Busy busy- Week 16

Hey family and friends!!! I hope you are all having a great week! Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts and support! It radiates and I can feel so many blessings from you all!

I wanna give a huge shout out to all the dads out there!! Especially to my dad. Sorry I didn't get you a card for Father's day but I promise I have an awesome birthday card for you haha! My dad has always been there for me through the good and the bad and he is definitely one of my biggest role models and I strive everyday to try to make him proud and to be more like him! Thank you for all that you do for me dad:) I love you.

As for missionary work!! We are having a hard time getting everything done! It seems like we never have enough time for anything and are always so busy. We were blessed to have found 5 new people last week and due to that we have been running around everywhere for that and also been working with the youth and family of the ward and also planning for an awesome ward/community talent show. Elder Thacker is a super good dancer and so he has been teaching me and the youth of the ward how to break dance and we will be performing for the talent show! I will keep you all updated on that.

We went on a couple exchanges this week and I love exchanges! I get to meet new Elders and see how they do missionary work and it is so fun because I get to see other missionary work other than my trainers work haha. So I learn a lot from the other missionaries which is super cool! On one of the exchanges, I went with the Hmong Elders that are here in my zone and it was super fun. In the Hmong culture, Americans get like new names because our names don't make sense in their language, so I went to this guys house that gives names and he gave me the name of... Muaj Hmoo. Which means that I have lots of blessings haha. So that was definitely a highlight!!!

We are starting to get way more bold with Kriss because she knows the right things, she has been taught for almost a year, we just need to get her out of her shell and coming to church so she can see how much this gospel really can change her life through the love Jesus Christ has for us. I am hoping to be able to put her on baptismal date before the end of this transfer or hopefully the end of next transfer!

Missionary life is so weird but so awesome. Joseph Smith said "After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel" and honestly there is no work greater than sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Missionaries get to teach and serve others and help bring the fullness of the gospel and the ability for them to use the Atonement of Jesus Christ! How awesome is that? :)

Yesterday was pretty fun haha. I went on splits with some older guy in my ward. His name is Brother Biel. We have a couple different groups in our ward that meet every 3rd Sunday of the month and this guy was getting pretty frustrated that the missionaries don't go visit the people down there in Neillsville. And my awesome companion didn't really want to so I suggested that we go on splits so that he can take care of the ward up here and I can make Brother Biel happy. It was so awesome! I even got to give a talk. We met at a school for this group haha and only like 12 people showed up but they loved having a missionary there haha! This ward is awesome! So I am glad to have had that opportunity haha!

Oh also last week during P-Day I was able to go tour a baby calf(cow) farm and the guy giving us a tour only spoke Spanish haha! It was awesome and he even invited us to dinner to eat some cow with him so hopefully we could start teaching him sometime!!

As missionaries of the Wisconsin Milwaukee mission, we get to memorize this sweet scripture in D&C and recite it every day for companionship study. The scripture is... D&C 4. I challenge you all to read it and apply it to your lives:)

Also I just want to tell my little brother Carson, Elder Ricks, how proud of him I am. He will be leaving for the Mexico City MTC tomorrow and I am so proud to be able to call him my brother! He might be younger than me but I look up to him so much and am so happy for the decisions he is making in his life and lining his will up with our Saviors will. Never forget that through our faith in Jesus Christ, we can see miracles in our own lives, and also in others. 

No hay otra lugar que el Señor le necesita en este momento y El te ha llama en este momento a la ciudad de México por un razón. Testifico que este obra is la obra del Señor y yo se que el Evangelio de Jesucristo is verdadero. Gracias por su ejemplo para yo Elder Carson Ricks. Te amo.

Thanks again for all of the prayers an love from you all!! Have a great week this next week:) 

Love, 

Elder Ricks