The Best Week of My Life

Hey, thanks again for writing. It is always great to hear from all of you and it sound like things are busy, but good at the same time. I just want to say that this past weekend was the best weekend of my life. It was so amazing! So for you all who asked, YES, Isabelle's baptism went through and she is now a baptised and confirmed member of the Church. The baptism service was awesome. It went so smoothly and the spirit was consistently strong. I also only had to dunk her once and I didn't mess up the words, so that was good. Then, yesterday's Sacrament Meeting was also amazing. President Carter was there because a sister missionary, who served in this mission not a long time ago, was getting married to someone who lives in Pau. So President came down for that. He conducted the Baptism interview for Isabelle and he was also able to be a witness at the baptism. Yesterday, Isabelle was confirmed at Sacrament Meeting and then President and Sister Carter shared their testimonies followed by Isabelle. It was so amazing how strong the spirit was. It was so amazing to see the reward of my efforts. I'm pretty sure though that the reward was much greater than the effort. It was really such an amazing blessing. I'm so blessed! Thank you all, for all you do for me.

So that was last week and just as that ended another transfer began. I dropped off Elder Gibbons at the Gare this morning and then Elder Birk and I went to Bordeaux to pick up our new companion. There were 2 companionships here in Pau but we are cutting down on missionaries in The Toulouse Mission so from now on there will only be 1 companionship in Pau. So for the transition they are keeping one missionary from each side of Pau, Elder Birk and I, and because we are both pretty young we recieved Elder Léman. So I have two companions right now. It is pretty cool actually. I know Elder Birk pretty well by now and Elder Léman seems to be way cool. Oh and a fun fact they are both European. Elder Birk form Denmark who has been out just one transfer less than me and Elder Léman from Belgum who has been out for about a year. I am excited. It should be fun to have a trio going.

So yeah that's what's up with me. All is going well! I am excited to get to work. I will miss Elder Gibbons a lot. We became very good friends. He is way cool and don't be surprized if his group "The Gibbons" gets big. He is very talented. You can check out his stuff on i tunes actually. So yeah all is good here. Hopefully things will continue to go well.

Love Elder Ritter

Oh and by the way Dad there is no time limit to when you go Senior companion. Some go Senior their second transfer. Like Elder Gibbons and others might never go Senior Comp. It mostly depends on The President, the missionary, and Heavenly Fathers will.

Elder Gibbons Heads Home Next Week

So I guess something you all have been dying to hear. Yes I did recieve your email last week and sorry I forgot to respond to the google earth part. I really was super excited when you wrote about that, because you found exactally where I live. Haha pretty much every morning I see that car garage haha (I only don't when we go out the back door). Oh and yeah we live next to that big grave yard. It's pretty cool, I guess. There are some cool head stones and stuff. Our place has the blue hand rail things. I think my actual section though is not the yellow building. It's a pretty nice place, but it is very small so don't worry, it's not like I'm getting too comfortable. No, I love it though. I am really blessed to be living where I am. That's so cool that you found it too. So what do you think of Pau? It is seriously so pretty. I especially think the mountains and the chateaux are pretty sweet too.

So in one week from today this transfer will be over. So crazy. Elder Gibbons will be all packed and ready to meet his parents in Toulouse where he will give them a tour of where he has served and then head back home. It's kinda weird searving with a missionary that will be finishing up in not long at all. I'm going to miss him though. We have had such a fun transfer here in Pau. Before the transfer ends, this Saturday, Isabelle's baptism service will be held. I think the baptism prayer in French is actually, I dont have it memorized yet, but I know that it is found in 3 Né 11, I think verse either 21 20 or 25 hmmm. I should probably get on that hahah.

