Soy un misionero- Week 21

o see how much the Lord has blessed me with learning Spanish. 

Also our AC broke soooo it has been suuuper hot haha! On the days it has been broken the weather app said that it felt like 105 degrees haha! Like dang, it was super hot outside and then we came inside and it was like crazy hot, I sat down and just started sweating! One of the nights it was so hot we called the Sister that is over our apartments and she told us to go buy ice cream... So we did! It was super fun haha! Missions are a super cool experience! 

I found a super cool thought the other day and thought I would share it!

"EVERY member needs to understand this!

A lady went to the Bishop and said, "I won't be attending church anymore."

He said, "May I ask why?"

She said, " I see people on their cell phones texting and typing during the sacrament and other meetings. Some are gossiping, some just aren't living right, some are sleeping, some are staring at me! I never get home taught and never hold the 'best callings' there are just too many hypocrites."

The bishop was silent. Then he said, "Can I ask you to do something for me before you make your final decision?"

She said, "Sure, whats that?"

He said, "Take a spoon full of water and walk around the church two times and don't let any water fall on the floor. Can you do that?" She said, "Yes, I can do that!" She went and got a spoon full of water and walked around the church two times. She came back and proudly said, "It's done."

The bishop asked her, "Did you see anybody on their phone?; Did you see anyone gossiping?; Was anybody living wrong?; Did you see anyone sleeping?" She said, "I didn't see anything because I was so focused on this spoon, so the water didn't spill out."

He told her, "When you come to church, you should just focus on the Savior so that you don't fall. That's why Jesus said, "Come follow me, He did not say follow Mormons."

Don't let your relationship with God be determined by how others relate to God. Let it be determined by how focused you are with God."

~Anonymous

I feel like this should be how we are in every aspect of our lives! As we focus on the Savior more in our lives all of the distractions and things that might seem big and a problem in our lives will be faded and less of a problem. We always need to be so focused on the Savior! As we do this, we look at others as Jesus Christ would. We becoming more loving, patient, caring, and a better person! I love Jesus Christ and the example He has set for us. I know that as we strive to be like Him and work our hardest to gather scattered Isreal He will bless us for our efforts! I love this gospel!

I love you all so much and hope and pray that you are all enjoying the summer! Thanks for all you do for me!! 

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Love, 

Elder T. Ricks 

Maestro del Kendama- Week 20

Hey! This week has been crazy, tons of miracles though! Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers this week!

We have been working very hard to get in with the Hispanic members, but sometimes it is hard to find them home! There is an awesome family, la familia Diaz De La Rosa and they are going to help us a lot with finding the Hispanics here. We are starting a community sports night for all of the Hispanics so we are going to all the Mexican stores here to put up posters for our sports night which is awesome! Also we teach a Bible class on Thursdays with them and an English class on Saturdays! It is super cool getting to use Spanish haha. I also had the opportunity to translate for Scarament meeting today and it was super poppin! Super good times and I have been so blessed with the help of the Lord during this time! Always remember that He is there for us at all times, so rely on Him no matter what is going on in our lives!

I bought a super cool Kendama because Elder Freeman convinced me. I play with it so much(definitely not during when I am working though haha) and I am definitely going to be a pro before I get home. 

Also, this cool guy named Bob is getting baptized on July 27th!!! Super excited for that! I love that as a missionary I get to invite people to make their first covenant with our Savior! 

The final chapters of 2 Nephi are so incredible and also Jacob is a super cool book! Jacob 5 stood out to me this time as I was reading and I love how during the whole parable of the vine trees they had to keep being cut down because they weren't growing any good fruit. In our lives not being able to grow fruit may be like trials and also being cut back to nothing is similar to trials that we are going through. The whole purpose of cutting back those olive trees though was to make them be able to grow into something way better. Sometimes when we are going through things in life it feels like we could never be happy or that life is too hard for us. But the Lord knows the things that we need to go through in order for us to become something greater than we are. 

Jacob 5:75

"And it came to pass that when the Lord of the vineyard saw that his fruit was good... [He said] and blessed art thou; for because ye have been diligent in laboring with me in my vineyard, and have kept my commandments... Behold ye shall have joy with me..."

