The Hills of Mississippi and Other Things

On Memorial Day we went on an adventure, it was pretty sweet! We went up to Mississippi to a place called Tunica Hills. Yes, I got to see hills for the first time!!  We hiked down a ridge to a creek bed and there were rocks and boulders and waterfalls and hills!!! Oh, and did I mention HILLS!! You still couldn't see very far cause of trees and stuff, but it was nice to be able to walk up hills and feel an elevation change. We went with the 1st councilor in our stake presidency who lives in our ward and a bunch of other companionships from our zone. We got to stand under some waterfalls and I found a spider the size of my palm, it was alot like the ones we found at Sheep Falls a few years ago that were giant. I was crawling through a tunnel in the stream and got through it then Elder Rawlings was going through and this giant spider almost crawled up his leg.  This was right after we had a zone conference where our mission doctor came and talked to us about bugs and how we need to stay away from them.  He showed us a bunch of bites from brown recluse and black widow spiders. But it was one of the best preparation days I've had, getting out and actually hiking on hills. It was probably about like hiking half way up our Iona hill but that's pretty giant for here, especially with the heat.

Missionaries at the waterfall at Tunica, Mississippi

We caught an Alligator Turtle

We have another general authority coming this weekend. We have a leadership meeting with him on Friday and he might be attending to our stake conference.  I'm still not sure, but it's an Elder Gibbons from the Second Quorum of the Seventy, not an apostle but they are still spiritual giants that are always good.

Well, we had a good week this last week.  We found a new less-active that we are working with who recently returned from Iraq. He is the former bishops step son. We got word from the bishop to go visit him so we made our way over and sat down and talked with him and found out that he still has a testimony and was able to pray and read on his tour and it helped him out alot he said.  But he has been out of church for a long time now and hasn't been able to get the drive to come back.  He knows its true, he  just struggles to keep at it.  We left him with 2 Nephi 32 and told him to read it and he did so that was a start and hopefully we can keep working with him.

Oh, I gave a talk in church on Sunday, I almost forgot. It was on obedience and I told the story of my golf ball in the eye experience at Eric Forbush's expense.  I talked about having a broken heart and contrite spirit and being broken like a horse and not just the Godly sorrow that comes (similar to what Eric was feeling) but also that being broken means we are trained and we learn that there is no other option than obedience.  I used Nephi and his life, how he went and did what the Lord commanded and just had that obedience ingrained in him. I talked about how both books he wrote end with him talking about obedience. The first one is the last two verses in the first book of Nephi and in the end of second book of Nephi he said "I must obey".  He had it truly ingrained in his heart. It was probably the best talk I've ever given. ha ha!  I talked first and went for like 23 minutes and I didn't even get through alot of what I had.  My companion said he was praying that I would go longer than the 15 minutes we were each given because the night before he timed his talk and said it was only 5 minutes long.  When I sat down by him on the stand he just said thanks because he hadn't told me about how he was praying I went long, he said it was answer to his prayer.  But that clock shot by freakishly fast!  Everyone loved the golf ball story, especially a bunch of the young men. haha!

Oh, we pulled a joke on one of the bishop's counselors this week. There is a joke around the ward that brother Ferrel is nicknamed the "hammer", Especially in the meetings we go to he is always referred to as the hammer.  So we got a Thor hammer, there is a long story that involves a crawfish boil and an inside joke and some exceeding curiosity on his part. Anyway, we went over to his house on Sunday because he was sick and ate with his family.  Right before we left we pulled out the hammer and gave it to him and it was like a little girl just found out she got a pony for Christmas!   I thought he was going to scream! haha!

Elder Hausladen and I have earned some serious street cred with our bishopric and ward leaders because we ate our hearts out at a crawfish boil/pool party/young men's and young women's activity last Wednesday. They had over 200 pounds of crawfish and they invited us to go (and no, we didn't participate in the pool party).  They were worried they had way to much food, but we pounded them down and then in the last pot they made they added a full jar of Cayenne pepper and we weren't even phased.  We actually liked it even more!  haha! My hands and lips were on fire the rest of the night but it was fun and there were a bunch of nonmembers that the youth brought  that we hopefully can get some leads on.

I found out this week that a kid that we found and started teaching in Abbeville got baptized this week!

