So Many Miracles

#1 - Jo and Lesa

#2 - Betsy

Hey y'all!

Lesson for the week (or the past few weeks):  Stick with it when things are rough.  No matter how much people tell you what you're doing isn't worthwhile, or how discouraged Satan makes you feel, or how few results you seem to see come from your efforts, keep moving forward.  The clouds will pass over and the sun will shine.  Miracles will come.  Sister Walker and I have definitely seen them overflow this area the past week. :)  It has been great!

First of all, we were able to go to the temple this week, which was amazing.  I absolutely LOVE the temple. :)  And what made it even better was that a family that I love from my first area was there too!  There's nothing like reconnecting with old friends, but to do it in the Celestial room of the Temple is absolutely wonderful. :)  As always, I learned a lot while there and felt the spirit and the peace that comes from being in the house of the Lord.  It definitely started the week off right. :)

We also had our first interviews with President Mortensen this week.  He is amazing, and I'm so glad that I have the chance to serve with him.  He is more intense than President Pingree was, but as a mission we are starting to see some HUGE results - just in the month that he has been here.  He REALLY focuses on finding, and making sure that we're talking to EVERYONE we see - making sure that EVERYONE has the chance to either accept or reject our message.  The APs gave a training on finding while President Mortensen was interviewing us, and Elder Hildebrant did the math:  If every companionship in the Texas Houston Mission were to contact 25 people a day, then everyone living within the mission boundaries (2.3 million people) will have been contacted within 2 years. (assuming there are no repeats, that is.)  Crazy!  The whole mission is working really hard to live up to that standard, and as a whole we are finding more investigators, and teaching more lessons, and soon we will start to see more people come into the fold of God.  

Now, into the long list of miracles for the week: 

1- We were able to get in contact with Delores again - we had tracted into her about a month ago and she seemed so golden - asked all the right questions.  Well, we hadn't been able to get in contact with her, so we were about to drop her for the time being, but we had an appointment in her area that fell through so we thought we'd try one more time.  She was there, and she let us in, and she told us that she has been reading the Book of Mormon!  She did tell us that she doesn't like organized religion because of the corruption in today's society, but we told her a little about our lay ministry and how our church is organized the exact same way that Christ's church was in biblical times (because it IS Christ's church...) and we're hoping to get her out to the building to do a church tour with her soon. 

2- We taught Betsy again, and I think we finally got her really excited about reading the Book of Mormon!  (well, the Spirit touched her and got her excited, we just brought it in the right way, I guess. :) ) We had a restoration review lesson with her, and I honestly was a little surprised at how much she remembered because our first restoration lesson had been a little scattered... they kept asking questions about what other churches believe while we were trying to tell the Joseph Smith story.  But what we said must have stuck, because she remembered most of it.  We invited her to read the Book of Mormon yet again, and even had her download the Gospel Library app onto her tablet.  We let her figure out how it works, and she had the app, read the introduction to the Book of Mormon to us, and then she told us "you know, I think I'm going to make some time to read this week."  We're excited for her and all the spiritual experiences that she'll have. :)  She said she does have a sincere desire to know if it's true, so as soon as she reads the book and prays about it she'll get her answer. :)

3- Robert told us that he will be able to come to church every week in the foreseeable future!  Unfortunately, it's because he lost his job... not so much of a miracle... but hey, God works in mysterious ways, and Robert told us that as he's looking for a new job he is asking for Sundays off to start with.  So hopefully all goes well as he's on the job hunt. 

4- I'm sure I've told you about our 94-year-old investigator - if I haven't... we have a 94-year-old investigator named Jo.  She's been investigating the church for 40+ years, has family members that are members, reads the Book of Mormon almost every day... she just says that she hasn't gotten her answer yet.  She's a bit stubborn, that Jo... but we love her. :)  Jo has a daughter named Lesa, that will chat with us on occasion, but she usually moves into the other room when we start to pull out the scriptures.  Since Sister Goodrich and I first got together, 7 months ago, we've been trying to build a relationship with Lesa where she's comfortable enough to ask us questions.  Well... when we were ending our visit with Jo this past week, Lesa came up to us and said, "I was wondering if you could just start with Joseph Smith and tell me everything."  Once we had picked our jaws up off the ground of course we said yes!  We gave her her very own copy of the Book of Mormon and gave her a brief overview of the contents.  She's excited to have something worthwhile to read while she's recovering from the surgery she's having this week, and we're excited to finally start teaching her the missionary lessons!  See - hard work and persistence really do pay off. :)

