Week 100 - The Lord's Time

June 11, 2018

Solid week. 

This week was a little frustrating, we got a lot of work done during the whole week, but I fely like things just aren't happening fast enough. Either way the Lord is working, too. During Sacrament meeting, I was thinking "Why isn't everyone progressing, and why aren't we getting the success?"

Then I felt something say "Chill out, I'm working too"

2 minutes later a member showed up with a new investigator (God giving me a little slap in the face)

Thats about the biggest news on the week. 

Read your scriptures and pray daily, and have an unbreakable faith in whatever you may be doing!

Love you all!!

Another Selfie

Week 99 - Subway, Meetings & Interviews

June 4, 2018

This week was very, well pretty much like every other week

We did find a Subway close by our church, and we have gone many times in this last week.

Tuesday we had our district meetings, Wednesday was Interviews with President, and then other than that, just the general missionary work. 

We had 2 baptisms, Dana and Priscilla Levy, who fell through on Sunday, but we are going to see if we can do them this Saturday.

Recently we found a family named, the Renna Family. They are members from a while back, and have a ton of grandchildren and children who came to church on Sunday! So we are working on reactivating and baptizing there.

Thats pretty much it. Sorry, if I'm boring

Love you all

Week 98 - Baptism and Disney World

May 28, 2018

Another Good week!

I have to say sorry to my mom first though, because I didn't take a single picture this week...
This week we were able to find a lot of cool new people! 

We found a Lady named Esther Renna. She is an inactive member of the Church, but she is super excited to come back. She has around 7 grandchildren that she wants to be baptized as well, Named, Santiago, Thiago, Luisana, Macarena, Nahir and Milena!! They're great!

Also we found another less active family, the Molla family, and they have two Grand Daughters who want to baptized! Priscilla and Dana. Priscilla is 10, and she came up to me on Sunday and said, "I need to talk to you after church. I need to be baptized and you need to teach me" hahaha! She wants to get baptized so bad! She told me "I only want to do 2 things. Be Baptized, and go to Disney World" hahaha

Thats about it for the week, Love you all!!

Mom edit: He did end up sending me a selfie ;)

Week 97 - More Effective Ways of Working

May 21, 2018

What a Week!

Tuesday, Elder Martinez was transferred, and I began my final Transfer with Elder Cunningham from Idaho Falls! When I had 6 months in the Mission I saw him begin! Later I was his district leader and then his Zone Leader. Now, He's gonna kill me!! Hahaa Plus he plays Basketball so I'm pumped!

Wednesday we just went so hard at work! He's a hard worker so this is gonna be a great experience!

Thursday we had the first ever Mission Conference! We have been together before, but we were with other missions as well to see Apostles speak. But this was the first time we were authorized to get the whole mission together for a conference!!

We completely changed the way that we work! When I got here to the mission, we didn't work very well with the members, we just spent the whole day with them in a time wasting way. So we had to completely abandon passing by for the because of the bad habit in the mission.

Since I got here, we started working purely through our own personal working! Finding people through contacts and knocking doors, and in all possible ways using our own effort. We have learned a lot over these 2 years on how to do it effectively.

Now, its time for us to go back to the members, but in an effecitve way. Now we are going to work with the less actives. We are going to use all the Less Actives as a reference point, teaching their neighbors, friends and family members who are not members of the church. We will also be using their Ministers to teach them. 

Our goal is to Invite those who are not members to repent and be baptized. But in this new way we will be taking advantage of the opportunity to reactivate AND teach the members how to be ministers, with out wasting any time at all! 

As Zone Litoral, and having the assistants in our Zone, we tested this new way starting last month. Now in this month of May, we have already baptized 22 people (The previous record in our Zone was 16).

Not to focus in on a number, but it just showed us how the Mission will change and baptize 1000s more. 

Lastly as a mission, we have set up temple trips to take all the recent converts to the temple, to be able to retain them and keep them strong!

"As the World´s darkness darkens, The Light of Truth and of the Restored Church will only become Brighter, and more clearly distinguishable"

I'm so grateful to have seen the last 2 years of work, and to have seen all the revelations and changes that have led us to this point as a mission! The Lord has hastened his work and will continue doing so

I Testify that he guides us in his work.

To finish off the week, on Saturday, Ruben and Else Peña were sealed for all time and eternity! And my emotions cannot describe the opportunity that we had to take them through the temple, and be present in the Sealing!

I Love You All!!

