Fried Chickums?

So, we had one of the assistants come on an exchange with us for the week, it was Elder Hale from Star Valley.  It was good but he kinda got an infection in his leg, it swelled up the size of a football so it was and eventful week. We went to meetings all week all over the zone. We had to sit in on every district's district meeting. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be though. 

 

I'm getting a new companion this week his name is Elder Curtis, he's from Pleasant Grove, I lived with him down in Chalmette right before I left for two weeks.  We get along (most of the time) haha!  but a good missionary so I think it will be good.

 

So I made fried chickum last week and I don't know if its just being in the South, but it was amazing! I used a shrimp fry batter and mixed in some Tony's and some Crystal hot sauce then coated em in more shrimp batter and fried those chickums (they were cut breast strips) and they came out amazing!!  I think I'm picking up this Southern cooking thing. Now I just gotta make a gumbo. Oh, I've been making chickum wings too haha!! We have had them every preparation day for the last three weeks, but hey I'm loosing weight so its all good. I eat healthy the rest of the week.

 

Well I don't have much time, I'm in Baton Rouge right now.  I actually got to go visit a bunch of people I used to teach and actually got to say good bye to them cause when I got transferred from here I had like 3 hours of notice to pack my stuff and then I was headed out the next day to Abbeville. So that was awesome, made me miss serving here though and made me realize how fast the 6 months I was here  went by.

 

Well, love you all,

 

love, Elder Ritchie

Transfer Time

 

Hey, I'm getting transferred again :/    I'm going to miss Abbeville.  We had a lot going on, we just found a bunch of new people to teach and had an awesome week this last week. I'm going to Thibodaux, haha! I thought I was going to be here a long time but I guess I'm needed somewhere else.  I know my companion I'm going to serve with, he is awesome.  I was actually on an exchange with someone from Preston and he asked who I would most like to serve with, and I said my new companion because it's his last transfer. So it's gonna be good! We have Elder Bednar coming next Saturday so that's exciting as well.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you  I'm going to be a zone leader I guess, haha!  I'm technically not supposed to know but when you have been in the office, you have a few connections.  I'm going to miss all the people we are working with here and all the people in my zone.

 

Yes Mom, we have sisters here in the zone, they are pretty good ones too.  One is from Pleasant Grove and she actually graduated with Erica and the other just got here from temple square. They let here come here for a few transfers and then she will go back for tourist season.  She was in the MTC the same time I was. She is from France. I went on an exchange with a missionary from Taboui a small island by Tahiti and he was teaching me some French. So I have a language card and some phrases because there are a lot of people here who speak French.  The guy living by us in the house boat grew up speaking French and didn't know what English was until he went to school and the teacher was yelling at him and he didn't know what was going on.

 

I'm not sure how being a zone leader will be, probably a lot more meetings.  Normally I give the zone leaders a hard time, so now I'm going too feel like a hypocrite!  But I've really liked and gotten along with all my zone leaders so far. So hopefully I can be like them.

Sounds like you all had a good Christmas. I still can't believe Alisha got married! haha! Well, I can - but it doesn't feel like I've been gone long enough for her to be getting married. But I guess it has been a few days since I left.  I saw the snow pictures from New Mexico, that was pretty cool. Maybe we will get some. I saw a little frost on the ground today, that was different.   

 

I'm still just shell shocked cause I'm getting transferred.  It came out of no where, but it's my first time being transferred on a normal transfer day though! haha!  No more emergency transfers for me! There is hope for me yet, no more mischievous Elder Ritchie that only gets ET'ed (emergency transferred), ha ha!  

 

I just hope my companion I'm leaving will do OK.  I made sure to leave very good notes and a very neat and informative area book, but i guess that's all I can do.  I hope the area can continue to do well because it is an awesome area, definitely one I'll have to come back and visit one day. I just wish I could've been here longer.  But I'm really excited for my new companion it's going to be awesome, he was in the office when I was in Baton Rouge. He was with Elder Murphy and his name is Elder Clark.

 

Well, I better go we are heading up to Lafayette for a zone p-day, play some more dodge ball, and say my goodbyes.

