Where has this transfer gone?

#1 - Klein Zone at our St. Patrick's Day p-day party

#2 - Sister Bonner and me at the temple

Hey y'all! :)

I feel like time keeps speeding up - I swear it was just a couple of weeks ago that Sister Bonner joined me here in Memorial Springs...  but it's been a whole 6 weeks already!  6 weeks full of fun and adventure! :)  And Sister Bonner and I are staying in Memorial Springs, so we're preparing for another awesome 6 weeks! 

This week has been pretty great.  We were able to meet with Coy and Betsy again - Coy works all the time, so we don't usually get to see him, but we decided to stop by after dinner on Monday and Betsy let us in, and Coy got home a few minutes later.  Perfect timing!  So we were able to teach both of them, and Betsy said she's been struggling with figuring out how to parent her two teenage sons, so we used the stories in the Book of Mormon to help her, and invited her to read and find more inspiration herself.  It's amazing how the scriptures really can help everyone in their own struggles - I love it!  We also talked about the youth program and invited her boys to mutual, and them to church, but they didn't come this week... next week though. :)  

We were finally able to meet with Maria again - she's been hard to get a hold of recently.  ...I don't know what to do with her.  She knows it's true, and she's ready to be baptized, except for the fact that she wont keep any of her commitments.  We invite her to read the Book of Mormon, and come to church... but she never comes, and she never reads on her own... She loves having us over, but there's only so much we can do for her... :(  I think we might have to drop her until she decides she's willing to act on what she knows.

Tuesday night we went to a Relief Society activity, because a few of the less actives in the ward were going to be there (and they were, and they had a great time and made new friends, which was great. :) ) It was kind of a "get to know you" / Birthday party type activity, and it was a lot of fun to get to know some of the sisters in the ward better.  For one of the activities we had a gift exchange, but the gift that you brought was supposed to describe you in some way... so Sister Bonner wrapped a Book of Mormon, and I did a stack of pass along cards. :)  I think those items pretty much describe who I am right now - I never leave home without them!  It was a really fun activity, and, like I said before, a great way to get to know the sisters in the ward. 

On Wednesday we were able to go to the Temple - I love the Temple so much, and the spirit there is amazing.  While there I said a huge prayer of gratitude to my Heavenly Father, for everything that He has given me.  I am so blessed to have the opportunity to serve Him here in Houston!  I don't know if I've said this enough... I love being a missionary!!! 

Sunday evening the missionaries serving in the YSA ward put on a huge "Why I Believe" fireside - it was AMAZING!!  A few recent converts spoke, there were a few musical numbers, and then President Pingree spoke - so good. :) Basically, the church is true.  Unfortunately, none of our investigators were able to make it... :( and Robert had to work, so he couldn't come either. (side note - even though Robert couldn't come to church because of work, Melanie was there! Yay! And Robert is working on getting Sundays off, and we're meeting with him this week to start the new member discussions.  He's still awesome and on fire with the gospel. :) )  But the fireside was still really good.  And there were a lot of investigators of other missionaries there, which was awesome.

I love y'all so much, and I hope you have a great week!  

Sister Ririe

Welcome to the newest member of the Memorial Springs Ward! :D

#1 & #2 - Robert's Baptism!!

#3 - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

#4 - Sister King and me on exchanges

Hey y'all!

I am so happy right now!  March 15, 2014 will be a day that I will forever remember - the day that Robert was officially baptized a member of the church!  This whole week we have been counting down 'till Saturday, and it finally came, and it was awesome. :)  We (our ward mission leader Brother McLane, Sister Bonner and I) had some troubles getting into the stake center, and then into the font... apparently there are two separate keys... But Bishop was able to come rescue us, and even though we started filling the font late, we were still able to start on time.  :)  The service was wonderful - Melanie gave a beautiful opening prayer, various McLanes (they've been Robert's fellowshipping family) gave great talks, Melanie and her kids sang, and of course the highlight was the actual ordinance - Brother McLane baptized him, and when he came up out of the water he stood there for a few moments, just taking it all in - it was so wonderful!  The spirit was there so strong, and I keep replaying that moment over and over in my head. :)  I am so happy!  And so many people from the ward showed up to support him and welcome him in the ward - it was awesome, and he has so many friends - so many people that are willing to make sure he feels welcome.  I love this ward!  Yep. Saturday was probably the best day of my missionary life. :)

