Bendiciones- Week 31

Hey everyone! I hope all is going well back at home. I'm definitely grateful for all of your examples for me. It had been super fun to be in a trio and to be double training. It's kinda weird but for the most part it's great. 

So basically all of the things that we have scheduled regularly every week like sports night, Bible class, and English class all got canceled or nobody showed up this last week. But we were able to stop by a less active family Paco and Claudia and they were both actually home! It was great to be able to talk to both of them and I think we were supposed to talk to them at that time so I'm sad we had to cancel some of the things we regularly have planned but we definitely recieved lots of blessings.

We got to go down to Milwaukee so that we could pick up our new companion and his name is Elder Dowdle! He's from Oregon and loves tennis. He also went to the Mexico City MTC so I told him that he missed my brother there by about 9 weeks haha! It is always a good time getting to talk about my family. Also I was able to see Elder Freeman and the others that were here in Janesville my first transfer here so we definitely had to take a picture! It was super fun to see them. 

One night we went to go visit this guy named Antonio and he wasn't home so we were just on our way back to the car and we had a thought to go back and knock on one of his neighbors doors. We knocked and sat there for a little bit and knocked again and then the door opened and we were able to introduce ourselves and she said that she would be interested in hearing our message! When we listen to the promptings we recieve we are so blessed! 

Matthew 9:20 - And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years... 

Mark 5:25-26 - And a certain woman, 2hich had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. 

Luke 8:43 - And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any. 

This lady in the Bible had been living 12 years of her life miserably because of the disease that she had with her blood. She spent all of her money, all of her living, everything she had to be healed from going to doctors and trying all different things. But she wasn't being healed, it was actually getting worse. 

Matthew 9:20-22 - She came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort;they faith hath made thee whole. And the woman has made whole from that hour. 

Mark 5:27-34 - When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague... And he said unto her, Daughter, they faith hath made thee whole; to in peace, and be whole of the plague. 

Luke 8:44-48 - She came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood was stanched... And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: they faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. 

She had a sickness that took everything away from her. But through all this and through her trials she had enough faith to not only think that Jesus might be able to help her she knew with all her heart, might, mind, and strength that even if she could just reach out and touch his clothes that she could be saved. I promise that we can all be blessed through our faith if we do our part and reach out to our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Thank you for all you do for me! I love you all.

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Vamos a Janesvilleeeee- Week 30

Hey friends and family! I hope all is going extremely well for you all:) thanks for all of your love and prayers! I look up to you all and I hope you know how much I appreciate you!

I will be staying here in Janesville with Elder Bird! We will also be adding another new missionary to our companionship so I will be double training! It's been a fun ride and it will continue to be a fun ride as we try to bring others the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ here in Janesville!

For example of our super fun times we have had here in Janesville, this last Sunday night at about 12:45AM so I guess you could say Monday morning we had to take an emergency trip to the Emergency Room. My wonderful companion thought it would be a good idea to eat a Carolina Reaper Pepper at a members house(which is the hottest pepper in the world) and thought he could handle it but while he was digesting it, the heat and gas got to him and I woke up to yelling and screaming and him banging the floor in pain asking me to do SOMETHING. So I took up to the hospital and we were there for about 3 hours before they released him after they gave him some milk and crackers! But thankfully is all better now!

This week has been kinda crazy! It seems like we never had time to do anything and everything just came and went out of no where. One day I felt like it was Friday and the next like it was Tuesday and now it is already Monday! Time as a missionary is actually pretty messed up.😂 But I love it! It's incredible how blessed I have been since I have been out on the mission. 

We started a Family Home Evening on every Monday night with the Hispanics in the ward! Last week was our first week and it was so fun! There was actually a video that one of the members took of me flossing and it was pretty awesome, not gonna lie;) but I LOVE the Hispanic people here. They are so nice and loving and make me feel good about myself even if I sound like an idiot because I say something wrong they love me anyways!

We also changed soccer sport night to volleyball sport night because it seems like every Hispanic here likes volleyball? And every person in general! And we actually did get quite a bit of people to come. So far they have just been members but still more than we got with soccer!

We are also wanting to start a Spanish class for some of the members so that they can communicate with the Hispanics and get referrals for us! That will be happening on Wednesday nights which will be awesome. The ward here is fantastic! 

In the beloved chapter of James 1 there was a couple verses that stood out to me. Verses 22-25

"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."

I testify that when we are not only hearers of God's word, but we also magnify our church callings, read the scriptures and share what we learn with others, live the Gospel of Jesus Christ out loud, and are doers just like Jesus Christ, we will be blessed in our deed. And I testify that we will BECOME what God needs us to become. He can shape us into what he wants us to but we have to be willing to be doers of His words and His work. I promise that as we do this we will be disciples of Jesus Christ and will have true joy in our lives. I love you all so much. 

