Another toe nail gone!

I have been getting really tired really fast. i think i need to eat more, so today was the day when we are supposed to buy stuff so i was with another American shopping. this is the second time I have been with him shopping and i didn't make the mistake of shopping hungry but i still bought more food then is necescary and i was not sure how much money i had but i still have more than enough for the month as well as alot of food.
 

we have been working a lot with the wife of our convert and well she was going to get baptized in two weeks but she has a few problems, the main one is she does not feel ready and the other is that she is not ready. so we are going to try to keep teaching her. she really likes to listen but she has a hard time rejecting the life she had before.

If every thing works out OK we are going to baptize a lady that has been listening to the missionaries for over 25 years.  she has a really strong testimony about Christ and she loves to read every thing that the church publishes.  we took her to listen to a general authority speak and that changed how she received our lessons.

But apart from those two people my area is kinda slow right now every one left on vacations so we are trying to contact more people but i have yet to find any one in the street who is genuinely interested. but eventually we are going to find more people to teach just not quite sure were or when. ok, maybe the girl that just walked in, she is the sister of our friend who owns the internet café. her mom was member but then rejected every thing and there is a lot of problems. but yea, i am going to try to teach her again.

Um, other things that happened, I got another toenail ripped out and my comp got told he needs to eat healthier.

have a good day! bye!

This is graffite that i pass when i am on the way to the mission head quarters i have always wanted to get a photo of it but i dont have time so i managed to get a pic while we were in a bus. 

No transfer yet!

Well, i feel really good right now just slightly hungry.  we had the changes and guess what! i didn't leave my area! that means I'm  going to be 7.5 months here and 4.5 with the same comp but its fine i really like this area and i am not sick of this comp yet, i did catch my self arguing with him for no reason once.  so i need to not do that.  

 

we started to talk with more people in the street, its fun! i learned a bunch of different ways to start talking with people so that helps a lot. my favorite is to contact the people who have dogs cause it always gives me a reason to talk to them.

 

It's been a really good week though. i did not have a new agenda so i got stuck using pieces of paper and i got really sick of it cause i never had room to write what i needed to. but we are teaching a lady who has had contact with the church almost her entire life, her brother is the secretary in our ward.  we taught her a lot! i like to teacher her cause she really applies the things we teach, she just was not quite ready to give up her other religion but she said she would get baptized.

 

 we are working a lot with the family of the guy we baptized about two weeks ago.  his wife likes to listen but she needs to start applying the things we teach in her life. its really funny to see how different her husband is from how he was before. 

 

well that's it for now have a good day to all and to all a good night. 

Elder Ritchie.

 

Faith by Actions

This week was really good, i have been getting really tired but its not much of a problem, just every lesson right after lunch i feel like just laying down and sleeping. i tried it once but as soon as i sat down i felt like i wanted to do some thing.  

 

we had interview with the president YEAH i think i passed i got done in less time then every one else i didn't cry and i still have no idea if i am going to leave my area tomorrow or not.

 

YEAH thats right we have changes tomorrow and i wont know if i am leaving or not until nine tonight. our mission is a little bit different than most other missions. our whole mission had a conference with a seventy and we could only go if we had an investigator or a new convert. we took an investigator and a new convert. but there was not enough room for the missionaries so we all were in the temple visitor center.  its quite suprising to all the investigators to see all of us together.  

 

we played  futbal again today and like always i won. it helps that i keep getting put on the teams that pass me the ball and i then kick it and it goes in.  but YEAH i got a lot of goals with out having to run much or actually work that hard so i am happy.

 

As for the work right now, well there is work just allt of it involves looking for people who are not home.  i am slightly negative about not being able to find the people i want to teach and my companion says were is your faith! i had to think for a second  then i realized i was about to say some thing i have almost never said, "I have faith".  i never have liked saying it, and so i didn't, i said we look for these people every day that is my faith.  actions are the greater part of our faith, every one can say i have faith, or i believe.  its those that don't need to say i have faith that truly have faith. you can just look at them and in every action they do you can see that they have faith.  this is the kind of faith i am trying to develope.  where i will never have to explain my faith to any one they can just see it.   yes i know i have to explain my faith to people that is part of being on a mission but you understand what i am trying to say.

 

Well love you all. 

wow i messed up more then thirty times just trying to write  the line above. 

Elder Ritchie

Celebrating the Fourth of July

well, well, well

 

i feel great just in case any one wanted to know. 