5- A random stranger wandered into sacrament meeting, and stayed for all 3 hours!  She happened to walk into the chapel while I was busy talking to someone and my companion was at the other door, so I didn't get the chance to welcome her right away, but luckily another member noticed and went to talk to her, and then introduced us missionaries to her.  She told us that some guys on bikes had stopped and offered to help her trim her bushes, and they got talking for over an hour about church and the Book of Mormon.  She had read some of it, and was very curious as to why this Nephi guy had chopped off Laban's head.  She was just going to stay for Sacrament meeting, but we convinced her to stay for Sunday School and Relief Society and she really enjoyed the meetings.  And the ward really made sure that she felt welcome. :)  She does live in the Elders' area - she had just come at our church time instead of theirs.  But we called the Elders and they were very excited and happy to hear that she had come to church. 

Like I said, it has been a week full of miracles.  That's not all of them - I don't have time to write about EVERYTHING amazing that happened this week.  But those are the major stories. :)  Memorial Springs is doing well - definitely starting to prosper!  

We did have transfer calls last night, and after 7 months of calling this area home I'm off to find new adventures somewhere else in the Texas Houston Mission.  I will definitely miss the people that I've grown to love here, but I'm sure I'll love the people in my new area too. :)  Wish me luck as I move on to new stomping grounds!

I love y'all so much and hope you have a great week!  And a very happy birthday wish to my dear brother Devin - I hope you have a wonderful birthday!

Sister Ririe

Mosiah 26:20

Staying happy:)

Hey y'all!

I must say, this week has been pretty rough.  Even though we've had a surprisingly cool week for July in Houston, (not that that's a bad thing ;) ) we have had a slow week.  Our only progressing investigator (Marilyn) dropped us out of the blue this week - she called and said she'd have to cancel our appointments for now.  We think she might have somehow encountered some anti- material. :( Hopefully she will remember the spirit she has felt and let some future missionaries in.  We've spent a lot of time tracting and trying to find new investigators.  We met with our Ward Mission Leader, Brother Hepworth, on Saturday to catch him up on what had happened while he was out of town for a few weeks and we told him that we'd been tracting, a LOT, and not finding much success.  Because, let's be honest, hardly anyone wants to talk to two strangers in skirts dripping in sweat because they've already said no to the pest control guy, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the vacuum cleaner salesman already today.  And I've been here for long enough that I've almost knocked on every single door in the area.  Anyway, we were telling Brother Hepworth about it, and apparently he put a major plug in for member missionary work in Priesthood yesterday, telling everyone to step up and do the contacting so we can do the teaching.  Hopefully things will start to get better and we'll find more people to teach soon.

But, of course, there is plenty of good that comes along with the bad.  Sister Tann has been reactivated!  And she's currently working with the Bishop to get a current temple recommend. :)  I got to play the piano for the first time in a long time when the primary pianist woke up sick yesterday and wasn't able to find a substitute.  I'm pretty out of practice... but it was fun to spend a couple of hours with the primary kids.  When the primary president introduced us as the substitute pianists we heard a lot of them tell each other and their teachers "the missionary girls are my friends!"  Oh how I love little children. :)  Unfortunately Robert wasn't able to make it to church because of his work schedule, but Melanie and her kids were there.

