Sister Ricker

so im getting a new companion. it was kind of a shocker to both of us. i thought maybe something was going to happen but i thought we would find out on friday. well nothing happened so by saturday morning we were already making plans for the upcoming transfer together. we were just starting to sing our companionship study song when the phone rang. my companion grabbed it and said “its president” —”shut up, no its not” —- “no it really is” — “well dont answer it”—but she ignored me and answered. sure enough i heard the unmistakable voice and i knew our plans were not going to happen. while she talked to him i kept telling her to just hang up. but she didnt.

so shes going back to the other side of the mission and im getting a new companion who has only been out a few months. im sad to lose her but the work will go on . and we have a lot of work so it should be good. it always is.

we have a baptism on the 11th. and next week we have zone conference. im so excited. when i first came out i did not like zone conference. too much sitting, we had work to do, there was no time for talking. but they’ve grown on me and i look forward to them. i always come out fired up and ready to go. also we get a really good lunch. not that we need more food in this mission, but oh well, ill enjoy it while it lasts.

we ran our six mile run this morning. it was awesome. we even got shirts and water at mid-way and there were people to cheer us on oh we even had a cop clock us. the joys of being in a small town . one of the track coaches is a member and he saw us and gave us the shirts we had asked him to find for us. we ran by another members’ house and he was waiting for us with water bottles. we didnt even have to stop. it was almost an official run. oh and we had a toilet paper finish line, to top it off. dont worry we took pictures.

love
sister ricker

how goes it? we had some more pretty exciting meetings with our wards on sunday. we got this grand idea to have a ward fhe type activity in each ward. we want it to be a night at the mtc type thing. we have tons of fun activities and stirring messages to rally the troops and get them pumped to share the gospel. we were so proud of ourselves and we brought it up to our wards and both agreed to our idea and one even committed to a date. we are so excited. lets hope we are both here when it happens. things are really moving here. which is good. we have put in a lot of work to get it going. the wards are awesome.

hmm…what else are the highlights of the week…i scared the zone leaders by calling them up and telling them that i was half way to kennewick and i just wanted to let them know. i said i wanted to go to the temple and figured i should let them know. dont worry, i was just kidding, i have not gone a-wall (im not sure if that is how it is spelled but y’all get the idea).

next week is transfers so we are having zone p-day. we have zone p-day pretty often since the zone is so small and the town is so small.

my companion and i ran 5 miles today in preparation for our 6 mile run next p-day. its what we have been working all transfer for.(that, among other worthy missionary goals, of course) we tried to get the rest of the zone to join us but they were not interested. one elder volunteered to hold up the finish line, thats as good as it gets.

seriously, work is good, really good. im so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission. this gospel is…hmmm…im still looking for a ward that really does it justice. im open for any suggestions.

sister ricker

this week was great!!! the highlight was by far, this weekend. we had a baptism on saturday, WOOT!!! it was so good. she is awesome, she has been solid from day one. just to give you an example. she was at work (some fastfood place) and she had been thinking about talking to her lds friends about learning more, then in walk two missionaries. so she says to herself “why wait to talk to my friends, there are missionaries right here”. the rest is history.

sunday we had our morning meetings. they were so good. are wards are really begin to catch the vision of member missionary work. all our harping is starting to pay off. in one ward, bishop totally stepped up to the plate and accepted our commitment to do something that day to help the ward fulfill their responsibility. from the pulpit he gave the whole ward a reading assignment from preach my gospel and in rs and priesthood a book of mormon was handed out to be given away. this week those people reported and another one was handed out. we are so proud of our wards .

dont worry, it gets better. since the day before we had a baptism, we had a confirmation. and one of our investigators who has not been to church yet came to church!!! and we werent even expecting her.

oh but there is more…just when we thought the day couldnt get better, it did. we were leaving rs and bishop came rushing in to tell us two kids we have teaching can now be baptized!!! they have been waiting for years to be baptized. we are so excited for them.

see i told you it was a great weekend which has carried over into this week. things are going really well. there is so much work in this area. i love it!!!

love
sister ricker

so that less-active guy i mentioned last week…he came to church. he tried to leave after sacrament meeting but of course we couldnt let that happen.

he had a lesson last night that was great. two new investigators! they were so interested and before we could even bring it up they asked us what time church is. and we will see them again this week.

this transfer is going to well. we have found several new less-actives who are ready to start coming back to church and we have a really good group of people we are teaching. also, we get to do tons of service since the weather is so nice.

i love it, oh i just got my warning so i better go. ill talk to y’all later.

love ya
sister ricker

how goes it?