What else happened this week... the baptism kind of overshadowed everything else we did... we spent a lot of time inviting everyone - all our investigators and less actives and ward members and other people that we talked to on the street - to the baptism.  Unfortunately only active members showed up, but that's ok. :)  We were able to meet a few former investigators, and one, Lourdes, said she would like to have the lessons.  She asked us a lot of questions when we first got there, and she has a lot of respect for what we do as missionaries.  Unfortunately she wasn't there when we went back to teach the first lesson, but we'll get in with her again soon.  And we met Wilbert - he's a less active that we finally got in with.  We talked to him about faith, and he's really interested in coming back to church.  He's a bit self conscious about his looks... but  we told him that doesn't matter and that we, and the rest of the ward, want him there anyway. :)  He didn't come yesterday, but hopefully he'll be there in the future.

We also went on exchanges with the Singles ward sisters - Sister Bonner went with Sister Shell and Sister King came and spent the day with me in Memorial Springs.  I feel kind of bad, because she's in a car area, and not used to all the walking that we do... but we had a good time and lots of laughs together. :)  While we were tracting together, Sister King felt prompted to use a modern-day prophet approach, so we knocked on a few doors, and no one answered, and then at the last door, a little girl - probably about 10 or 11 years old - answered the door, and accidentally let her dog out... so we helped her chase the dog down, and then spent some time talking to her - we asked her if she goes to church, and she said she goes to two, because her parents are divorced.  Sister King asked if she was familiar with the prophets in the bible, like Abraham and Moses, and she said "of course!"  And then Sister King said, "Well, our message as sister missionaries is that there is a prophet on the earth today!"  I wish I had a picture of the girl's face - it lit up!  The light of Christ was so strong in her!  We gave her a pass - along card to give to her dad, who wasn't home.  That experience really made the scripture where it tells us to become like little children come alive to me - if we had had the same conversation with an adult, their reaction (most likely) would have been "no there isn't" with no room for hope that there is, while this little girl accepted what we told her with amazement and wonder - letting the Holy Ghost testify to her that what we said was true.  It is SO important that we open our hearts to spiritual truths!  That's how we learn. :)  

I love you all so much!  Thanks for the love and support!  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!  Have a great week!

Sister Ririe

2 Nephi 5:26

Miracle Miracle Miracle

Hey y'all!

This week has been absolutely full of miracles.  :D I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!  First of all... ROBERT IS BEING BAPTIZED THIS WEEK!!!  We met with him and Melanie and all of Melanie's kids (they are with her for their spring break) on Saturday, and finalized everything.  He is SO excited and SO prepared and SO ready to make this amazing change in his life.  And we are SO excited for him too.  :)  We talked about the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and how he's only a week away (well, he was a week away when we taught him last, now he's even closer!) from receiving that amazing gift.  He texts us every once in a while, telling us what he's studying and how he's feeling the spirit when he reads the scriptures and listening to conference talks and stuff like that, and he can't wait to be able to feel the spirit all the time. :)  He is so ready.  And the gospel will bless his life so much!  I'm so excited for him!  We were discussing in ward council yesterday about everything we need to do to make it happen, and the way that the ward is willing to help with everything really shows how excited they are to have a baptism too. :)  Robert is going to make an amazing member!  Melanie is doing great - she's excited to have her kids with her this week, and she and Robert are really learning how they can best help and support each other.  This Saturday... it's going to be great! :D

