Great Minds Think Alike … And So Do Ours

Dearest Fambbly,

There are some weeks when we struggle and try our best to sound upbeat. There are some weeks when we have an underlying sense of sadness but everything is mostly all right. There are some weeks when we are sad and let everybody know. And there are some weeks when we feel happy and want the world to know! The ultimate option is how this week was. I am so incredibly happy! I love this place, I love my companion, I love my zone, and I love the work in Irvine! I am just so lucky to be here.

Let me tell you about some of these things that I love:

My companion: Sister Jones is amazing. We had a bit of a rough first transfer together for various reasons. She'd just left her first area that she'd served in for nine months, so she was adjusting to a new area, a new companion, a new calling, lots of responsibilities associated with that calling, struggling sisters, new members, new investigators, etc. There was a lot of change in her life, and it was a bit hard to adjust. On top of that, I was trying to adjust to working with her and teaching her how to be an STL and, to be honest, I was stressed out of my mind. We both were. BUT (and there's always a but plus a resolution with stories like this) we have figured things out and we are doing so well together. I've learned to be more humble and accepting, and she has learned how to adjust, and we are so happy together. We have laughed SO much this week. We know how to work well together, we know how to perform our duties together, and we love each other. To be honest, I don't know exactly what changed this week (apart from me being much more humble and accepting myself as part of the problem), but it has been the most fabulous week full of miracles. I love Sister Jones. I love her so dearly and am so grateful to be in this wonderful place with her—I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Our Zone: Yesterday, we had Zone Development day. It's something our mission has recently implemented to lift spirits and increase zone unity. Our mission has one of the highest rates of depression in the world and hopefully this will help. We all got together and played games, went Go-Karting, and ate delicious food. It was so much fun and did both the things we wanted to. Our zone is definitely developed. :)

Davey: He is the man who was baptized on 22 February, and he is the most wonderful person  ever! Ah! This week we've been teaching him the parables because he feels like God wants him to study those.  We've been in his greenhouse (which is a perfect location because it's in public but also indoors) and he moved a space heater into the room.   He makes us hot juice and we study the scriptures together. He is so amazing. I sometimes tear up in our lessons just thinking about leaving him one day. I want to be his neighbor forever. He brought us fruit and a steak pie yesterday because he knows how much I love steak pie. AH! I just love him.

The cool thing about this week was that I was thinking that Davey is really Jack Cassidy. He is ALWAYS helping everybody and looking for ways to serve others. The only differences are that he isn't living off church welfare and that he is a real person. But other than that they are remarkably similar!

Irvine: The ward is so good to us these days! We are loving it. There was a woman who asked us to go by her non-member father, and we haven't taught him but have just chatted with him like she wanted us to. We've seen him twice now, and he's talked really highly of us.  She thinks he is so close to getting the lessons and getting baptized. Ah, I really hope he does! It's been a long process for her and she just cries and is so excited to have a family that she can be sealed to.

Did you know that resurrection is an ordinance? I pretty much think that is the coolest thing ever.

Yesterday, Sister Jones and I wanted to accomplish two things at Zone Development. In the previous night's planning, we'd decided that we wanted to teach the Go-Kart instructor about the gospel. We also wanted to pull aside one of our sisters and find out if she was actually doing all right. Well, long story short, Heavenly Father provided both of those opportunities! It was absolutely incredible that we did nothing besides opening our mouths because both of them came to us. God is so good and really just needs us to be a body or an instrument. I can of myself do nothing, but the will of the Father that sent me.

Well, basically, that is the life! Loving it. It's the best to be a missionary serving the Lord. I have such a sense of purpose daily, and I know where I'm going and how to fulfill that purpose—inviting others to come unto Christ! I may not be the best missionary, I may not be an amazing finder or teacher or member-relationship builder or STL or bus contactor—but I am doing my very best everyday! And that is enough. I am content with progress in the right direction even though I've not yet and won't in this life reach perfection. Progress is enough.

I love you all! You are so wonderful and I hope you have the most wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Ricks

From the Deepest Part of my Heart

Dearest Family,

Yesterday was an Easter Bank Holiday (sometimes they have random Monday holidays here) and so today became e-mail day. I had forgotten how much I appreciate e-mail time; it didn't feel like P-day without it. But pish posh, here we are and it's going to be a great day. 

Easter is such a wonderful holiday. They have a fun tradition here that I've never heard of before, but that I'd like to start when I get home. They roll eggs that they dye down a hill. I think they boil them and paint them and then they roll them/throw them down hills and they smash to bits. It symbolizes the rolling of the stone away from the tomb of Christ. I think that's pretty fun and also a cool tradition to help us remember what Easter is about. I did a terrible job of explaining that but hey ho—hopefully it made sense.

