November 28, 2016 - Week 75

Mom,

Wow what an awesome Thanksgiving you all had!! All the pics look great. I'm so glad to see that the pizza was a success as well as your doctor´s appointment. I'm sure that you'll be back to seeing 100% in no time at all :) And I had almost forgotten completely about the black Friday tradition, but that's fun that you guys could do it in Utah this year. I'm sure its a little bit more high powered there. Any big purchases?? 

So our week was also really incredible here. The last week we focused our efforts on finding new people, and this week it started to pay off. It seemed like every day, we found someone who had loads of interest and potential to progress in the gospel. Granted, there were definitely a fair amount who were not as interested, but one forgets about that very easily with just a couple people who accept what we have for them. I'll give you the run down on a couple of them. So one is a kid who´s 19. He was working in like a carpenter shop when we met him and he told us he wanted to go to church. He works a very busy schedule, but one day we found him again by chance and taught him about repentance and the Book of Mormon and he was way interested. He accepted an offer to be baptized and is a really smart kid. The other one was actually an old reference that we went with, and before we could say a word he told us to sit down and went and bought us something to drink. He said he has been searching the scriptures for many years to find out what the true church of Christ is. Then we met two others, both of which have family members who are Mormon and have read the BoM and gone to church before. It really was a week of finding really prepared and smart people. We just wanna keep working hard and finding the other people the Lord has prepared here in our area. 

The rest of our week was pretty normal. On Thanksgiving day and Friday we took some time, Elder Christensen and I, to reflect on what our families would be doing. The wound is a little bit more fresh for him since he was just with his fam, haha, but he was a soldier about it and it was really refreshing and fun to talk about old traditions. I talked about how fun it was to have everyone back in Fallon for the holidays and to do nothing at all, save it be what happened to tickle our fancy in that exact moment. Citing Office and Blacklist marathons, great food, family traditions, basketball, and many other things. But I hope you guys all enjoyed that this year, we had a ward activity that night and played volleyball with some people in the church, haha. 

I'm glad to hear about all the answers to your prayers as well. It's reassuring to never have to doubt that we have a loving Heavenly Father who knows us, understands our worries and our needs, and is so willing to bless us and answer our sincere prayers if we´re willing to ask him humbly and faithfully. Well, I love all of you and hope that you have a great week!!!

Love,

Ryan 

November 21, 2016 - Week 74

Mom, 

So my first week in Guamuchil was a success! Despite this being one of the smallest church congregations and cities I've been in during my mission, it is also the one that most resembles the United States which is a little bit of a surprise. Haha, and with that being said, let me tell you, it's still a far cry from the USA. Elder Christensen and I are becoming great friends as well and he is really similar to me in a lot of ways which makes our time together enjoyable. With this week being Thanksgiving, its been fun to chat it up about old Thanksgiving traditions and things we would do at home. 

As far as big differences between Guamuchil and Navojoa or any other of my past areas... In the first week I didn't see any glaring differences, but I also feel like more will be made evident with a bit more time. The first week, you just kinda walk around trying to orient yourself. But its definitely smaller than Navojoa, but kinda in that same class of city. Think of Navojoa as Fallon and Guamuchil as like Fernley. Hopefully that gives you a vague idea. With the work, we started from scratch and found 3 people that we´re really excited about!! All 3 were excited about our visits, some have family who are members and have been to church. We´re hoping they can get baptized in December. This week we will definitely continue to get to know them a little bit better and have a few more details. 

A few people told me that the weather in Fallon this week was pretty great! Like 72 degrees and sunny haha. That sounds like just about ideal to me!! We are kinda moving into that zone as well which makes me excited. I was also in Sinaloa this time last year and the weather was like Southern California in October. I better live it up while I can, probably the vast majority of my winters after this one will be spent in the blistering cold lol!!

So how are all the wedding preps coming?? The countdown to the wedding is getting smaller and smaller!! Like 3 more weeks right? When do Gma and Gpa come in from Ukraine?? You guys will have my dream Thanksgiving this week with appetizers and pizza! Live it up, it's like Haley´s comet and only comes once every 70 years. I'll add that to my list of unbelievable occurrences I missed on my mission along with Donald Trump being elected President of the United States and The Chicago Cubs winning the World Series, hahaha. 

All world news jokes aside, I hope you all have a memorable and fun-filled Thanksgiving. I am thankful for each and every one of you guys. It would be an impossible task to find another person in the world that is more loving, caring, faithful, patient, forgiving, intelligent, and loves me more than you, Mother. With that being said, I'm forever and unimaginably grateful that I have a Heavenly Father who knows me and loves me enough that he would bless me with such a perfect, angelic, mother such as you. I love you, Mom!! 

Happy Thanksgiving, and have a great week!!

All Love,

Ryan 

November 14, 2016 -Week 73

Mom,

Wow what a busy week!! Filled with lots of travel, lots of meetings, and lots of many great spiritual experiences. To start things off, yesterday I was transferred from Navojoa after spending 6 months there. I am now in the very southern part of the mission in a town called Guamuchil, Sinaloa. I'm with a new missionary named Elder Christenson, who is very smart and from Salt Lake City. I'm really happy and excited to be here, my compnion is great, the town looks really great and I know the Lord sent me here for a reason. 

