Just another week in the trenches and swamps

Hey, sounds like things are busy there, I'm glad I dont' have to be there for the baby shower.  I'm sure Peter is soaking it all up for me, he is the one that loves that kind of stuff :)   Anyways, nothing really new this week just another week in the trenches and swamps of Louisiana.

We had an investigator committed to come to church, the one that just got a new car but Satan is clever and he saw the batman movie shooting on TV and he has social anxiety already and he said he just couldn't do it after seeing that. Brandy couldn't make it either were not really sure why. But Mallory was able to get a calling as the Young Women's secretary and she seemed really excited about that.  She was sad that she won't be able to make it to our scripture study class that we have been having because it is on the same night as Young Women's so we are going to have it an hour earlier so she can make it to that as well. It's a fun class, she has been our only faithful attender.  Occasionally we get other but she is always there.  We just read a few chapters and talk a little about them.  We have been in the Isaiah chapters and I always joke about skipping them and she always get mad at me and last week I taught the class and had two priests with me to help teach and my companion was out with another priest, because I had the priests I was able to skip out of Isaiah for the night ha ha!  This week we had the other Denham elders there and Elder Gentry, the one I trained in Baton Rouge a year ago sang a solo at the end of the class because we were talking about the ACapella group that I'm going to start when I get home and he is going to be lead singer.  I've drafted a few other singers and I'll manage it. It's jut a big joke because we were all such horrible singers but Mallory heard about it so she wanted him to sing something and after awhile we talked him into it :) I tried to film it but he wouldn't let me.  So I wanted to send it home so you could witness it for yourself... ha ha! Oh, I also have a couple other videos I need to send home, I have one of that alligator snapping turtle getting its head chopped off, that is pretty cool.

Well I don't really know what else to write, not a really eventful week, alot of rain! I'm going to miss the rain when I go home because it doesn't really rain in Idaho it sprinkles but it doesn't rain like here. You can have  six inches dropped on you in a couple of minutes and it's like someone is dumping buckets of water on you when you walk outside, it's sweet but then the humidity comes.  You know when your going to the ski hill and you stop at the gas station, or better yet Green Canyon and the windows are super foggy, well, it gets like that after it rains and then it gets hot  because it gets cold inside and so hot and humid out side its like the opposite of Green Canyon and when people wear glasses and go from inside to outside their glasses fog up... I think Idaho would be fine if they had just one of the storms we get here because it would give it a year supply of water in one storm.  I can only imagine if all that rain we get down here was snow instead, that would be cool, there would be like 30 feet!

 

anyways, love y'all

love, Elder Ritchie

That Super Righteous Guy

We had a good week, one of our investigators who got in a car wreck and doesn't have a job got a free car so that was pretty cool. He has even been reading the Book of Mormon and knows this was a blessing so that's always good.

 

B. wasn't able to make it to church, she had to go back to the hospital and then she was staying in another town but she has read into Alma and says she knows its true but that it has just been really hard for her to make it to church. But she does have a testimony of the Book of Mormon so that is good.  She was asking about Melchizedek because of the blessing she received and she said she knew who he was and that he was a super righteous guy, but she was wondering why they said his name in the priesthood blessing she received, so we told her about it and it made perfect sense to her.

 

 

Well we didn't have anything really new happen this week just working with what we have.

 

 

Oh, I asked for a due date for the baby and still haven't heard one..... you people aren't very good with the question and answer thing.

 

Well, love y'all

 

Love Elder Ritchie

Growing a Garden and the Gospel

Well, we had a rainy 4th of July so we didn't get much accomplished, it's been really rainy here which has been nice cause its been super hot but with the rain comes even worse humidity but it's nice while it rains. I don't know if I told you this, but we have a garden growing on our porch, we planted ghost peppers and bell peppers and peas and they are all growing! We even have a bell pepper that's almost ready to eat!

 

 

Well, we found three new people to work with last week that seemed really interested in learning more. It was the fiance of less active. He has been a member his whole, life just drifted from the gospel, but his sister's husband got baptized a year ago and they just got sealed so it has made him want to start coming back to church and get his fiance and her kids into it.  He was trying to explain the church to them and it was going over their head so we went and gave him a hand and they said it made alot of sense when we explained the restoration and the 20 year old daughter was really excited when we gave her a Book of Mormon. It's funny when we give people a Book of Mormon and they think they have to buy it from us and we are like no its yours, all you have to do is read it and pray about it.

 

 

 

We are also still trying to meet B. we sent missionaries to her in Baton Rouge to give her a blessing because she had surgery last Friday. She was very grateful and she said she is recovering better than expected and said it was because of the blessing. But we have yet to meet her so were still hoping this will be the week.

