California Ventura Mission: HAPPY LEAP DAY!!! 02/29/2016

HAPPY LEAP DAY!! I don't even really know how to celebrate it... but we are going to go to Pismo Beach today with the other Hermanas in our district, so I guess that counts!

I got to go on two exchanges this week with some amazing Hermanas. The first one was with Hermana Green. She is one of the hermanas in my district - and we got to go watch the testaments and eat pizza with some inactive teenage sisters. That was really fun! We also did service at a food bank.

My second exchange was with Hermana Frias. She is from Michoagan, Mexico, and oh man we had so much fun. We were in Lompoc, so I got to go back there again! And we talked in spanish all day long and she taught me lots of things about there culture - games that they play as kids and things that they say. She also taught me that people that are from Mexico City (Distrito Federal) talk with a different accent. It basically sounds like a valley girl accent would here.. so she said if I say, "Soy del D.F." with that kind of an accent. I tried it and it worked..hahaha! So funny.

We are working hard here in Santa Maria. We had a really cool miracle this week. One day this week we were really focusing on making the goals that we had set for that day. Every night during weekly planning we set goals of how many lessons we want to have with members present at the lesson, with just investigators, and with less actives or recent converts. It isn't something I have completely focused on - it's usually more of a, "oh hey look, we acutally met our goal today!" kind of a thing. So usually the numbers don't really mean anything. But we decided to focus on it and show Heavenly Father that we really wanted to make our goals, and as we did everything in our power and showed faith, we saw so many miracles! First, we went to go visit a member, and we ended up finding out that a lady lives with her who isn't a member of our church and she hasn't ever been taught by missionaries before! We asked the members if she would be willing and they said we could ask her. So we did, and she said she would love to learn! We taught her about the Restoration, and she wants us to teach her now. Then right at the end of the day, we ended up finding our third member to come with us who was a less active. We saw him standing outside of his car - he had just pulled up from work. He is a very shy man, and if he has too long to think about things, he will talk himself out of it. But if you ask him on the spot to do things, he always says yes. So we pulled up and asked him if he would want to come to lesson with us right then. He said yes and followed us there, and shared the most powerful testimony!

Other miracle - we got a text from this member that said something about how he had a friend who was a less-active member of the church who is engaged to a girl that wants to learn about the gospel. He invited us over to dinner to meet them, and they came to church this sunday and we are now going to teach her! Waptism? I think yes. (that means wedding baptism for all of you who are wondering.)

OTHER miracle - we got another random call from a lady in Salt Lake who is a member of the church and she was calling to tell us that her two brothers here in Santa Maria want to be taught the gospel! They were suppose to come to church, but ended up not being able to. But holy miracles!!!

Also, random story. Hna Eames and I had all of our Hermanas send in a miracle report to us and we were trying to record a voicemail to send out to everyone. It was gonna be the fanciest voicemail ever. We practiced all these different accents for people that could announce each miracle. Rhonda from New Jersey would announce one, Humphrey from england was next, then it was Davy from Australia, then Announcer Bob, and the Grandpa Bucky! The voicemail didn't work, but we sure had fun prepping for it. In order to get my New Jersey accent down I had to practice saying, "Hotdogs water, and oranges." Then that changed to, "Hotdog, hotdog, hot diggity dog" in a Jersey accent. You should try it sometime, it's fun.

Well, I love you all! I know that Heavenly Father is a God of miracles, and he has a perfect plan for each of us. Sometimes the answers to our prayers are not what we expect, but they are what we need. I know that he loves each of us, and that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for us so that we can live again. I know that through him we have more potential than any of us can see. As we realize the divinity in each one of us as children of God, we are then able to see it in other people. Don't ever question how much you are worth!

Love, Hermana Trystan Ricks