So I'm thinking that I will be staying in Pau mostly because in my President interview, he pretty much told me I would be. We'll see if it turns out that way though. If so It will be great to continue teaching Isabelle, Valentine and and spending Christmas here in Pau. If so, Isabelle said she has free long distance or what ever and that we can use her phone to call on Christmas. Oh and think Dad about writing a letter on evolution and the gospel for Valentine. That would be awesome if you sent something. If you don't have time or just dont want to, don't worry about it. But I would love for you to send something like that. Basically, what I was thinking is that many people. say specifically Valentine, don't believe in God. They believe in evolution and to have a your testimony would be awesome because you explain so nicely how the two don't really conflict. I hope what I'm saying makes sense. It would also be awesome to have because other missionaries automatically think Darwin is a bad person and you know... Luckly missionaries for the most part have learned to be open minded. So yeah there is some info. S If you have the time or desire to send me you testimony I would love that a lot ( no pressure).

Sounds like you all had a great Thanksgiving. I'm glad to hear. We also had an amazing Thanksgiving. I seriously felt like I was back in America. It was awesome. We missionaries even put on a skit to explain what thankgiving is all about. It was a blast. The ward absolutley loved it. We have done other activites before, but none even compared to this. The food was pretty good too. Not quite as good as being back at home, but pretty dang close. I was impressed. Maybe I can find some pictures to send home I think Sister Portwood took some pictures.

I am doing very well and I hope you all are too. Have a great day and I'll talk to you soon.

Elder Ritter

Thanksgiving Celebrated in Pau, France

Thanksgiving is not celebrated in France, but this year it will be celebrated here in Pau. We are having a Thanksgiving ward activity this Friday being runned by two American families. We are all very excited and I think I wrote a bit about it in the other e mail from last week.

Also about Christmas, I'm not exactly sure where I will be. I know that I still have that calling card with enough money, but Elder Gibbons said he is always at a members house who offers to let them use their phones. I'm not even sure if I'll be here in Pau so I can't tell you exactly what will happen, but I do know that I have enough money on the calling card still.

Not a whole lot has changed for the email that you should get today from last week. Isabelle is still going well. We have taught Valentine a couple times. she has prayed and is going to start reading so we are excited to see how that goes for her. She just has a hard time believing in God. OH but Isabelle has asked me this week if I would be the one who baptizes her. So I will get to be in the water if all continues to go well. She seems pretty dang solid so I have faith that it will. I am so excited!

I'm loving it here in France. I still wish I was better at speaking French, but I can't complain. I am very blessed. Keep me in you prayer as well as Isabelle and her family.

Love you all and have a great week.

Elder Ritter

November 16, 2009

Thanks everybody for being so awesome and sending me birthday emails. They were so fun to read. I will say that I had a great birthday, possibly the best one yet. We had three amis at church, it was the primay program, we had a pretty dang good number of rendez-vous, and the best part is that Isabelle talked to the bishop and scheduled her baptism for the 5th of December. We are all so excited. After church we gave her a calendar of all we have to teach still and then bore our testimonies of baptism. The Spirit was very strong especially when she prayed. At one point she thanked our Heavenly Father for sending the missionaries to her. I think I really know now why I'm on a mission. I think I always did but now it's sure. I don't think I have felt more joy then at that moment when I realized just how much this gospel truly means to people. It's so amazing. So, yeah, pretty much it was an awesome birthday.

For celebration of my birthday we went and taught Valentine, the 15 year old daughter of Isabelle. Isabelle having tasted of the fruit desired that her whole family taste of it also (she is an amazing mother). Valentine doesn't believe in God for the moment and I think that she uses evolution as an excuse to not believe in God. All she needs is to be educated and feel the spirit. That would be sweet Dad if you could send your testimony in French no pressure though. Yesterday night we went to Isabelle's. She had a cake there for me. She even bought me a present (body wash haha! It's either a French thing or I really smell). We four missionaries were there with Isabelle's family, Valentine and Ange (5 years old). We basically sang I am a Child of God (Elder Gibbons plays guitar so it was sweet) and then all four of us missionaries testified of when we all truly came to know for ourselves, that God was there, and that we are his children. We then commited everyone to pray to know that God is there, that he does love us, and that he does have a plan for us. It was so awesome and once agan the spirit was so strong. Later we heard from Isabelle that Valantine was so touched that she started crying. I guess that's a rare thing too. So Isabelle taught her how to pray and again asked if she was going to pray and Valentine said she will. It's so amazing the power of this message and the joy that is brings to everyone. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is THE Church of Christ. I know that Joseph Smith restored it in our days that that God is there he loves us so much; enough to send his son Jesus Christ to redeem us all. I know that to be true and I know you all know that to be true. Thanks for your examples.