 

we had divisions today and i went to the other area that aparently is one of the most dangerous in our mission but i never noticed any of it. i thought it was a really good area and all the people seemed really nice a few a bit nicer than i like, but still its not like they are rude. i had an awesome 4th of july, i was not working, well, at least not in a potato field. i did not go and eat a hamburgur like we planned cause we ended up eating tacos  with our investigator and that was after i ate a huge bfast.  when i got back to my area the other elder would not stop saying how much he loved my area and i could not figure out why but eventually i found out they contacted a bunch of girls by beating them in a game of futball.  so yeah, i missed out on that. but i am not really sad about it, just a little.

 

our investigator who wants to get married is having alot of problems with his wife, mainly she does not want to get married right now.  he can't get baptised unless they get married and his daughter really likes the lessons and is talking with her dad about baptism and stuff and she is only ten but her mom has plans for her first communion.   we are trying to talk with her but she is refusing to talk with us right now. i think we will  have to wait untill after their daughter finishes this before we can teach them more. 

 

we baptised a girl who i have been teaching for over 5 months, she had problems in her family before so we were not able to get her  baptised but every thing finally calmed down so we started to teach her again and we baptized her on Saturday along with granddaughter of a less active member.  all we had to do for them was invite them to church and they started to be active.  

 

well, right now we were told by our president to mark a BOM in a special way i started doing it before he told us to cause my comp was doing it and i thought it was a good idea. i got a different color for faith, repentance, baptism, the holy ghost, endure to the end, prayer, Christ, and atonement.  i found out so far the when ever it talks about faith that it always includes some thing else never just faith. and it talks a lot more about Christ then i remembered. 

 

well that's it for now 

 

Elder Ritchie

He can hear again!

good news, i can hear again!

 

well, I'm having a hard time remembering what we did this last week.  it was over a week not being able to hear out of my right ear and for a day i could not hear our of either ear. so i was kind of sad for a while. but i got my ears flushed out and now i can hear again. 

we had a zone conference with my old zone and my new zone it was really good.  we talked about how to use the book of Mormon to teach as well as a bunch of interesting information about the book of Mormon. we were challenged to give away a book of Mormon by the end of the day and we completely forgot about it, and as we were walking home we ran into a less active member who is starting to come back and her friend and we gave her a book of Mormon we did not have much time to explain any thing about it so i hope the less active girl remembers enough to explain the book correctly to her friend. but when we got back to the house we remembered the challenge and we did it with out even realizing it. 

 

we visited an investigator that i had three months ago and we talked with a friend of hers that was there she said she is a member but is really inactive and we tried to get a time when we could visit with her but she said she does not live here but her mom does and then she said where her mom lives and i recognized the address and her mom does not actually live there but her brother does and he was an investigator before they divided my area so i know every one in her family from different things. her brother is a mechanic right out side our house, we say hi to him almost every day. her other brother was my investigator and we found her parents one time selling popsicles. her sister works in the store and we tried to talk with her one time.  the funny thing is we had no connection using the other members of the family we just kind of found all of them and realized they are all family. but sadly none of them want to take the time to talk with us. 

 

we went to the temple visitor center with our investigator and his family.  his wife before did not really want to listen to us but after the visitor center she said she really liked the idea of an eternal family and she is thinking about baptism but first she needs to get married before they can get baptized. the good news is this time i don't think there are any problems with divorce. 

 

well that's it for now have a good week every one 

 

Elder Ritchie

General Conference

Well, we had conference.  i tried to understand as much as i could but i really did not understand nearly as much as i wanted to but as long as i don't get frustrated with it i am doing OK.  when i get frustrated. i stop progressing in Spanish.

 

my comp got sick last week so we had to go to the doctor.  he ate some bad fish.  this has been my 6th time to the doctor i think, but never for me and i am always the one who is the most sick. i know why, its cause my mom who is a nurse has always told me you are fine, give it a few days and you will get over it and that has always worked for me.   it never occurred to me that other people go to the doctor when they get sick.

people are weird.  but he is fine now. and we need to start working again.   

 

last week felt like all we did was visit people explain what conference was, tell them when it was and if they had time we would give a lesson but not many of them had time so we had really low numbers.  i am pretty sure all the less actives we invited that actually said they would go didn't really go. i even bought sticky notes and wrote the times on them and put them in really noticeable  places in their houses. they were florescent orange. but they still have their choices and excuses. i really enjoyed explaining how i felt that conference was like receiving 10 more hours of scripture and who wouldn't want to see Moses speak or some one from the bible. then i said we have the same opportunities as the people who lived in the times of Moses to listen to a prophet who speaks as if from the mouth of God. it really got me excited for conference but it did not seem to work for our less actives.

