Baptism in Gator Land

 

 

The baptism last Saturday went really well, the members did a really good job of making him and his girlfriend feel welcome. Nick was really happy to finally get baptized, he was saying he wished he would have just done in back in September like we had first talked about but it was good for his girlfriend to be able to come because that was how he was introduced to the church. She gave a talk on baptism at the baptism and told his story about how they met and she introduced him to the church and he just about ran away and was against it but slowly it started to build on him, It took about 4 years to this point. Now he's one of us haha!

 

 

 It's always cool to see someone get baptized and make their way into the church and see them start to understand everything and still be kinda lost at the same time. But they try and work off a lot of faith.

 

 

Sometimes I wish I was a convert just to see the church from a completely new perspective like that, but heavenly father knew I'd probably struggle with that. I bet some of the members were a little confused when he got up to get confirmed  in church on Sunday because a lot of them thought he was already a member haha! He would get mistaken as a missionary cause he was always around us.

 

 

Well we are going to have and eventful Halloween this week, we have a zone leader council meeting in Baton Rouge and then we were supposed to go to the temple but we have to drive clear to Many right after the meeting for a baptismal interview so that will pretty much take our whole day and night so not much will happen for Halloween. Last year they had us stay in our apartments at night to keep us from driving with all the kids out I bet.

 

We have a bright future here in this area, there are a lot of good people we have to work with. Jen says she has the conviction she needs for baptism after one her friends was asking her why she was getting baptized, she said that it was just because she knew it's what she needs to do. She still has a problem with the whole baptizing part of it, not the ordinance, she doesn't like to be touched because she says she is extremely ticklish so she is a little worried.  About that about all she can handle is shaking peoples hand and that's still to much for people she doesn't know really well.  She came to church again by herself with out her aunt who is the member and she made alot of really good comments in gospel principles class.  It was on the law of chastity, that seems to be one thing she really agrees with and grew up with.

 

Megan also came to church, I don't know if I have told you that her her husband of about 7 months is a 30 year old return missionary who isn't active but he we started going over there and she said she wanted to learn more about the church and he said he wants his soon to be child to grow up in the church, so she has to be some what familiar with it.  She was at church and it was really great because it was the Primary program and she is expecting so it showed all the kids and what they learn, it was the perfect Sunday for them to come! We have a lesson with them later tonight so we will talk more about it with her then.

 

Well sounds like everything is going well back home, Peter even sent me some pictures. It looks like Genevieve is getting bigger. Thats awesome that there are some more heaps boys in the world I think that's a good thing ,they can be trouble but we will take em ! haha! 

 

 

This is a zoo alligator we saw one down on a bayou a couple weeks ago that was about 8 or 9 feet long and I  threw a rock by it and it almost jumped out of the water to snap at it, it was pretty sweet, I have a picture of it I'll send later.  This is a picture on a smaller one in the same spot.

 

 

 

The hay was in a chicken roost or coop we build at our bishop's. It's cool, it's got a latching door in the back so you can get the eggs without going in the chicken run. 

 

 

It was kinda cool to be able to build something other than the kingdom for a little while.  We got to hang out with our bishop, he is hilarious, he is retired air force and is always yelling and cooking and cracking jokes. Eveyone loves him and his food. We are actually going over there to eat right after this.  Oh and yes mom, we do go into some crazy houses there are some hoarders and real sketchy places.

 

 

I better get going. Have a good week and  love y'all

 

Love, Elder Samuel Alan Ritchie

 

 

Good news and sad news

We were expecting transfer calls this week. We had talked to President a couple days ago to invite him to Nick's baptism this weekend, but he will be at a mission president seminar, then we asked if we would both be here for the baptism and he said yeah, but one of us would have to be coming from a new area to watch it. So we thought one of us would get transferred and my comp has been here longer so I figured he was out and we were telling everyone that was the case but president switched it up on us. We only have one change in our zone so our apartment is staying the same. This will be the third transfer with it the same so that's four and a half months which is pretty sweet. We decided we will all be best friends or hate each other by the end of it.. haha! But one of the other missionaries is going on ten and a half months in his area. I'm hoping this will be my last area cause the work is going so well and it would be nice to have an area for more than five months... if I finish here I'll have been her around seven. Oh, and yes, I would like to fly in to IF, there is another missionary that came out with me that is from Idaho Falls so we will get to fly all the way home together.  Elder Neild and I have talked about it.