On the flip side, it felt like I was leaving a place that had grown to be my home in a lot of ways. I spent a large chunk of time in Navojoa and I was so blessed by the people there and have many many life-long friends that will be in Navojoa. I told many of the people as I said goodbye that I want to come back with my family one day and I hope that's something I can do.

So during the week, we had Paul B Pieper, the area president of the church in Mexico come to our mission and talk to us. Wow what a blessing that was! He showed us the importance of the holy ghost in our missions and told many inspiring stories. The following day we had a leadership meeting with him, but this one was in los Mochis. Once again it was very powerful and special. 

Saturday, we had the baptisms of 2 families here. Wow, what a special place both families have in my heart and a special moment to see them take the first step towards creating an eternal family. Previously in the week, President Myers told me about where I was going, and I hadn't told anyone, so on Saturday night after the baptism there were a lot of people hanging around taking pictures, eating and laughing at the church and it was a great time for me to see a good number of people who I had seen from up close change their lives through the gospel all be gathered there and witness their hapiness. It was kinda like a last hoorah there in Navojoa. Then yesterday there was a special stake conference broadcast with President Nelson and Elder Hales. There, I told people about my transfer and said many goodbyes. 

But wow big time shoutout to alyss for the 36!! That's big time. Tommy sent me some of the engagement pics and they both look fantastic!! The wedding is coming up very quickly. As a missionary, a transfer becomes a standard unit of time. And this transfer ends on Christmas day, which means lots of exciting things will be happening during these 6 weeks, such as Thanksgiving, the wedding, Christmas Eve and day. It will be a good time!! Also, wow what a surprise with Donald Trump winning. All of Mexico is up in arms and convinced that he will kick every immigrant out of the country. Don't think they fully understnad how that whole thing works haha. 

But I am very happy and blessed to have such a good family in you guys!! I love you all so much and I'm happy to hear from y'all!!! Have an amazing week!!

Love,

Ryan

November 7, 2016 - Week 72

Mom,

Hey what's up, how are all of you?? Wow yesterday I was thinking about it and I actually wondered what you guys were eating for Dad´s Bday dinner, and I knew dad wouldn't disappoint haha. That sounds delicious, and I'm sure that the company is what tied the whole meal together! Last night we went with some converts who had made us hamburgers and cake to celebrate their baptisms. It was also really cool. Haha, unfortunetely I didn't bring quite the perfect gift to them, like you did to Dad.  But I'm so glad that you guys enjoyed the day and that Dad has got another great year ahead of him, and wow he really is looking stick thin, how much does he weigh these days??!! Happy 51st Dad!!

Wow, I think I've told you this, but you would think that being outside of the nation, you wouldn't hear as much about the USA election, but that is very far from being accurate. Everywhere we go people ask us about the election, about Hillary or Trump and everything. So I don't dare mention any political opinion or anything of the sort haha. I can only imagine how it is in the states right now. You'll have to let me know how the Matt Lee election goes as well.. I'm sure he is a shoe in as well, and he´ll be in my prayers!!

Putting all the craziness of the election aside, this week was really great for us. We have been preparing four people for their baptisms for a long time and this Saturday it is going to happen. They are all very excited and we are just getting the last few details together for that. It really is incredible to see such a sincere change of heart in a group of people. Like you said mom, there are zero things in the world that can have such a lasting, strong effect on a life like the gospel. With so much time here in Navojoa, it's very likely this is my last week here, so it will be really special to be able to see those people get baptized and then to be able to have life long friends here!! Aside from all of that, we also have a very busy week where we´ll be traveling a lot. On Wednesday, Paul B Piper who´s the area president of Mexico, will be coming to visit our mission. So we will all go up to Obregon to see him there, then the next day we will go to Los Mochis, Sinaloa (about 4 hours south) to get a leadership training by him. I'm really excited for all that, but I'm sure it will be a busy week.

I'm glad to hear that the treatments from the doctors are having the correct effect on your vision, and that you are seeing improvement in the other parts as well. How often are you gonna have to be going up to Utah? It seems like its been about every 2 or 3 months?? With all your kids up there it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. How are all of the wedding preparations going? Tommy has told me that they are going to Cancun on the honey moon, but if you have time I'd love to see some of the wedding anouncements or the engagment photos. Also some of the rough plans of the wedding!! It's gotta be an exciting time, but with many things to do.

Thanks so much for the encouraging words, Mom!! I love you so much too and feel and recognize more and more blessings every day. It's true, the mission is something I will always hold very very dear to my heart for many reasons and I'm glad to know that dad still has fond memories that are present in his mind, such as singing the song Dios Da Valor. I'm very blessed to have you as my family, and I feel and appreciate your love and support!! I love you all so much, I hope you have an amazing week!!

Love,

Ryan