As we go throughout life, if we always follow the commandments of the Lord and endure to the end through all of our trials and afflictions we will be able to live with our Heavenly Father and we will be filled with joy.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers this week! You are all awesome. 

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Elder T. Ricks

Una Semana Loca- Week 19

Hey family! This week has been wild haha. I am grateful for all of your examples to me and for all the thoughts and prayers sent my way! Always remember the love our Lord and Savior has for you all:)

I honestly don't even know where to start except the fact that my companion and I have been so tired because of how hard we are working! It has definitely been pretty hard not knowing anything in the area or any of the people but it is awesome getting to know people and having an excuse to go visit literally everyone because we are new to the area and are just introducing ourselves to everyone. Missionary work is probably one of the most satisfying things and I am grateful that I get to be here on in Wisconsin for my mission!

Janesville is pretty similar to Idaho Falls about 15 years ago. So it is fun to be here haha! Also I changed my phone settings from English to Spanish and I feel pretty cool haha, not gonna lie! But sometimes I have to look up words before I click on a button so I don't mess up my phone😂

Elder Freeman, my companion burnt his thumb while cooking on Saturday so we went to the ER haha, and that was pretty funny but anyway. He asked for some ibuprofen on Sunday morning and I told him sure but that he should get it and help himself because I was studying haha and he could only use one hand so when he opened the ibuprofen he somehow dropped the lid of it and it fell right into the toilet. It was pretty funny haha, we work hard together but also have good times! 

Also the 4th of July I felt like a loser because we had to be home by 9... But we got to go to a fun BBQ for dinner haha. We had an awesome lesson with this guy named Bob. He has been taught since last August, but we have been super bold in inviting him to baptism. But our lesson on the 4th was super cool because he had always just said no to baptism because he has prayed but hasn't received an answer, but we are helping him see that his answer is the happiness and peace that he feels when he comes to church! We think that he is really starting to see that in his life. And I think that is very important in all of our lives including mine. Sometimes we pray for or want certain things and we think we aren't receiving an answer, but the Lord could be answering and probably is in very simple ways, we just need to be aware of those things and then act according to that:) it was definitely something that I needed to be taught at this time. We gave Bob a date of July 27th! We are excited.

There is also this girl in the Janesville ward that is leaving on her mission today and she and her family forgot that yesterday was fast Sunday or something haha so she gave her farewell talk as a testimony haha, it was pretty funny. But we have to translate for the Hispanic members here which is pretty cool, except that it is pretty hard to translate haha. Thankfully I haven't had to do that yet, but all the Hispanics in the ward tell me I need to do it next week because it will help me even though they know that I am pretty bad at communicating haha. So they members here are awesome! We also get to teach a Bible study class to the Hispanics every Thursday and teach English as a 2nd language every Saturday that nobody has shown up to since we have been here haha, but it would be pretty cool if people would show up! 

Also, there is an apostolic promise from one of the apostles or something about being able to understand and speak a language better if you read all the way through the Book of Mormon, and I feel like there is some truth to that, but I think that from about the Book of Alma to the Book of Moroni is just waaaay easier to understand than the beginning parts of the Book of Mormon haha! It is so fun reading the Book of Mormon though and you should all make sure to read from it every day! If that is what an invitation we extend to the people to be baptized than I think we as members should all be doing that too:) and as we do read the Book of Mormon and make that sacrifice we will receive so many blessings!

Alma 5:45-46

And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold I tesitfy unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety? Behold I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.

I know that the Lord will reveal the truth unto us as we search diligently for the truth, pray and even fast! I invite you all to write a question that you might need answered in your life and search diligently to find an answer to it in the Book of Mormon starting with a prayer to either know where to search for or for remembrance in a scripture that you might need that will be able to help answer your question!(if you need help searching diligently you could always email me your question and I'll do my best to help find a scripture for you too!) I have seen many mighty miracles in my life coming from the Book of Mormon and I know that as we show faith in reading that beautiful book of scripture we will receive many blessings in our lives!

I have one more quote haha! 

'Pure obedience and silent endurance are not enough. There must be a burning desire, a reaching out, a seeking, in short, an exhaustive exercise of our combined spiritual, intellectual, and emotional energies, all focused on obtaining these divine gifts.'