Second miracle for the week (these are in no particular order, just so you know) : We were tracting in a trailer park on Wednesday, and after going down a whole row of trailers without anyone wanting to listen to us, we were about to head to a different area.  But something told us "just one more row."  So we did, and the 2nd door we knocked on, the couple let us in!  We talked to them for a little bit, and were able to share a short message.  We'll continue to try and visit them.  And then, here's the really amazing part, we knocked on the next door, and they let us in too!  Two doors, in a row, and we were let inside and able to share a message!  Miracle!  This 2nd couple that let us in were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they didn't just want to bash with us!  I'm not saying that all JWs are terrible people or anything, but most of the ones we run into just want to Bible bash with us... but these two let us in and let us share a message, because they go door to door every weekend and they know how it feels to be turned away over and over and over again.  They aren't super interested in learning more, but we were able to plant a seed there. :)

Next miracle: so, remember Brehash, that guy at the gas station?  The one Brother Rackleff gave a pass along card to and he called in and got a Book of Mormon?  Well, we went to the gas station again this past week and he was working.  So we got the chance to talk to him, and he's read the whole Book of Mormon already!  And he really liked it!  He asked if we had any more scripture that we could give him, so we explained that we believe in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and he asked if he could have a Bible.  I'm not quite sure what his religious background is... we've only been able to talk to him those few times while he's working.  But we said we'd bring him a bible and invited him to church.  Later in the week he texted and said he wouldn't be able to come this week, but he said he'd come sometime in the future.  I feel like he's kind of holding us at arm's length... but slowly and surely we're getting there. :)  We'll keep in contact, and hopefully we'll be able to start teaching him soon.

Another miracle:  We've been trying to get in contact with a potential investigator (this one's from Brother Rackleff too - he is the best member missionary ever!)  We (both us and Brother Rackleff) have been trying to get a hold of him for about a month now.. he's a busy guy.  He lives in the one area that we hardly ever go, but we were having dinner with  Bishop Nordgran and his family yesterday, and this guy, his name is Abi, lives right across the street from him.  So we got a ride home from church with the Nordgrans, they dropped us off in the neighborhood and we went to try and contact Abi.  He wasn't home.  So we went to go do other stuff in the neighborhood while we waited for dinner to be ready.  As we turned the corner onto the Nordgrans' street on our way back, Abi pulled into the driveway!  So we were able to talk to him!  He is interested in learning more, but we weren't able to set something up right then because his schedule is so busy.  But we exchanged numbers, and hopefully we'll be able to meet with him soon. :)

Let's see, what else happened this week?  We were invited to attend the Laurel mutual activity on Wednesday night - they had a missionary activity where they studied and learned from Preach My Gospel, had a Q&A session with us, the missionaries, and did some role play - it was a lot of fun. :)  We're trying to set up a time where we can take the Laurels on splits tracting with us - that would be great. :) Good for the Laurels to get some experience, and good for us, because there are always awesome miracles that happen when we work directly with the members.  So we're hoping to set that up for an activity sometime in April.

On Saturday at around 2pm, we got a call from Brother Beckstead, (he's 1st counselor to the Bishop) ... he had forgotten to find speakers for church... so guess who he called... yep, the missionaries.  So, as soon as we got home that night (which was around 9:30, because we had our lesson with Robert and Melanie that night), we quickly planned and started on our talks - each was supposed to be about 15 minutes long, and we had less than 24 hours notice... and, on top of it all, it was daylight savings, so we had one hour less of sleep... lets just say we didn't get to bed exactly on time that night, and we were still writing our talks between ward council and the time church actually started.  But we were able to get them done, and we gave (hopeully) good talks. :)  Luckily for me, the theme was "trust in the Lord" which is what I spoke on for my farewell, so I was able to take a lot of the quotes that I had used for that talk and use them in my new talk.  So, in less than 24 hours, without lds.org, Sister Bonner and I were able to each give a 15 munute talk.  Miracle. :)  Do I ever want to do it again?  No.  But it was great.

Well, I think that's all for this week - there's a great week to come. :)  I love y'all and hope you have a great week!

Sister Ririe

Romans 13:12

A week in the rain...

1- MTC reunion!  Sister Bonner, Sister Laws, and Me

2- So... funny story... remember how we got locked inside a gated community last week?  Well, we went back this week to visit the member that lives there, and on our way out we happened to find this little button... In our defense, it was well hidden behind a sign.  Haha...