 

Love y'all,

love Elder Ritchie   

An Instant Primary

Well, to start off we had an awesome church this Sunday, we got someone that lives across the street from the house we have the group meeting to come to church and she brought the 8 kids she was watching, 2 were her own.  We had a full house and all 8 of the kids were under 7 so it was a party haha!  I asked Sister Campbell if she was ready for primary and she kinda gave me an odd look and then we told her about the 8 kids that were supposed to be there and she kinda just went into shock, so did  I a little! It didn't really hit me, 8 kids, until they got there. And they were all under 7 haha!  We were in for a treat!  Then Sister Campbell asked if there was anything she needed help with and we said, well they live kiddie-corner to you, so we might could help her get them all here. So we went with her and took the first wave of 5 kids, we got to shepherd them to the church. It was awesome!  They were really good kids, they all held hands and walked with us to the house.  Then Terize (the lady we are teaching) showed up with the rest of them. They all were very good in church and the bishop even came down for the first time to the group meeting.

The three of us missionaries got to talk. I talked on hope and how the world misuses the term hope and how its a little different in the gospel context, that it is more of a firm belief and yearning for blessings. I used Alma 34:22 with it and then brought it back to Moroni 7:41 and that all hope comes through the atonement, and then to 2 Nephi 31:20 that we must have a perfect brightness of hope and we shall have eternal life, it went well. 

Terize, the 22 year old watching all those kids, really liked church we had a lesson with her this last week and she ate up everything we were teaching her.  I've never seen someones eyes light up so much from the thought of a prophet and how the book of Mormon came about through a prophet.  She had some questions about where we go after life here so we had her read Alma 40:11-13 and she was like, oh that's a relief!  Ha ha! She loved it, so that was an awesome miracle!

How we ran into her was awesome too.  We were out with a member and a lesson fell through so we went to see if we could see some other investigators but noone was available. So, we were like oh, we will have to try another time and the member we were with was like "I went on a mission and I know how it can be especially tough when you have members come it makes it harder a lot of the time".  So, we decided to call it a night but as we were driving back to the apartment I thought, "Hey, lets go stop by this house," and it just so happened that Terize was home and her kids and boyfriend were gone so we had a quiet lesson and we had a male member with us so we were actually able to go inside and have a lesson. It was an awesome miracle. The circumstances were to perfect to be coincidence and she really felt the spirit. She had been having a terrible day, her dog got stolen and she had to track the guys that stole it down and they made her pay for her dog because when she said she was going to get the police involved they said they would just shoot the dog, (people are in love with their pit bulls here they are the most popular dog) anyways, it was awesome that we were able to help provide the spirit to help her have a better day.

  

My new companion is having some struggles.  Then next few weeks will be interesting.  He really wants to be on a mission, but he is having some problems interacting with people and studying to be a missionary. 

 

The work is  going good, and my other companion leaves for home this week so that's good.  He was able to make it after all the struggles he has had on his mission. We get along well, especially when we are doing the work, not so much when we are just around the apartment but we do alright.

 

I'm sending a package home with some presents for Christmas, you and dad can open yours when you get it cause it can be used for Christmas and it probably comes close to the present I got you last year, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to top getting my mission call.  Every one else can wait to open theirs. I'm sending a picture that I got when I was in Challmete that an investigator, well now  a new member, got me. This is the one that was baptized two weeks after I left.  I don't know if I said this already but I think 10 or 12 people have come into the church because of her example. Mom,  will you get on my Facebook and say hi to Tammy  and Chelsie. Just tell them I miss them or something, just send them a message, don't have to write on their wall or what ever you kids are calling it these days.

 

Anyways, love ya

 

love elder ritchie

On Christmas, I'll call before three cause that will be four here and we only have one hour of church or I could do it after that,  maybe like 11 or 12  if that works, Idon't really think it matters. We can do it whenever works.

 

So, the man cave is awesome. My companion is from Corona California . The senior couple are still here and hey, if your sending a package just send it to the 1630 prairie address cause its probably safer going there because they have a hidden door, ours is like right by the street, but you can send mail to my new place at  604 Samson but either address works. The Campbell's call me if I have mail.  It's probably good we moved out though, I was about to start calling them mom and dad, haha!  It felt a little like home having older people there.  They are super awesome they support the church and the members here so much they have activated a couple of families and help us visit less actives and find people to teach.  Senior couples are the best!

