A crazy week!

Hey y'all!

It's been a crazy week.  There's been so many people we have tried to visit, but people keep canceling their appointments with us, and then people won't answer the phone or respond to texts, and they don't answer the door when we try to stop by.  It's frustrating.  But we have had a few good lessons this week, mostly with less actives in the ward.  Some of them are so close to coming back completely!  That being said, none of those that we are working with came to church yesterday... But we'll keep trying!

We did have an investigator come to church - her name is Brenda.  She lives with one of the less actives that we've been working with. Unfortunately, Maria, the less active, didn't come with her, but Brenda felt like she fit right in. :)  We taught her the "powerful first lesson" which is the restoration, along with an invitation for the investigator to say the closing prayer and an invitation to be baptized, along with a few other things.  She said a beautiful closing prayer, and after, she said she wanted to be baptized, she just wasn't sure how.  We told her we could help with that. :)  She's being baptized at the end of October!  The only thing that will be hard for her is getting to church every Sunday, because she just started a new job and works on Sunday.  But she is prepared, and she wants to be a member.  We're so excited for her!

As for Ron and Maria, and Tish: we didn't get the chance to meet with any of them this week.  They are all to busy for us... but we'll keep trying to get in contact with them.

We've been doing a lot of finding recently.  Well, we've been trying to find people to teach at least.  We go tracting, we try talking to everyone on the street as we walk from place to place, we visit public places like parks and stores and walk around and try to talk to people... no one is interested in the message we have to share.  Which is frustrating, because we know that what we have can bless their lives.  Elder M. Ruesch - I agree.  When other people use their agency to tell us no, it is so frustrating!  But we move forward with faith, hoping that they will say yes to other missionaries in the future.

Saturday was pretty much my worst day yet out here on my mission. Saturdays are usually hardest for us, because it is people's day off and they don't want to set up appointments with us, no one is home during the day, and even if they are home they are too busy to talk to us.  And it rained really hard this past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Which wasn't too bad because I LOVE the rain, but  because it was so wet, not many people were outside that we could talk to. But because we knew it was going to be a hard day, we worked really hard on Friday night to plan every hour of the day with a plan, and a backup plan.  And EVERYTHING fell through.  Things we thought would take us a couple of hours (like trying to contact members of the ward that we still don't know well yet) ended up taking 30 minutes at most. No one wanted to listen to our message.  It was a discouraging day. And to top it all off, we had dinner with a part member family, and it was a mess.  We were planning on teaching a FHE lesson after eating, but everything was so chaotic that we didn't even get to share a scripture.  So at 7:00, we were out of ideas, and we were ready to give up.  But we still had 2 hours before we could go back to our apartment and turn in for the night.  Sister Wahlen suggested that we go meet our neighbors, because we've lived in our apartment for 2 months now and we don't know very many people that live around us.  So we went to our apartment to grab some supplies, and in our prayer before we walked out the door, I asked Heavenly Father in desperation to give us just one person who would listen to our message.  We

knocked on a few doors, and either no one was home or no one was interested.  We were SO ready to give up, just call it a day, and try again tomorrow.  But then we knocked on one more door.  A woman answered, and her face lit up.  She said she had seen us around the apartment complex, and she had noticed that we were always happy (which was a relief to me, because I definitely don't always feel happy) and that we had a light in our eyes, and she knew it was because of Christ.  She invited us in, introduced herself as Sandra, and we taught her a little bit about the Book of Mormon.  She is definitely one that the Lord has prepared.  We were so excited to find her, and she was so excited that we had come.  It was a tender mercy from the Lord.  I know that He knows and loves and understands each one of us, and that He will lead us to the right place at the right time.  Sandra is so ready to hear the gospel, and I know that it will bless her life so much.

Oh, also - we got a new Elder.  He's here in Texas while he's waiting for his visa to Africa.  So now we have 5 missionaries in the Westlake ward - a trio of Elders and Sister Wahlen and me.  It's pretty sweet - must be that there's a lot of work to do here!

I love y'all so much!  Thanks for the love and support.  And know that I love you and pray for you all the time!