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

El don de lenguas- Week 29

Already another new week! I hope you all have enjoyed this last week and enjoy the next week!! Mission life is super cool just so everyone knows! Lots of good stuff going here in Janesville. Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers!

ALSO, good luck to Payton in this next semester in college! I hope you have a fantastic first day today:) thanks for being such a big part of my life Payt😀❤️

I love sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others. We are seriously sharing salvation and what could be better!? I challenge all of you to think of someone this week and maybe send a quote from a modern day prophet or apostle, or a verse from the Book of Mormon about faith or hope or even how if you read the Book of Mormon with intent to learn and then pray about if they will know that it is true! I promise that as you share your knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ, the Lord will pour down blessings upon you!

The work here in Janesville is going so good. The past 12 weeks since I have been here we have just been laying the foundation of where all of the Hispanics are and ways we can find them and start teaching them and we are finally starting to see success and with starting to teach people that speak Spanish! Hard work really does pay off! In the last couple weeks we have been able to start teaching 2 people from Honduras that only speak Spanish and 1 that speaks English but it is so cool to see all of the many blessings that the Lord gives us.

We had our New Missionary Summit this last week in Oshkosh because Elder Bird is a new missionary! It was super fun to see my old companion and a couple of the people I have served around! We also had interviews with the President. President Murphy is such a cool guy! And yesterday at church a guy spoke and said missionaries get called to a mission president and I was like heck yes! I was called to President Murphy and so that was hype. 

The gift of tongues is real! Everytime I need to randomly teach a lesson at either church, FHE, or Bible class I have been so blessed to always have words come into my head and frases to help the others feel the Holy Ghost! Wow it's such a cool feeling when the class is done and then think back and wonder how I was able to talk and teach for an hour! And it is all because of the help of the Holy Ghost and the love our Father in Heaven has for us! 

Also Brother Palmer is super cool too. He let's us come over to his dental office and work out with him at 5 in the morning... So we wake up super early and work out with him! It's super awesome haha. Before my mission I hated getting up super early but now I kinda like it because I get soo much done in the mornings!

I am reading in Alma right now and just finished Alma 39. I always love reading when he is talking to his sons and giving them council on how to be successful and become men of God. But near the end when he is talking to Corian ton and he says in verses 13-14 in chapter 39 of Alma "That ye turn to the Lord with all your mind, might, and strength; that ye lead away the hearts of no more to do wickedly; but rather return unto them, and acknowledge your faults and that wrong which ye have done. Seek not after riches nor the vain things of this world; for behold, you cannot carry them with you." and this really stood out to me because the Lord wants us to turn back to Him and come unto Him no matter what we might have done in the past or are doing. He always has His arms open wide for us. When we repent and change our lives in order to follow Jesus Christ I have seen in my own life that we become better people.

I know this is the true church! I'm grateful for the knowledge that I have. And I hope that you all continue to always read from the Book of Mormon and to pray! Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts and packages that have been sent to me so far! You are all incredible and I hope that you all have a great next week!

DO GOOD BE GOOD

Love, 

Elder T. Ricks 

La obra misional- Week 28

Hey everyone! I hope your week has been good! Everything is going good here in Janesville. Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts sent my way!

So I've never actually been in a heavily Spanish populated area here in the mission so far, but the last couple weeks there have been so many blessings with Spanish work! We have really been trying to listen to spiritual promptings that we have and then listening to them right when we get them. So there was this one day where we were at Bible class and we ended a little early so we left and on the way home we felt like we needed to go to a certain store(Dollar Tree haha) to get what we needed for class the next day. We walked in the store and wouldn't you know it! The first people we see are some Hispanics! So we go up to them and start talking to them about how we can learn Spanish better and they have us some ideas and even said that they wanted to learn English! So we invited them to our English class and gave them our number if they had questions so that they could call us. When we were walking away I felt so happy inside and I just knew that we were supposed to be there at that time so that we could talk to those people!

When we follow the Spirit we are blessed! We listened to an amazing talk on spiritual promptings and sadly I don't remember what it was called but it was fantastic. He said that we ALWAYS need to act on the first prompting we have even when it doesn't make sense you need to act on it. If it is a good promoting it us from God and he is trying to tell us something and He needs us to be somewhere! When we are second guessing thoughts we are dismissing our spiritual promptings. The Lord knows what everyone needs and when they need them so He always prompts us to do good things for others!! Satan is not, he doesn't want us to help others. So when we have promptings to do good things for others and we try to come up with a reason to not do it than we are dismissing what the Lord wants us to do and are doing what Satan wants us to do! For example: if we get a prompting or a thought that we should read the scriptures we should do it! When we start to come up with reasons to not read the scriptures like 'my scriptures are too far away' 'I don't have time' or other things like that we are putting the promptings of the Lord to the side and following the promptings of Satan! So I invite you all to start your days in your morning prayers by saying 'Heavenly Father, trust me with one prompting today and I promise I will act on it immediately' and then when you recieve the prompting, do it! I promise your eyes will be opened to how much the Lord prompts you and how much more good you can do in the world for the people around you by following those promptings!

