Ryder's Mission

  Hey everybody! Como estàn? I know I keep saying that the weeks have been crazy every email, but it's so true. Also, whoever said the first 6 months takes forever was a liar, time is flying by like crazy. This week has been the hardest one so far, but I've also grown closer to Christ the most this week.  Just a couple highlights, we had some intercambios this week, which basically means we swapped companions for a day. But man, talk about a tough day. Elder Moss went to another area, and I stayed here with Elder Gonzalez, and I had to lead and plan the day and all that good stuff. So yeah, that was a change, and then all of our lessons fell through again... so we just knocked doors in the morning. But after lunch was pretty much a disaster; I was trying to call all of our appointments that evening (still can't really understand spanish) so I had no idea what anyone was saying, and also, Elder Gonzalez doesn't speak English, so I couldn't communicate with him super ...

  Hey everybody! This week was pretty crazy busy (as usual). It was kind of the worst and the best week of my life at the same time, had some hard days, but also strengthened my testimony in lots of amazing ways.  Beginning of the week was interesting, had my first experiences with all of our lessons falling through, so that was something. We've also been passing a lot of bolos (drunks), and it's either low key scary or hilarious.  One guy gave me a hug and told me that we were angels sent from the U.S., so that was kind of touching/funny. But yeah most people are willing to talk with us at least once, but then never again, so we've been working super hard on finding people that are actually interested.  On the flip side, we've also had some really really good lessons. We've been teaching a family that we met on the street, first time we met them we gave them a pamphlet about the plan of salvation and they actually read it! Had some really good questions and we were...

  Hola! It's been a wild one! Finally made it to El Salvador, already feels like I've been here forever. Had to say some hard goodbyes to my district and teachers at the CCM in Mexico, gonna miss those guys, but I know they're doing great work in Guatemala and Texas.  Anyways, since the last time has emailed a lot has happened; don't even remember the last week at the training center ngl. We had a pretty cool devotional on Sunday by Elder Ulchdorf, don't remember all what it was about, but it was awesome, felt the spirit a lot. Also had a cool devo on President Nelson's birthday (happy late birthday to him), it was just super cool to see how much joy he and the members of the Quorum of the Twelve have. They're such great examples, we're blessed to have a prophet and apostles today to guide us.  As for travelling, it was pretty great. Thankfully we didn't have to leave at midnight or anything crazy, and the flight was only a couple of hours. There wer...

  Hey everybody!  This week was pretty similar to last, I'll just give the quick rundown. We taught another completely spanish lesson this saturday, it actually went pretty well. I'm by no means fluent, but I feel like I can get a lot of what I want to say across to others, it's progress. We also taught our first lesson to someone who's not a member of the church; could've been better ngl, but it was definitely a good learning experience.  We've been playing a lot of pickeball, basketball, and ultimate frisbee, ultimate frisbee is by far my favorite. It's so much fun, Elder Mortenson from my district was a 3 time state champ for ultimate frisbee (didn't even know that was a high school sport ngl) but he can  launch it all the way across the field, it's pretty crazy. We've played some district v district (we're undefeated ofc ofc), and at least once a game someone makes some crazy diving catch and we all freak out, it's a blast.  It's ...