 

Well, that's about all I've got  love y'all have a good week!

 

Love Elder Ritchie

 

p.s. the first week of my mission I've heard from all my brothers at once...... did someone die or something??

Drama in the district and on the stairs

Well, we still haven't been able to meet B. and she didn't make it to church.  Her friends and the people she is living with wouldn't let her go to church on Sunday and ended up taking her to the ER because she is supposed to have surgery next week. But she still wants to be baptized and is trying to make it.  She has read to Mosiah and loves it and she says she knows it is true. People just have to deal with so much adversity when they start investigating or after they join down here.  It just helps my testimony grow more and more because people attack the church when they know nothing about it and you can just see Satan behind it all so clearly and how he is pulling the strings and just getting people that don't have the truth to keep others from having it. But Satan can't win so its all good, just have to have patience and keep trusting in the Lord and it will all work out.

 

Well, we had a little drama in our district this week and we are now in a trio, one of the missionaries in our district is now in our companionship while he's waiting for a missionary that is actually from Mississippi that was doing a service mission in our office. He is going to serve a full transfer with Elder Gentry.

 

I'm not sure what we are doing for the fourth yet, just kind of another day as a missionary though. Last year it was on our preparation day so we played softball and grilled, that was the week after I almost broke may ankle though so I was a gimp and couldn't really play.

 

 

Remembering the ankle

 

So on Saturday we were leaving our apartment early in the morning to go help someone work on their house that is moving into the ward, and we walked outside and were about to go down the stair well and I saw a man passed out on the stairs. He was awake and his eyes were open and he was breathing but he was unresponsive, so we had to call the ambulance to come get him. We were pretty sure he had been there all night. He lives on the third floor he was on the stairs and they think that he fell. We were talking to some other people that live by us and he was not looking good the night before when they saw him out by his car.

Teaching through texting

Hey, we had a really good week this week! We received a refferal from the office lady that was about a lady that was reading the Book of Mormon and loved it and really wanted to come to church. This was Friday when we got the refferal. So, I called her and she said that she was at the Baton Rouge stake center and met a member and he was the one that called the mission office. She wanted to meet with us Saturday and come to church. After that she sent us a text asking what she should read from the Book of Mormon so we just told her to start from the beginging or where ever she was reading.  Then she went on to tell us how she has studdied religions all her life and had never been religious because she has never felt any of them were right, so she just keeps studying she said she was spiritual but not religious. Then she got a Book of Mormon somehow and someone told her to read it and she has loved what she has read and she said she has never felt like she has about a church and that she knows it was true and her insides were leaping for joy. Then she went on to tell us she wanted to get baptized and asked us what she would have to do to be baptized and she told us that she had repented. So we told her that we can talk about how she can get baptized when we meet with her because this was all through texting haha! But we weren't able to meet with her on Saturday because her best friend that she normally borrows her car (she is 39 by the way) said she wasn't going to be her friend anymore if she goes to that church and she can borrow her car if that was where she was going because we were going to have the lesson at the church. We had a dinner appointment with a member family out by where she lives that we invited her as well but she said she wasn't as comfortable with that yet because they would have had to go pick her up and take her back so she didn't  want to impose. But she said she would come to church the next day. But before church she texted us and said that she didn't realized it was going to be such a big deal joining this church and that people are ignorant for judging what they had never studied so we told her that Satan would stop at nothing to keep us from hearing the truth and she could atest to that. But she told us how she had just finished 1 Nephi and she was talking to us about it and asking questions about the brass plates and who the Jaredites were and told us some scriptures that really stuck out to her so she is doing her best. and we have just been trying to help her out. She actually thinks its only me when she texts because I was the one that called her at first and so she is always saying "Thank you so much Mr Elder Ritchie, you mean so much and I'm so greatful for what your doing to help me", and we have told her that I have a companion named Elder Hausladen too haha! But we haven't been able to get across that we share the phone even though we always use we or us instead of I or me.. haha!  It's just different for people to grasp the concept of two people sharing a phone.

But we are hoping to meet with her so we can help her out and see where she is so we can get the members to help her out. She wanted to meet with us today but we said we couldn't and she said Wednsday would work for her so we are hoping to see her Wednesday!!!   So keep B. in your prayers that it will work out cause she really wants to join the church! 

So it has been an exciting couple of days and you can't ever say that texting didn't acomplish anything! haha! I've always joked with my companions about teaching someone through texting and how it would be kinda cool, didn't think it would ever happen. But I'm hoping we don't have to anymore.