Hey y'all!  

It's been a wet week here in Houston.  Everyone says it's been an unusually cold and wet winter, and that the weather this time of year is usually beautiful.  ...I'm having a hard time believing them.  I'm starting to think there's no such thing as good weather here - it's either cold and rainy or hot and humid.  But that's ok, the work of the Lord goes on. :)

With the rain this week came a lot of plans that fell through... unfortunately.  So we did a LOT of walking, tracting, contacting, etc. in the rain.  We had one day where we didn't get into anyone's house until 5pm, when some members took pity on us.  We weren't able to meet with Robert and Melanie this week because our plans fell through with the Peruches - they had some sort of family crisis so they had to cancel on us about a half hour before. (This is the second time we haven't been able to meet with Robert at their house... obviously they are going to make awesome fellowshippers because Satan is trying really hard to make this not work out.)  But we have been staying in contact, and he's still super ready to be baptized.  And we'll meet with them this week.

We did have some funny experiences tracting... here are some of the most memorable responses: "I'm gonna go ahead and say that I can't be Mormon because I like my alcohol.  A lot." (well, at least she knows who we are and what we believe)  "I'm a sinner" *shuts the door* (... aren't we all?)  "I'm a devout Lutheran, and I will not accept any of your literature." (well, ok... we hadn't offered you anything yet...) Some people just make me laugh. Oh, and I've officially had a door slammed in my face.  I'm kind of surprised it took me 8 months to have that happen.  Anyway, tracting is great... you sure do meet a lot of people from all walks of life. :) 

The whole week wasn't plans falling through though, thank goodness.  We were able to meet with the Fernandes family and taught the plan of salvation.  Brother Fernandes is super nice, and he said we could come back anytime.  He had a lot of questions, and through the spirit we were able to answer most of them.  Unfortunately they didn't make it to church yesterday, but we'll see them later this week.

On Thursday we had Zone Conference, which was great, as always. :)  I was able to see a lot of my missionary friends, including Sister Laws (my MTC companion) and Elder Pauga (who served with Sister Wahlen and me in Westlake.)  (Also, speaking of other missionaries, I found out that my new district leader, Elder Chandler, was Elder Ririe's MTC companion.  It's a small world, out here in the Texas Houston Mission. :) ) During the Zone Conference, we talked a lot about the spirit of Elijah and Family History and how to use it in our finding efforts.  Sister Bonner and I think we can really use it as our area is more wealthy and less humble - maybe it can be a finding magnet in our area.  Of course we need to really learn how to do family history before we can teach others... luckily we have an awesome family history consultant in our ward who is willing to help us out. :)  

After Zone Conference we walked back to our area (Thursday was one of the only days this week where it didn't rain, and lucky for us the Zone Conference was at our church building - not too far!) We tried to contact some former investigators from our area book, and we got talking to a guy, his name is Wilford.  He lives with his uncle Wendy (who is our former investigator) and just moved here from Louisiana.  But we talked to him for a little bit and asked if we could come by later to teach more and he said yes!  So before our church meetings yesterday we taught him the Restoration.  He's super open, and excited to learn more.  And he told us that he's been feeling distant from God lately, and that when we came by it was like God was calling to him and trying to talk some sense into him. :)  He didn't come with us to church yesterday because he said he had too much to do, but he said he'd schedule it in for next Sunday. :)  We're excited to teach him and see how he progresses!

Before we went to church, we went to see Maria because she lives in the same neighborhood.  No one answered, and she didn't make it to church... so unfortunately we'll have to push back her baptismal date because she hasn't been to church at all since I've been in the area.  We'll keep trying to meet with her, but she needs to be the one to decide that she wants to ACT on what she knows.  Hopefully she'll be able to make that decision soon.

Missionary life is great, even though it's hard.  There's nothing better than doing the Lord's work full-time, and I am SO glad I have this opportunity.  I love y'all so much!  And I hope y'all have a great week. :)

Sister Ririe

Romans 5:3-5