It has been a pretty good week!! We work with the ward a lot and there are a ton of times where we will be helping out at the church and members will come up to us and ask us advice on how to bring up the church in a normal way without feeling weird about it and a lot of them asked for Book of Mormon's to give to them! The members here are so great! Whenever they ask how I like it here I get to tell them I love it because the way that there ward is (loving, kind, caring, Christlike) just like my ward at home! And they love that answer! It has been a huge blessing for me to be here in this ward and the work is really progressing here because of all the hard work between the members and the missionaries!
Also, I have heard of so many people at home getting their mission calls and I am so excited!! Missionary work is super fun. I have been able to share my adventures of why I came on a mission lots of times and a young man in the ward here was planning on going to college instead of a mission and I shared my story and he also had heard Elder Thacker's story and he started his papers this last week and I am so excited for him and for all of the soon ti be missionaries! You are all going to be such great missionaries! The awesome thing is, we are all missionaries! It is all of our responsibilities to gather scattered Israel and be missionaries! 3 Nephi 5:13 says, 'Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the son of God. I have been called of Him to declare His word among His people, that they might have everlasting life.' That is directed to ALL of us! Exchange the I in the scripture to your name. Sometimes we think it is super hard to be a disciple of Christ, but it is actually very simple! By just living the principles of the gospel and being a light of Christ you are being a disciple! If someone asks what you are did over the weekend and you went to the temple, TELL THEM!!! Tell them how you felt while you were there! It doesn't have to be long, something like 'I had the opportunity to go to the temple and I felt so strongly the love that God has for me and all of His children. It is so peaceful even just to be on temple grounds because of the Spirit that is there at the temple!' It brings great joy when we are able to share simple things like that to everyone and who knows! Maybe they start asking more questions and are interested in what you say and then you could have them start taking missionary discussions!
I talked about Eric last week and he is still an awesome guy!!! I always feel the spirit so strongly when I taught him. He is from Arizona and he moved here a couple months ago. This last week he called us one day and asked if we could come up right away. He lives about 45 minutes from where we live but we sayed of course and he let us know that he had to go back to Arizona. He left on Thursday and I am sad that he is gone but I think that he felt he needed to go back because he wants to change his life and needs to fix some things there before he can progress! The Spirit has been working on him and he has grown so much while I've been here and I know the spirit is going to continue working on him!
I also had the privilege to have a baptism of Michael this last Saturday! He was going to get baptized about 3 years ago and before he got baptized he just didn't feel like it was right, but we started teaching him again and he felt really good about it and knows that this is the true church and got baptized this last Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! There was also a little boy in the ward who turned 8 and got baptized the same day as well! It was so amazing! I could really just see the light coming from Michael and it amazes me how the Gospel of Jesus Christ changes people and how Christ puts His light in each and every one of us if that's what we desire and are working and trying to be like him. I am so glad I was able to witness and be apart of that!
We got to go help the youth for their mutual this last week and we helped them do a service project scavenger hunt! So they had a paper that had a whole list of projects that we could do and we went around the neighborhood around the street knocking doors and trying to give service and it was really fun to be with the young men and get to know them better and serve others!! The ward and youth here is great!
Also, real quick!!! There is this super cool thing happening in my mission on May 17th for the Spanish speakers here in Wisconsin and also the Spanish missionaries!! There is going to be an apostle and 4 other general authorities coming and speaking to us all in Spanish!!! After they speak everybody that comes gets to greet them and shake their hands so I am really looking forward to that. They haven't announced who all of the speakers and apostles are going to be but all the missionaries think its going to be either D. Todd Christoffersen or Ulisses Soares from the Quorum of the 12 because they both speak Spanish! So it will be excited to see who's hand i get to shake which is awesome! I'm looking forward to it:)
It's Analee's birthday this week on the 2nd of May!!! She is going to be 12! Only one more year until she is a TEENager! Happy Birthday Analee!! I love you❤ (Your letter might be un poco late getting to you!)
Thank you all for your love, support and prayers!! I hope you all have an amazing week! Keep me updated on all of your adventures at home as well! Love you all.
DO GOOD, BE GOOD
Love,
Elder Ricks
Making some deep fried cheese curds - Go Wisconsin, yay
Michael's bautismo
New Buck's gear
A cool dessert from a member that fed us!
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