5-29-11

Madre,
WOW! Erik in Africa -hahaha. That is a special place to be. There will be, in the near future,a history for Erik to make over there. I am excited for him. Sounds like the mission for Erik to be in.
Quick responds: Yes mom I got the batch of letters this week from you and the card from Florida. Muy chevre! I am guessing that transfers for the missionaries isn’t the same because I have a few more weeks with Elder Castillo, but not sure exactly how much more. To be honest I am ready for a change. I don’t know why because the work is great! I just feel that I need to be somewhere different. I have an experience I would like to share, but later in my e-mail. About the rain in Colombia, yes up North where I am it has rained, but not like you hear about down south. This week though was a week with a lot more rain than usual. The weather is really random here. It’s super-hot, but raining, or really nice and cool, or without clouds, but raining. Don’t know how that is possible, but it happens and it depends on the hour of the day and where you are at. Once again I won’t get to respond to the e-mails of the Gonzales Family, but next week. I did take time to write my letters and will be sending them all soon.
I just want to update you all with what’s passed by all this time and really a lot has passed by and that’s because missionary work is work. Like Elder Tarabilda said...Mom first off thanks for the e-mails from Jake. It’s nice to receive a little lesson from others every once in a while rather than giving the lesson haha. We had a baptism this last weekend of German Garcia and he truly has desires to follow his savior. This past weekend we had the opportunity in our stake of Cartagena, to have Elder Nash from the seventy visited us. Later in the week on Wednesday all the missionaries from my mission went to Barranquilla for a conference with Elder Nash. Oh I was able to see some of the members from my group in the MTC and they are doing great, but it was nice to catch up and get some feedback from their experiences. One thing that I would like to share about this conference is about the sacrament. What is Life Eternal for you? A response was to live close to our Father in Heaven. He went on to explain a lot of other things that I wrote in my journal, but don’t have it with me right now. He explained to us about the Atonement and how it’s a Power of Divinity, and there is Power in it. We can receive that Power weekly from the Sacrament and he invited us to properly prepare to participate in that this week and to continue it in our lives weekly.
Another experience that I had this week was during a lesson was with an investigator from about a month in the past that we taught him the restoration, but we haven’t been able to contact him because he works a lot. Finally we had the opportunity to pass by and he was there in his house. Elder Castillo and I decided to review the first lesson again with him, but this time we were with one of his clients and this client was a member, but now attends another church. After our lesson this man that was the client tried to explain to us that there is no Church of Christ and that it’s not needed. This is right after we had evidence from the Bible and explained everything. We got into this conversation for about thirty minutes and I was just sitting there listening and I had one prompting come to me and that was to ask him....What made you decide to join the LDS church in the first place? And did you ask your father in Heaven if these things are true that we just taught? He was dead silent and then started to tear up.... I don’t know if he ever had the opportunity to ask God or if he later on denied his confirmation, but after we left he thanked me for our lesson and a felt that he knew that what we taught was the truth.
The work is great. We are really being blessed right now with having references from the members and also this past week we contacted some solid people ready to receive the Gospel. Elder Castillo and I will be having five baptisms coming up this month. Well that’s all for now family. I will write more next week. I love you all
Elder Ridley