- Tad R. Callister (The Infinite Atonement)

I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to represent Jesus Christ and as we are baptized we all take upon ourselves the name of Christ and so we all have the same responsibility! I am thankful for all of your examples to me and for your prayers and thoughts! I love you all so much.

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Love, 

Elder T. Ricks

Janesvilleeeeee- Week 18

Hey y'all! This week has been quite the adventure. I hope that you all have had a great week and continue to have a great next one and have a fantastic 4th of July:)

I was able to visit a lot of families in Marshfield before I left and they are such a great ward and such great people! Bishop Taylor has pet ducks haha and when I heard that I needed to see before I left! So they took us on a tour to see their ducks:) it is honestly one of the coolest things haha!

Doing the transfer system here is pretty wild! So all the people in the zone go to church building in their zone and they get picked up but members that are willing to drive us to Neenah! That is called transfer point and when we get their we take all of our stuff and put it in piles depending on where your next transfer will be! So I am in the Madison B zone so I moved all my stuff to that pile and from there we go with another member to our new zone building and get our car keys, apartment keys, and things like that.

BUT, I guess that they forgot to add that my companion (Elder Freeman) and I needed to go to Madison! So there wasn't enough room in the guys car that was going their and the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders were calling the AP's for about 50 minutes trying to figure out what we needed to do. During that whole thing we went and had like a mini devotional, which was pretty cool. We also ended up talking to a couple of the Elders that were just in Janesville and they said that they didn't leave any area notes for us(because we are doubling into the area) and 2 of the Elders were going home soooo they didn't clean the apartment either haha. So we ended up riding with one of the counselors to the president and that was super interesting! We get to Madison and ask the Zone Leaders for our keys and they only give us the car keys and say they don't have the apartment keys😂 so we are like greaaaat and called the AP's and they told us to stay in Madison with the Zone Leaders for the night, so we went and played soccer with some Hispanics:) Woke up the next morning(Thursday) and they called us saying they can't bring the key to us until Friday but that the apartment was unlocked anyway!! So they told us to go down to Janesville and that is my adventure with getting to Janesville!!

They were right about the apartment and how messy it was going to be, sooo I have been taking the time to go through everything and throw it all away haha! I think my companion wants to keep it all and store it though but there is stuff here from like 1990 probably haha!!! So it looks a lot better here, and hopefully we can continue to make it look better because it's still not the best haha!

Also it is pretty hard to double in to an area! Neither of us have any clue what to do here or who they are teaching so we have had a good time going and introducing ourselves to people! There is a cool member Herman's De La Rosa and she has a sun named David who recently got back from his mission and they want to start doing a soccer night with us and that would be super cool! So he is gonna invite tons of his friends and tell us when it is so I am excited for that! And the Bishop was able to give us a list of Hispanic people that we could go and visit to invite back to church and stuff like that so I have a pretty great feeling about the ward here, and about the work!! 

So far if I were to come back and live in Wisconsin, Janesville would be the place! It is a pretty decently big city and has actually a lot of places to shop and eat out at! But I don't think I'll ever move here haha:) Oh, also the humidity is wild! We were helping a member move and we would go inside and it would be cool, and then we would walk outside and we would just start sweating! Even if we weren't doing anything haha! So I love it here:)

There is a member here, his name is Brother Ricks haha. He is from Rexburg Idaho, my great grandpa and his grandpa are brothers! He knows/grew up with my mom and dad(kinda) and it was super fun to talk to him! On Sunday we didn't have a dinner planned or anything, so he came up to us after sacrament meeting and asked us if we could come over for dinner and it was awesome to talk to him about my dad and my uncles! I love my family haha:) 

(I meant to get a picture with him but I think I forgot haha) 

The scripture Ether 12:6 has stood out to me a lot this last week and we had a lesson on applying the scriptures to our lives this week so I want to invite you all to read this scripture, and apply it to your life! And when you do this, I'd love to here some of the ways you applied it in your life!

Thank you so much for all of your thoughts, prayers, and love! I am so glad that I have the chance to serve the Lord here in Wisconsin and am grateful for all of your fantastic examples to me at home! I love you all!❤️

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Love, 

Elder T. Ricks