so last week we had an awesome appointment with a less-active guy that sent me bouncing for hours (the appointment not the guy). it was awesome. it was one of those appointments that reminds you of all the reasons you are serving a mission. ahhh….it was so good. we found him the week before on a day when nobody was home (those days are great) and we set up a time to come back. he said he had been thinking about coming back to church so we said “perfect, we’ll help” we set up with him to “practice” teaching him the lessons. as we were teaching i kept watching him and trying to figure out what he needed, why were we there, what part of the lesson was what he needed to hear, then we got to the atonement.

i love the atonement, who doesnt need to hear more about the atonement. finally i asked him what it meant to him to know Christ did that for him. as he answered we were able to get a better understanding as to what he needed to hear. he really opened up and we were able to testify and teach to his needs. the spirit was so strong. i testified of our Savior’s love for him and then he asked me how i knew that. that surprised me a little. it wasnt contentious. he really wanted to know. he needed to know. so out came my response. i bore a very personal testimony of how i knew my Savior loved me and was always there for me. i have always been hesitant to share personal experiences and struggles i knew i couldnt answer his question without it. as i spoke, i could feel my own testimony being strengthened. My Heavenly Father and my Savior love me and from them i obtain strength to do things i could never do on my own.

i think i need to start asking myself that more often “how do you know?” it really helped me to testify with power and conviction. Heavenly Father blesses us with testimony building experiences for a reason.

sister ricker

hmmm….
what to write…any suggestions…

really, y’all have none.

oh! here we go. i had an epiphany (i think i actually spelled that right). yesterday, we spent 7 hrs helping clean someones house. it was intense. on sunday we found out that a member of the singles branch has been fighting cancer and has just undergone very intensive chemo and the doctors told his parents that if they wanted to take him home they had to completely sanitize the whole house. literally. all walls and cielings had to be painted. everything in the house was taken out and cleaned…everything. they found out at the end of last week so on sunday like have the stake was in house painting. the singles branch just held sacrament meeting so they could go help. it was intense. i felt like i was on that extreme home make over show. then yesterday we went back to help put it all back in and finish cleaning. there were about twenty of us yesterday. he got home at about 3:30 and it was just about done. it was really neat to be able to be a part of that.

i was exhausted from it all. wow i must have improved my typing speed cause i have way more time than i thought.
arent y’all lucky. you get to hear some more

hmmm…what else…my farmer’s tan is developing quite nicely. oh we are wanting to make zone t-shirts and my companion and i are heading that up so if y’all have any grand ideas let us know.

thanks for everything.

sister ricker

so, ive heard about transfers and im gonna be here in oregon for at least another six weeks. i kind of figured that would happen. im pretty excited about that. as ive said, there is so much work to do here and we were just getting started. it would have been sad to leave.

so are y’all ready for the best story of the transfer…

all transfer we have been praying for a family to teach. we have been working hard to find people. when i got here, i knew there were people here that have been prepared for us to teach and we just had to find them. i knew it. so we got to work and we found a ton of people but they kept falling through, which unfortunately happens. anyways im sure you have all heard countless stories about how it was “the last door, on the top floor, after hours of tracting with no success.” well…it was actually the first door in the middle of the street and we had just parked our car. but it was the result of prayer and faith nonetheless .

well anyways so we had decided to go tracting in a certain area but we hadnt picked a street and i was driving past them all and none of them felt any different so i was getting frustrated. and then wa-la, my companion says well how bout this one. that one it was and for some reason i parked in the middle of the street across from some house and i liked that house. maybe it was the brown pillars (i do love the color brown) anyways, we decided to start there and work up and then down around. normally we just start at the top and work down, but that felt good so we went with it.

and the rest is history. she was so excited, we were so excited and we went back the next day, perfect. it is so amazing to be how subtle the promptings of the Holy Ghost are. my biggest problem is just relaxing and listening. sometimes its like im holding on so tightly because i want to do this right more than ive ever wanted anything.

i know Heavenly Father is guiding me i just need to go where im guided.

love y’all

sister ricker

last week was horrible, rotten, and no good. it lasted forever.

no im just kidding…were you worried. i just thought i would throw y’all off cause ive realized i start most emails off with something like “this week was so great…it just flew by…wow it was awesome.”

anyways…just keeping y’all on your toes. no it was a good week. i got to call home..woot!!! that was so good. i wish i could have talked to everyone but christmas will come soon enough. then everyone can enjoy the sweet music that is my voice . hmmm…what else happened? we went to the temple last week which is why i didnt email. we ran out of time.