Nick's baptism is this weekend and everything is looking good, his girlfriend got her this weekend and she is cool. Nick asked me to baptize him so that will be cool, I haven't baptized anyone for a while now and then he asked one of the bishopric, Brother Cheney, to confirm him. We are hoping the whole ward will be there haha! There are still alot of members that think he is already a member and when they hear he is getting baptized they are a little confused.

Sad news.  We found out the missionary that was in the wreck in Salt Lake isn't going to be able to recover from his injuries and they found he has no brain waves and they are going to take him off the life support this week. His name is Christian Terry and he was from Provo.  He was one of my favorite missionaries and good friends. He was a Spanish missionary, I got to spend a lot of time around in Baton Rouge and he was in my zone again when I was in Thibodaux. He was a great kid, full of energy and loved the people he served and loved life. Please keep his family in your prayers.

Well, back to good news. We have another new investigator named Megan who is married to a less active returned missionary and we have been meeting with them for the last couple of weeks.  She is pretty curious about us. We had dinner with them last night and then we helped them put in a new stove.  It took longer than expected so we didn't get to the lesson cause we had to leave, but she was really sad because she said she read and had questions so that was good news but she was very grateful we helped them with the stove and her husband is way cool too.  He is kind of a surfer and skater so I relate with him  super easy.  I'm able to talk snowboarding with him, something I have hardly been able to do with people down here. They have a lot of potential and they have their first child on the way.

Sherry and Jade are also doing well, we had a couple lessons with them this past week but we had to move their baptismal dates back to around Thanksgiving because Jade is getting her tonsils out this week and we still have lessons to teach them. That's when Sherry's mom will be able to be in town and she is a member and introduced them to the church.

So things are well here. But hey, I'm kinda disappointed with the emails lately! Three sentences from one person in the family!  Tell Josh I'm not gonna email him unless he starts writing me!   And just tell Peter he's lame. Rebecca's doing well though, so it's a good thing Luke married her haha! And Luke doesn't do half bad.
Have a good week!
Love y'all
Love, Elder Ritchie

A letter from the mission office

We received a letter from the mission office today telling us Elder Ritchie will be released on February 28th and where would we like him flown to? We replied back "Idaho Falls, of course!"

So, we have a homecoming date five days over his two year mark. We'll take it!

Yeah!!!!

Giving vision through the fog

We had a good week! Nick had his baptismal interview. Elder Peterson interviewed him and after about ten minutes they came out and Elder Peterson said he was ready and probably the most prepared person he had ever interveiwed and he was able to explain and answer everything perfectly, so that was awesome!

On Friday, the day before,the interview, Nick got us and the Pineville Elders some pizza, so we chowed down at the church and then we had a lesson on on personal finances and food storage. We told him we didn't know much about it but we would try, we ended up finding some church pamphlets about both and they were really good and simple, haha! I'm going to have to keep one for myself, I'm actually going to make a suggestion to my mission president to give them to all the missionaries before they go home haha!

Oh, more good news, Jen commited to a date this week! We had a lesson and talked about how she was doing and we had showed her a Mormon Message by Elder Bednar that talks about being in a fog and seeing light, but its foggy and that you just have to take steps. We were teaching and she was struggling to know what she should do because she is trying to get an answer but hasn't got a firm conviction yet and then we brought up the fog and we talked about how you just keep taking steps and you can see a little further and more clearly. What was blurry before, will become clear. Then we talked about how it's like if you were stranded in the middle of the ocean with no boat, your just swimming and you can't see anything but ocean around and how likely are you to go swimming in a direction? You won't because you don't know which way to swim, but if there is a small glimpse of land in the distance, are you going to swim? And which way are you going to swim? Well, to the land of course. So we compared that to baptism and how if she sets a goal it can give her a glimpse of the land. So we invited her to set a goal and she picked December 15th and she is working on that now. That's good news!

