La lucha es real 03/21/2016

So Hermana Eames and I wrote this song this week that goes like this: "Strugglin' *yeah yeah!* Strugglin' *yeah yeah!*"

We sing it every time something happens where we are just struggling with life. Like when we drive an hour and fifteen minutes to zone conference in Santa Barbara, only to pull into an empty parking lot and realize the text said, "Santa Maria Stake Center" which happens to be 5 minutes from our house. But the drive was beautiful! Right along the pacific ocean. :)

This week has been full of so many miracles again!! We are so blessed to be in this area. Here are two awesome stories:

Remember the Lopez family who are less actives? they have 5 boys under the age of 11 and they haven't been to church in about a year and a half...THEY CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY!!!! And Hna Lopez had also come to the relief society activity in the middle of the week!!! They even came to all three hours so the boys got to go to primary. I have never experienced a less active family coming back before - it was so exciting!! They are usually more stubborn than investigators!

Also, our investigator, Maira. SHE IS INCREDIBLE. Her and Raymond are getting married this Saturday and we are so excited! (we may or may not have spent the morning buying outfits for her wedding.:)) But we had such a great lesson with her! We had previously taught her the Word of Wisdom and when we came to teach her this week, before we even asked her how it was going she said, "So I've been following the WOW! This monday was kinda hard because it was cold and I was really tired, so I had the temptation to drink coffee, but then I said a prayer and I wasn't tempted anymore!" (We didn't even tell her to do that!) And we asked her if she feels like this is true and she said, "I think so because I feel different every day now like Christ is with me." and then we taught her about eternal marriage in the temple and she said, "Ohhh I like that better!" And she just kept saying, "Woooow." the whole lesson! We love her. I will just book my plane ticket for a year from now when they go through the temple. :) 

Okay I have like no time, but really fast! The mission is going to start focusing on Family History work, and we are suppose to work on it an hour a week. So if you have anything - let me know!

Also, go check out the website, followhim.mormon.org. There is a map of what happened each day of the week prior to Easter and Hna Eames and I have been studying according to what happened each day out of Jesus the Christ and the bible and it is SO AWESOME! I encourage you all to do the same! 

 

I love you all!! The church is true! Sorry I am being kicked off the computer soon! HAPPY EASTER! (Thank you SO MUCH for the package mom!!!)

Also, every time the elders talk to us they ask if we need anything and we tell them burritos. They finally made them after all transfer!! hahaha #1 zone leaders.

So many Miracles! 03/14/2016

Hello Family! How are you all? It has been super rainy and cold here the last few days..but it's probably warmer than Idaho!

Last tuesday we travelled down to Ventura for Mission Leadership Council and then Hna Eames had to visit a Chiropractor in Ventura so that took all day. We had fun though! Every other MLC, Sister Felix makes the most delicious breakfast ever, and we get to eat at the mission home before the meeting. It was fun to see everyone at MLC! It was the last time I will see Hna Griffes because she is going home at the end of this transfer. I lived with her my first transfer too, so it's super weird! She will be coming to school in Idaho like a week after too, so you'll all have to meet her. I learned a lot at the meeting about the spirit, and also about the importance of prayers. Prayers are such a simple thing, but they are so powerful! We can always look for ways to improve our prayers. Something Hna Eames and I have been talking about recently is how incredible it is that every day, we get to kneel down before a king and explain what we did to battle for him that day. 

Wednesday I went on exchanges with Hna Miller! I have never served around her before, but she is really cute. We had a really huge miracle together! We felt like we should go visit this lady we had met a few weeks earlier that had a little "Herbal Life" store, and we walked in and there was another lady named Elvia that we have now run into three times in different places of the city! She asked us about what happens to people that die, and then told us that her sun was killed while trying to cross the border when he was 19. We got to share a little bit of God's plan with her, and it was so amazing! I think Heavenly Father wants us to teach her.. 

