Sister Ricker

so i just wrote this email but the email kicked me off before i was done and im not gonna retype it. sorry, just imagine something really inspiring and amazing and probably a little awesome….dont worry i send something next week but i really dont have time or the desire to redo this weeks email.

oh the baptism i mentioned last week did take place, amazing.

the new investigator i mentioned last week (the young father), we saw him twice since then and we have another appointment tonight, he is so sincere and he really wants to learn. he wants his 9 yr old daughter at all the lessons so we are going to teach her as well. pretty cool huh!

hmmm…those are the highlights

love ya
sister ricker

how goes it? hmmm…its going pretty well here. the Lord has blessed us with several new people to teach. we have a baptism on saturday, our ten and eight yr old investigators that i have been writing about for like three months. yeah!!!! they are awesome and their mom continues to grow right along with them. she has been such a strength for her kids.

lets see last week i told y’all about the amazing tracting experiences. one of the guys we found has a cute little family, a 9yr old, 4yr old, 3 yr old, and 4 wk old. anyways we went back and taught him and he is amazing. first of all we were a few minutes late and he called…he called, just to make sure we were still coming. that is a huge sign that he is actually interested. then we come in and he has us sit down at the table with his 9yr old little girl. we teach most of the restoration, it is going great, the Spirit is strong, he and his daughter are following along and marking stuff in their book of mormons. practically perfect. then he says “you know, i have been meeting with people from a variety of religions and nobody has been able to answer two questions that i have.” well, that peeked our little sister missionary interests and we offered to give it a try. question #1 “why am i here?” seriously! seriously! i looked over at sister bowcutt and grinned. this man is perfect. we tried to contain our enthusiasm as to not scare him and we proceeded to answer. just when we thought the Spirit was at its peak, it spiked. that would have been the perfect time to leave. but there was still one more question. question #2 “where am i going?” seriously!! and up the Spirit went again. im not gonna lie this was probably one of the coolest experiences of my mission. i cant even imagine not having the answers to these two questions. im so grateful to have been blessed with the knowledge of the plan of salvation and im so grateful to be blessed with the opportunity to share that plan with someone who has been searching for a long time.

he really wants to know the truth. what a cool guy. he said that he wants to know for himself and for his family. oh here is another cool thing. we had left him with a book of mormon when we met him and we asked him if he had read what we assigned him and he said that he did and he just kept going. i know how cool is that! he said “yeah and then i would just open it up and say, what do you have to tell me today”. wow! the Lord has definitely been preparing this man to hear the gospel.

i love this gospel of peace and joy and happiness. ahhh!!! what a blessing it is to be able to bring this light in to someones life. everyday i am more and more grateful to have been blessed with the knowledge of my Savior Jesus Christ, My loving Heavenly Father, and the perfect plan that has been prepared for me to be able to find the most happiness in this life and to be able to live with my family forever…forever! i dont know what exactly Heavenly Father means by eternal peace and rest but i know it must be good and i know it is attainable for all of us if we just choose to believe and act. okay im gonna stop cause y’all know i can ramble.

sister ricker

Hey,

so here i am still in kennewick edison ward. i really thought i would be leaving this transfer but i guess the Lord has other plans for me. im kind of excited. i have been able to see several of our investigators progress toward baptism and i thought my work was done here but i guess not. we are working really hard to find more people to teach and we have been extremely blessed. im so excited for this transfer. im excited to see what the Lord has in store for me. im not gonna lie at first i was a little disappointed, i wasnt sure if this area could keep me interested for another six weeks, but i did some talking with the Lord and He answered big and now im honestly excited to get at least one more transfer in this area.

so, for the last few weeks i have really been hitting my knees asking for guidance and direction to find those people who i know the Lord has prepared for us to teach. those people who are just waiting to accept the gospel. well, one day last week we were planning on going tracting so i started in my morning prayers and kept going throughout the day. i prayed for the Lord’s help in finding someone new to teach while we were tracting. someone who is ready. so we get like four houses in and wha-la! a young guy answered, we said “we’re just going around today talking about the book of mormon” and he welcomed us right in. Heavenly Father is so amazing! we were a bit surprised, not exactly the most common reception. we came in and taught him a little about the book of mormon, testified, and rescheduled a return appointment. and we went back and he was just waiting to learn, so we taught.

oh dont worry the Lord didnt stop there. just in case we still werent sure there was more work to do here, He did it again. we went tracting twice yesterday, once in the mid-morning and once in the evening. we were determined to find more people just waiting for the gospel. the gospel of peace and happiness. anyways we start out the morning at an apartment complex. we had driven by it a week or two ago and said “hey why dont we know anyone in there? we should.”
so yesterday we picked a random building in the complex and started knocking. not many doors in, and wha-la! we said “hi we’re missionaries” and he welcomed us right in. we talked, he was eager, and we scheduled and return appointment. it was obvious that he had been prepared and was just waiting for the gospel for himself and his cute little family.

i am so grateful for the opportunity to be serving the Lord. i am continually humbled by the miracles He performs in my life and in the lives of those i come in contact with. this gospel that we are out here proclaiming is good stuff!!! seriously i wish everyone really knew what we were offering. i cant even begin to describe the peace and comfort that it has brought in to my own life. i could go on but i better not im about out of time.

thanks,

sister sarah ricker

hmmm….what to say.
it snowed again, was super cold, then today we woke up and the snow was gone and it is in like the 40s. you never know what to expect. hmm kind of like missionary work. chuckle chuckle (just a little mission humor fo y’all) i know it was lame but what can i say.

we went to the temple this morning. it was amazing just as to be expected. what happened this week? oh last night we taught our young investigators (the 10 and 8 yr )about temples and family history work and their mom was crying. she felt the Spirit so strongly. she is awesome. their baptism is on the 24th. so exciting.

i know this is kind of a pathetic email but i dont have much time. we are supposed to meet the rest of our zone to go bowling for zone p-day, plus we went to the temple this morning so we are kind of crammed for time. sorry

i am so grateful to be out here and the longer i am on my mission (i know i say it as if i have been out here forever, but anyways) the more i am grateful to have been born in the gospel. i always knew how much i had been blessed but what i knew was just the surface. i have been so blessed and i dont know if i will really know how much untill i stand before my Father in heaven. WOW!! He has been so good to me. i love this gospel and i love this church.

really quick, our young investigators’ mother was telling us how she regretted the fact that she stopped going to church when she was in high school (she joined on her own in elementary and then her family moved and she lost contact cause she had no support system). just a little bio for y’all. anyways she said “my life would have been so different” “life is really good now, i feel so good, i know this is right” that just hit me. such a simple testimony but so powerful. she recognizes the difference in her life that the gospel has made in just a few months. i am so grateful to have never had to be without the influence of the gospel in my home and in my life. i could go on but i better not the other sisters are waiting

love
sister ricker