 

well,  that's it for this shpeel if shpeel is really a word. i think it is.

 

 well, love you all,

 

 Elder Ritchie

 

PS:  i have my voice back and i can talk fine again. i think i liked Uchtdorf in the priesthood session the most.  We got two investigators to go. they really liked it. 

 

PSS: i just downloaded all of conference to my mp3. i got a new speaker cause the one you sent uses batteries and i want one i can charge. plus its like five dollars to buy a small speaker here. i still need a new watch.

 

i was thinking about sending a packege then i decided to save the money and buy stuff for you guys, how would you like a fake watch or really fake any thing? they got it really cheap here. my fake pocket watch works really good if you want the day to only last 5 or 6 hours.

 

thanks for raising me how you did even though the other day i did find a scripture i thought i wanted to share with you it applies to mothers who leave their children alone, but then i decided not to cause i really did love how i was raised. and apparently it worked fine cause i am here on a mission and i am kind of a normal person. then again i don't think it mattered exactly how i was raised, i would still be the same as i am now.

 

 i keep getting asked what i am going to do after my mission, i used to say i wanted to be a mechanical engineer, then i started saying i wanted to teach high school. i have always had a lot of respect for high school teachers and i think if i was teaching the right subject i would really enjoy it plus you get the summer off, all holidays off, and you feel like you are helping society some how but who knows, i could do whatever i want and the problem is finding what i want more.   

Loosing Your Voice Changes Your Accent

well, i had a plan about what i was going to write but then i read a letter from my sister in law Rebecca and i did some thing that i have not done for awhile (ya i am kinda crying now) but both her and her new baby are doing good from what every one has told me. and now i can't remember a thing i was going to say to every one.  

 

OK this week i was really frustrated cause i got sick and i wanted to rest and get better but i wanted to do other things more and then because i was sick my voice changed and no one could understand my Spanish.  i would always try to say some thing during a lesson but after i was done talking every one would just stare at me like i had just said every thing in English. then they would look at my comp and expect him to have understood what i had said. he didn't but he can tell what i wanted to say and he translated a bit for me.  today my voice is almost back to normal.  I still don't have the same accent i had before but it is coming back fast.  we don't really have anybody here who is progressing that much, we have people who complete all the reading we assign them but they don't want to go to church or commit to do much more than read. then we have people who come to church who we can't commit to do anything or they all have really busy schedules and we only get to talk with them once or less than once a week.  

 

we keep running into material from the Jehovah's witnesses. they keep giving it out to our members and the members want us to look over it for them. my comp explained a few thing about them to me cause i really did not know that much and he has taught a few of them. i just keep telling people to respect them cause we want to be respected as well. 

 

i went to a really spiritual baptism on Sunday it was in a different church building and the other elders thought i have a really good singing voice and the wanted me to do a solo. NOT. they need some one to play the piano and I could do that a little.

 

the baptism was of a woman who's son was shot a few months ago, he was the only member in his whole family and over the months since he was shot his whole family has started to investigate the church and they were all baptized at different times. his mom was the last one i think. not to sure about the details cause its not in my ward. but over half of their ward was there and we had over 12 people who did not have a place to sit. 

 

well that's it for now, love all you people! this church is not true because of all the funny little things this church is true because its from Christ.  and the only way to know this is to have it confirmed to you by the spirit. all the interesting little details are just supporting the fact that this is Christ's church. 

 

Elder Ritchie

It's getting HOT

well, we started  out the week really strong, we had two days of non stop lessons then we kind of realized we had visited all the people we normally visit in only two days and we had a hard time trying to find people after that. we helped our convert family paint their house that was kind of fun.  we had two plans to go to the visitor center on Saturday the first one did not show up and the second called and candled an hour before. so we were left with four hours of having a plan too not having any thing.  i don't even remember what we did i just know it was not any thing i wanted to do. this week should be better i hope. i am getting much better at Spanish i am starting to have people tell me i have good Spanish. i personally doubt it but as long as they can understand and i continue to improve then i will be happy.  

 

The mounts that we can see if the smog is gone and if it is really clear you can see the active volcano to the right.

 

 

i met a white guy yesterday and he was not even a missionary. he was a returned missionary visiting his old comp.  well, every thing is fine and good down here really hot but that's fine i still think back on walking in potato fields and i remember it was a lot hotter temperature wise but here it feels  hotter then i ever felt then. i personally blame the humidity, then i blame the altitude, then i think about were my comp is from and the only thing that bothers him is the altitude cause the sun is so much more direct and intense than it is in Veracruz.  I will live, just have to try to stay indoors as much as i can. that means finding more people to teach and in order  to do that i need to be out in the sun more its a viscous cycle but its good.  

