Get your Mormon.org profile done!

Well, we had a bit of a slower week this week, literally, we were super low on miles for the month and there is still alot of days left, so we did alot of biking and found out how spread out are area is. There are no shoulders or ditches by the roads so it makes it hard to get around on a bike. We don't actually live in our area, we live like three miles from our area boundary.



Sharing Jerky from Home



But we were able to have some good lessons with some returning members. We had one with M., at the previous lesson I thought it would be cool to give her a plan of salvation pamphlet and see if she would teach it to us. She was up for it and did a really good job. She found some other stuff to read as well and learned a lot. She said it made alot more sense especially learning about the spirit world because others will be given the chance to hear the gospel. She has had friends say that every one in Africa and Asia that aren't Christian are going to hell so we showed her 1 Peter 3:18-20 and 4:6, some of my personal favorites, because they talk about the spirit word and that's out biggest scripture reference for that doctrine and it comes straight from the KJV Bible so it helps alot of people start to see the bigger picture or the over lying plan to everything.  M. even came to our ward this week, when she would go to church she would always go to her parents ward "the pride ward" (actual name by the way haha) and the previous missionaries said that it's probably not smart to invite her to come to the Denham ward but the lesson was so good and she was definitely feeling the spirit. At the end it just hit me to ask her to come and it was probably the most blunt commitment I've ever made, I just basically said we had one thing we wanted to ask you, will you come to the Denham 1st ward and said we need you (not lying about that either our gospel principles class is pretty vacant at the moment because alot of the new members have started to attend temple prep so its the good kind of empty).  She was just like,"Yes I will, I knew that was gonna come up and I know I need to grow up and start going there", so it was pretty cool because she has had some major concerns with that in the past because of her history of growing up in the Denham ward and it didn't phase her when it came up.

We also were invited to sit in on the Aaronic priesthood lesson by the bishop because the bishopric was teaching out of Preach My Gospel to get the kids focused on the temple and going on missions. I wish it was something I would have been able to do because I'd heard alot about Preach My Gospel before I came out but no one ever explained what was in it and I tried to read it but didn't get much out of it.  The bishop just talked about his mission and how he decided to go and asked us some of the similar questions and we kinda talked about what we do and why were were out here.  It was really cool because they gave all the young men a Preach My Gospel so they can start finding out what it is now whether they are a priest or a deacon. Make sure Josh has one and since he's so smart since I left, tell him I expect him to read it because I didn't really know what missionaries did before I came, I'd heard they knocked on doors and taught people but that's about it... and that isn't really the big part of missionary work! So get him one and have him read the first chapter and write me about it to see what he comes up with!!

Oh mom, FHE activity or something to get the ward to do is to get on to mormon.org and create a profile.  You need to do it and have everyone else do it too, and if I'm ever teaching people I could show 'em my family members! Get everyone in on it too cause mormon.org is pretty sweet it's an awesome tool.   They have some sweet videos on there too and some cool people like Brandon Flowers the lead singer for the Killers, Jeremy Jones, an old school pro snowboarder, and K Fed, a pro skate boarder.  So, get on and make a profile, it just takes a couple minutes especially if you have an lds.org account. and you can post your profile on line or one of the videos.

Oh, we enhanced our coldrank tower, we made it an arch haha! and we even added a key stone :) haha! 



Book of Mormon Cornerstone



 

The Coldrank Tower becomes an Arch


Well, that's about all I've got this week!

Love you all,

Love Elder Ritchie

Praying for teaching ideas

Hey y'all,

I had a really good Easter my first Sunday in the Denham Springs 1st Ward. I think I've served in almost every first ward now, I've been in New Orleans First Ward, Baton Rouge First Ward, and now Denham First Ward. I don't think there are any other firsts that I know of!  I still haven't been to a branch, in fact, I've never been to a branch in my life! I've had group meetings in Abbeville but never been to a branch, kinda weird for here.

Denham is a really nice area, it is by far the cleanest and wealthiest area I've been. The ward seems really strong as well, I  don't have to worry quite as much about a crazy meeting when you have new investigators show up. There have been some different things in other wards I've been in haha!  

I decided I'm getting a puppy when I get home! Oh yes, I got the package, we have been enjoying the jerky you sent.

