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!

Time in Thibadaux

Sooooo, we had a pretty awesome week this week, I was able to go on exchange with a new elder that came into my area, so I got to stay put for once! He is from Pocatello and he has only been out two weeks so I got to hear how Idaho is doing and what the real world is like these days. I think I've decided that Idaho and Utah aren't the real world, they are figments of peoples' imaginations.. haha! But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It was good to stay here for the week I've been running around like crazy so we were able to get to work and we had a really good week.

 

We found five new investigators that have really love learning about the gospel. We knocked a door a while back and met a guy named Johnathan that told us to come back, so we did and we were able to sit down with him and his girlfriend and their two roommates and have some good gospel conversations. They always have crazy but good questions for us. They really liked what we taught them about the plan of salvation and how those that never got to hear about Jesus and his gospel will have the chance to hear the truth. That was actually one of the questions that they brought up. So Elder Curtis and I were just smiling at each other because normally we bring that up but they were able to come to the question on their own. We read through the plan of salvation pamphlets that we have  the next time we met with them and they basically taught themselves and we kinda just answered any questions they had, which is alot!  People are usually very curious about missionaries and Mormons in general.  We showed them a picture of the Salt Lake temple and they loved it cause they were talking about getting married and we told them how it can be forever and not till death do us part and they really loved that. 

 

Someone else we taught got baptised yesterday but it wasn't a convert baptism cause she just turned eight. There were some non members at the baptism and the girlfriend of less active member who has been coming back for the last couple weeks told us she wanted to get baptized so we are going to go start teaching her this week. So we have had a good week, it's been nice cause we haven't been able to have much time to do alot of missionary work the last couple weeks between meetings and Mardi Gras, so this week was a real tender mercy for us to get the time to see some miracles. There's nothing like the feeling of coming out of a lesson when the spirit was there and you get to look back and see how it was able to help someone with what they were going through and the questions they had.

 

So Mother, that wasn't a very descriptive description of your studies... haha!  I wanna know what your learning, not just what your studying. I was reading in Preach My Gospel today and it also said to ask your family and friends in letters and emails for experiences and blessings they have received from living the gospel. So if you have any that have happened recently, fill me in cause it's always nice to have good experiences to read and to share with others.

 

And Dad, thanks for the letter you sent on how to be a good leader I've actually been working on the eye contact thing and it has really helped me so I don't just stare off when my companion is teaching I've been trying to look to him an really work on my eye contact with investigators when I teach.  That was something my trainer and I did alot of, he was a master of eye contact so it was a good reminder cause sometimes the little things like that can slip through the cracks when you get teaching.

 

That's awesome news that Nolan should be heading out soon!! Is he still going to Mexico? (Sam's friend Nolan is finally leaving for his mission to Monteray after a back injury kept him from leaving on his mission in October).

 

And happy birthday Dad!! Maybe next year we can go to Salmon for your present cause I didn't get you anything this year. 

 

 love you

Merry Christmas

Hey, it was good to hear and see you guys on Christmas.

I had an awesome Christmas. That miracle I was talking about, we were supposed to baptize a  little girl and her brother Saturday but we weren't able to get permission from their mom yet, but we are hoping to get it soon and get them baptized. I'll let you know how it goes.  We were having a really rough day and then we met them through their grandma and committed them last week. They have a strong desire to be baptized so its still a miracle, just gonna talk a little longer to work it out. Oh, and the little girls name is L. and we were stopping by right after I got your package last week and it had that CTR slap bracelet.  I knew what to do with that as soon as I saw it! We stopped by and L. had read the chapter in the Book of Mormon that we left and additional ones as well and we were standing at the door and I told her to hold her wrist out and I reached into my pocket and I snapped her on the wrist with the bracelet and she loved it.  Just the night before they were looking at my CTR ring and I was telling them that it meant "choose the right" or "Christ the Redeemer" and she really wanted one really bad.  So I was able to give her that one after she had read and she loved it!  She is awesome a little 9 year old that loves reading the Book of Mormon and really wants to get baptized.  She comes to church even when her grandma doesn't. So we are hoping everything works out with her mom.  Her brother is supposed to get baptized too but we have only meet with him the  first time we taught her, so we are hoping to get him over to his grandmas again because he really wanted to be a member of the Church.

Thanks for all the Christmas presents, I really liked them  all!! Just remember the true spirit of Christmas, as the prophet said you can just drop the second part of the syllable of Christmas and it becomes the spirit of Christ. He is the reason for the season. The greatest gift we will ever be given was the gift of our Savior and I know that he is the Son of God and our Savior and Redeemer.

Love, Elder Ritchie