We had an awesome sacrament meeting - President and Sister Hinson from the Houston Temple presidency came and spoke about the importance of temples.  I learned a LOT.  They talked about hastening the work for the dead, and how doing so will bless us more than we can imagine.  One of the things Sister Hinson said really struck me: "You can't keep covenants that you don't remember."  We are reminded of our baptismal covenants each week as we take the sacrament, but in order to be reminded of the covenants we make in the temple, we need to go to the temple!  President Hinson said that there are 15,000 endowed members of the church living in the Houston temple district, and if every one of them were to go to the temple once a month there would need to be 2 temples in Houston, both running at full capacity.  Crazy, right?  It makes you really think about how much we, especially those of us that live in Utah where there is a temple around every corner, take them for granted and we don't go as much as we should.  Sister Hinson shared this quote from Elder Scott: "I have seen that many times individuals have made great sacrifices to go to a distant temple.  But when a temple is built close by, within a short time, many do not visit it regularly.  I have a suggestion: When a temple is conveniently nearby, small things may interrupt your plans to go to the temple.  Set specific goals, considering your circumstances, of when you can and will participate in temple ordinances.  Then do not allow anything to interfere with that plan.  This pattern will guarantee that those who live in the shadow of a temple will be as blessed as are those who plan far ahead and make a long trip to the temple."  I hope y'all are taking advantage of the temples that dot the earth and are going as much as you possibly can.

We had a few good lessons this week - one on Sunday evening with the Madrid family (a less active/part member family) where we stressed the importance of reading the Book of Mormon.  Brother Madrid ended up sharing his testimony with his daughter-in-law who is not a member.  It was really powerful, and the spirit was so strong.  We also told them WHY we ask them to do things - when we invite them to make commitments, we are inviting them to come closer to Christ. We invited them to read the Book of Mormon every day, and they agreed to do so.  When we invited them to church this Sunday they were a little more hesitant... none of them have been to church since Easter.  But we'll get them there eventually. :)

Another lesson was... interesting to say the least... I don't remember if I told y'all about Cinnamon - she's a potential investigator that we found a few weeks ago.  We stopped by her house to follow up, and she invited us in and then proceeded to explain that she had just come back from visiting a counselor with her teenage boys - apparently the younger one is suffering from low self esteem, partially because the older one picks on his younger brother.  So she explains all of this to us, in front of her sons, and then asks if we have any suggestions from a religious standpoint.  So our plan for teaching the Restoration went out the window, and we taught about how the worth of souls is great and how the home should be a safe place for everyone and how our Savior knows each of us and what we're going through personally.  It was probably a bit scattered, but we had a good discussion with them.  So... impromptu counseling session with two teenage boys - check. ;)

We also taught a guy in a gas station this week - that was fun.  He works there, and we stop in every once in a while to get a cold bottle of water or use the restroom, so we see him all the time and he's always super friendly.  We happened to stop in at a good time this week where there wasn't a whole lot of people coming and going so we decided to invite him to learn more.  We talked to him, and he told us how he's trying to get his life turned around because he doesn't like what he has become.  We were able to testify of the power of the Atonement and teach him about the Book of Mormon, using the pictures in the front.  We told him about Christ coming to the Americas and turned to that picture to show him how Christ had His hands outstretched, inviting all to come to Him, and we told him that that's the message of the Book of Mormon - it invites us all to come to Christ.  The Spirit was SO strong, and we could tell he felt it.  We left a copy with him and invited him to read, and invited him to church as well.  Hopefully he'll come. :)  Oh, and when we asked for his name he told us "they call me Ghost."  So pray for Ghost this week. :)

That's all for the week - Memorial Springs is still great, and we're looking forward to a week full of miracles after all our hard work from the past week. :)   I love y'all so much and hope you have a great week!

Sister Ririe

Isaiah 53

Finding the Faith to Find

Sister Stepp and me on exchanges

Hey y'all!

It has been a crazy busy week here in Houston.  Just the way we missionaries like it. :)  We've been doing a lot of tracting and trying to find those that the Lord has prepared to hear our message.  That's one of the goals that President Mortensen asked us to focus on - finding - specifically the number of contacts we make each day.  He asked us to set a goal of 20 a day, which is about double what we used to get.  And it has been hard, because our area is so small and hardly anyone is ever outside because it's so hot and we don't have anywhere indoors in our area that we can contact in... so hence the lots of tracting.  We made our goal though, which is huge.  So far, no new investigators.  But LOTS of potential that we will be following up with in the next week.  

