Hola familia y amigos!- Week 4

Hola!!! Como fue su semanas????

I hope everyone has had as good of a week as I have! Thank you all so much for all your prayers and thoughts:) I really appreciate everyone and pray for all of you as well! 

This week has been incredible. I feel like I am improving a lot in Spanish and the Spirit here is incredible! This last week we were able to teach REAL people outside of the CCM! There was also an investigator that came! Me and my companion were the only companionship that wasn't able to teach him but we were able to talk to him for a minute! His name is Victor! He is from Mexico City and is 23! He seemed really smart and he was brought to be taught by his friend Frenanda and that is one of the people we taught! She is a return missionary and she was super smart! We talked about the importance of faith in Jesus Christ! Then we face time taught another member and it was a super coold experience! After we had the opportunity to face time and teach another member! It was super weird but I still felt the spirit during the lesson. Hermano Martinez (one of my teachers) walked in in the middle of that lesson because he wanted me and my companion to teach the real interested person that was there because he said he can always feel the spirit with our lessons and say that our Spanish is okay haha! But the facetime lesson was awesome. The guy we taught actually has an aunt and cousin that live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin so I got her name and he asked me to find her when I get to Wisconsin!! The lessons went really well and I think TRC really helped me be confident in Spanish and since then I feel like I've improved a lot! Teaching the gospel to people is so amazing and I can't wait to be able to change people's lives and bring them the joy that comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

This week for Tuesday devotional we had the opportunity to listen to President Ronald A. Rasband and he talked about the Rome temple and his experience there! I am so grateful for temples and for everything they allow us to do! I was able to usher for that event and it was super fun to shake everyones hands as they came in and see all the new missionaries faces and their excitement! Missionary work is amazing and I love to see so many yound men and yound women who are so happy to learn and serve our Lord and Savior! 

Yo quiero testifico sobre el amor nuestros Padre Celestial y Jesucristo teinen para todos nosotros. Yo se que Jesucristo es nuestro hermano y nos ama lo suficiente como pars sacraficarse para todos nuestro pecados. Estoy agradecido por el Evangelio de Jesucristo y para la alegria y la paz nos da. Los amo a todos y estoy agradecido para todos su oraciones y pensamientos. Yo se que el Evangelio de Jesucristo es verdadero. 

I also love hearing about all of your weeks and days so if any of you have time feel free to email me anytime!! 

Thank you again for all of your prayers and thoughts! I love you all!

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Love, 

Elder Ricks

Hey Everyone- Week 3

Hola!!

Its been yet another good week here at the CCM! Lots of hard work, language study, gospel study, fun times, and so much more! I'm so thankful that i get to be here for 6 semanas! I definitely would not be ready to go serve the people in Wisconsin with the Spanish I know! I'm learning a lot but I think I need as much time here as I can get! I can't wait to get out though! 

I've had a lot of questions about what I eat so... The food is like really good but I don't eat that much because the food is like not that good. It's not good enough for seconds usually haha. Some of the best things that I've had is pizza, hamburgers, chicken strips, chicken patties, and potatoes! And they always have a different kind of juice that I never try because I don't want to not like it:) 

This week for our service project we got to go to the comedor and I thought we were going to have to clean dishes but we got to do something way better! We got to make the food that we were having on Monday! We had burritos. It was all super good!!! Except that they put peas inside of it. I think they put peas in everything so I always dig them out of the food no matter how hard it is. But the main chef, his name is Esteban and he is such a cool dude! He always stands outside before all the meals and greets us and always gives me a hug! He's so nice! Anyway, after our service project he made us cheese quesadillas and it wasn't like my favorite thing ever but my whole district loved them and he's so nice! 

I just love it here. All of the classes are great and I learn so much about Spanish and how to be a missionary and all the fun stuff! All the teachers are seriously so smart haha! And most of them are return missionaries and you can just tell that they had such a good time on their missions and were good missionaries and I really hope that I am like that at the end of mine! 

Here on the mission it's so easy to see the Lord's hand in my life but I know that he helps everyone. I started a journal at the beginning of the year and I always wrote down one way the Lord has blessed my life and here it's my whole journal haha it's been so fun to see and recognize. And I think that as we recognize Him in our life and thank Him for all He does He is willing to give us even more. 

I know the church is true! Thank you for all of your prayers and support:) I love you all!

DO GOOD BE GOOD

Love,

Elder Ricks

One last thing I forgot about!! One day we were all walking to dinner and we looked up and there was a ton of smoke coming from the hill. Im going to attach a picture but the picture doesnt look as bad as it was. And there was actually 2 fires! One was this picture and there was another one farther down the mountain. But it seems like there is always a new fire at least 1 time every week!

Hola Vosotros (Hey y'all)- Week 2

Hey everyone!!

It's Elder Ricks! I hope that you all haven't forgotten about me! I definitely haven't forgotten about you. Thank you all for the prayers and support you all have given me! I couldn't do it without the love and support from everyone!!

Here at the CCM we get to go to the Mexico City Temple twice!! I got to go last week and we also had the opportunity to go this week again! So I am sad that I don't get to go again but it was all super awesome! They have a super cool shop that had some cool ties and that is like the only way that I can be different than everyone so.... I had to get some haha! But I love the temple! It is always so amazing there and I can always feel the spirit so strong!

This week one of my good friends who I played soccer with for a long time, Elder Brodie Hansen, arrived at the CCM! It was so fun to see him here! We are already planning to play a game with all the Latinos here with a couple other people who used to play soccer too. There is also 3 or 4 other missionaries here that I know from High School! It's kind of crazy how small of a world it really is. At the temple today I told some of the employees from the shop that I was from Idaho and she said 'Ohhh I love papas' haha! And I say 'Si!! Mucho Papas en Idaho haha'! Everybody knows that Idaho is the potato state for some reason. But that's okay and I'm glad that that is my home! We are all so awesome haha.

