Mom and Family,
I wanted to share with you the things that I was wanting to share with you this past week, yet didn't get to finish. First thing is....We will be holding a baptism this Saturday for one of our investigators! Her name is Maria Diaz, no it is not Ena Diaz, but a different person. I am excited because I feel like it's the first time that we have officially had time to set it up and plan the baptism service and announce it out at church. Usually it's a guessing game with some of our investigators the week of, but ends up always working out, but this week we have finished all, but one of the commandments and I believe it is abstain and honor the law of the country. Maris Diaz has 40 years and she is very excited to enter into the gospel and the covenant with Heavenly Father. She has two kids and is divorced. Her kid's names are Mauricio who has 12 years and Juan who has 6 years. We have plans for Mauricio to join his mom that same day on 3 of September. He has told us he is sure, but we are going to have some help from the zone leaders to have a lesson with him and hopefully have more confidence in the things that he has come to know and understand. He is a great young man who has a mom that has set a great example for both her kids. He loves Basketball and loves to read. He has read everything that we asked him to read from the Book of Mormon. So the plans this week and what we have in our agenda for this week Elder Lopez and I is to get that all set up and planned for our other investigators to attend and the members and to have a spiritual meeting.
One thing that I was wanting to talk and ask you and all the other returned missionaries in the family is how the wards worked in their missions and also how the ward in the Murrieta Hills ward is doing? I forget how well organized it was at times and how many things got accomplished and how much I didn't pay attention to those things earlier, but how I wish I could understand more and how it truly does work. Right now we are changing completely how we work to the other direction with members and the Elders working together, but the thing is its difficult because the members depend on us a lot and now the member have to take a little bit more responsibility to their calling and the missionary work. I am wanting to help with all I can to get it started, but there is a limit I have in what I can and can't do haha. Not because of the language just with what I have seen the church at a high point and what Is see the church in a stage of progression. One thing that I notice here is they skip the basic principals or the fundamentals of things to help the work in progression....for example references' to the missionaries. I believe in total my time here I have received less than 10. The numbers of the mission in baptisms is 80% from contacts of the missionaries and 20% references'. Another thing that I see the importance in is visiting teaching and how if it doesn't get done the members don't get that spiritual fulfillment every month. All this deals with one word and is to work, but not only that, but do it in the lords way. The difficult part is when members have the knowledge of the purpose of a calling or even leaders that don't know their responsibilities, but yet I know I have had experiences in all that as a youth. I want to share my experiences with them, but there is a limit to what I can say and not say. I hope you understand me in all this????? The thing is I respect them to find out from personal experiences or correct them. I know that through my youth I had experiences and these experiences were to help me complete a mission, but at the same time I don't want to cross the line. At times, I am really firm with my decisions' to do things and to not do things. I am really serious it seems like these days and I want to know if I was super serious before my mission???? Sometimes I am so focused I forget to smile and to say hi to people and to wave and to just have a smile on my face haha. Even though I walk under the blazing sun for 8 hours a day!!! Amway this is a little of what's been on my mind a lot of how I can create a Zion here for the people of coast of Colombia so they can one day have a temple and enjoy the blessing of greater covenants and so forth. A lit that I read this week was in D& C 97 I believe about the establishment of Zion and the blessing of that. I believe that the stake of Murrieta has done that, but I can say here in Colombia the coast thy haven't, but that's why I am here to help them accomplish that. There is a lot of work left to do and that's why we should never stop. This work is more important than anything in this world and not a lot of people know it! They need to know it. I know that the missionaries don't visit often, but they need people to teach. Now that you all have a routine again. Add something else in the routine to invite the missionaries over and teach and even give a reference to them, because sometime the missionaries don't know how to ask. Anyways I am out of time. I invite you all to continue in gospel daily.
Love you all.
Elder Ridley
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