 

We had kind of a disappointing week at church though, we were counting on Braden and his friends to show up because his friends had a baptismal date for the 17th but it looks like we will have to postpone it till next year. It would be to hard to get a baptism over the break, but we will see how it works out.  Terry has been sick lately, he has had internal bleeding or something, they think it's a bleeding ulcer so we haven't seen him in a little while, he did bear his testimony last week when we had church here in Abbeville.  Our group here in Abbeville is making progress, the bishop approved us to get the new teaching materials for next year. He wasn't going to let us have Sunday school and YM and YM but we talked to our ward mission leader who is awesome, and he has been trying to get the ward a spark for missionary work so I think his work is starting to pay off.

 

I got a package from the young women of the ward with some nice stuff inside. I love the pillow case they sent, it was sweet and I needed a new one anyway so tell the thank you for me. I'll try and sent them a thank you card sometime but not today, we are going to the Tabasco factory.  It's only like 20 miles from us. We are going with the New Iberia missionaries. Oh yeah, my Collin look alike from Tahiti that was serving in New Iberia got transferred :(  .  But they replaced him with another missionary from French Polynesia Islands, but he doesn't look like Collin. 



 

Tell Daphanie that I want some koolaid when I get to the airport or at least I expect her to have been drinking some so I can recognize her by her red Koolaid mustache that matches her red hair :] 

 

Boudin

Well, I got to try something new this week it was called boudin.  It's weird sausage with rice in a pig intestine. We also had seafood boudin with shrimp, rice, and crab in the intestine, it was pretty good, very spicy.  The seafood one was really good.  We grilled it over a wood stove our neighbor CJ has on our porch.  We are getting some really Cajun training.  I got to help make a gumbo the other day too!  

 

 

Well, I best be going now,

 

love ya

love elder ritchie 

Thanksgiving's Move to the Man Cave

We had a  good Thanksgiving, we ate and we ate... and then we taught... and then we moved. We moved into our new apartment and its saweeet! It has a loft and only one window and its a man cave! I'm going to take pictures and you guys can build me one so I can have it when I get home. It will just need a few more basic essentials we are not allowed to have on a mission. We moved into it on Thursday after we ate and then taught a lesson, we were actually teaching a lesson in one of the rooms at the Campbell's to Terry, just talking about priesthood cause that's what he was concerned about. He keeps saying "the bishop is going to test me on it next week".  He got the True to the Faith book and the bishop told him to study priesthood and he was going to ask him questions about it next week. So we went over it with him in his reading, but while were were reading everyone started running out the door with our beds so we were like, what in the world! And they said they were going to go put our beds in the new apartment cause someone was there with a truck. So, we just took everything and moved in that night, in a hurry!

 

 

 

My two companions are doing alright, I'm training one and getting ready to send one home. It's going well, Elder West is my new companion and Elder Limb is the older one. Elder West and I get along really well, he just has a hard time studying and remembering things but he's fun. We get along a little better than Elder Limb and I do.  But when Elder Limb and I  are teaching,  we do a pretty good job. Elder West is still shell shocked when it comes to teaching but that's normal, we will see how well he can break out of it cause he is a little different in social situations.

 



Sam in Abbeville



We got a new assistant to the president last week,  its Elder Murphy from Idaho Falls so I'm getting even more pull in the office and with president, so hes got my back! Oh and I can't remember if I told you but we got a car.  It's been in the 40's here to so we got it just in time.  For Christmas I could use a sweater and maybe a pair of thin gloves. Well I'm out of time.

 

Love you,

elder ritchie

Baptism Week

Hey,

So we had a really good week and a really really good weekend! Terry's baptism went really well. We had his family really involved, his son gave a very brief talk about baptism and his brother-in-law gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and while they were talking I went and talked to the ward missionary conducting the meeting and had him invite Terry's wife to bear her testimony right before the baptism as well. After each of them got done with their talk, Terry hopped up and gave them a hug and said thank you. Terry was the one that told me to make sure we got his wife to bear her testimony because they have been having a hard time but he didn't want her to know before the baptism so I was sneaky about it (ha ha, you know how I can be sneaky I'm sure). The baptism went really great, a member from the ward baptized him, he is the one that takes him to the addiction recovery class in Baton Rouge and he also home teaches his family so he has been a really good influence on him.  After our lessons when we would find scriptures with Terry he would all ways highlight them and make sure to show him on their way to Baton Rouge. 