We are supposed to see Sherry and Jade today and we will probably have to move their baptism back a week or two because we still haven't taught them enough because they have been so busy and sick, but Jade has still been going to Seminary and they still want to work at it.

So great to hear Eric is home. What are his plans?

I better get going. I love y'all!
Love, elder Ritchie

Nightline's Louisianna Missionary Episode

Sam mentioned that the news program Nightline was doing a special on missionaries in LaPlace Louisianna.  Sam was in the MTC with Elder Dustin who is featured.  Here is the link to the epidsode - Young Mormon's on a Mission

Hurricane Clean-up in LaPlace

 Some pictures Sam sent from his days cleaning up LaPlace after Hurricane Issac.



Conference was Great!

Conference was really good we watched the morning session at a member's home in the Pineville ward, the ward that shares the building with us. Nick was there and they fed us breakfast it was really good.  We were all blown away to hear 18 year-olds can go on missions now and 19 year-old sisters, that will be interesting.  I don't know how much of it I will be able to see but maybe a little bit. I really like Elder Bednar's talk, the last one on Sunday before the prophet and the one before him was Elder Clarke who came here, it was cool because those two have come to our mission and I've met them.  Then right after the prophet spoke the closing prayer was given by another 70 that I had met, Elder Gibbons, so it was really cool three people that have come here gave talks or gave a prayer the last session I get to watch on my mission... that's a sad thing to think about, that I won't get to watch another one as a full time missionary.. But hey, you should get tickets to next conference!

 

Oh and Jamie from Chalmette was supposed to go to one of the sessions this weekend  with Elder Cranney my first companion and the Merritt's, a senior couple that served down in New Orleans, so that was really awesome.  I got a letter from her a couple weeks ago telling me that she was going, she has been planing on it for about a year because the Merritt's just went home a little while ago they were brand new to New Orleans when I was brand new there too.

 

Nick was able to go to every session, he said he had watched a little before for like 10 minutes and said it didn't interest him but now he said he loved it and it actually made sense ha ha, before he said he was just thinking why are there old guys in suits talking in front of some plants. But he said he got alot from them, he loved President Uchtdorf and Monson alot. Our other investigator Jen was there to at the church we are supposed to have a lesson with her on Tuesday so we will be able to talk about it then and find out what she thought about it. We are hoping that something will impact her because she is really close, she basically just needs to get baptized.

 

 

Well we had some meetings this week, me and Elder Smith had to instruct on companion and district unity  so we had some good visual activities that we did with a table and then one we did with chair that went pretty good.

 

Our other investigators, Sherry and Jade didn't make it to conference they were out of town somewhere but Jade has been sick this whole week and has to get her tonsils out on Thanksgiving so we were able to go by with the bishop and give her a blessing.

 

Well, love all y'all

 

love elder ritchie

Louisiana Friday Night Lights

Hey, we had a great week this week we were down in Baton Rouge Wednesday for some meetings. We were able to go to the homecoming parade for the high school here because Jade was marching in it, she is on the flag team with a couple other members so we went and watched it with Sherry, her mom, and some other the members parents. We also got to go to the homecoming game on Friday night because Jade was performing there also and Sherry wanted us to come, it was really weird to be at a high school game again, I haven't been to one in about 4 years and it just made me realize how immature high school kids are especially down here and none of them have a whole lot of standards. But it was a good experience to spend time with Sherry and get to see Jade preform. Jade and Sherry and Nick and Jen were all at church on Sunday so they are all doing well and making progress.

We had another lesson with Nick on Lehi's dream and then we talked to him about his baptism and he is still looking good for the 27th and is telling everyone about it.

A bit of sad news, we just found out that one of the missionaries that served here, Elder Christian Terry, just got in a wreck in Salt Lake on Friday and is in the ICU and in a medically induced coma and has 3rd degree burns. He was one of my good friends, he was a Spanish missionary that I got to spend alot of time with. Je has been home for about 4 months so keep him in your prayers.

Anyways, have a good week!

love y'all

love elder ritchie