Hola a todos!
Hope you have had an absolutely milagrosa week wherever you are! This week over here, not going to lie, was really slow. But, of course, in the life of a missionary there's never NOT something going on.
For starters, the hermanas and us went to go visit a family that had been referred to us, who own a fun little candy shop just down the street! We visited them, chatted a bit, and started talking about the Book of Mormon. The mom was asking some really good questions about the church about how the members are, how we try and treat others, and her teenage daughter was super interested in the stories that were in the Book of Mormon. We had a super Spirit-filled discussion, and although they didn't end up coming to church on Sunday, we're going to pass by again to so hi and maybe bring some friends to help support their business! They're super awesome, and their youngest daughter is a great artist. She drew a picture of me with very little hair which definitely didn't make me feel self-conscious of my hairline...All in all the family is awesome!
Had our zone conference this week as well and it was super inspired! Love President and Hermana Hamilton, they're the best. We learned once again about the importance of members in our missionary work and how we can better include them. We also focused on the importance of finding and teaching families, and strengthening families that are already members. Totally family-centric. It was really powerful and definitely made me excited to work with the families in our ward.
We started making some videos for our Facebook page as well, mostly trying to fill up the Reels section a little bit and get some high quality content. One that we made recently broke 2 thousand views and almost 200 likes, which was more than any other we had made! I'm also in the process of messaging a guy that commented on a video that I was in, who is not a member of the Church, but really thinks that we are doing God's work. We'll see where that one goes, but the social media/tech/advertising grind doesn't stop. Still working on those every day!
Lastly, this week I was struggling for a couple days with some bad cold symptoms, my head pounding, nose running, the whole 9 yards. Every time I stood up I just wanted to sit back down because I was exhausted. I had the thought early on that I shouldn't take it easy just because I wasn't feeling well, and I said a quick prayer about it. The thought came to me that God would give me the strength I needed to do everything I needed to do. So I kept working, taking care of my body with lots of water, good foods, and adequate sleep, and I wasn't getting better super fast. But I noticed that every time I was doing something that was involving missionary work (teaching, studying, etc.) I didn't feel sick at all! It was like God was supporting me through all my work. Every time I opened the scriptures, my headaches went away, every time I was talking with someone my exhaustion disappeared. It was definitely tempting to call it quits some days and just take a 4 hour nap to sleep it off, but I wanted to keep going forward with faith, and, by this time at the end of the week, I'm perfectly fine!
All I can say is when we have faith, the Lord supports us through our work. There's a scripture is Malachi that says "...prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." The Lord literally asks us the prove Him, to test Him, and to see if He doesn't pour blessing on us. He's just waiting for us to exercise a little bit of faith!
¡Cristo vive! ¡El Libro de Mormón es verdadero!
¡Os amo!
Elder Ritter
Fotos:
Some beautiful paintings we saw at the Prado last Pday!
Our old no-longer-a-missionary Hudson Whipple dropping by to say hi with his family
Said picture of me
Delicious restaurante we went to on Pday
Don't even know what this building is but it's SICK
Zone Conference
ANOTHER picture draw by a little kid. I think this one is far more flattering
