Dearest Family,
What a wonderful week
I have had! I absolutely love being here. I love Irvine; I love Sister Kline; I
love all of our wonderful friends here. Really, a mission is like a gold mine.
There are so many nuggets around that we get to look for, but it depends on our
faith if we will find them. I guess in that way it's not really like a gold
mine because you can't really believe gold into your dish. But anyway. Let's
just say it was a great week.
Starting with the
best news: DAVEY GOT BAPTIZED! Hooray! The service went really well. He showed
up in a new tuxedo and new shoes that he had bought for the occasion. He said
that he wanted to look like his Creator would have him look. Ah! The jump suit
was too big for him because he's such a wee guy, but seriously it was just the
best thing ever. In between his baptism and his coming back in, we watched the
Bible video of Cornelius' conversion, and that was good. We had two other
investigators there, and the Spirit was there too, so altogether it was dead
brilliant. I seriously have only felt that happy a few times in my life—Ah! to
see someone that I have taught from Day 1 be baptized! We really did nothing.
He did everything. He studied and he prayed and we just happened to be there at
the right time. I love him so much! I went and gave him a tie that we bought
for him, and he teared up a bit. He asked, "Was yous pleased?" and
just wanted to be sure that we'd had a good experience along with him. He is
such a gem. Really, I feel so blessed to have gotten to teach him. Also, the
quote in the E-mail title came from him. He is probably the funniest person
I've ever met.
We had some other
great success this week! We were riding on the bus and talking to a lady a wee
while ago (I'm pretty sure she was either drunk or high but I don't remember
which) and she was telling us about her son who has been researching religion
and things. She gave us his information and we went on our way. That was
exciting because we don't get many referrals. We went by and it was a really
sketchy place, and so we just left a card because he wasn't home. A few days
later, he phoned! Then he met us at the church where we took him on a church
tour and taught him about the Book of Mormon. What a miracle! It was amazing
and strengthened my faith that we don't always have to find those that aren't
looking, but we can find those who are seeking us out even if they don't know
that they are.
T-- is meant to get
baptized this next Friday, but we don't know what's going to happen because he
came to a lesson super drunk last Friday.
We are still pondering what to do about that. He is wonderful and has
such great desires, and we don't want him to put it off but we also want him to
be ready.
We went out to lunch
this week and had some of the best food ever! The High Councilor in charge of missionary
work took us and the zone leaders out to discuss some different things in the
Paisley Zone. Anyway, it was this super fancy place that was pretty posh and
the food was delicious! It was also a good conversation and I learned a lot
about life and missionary work. Something that he said that I really liked was,
"If you don't love yourself, how can you love Jesus?" I really love
that and have been pondering it lately.
A-- is doing well.
She's started feeling a bit better and has started to meet with us again. That
makes us so happy because we just love her to bits! She made us hot dogs this
week, and I don't think I've had them since being in the states. She put sautéed
onions on them though, and as weird as that sounds, it was pretty good. What
does sautéed mean? She just put them on a stove in a frying pan and thingmed them up. It was good—that’s the
moral of the story.
Another highlight of
the week was ward council. We prepared a missionary presentation and went in
trying to coordinate the work with the ward members. It's so hard that often we
feel that the work we do remains "our work," and it can be hard to
figure out how to sync the ward and the missionaries. The meeting was a giant
success! We all discussed actionable points of how we can coordinate better
(take our progress records to more people, help with visiting teaching, etc.)
and it has already begun to benefit the work. Now, if they know what people we
are teaching, they will know when to get visiting teachers in and who needs help.
We can really work together as a ward instead of missionaries vs. ward, which
is how it feels sometimes.
Well. That's about it
for the week. I love being a missionary. Seriously. Putting on a name badge in
the morning is the best thing in the world. Talking with people is so good. The
gospel is so good, and it can bless anyone who will let it. That includes
investigators and members of the church. Jesus is knocking at the door--we just
gotta let him in! :)
I love you all! Have
a great week!
Sister Amanda Ann
Ricks
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