Hna Miller also goes home at the end of the transfer, and she said she had asked her dad for some last mission advice and he said, "Make everyone you talk to know they are loved." I love that! So many people feel lonley or unappreciated or inadequate, and these are all lies that satan tries to deceive us with! When we truly know that we are children of a Heavenly Father who loves us, we are able to feel it and then spread that to others. We should always strive to make those around us feel loved! I think one of the greatest things I have learned recently is the importance of offering those around us the benefit of the doubt. Usually people do not mean to offend us. Often hurt feelings come from miscommunications or a lack of perspective, and we can avoid a lot of it by trying to put ourselves in each other's shoes. And then realize that the only person who really does understand is the Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Thursday we set another investigator with a baptismal date! His name is Samuel Cano. Please keep him in your prayers! He is so amazing. He has been learning from the missionaries for a long time, and he is reading in the Book of Mormon every day and trying to know if this is the truth. His baptismal date is April 9th!

And also keep Maira in your prayers! She is preparing to be baptized on April 1st. She is doing awesome. We got to teach  her about the Plan of Salvation this week, and she was so excited about that! We saw her twice after that and both times she referred to something she learned during the lesson. It is amazing to know about Heavenly Father's plan for us! We do have a purpose in this life. And we have so many things to help us along the way! Jesus Christ and his atonement being the biggest one. 

The area is doing well. We haven't had ward council this entire transfer - they keep cancelling it. But we still communicate pretty well with the branch president. We had a miracle yesterday! There is a less active familia  - la familia Lopez - and they haven't been to church in over a year! Last week our branch president asked if we could try to see if they would come meet with him on sunday morning. They said yes originally and then called and cancelled right before. So we reset it for the next week. They called again yesterday morning, but we just didn't answer that time because we didn't want them to be able to cancel! :) hehe. And then we walked into the church and they were sitting there on the couch with all 5 of their boys waiting to meet with the branch president. One of their boys even got sick with the flu that morning, and they still came! They weren't able to stay at church because of it, but we introduced them to the Primary President (who happens to be Tiffany Rigby!), and they said they would come the next week!

Sorry I can't think of any funny stories right now.. I know they happened! Most of them have to do with creepy latinos hittin on my companion. jajaja 

Love ya'll!! 

<3 Hermana Trystan Ricks 

Hermana Griffes

"Heart Attacking" our investigator, Marta's, door!

Our super healthy lunch with Hna's Soriano and Green

This is our friend Squirtle. He likes fingers!

Gotta Jam 03/07/2016

Hello family!! How is everyone?! This week was so amazing and filled with miracles again!

So I can't remember what all I told you about last week...hopefully I told you already about the member that texted us telling us that he had a less active friend who was getting married and his fiance wanted to learn more about the church? Well she accepted the baptismal date of April 1st! She is so amazing and so prepared to hear the gospel! Their names are Raymond and Maira. Pray for them! 

Also, President Felix has given us the goal of contacting 50 people new people a week in order to find the souls that are prepared for baptism. We have seen so many miracles! We found two families that are so cute. We had lessons with both of them yesterday, and the lessons were so incredible because they are so prepared! Unfortunately I don't remember their last names, so I'll have to tell you to pray for them next week! But there are so many people to talk to in Santa Maria. 

Here's a few of our experiences from trying to contact 50 people:

We ran into a lady yesterday, and when we started talking to her she said, "Oh! I think I watched a documentary on the Mormons the other day." We asked what it was about and realized it was Meet the Mormons! Woohoo! Go netflix. It is so awesome to meet people like that who have had an experience recently of being prepared to meet us!

On the contrary, a little later, we met this punk kid named Levi that was riding this super fancy pink bike. We asked him what he was up to, and he told us he was riding his sister's bike. He totally stole it... and then we tried to talk to him and he asked us to watch the bike for a second. After he came back and totally checked out my companion, I told him that we were missionaries that taught people about Jesus Christ. He quickly said, "Actually I gotta jam.." And then Hna Eames starts dancing and said, "Jam? Is that the lingo the kids are using these days??" hahaha so funny. 

Okay I am sorry this is so short, I have to get off now! I LOVE YOU ALL! The church is true!

<3 Hermana Ricks

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  

Hermana Green and I doing service with a HUGE box of pairs at the food bank!

This is my frustrated look as I'm perfecting my Jersey accent!

Hermana Frias! (don't worry - I have a nametag. It is just on my cardigan behind her shoulder..:))

And this is a blurry picture of me and Hna Eames in the coolest car wash eva. LOVE YALL!