okay so here is a random story. so we are having zone p-day today. we are all going to get together (there are just 10 missionaries in this zone) and we are going to grill some hamburgers and hotdogs and eat some other stuff and then play kickball (which by the way might not happen cause it is really windy and chilly, i would rather take a nap) that is besides the point. anyways the elders wanted to meet at wal-mart yesterday so we could buy the stuff for zone p-day. i protested, a- yesterday was not p-day and therefore we should not be at wal-mart and b- they wanted to meet before our study time was even up. but we went anyways…(maybe my protest wasnt quite a protest). anyways we were giving them a hard time, our leaders…leading us astray…what a sad sad day. they however were quick to point out the blessings that came from being there at that time. a lady bought us all subway for lunch…and the best part, another lady came up to talk to us. she was so excited to see a large group of missionaries. she had just moved in and was recovering from a stroke and she needed help. so we were able to go over and set up her bed in the afternoon. she had no way of contacting the church to find out about the meeting and the ward and she told us “i just figured i would run into some missionaries somewhere”.

wow…so the moral of the story is…hmmm…well i guess…the elders are right…the Lord does bless missionaries who go to wal-mart not on p-day.

no im just kidding. but it was way cool to be able to meet that lady and help her out. she is still only able to use one of her arms. she is awesome and we will see her on sunday.

i love y’all
sister ricker

hows it going?

well, its good here. once again i cant believe it is p-day already. its going too fast. this weeks highlights…lets see.
we had stake conference and all the missionaries in the stake sang. i was not very happy about that. so the stake president called our mission president and told him that he would like to have the ten of us sing at stake conference and president said “of course, they would love to”. hmmm…not exactly the words i would use but oh well. one of my favorite things about being a missionary is singing with other missionaries. no matter how bad we sound the Spirit is always very strong, which is good for the sake of all those who are listening. we sang as sisters in zion/army of helaman medley. we also invited our mission president and his wife to sing with us since they were at stake conference.

oh but the best part about sunday was who came. so we were out tracting and it was hot and nobody was home and it was going great. then someone called out from behind us “hey, sister missionaries”. we got so excited, someone was alive on the street and they wanted to talk to us. of course we realized that they were probably members but still it does a heart good. so we went up and talked to him. it was a teenage boy from another ward but…here is the good part, he had a friend with him who lived on that street. so we stopped and chatted and i asked the friend if he had ever been to church and he said yes with his friend that was standing right there (ohh the sweet sound of member-missionary work, like music to our little ears) so i said “sweet, why stop at just once, you should come again this sunday” he wasnt 100% committed but he said maybe, so i said i would look for him and i would be expecting to see him and we shook on it (i like to assume people are more committed than they say they are). well i had pretty much forgotten about that until we were leaving the church on sunday and there he was. it made my day. it was great.

i hope all is going well with all y’all

love ya
sister ricker

how goes it?

its going pretty well here. it was 85 degrees yesterday…sighh…so nice. my canadian companion claimed to be melting but i saw no signs. it’ll only get hotter.

whats new? im all fired up. not that i wasnt before but now i really am. we had zone conference last week and that usually does the trick. we talked to everyone all week long and that always seals it. i love this work. we even found four new investigators last week. just to put that in perspective for all you who served in south america…thats a good week. and our goal is to hit it every week this transfer (and the rest of my mission of course).

one of our investigators called us up and said she would like to be baptized on june 13th. she is awesome, one day she is hanging out at work and some missionaries walked in and she thought “well i was going to talk to my lds friend about maybe learning more but there are missionaries right here…ill just talk to them” so she walked right up to them and said “i need to talk to you.” beautiful…and the best part is she lived in our area so we get to teach her. shes solid in her church attendance and she is committed. at every appointment she tells us about the peace that she has in her life now…and its only gonna get better . we talked to her about tithing and she said “well i kind of worry about it but i dont know why. i know Heavenly Father is just gonna give me more blessings” wa-la, thank you.

there are so many less-actives here and we are trying to find them all…itll take a while, plus we are putting forth some effort to find new people to teach and spend time walking around so we can talk to people we pass.

last night i shared a message with a less-active woman and her non-member husband. it was the one in 1nephi somewhere about it being impossible for Christ to forget
us, He has engraven us in the palms of His hands. anyways, i talked about how Christ and our Heavenly Father are pulling for us wanting so badly for us to make the right choices so that we can repent and make it back home. They love us SO MUCH!! we dont even know. it is His work and His glory to see each one of us succeed and return home. the Spirit was so strong, it felt so good, i love testifying of my Savior, my Heavenly Father, and Their love for each one of us. i was practically bouncing out of my seat, i wanted so much for them to feel what i was feeling and to follow Christ and to come to church. i was full (i know thats cliche but i was). it is so hard to explain how i feel sometimes.

love ya
sister ricker