Sister Jones and I have been loaded with the cold this week. She got it in the early part of the week and so we were in (and I was watching mission-approved movies like the Doctrine and Covenants DVDs) and then I got it a few days later and had to stay in bed and sleep about 10 hours a day. It was a bit rubbish but we're feeling a bit better now and we're out and about. So that's a good thing.

Exchanges start up again this week so I'm currently with Sister Francis, who is going home in four weeks, in Irvine and later in the week I'll go to Glasgow and one of the sisters will come here. Exchanges are so fun and I miss them when we don't do them for too long—I feel like I get stagnant—and so change is a good thing and I'm excited to get back in the work! It was rough being sick this week and not doing missionary work. I'm happy that we're back in a normal routine. 

I got to speak at dear Katie Kerr's baptism this week. She is eight and comes from the sweetest family ever. I absolutely love them and I was so honored to speak at their big family event. A lot of non-members were there, so it was a great time to teach a simple talk about the Holy Ghost and a prime situation to fellowship and friendship these friends into hopefully joining the Church one day. 

Church was amazing on Easter and it was fun to hear the Sacrament Meeting talks, which were fantastic. I helped play the piano (“The Family Is of God”) in Primary while Sister Jones taught the Gospel Principles lesson, and then we joined and taught together for Relief Society. I read the "Green Eggs and Ham" missionary version from Mrs. Goodrich, and the members loved it. Hopefully they will start doing more missionary work, because Irvine is a prepared place where the members can invite their friends. 

Elder Holland said, “The future of this world has long been declared, the final outcome between good and evil is already known. There is no question as to who wins because the victory has already been posted on the scoreboard. The only really strange thing in all of this is we are all still down here on the field trying to decide which team’s jersey we want to wear.”

Let's all be on the winning side—with the righteous jerseys that we put on by reading our scriptures, attending church, keeping our covenants, and sharing the gospel with others!

I love you all! 

Love,

Baby Girl

Bucket List

Dearest Family,

Items that I checked off my Bucket List this week that I didn't know where on there:

1. Played the organ in a giant Scottish cathedral in Dundee.

2. Sang both in a big choir and in a little ensemble in St. Giles and St. Paul's Cathedrals.

3. Quoted almost in entirety the Restoration DVD on a moving bus.

4.  Played the Hallelujah Chorus as a part of mass service.

5.  Sang Amazing Grace—complete with bagpipe—in downtown Edinburgh for hundreds of tourists to see and hear.

How amazing was this week? It seriously was absolutely incredible. I am so blessed to be part of a mission that does amazing things like this and has amazing people to go along with it that make it an altogether unforgettable experience.

Monday was P-day, and we went to Eglinton Park. You got heaps of pictures from Lorna so I'll just let those suffice. It was super fun and my boots were mighty muddy.

Tuesday we had a full proselyting day, which was nice. We saw our good friends, especially Ann, who still doesn't want to investigate but gives us tons of stuff like clothes and food. She is funny.

Wednesday we travelled and went and rehearsed in Glasgow.

Thursday we had our Glasgow concert. I love Julian Avenue (the Stake Center there) because I feel like my whole mission has been spent there, from all the District Meetings in East Kilbride to now. I have spent essentially the last ten months of my mission going to that place.

Friday we went to Dundee and had St. Paul's and the evening concert. They were lovely. Dundee is an amazing city, and I would love to serve there. It was funny—we went to Subway and Elder Windhausen, who is one of my best mission buddies ever, asked me what kind of sauce to get. I told him honey mustard and so he ordered it but didn't remember until they were squirting it on that he hates honey mustard. It doesn't sound that funny, but I was dying laughing over it. It was so funny.

Saturday was Edinburgh—St. Giles Cathedral and the evening concert. It was absolutely beautiful! The St. Giles’ concert was by far the best and I felt the Spirit so much there. The minister stood up and read scriptures for 15 minutes and then turned the time over to us. There were SO many people there and they all listened to us and stopped. We had about 40 minutes for our shortened concert, but it was just amazing, particularly the Hallelujah Chorus. It was so much fun!

Sunday morning we took a bus from Edinburgh to Glasgow, drove to Irvine to pick somebody up, drove to Ayr, drove to Kilmarnock, and back to Irvine all before church at 11. I was exhausted all of yesterday and would be lying if I said I didn't nod off during a bit of testimony meeting.

Really, it was just an amazing week. I loved being with some of my greatest friends. I hate leaving people and I hate when people leave, but I guess these are things that have to happen and that one day we will understand. Change isn't so fun for me, but learning to become more like Heavenly Father is, and that kind of is all in the same boat. So there you are.