So a couple follow-up things, BYU Basketball, that's already starting? That's sweet. I must say out of anyone on the Lone Peak Basketball team Tyler Haws is the coolest. It was never fun to lose to him but after getting to know him at AMP I will say he is a nice, cool, humble kid. So don't worry too much about it, go on ahead and cheer, haha.

Also, for Thanksgiving we are putting on a ward missionary activity for people to learn a little bit about the Holiday. It's going to be sweet espically if we can get a lot of amis to come. We met one girl here who is an exchage student from Georga USA. She said there are 48 other American exchange students in her group, all studying here in Pau. So we are going to try to get them all to come. That would be so crazy! It would be like being back at college or something. So yeah, we will be throwing a ward party for Thanksgiving. I'm so excited!

All in all I am doing great. I hope you all are too and the work here is going great also. Pray for me and our amis. It has help so much already. Thanks for all do do for me. I love you all.

Elder Geoffrey Ritter

Baptism Scheduled

Hey Everyone, I just want to start off by saying sorry that it is now Thursday and I am finally getting you an email. This week has gone by amazingly fast because of all the unusually things that we have been doing, which caused us to finally take our preparation day today. First of all, we had zone conference Monday and I did get my package, so that was great! Then we had an exchange with the zone leaders on Tuesday, which is always a great experience. Then yesterday, we were at chez Mme Isabelle Grenet helping her repaper her wall. We also had quite a few other rendez-vous yesterday leaving no time for preparation until today, which is not a complete preparation day because we where back at Isabelle's house finishing the job. And when I say finishing the job, I mean wall papering her room AND also setting a specific date for her baptism. Yesterday we talked about her baptism. We asked her if she knew The Book of Mormon is true. She told us her story about how she came to know that The Book of Mormon is true. It was so powerful. We then asked if she wanted to be baptized and she said, "well yeah, because I know that The Book of Mormon is true that means every other part of this church is true so its just normal that I would be baptised eventually". So we all decided to pray about when and set a date when we came back, which was today. So that's exactly what we did and if all goes as scheduled she will be baptised December 5th 2009. I was baptized Dec 6th 1997. Wow, that's crazy, I don't even know why. Elder Gibbons and I are very excited and hope all goes well. Please keep her in your prayers.

So Dad, Happy Birthday Yesterday! I have not put anything in the mail yet. I will do all I can to get something in the mail Monday. Sorry, but I just want to wish you a bon anniversaire! I hope it was great and that you spent all the money for both our birthdays. It's always funny how there ends up being enough for my birthday even after yours. Which reminds me, thanks for the package it was sweet from what I've seen so far. I have not opened the wrapped box yet since I figured I should save something for my actual birthday. Thanks so much. Dad what did you get, anything cool? I imagine that you did. The family seems to always take care of us like that.

Once again sorry that this email has got to you so late but that just means that you don't have to wait too long until my next one so that's a plus. Life seems to be going as usually for you all, the same is for me. A lot of exciting things are in the air like Ward Thanksgiving activities and sweet amis, yeah life is good. I wish you the best and love you all.

à la prochaine,

Elder Ritter

Pretty much I think you are doing a fantastic job with the packages and am going to trust you with the Christmas package. I don't need much, I am getting kinda sick of the ties that I have though ha ha. Also I will send the approved music list for another time hopefully Monday but I'm sure you can send Ricks CD and then I'll try and get it approved. That's if you can get one from him. Merci beaucoup Vous tous êtes le meillier Je vous aime beaucoup beaucoup; allors passer une bonne semaine!