Love Elder Ryan

1 - My Mission Lineage! (My son, Smith, his son, Vega, his two sons, Garcia and Campbell, and Campbells son, Rodriguez. Right to Left)

2 - CCM Trio

3 - The Reyna Family

4 - Last Leadership Council

Week 96 - Mother's Day Call

May 14, 2018

So yesterday we got to skype with the fam!! Happy Mothers Day to my Wonderful Mom!! Also Happy Mothers day to my Grandma Peggy and Kathy! As well To Taylor and Kallie!!! 

This week was so difficult to get out and work, so many things to do and manage, yet the Lord still blesses! We found so many new people, inactive families, and just pure miracles! I'm excited for this last transfer, big changes and big things will happen.

I Just want to leave you all with a quote from President Nelson, when he came last year to visit in Argentina. On Sunday, Elder Batalla (a 70 that lives in our ward) reminded us of this quote:

Some youth asked Pres. Nelson : "What will be the biggest problem for the future of the Church"

Nelson Replied "Managing the Growth! The world will grow in darkness, and will continue to become darker and darker. But the Light of the Truth, only shines brighter in Darker places, and many will recognize it"

Don't become discouraged, hold to the Light!! 

Love you all!!

Elder Ryan

Week 95 - The Streak has ENDED!

May 7, 2018

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAYD!! Te quiero y espero que pudieras disfrutar el día con tu nuevo hijito!!

So the exciting news this week, is that my 22 month streak of not getting bit by a dog has ended. In a country infested by 100s and 100s of dogs everywhere, this could be considered a miracle. 

We knocked a door this week, and this huge German Shepard came out. It walked up to the fence, then all of a sudden it jumped the fence and bit my arm. It hurt, and even with 2 layers of clothes on, the punk made me bleed. 

But I lived to tell the tale so, we´re all good.

This week was a little difficult, we found a ton of people, but few came to church. Teo (one of our investigators) was supposed to be baptized Sunday, and just didn't show up. We are still not too sure on what happened.

But overall. All is well! 

Love you all!! Have a great week!!

Love, Elder Ryan

Elder Taylor came to visit with his parents

Week 94 - #3TimeUncle

April 30, 2018

CONGRATULATIONS JAYDON AND KALLIE!! AND WELCOME TO THE WORLD TYLER BRENT RYAN!!! 

The second nephew born during this mission, but so excited to meet them!

Also shoutout to Bryson with his sweet hair and blood!

This week was very chill, Leopoldo Castillo was baptized, he is the son of a family that we are currently teaching.

Sorry there's not much to share this week, but I also went on divisions with Elder Kepa Zubeldia (From East Kaysville) and Elder Smith (Mi Hijo)!!!!

Love You All!!!!

Elder Ryan

Week 93 - Smash the Record!

April 23, 2018

This week was so nuts. I did so many divisions that I can't even remember them all! Hahaha but that's what the journal is for!!

One cool thing is that last week we started the week with only 1 person in the whole Zone, who had a baptismal date to be confirmed for this last weekend, and we ended up baptizing and confirming 4 as a Zone!!

Now this week we have 10 people with a date, and a possibility of 2 more people! Please pray for: Leopoldo, Diana, Dante, Milagros, Kevin, Lorena, Camila, Marcos, Genaro, Ignacio, Agustina, and Ezekiel!! 

The highest record in this Zone in one month was 16 confirmations. We have 8 right now, and our goal is 18! We have the opportunity to smash the Record!!! WOOO.

Those are like the biggest news of the week!! Love you all so much!! Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Ryan

Week 92 - BOOM week!

April 16, 2018

Hola Todos!! 

I realized that I never told you guys who is my companion! It's Elder Martinez from Monterrey Mexico!

This week was pretty cool!! We started trying a new way to work here in the Zone recently, which President Packer had taught us when he came a few weeks back, and this last week was awesome!!

The Elders and Sisters here in the Zone simply applied what we learned, and then went to work!! By Saturday night we had almost 70 people with baptismal dates in the Zone!! More than double than what we normally have.

The way to work is first: Exact Obedience, to have the Spirit. Now that we have the Spirit, we use it to find personal revelation. This Personal Revelation helps us to work more efficiently in our purpose, which summarized is, Find, Teach, Baptize, and Retain New Members. President Packer said if we would do this, and if we make our teaching better, we would be able to baptize 4 times the amount of people!

And the Zone, now 2 weeks in the Transfer, is doing very well with it, and we're seeing some progress that we have never seen before!! It's awesome!!

We are teaching a few families here. The Reyna Family is from Peru, and they are all going to church. The parents need to be married, but their son will be baptized this week, his name is Leopoldo.

