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