Elder Ritter meets Elder Holland

So today is a rainy day in Pau, not too rainy though. It's still pretty nice and the weather has been perfect this whole week up until now. We have really been blessed. Wow, and what a week it has been. There where so many wonderfully joyful moments and then those times when nothing seems to be going your way. Elder Gibbons and I have been working very hard this week and have seen the fruits of our labors. We taught 12 lessons this week and found 5 new amis. It was a great week but the crazy thing is, we very well could have done better. Mostly, we could have done better because we didn't have a cell phone all week. I never thought a phone was an important part of missionary work until getting here and then not having one all week made us realize just how important they are. We couldn't confirm Rendez-vous and call amis to tell them if we where running late or even call members to help us teach. It was a mess, but like I said we were very blessed this week because we had a great week and that was because we worked hard. I have been learning so much from Elder Gibbons and have come to realize how much more I need to learn to become the missionary I hope I can be. I am learning and becoming a little better each day is all I can ask for.

Also this week we had the amazing blessing of meeting Elder Holland. He came to Toulouse and we had a Mission Conference. I guess mission conferences are very rare and with Elder Holland that is even more rare. I got to shake his had and talk to him for about 2 seconds. It was an amazing experience and when he taught us with the spirit... It was just amazing. It helped me realize just how much harder I need to be working. It has really excited me to do just that.

Megan/ Amy asked what I do on Sundays. Well, Sundays are pretty much exactly like any other day. We go to church in the morning, but after that we go out and work for the rest of the day teaching and finding amis. If we are lucky though we get members to invite us over for dinner or lunch. We try hard to make that happen. It helps so much to have the ward helping out in the missionary effort.

So in terms of photos I will send one today but after emails we are going to get some sweet photos of us outdoors, ha ha so Mason will be happy ha ha. So I'll send some of those next week. Also, yes I mom I have been receiving the photos that you sent. Thank you, they are awesome!

Hey I also just want to give a little congrats shout out to little Benji the button Benjamin; and Jana congrats "SOOOOO Exciting News" (as Wei would say).

I hope you all have great week. I'll try my very blessed to do the exact same. Please pray for Elder Gibbons and I. We have had a good start but we need all the help we can get. We are weak and without the Lord we can do nothing. So the more prayers of faith in our direction the better.
Catch you later,

Elder Ritter

Ps Thanks for sending that package. That is so awesome of you all. I am very excited to get it and hopefully it is here before next Zone Conference. I love you all so stinking much. You keep me going strong.

Dad you mentioned bbq sandwiched in you email. You have no Idea how good that sounds right now, haha. I'll have to get invited over by one of the American families in the word or something haha.

Bye

October 26, 2009

Today is transfer day, meaning that this morning I woke up, went to Toulouse, dropped off Elder Moon and picked up my new companion, Elder Gibbions. He is awesome! It was a bit sad to see Elder Moon go though. Just a bit about Elder Gibbons. He is from Utah and has been serving for just about two years now. This is actually his last transfer. He had been serving in Toulouse up until now as one of the assistants to the president. For those who don't know, that is like one step above Zone Leader. He is a great hard working missionaire and he also seems to know how to have a good time too. I am very excited to work with him and I know I will learn so much. I still am in Pau though, so that is exciting. I just hope I know the ville well enough to get Elder Gibbions up and running. Which literally will take no time.

So that's all my exciting news at least I think it is exciting.

Hmm, this letter is making to be a very short offering. I think its mostly because we don't have much time at all because I had to go to Toulouse and back today and still get all the other Prep day stuff in. Sorry for that. I will write much more next week I promise.

I will tell you about Mme Grenet though. She is doing well and she actually came to church yesterday. I think felt the spirit again. It is so awesome when amis come to church. She seems to be progressing well still. The ward is also stepping up and welcoming her amazingly. Thank you for your prayers on her behalf.

I love you all so much and will talk to you soon,

Elder Ritter