Busy week of Baptisms, Motokar theft and fishing for Piranha

Well this week was crazy, we had to do so many things. We had 4 baptisms on Saturday. Martin is 23 years old, he has a huge goal to serve a mission and he is already really active and does so much stuff with the activities. His uncle is our ward mission leader he helps us out so much. Then we had Peter who is 18. Peter is going to serve a mission too. His brother is a member, he takes us around in his motokar wherever we need to go. Then we had Kevin that’s 15, his brother is a member too, he is a cool kid, and Cecilia who is a single mother, she is a nice girl, she is 18. We all baptized them together so the pictures are pretty cool.

Martin didn’t get confirmed because something bad happened to his uncle, our ward mission leader. I was there in the church waiting for them to come and they didn’t come, I was thinking they always come what happened, you know me I started worrying and worrying all through church. I had a feeling that something bad happened, after we went to their house to see what was happening and Teofilo, our ward mission leader, was driving his motokar going home for the night at like 12.00 at night, Saturday. Someone called him from the side of the street for a ride, he pulled over and the guy pulled out a gun and grabbed him and put the gun to his head, another guy left from the bushes with a knife and grabbed him and pulled off the motokar and took off, he was lucky they didn’t kill him. Martin had to go help him so they couldn’t come to church, next week he will get confirmed. They are recovery now, it is sad because Teofilo drives his motokar for his job to make money for his wife and recent born baby. Now he doesn’t have a job, he is really worried.

This week I will do a gringo change with Elder Schofield, Wednesday, I can’t wait, I need a break from my companion, yesterday he decided that the Sabbath day is for everyone and missionaries shouldn’t work and decided not to work, he just wanted to sleep. I’m really learning patience this change. I didn’t yell or anything but I realized I have a lot of Dad in me ha-ha. He ended up working.

I’m glad you got my package, you guys can enjoy, just please be careful with the Anaconda head, put that in my room or something.

We are not going to Iquitos anymore, we are going to Lima next Monday night and we will return Tuesday night here, it kind of stinks but im way excited.

Today we are going to go to a small jungle really far from here and we are going to go fishing for piranha, its going to be awesome, well thanks for the support, I love you guys so much.

love elder ridge

Visiting Iquitos

Today we are going to play football!! American football, its going to be sweet. As a district leader I work normal but I just have to do more papers dealing with numbers and calling people and doing interchanges. I interview people for baptism, that’s my favorite part is interviewing.

Well this week was real fast. We had interviews with President, that was pretty cool. We did practices how to teach and I had to challenge him to baptism, I think I did a pretty good job. He did give us some good news, Elder Pino for the Seventy is going to come visit this mission. He is going to visit the missionaries in Lima, then Tarapoto then Iquitos. He is not going to be able to come here to Pucallpa, so President is flying us to Iquitos!!!! November 26th, I thinks its Thanksgiving. We are going to be there for the whole day so I will be able to go visit members and converts, I’m so happy, I never thought that I would ever go back. I’m way excited to go there for a day.

Our investigators are doing good, we are going to have 4 baptisms this weekend, Martin, Peter, Kevin, Cecilia. I’m way excited, and im going to do an interchange this week so it will be a busy week. I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting and I talked for 15 minutes. It was cool to see the pictures at Elder Rich’s homecoming. I showed Elder Schofield the pictures, it made him trunky, he is going home in three weeks. I’m going to do an interchange with him next week, we are going to have a gringo day. He said all he is going to do is eat cereal all day. I’m with him on that, I can’t wait to drink milk. Also here in the zone is Elder Briggs, my first companion in the MTC, we also hangout together on pday, he is doing good, that kid is awesome.

Answers to Questions, good investigators and a Great Bishop

To answer your questions:

My companion and I are fine now, just had to break him in a little. He complains sometimes but I just say I don’t want to hear it in a nice way. He is working hard with me.

My zone leaders are Elder Rodriguez and Elder Schofield. Elder Schofield is going to finish this change and he is awesome. He is teaching me a lot on how to do the things as a district leader.

The food here is the same, its not that good. I’m already getting skinny. They always give me like rice and a little piece of meat like chicken, or chicken feet or cow stomach. It’s not that good. I kind of miss a Carls Jr.

In my room there is a refrigerator but not a microwave.

The shower water is cold but it feels good because its so hot here and yes I sleep in a mosquito net. I put the net around my fan so the fan is like right there in the bed to keep me cooler but I still sweat at night. I shower at night and in the morning and I enter sweating and leaving sweating. However, I love the jungle.

I am not taking my garlic pills because there aren’t any fleas here but there are tarantulas in our room and they are big.

I do wear my boots when it rains and yes I left a piece of luggage in Lima.

This week was a good week. We found a lot of people to teach. Yesterday we had 18 investigators come to church. 4 are getting baptized on November 14th and 1 on the 21^st. This week we have people to visit to challenge them to baptism.

This month is going to be awesome, one of our investigators is Martin, he is 23 and his uncle is a member, he wants to be a missionary, he is in second nefi, he comes to church and goes to the activities, he is awesome. He is one of the strongest investigator I have seen. We also have a family. The dad and mom are married and have three children, two are members, the daughter that isn’t is 14, we are really trying hard to baptism them, they want to get baptized, but they didn’t come to church so we are going to visit them and see how things are going.

We also have a couple of families that want to get married and then baptized, it would be amazing to marry a couple families and baptize them but they have problems with their papers and stuff so it might take a while.

Also I don’t think I told you guys but last week I had my first interview with Edgar who is 50. I was nervous but I did it good and the interview was really spiritual. I asked him who he wanted to baptize him and he said well this interview was really special so I want you to do it. So I was like ya if you want I can do it, so I baptized him last Saturday, it was a cool experience. I baptized the first person I interviewed.

I have a couple of interviews this week I’m so excited.

When you go to see Elder Rich tell him I say hi.

They don’t celebrate Halloween here in the jungle. They know what it is but they are not into it like we are in the states.

Our new pensionista is the Bishops wife, she cooks good. The Bishop here is awesome. He does so much for the Ward. This ward actually has home teachers and visiting teachers. It’s the first time I have seen it here in Peru. There are also ward missionaries and they actually work with us. This ward is way cool. There is attendance of 200 on average on Sunday. It gets pretty filled up in sacrament.

Everything is going good, the work is going great here and I hope it stays that way.

Well thank you for everything, thanks for the support, I love you guys

Love Elder Ridge