We had a couple less actives at church this Sunday so that was really awesome and we had a potential investigator that is a member's girlfriend. He is one of the coolest members too, he is a musician and singer. He's an older guy that wants to throw an investigator and recent convert concert that we are trying to set up.  We are pretty pumped about that! He actually has a Grammy award too! So we might be able to get a pretty big turn out, we are going to try and get every one from our zone and the Baton Rouge zone in on it so we can have a lot of people show up and have the mission President and the Stake President here talk and then have a concert. It was awesome how we came up with the idea, I've been trying to come up with new ways of finding investigators because we had Elder Bednar and Elder Clark and the head of the proselyting department come to our mission and basically throw down on tracting and say there are so many better and more productive ways to find people to teach through members and activities and less actives and part member families. So we have been praying to find some good ideas and we were over at his house and he brought up that he had done investigator concerts in the past and would like to do another one. That was an answer to our prayers. We had a councilor from the stake presidency in our ward arrange a question and answer session about Mormons meetings,  he is going to invite families from his neighborhood and we are going to show some Mormon Messages and talk about what we believe and then let them ask any questions. I have just been super grateful this past week for the answer to prayers because the trickiest part of missionary work is finding people to teach.

  

So, my companion and I made a cold drink tower, I'll have to send you a picture soon. I forgot my camera so I can't today but I think you will be pretty impressed and probably a little grossed out, we ended up drinking over 20 gallons of soda haha! We are going to turn it into a castle soon!

I need to get my licence renewed here pretty quick or I'll have to get a Louisiana license haha! I won't be an Idaho citizen anymore if I do that, and I think I'll get even less intelligent if I have to get a Louisiana license.  I'm already loosing my vocabulary and annunciation haha! It still just boggles my mind how weird people talk down here and how different it is in every area I've been from Chalmette and their Southern Brooklyn style accent to Baton Rouge and their Southern Ebonics to Abbeville and their Cajun French and Thibadaux was a mix of New Orleans and Cajun and here in Denham, I'm still not sure what it is but its almost hillbilly cause its more woodsy!

Well, love all y'all,

love elder ritchie

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

Taking it to the teams

We had a pretty awesome week! We found some new people to teach on the basketball team and on the football team at the local college.  One is from Jamaica and the other is from Australia. We had some really good lessons! The one on the football team said he was really curious as to what Mormons were and then we came and knocked on his apartment door and he just couldn't turn us down. The coaching staff has a lot of Mormons and one that is married to a Mormon that goes to church every Sunday, so he was pretty curious. He had been asking around and no one knew anything about the church. So we went over and  taught him the restoration and he loved it! We compared the gospel to a mirror and how if you were to break a mirror you can't just glue it back together, there are still flaws, you have to get a whole new one and he was like, "So that's what God did with Joseph Smith, he sent a whole new church without  flaws!" We showed him a couple scriptures that he had read before and he said it was a completely different than how he interpreted them previously and it made so much more sense. He was really excited to learn about the Book of Mormon too, and in the lesson he was telling us that he had something that had been on his mind and that he normally doesn't like to tell people, but he asked, "Do you guys think the Bible is accurate, because I read it and I hear about all that went on and I feel like it's just not what it should be", and my companion and Hayden (a football player that was with us) and I just started smiling and nodding our head and he was like, "Everyone I say that to says I'm crazy!" haha! So that was a cool experience.  He wasn't able to make it to church though because a hometown friend showed up this weekend, but he promised next Sunday.  He and Hayden are both on the football team and the next day when he saw Hayden he ran up to him and said thank you so much! haha! He is a 280 pound black Jamaican football player and after the lesson he said he "felt like I was light as air".

 

Well, its been nice down here, we have done some biking cause we are almost out of miles for the month.  We got to go play tennis on Saturday with Janna, the new member from Holland, she is on the tennis team and she dominates!  We played some doubles and  she was on my team so we dominated! and I think I might have helped just a little.

 

To answer your question Mom, we have a ward here in Thibodaux.  I've still never been in a branch yet, we  had a group meeting in Abbeville, but no branch.

 

Well, have fun in the snow, I've been being working on my tan! haha!   
Live well you guys!

 

love elder ritchie