Well, that's about all I have time for today... love y'all!

Love, Elder Ritchie

Of Food And Miracles

Hey y'all,

I've decided I don't like my new area! It's too awesome and the members feed us way to much! Haha!  We had an awesome week this week. We have been trying to get to know everyone in our ward and get out and visit them. We've been to many crayfish boils and we are the official food waste disposals of our ward Everyone always has food for us. The young women had a jambalaya sale to raise money for girl's camp and of course they got the missionaries six plates and then we found out we had to take home  all the leftovers too. And that was the same day we got invited to the crayfish boil at the bishops! ha ha! I've got food coming out my eyes! All my efforts in Thibodaux of getting back into shape are going to waste!




Crayfish Boil before being boiled


But food is an awesome way to meet people. The bishop had a bunch of non members at his boil and we have been able to sit down with alot of less actives and part member families and get to know them. We had a bunch of meetings yesterday that went really well. When  Elder Clarke of the Seventy came, he gave us a ton of ways to find people by going to all the priesthood and auxiliary leaders and getting assignments from them and then just go down the pecking order to their counselors and pretty much just get on everyone's good side.

On Thursday we got a call from our bishop telling us that he received a call from a member who had a daughter who wasn't a member that had just moved here and that she was ready for the missionaries to come over. So we got the number and gave her a call and she told us to stop by. So we did and ended up just talking to her for a couple minutes and she told us her story and then began to tell us how badly she wanted to grow closer to God right now and that she and her kids needed church in their lives and that she wanted to join our church. She has had dreams of her brother that has passed on and she talked to him and asked him what the Big Guy on the other side was like, and then he told her that he hadn't met Him yet and that he was waiting with everyone to meet Him and that we would all meet Him at the same time and that he was in a place called the spirit world. She said as soon as she found out that we believe that, she knew that she needed to join. So that was a pretty big miracle!

We have another family on the horizon that a recent convert family is working with. They told us about the family and have been trying to set a time we could meet with them.  They are already super curious about the church and the wife has been following a member's blog and really loved everything that she was reading. So, it's been an exceptional couple of days.

We also have had alot of success working with less-actives. There is one named D. that we have been working with who is 27 and has a kid on the way. He kinda got lost as a teenager but he has been able to get the spirit back in his life and is praying and has come out teaching with us and even got up and bore his testimony yesterday.  Then a lady got up after him and said that his testimony really touched her so I think that was another help to him. We are working with a girl named M. who has been getting back into the gospel and she has been full of questions and is willing to find them out on her own, which is really sweet because she is learning by faith and treasuring the scriptures. And then there is E. as well, the one who came to conference randomly.  We actually just found out about her back story.  She was really lost and down and was praying to be lead to missionaries and was driving not knowing where to go but she was lead to the church and there just happened to be the four of us there watching the Saturday afternoon session of conference. She just sat down and started to watch. We talked to her afterward and she told us she was from Salt Lake and had grown up in the church, went to seminary all four years but after she graduated she moved down here and stopped going. She is married to a nonmember and pregnant and really felt like something was missing. She asked for a blessing and we asked if we could come by and we started teaching her husband. Well, E. has been doing much better, she was able to sit down with the bishop yesterday and get to know him and let him know everything that was going on in her life and how she feels alot more peace in her life since that day she came into the church. So, that's another miracle we have been able to see! It's been nice not being in so many meeting and on exchanges as a zone leader every week!

But that's just a few of the things going on here. OH, AND MOM, no more telling me how many days I have left! THAT IS NOT ALLOWED!

We are still working on our fireside, we haven't had much time for it yet so its still in the very beginning stages. But we do have a sweet "Meet the Mormons" meeting coming up, kinda like a Mormon 101, just some info about the infamous "Mormons" haha! Some people have the craziest ideas about us down here.  I've heard just about everything. I've had alot of people think we are the same thing as the Amish or Mennonites and that we don't believe in technology. It's alot of fun just telling people who and what we are and sometimes bringing down some of those crazy rumors.

Well, I'm gonna try and send some pictures today, hopefully it works.

Well till next week,

Love ya, bye!

