and said he was too but it really came down to the authority that our church has and how no one else even claims to have the proper authority.  The dad loved that! So we've had a solid last week!  I'm glad, it's going to make staying a whole lot better! I'm excited to stay now and work with a big awesome family.

 

We are also working with a part member family that is coming along really great, the parents are members but not active and their kids haven't been baptized. They were super happy I was able to stay. But I'm losing my companion and getting a new one and they threw something else at me, I'm going to be a part time office elder. We just got a new senior couple in the office and they need a lot of help, so me and my new companion, Elder Anderson, are going to be working in the office a lot too.  So it's going to be an interesting transfer.

 

I'm sending you a package with a birthday present for eveyone that has birthdays coming up (including Josh) or had them already. You guys can fight it out for what you want. So, Happy Birthday Mom, Peter, Rebecca and Josh!

 

So I hear your're already getting snow! That's crazy! haha! It's still in the 70/80 range here so I'm pretty happy with the good weather for football.  LSU is still holding number one! The town is getting antsy.  I think I'll get to be here for the end of the college season too! Thats cool!  Mom, when I get back we gotta go sky diving because your 50 now! haha! Half way to 100!  And its not crayfish its crawfish!  But I've been eating so much lately I'm not to sad  I missed it (the Semi-Annual Ritchie Crab, Shrimp, and Crawfish Feed).

 

Well, I'll let you know how the office elder work is and how the Jackson family progresses. Let me know when you get the package!

 

love you!

love elder ritchie

Teaching Iranians and Fried Chicken Prayers

Yeah, conference was really good, I loved it! It was different watching every session in the church, but kinda cool. I still missed my legos and my pjs, but I probably got a little more out of it that I do with my legos. I can't believe Star Valley Idaho is getting a temple, haha, probably because they were praying for something to do there.

Well, we had a good week other than getting people to conference. We tried but weren't able to get anyone there. But right afterward we went and saw Darrius and committed his son for baptism. His wife and daughter aren't really interested but his son Sam is very interested and Darrius has been telling him a lot about it. We even got him to offer a prayer in front of everyone at the end of the lesson. He was able to recount the whole Joseph Smith story from the restoration dvd we watched with them a month or so ago. And we had left a Family is Forever dvd with Darrius before his baptism and Sam had watched it and loved it. It was really cool to have Darius there bearing his testimony to his son about what he had felt when he was baptized because Darrius has a solid testimony. He even faced some"anti" when he went to an Iranian Christian service with his wife and was talking to the pastor and the pastor found out he was in the LDS church and started talking bad about it and he defended the Church and questioned the pastor for talking bad about something that made him feel good and closer to God. That's what Satan tries to do! Teaching Sam made me miss teaching Darrius though and whenever he likes something he always lets you know by telling you "vonderful"! He kinda throws a "v" in for the "w" because of his accent. He is just a super awesome guy and I think the best part of the lesson with Sam for Darrius was when we let him know that he could baptize his own son because of the priesthood. We mentioned that one day Sam could be a missionary like us and Darrius really liked that too. His eyes lit up when we said that because he loves missionaries especially what they do. I hope that his wife and daughter will follow their example as well. Actually, we found out the daughter, Roxy, was reading the Book of Mormon we left and she said she was on page 7 and she was enjoying if! So, there its hope! Now I just wish I spoke Farsi so I could talk to his wife a little better.

My companion is form Lovelock Nevada and one of the Spanish missionaries in the apartment is from Rupert so we have had a pretty heated week in the apartment (Boisie State played Nevada in football) but good old Boise pulled through for me and Elder Christiansen from Rupert haha! I don't think revenge is always a bad thing. We turned the other cheek, we just happened to beat them pretty good in the process! LSU is still standing strong at number one so the town's still happy. And the Saints won too so eveyone's in a great mood. I'll have to send a Fleur de Lise/ tiger eye sticker home because I know you all are big Saints/LSU fans... haha!

My favorite talk from conference was D. Todd Christofferson's about repentance, I thought that was a good one and I kept thinking about his spring on about being cut down too. President Eyring's was probably my second favorite, but they were all good. I think the ward liked the one about the Seventy who was riding his bike and prayed for a quarter so he could get some fried chicken and the Lord answered his prayer. I liked it too, kind of a humble faith filled prayer.. and then to top it off we had some fried chicken afterwards too!

But I gotta get going!

love you all and take care
love elder ritchie