There was one evening that was particularly productive - last Monday.  Because of our p-day, we didn't have as much time as usual devoted to finding.  We went to dinner, and planned on tracting in the neighborhood after.  Except a HUGE Texas-sized thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere, and seemed to stop right over our area.  It poured all through dinner, and through our message... we weren't sure quite what to do, because we still needed to finish getting our contacts for the day!  An idea came to my mind to have the member give us a ride to our apartment complex - we could tract there and be a little more sheltered from the storm.  So that's what we did.  By the time we got there, put our rain boots on, we only had an hour and a half left of the evening, (we had to be back at our apartment early because our STL and her companion were going to meet us there to start exchanges) and usually it takes us about 3 hours of tracting throughout the day to get that many contacts because of people not being home or not answering their door and such.  So Sister Walker and I knelt in prayer and pleaded with God to let people answer the door and be willing to listen to our message.  And miracle of miracles we made our goal, and taught a few lessons on the doorstep, and found 3 potential investigators.  All in an hour and a half.  I must say, that was probably the most faith-filled finding experience I've ever had on my mission.  We KNEW that the Lord would provide. :)  (Sorry for the long-ish explanation and the random details; I just want y'all to know just how HUGE of a miracle that was for us. :) )

Next - Exchanges!  Miracles always happen on exchanges. :)  Sister Stepp joined me here in Memorial Springs for the day, and it was wonderful!  Sister Stepp is one of Sister Walker's former companions, so that was fun.  A triangle of companionship. :)  She's been working really hard to become more comfortable with talking to people, specifically with tracting, and we got to work together on it throughout the day. :)  Every time we tracted, we were able to teach at least one person on the doorstep.  No new investigators, but lots of potential.  AND, at the end of the day, we ran into a part member family that we haven't seen in a long time - the Fernandes family - and talked to them for a while.  Sister Fernandes invited us over for dinner on Sunday, but that unfortunately didn't work out... hopefully we'll be able to reschedule for a different time this week.

Maria and family are doing well - we followed up with our Book of Mormon challenge, and Maria had read some!  She said she has a hard time understanding the scriptures so we read a bit with her and her husband Bryce and committed them to continue to read together every day.  We'll see them this Sunday (hopefully at church, but if not, we'll visit them after) and see how it went!

Also - Robert came to church yesterday!  He's been kind of slipping out of activity, and has been dodging our appointments... it was SO good to see him there.  And the ward totally made sure he felt welcome and a part of our ward family.  Hopefully we'll be able to meet with him this week.  Thanks for all the prayers in his behalf - keep them coming!

I love y'all so much and hope you have a fabulous week!  Thanks for the continued love and support as I serve the Lord in Houston, Texas.  I couldn't be happier! Love you!

Sister Ririe

Ether 12:4

P.S. I'm collecting inspiring and uplifting quotes, scriptures, and stories, so if y'all have anything you'd like to contribute, I'd appreciate it. :)  Thanks!

Meet the Mortensens

Sister Walker and me, after doing service last Monday

Hey y'all!

Happy 4th of July everyone!  I hope you had an awesome celebration with lots of fun and fireworks! :)  Texas sure does like to celebrate - obviously we couldn't stay out to watch the fireworks, but it didn't really matter because we could clearly see 3 or 4 good shows out our apartment window.  So much fun. :)

Summer is starting to get into full swing here in Houston... most of the ward is out of town visiting family and friends that live in cooler parts of the United States.  And I don't blame them... it is HOT here.  There was actually one point in the week where it was hot and humid, and we were walking down this long road between neighborhoods that has absolutely no shade anywhere near it... miserable.  I looked up at the sun and there were no clouds in sight.  Not good.  All I wanted was a tiny bit of shade, just a bit of a break from the pounding sun.  I started a silent prayer and asked God to provide a cloud so I could cool off just a bit.  I had somewhat of a conversation with Him, asking Him for ways that I could endure well, because I know that He won't push me through anything that I can't handle with His help.  I was starting to think things like "you know, maybe You think I'm stronger than I really am, because I feel like I'm about to my breaking point right now!" and right when I thought that, a strong, cool wind started, cooling us off.  It wasn't a cloud, but it was so much better.  Just goes to show that He hears every prayer, and He knows and loves each of us so much, and He will send exactly what is needed exactly when it is needed. :)

We met our new mission president and his family this week!  President Mortensen - he's amazing, and I love him already.  I can tell that he's EXACTLY what this mission needs right now.  He's a lot like President Pingree  - they both are energetic and inspiring, and young - he has 6 kids, the oldest of which just started her mission and the youngest is 5.  Super cute family.  I'm excited to get to know them better.  President Mortensen is a bit more... intense... (that's not the word I'm looking for, but it will work for now) than President Pingree, but I think it's good.  He's very passionate about missionary work, and he gave an awesome training about living up to our privileges - being exactly obedient so we can get all the blessings.  It was inspiring, and Sister Walker and I set some goals so we can be better.  I'm really looking forward to working with him!