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

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 

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

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

Favorite Foods and Other Things

I'm ready for conference! I can't wait! We get to watch some TV and relax a little bit.. haha! joke! But seriously, we had a good week, I was able to go on an exchange out to New Roads, a little town and work with a missionary in my district. The area is really struggling and they are pretty sure it is going to get closed down, so I think im going to give an instruction on diligence in district meeting this week to try to keep them going strong out there. I hope they keep it open because it will be really hard to open it back up after they close it because it is so far from the church.

We have been doing a lot of less-active work lately because our ward has 600+ members but only 100-150 are very active. We have been seeing alot of them and we have had some back at church these last couple weeks. It has been really cool to see them there and seeing that they liked being back at church one because its "the church" and because the Baton Rouge 1st ward is awesome.

Oh, so we made donuts last night, beignet's actually, a french donut I'm not sure how to spell it but I had one down in New Orleans from Cafe Du Monde, it was so good!

I've been learning some Portugese lately because we have a member that is from Brazil and we have been teaching her friends and we teach them English to so they teach us a little Portugese too, haha! They keep saying that I could pick it up and speak it really well. Tania the member, wants us to go to the next world cup with her and stay at her family's place in Soa Paulo, that would be pretty sweet!

What picture did you find on his Elder Salazar's blog? He is living with us right now.

Oh,back to talking about food, we had some really good gumbo yesterday! And some jalepeno cheddar cornbread and topped it off with Blue Bell ice cream, the best kind of ice cream! We had cookie dough and birthday cake flavored! They need to get Blue Bell in Idaho and if they have it get Josh some cause he would be in heaven, its the best! I'm not much of an ice cream person and I cant stop eating it!

Haha! Rebecca is the primary president! That's sweet, we have taught a few primary lessons, its fun. I usually just use the pictures of Jesus on the pass along cards we have and let the kids hold my placque with my name on it.. they love that.

LSU isn't in our area right now. There are LSU elders, one is Elder Robins, my last comp. But last week the South Baton Rouge area was closed because one of the missionaies was a "visa waiter" and he got sent out so they closed the area and we absorbed it into the two other areas we already have. So we had the whole of Baton Rouge (which is giant, way more people than any other area in the mission) in our area for a while. I didn't know what was going on so it was pretty crazy. The mission president actually took us out to dinner the other night because he felt bad that he kinda left us in the dark for awhile. But it is all worked out and now they have missionaries back there so it's running smooth.

I gotta wrap it up!
love ya
elder ritchie

Baptism Commitments and Muffulettas

Hey ya'll,

It's been hot here, it was just under 90 degrees and probably 90 percent humidity the other day and we were tracting all day. I got some serious sun and then we got into a lesson and the house was probably 60 degrees, it felt like my body was about to go into shock. It is already a lot worse then July in Idaho. We keep telling people that there is still snow in Idaho and they don't believe us and think we are crazy for putting up with the snow for that long. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a foreign country. It's pretty cool.

Our main main investigator family are doing great, they are for sure getting married and then baptized on the same day. We just committed the daughter to be baptized the same day so its going really great. They have also been giving us some more solid referrals. We talked to the a niece and sister and had a good lesson with them, they wanted the change that they had seen in our investigator's family. The niece also said she has always wanted to be baptized so she lit up when we brought up baptism.

The food here is incredible. I had some ribs at our investigators house and they were probably the best ribs i have ever eaten. The bone literally pulled right out of them and was clean. I've also had some really good oyster-shrimp-mushroom-sausage gumbo. And a muffuletta! That's a sandwich with meat and cheese and then a layer of olive salad on top and its all on a huge Italian bun, it was amazing.

I don't know what they do to the breads they use down here but they are so good! I think its the humidity, the poboy and muffaletta bread is so good. There was a parade on conference weekend for St. Patrick's day in the St Bernard Parrish (Chalmette) and they just throw heads of cabbage, carrots and potatoes to the people, it's a really weird tradition but it's pretty cool so we have been eating a lot of cabbage lately.

I'm still loosing weight. We all work out in the mornings and run and go play basketball and then you sweat it off during the day. I think I've lost another 7 to 8 pounds these last 2 weeks. Oh, and are you gonna get my old watch fixed and send it to me? It would be nice to have more than one.

Love, Elder Ritchie