 

Cleaning the font with our investigator who is now a member.

 

 

well if you want to know something specific, ask me i always feel like i am skipping alot of stuff in all these letters.

 

My District.  The shorter white guy is Elder Walker from IF

 

 

We are geting ready for conference and I am starting to tell everyone i talk with to go to it.  well i think thats it for now 

Elder Ritchie

 

 

 

 

Cleaning the Font

My letter i wrote today describes it a little bit. i will send it later.  every one loves the idaho pins but turns out that the other elder from IF has the same ones and gives them out. he started doing it in the MTC  Elder Walker. is his name his dad was a seventy at one point.  well thats about it for today i will try to write a good letter cause so much has been happening that when i am done reading all my email i have forgoten what i was going to say in my email. 

Well bye for now 

love you Elder Ritchie

 

Simply put, this was a really stressful week. first problem was i was expecting changes tommorow turns out the Lord wants my comp hear for 7.5 months which is kinda rare, he was alot more stressed than i was though his blood presure has been really high and we went to a doctor lady in our ward and she gave him some weird pill thing, not sure what it is but it seems to work. 

 

the other reason for stress was we had three baptisms on saturday and if that wasn't enough, we had our entire district baptizing in the same two days and the font didn't work. this is after we had already opted not to use the font in our church cause the water in is dirty and it doesn't drain. the one we did use did drain but the water wasn't clean but we spent all thursday morning cleaning it and we cleaned it really good. we then went and got fam lara for their interviews at the church and luckily my comp decided to look at how amazingly clean the font was and to his surprise it had about 4 inches of filthy water in it. it was the drain that did not drain, it decided it wanted to do the job oposite of its intended purpose. so we had to go back that night again and clean the font again. less difficult but we also and to find a way to unclog the drain luckily we had hro lara with us our investigator who offered to help us clean, he works with problems like this all the time so he unclogged the drain for us.  we did manage to get them in the water even if it was really cold and with a different investigator from the other ward.

 

well, i am starting to relax, my comp is staying here with me and every thing worked out in the end.  not  to mention hno lara bore his testimony at the baptism and it was awesome.

 

well, other then that i played a really competitive game of basketball with some old guys. that was really fun

 

love you all!

do good for others!

 

Elder Ritchie

Five Months In

well, this week has been really fast as usual. I completed 5 months yesterday. well, i have not been getting the amount of numbers we are supposed to, but we keep tryning.

 

 we had a lesson at the temple visitor center but this one was not as successful as the last where we didn't know them that well and they came back with dates for baptism. this on we planned on trying to get a date for baptism but it did not work out right. but they are still extremly interested, just scared to commit to do anything other than learn. they have read everything we give them and stuff and they understand alot of it and always ask us about what they don't understand.

 

well, i am doing great.  i love to hear from all of you. sorry for this being a bit short just have a hard time remembering everything that happened this week. oh yayaya we had exchanges with the district leader and i was with a elder from California, he started out his mission with a comp who did not want to do much then he switched half way trough his training and he got a worse comp and they averaged less that a lesson a day. i know the elder from cali better than most of the others cause he was in my last zone and he was the only other american from my generation in the zone and it's the same in this zone as well. but the division were good.  i realized i don't know my area that well so i am working on that right now.

 

i think that is about it for this week.

 

Thank for prayers and other such stuff,

 

Elder Ritchie

Fast Week

fast week.. hard to remember all of it.  so i will go in reverse.

 

we have some an awesome investigator family. they have already been to church twice and have been to a baptismal service. the father keeps coming up with really good questions. i am not used to being asked questions, but i really like it.  up until now not many people asked me any questions but either they trust me more here or we don't explain stuff as well or i don't know what is different, but i keep getting people that ask me all sorts of questions. most of the time they involve things that we just have not had time to teach them, which is awesome! it shows they want to learn.

 

we are teaching a woman and her mom who are both widows and have more questions then any one.  the first time we met was just going to be us getting to know them but we had like 10 mins of getting to know them then they started to ask about stuff that they had doubts about and that lasted over an hour. the mom told us she didn't believe us at first and just thought we were peculiar, then they had some issue with the electric bill and she prayed and the problem went away. now she is really excited when ever we talk with her.

 

i have been told by a few  people that we have a golden area right now and we are so lucky. but almost all of our success is based on other peoples work. which is good, it shows that missionaries are not the only ones doing missionary work.