Which Juan? EVERY JUAN! 02/22/2016

HOLA FAMILIA!! Como estan?!

We had such a great week full of so many miracles!

One miracle this week was that we went with the YSA elders to introduce them to another person we had met, and we forgot which door he lived in. So we started knocking the ones we thought it was, and in one of the apartments, a lady anwered that we had given a card to a couple days before. She invited us right in and told us we could teach her! THEN as soon as we left we saw Christina walking up the stairs with a bunch of groceries. (She is our investigator who was the other family who had let us right in when we knocked on the wrong door.) We asked how she was doing and she told us she was going through a really hard time. So we were able to help her take her groceries in and then help her make dinner. At the end, we asked if we could just say a prayer with them, and Hna Eames said it. After the prayer Christina said, "Ahh I just felt the biggest feeling of peace come over me when you prayed!" It most definitely was not a coincidence that the timing was so perfect for us to run into her right as she was walking passed the house we were in. God loves each of us! 

Another miracle was the next morning when we went to go see Christina again! The first was small, but so amazing to me. So that morning, I was studying and flipping through Preach My Gospel (The manual we use as missionaries) and I saw a section I have always just kind of skipped over named, "Teaching People without a Christian Background." At first I thought - no. I am not reading that because everyone here is Catholic and so it doesn't apply to spanish work! But I decided to read it anyways. Well, a few hours later, one of our appointments fell through, so we were walking on the street and passed this teenager that we started talking to. His name was Albert and he is SO SMART. Loves science and math and is interested in learning anything and everything. His grandparents were from mexico, but he grew up here, and doesn't have a Christian background! He doesn't know if there is a God, or the importance of Jesus Christ. But he told us that he loves to learn and see what other people think, and that he would let us come and teach him! How amazing is that?! Unfortunately he doesn't speak spanish, so we have to let the English elders teach him, but what a miracle. It taught me that Heavenly Father really is in charge of this work! He places people in our path every day that we need to meet. 

Then we went to go teach Christina, and we taught her and her kids about the atonement. We had never been able to actually teach her kids before, but this time they were all there. At the end, we all sang, "I Stand All Amazed" together, and Hna Eames asked the 13 year old daughter how she felt while we were singing. She started crying and said that she felt like Christ was there with us. Then everyone started crying... And then the 7 year old son said the cutest prayer in the world. "Heavenly Father, thank you for always being with me and my friends and for playing with us." SO CUTE. 

As far as other events of the week... we taught every-Juan in Santa Maria on wednesday, and each one went more and more down hill. There were three of them. The final Juan was this man that thought Hna Eames was super cute. hahah she always attracts the creepies. But don't worry, we got out of there! 

Well, I am about out of time, but I love you all! I am so grateful to be a missionary and to be gaining the perspective I am. I have so much faith in Heavenly Father's timing and will. I know that he has a perfect plan for each of us, and that even though sometimes it seems like nothing is working out - His plan is what will always bring us the most happiness. It is just our job to be patient and faithful in the little things, and everything will work out for us! 

Have a great week!

<3 Hermana Trystan Ricks 

Fanciest cinnamon roll shop in Pismo Beach!

Feliz Dia de Amor y Amistad! 02/15/2016

Hello Family!! I am so sorry I didn't send an email last week. I don't even remember what all I was going to write you but here are a few of the things I would have said:

WE GOT TO GO TO SALVADOR'S BAPTISM!!!! We both taught Salvador in Ventura! Maria had already been baptized while Hna Hurley was there and then I got to teach Salvador for a few weeks. We were able to go to witness their WEDDING and Salvador's baptism! It was such an incredible experience. 

Last transfer was so amazing! I really feel like I grew the most that I ever have on my mission. Hermana Hurley taught me so much! I was really sad to leave her, but I know her little trainee is so lucky to have her.

Fast forward to this week:

Hermana Eames is so awesome! She came into the area with all of these crazy awesome goals that she has for us to accomplish. It is so fun to work with her because we were together at the beginning of our missions and now we get to see the growth that both of us have had! And man it is amazing how much spanish you can learn in a year. haha both of us can actually talk to people now. woohoo!

