July 4, 2011

Mom,
I am so grateful for your diligence in writing in me. I know I do not give the best information to respond to, but I am working on it. So, everyone is in Laughlin this week. I am a bit "trunky" knowing that you are all in Laughlin. There are so many things that we have done as a family and I think of those times especially walking from street to street. I do not know if that is a bad thing or not, but I always feel joy and happiness when I think of my family. That is how it should be and how our Heavenly Father meant it to be. It is something so perfect, but so pure in our family because we have the plan of our heavenly father in our lives.

Your question about the Liahona....I do get one every month and I read about one talk in each. I understand the legist always, but to understand fully everything, because they are in Spanish, not so much. So no, I don't need you to send me one. Really, I try to focus on the things that will help me with others rather than myself. The only books that can help me are Preach My Gospel and the Book of Mormon. All I really need to focus on is the Book of Mormon and learn how to share it. That is what Preach My Gospel is for. There is so much to be learned in Preach My Gospel. I have read many parts of it, but I have desires to read all of it and not just read it, but study it. This is what I usually do and what I usually am studying. For example, right now I am focusing on lesson three about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's why lately I have talked so much about the Gospel in my e-mails. The Gospel is what we need to follow because it's the path Jesus Christ lead. Right now, I just finished studying the importance of Baptism and how this is the only way to obtain eternal life. It explains this in John 3:3-5. I have learned a lot of patience while being out here and that patience comes from our Father....Because he depends on me in this time to do so much and I know I am not the perfect missionary, but with time and patience I know I can be. I am patient in my studies because I feel like many missionaries and members try to do too much at a time and do not accomplish anything. I have decided to focus on one thing until I complete it and eventually all of it will be there rather than just skipping over things.

One thing I have seen here in the people of Colombia is that they do things just to do things and they do not plan anything out. This is a continual cycle and I can see why the people do not progress. Always we are progressing, but we can progress so much more when we do as you said and put our whole faith in the Lord. For example, this past Sunday I needed to teach a class on Sunday and I had to teach about the gifts of the spirit. I had no idea about some of these gifts. I needed help during the class many times to explain myself, but they all understood in the end and helped me to understand as well.

There are a lot of gifts that I need in this work and one of those gifts I see right now is understanding the language (the gift of interpretation of tongues) to talk in the language ( the gift of tounges). I feel comfortable about the language now and I can do all that I need to complete in my mission with what I have studied. The one thing I have focused on is changing my accent. The people have a coast accent compared to other Latinos and the missionaries say that my pronunciation is very good and that I talk like a Latino, but the only thing I do is talk clear and use what I know. The one thing I lack I feel, is a gift of the spirit is to teach the Gospel with clarity. I have a voice now and my next thing I want to do is perfect how I teach. There is a special way that missionaries can teach and they need that Gift to teach the Gospel. The spirit always teaches, but we need to invite him and I feel this is a way to obtain this gift is by asking specifically for those gifts of the spirit.

This week for Elder Jorge and I didn't go out all that well with our investigators. We lost three investigators this week. The one thing that Elder Jorge and I did this week is organize our area and find some ways and made ideas to figure out the vision of what we can do and make goals of what we want to accomplish in our time here the Pie de La Popa in Cartegena. Something that I have been focusing on is finding the Lords true followers and the people that are ready to receive the Gospel. There is a neat scripture in Luke 11:34-36 that talks about knowing who is who and who has the light (light of Christ). Everyone has the light of Christ at first, but it can always become weak. We had a conference with President Gaviria this past Wednesday and he talked to us about keeping ourselves protected from our day to day because we are in a dangerous part of the world. This conference he talked a lot about the need to follow everything that is given to missionaries to have the spirit to protect us while we work every day. For me there are things that happen here that I am use to now because I am getting adapted to it, but things that would never happen in the United States. When I get back to the United Sates will be more of a blessing to me in the future. UNITED STATES IS THE BEST and everyone here wants to live there, but they just bash on us always because they know how much better it is. For example today Elder Espinoza and I, the other Elder from the states, we wanted to sing a song from the English hymns for the 4th of July and it was the Star Spangled Banner and the other Elders were so full of Pride they didn't sing with us. Well my companion played the flute and the other just put his head aside and had attitude about it. That is one experience happened today haha. I don't get it because I would sing their country song on their special day haha. Anyways I have written a lot and I hope you all have fun at Laughlin this week and be safe and take a lot of pictures for me. Love you all Speak soon
Elder Ridley