 

you know how we had a field of alfalfa for years, well i found out something really interesting, you can make a drink out of it. when i first heard the term agua de alfalfa i laughed and thought how did a fruit end up with the name alfalfa but no, it's really alfalfa and it was really really good. the member who made it for me said that he is going to make other stuff for me that i have never tried. 

 

 

we have an investigator who is a crazy dog lady! she is so awesome. she has like ten dogs with her husband and two little girls. and they are not all small dogs. 

 

we have another investigator who has a really really bad smoking problem. i knew he smoked alot but after i found out the number of cigarettes a day i was speechless. in one day its more than 60 on average.  he is starting to cut back and change a little at a time.  he even considered going to church the other day.

 

 

well i think that is about it for now. I love it here time really does fly 

Elder Ritchie.  

Golden Families and Font Cleaners

well i am great as always, had a different week. we only got a few lessons in but i felt like we did alot more that what our numbers show.

 

we found a family that is way enthusiastic about the church. they are a reference from a member and at first meeting with them they explained all the problems in their lives and how they feel our church would help them. we then confirmed that the gospel helps people in the exact ways they wanted it to. we really used the first lesson to get to know them, then the second time we were with them the member family that gave us the reference came and suggested we go to the visitor center. we were planning on doing that with them later because we wanted to set a date for their baptism but we decided to go. at the visitor center the sister who was the guide was super helpful. when she asked us how long we had been teaching them we said we had not really taught them any thing yet just given them a few thing to read and talked with them. after a movie, she  asked them if they wanted to be baptized and they started to cry. they said yes and she set the date. kinda nice cause the sisters at the center don't get to see any success from what they do. later the family invited us over for carne asada and it was really good. 

 

last week the smog cleared first time  since i have been here. i got to see across the valley to the big mountain that actually has snow on it. i was really surprised. 

 

we had a baptism and it was a miracle that it actually happened.  first we had to clean the font, that was a disaster because the drain was broken. so we had no way to take out the water. so after we cleaned it for two hours it still wasn't clean so we decided to clean it again right before the baptism. whilst doing so we realized that it was not getting cleaner it was getting dirtier.  so we let the water run for a little and the water was filthy and had stuff in it.  we decided to go to a different church 30 mins before the baptism was supposed to happen.  we managed to get keys to the other church and we got in and everything worked out. but we didn't get to make it to his confirmation because of something, not sure what. but i think i will be doing that this Sunday, plus we are going to baptize his brother as well. 

 

we had a stake activity were i did stuff that i have never done before. i talked with people i talked with everyone!

 

Also, i knocked doors, all the missionaries here hate street contacting and tracting cause we had the ban on it for a year and now that the ban is lifted no one does it. i can't really force my comp to knock doors, but i can try to talk to more people in the street. plus i have never met any one who says the had any success from knocking doors.

 

well i am great. sounds like alot of stuff is happening there and alot of it is good, so keep it up!

 

Love all of you

Elder Ritchie. 

Transferred

Well, now i am in a different place. I still am not quite sure what the zone is called but i know we are right next to the metro which is a good change. i dont have to travel an hour to get to the temple. if you want to find out were i am, i am just right next to metro muskis or some thing like that. My comp, Elder Mendoza is good.  we get a lot done.  i like my new apartment alot more, it has really good hot water and i have a dog, not my dog but a neighbor dog that is always right next to our house. i no longer have a spot light shining into my window so i sleep a lot better.

 

On our first day my comp left his backpack in the taxi so we had to go to the temple and get a new set of scriptures. still trying to get familiar with the area and the members and stuff, but i really like it so far. got a baptism coming up on Saturday, he was taught by other missionaries but he lives in our ward so we are doing the baptism. i met him once, he is 9 years old.  other than that i don't know him at all. i think we are going to the visitor center twice this week with investigators. my comps last companion is from preston and ran XC, i remember a little bit of who he was but mainly just he was the kid from preston that loved to run and was always in the top 5 people.

 

Well, thanks for everything you all do for me.  as Elder Richart told me about every 20 min.  ANIMO. 

 

Well love you all, Elder Ritchie

 

PS: Dena told me that it is Grandmas b-day tomorrow, could you guys walk over and tell her i said happy birthday and thanks for all that she does for me that would be great.