Sister Ririe

Alma 26:27

P.S.  Sorry I'm so bad about sending pictures... the truth is, I'm not so good about taking pictures... but here's a few. :)

1. We finally got everything together - a map (pieced together from google maps print-offs, a ward directory where we write down everything we know about a person/family, and a whiteboard where we can write what we want to focus on for everyone we teach. It's awesome.

2. Proof that it really is this hot in Texas... yup, 110 degrees.  In the beginning of September.

3. They say Texan sunsets are awesome.  I prefer the mountains, but this one was pretty good.  The picture was taken at a park where we go contacting.

4.  Sister Wahlen and her "holy bag"... she had to get a new one because she used that one to shreds.  :)

Busy, busy

Hey y'all!

Sorry, this might be a short email... even our P-days are super busy... today just got kinda messed up because we decided to try doing laundry at the Nottingham Country Sister's apartment instead of with a member.  It's a great idea in theory, but we're still working out the bugs.  Hopefully next week will go more according to plan. :)  Of course, when you're a missionary, nothing goes according to plan... but we've learned to roll with it.

Sister Wahlen and I have decided that if you're a missionary and you're not busy, you're doing something wrong.  So we're very busy. :) We've been meeting with a ton of less actives, and a few of them made it to church yesterday!  We were so happy to see them there.  Let's see...  Sister M, who has been inactive for years just showed up out of the blue a few weeks before Sister Wahlen and I arrived in the Westlake ward.  She's still kinda on the edge of activity, so we started visiting with her, and she said that the reason she started coming back was because she realized that there was something missing in her life, and she realized it was the church.  So she decided to come back.  So awesome!  We've also met with J and her mom, who stopped coming to church because somewhere down the line they were offended... which is so sad.  The church is perfect, the people are not, unfortunately.  But they both showed up at church yesterday, and we were so happy to see them!  They stayed for the full 3 hours, and that is the first time they've been to church in years. Unfortunately, K and her son T weren't at church yesterday.  We were supposed to meet with them this week, but she had to cancel on us, and when we tried to reschedule, she didn't get back with us. T is 10 and hasn't been baptized, so we're hoping we'll be able to teach him.  From when we've talked to him before, he is really interested and loves going to church, and he wants to be baptized.  We just need to set up a time to meet with him!

Now, on to our investigators... I don't know if I've ever told y'all about T - she's awesome, but she's been super busy so she hasn't been able to meet with us.  And she lives way on the far outskirts of our area, so we don't usually stop by her home.  But, Monday evening, we were trying to contact a referral in her area, and decided we would stop by.  It couldn't have been any better timing - she was having a crazy day, but we stopped by at the perfect time.  She feels the spirit every time we meet with her, but she's says she's not ready to commit.  Hopefully we'll be able to meet with her again soon.

As for R, we met with him, unfortunately M wasn't there. Hopefully we'll see them both this week.

Sorry this is so short, I've got to go.  But I love you all!  Have an awesome week!

Sister Ririe

Alma 17:9-11

Look for the Good

180.  That's how many mosquito bites I have.  And all but 4 of them are on my legs and feet.  And remember how I'm allergic to them?  Yep, it's terrible.   The one day I forget to put on bug spray... Well, I've learned my lesson.  Hopefully.

This week has been full of ups and downs.  But I guess that's life, right?  You have the bad, but it's always followed by something good. For example:

Bad - almost everyone we had scheduled to visit this week had to cancel on us. 

Good - we were able to set up appointments with a ton of people - people that canceled on us, people that we've been seeing often, people that we haven't seen so often, and people that we've been trying to get in contact with since we got here - for this week, so we will be pretty busy teaching. :)

Bad - One of the less active sisters that we visit with, sister M, wasn't  able to see us this week.

Good - She and her son, who is not a member, came to church for the first time in over 7 years, stayed for the whole 3 hours, and had a great time.  The ward was so welcoming - the relief society president came up to her after church and talked to her for a bit, and said that we were all hoping to see her again next week.  Sister M's response was "oh yes, I've had a great time!"  It's so awesome – one of the reasons she and her family stopped coming to church was because they had some negative experiences in their ward in California that made them not want to go back.  But we have an awesome ward here, and they made them feel at home.  I hope that the good feelings continue!

