Monday, January 25, 2016

OXNARNIA!!!!!!! 01/18/2016

Oh man. What a great week! Last tuesday we had Mission Leadership Counsel where they dropped the biggest news ever! No more transfer meeting. Apparently it's not something that the church authorizes, but many missions do it. So they came out and informed all of the mission presidents that it shouldn't be happening, and now it's not going to anymore! 

On saturday I got to go on exchanges to.... OXNARNIA!!!!!!! Oh man was it so great! I got to go with Hermana Pirir AND in my old area! Unfortunatly, Isidro who was baptized when I was there had just moved like 2 weeks ago, but I did get to see some other people. Meaghan Salas came out with us. She is a youth that would always go with us to teach people and I just adore her. 

We went to teach an investigator, Mireya, who the missionaries dropped a while ago (which means they stopped teaching her because she wasn't progressing). She was SO excited to see me! She said, "No one comes to visit me anymore!" She then said that she was just thinking about me last week and that her cousin's son joined our church and just left on a mission to Africa and that her cousin is starting to come to our church! How amazing!! The timing of Heavenly Father never ceases to amaze me. The hermanas are going to go back and teach her now! Maybe she will be ready this time. :) Either way, she made me promise that I would bring my family to meet her. She really wants to meet Keenan - she has a handicapped son and she gives pinatas to children with special needs. I actually saw that while I was there - a man that had ordered one for his handicapped daughter tried to pay her and you should have seen the battle of two stubborn hispanics! But of course, Mireya won and the man walked away crying from her generosity. Ah! I just love her. Anyway, long story short, she wants to meet Keenan. :) 

We also had a lesson that the Deleon's came with us to! Hno. Deleon is the ward mission leader in Oxnard. They are the ones that took Hna Brown and I to the temple. He didn't realize when I was there, and he got so excited when he saw me that he jumped backwards and did this cute little dance so that he wouldn't hug me. hahaha I love them too! I want to go back and serve in Oxnard so badly! 

But we are also doing well here in Santa Maria. I don't think I have ever been confronted with such a great problem of missionary work before, but we are finding it hard to have time to teach everyone that we need to! There are SO MANY investigators here that are making progress and could be baptized. One of them is named Rosario, and he is one of the most solid investigators I have ever taught. He studies the homework we give him so thoroughly, and he always comes with questions. He lets us know if he needs to change the appointment, he lets us know if he thinks something we told him was fishy...he is completely honest and genuinely and humbling searching for the truth.

We have another investigator, Marta, who is progressing really well as well! When the Hermanas starting teaching her, she would not read, had a really hard time understanding anything that they would read with her, and couldn't remember a lot. About two weeks ago when we taught her, she was only in 1 Nephi 4. We went back last week, and she was in 1 Nephi 18!!! She LOVES the Book of Mormon! She told us all of the stories that she had read about and explained how it applied to her own life. It is amazing how much the spirit can help people understand. And then yesterday she finally came to church! She loved everything except for the fact that the member who was sitting by her trying to fellowship her was eating a snack during sacrament meeting...she even turned to the member and told her that it was not an appropriate time for that. hahahaha awkward. 

but anyways, it's been a good week! I know this is Heavenly Father's work and I am so grateful to be a part of it! I looove my mission! 

And I loooove all of you too! Have a great week! 

<3 Hermana Trystan Ricks




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