Oh mom, I told that story about your friend paying her tithing and two of her houses going up for sale right afterward to a recent convert that we think had been stuggling with tithing because her husband isn't a member and possibly gives her a little bit of a hard time for doing it.  It meant alot to her, so it was pretty cool. She got baptized 8 or 9 months ago and she is around our age and found out that her mom that lives in Kansas is going to get baptized  the 30th of this month so she really wants to take the temple prep class that's about to start so she can go through and get sealed to her parents a year from now because he dad is already a member. There is also another recent convert family that just attended the temple prep classes that is about to go and a bunch of other also, so our ward is doing really good right now. Oh, and M. the former less active we have been working alot with went to girls camp as a kitchen help and has talked to the bishop and wants to take the next temple prep classes that start in July.

So I had a dream I went to Lake Powell with y'all last week and I had to wear my white shirt and tie the whole time so I couldn't swim, it was weird. Even in my dreams I think I've completely forgot what its like to be a regular person. When we are going to play basketball or something and we stop somewhere and people don't give us different looks trying to figure out who we are is really weird cause then your just another person to them.

No one would beleive me you can buy Tony's (our favorite Cajun seasoning) outside of Louisiana, but its offical its at walmart!  Haha! Cause everyone asks me if I will fill my bags with Tony's when I go home and I'm always like, no I have it at home already.

Tell Josh to say hi to the rougers and Steve for me.  And have him tell Franz that if I was there I would boss him around because I have a year on him.

Well, that's about all I have this week!

Love y'all,

love elder ritchie

Don't be bragging about your bland food!

Another good week! We got to help with an eagle project and watch a show by a guy that we have been working with to help him get to the temple. He played for a high priest group social so we got to go watch him play, he can play like 10 instruments he even had a steel drum that he would play it was pretty sick. Oh yeah, transfer calls were last night and I'm staying here again so this will be my second longest area so far and I'm staying with my companion so he will be my longest companion. I'm glad I actually get to stay with a companion for a while now I's been getting new ones.

It sounds like Lake Powell was fun, I don't feel to bad because I got to go twice the year before I left and then the year before that when y'all didn't get to go, so you caught up to me I think so it was only fair.

Oh, on my birthday we didn't do to much, just went to church then went over to the Tolberts, he is in the stake presidency and he loves missionaries so he found out it was my birthday at church so he said we didn't have a choice, we were coming over. He is actually the reason my companion stayed with me this transfer, he put in a word with my mission president and told him we needed to stay here together. We heard from the assistant that he was going to go but then President Wall said President Tolbert would kill him if he did, so he got to stay here. That's revelation with some help, haha! Elder Murphy from Idaho Falls goes home this week and alot of Spanish missionaries I've been able to serve with, Elder Christiansen and Killpack, two of my favorites.  It's getting harder and harder to see people leave but there's not to many more that have been out longer than I have. That's one of the weirdest parts of a mission, when all your friends go home and the new guys have to step up to the plate.

By the way how is Erica doing? I haven't heard anything in a while.

Well, we had a little bit of a break through with someone we have been teaching, he started reading and says he knows its true now we just have to help him act on it. It's gonna be a tough one with his situation but we know he can do it if he has the Lord's help. We had a packed sacrament meeting on Sunday, we have started taking the sacrament meeting attendance of the units we are in to help track real growth and we saw around 40 more people than average and there was over 200 people in the chapel, it was really cool to see a packed chapel!  Hopefully we can work on making that the new average and getting all the people that don't normally come make it out and get them some gospel in their lives.



My Apartment in Denham Springs




My Apartment Building



Oh, happy fathers day dad! I didn't send a package I forgot to tell you that Cajun Pow sauce in the last package was for you.  I was going to send you some swamp seeds too, they are sunflower seeds  boiled in a crawfish type boil but they are a little spicy.  If y'all are having a tough time with the Slap Your Mama I don't know if you can handle em! Oh and by the way, mom where did you always get the Tony's we always had from??  I always tell people I had it growing up because they rave about it down here and they say people come here just for to buy it  or they take it to people when they travel. So where did you get yours cause I tell people I had it back home and it blows their minds and I never know where you got it...Walmart?? haha!

Oh and you don't have to be bragging about your (bland) bottomless bowls of food :) on the house boat, you don't even want to get me started on food.... cause if there is one thing people can do down here its cook and it's not even as good as it was over in Lafayette, so don't worry about me missing the Lake Powell food. I actually had a delicious gumbo last night at the bishops and I even had potato salad to throw in it! Yes, gumbo with a scoop of potato salad in it is amazing!



Sam with "non-bland" food