Bad - R had to cancel on us this week as well.

Good - he asked for homework! so we gave him some scriptures to read, and encouraged him to continue to pray and develop his relationship with Heavenly Father.  And he and his wife M are looking forward to meeting with us this Wednesday.

Bad - Sister Wahlen and I are really struggling to find new investigators to teach.

Good - it's forcing us out of our comfort zone.  We're learning to really rely on the Lord.  We're trying our hardest to be exactly obedient so we can start to see the miracles that are promised to us, as long as we are faithful.  We're still looking for the happy ending, where we find a new investigator a day, but we're working for it. Working hard.

We're trying our best to stay positive and keep finding the good that follows the bad.  And we've realized that you find what you're looking for - if you look for the negative in situations, you will find it. But there is always good to find, too. That just needs to be what you are looking for.

I love you all so much!  Stay happy, and have an awesome week!

Sister Ririe

Psalms 5:11-12

Happy Labor Day!!

Hey y'all!

So, transfers came and went, and Sister Wahlen and I are still in Westlake.  I'm so happy - I feel like I still have so much that I need to learn here.  I've learned so much, but there is always room to learn more.  Especially while on a mission.  But here are a few life lessons learned from my first transfer:

1. Write it down!  You think you will remember, but you won't. Especially when you're meeting a bunch of new people every single day. Names and faces and conversations all start to blur together.  Sister Wahlen and I have had fun these past few weeks trying to remember everything and write it all down.  It's way easier to just do it from the beginning.  We're trying to be awesome record keepers now.

2. Make good habits from the beginning.  It's a lot easier than trying to fix it later.  Like the whole record keeping thing...

3. Be happy.  Even when it is really, really, really hard.  Happiness is a choice, and it is always better when you chose to be happy. Being unhappy doesn't really change anything about the situation, so why waste the time?

Now that we've been here for a transfer, we kind of know what we're doing.  The area is established, the foundation is set, now it's time to really get to work and find people to teach.  We have a few investigators, but we know that there are so many people here who are prepared to learn the gospel.  We just have to find them.  And that's the hard part.  Sister Wahlen and I are really good at finding people that we can't teach - either because they live in a different area, or are moving within the next week or so.  And the really awesome potentials that we have that do live in our area are living in really tough circumstances that make it hard for us to meet with them... it's rough.  But we're trying our best, and the Lord will make up for the rest.  I love Luke 1:37 - with God anything is possible.

Ron is doing well - we hadn't seen him in a while, and we were planning on calling him that evening (Wednesday), but he beat us to it - he called us!  Which is awesome - we've never had anyone that has wanted to meet with us so badly that they call us to set up a time. He's awesome.  Unfortunately, his wife Maria wasn't going to be able to be there, so we had to scramble around to find a member, because he wanted to meet with us on Thursday evening.  So we had about 24 hours to find a member that could go with us.  All the ward missionaries were busy, and so were the sisters who said they could come out with us anytime... so about 2 hours before we were supposed to meet with him, we were running out of options, and we called the relief society president, who said she could come with us, which was a HUGE miracle. So she came with us, and we had an awesome lesson.  We taught the restoration, and he told us about the experiences that he's had that has led him to this point - meeting with us.  He loves reading the Book of Mormon, and he really wants to come to church, unfortunately his wife, and the rest of his extended family on both sides, is very firmly Catholic, and she wants to go to that church on Sundays.  We invited him to pray to ask if the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and he said a beautiful closing prayer.  Sister Wahlen and I think that he knows it is true, now we just have to get his wife on board. And we think that the change scares him - he has been Catholic his whole life so that is all he knows.  But we'll keep working with him. He said that he loves meeting with us, so hopefully we'll get to teach his whole family pretty soon!

We didn't have any of our investigators at church yesterday, unfortunately.  But a few of the less actives that we have been working with came!  Hopefully as we continue to work with them, we will be able to help them continue to come.  We're trying to help them find friends in the ward that can help encourage them to come.

Thanks for the love and encouragement!  I hope y'all have a good week! Good luck with everything! I love y'all!

Sister Ririe

3 Nephi 9:14