Struggles with Spanish

teaching is really different then i tought it would be, we really only teach investigators maybe three or four times a week cause we are not allowed to tract. we mainly teach the less active families and it's difficult cause they know what they should be doing, we just remind them. i feel like we teach the same people over and over. which is not that far from the truth. 

 

as for any experiences that are particularly spiritual, nothing comes to mind. which is not a bad thing, its just i cant think of a single experience that was more spiritual then the rest. we have two investigators with baptism dates. so that's good. they had it set before i got here. i think its is for the 7th. i went on splits on saturday that was different cause i was with another white person he is from Boise and has been out for two months. we had a really good day planned but the activity that took up four hours got canceled and then two of the lessons we had planned got canceled so we had no plan and our backup plans failed so we wandered around to different members houses. most were not home.  but that's how it is all the time, every one is working all the time. and even on saturday they go and do other things.

 

after two weeks my spanish is still bad, i just have less of a struggle using my bad spanish to talk with people. i still have no idea were anything is because they name streets differently here and usually there is no street sign.  i know how to get back to our apartment from anywhere and to two different houses, other then that i am lost most the time.  we went to lagoona which is truly a ghetto, dirt roads and cinder block houses. plus it had rained so the roads were really bad. we only have lagoona which is small, some entire areas are like that. 

i am glad i got to attend sam's wedding that was awesome. (my face was on a card board cut out of obama). i wish i could have really been there. well, i hope we can get the members to help us cause without them we have nothing to do. and i feel as if we do a lot of nothing and a little bit of genuine teaching. 

 

have a great week every body

 

Elder Ritchie

Note from the Mission President

Letter and picture from the Mission President's Wife:



The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Saint Days 
Mexico East Mission, Mexico City ,
November  2013 

Dear Brother and Sister  Ritchie
               We want to express our deepest feelings of gratitude to you and at the same time notify that you son,  Elder Ritchie  has arrived in the mission field with good health and a sweet spirit of love and service.

                     We are to your service and we know that the Lord fill you of blessings for all the work that your son is doing in this great work.  
             We recommend you for the strenght and health to him,  write him by e-mail every week , so it will help him to be in contact with you  and your words uncourage him to follow every day working faithfully , we hope these words can be full of  optimistical and faith 
            If in some ocassion you desire to say him some familiar matter, don´t feel you can´t do it, but call to the mission office or mission house but not directly or if he has our permission  

President and sister  Anaya 
Mexico East Mission. Mexico City  

Mexico City!

Well, i am in mexico and i just realized that the spell check is in spanish so this will be terrible spelling wise.  Well i spent monday night in the mission prezs house and had some awsome food.  i will try not to talk about food that much but it is so good.  you should already know how most of my traveling went i would give an accont of it but i dont even remember half of it.  the best thing was when the plane was landing it banked so that i could see the city out the window. this place is huge ! i thought i would hate the city but its is the coolest place. we went to a meeting to figure out transfers and stuff, they would call a elders name and then his new comps name and they would figure out that way.  well i heard the name Richart and i thought that it was me so i started to stand and it turns out that that was my comp cause my name was called right after. he is awsome he is latino and knows only a little english. so thats good cause i wanted a comp that would help me not use english. he and i listen to a lot of the same music and like alot of the same stuff so we get along really well.

About Mexico, this place is a dump! the streets are a monstrosity the cars are too.   mom could never come here, she would have to adopt a couple dozen dogs if she did.  they are every where and most of them are indistiguishable because they are the mostly mutts.  i don't quite know what what is going on most of the time, the only white people i have seen are missionaries. every thing has been graffitied and i like  some of it, it is acctually realy good but most is just crap but not as much as you would think. i want to say that no one here knows how to drive except that i have not seen an accident yet and there are just different rules. there are like five stop signs that i have seen and three traffic lights. they regulate the speed with speed bumps that are huge.  and for some reason alot of the cars are VW´s.  tell pete he can get another 100,000 miles on his car cause his was not as bad as half the cars here. 

The people are amazing they work harder than most any one in the U.S. and they do it with out complaining.  they all try to help me with spanish and some know a little english but when they speak english i cant understand it cause i am listening for spanish and the accent is so bad i think they are saying something in Spanish.  

 

As for me, i am doing great. i am starting to understand what some people say but at the beginning of the week i didnt understand anything.  after awile of listening to real spanish i can understand.  when i start a conversation it takes me a while to start to undertand what they are saying.   i absolutly love this city  and some of the people.  i started wearing the potato tie pin and it was like a magnet for people to start talking with me and gave me some thing to talk about.  i can almost describe all of my job in spanish now.  It's great cause i needed some thing to talk with people about other than the gospel.