 

 

 

 

 

So I have had a blast teaching Terry and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be here a while so I will get to be around him even more. There was a concern with his confirmation however, his wife was in the hospital the night after the baptism because she had a problem with her foot, she has diabetes, so they were in the ER all night and didn't even get to see anyone about it... (hospitals, what a joke!)  So they were late to church in Lafayette but they ended up coming in during the sacrament hymn so we did it right after the sacrament. It was also ward conference here and they have a traditioon of a gumbo for the ward after ward conference. That was pretty cool!  I'm going to have to bring that one back to Idaho. Gumbo is so good and the spicier the better.  I finally got to try potato salad in gumbo, I really liked  that too especially when you take a really good potato salad and put it in a really good gumbo I wasn't sure from the sound of it, but it was way good.

 

 

 

 

We also had a good FHE group after church, we were able to get a 15 year old less active there and his friend, they really like the food we had. There were some really good meatballs and pasta and we were able to go have a lesson with the less active and his friend and we committed him for baptism so hopefully they both start to learn more about the gospel together we are supposed to go play basketball with them today and a member that is their age too.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, its transfer week that's why I'm writing on a Tuesday.  I found out I'm going to be in a threesome for the next 3 weeks till Elder Limb, my companion goes home and I'm getting a brand new companion fresh of the plane so I'll be training again.  I get to see one come and one go in the same transfer. I talked to the president about my new companion and I'm kind of nervous cause I guess he's has had some learning disabilities in the past and had been in special ed before and he is going to need some "TLC" as President Wall put it. I'm not really sure what to expect, two companions that are struggling at the same time, I don't know if I'm the right person for someone that needs TLC.  I don't know, President really likes to throw me curve balls, maybe it's cause I need more patience or something. Oh, and I found out I'm taking over the zone leaders area cause the zone leaders are going to be the Spanish missionaries in Lafayette, so again I'm covering another area, another curve ball. But we get a car tomorrow haha! Because we are getting a giant area and I've got some pull in the office!

 

Love you guys!

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

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

It's not easy being a district leader and a trainer

Hey,

My companions name is Elder Gentry from Lovelock, Nevada. He's a good kid, he's really shy so I get to do all the teaching. I'm trying to slowly work him in, I had him start the lesson last night and do the soft commit and then a prayer, it went pretty good haha! It was with D. and he is getting baptized this Saturday so it was pretty straight forward cause he loves what he's hearing.

It's different being the experienced one, it's really opened my eyes to how much I've learned. I've read the Book of Mormon 3 times since I've been out and I feel like my teaching from it is doing pretty good and my teaching in general is really coming along. There are only 2 other missionaries in our district from new roads on the other side of the Mississippi and one of them is one of my favorite missionaries out here. But he and his companion aren't getting along as well as they should, so I get to talk to them about it. They just don't agree on some of the small things... and one is older but is the junior comp and only on his second transfer but he tries to run the show.

We had a baptism this Saturday, a man named W. and we have another coming up this Saturday for a man named D. and then the next week we have a family of three scheduled for baptism, so keep them in your prayers!

I gotta go, love ya, bye!

New companion and a really good week

Hey,

My new companion is from Mesa Arizona and this is his last transfer too, so I keep getting put with the old ones. We don't have any other people in the apartment but we got a call from some that were getting transferred to our area and they are getting here later today.

We have the students from Tulane in our ward, all 5 of them that are members. Our ward is about 120 people, depending on the week, there are always conferences in New Orleans, so there are always visitors I've meet a bunch of people from Idaho Falls. When the BYU basketball team was here one of the players dads was originally from IF.

We do have a zone conference coming up but I don't know if its going to be anything really special but the one I did was pretty good.

Guess what, I've officially lost 20 pounds since I've been here. I went from 204 after the MTC to 184 as of today... 20 pounds in six weeks.

It's been a different week this week with transfers because everyone but me left the apartment so its been ALOT quieter which is good and bad. I have definitely gotten a lot better at being a missionary than I was 6 weeks ago. I basically got to do everything because my companion was new to the area. I got to set up all the appointments and introduce him to everyone it was a good feeling to be able to make a smooth transition from transfers.