Side note: Hermana Eames is telling me right now to tell you thank you for the cookies and ice cream card and everything in the package, and that she still has the sticker from dad's hotdog stand that you sent us a year ago, and she still wants to go eat at it when she gets home. :) I second that! Thank you so much for the package!!! And I am excited to eat some hotdogs with you all. hahah

So last night we decided to text everyone in our phone Happy Valentine's Day, and we got like 5 lessons set up with random people out of it! And like a billion more pending that haven't answered yet... One of the people called us right after and told us thank you. After talking to him for a few minutes we realized that he is someone that Hermana Eames and I get a card to a few days ago and Hna Hurley and I had also met him like 5 weeks ago (Hna Hurley - it was the man that was standing outside of the Orozco's apartment holding the Virgin Maria picture). Anyways, apparently he is a former investigator that really wants to come to our addiction recovery class! Heavenly Father must really be telling us to teach this man. 

Also, do you remember that miracle a few weeks ago about the family that just let us into their house and let us teach them? Well we stopped by his house like 20 minutes before the addiction recovery started and asked him if he would come. And then he ended up coming!! He was so nervous and did not want to ... but he ended up l.o.v.i.n.g. i.t. And his wife was super excited too! Pray for them!

We were able to listen to this amazing area broadcast yesterday and I learned that the church is more than just a social club! It is a safe refuge for people to go to that will protect them from the attacks of the world. We can't afford to just live comfortably in the gospel picking and choosing the things we will apply and the things that we won't. The prophets give us guidance for a reason! If anything in the church is hard to accept, all of it can be answered through having a testimony that Joseph Smith really saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. And that testimony can be obtained from reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. If all of that is true, then we really do have living prophets today! And they will guide us through these hard times. I am so grateful to be a missionary. I have felt Heavenly Father's love for me so much throughout my mission and I am so honored to be his representative. I know he loves us!

I am out of time, but I hope you all have a wonderful week and a happy valentine's day! I love you!

<3 Hermana Trystan Ricks

my companion barricaded me inside my bathroom in retaliation of me putting a nasty banana in her bed...

"Those elders are gonna be jealous of your oral hygiene" - Doctor Dunn 02/01/2016

Okay I am going to start off with a warning that I just had lazer gum removal surgery...so this email might struggle. No worries mom! I've just had problems my whole mission with the one side of my mouth where the wisdom tooth was really impacted, and I finally got it taken care of! I now have to go back to the wisdom teeth diet for a few days..gross. I hate not being able to eat normal people food! But I am so grateful I was able to do it here. Doctor Dunn in Santa Barbara did it - so kind of them! They have a son on a misson as well and were so nice to us. He was also really impressed with my oral hygiene and told me that the elders would all be jealous. hahaha I was flattered. 

So we saw a huge miracle this last week! We had recived a referral from a member at the beginning of the transfer, and every time we went we could never find her! But she lives in an apartment complex that is FULL of people and so every time we went we met lots of new people. One lady we met set up a return appointment with us, but we couldn't remember exactly what door she lived it. When the one we thought was her's didn't answer, we decided to try the other. Well, it wasn't her's., but the family that answered literally opened the door, told us to come sit down, asked if we wanted a water or a soda, and then poured their hearts out to us about their desire to repent and have unity and love and God in their family. The parents were both in tears and just hugging eachother as the dad told us how he wanted to change and knew that God had placed us in his path. He had prayed the night before for help. They didn't end up being there for the return appointment that we set because they were sick or something, but then they called us later apologizing and begging us to come back. I have never met such a prepared family in my mission. Pray for the Orozco family! (Not to be confused with our other incredible investigator Rosario Orozco - pray for him too though!)

Hermana Hurley is doing wonderful. I love her so much. I was reflecting last night on all of the incredible things that I have learned from being her companion. I really feel like she has helped prepare me to make the most out of the rest of my mission. I have learned so much from her example! Plus she cracks me up like crazy. hahah such a weirdo. 

I have learned during my studies this week that patience is required with our faith in order to lead to hope. Often times we might have faith, but then if things don't turn out the way we thought, we lose hope, and also lose faith, because we aren't patient! But Heavenly Father has a plan for us! If he has given us a prompting - we need to follow it and then be patient to understand why! But he loves us so much. Patience is such a needed attribute in order to have hope. 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

<3 Hermana Trystan Ricks