February 28, 2011

Well, things here in the mission are going great, I've had my first full week as a trainer with my new companion Elder Brewer, which has been really awesome. He is great, and definitely well prepared to be a missionary. We had another baptism this last Friday, which went really really well. I can't even express the feelings of gratitude I have to my Heavenly Father for all of the success he has been blessing us with. This last Friday was my 7th baptism out here in North Carolina, and I am so thankful for the privilege I have had to teach and help these wonderful people. Today is my 5 month mark. :O The time is going so so fast, I can't believe that I have been out for 5 months. my mission is almost 1/4 over, it seems like I just left. But yeah, things are going really well here, it is finally starting to warm up outside, and the work is going forward better than it ever has here in Greenville, at least than it has in the past couple of decades, so we are so grateful for the blessing it is to be a part of this great work. I love you all,

Love,

Elder Rider

February 23, 2011

Well, for starters this last week has been completely crazy. First off, we had a baptism last week! Kaitlyn Robinson was baptized on Saturday, it was really awesome. She is the daughter of a Less Active member that we helped become active again. Her mom is the member, but her dad isn't a member, so hopefully now we can start teaching him as well. But that wasn't the crazy part. The craziness started this past Friday. We were going to an appointment, just like any other, when the phone started to ring. So I took it out and it said "President Cotterell". So naturally we started to sweat, haha because he never calls us. So I answered it, "hello, this is Elder Rider", and he said, "Elder Rider, how are you?", "good, you?" he said "good. Do you know why I'm calling?" I said "nope", and he laughed, and then got really serious. he said "Elder Rider, you have been called by the Lord to be a Trainer for a new missionary who will be arriving from the MTC this Monday" Then there was a long pause. I immediately started thinking what? I've only been out for 4 1/2 months, nobody trains at 4 1/2 months. You usually won't train until you've been out for at least a year. Then he said, "you probably don't feel qualified, that's because you're not." Then he told me all of the reasons that I wasn't qualified, haha. But then he said "Who the Lord calls, he qualifies." Then he gave me a bit of advice, and told me that the calling of trainer was the most important calling in the mission. If we don't train new missionaries well, the mission will fail. He also told me that I will affect this missionaries life more than anyone else besides his father, and that my influence will affect him far beyond his mission, so I need to not mess up, and that was that. So then I had all weekend to sit there and panic about training because I don't feel like I am ready to train anyone else, I'm still trying to figure things out for myself. So yeah, it has been crazy, but I now have a new companion. His name is Elder Brewer, he is from Albuquerque New Mexico, and he has been here in North Carolina on his mission for 2 full days now :) He is awesome, I'm really excited to be working with him. Well, that's what is going on here. We have another baptism coming up this Friday, which I am really excited about. I love you all, and love the lord and serving him.

Love,

Elder Rider

February 14

Well, it's Valentine's Day, which out on the mission is basically the same as any other day :) things here are going really well. I'm still in a companionship of 3 missionaries, I will be until the 22nd, when I will get a new companion, but I am actually enjoying being with 3 missionaries.

So lets see, what has been going on. Right now we're teaching a really awesome family named the Statons. Well, technically he's a Staton, her last name is Arrondell, because they aren't married and have 2 kids, but they're engaged and ready to get married. She has been to the church before and knows it's true, but he didn't really know anything about the Book of Mormon, he grew up Baptist, and wants to do what is right. The first lesson we had with him we read from the introduction of the Book of Mormon, and he said he could feel the Spirit just as strongly as when he read the bible, just from the first paragraph, and he said he already knows from that experience that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God. Basically it was incredible

Oh! I have an awesome story to tell you. Do you remember Bobby Woolard? He is the old man who got baptized in December. Well when we started to teach him he had lung cancer that had spread to his brain, and they didn't think he would live much longer. a couple of weeks before he got baptized we gave him a blessing. I was the one who actually gave the blessing, so I was really really nervous, but in it the spirit told me to say that he would be healed. This last week he got his test results back from the doctors office, and he has no cancer anywhere in his body! The doctors are trying to understand what happened, because they expected him to be gone within a couple months, and that there was nothing that could be done, and now his cancer is completely gone. It was just a testimony builder to me, to show what faith and the power of the priesthood can do.

Well, that's what's going on here, I hope everyone is doing good back home. I love you all, and will see everyone soon! (19 months)

Love,

Elder Rider

Feb 1,2011

Well, I should probably call this a Month update, not a week update, I haven't had time to do one of these for a while, so sorry about that. This past month has been completely full of ups and downs. This last week was really hard, I was sick most of the week, and we had a baptism that fell through, she had been interviewed and everything was set to go, we filled up the font on Saturday, and then she called us and said she didn't want to do it anymore. Needless to say we were devestated. It is a 13 year old girl named Mary whose Mom and Brother are both members, and she believes the church is true and everything, she is just scared to get baptized, so we are working on that, hopefully we can help her to be less afraid and to go through with it. We did have a baptism earlier this month though on January 8th, a college student named Alexandria Stout, so that was really exciting and incredible. Right now we're teaching a college student named Addie Kirsch, who is a cheerleader at East Carolina University, and she has read from the Book of Mormon and prayed about it, and believes that it is true, so that was really exciting when she told us she got her answer, but now she needs to give up her coffee, so we'll see how that goes ;) We're also teaching a Marine named Jack Dolly, who is 25, and he believes that the Church is true, and in about 6 weeks he has read up to Ether in the Book of Mormon. Well I gotta go, but that's kinda the update of what is going on here. I love you all.

Love,

Elder Rider