 

PS:  i don't realize it myself but i really struggle with the language, i am trying to change that.  i now study spanish at night in the morning and half of my personal study is in Spanish.  i was told by a lady in the ward i need to ask about every thing and write down everything she says, she wants me to be able to speak really well before i leave here. i was really lazy with spanish study before, just kinda trying to get by on what spanish i knew. but now i realize i don't know enough and i don't use half the stuff i do know so i will try harder. its not that i am struggling it's that i am oblivious to how bad my spanish really is.   well have a good day and stuff i will figure this thing out!  every one always says give it time it will come but that frankly that is terrible advise.  that makes me think i can be lazy and it just comes with time but i don't have to wait till it just comes, i can actually ask questions and try to learn . patience  is a good quality but i prefer diligence.

well, that's where my spanish is,  as for other stuff, all good and fine.

Love Elder Ritchie. 

Interesting Story

we have a investigator and who is really struggling with money, he is the one i wrote about in my real letter. one night we were walking with him to a member's house and he was talking about how much he works and how he just wants to be able to pay for a new house so he does not have to live with his parents and we were just walking and i looked down and there is just a bunch of coins laying on the ground.  i was the first to see it and then he saw it and started to pick them up and then my comp picked some up and they divvied it three ways and gave me 1/3. I just handed it back and said i wanted him to have it, then my comp thought about it for awhile then he just handed it to him as well.

 

the cool part is that in the lesson he told us he believed it was a gift from God.  i believe it was too. people here are not that free with their money, whatever they get. they hold onto tight.

i have never seen money in the street before here, not a peso or any thing.

kind of an interesting story.

 

elder ritchie

A REAL Letter

This letter took about 3 weeks to reach us in Idaho.  It's a little bit of a flight of consciousness and kind of a look inside Josh's mind.  Don't worry about him being depressed, he told me later that he had been sick from eating 17 tamales the evening before writing this. ~ Marie

Well, this is being written over a few days and it might not get to you for a month or so.  I really am starting to like it here.  My comp, Elder Richart, will more than likely have to leave this area in February. So I will be here  training or with a Latino.  The President tries to keep Americans with Spanish speakers for as long as possible.  It's supposed to help with the language.

It is not nearly as warm here as I was expecting, but it feels like it is the beginning of September all the time.  I got the letters through the pouch but only the DEAR ELDERS.  I will tell you when I get a real letter. 

I have entered into the year where I will not see America or my family or anything but Elders, a few Sisters, and a ton of Mexicans. 

This city is not a tall city, it is just massive.  Parts have tall buildings but not near my mission.  I am on the very edge of the mission now in a place Las Americas.  The other elders in the district have a big mall in their area.  We live in Las Americas but most of the work is in Bosques about a block from my house.  From what I have seen we have one of the nicest houses in the mission.  And I keep it clean! I sweep every other day or more and I try to clean the bathroom but it has been neglected for months so it will take a lot of time.  We finally cleaned the floor which was really bad and hard to clean.  The problem is the shower leaks and it never dries.  I fixed a pair of my pants last night.  I was proud of myself cause no one ever taught me how to sew.

My  running shoes have been through cross country, a lot of running during the winter in the school and track season.  So they are dead and Brooks is now my favorite brand cause they are still good.  We might go to a black market in a week or tow.  I will probably buy a fake watch or something really fake.  I already found a really cool fake watch that looks just like a G Shock but it does not have half the features it claims to have.  When I am in an area where I am more likely to be robbed I will wear a fake one so that I can have this one for when I get home.  I also might buy some new prescription glasses cause they are so cheap here.  One of the Elders was thinking about getting Lasik eye surgery cause it's cheaper but I would rather just do that in the states.  I don't' buy a lot of rand stuff cause Elder Richart does not give me time to but when I am at the end and have time I am going to buy a lot of stuff.  I only need new shoes cause mine have died.

I got a glimpse of the new Hobbit movie.  Yea, they were playing it on the street and I looked at the TV because my comp pointed at it and it was a dwarf in a scene I didn't recognize from the first one.  So, they have movies for sale on the street within the first week of release in the states.  Someone brought up Ender's Game because it sounds like the word Elder.  One of the other Elders likes to talk about how long ago movies came out cause it makes you realize how short two years actually is.  He keeps telling me, We could just walk into that theater and watch it right now", talking about the Hobbit.  Then we come up with all the reasons we shouldn't.  My favorite is cause then I would get excited for the third movie.  His reason is cause watching it on your mission would ruin it for the rest of our lives.