 

Spiritual things:

 

well we have two families investigating right now. we are not allowed to knock doors or walk up to someone and start talking on the street. one reason is almost everyone will let you in to talk and they had a huge problem with baptizing people and never getting them to church again so i guess this fixed that.  we only get new investigators through refrences so alot of what we do depends on how willing the members are to work with us.  the first week we only taught like 4 lessons with non members. alot of the people we teach are less actives.  which is fine with me, they are used to missionaries and like to feed us. as for the investigators, one is a family with two sons and they seem to be receptive to the gospel.  the mother's father was sick or something so we taught about the plan of salvation that seemed to comfort her, i haven't taught the other famliy yet but we see the son around town every once in awhile, he and his mom went to church with us on sunday and he went and played futball with us today. real futball. not the American thing. but we are kinda in a slow spot right now cause no one is home until the evening so we do a lot of wandering to members and less actives houses. they all want to feed us. one less active girl that we got to go to church on sunday has a daughter that's almost the same age as evie she is so cute and funny.  

 

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting already which aparently is abnormal cause the other missionaries i talked with had been out for 9 months still haven't.  I wrote my talk on the dia de reposo and my companion looked at it and went and wrote me a new talk cause mine was unintelligible. it said the exact same thing just in correct Spanish.

 

We met with a family last night, they have been members for almost a year and they are really excited to go to the temple in Dec. i can acctuly talk with them, they were taught by a missionary from Idaho and they have alot to say to me. one of the sons who is 17 skate boards so i got to do that for awile with him.  the father is really interested in every thing i say, we sat and tlaked about fruit for 45 min. then he told me to bear my testimony on the book of mormon. and then we started  talking about the aztec ruins and how it was possible that the were the nephites and stuff then i realized I was the one talking with him and my comp was talking with his kids. so that was cool.

 

the worst time i have had here was Sunday morning, i woke up and just didn't feel like i wanted to be here and that i was not getting help. but then i went and opened my scrips and there was a passage that i had been looking for since the beginning of the mtc. then i read a note i left for my self for when i felt like that and every ting was fine after that.  

 

Is that better mom? i gave you both info and spiritual stuff in a letter! 

 

I hate it when people tell me it will get harder cause i can't see it getting worse.   all the other missionaries say two weeks in is the worst and i honestly don't think it will be that way. i am going to love every moment here even if i have to force myself too on occasion.

 

so thanks for your love and prayers 

 

Elder Ritchie

 

Getting ready to leave

Hey, I leave next Monday!  I might call around early morning some time, I leave the mtc at 2:30 but I'm am not sure when I will get to the airport and can call.

We got snow yesterday. that just made me want to go home.  I can't believe I won't get to see it for two years.

Well having travel plans makes it finally seem like this place will end. Our teacher told us some stories about when he worked at the MTC in Mexico and that made me want to go there even more. I don't think you will have to worry about sending me a new pair of pants cause the one pair doesn't fit. My teacher got a really nice good looking suit for 65 dollars.  So I will just go find some down there. He is going to get married in his suit.

The other day we did the lesson about the atonement where some one has to do push ups to make up for what every one else lacked. I got to be the savior and do the push ups.  It was fun.  I couldn't even hold myself up by the end. I still can't lift my hand up to my head very well. well I am doing great and am excited to leave.  Going to send the stuff I am not taking with me later today.  



The District at Provo MTC West



Love, Elder Ritchie

Engagement Anouncement from the MTC

Hey Mom, Big New here!

I'm supposed to tell you all that Peter and Katelyn are engaged!

 I found out my companion does not have mono just strep throat, so that's good. I don't feel like I did much the past week and that's probably cause I really didn't do much. I was kind of got stuck at the apartment a lot or the other person with strep would stay with my companion and I would go to class. Every one in my district has gotten sick at least once.  My companion was the first and also the worst. I was at class and some other guys in my district who were sick gave him a blessing.

So after they get married maybe Pete and Katelyn can move into your basement so you won't be all alone. Don't worry mom, when I get engaged I wont tell you until the day of the wedding and  I won't be like Peter and make some one else tell you for me. Sam is going to move out and.  Luke and Rebecca are going to have a baby.  I am going to Mexico.  So you will have to deal with it just being the two of you for awhile.  But don't worry to much, I am never going to leave. Haha! I found out what my major will be in college:  Stay at home son for life!

I am not worried about the Spanish any more.  I accepted that I am going to go to Mexico and not know what is going on for a few months. Hopefully less than two.  But every one told me it takes about eight. 

You sent me more church shirts!  I wanted ONE normal shirt.  Thanks for every thing else though, I might send back the shirts and I have one pair of pants that's too small. Its the grey ones if you could get those and go and get some with a bigger waist I would appreciate it. If you could throw a pair of ear plugs into the next package I would like that. 

Tell peter that he was late on getting engaged, my bet was that it would happen before October, not at the end of October. I think it was Kolton who had that month.  Well mom, I think this makes you the last to know again. But they got engaged on Sunday. I was given the task of informing you of this news.

Bye ya'll

Elder  Ritchie