I love talking to people in Spanish! Even if I don't understand what they are saying or anything like that or I don't know what to say I'll just open my mouth and ask a question and words will be put in my mouth and I'll have like a real conversation with people in Spanish! It's like the coolest thing ever haha!

We have also been teaching English classes as you all know! And there is always 2 people that show up. This last Saturday at the end of our class I had a prompting to ask them if we can teach them what we do as missionaries and they said yes so we were able to go to their house and teach them that we teach about Jesus Christ and we learn from the Bible and the Book of Mormon! Their names are Dina and Astrid and it was like my first real kinda lesson here in Janesville in Spanish! It wasn't a very long lesson but we were able to testify of Christ and testify of the Book of Mormon and wow the gift of tongues is real! Sometimes I feel I have no idea how I'm going to speak Spanish or even what I'm going to say right before I open my mouth and then words and phrases come into my mind! I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the Hispanic people here in Wisconsin!

I love you all so much and hope you have great weeks! 

DO GOOD, BE GOOD

Love, 

Elder T. Ricks 

Por todos- Week 27

Hey everyone! I hope you've all had a fantastic week:) thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers, the Lord gives those with faith blessings and I can feel how strong all of your faith is from your prayers and love! 

We are already in September!! That is a wild thought. I am pretty sure that everyone back at home has started school now or is about to so I hope your first weeks have been super great! The kids here are going to start school this next week! That is one of my favorite things to ask is what grade they are going into especially if they look either Ashlynn or Analees age because then I get to brag about my sister's and how great they are haha! I just love getting to talk about my family to people. Anytime somebody says they are from Mexico the first thing I say is that my younger brother Carson is serving a mission in Mexico City! And people who are pretty newly married I get to talk about Braeden and his wife. And the Hispanic moms here are some of the sweetest woman and so I get to talk about my mom a lot because she is like my best friend from home and I tell them how much I love my mom and that they are doing a great job with their children too! And whenever I talk to somebody about work I get to talk to them about my dad and tell him how great it is to be able to have such a hard working dad! I sure did get the greatest family and I love getting to talk about how families can be together forever because I am so glad I am sealed to my family and get to live with them forever!! 

It's so cool looking back on times earlier in my mission and think about how far I have come as a person and especially with my Spanish! Yesterday in the Spanish class we have at church we were talking about los dones espírituales that the Lord gives us and it is so apparent how much the Lord has been in my life with helping me learn Spanish! 

There is 1 super active Hispanic family here, the De La Rosa's and they are from the Dominican Republic. One of the sons just got back from his mission in March and he has had 2 of his cousins here from the Dominican Republic working over the summer and making money so that they can go on missions too! Such a humbling experience, but they have definitely become some of my best friends here in Janesville and in the mission. They had to go back to the Dominican Republic for school though and I am so sad! They had great testimonies and helped with my Spanish and were just great friends and great people and they made a huge impact on my life! That's probably one of the hardest things as a missionary is saying bye to someone if you're leaving the area or they leave, but they said they would visit me and I definitely want to visit them after the mission! 

We had zone conference this week which was awesomeeeeee. Our new mission president has so much energy its so funny haha. But a lot of the trainings were focused on setting goals and making plans to achieve those goals and then doing it! One of my favorite quotes was "without plans, goals are just hopes". And that's so true! It really made me want to set goals that are achievable and plans to achieve all the goals that I set. 

We have still been able to talk to a lot more people in Spanish than the first couple weeks I was here but still not teaching many of them! There was a full family that came to sports night with us on Tuesday and we are hoping to give them a church tour and invite them to come to church with us next week because they asked a little bit about it last week! We have seen lots of little blessings through the past 2 weeks of just being able to talk to people and share the light of Christ with them and it is so awesome and fun being able to just talk to people in Spanish! I love getting to share something that makes me so happy with others! 

El Espíritu Santo es quien nos ayuda a reconocer lo que Dios ha hecho por nosotros y es quien ayuda a los que servimos a reconocer lo que Dios ha hecho por ellos. 

'It is the Holy Ghost who helps us to recognize what God has done for us and it is the one who helps those we serve recognize what God has done for them.' Because we all need the Holy Ghost in our lives to help protect us from the things of the world. We need to live in a way that we can ALWAYS have the Spirit to be with us wherever we go!

Thanks for your great examples to me!! I love you all!

DO GOOD BE GOOD

Love, 

Elder T. Ricks