We have an investigator right now named Ruben, he is extremely hard working, I think he has something like five different jobs.  Because of this we only have taught him twice in about a month but we see him a lot and ask how he is doing.  The last lesson that yesterday, it was amazing.  He wants to be baptized, he is ready, he just needs to have time to go to church and...... no that's it, he is ready and he wants it.  He has had the lessons before and he continued to read afterwards and I know he knows it's true.  He has a two year old son and he absolutely adores him. He does everything for him.

I recently started listening to the conference talks, I usually get one or two in in a day.  I am on the Sunday Morning Session.  I just want every member to listen to the opening address by the prophet cause it basically calls all the member to do mission work.  I know they bring it up all the time but I never realized how much the missionaries absolutely rely on members.  And that for members the work is as simple as inviting them to activities, being their friends,  recommending them to the missionaries, and being present for the lessons. It helps so much when they have a friend there cause no matter how much we become their friends, we are still 19 year olds who will be gone in a month or two.  We can still encourage them through letters but they need more.

Right now I am at the church without much to do.  The other elders in my district have a family being baptized tomorrow so Elder Richart has to interview them.  I am with another elder from Idaho, Elder Vail from Boise.  Well this morning I was really depressed but that only lasted about an hour or two.  Now I am fine.  Just really hungry.  I had a really interesting thought earlier that I thought I would share with you.  What food is there that you would put ketchup on that would not be good or better with syrup?  I have yet to think of one.  So if you can think of one tell me and then try it to disprove yourself.  Elder Vail was with my comp the other day for exchanges and his house does not have hot water so he got hot water for the first time in four months since he was in the MTC.  Tomorrow I have to give a talk in church about being an example.  I really don't want to give a talk.  I bore my testimony last Sunday.  I now feel I understand why people go home early.  It's not cause of one thing, it's cause of a combination.  The home sickness, the difficulty of the work, the language, the feelings of not being good enough.  Every one tells me it gets better, I cant' see it getting better but I look back and realize how much better it has already gotten.

This whole sending letters by hand does not ;make a lot of sense but I did really enjoy the DEAR ELDER letters that I get.  So send a lot of those and stuff.  I am teaching a man who owns a tailor shop, so I feel obligated to buy a new suit.  I could get one made specifically for me in what ever material or color I want for like $200 but he has one I like already made so I will probably get it.  Or at least try it on some time.  Lie I only have one suit here and I only wear it once a week so what if it gets a little dirty?  I definitely need a spare.  I could get ANY COLOR I want!  Just think of the movie Dumb and Dumber.  That might be me walking off the plane!  Hahaha!  Baby blue or Orange?

That sleeping mask that you send me better be nice cause I realized why I can never get a good sleep here.  I have been here long enough I stopped noticing it but on exchanges the other day I realized we have a street light that shines into our window.  If I had not have gotten used to having some light in my room at the MTC then I would not be able to sleep at all.  But Elder Vail said that it bothered him so I started using the scarf I got for Christmas as a blind fold and I slept really well last night. I just didn't get enough sleep because we were at the church late for the interviews.  So if you did not send me a seeping mask, tell me so I can find one here.  I will have already emailed you about this so it doesn't matter that much now.

The other day I counted the number of dogs that I saw.  I was somewhere in the 50's and those were only the stray ones.  Right now I am on exchanges with the other elders in our district.  Today I ate a lot of food.  I ate breakfast at our house, two eggs, a large amount of cereal and PB sandwiches. Then I got more cereal at a members house and cookies .  Then I ate three plates of food at a different house.  I barely touched the last plate cause I was too full.  I started to just boil eggs cause it's easier to clean up rather than scrambling them or anything else plus it tastes better.  Elder Richart only eats tuna.  Nothing else.  He only buys tuna and milk.  No bread, no condiments, nothing else.  I have eggs, cereal, oatmeal, PB & J and yogurt.  And I thought I was eating frugally!  He only has TUNA!  And the cheapest milk here!

As for the milk here.  It's bad!  No jugs, no real milk.  It is all like the kind of milk dad drinks.  It does not even need to be refrigerated!  I hate it but guess what, mom, it is still better than your skim milk!  They add something that makes it sweet.  I still don't like it and I cringe when ever I drink it.  OK, maybe it's worse than skim.  Well this is my first attempt to send a letter through the pouch, so tell me when you get it so I know how long it takes.

Once again,
Love, Elder Ritchie

Members as Missionary Tools

Well, we had exchanges again this week and we decided to do some thing we had never done, we knocked a door! yea! i know we are rebels but the ban on knocking doors just got taken off so it was not bad, we still only did one and they said no but i felt so different doing that instead of what just trying to visit people. 

