Aug. 6, 2012

Dad, This week has been great really. The Lord has been able to help my companion and I teach a lot better and have helped us to have some ideas to finding new people to teach. We stopped by the hospital this week in my area to talk with a few of the doctors to leave our name and number and direction to the church, basically a reference to the patience if they need help spiritually to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope we will be able to see some fruits from that ha-ha. Right now we are trying to find some new people to teach because we don’t see many progressing as we have seen other who truly desire to have the gospel and to find the truths that they need to free themselves. I know that we are all looking for the simple truths that give is peace and comforts to know what we need to do in our lives. When I see that many don’t do that I begin to think about the true desires to receive the blessing of the Lord. Do they really want them or not? I feel like I repeated myself often of the blessing and the things we need to do on a "daily" bases to receive what God has for us. The scripture on Doctrine and Covenants talks about that. If we don’t do our part we are not promised any blessing. Yesterday I was way excited to see one of our investigators attend church yesterday. I have felt like this before, but this investigator is in a wheelchair. He woke up super early to be able to go with a member that we invited to help him go to church. He wheeled all the way for about an hour to get there. Elder Delgadillo and I were in a meeting with the leaders of the branch and after the meeting we saw him in the chapel and I about ran to go talk to him and give him a welcome. It was testimony meeting so it was great to have him there to hear the great testimony’s bore by a few of the members. After the meeting we left the church to say goodbye to Dublas our investigator and his tire had popped. I thought great the works of Satan always trying to make thing more difficult than they need to be, but he rode of just fine to go find a spare to fix his wheelchair. He got home safe! Don’t worry we called to make sure he got back to his house. That was the highlight of my week for me this week. I know that the Lord will bless Dublas because he did his part and as he continues he will be even more blessed. I will be getting more information in the next few weeks about Elder Holland coming. Its official now he will be coming on the 1st of September to talk with the leaders of the church and with us all the missionaries in the Barranquilla mission. So we are preparing for that. I hope that I have been able to help my district out these last few weeks. I know I will progress as I go and I know that it’s huge responsibility. It was a complete shock and had planned that at all during the middle of the transfers. I have the Zone leaders in my district Elder Winegar (from Idaho), Elder Davidson (from Utah) and I have two sister missionaries Hermana Cespedes (from Argentina) and Hermana Matarrita (from Puerto Rico). I haven’t really set any plans or goals because were about at the end of the transfers. I am thinking I will be it again for the next transfers so I will be pondering about that more. Where I am at right now it’s a branch so the members are few and plus we are split up with to other elders the zone leaders and all the members are in their area and we have only about three members active in our area and we visit them. I am enjoying my area here more than my last area. Well dad I enjoyed hearing from you and I will be giving you some of my ideas and plans I have for when I return back to go to school. Speak to you next week. Elder Ridley