We met with Marilyn again this week.  She's awesome, and basically already has a testimony of the gospel. :)  We had given her 3 Nephi 11 to read before we met with her again, and she not only read it, but really studied it 3 or 4 times before we came over again.  We invited her to be baptized, and she told us not to worry - she's already been baptized... we talked about priesthood authority, but I think we'll have to re-teach it before she really understands.  But she said she'd keep reading the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true, and we have another appointment with her later this week.  

We had an awesome opportunity to do service this week, which was awesome, because I feel like we never get to help with service projects in this area because it's so hard to get anywhere when you don't have a car.  But there's a family in our ward that was moving into a bigger house in the ward that has had so much stress with finding and buying a house, and then making repairs on the house that they bought... needless to say they were super stressed out.  So last Monday we helped them clean the new house, and then throughout the week we've been able to help them get everything packed up and moved to the new house.  It has been great - I love doing service.  Mosiah 2:17.  It's great. :)

I don't know if y'all remember Maria, back from my first few transfers in the area.  Her husband and his parents (who they live with) are members, but she's not.  She's had 4 or 5 different baptismal dates, but she just wasn't really ready to commit.  So Sister Bonner and I dropped her a few months ago to give her some time to think and pray about it.  I figured Sister Walker and her new companion could re-assess the situation once I had left the area, but the Relief Society president gave us something to deliver to Maria's mother-in-law... so we figured that we'd go contact them again.  We got in and taught a good lesson about building on a firm foundation of scripture study and prayer and church attendance - and the whole family sat down with us.  Which is great, because we'll need to reactivate the family while we're preparing Maria for baptism.  They all committed to reading the Book of Mormon every day!  We'll follow up soon and see how it's going and what they're learning. :)

We're still doing a lot of tracting and trying to find people to teach.  And the more people I meet, the more I realize that there are a LOT of religions in Houston.  We met a guy named Ray this past week that said he'd tried a bunch of different churches... Catholic, 7th-day Adventists, even Messianic Judaism, but finally settled on something called Hebrew Roots or something like that.  Basically they study the bible and take everything very literally.  And he tried to prove us wrong, but nothing he said really worked... he told us we were following a pagan religion because we used the name Christ and celebrated Christmas and Easter and had our church services on Sunday instead of Saturday, and told us that we didn't need the Book of Mormon.  (A Bible, he has got a Bible, and he needs no more Bible... oh the joys of being in the Bible belt...) He told us to pray about the Book of Mormon, and that we'd get our answer through the spirit that it's not true... what?? Haha but Sister Walker jumped in and said "I will if you will!"  At first he agreed, but later when we tried to give him a copy he turned it down.  Hopefully he will open his heart to it eventually. :)

We also had a more positive experience knocking on doors this week too.  The woman that answered the door invited us in to share a message, and I could immediately tell that she was one that Heavenly Father has prepared.  We taught the restoration using the pictures in the front of the Book of Mormon, and it was a really powerful lesson. She (her name is Perla) told us that she had just started going back to church, right now she's attending a Spanish Pentecostal church, but she's looking for truth and really wants a religion that will stick and help her really become better.  We asked her if she'd read the Book of Mormon, and she said "yes!  I've actually been looking for someone to recommend a good book to me!"  She asked where she could get one, and when we gave her a copy she was thrilled.  Unfortunately she doesn't live in the area - she was just visiting a friend... but we got her information so we can send some missionaries her way. :)

I love y'all so much, and hope you're having a fabulous summer!  Have a great week!

Sister Ririe

Mosiah 4:2-3