This week I'm sure that you all had daylight savings haha! Well, I wasn't supposed to because I am in Mexico and they don't believe in daylight savings haha! But my companion, Elder Barnes, had his phone set up to the United States Time Zone and sure enough his phone had changed when yours did haha! He got up and started getting ready and I was just waiting for him to realize that Mexico doesn't do daylight savings but he never did... So he woke up at 5:30 and I let him get ready until about 5:50 and then told him that he should go back to bed for a while haha! Good days haha!

This last week we got another 2 Districts in our Zone which is super awesome because we barely had anyone in our zone haha! One of the Districts we got was from Haiti and they all speak like Creol (I think), French, a little Spanish, and a tiny bit of English. Their teachers that they brought with them to teach are incredible. They can both speak like 7 languages haha! That's craazy. I can barely even speak a little bit of Spanish haha! But they are also all so amazing because you can just tell how much they love the Lord and want to be like Him and it is so humbling. The second day they were here we got to play soccer with them and that was tons of fun!! 

Spanish has been super difficult after the first week haha! Putting sentences together is so hard because they aren't in the same order as we have our sentences in English haha.. But it's so fun to learn and we are all trying to get better! One day we played a game where you put 5 stickers and if you speak English you have to take a sticker off and if you got all your stickers taken off than you lose haha.. I bet that you can all guess what happened! I didn't get one sticker taken off haha!! Not because I'm good at Spanish, but because I just didn't talk because I wanted to have the most stickers at the end haha! But I am getting better and it's all good! My goal this week is to try to not translate things in my head and try to think of everything in Spanish!

Everything just seems to always be perfect here at the CCM haha! 

One other thing haha! One of my teachers here (He's like the coolest guy ever) told us that he is going to school right after we leave! And it turns out that he is going to go to BYUI! And I just looked at my last email and I said it there too haha, but to add onto the story, I told him that my parents and family would be happy to have him over for dinner and so when he goes there he is going to plan on getting fed and stuff from my family haha!

Oh and also.. I check the weather in Milwaukee anddd it is way cold there haha! It is normally under 15 degrees haha! But the last time I checked it was 32 degrees finally! So yeah I'm excited for that!

I am so thankful for all of your prayers for me and for all of your support! I love you all so much! 

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Love,

Elder Ricks

Mexico City CCM- Week 1

Hello everyone!!!!

This week has been such an amazing week. When I got here all I could think was why did I decide to come haha! Mexico is crazy. It was a lot more mild in Mexico City than it was in Tijuana! There was actually the white lines that divided the cars so it wasn't just anybody can go anywere but it was pretty similar I guess haha! The first night I got here as I was looking out of the CCM I just thought that the CCM is just like the tree of life, the iron rod, and the large and spacious building. The CCM was so peaceful and loving and I could only hear horns honking and sirens and just chaos outside of it and I'm so grateful for the gospel in my life.

I wake up and go to Spanish classes basically all day which is hard but really fun and rewarding!! I have already felt the gift of tongues in my life this first week. I have started to only say my morning and nightly prayers in Spanish and I think that is really helping too. It's never really the same every day but most the time it is mostly just spanish and some gospel study in the morning and some gospel study. And then we have lunch and the food isn't like horrible!! It definitely isn't like my moms cooking!!! I miss all the food that she cooks haha! Then we normally have about an hour of gym time and we play a lot of ping pong and sand volleyball. (I am good at that and I love it haha) I met this guy from Florida and he plays sand volleyball at home and we were destroying everybody by ourselves so bad that we had to switch the teams so everybody else was having fun too haha. Then we have more language study and I feel so blessed with the teachers that I have because they are so awesome!!! One of them is even going to be going to Idaho to attend BYUI in April so I was excited for that. Then we have dinner and either have a devotional or go back to language class.

Two of the hermanas in my district went to BYUI at the same time as me haha!! It has been really fun to get to know everybody in my district. We have become super good friends! We are planning a trip to Hawaii when we get back because one of the Elders is from Hawaii! I am convinced that I have the best district. Everybody is always so happy and loving and caring for everyone in our district!!!

There has only been 2 choir practices but that is okay because learning the language is actually fun enough that I don't get too bored haha. Probably the only thing bad that has happened to me is when I got off the plane I could smell my favorite cologne like really strongly after I got my luggage and then I got back to mi casa at the CCM and it turns out that is was completely shattered in my suitcase haha!! But yeah!!! Everything else is so great!!

Thank you everyone for all of your prayers and love!! I couldn't do it without all of your help and support!! Also I hope that I got everyone in the email haha. I will send pictures later!!

I love you all

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Love,

Elder Ricks

The guy in the middle of the last picture is Maestro and he is one of the coolest guys! He's so nice and when we went to the temple today we ran into him and so that was awesome! The temple today was ALL in spanish and I'm still not too great so I had to wear the headphones but the end part was all in spanish... it was pretty rough but it was so amazing and I felt the spirit so strong!

Elder Barnes

First FaceTime Home!

Mexico City

I have arrived to the Mexico MTC!!!!!!! Mexico is crazy haha. The city is wild and its crazy to think that Carson is coming here haha!! But I am safe. It took like 4 hours to get to the MTC after we landed. 

My Branch is 10 and my District is B. My P Day is on Wednesday but I am not writing tomorrow! 

Thank you for all of your support and love. It's been good so far. I am still nervous haha. My suit pocket is sewed together so I cant put my tag in it haha! Anyway. I love you! They only give me 5 minutes for the email right now. I'll talk to you next week!!! I love you! Tell the family hola for me por favor. Te amo haha. I'm already good at this spanish thing huh!