 

i have been reading 2 nephi 2 and i think it's really confusing but really beneficial and it explains alot of our beliefs just kinda hard to figure out in your head so i had to take notes as i read.

 

i am almost guaranteed to be training now. last week i told the president that i felt more ready, so if i am not training i will be really surprised. the only problems i have are i still don't know the roads that well and i don't know the members that well either, but i am trying to change all that. 

 

we played basketball for our ward activity and it was the funnest game i have played just cause they are not all that good and they try to make it as fun as possible.  i reallly do like this ward i just wish they had more time to help us or more willingness to help us. 

 

we had a record number of lessons this week some thing like 29. the only problem is most were with less active members who always promise to come to church but have not been in years. they are olways our back up plan for when our investigators are not home wich is about all the time. but i still like working with them.

 

we have an awesome member who has given us two references and the one has already been baptized and the other wants to be. she not only gives us references, she tells them about the church before and she organizes the lessons with them alot of the time.  i know not all the members have time to do this much work but imagine if they all tryed to. we could do so much more work here. if you think two references is not that much it is, we usually get one or two a week and half the time we can't find the people they tell us about.  i don't want to complain about my ward cause they do help us quite a bit but i just realize that with them we can do so much more.

 

well this week was great i am almost done with my training. have a good week everyone

 

Elder Ritchie

A Week in My Live

We had exchanges this week. it was nice, i realized i need to talk more.  i was with an Elder from mexico and his style of teaching is different, i would share some thing and i would look at him to see if he would say some thing and he just looked back.  so i had to keep talking. his comp says that he does it all the time so that we learn spanish better. With my comp, i have to get him to stop talking so that i can talk. but its all good i just need to try to talk more.

 

well, other than that i have started to read the old testiment and i thought about doing it in spanish but i find it hard enough in english so i will just stick with reading the BOM in spanish. i am into Mosiah ritght after Abinidi was killed.  i finished it in english the first week or two that i was here, but i skipped a lot cause i wanted to focus on other stuff. Alma is now my favorite book.  just the way he writes is more direct and it has interesting stories plus a time line unlike most of the rest of the book. i stared to read the notes in Jesus the christ it may not be as spiritual as the rest of the book but its interesting to learn about the circumstances of the time.

 

well, thanks for all the prayers and other stuff.

 

Elder Ritchie

The Will to Change

sorry every one for how depressing my last letter sounded. turns out i was in the early stages of food poisoning. i had eaten a tostada with some thing that was like jello but meat and it was made out of cow hooves. so yeah, i am going to take the food a little easier now. 

 

this week we had divisions and most every thing was ok but when i got to the apartment with one of the zone leaders my companion did not have any food, he does not eat much at our apt i only had a little so that was the main thing that we were doing wrong other that he said every thing was fine.  

 

Everyone  is telling me that after this transfer i will be training.  which is not uncomman at all,  but its  kinda scary to think i have to teach someone how to be a missionary in less than a month. i feel i barely know what is going on. but then i think about how i could try to be a better trainer than the one i have and i realize i can do it and i can do it more my way, whatever my way is. i have not found that out yet. not saying i have a bad trainer i just want to be better. 

 

the other night we were walking down the street and i saw a football game playing in a shop and someone had shown me a roster for the play offs and i wanted to see if it was the chiefs playing. it was and they were playing against the colts and i started to talk with the guy who owned the store he was nice and enjoyed talking with us, he said we can come talk with him again some time. i doubt he belived me when i said the quarter back is my dad's cousin. but i didn't see who won the game, i only saw the score and one or two plays. 

 

i found the guy who yelled at me on Christmas day and i got to thank him for what he said. we did not have time to talk with him much at all. just to remind him what he did then thank him.

 

well i am doing good now, not sick any more and all our investigators and other people who were on vaccation are home now so we can get back to work. not that we ever stopped, but when everyone we usually visit is gone and all the people we try to visit are gone we definitely  slowed down. 

 

that's awesome that peter is married.  i am glad i got to attend even if it was just in paper form. ( my face glued to a cardboard cut out of Obama).  i still can't believe sam got married before him. but then i think back and that is how i expected it to happen my whole life until pete started dating katelyn.  it's amazing how people change.  i get to see people change their lives all the time here even if they are not my investigators. when i see people change it makes me think, would i do the same if i was where they are? then i think in ways i am where they are, i just need to realize what i need to change. all we need is a realization of a need to change and then a will to do so.

 

this is the burger stand of Antonio's mom, Alisi,a she is like my mom here, she always tells me to stand up straight and stuff. she gives us free hotdogs and burgers too.