May 24, 2010

Hello family,
It was very great to hear from all of you. I hope that all is still going well. I am doing very well. Right now I am actually chilling in Toulouse. I received my call from President on Friday and it turns out I will be training a greeny or a "blue" as they are called here. In any case, I finally moved up to senior companion. It should be interesting. Luckily for me the lord is on my side. I am actually in Toulouse for the next few days because my new companion (to be determined) will get in tomorrow from either Spain or Provo. He could be either French or American. It should be interesting. I just finished with a companion who finished his service and I will now be serving with one who will be starting his service. It will be funny to see the differences. Me, I am right in-between. I can’t believe I will be hitting the one-year mark pretty soon. So that is the situation with my companion. We will be serving in Bayonne still. I’m happy about that I really do like Bayonne a lot.

I also had another amazing weekend this last Saturday and Sunday. Cristina was baptized and confirmed! What a miracle. Three weeks ago she was just another name in the area book. It really is a miracle. She has such strong testimony. It is great! Elder Sellers baptized her Saturday and I confirmed her Sunday. What an experience. I have so much excitement about this that words cannot describe, spoken nor written. As Pres. Carter once said when talking about someone being baptized "I love this." It truly is a blessing to serve as a full time missionary.

I was excited to hear that Dave Boyer is home. I can't believe that he is back already. Craziness! You have got to tell him "hi" for me. Mom, I am also pretty excited to hear that you are going to study Preach my Gospel. It is an amazing book. It is for everyone. You will love reading and studying it. I know I do each day. Dad, I am glad that you are enjoying your stay in Europe. I can only imagine that it brings back a ton of memories for you. It's probably better that you didn’t come to Bayonne during your down time, especially since I won't be there for the next couple days, but I did appreciate the postcard that you sent me. It did in fact get to me and it gave me the little boost that I needed at the time. Thank you so much. You're right about European keyboards, they are annoy to get used to. I am not looking forward to getting used to the American Keyboard again when I return, ha-ha.

That’s about all from this end. Quite a bit will be changing for me I will appreciate your prayers this week. In any case, it should be a great experience learning how to lead a companionship. I will learn a lot.

I love you all so much, really I do!

Elder Ritter