November 28, 2016

Hello family and friends!! 

So another week has come and gone and I must say it was a GREAT week!! 

We had Omar's baptism and it was amazing!! Omar has quite the history and to see him enter in the waters of baptism knowing he was leaving that all behind was so powerful! He is like a completely different person now and radiates 100% with the spirit! It was so amazing to be a witness to the power of the atonement change someone's life! We also had a HUGE storm the day of the baptism and regardless the members came to support him. Keep in mind there are only two families in the ward that have cars. They all showed up soaking wet but it was a great day. Then right after the baptism ended the power went out..a little miracle right there!! 

Believe it or not we also celebrated Thanksgiving!! It was soo great and tasted just like America! We had a multizone conference on Wednesday with Presidente Eddy and his wife! They along with  another senior couple made us all Thanksgiving dinner! I am telling you this week was just filled with miracles left and right!!  

We currently have four people with baptismal dates in the next three weeks! this week we have Elena's baptism and we are soo excited!! She has been progressing so well and every time we see her she is just more and more confident with herself! Just goes to show the power that we receive from living the Gospel.  

It has been so amazing to be a part of the Lord's work through out my mission and to see the Lord's hand at work daily in our lives! I love being a witness to our Savior and Heavenly Father! Everywhere we go as missionaries we are asked questions and people make comments and I love every minute of it. I have never felt so much joy in my life. I am so proud to say that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints. I know that Joseph Smith saw our father and Jesus Christ and with the power of God translated the Book of Mormon. I know that this is Jesus Christ's church here on the earth. I know that through the restored gospel we have received the sealing power to have eternal families. And I know that as we do our part and strengthen ourselves to live the gospel daily that we will one day return to our Heavenly Father! I love you all so much and thank you for all the love and support that you show me! I hope you have a great week and that you can find opportunities to share the gospel! 

Love, 

Hermana Rich

November 21, 2016

Hola Familia!! 

So this week was definitely one for the books filled with all sorts of fun!  

This week we made a fun discovery that we had bed bugs.....I have never felt so betrayed by my bed before. Then to add on top of that I have had some sort of stomach virus!! Way fun!

  

But we also had Elder Rasband and Elder Christensen come to our mission! The spirit was soo strong in the conference we had! Just imagine over 400 missionaries packed into a church listening to an apostle of the Lord!!  

Of course, I started that morning off at 4 in the morning with a bird pooping in my hair and ended it with flashing the elders when the wind blew open my skirt getting on the bus. But hey opposition in all things right? 

We were able to finally put a baptismal date with our investigator, Elena who we have been teaching all change!! She will be getting baptized on the third. We also got permission this week for Omar to get baptized and he is soo excited! He will be getting baptized this week! 

We also found a new investigator this week named Daniel! He is super awesome and has lots of profound questions about the gospel. Well he accepted a baptismal date for the tenth of December. But we have a ward camp out on the tenth so we had to change it to the 17. Either way he is soo excited! 

Hermana Rios and I are sooo amazed at all the miracles that we have been seeing in the last four weeks here in Sarandi Del Yi!! 

I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week filled with miracles and doesn't involve bird poop! 

Love, 

Hermana Rich

P.S. Kim here...I've learned this week that Hermana Rich has two animal goals...to touch a sheep and milk a cow while on her mission!  hahaha!  Good Luck Kenzie!

 

November 14, 2016

Hola Familia!! 

This week was really great!! We worked really hard and as a result we found a lot of miracles!!  

This week we had made a goal to have 21 charlas(lessons) with investigators!! Of course everything was going along smoothly and it looked like we were going to meet our goal and our phone stopped working..and that is why we have now been going almost a week without a phone. It makes things a little difficult when the next set of missionaries live two hours away from you! But we made it work AND we had 21 charlas this week!! We were sooo excited!! 

We also received a new mission leader this past week and he has been working so hard!! One of the miracles that we saw from this week was a direct result from Hermano Ancheta having desires to share the gospel. He has always worked with the missionaries a lot and this past week an old investigator informed him that she and her family wanted to get baptized! So we went out there and it is true!! There are four people in this house that want to get baptized and we are super excited!! 

Another fun thing that happened this week is that Uruguay was playing against Ecuador and as a result there was NO ONE in the streets and every house was watching the game..we always knew what was going on because the whole town freaked out over everything! It was really fun!!  

This week I have been reading in Alma in the Book of Mormon and studying about the second coming of Christ. The time really is not so far off when we will be in Christs presence and one scripture really stood out to me from my reading in Alma. It is when King Lamoni is learning of the faithfulness of Ammon and he says that he has never had such a faithful servant. (Alma 18:10). But it made me think What is Christ saying about my service? Am I serving to the best of my abilities? The time is not too far off when I will have to respond to these questions face to face. I would like to invite you to think of some ways that we can serve Christ a little more in our lives so that when the time comes the Lord can say the same about us like what  King Lamoni said about Ammon! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love, 

Hermana Rich

November 7, 2016

Hey family!! 

This week was really great!! We had a couple of random alerts that resulted in us staying in the house as well as my companion hasn't been feeling too well but we still got soo much work done! I am so excited to be out and working again!! The weather here is soo insane! Earlier this past week I was freezing to death with rain and super cold wind and at the end of the week I was sunburned and dying from heat! It is supposed to be raining again tomorrow so we will see how that goes! 

So funny story..like I said we have been working a ton right? Which I am really enjoying but it is kind of tough adjusting from a schedule of no work and no walking to a schedule of walking/running all the time! One day we went straight from lunch to a charla(lesson) and this was the day that it was freezing cold! Well as a result I was super tired and I learned when you put me in a nice warm room when I am super full and tired my mind doesn't work too well...in spanish tan poco! And this my friends is the story of how I started talking in English in the middle of a charla!! I seriously have never been so tired in a charla in my entire life!! This was also the day that we went and visited the farthest part of my area called Pueblito de Dios. It is called Pueblito de dios because it is so far out there that only God remembers them..yeah, that is a five mile walk one way!! Fun stuff right? But it worked out fine! The lady understood and I was able to get it together!! 

Another really exciting thing that happened this week is that we had seven investigators at church!! All of who want to start to receive the charlas or are already receiving them!! We were sooo excited!!  

Something I read the other day really stood out to me in Moroni 6:4. At the end it talks about how Christ is the author and perfeccionador de nuestra fe!(perfector of our Faith)  It made me think of our investigator, Omar. He really struggles with himself because he was a super smart and rich man before. Then some robbers came and robbed him of everything that he had and while he was fighting for his life suffered some head trauma. Well as a result he struggles to remember things like before! To us he is remembering soo much but he gets frustrated! But he has faith in Christ that everything is going to be okay and continues to strengthen himself to remember and study to prepare for baptism! It is the same with us! Christ is the author and perfeccionador of our faith. Through him all is possible and if we will put our trust in him he will help develop our faith and show us the way! I hope you all can feel the love that our father in heaven has for you and can put your trust in his son Jesus Christ! I love you all and I hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Hermana Rich