It has been so awesome to work with our new members, they help the gospel spread like wild fire. T's sister-in-law was in town this weekend and she brought her to a crawfish boil we had in the park (which was amazing by the way, they can really cook down here) but her sister in law, A, was pretty curious in the change in T. and her family. So she wanted to know what did it and wanted some for herself so we invited them to a lesson we were having with another investigator, J. and we taught about the plan of salvation and they LOVED it and said it makes so much more sense than any thing they had heard. So A. came to church and loved it and her kids loved it and they said they cant wait to be members in a text to T. last night and that she was going to look up the church where she lives in Mississippi. I get to call the mission president tonight and give him the referral because she and her kids are so interested and so solid.

It's been a really good week, I got to give a really great blessing to an investigator struggling to quit smoking and drinking and she is doing it but wanted as much help as she could get. She said after the blessing that the weight has been lifted off her chest so i hope everything continues to work out for her.

There are so many things I could say but I don't have the time to say all of them so that sufficeth me for now... haha! But take care of Idaho for me, I miss everyone!

love elder ritchie

Conference was GREAT!

I loved conference I think I liked Elder Bednar's talk best about spiritual revelation and how there are two kinds, the turn-the-light-on kind and the sun-rises slowly kind. It is really evident out here in the field, some days you feel your not getting much help and then you think back and you were actually able to accomplish alot. And some days you just get an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment and revelation.

We watched the Saturday sessions at a member's house just down the road. Ask Luke if he knows them, they were in Pensacola when the hurricane hit there. We had our main investigators there to watch. They really liked it and they had some good questions especially about temples and being sealed. The gospel is doing wonders for them. The father is one rough looking guy but he has a big heart and the gospel is helping him show it because i don't think he knew how before. The mother is the golden investigator she eats it all up and always wants more. She said when she doesn't do church stuff now she gets depressed. She said I could come stay with them when I get off my mission and her cooking makes it a very temping offer, ha ha. She makes awesome gumbo and macaroni and cheese like I've never seen and stuffed bell peppers. Wow! but back to conference, between the Saturday day sessions we had a bbq and of course I manned the grill as much as they would let me, (They were pretty impressed of my skills being from Idaho) but it was really good! I don't know what people do here but the food is amazing. Well priesthood session was really good except I feel like I'm supposed to go get married now, ha ha. It was really good for our investigator, it showed him how he should be as a husband and he said he liked it. They took us to the church on Sunday too, and there was a ward potluck between sessions. Oh yeah, I saw my cousin Maria in the choir! It was cool I wasn't expecting that.

We had something awesome happen after conference, we went out tracking to try and find some new investigators because we were 2 under our goal for the week and just as we were leaving to go to a new area because we weren't getting anything thing other than the abrupt "I'm Catholic" response, we were driving and we saw a really big family out playing in the yard and as we got down the road a ways we just knew we had to go talk to them and so we parked and headed over and we got talking. It started off good and she was listening but then said she had her church and was happy with it. We asked if we could have a short lesson with them and she said, yes but she had her fellowship. But we gave her and her kids a short lesson and and then we bore our testimonies of how there was a living prophet and through the proper authority families can be together forever and we asked her if this was true, wouldn't she really want to know that? And as we were bearing out testimonies you could just she the change in her eyes and her kids eyes and she said, "yes, I would definitely want to know that", and we went around the circle and asked each one if they wanted to know and they all said yes. After that she was basically begging us to come back and teach her more. She said "I have to get your number". and we asked her when was the best time we could come back and she said "well there is tomorrow but that's my birthday", so we told her she had to let us bring a cake, and she said of course she would let us as long as it had pecans in it. Ha ha, so we are going to make a cake today with pecans.

Well, it finally rained down here... and it was crazy! It rained 6 inches in about 4 hours.. we were driving down the road and it looked like a river, it was so cool! I think I heard a tornado touched down in our area but in might have been in Ponchatula, I'm not sure, we don't get to watch the news. We were about to go into a lesson with some inactive members and their investigator daughter-in-law and we were standing under their entry way when a bolt of lightning hit less than a half mile away. The shock wave was like some one punched me in the gut and it almost knocked my companion over, it was so cool. Scary, but cool. I've never had the hair on the back of my neck stand up like that, it was intense.

Oh, my companion is Elder Cranney, he is from Draper, he is 26 and this is his last transfer. He is the former assistant to the president so he knows what he is doing. The other elders and I always joke the when he talks we are listening to a future apostle.

There are four of us in our apartment so we have a good time, one is from Pocatello so I give him a hard time for that and the other is from Brigham City.
Well, that's about all I've got. Take care, miss everyone!

love elder ritchie