Easter season is a wonderful time to celebrate the birth of Christ. I am so grateful for Him in my life and feel privileged to wear His name printed over my heart. May we all live more fully as disciples of Him is my prayer.

Love,

Sister Ricks

President Brown Called Me Ditzy

Dearest Family,

Do you want to know why President Brown called me a ditz? Because I am. 

On Monday, we went to Edinburgh for our Easter Concert practice. We took a train from Irvine to Glasgow Central and then on to Edinburgh. As we approached Edinburgh, Sister Jones and I both realized that we forgot our bags on our initial train from Irvine to Glasgow Central. Oops! So then we had to make a whole bunch of phone calls and figure out how to get our bags and send some missionaries back to Glasgow to get our bags and my insulin. Luckily they did and we were all okay. But … sometimes I wonder if I'm ever going to stop doing stupid things like that. Probably not. :) 

The practice in Edinburgh was good. This concert is going to be stellar, I'm pretty sure! I am still rubbish at playing the Hallelujah Chorus on the piano but I am doing my best. (Side note: Do you remember the recording that Daniel sent us, I think, about the Messiah Organist on Crack. I think about that all the time and how funny it was.) We are singing some songs that will be magic and it all seems like it's going to be ace. 

The two most fun parts of the practice: On Tuesday morning, a few of us woke up early and we went and played football on a field by the mission home. It was so fun. It was amazingly muddy and a few people came over without any shoes on because they still wanted to play. We were all so muddy and gross and falling down but it was so much fun! I miss doing things like that, and morning exercise was super fun when everybody was playing around. The other fun thing was when we had been singing for ages and so then we went to sing the Hallelujah Chorus and I was joking around and started playing it really fast … and then the choir decided to sing really fast too and we sang it all at mega-speed. It was amazing. :) So fun!

We did some training at a District Leader Council on Friday and talked about symbiosis in companionships. And we talked about cookies: mostly because we wanted them to like us and our training so we took them food which works every time. We talked about how in cookies, flour needs to be flour and eggs need to be eggs and if either turned into the other, we'd just have a pile of flour or scrambled eggs. Likewise, in companionships (or in families, or in business practices, or in marriages, or in friendships) we have a unique role to play and we need to be ourselves but work in harmony and have the correct amount so that the finished product will be delicious. The training went well and they all liked the cookies, so that was happy. We haven't been eating chocolate to try and help Thomas stop smoking, so we didn't have any, but they looked sure-boss-thing nice.

I started to have a bit of the cold this week, which clearly wasn't okay because I didn't want to sleep through General Conference, so we took a few preventative measures. I slept a bit and took Vitamin C, and then Lorna made some spicy chicken noodle Japanese soup for us and I took a bath filled with essential oils and sort of just sweated a whole bunch after. Is it a real thing to sweat out sickness? I'm not sure, but I've felt better ever since. 

General Conference Was Amazing. We went to different members’ and investigators’ homes. It was funny because Ann, who was a new investigator this week, didn't really understand what we were doing there and just thought we were watching a program. So she talked through the whole thing. Ask me how happy I was when she had us come help her with dinner during Elder Holland's talk. Not Happy, Bob. So when we went to Lorna's for the Saturday afternoon session on Sunday morning, she played us his talk first.  Then I felt better. :)

Ann was funny and I think I just assumed she would magically feel the Spirit powerfully because General Conference is full of it. After the prophet spoke, she said, "Wow, it sounds like he just can't get a full breath" and talked about his voice rather than his message. It reminded me that you're not going to feel the Spirit if you don't go with the attitude of receiving it. It's like in church as soon as the time is up for the meeting to be done, I can feel myself stop feeling the Spirit. It's not that it's not there anymore, it's because I choose to be frustrated and stop feeling it.  Moral of the story: we get out what we take to meetings, generally. 

I just loved General Conference though. I am pretty sure that the General Authorities thought "What does Sister Ricks need?" and then they wrote General Conference. Probably not, but the Spirit definitely prompted a lot of things that I needed to hear and generally just needed reminding of. Particularly about love and how it should be the motivating force behind everything that we do and that real disciples feel love for everybody, especially the Savior and Heavenly Father. 

I don't know if everybody caught it, but I loved the bit of General Conference where they talked about each member having a copy of and studying Preach My Gospel and sending their thoughts to their missionaries. I think that would be really great. :) 

Mostly, I loved General Conference and it made me think about each of you. What messages were you getting? How were you feeling? What kind of toppings were you putting on your crepe? :) Haha. It's amazing that the Spirit, through General Conference and through our impressions, can answer the questions of our soul. That is amazing and when pondered is something that is only true of our Church. It's true! I know it! 

I love you all! Have a great week! Read Preach My Gospel--I dare you! 

Love,

Sister Amanda Ann Ricks