We also have a woman Named Diana, who's preparing to be baptized. Her husband, Erico, is getting ready as well, but he's struggling with some things still.

There are lots of others who have been listening to us, but the last one to mention is a active member's husband, Oscar. He's been listening to the Missionaries for awhile, but he hasn't been able to give up smoking. We are starting to work with him as well.

Love you all!! Have a great week!!

Elder Ryan

Week 91 - Pacheco - - Zona Litobam

April 9, 2018

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!! I love you soo much!! Thanks for everything that you've done for me!! Hope it was a great day!!

Well, after 6 months they transferred me from Garin, and I'm almost certainly in my last area. I'm so excited to be here!! The Zone is so great! I get to be the Zone Leader of the Mission Offices and the Assistants!! Plus, they called Elder Smith as the new Secretary, so I'm back in the Zone with him!!

This Zone is really pretty! Its a little bit more city than Garin, but it's still not nearly as bad as capital.

The ward is super cool! We have the Area 70, Elder Batalla in our ward!! The ward has a really rich part, and a really poor part (My area is the poor part, and we share the ward with Sisters who have the rich part). And on Sunday at our lunch with some members, they made us BABY BACK RIBS!! They were sooooo good. And I asked the member at the end how she made them so good, the said, "With this sauce" and she pulled out a big bottle of Sweet Baby Rays Honey BBQ... Oh the tears of joy that were shed!!

We have lots of investigators that we are working with. But the only big story of the week would be Sunday morning. We went to about 5 homes that we had set up attendance, and nobody even answered the door. We were so bummed, until we showed up to church and found 4 of them already there!!

I Love You All!! Have a great week!!!

Love Elder Ryan

Week 90 - General Conference

April 2, 2018

I'm sorry but I only have like 30 minutes to write today!

But Big news!! Francisco and Ludmila were baptized on Sunday!! One of the coolest experiences on the Mission!!

Transfers are tomorrow, so I'll know tonight where I'm going (Or if I'm staying).

There's gonna be a temple in LAYTON!! WOOOOOO! We were watching conference with the whole ward, and they all came and congratulated me for it hahah! (They could tell I live close because I was pretty pumped when it was announced!)

I wish I could write more, but the time isn't enough, Love You All!! 

Heres a pic with our ward mission leader to enjoy!

Love Elder Ryan

Week 89 - Divisions & Interviews

March 26, 2018

This week was a little nuts!! 

I wasn't with my companion for about 4 days due to divisions throughout the whole Zone!! We went EVERYWHERE!

President came on Tuesday to do our Zone interviews, they went amazing! He usually likes to talk a lot, and really dig into the problems, but President Packer told him he needed to be shorter. He only did 10 minutes with each Elder, but it was so powerful and awesome. Just right to the point, and some amazing advice!!

Ludmila and Francisco are going well!! They are seriously so great. They feel like they still need to receive an answer, and they have their baptisms on Sunday! So please pray for them that they might receive it!!

I Love you all! Im sorry my letters are short, but just do everything you guys can to feel the spirit daily!! LOVE YALL!!

Elder Ryan

Week 88 - Visit from Elder Packer

March 19, 2017

Quite a cool week!!

On Wednesday, we had a visit from Elder Packer, of the Seventy. He is one of the counselors in our Area Presidency. 

Me and Elder Christensen had to wake up at 4 am to get to a meeting with Elder Packer and all the other Zone leaders, before we started the special conference. To start the meeting, Elder Packer and Sister Packer came and shook each of our hands. Sister Packer asked me where I was from, and I told her Kaysville. She asked me which Junior High, and I said Centennial. She then told me her son teaches there, and sure enough Mr Michael Packer was my 8th grade history teacher. hahaha he was one of my Favorite teachers!! I never knew his dad was a 70 and that his Grandpa was an Apostle!! (Boyd k. Packer)

The conference was very good!! He helped us see the missionary work from an Apostles perspective! And he taught us the importance of having the Spirit here in the work! You could just feel the excitement to start changing, and find new ways to work even better in the missionary work!

Later on Friday we had FHE with a member family and with our investigator family, Francisco and Ludmila. We found them a few weeks back and they are progressing so well!! They are the best! We're not sure when they'll be baptized, but they can in any moment! In the FHE we talked about temples, and how they are lights to all! It was a very cool lesson.

Saturday we had an activity with the Elders quorum where me and Elder Christensen Taught everyone how to make Tacos. Francisco came, it was super fun!! 

Love Y'all!! 

Have a Great Week!!

Elder Ryan