Hello Hello!

Hi family! how are you all doing? It sounds like you all had an awesome week full of adventure and greatness. :) I am glad you are all safe. I remember feeling the same way on the hike up mount timp. I thought I was going to die and I thought I was going to fall off the mountain. It was sooo scary. I remember at the end I really wanted to die. I made it through though and I wouldn't mine doing it again sometime in the future. I am glad you are all safe.

Sooooo I have been moved. I was transferred to bear creek 2 ward. It is in Houston again. I don't really know for sure where it is but I think it is to the west of the office. who knows though. It is nice here. Hermana Rivera and Gutierrez served her and they loved it. I have heard tons of good things about it. I am glad to be here. I was and still am a bit sad about leaving oakcrest. I loved it there so much and I loved hermana crandall but mission life is mission life and you do what heavenly father wants. I thought I was safe because I hadn't received any calls so I thought okay i don't have to train or open a new area. Then wednesday night i got a call. I was like NOOOOO it was the aps. They asked me to trio train and be the training sister leader and elder barney now calls me commander rife. :D haha. He is funny. I am the sister training leader for my zone so I am in charge of the sisters in my zone, doing exchanges with each of them each transfer and have to give training at times when called upon by the zone leaders. Elder Torres and Elder Wesley Valdez are the zone leaders so that will be fun! Also this girl named sidney elliott is in my mission. Kendra knows her. I met her this last week. Hermana Knappen is my companion and Hermana Heybourne was my other companion but she was an english sister and president received information that she was a hermana but wasn't and so she was with us for 2 days and then went with english sisters. I felt bad for her because she couldn't understand much and could speak only a little from what she had learned in high school. Hermana Knappen has been out for 2 transfers and she her family lives in Wasila Alaska. I thought dad would think that was cool! :) She is really nice and I am learning a lot from her!

A lot of wonderful things are happening here. We have a baptism this week with a man named carlos he is 23 and is super awesome. He is really prepared. The sisters have not been teaching him for that long and he is ready. We are working with a few other really prepared people. Ana is another who is super ready. Her sons and daughters are members. Her son is one a mission and her other son served a mission. She came to church yesterday and she was telling us how her son said, mom send me pictures of your baptism and she is like okay that sounds good! :) They ward seems awesome. A lot of people remember hermana rivera and love her dearly. Who wouldn't though! :) 

Saying bye to my good friends in Oakcrest was a bit hard. I love them all and miss them a lot. Hermana Crandall and I talked on the phone last night and she told me that Valentine and Christina came to church yesterday and told them that they are going to get married and then get baptized in 5 weeks after her divorce goes through. She also told me that  a less active family called the Manriques that we had been working with came to church and that they loved it. Daniel and Tirsa came too. I am excited for them and when I get the call about them getting baptized. 

I am adjusting to the new ways of Bear Creek. I like it here though a lot. I love my mission. I will be forever grateful for these experiences that i am having. Even though it is hard, I love them and just like you said. The things that are worthwhile in life are hard. My testimony of the atonement and of my Savior has changed and grown so much. I love the gospel and how blessed am I that I  can be here sharing it with people who don't know about how much Heavenly Father loves them and the blessings that are waiting for them if they just follow the Plan of God. The plan of Happiness. Something that I have really come to love and appreciate on my mission is Inner Peace. Before my mission I don't think i really had it. Here it is so different. Crazy things can be happening all around but my soul feels at peace. I really think it is because we always strive to have the Holy Spirit with us. I found a scripture that I wanted to share with you all. Well...two.

The first is in Romans 15:13 " 13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and ^apeace in believing, that ye may abound in ^bhope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."

D&C 11 

11 For, behold, it is I that speak; behold, I am the ^alight which shineth in darkness, and by my ^bpower I give these words unto thee.

 12 And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your ^atrust in that^bSpirit which ^cleadeth to do ^dgood—yea, to do ^ejustly, to walk^fhumbly, to ^gjudge righteously; and this is my Spirit.

 13 Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall ^aenlighten your ^bmind, which shall fill your soul with ^cjoy;

 14 And then shall ye know, or by this shall you know, all things whatsoever you desire of me, which are pertaining unto things of^arighteousness, in faith believing in me that you shall receive.

I know that as we strive for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost that we will have this inner peace and hope that life is going to be okay if we just trust in the Lord. I know that the Holy Ghost will illuminate our soul and help us choose the right and always follow the Lords plan for us. 

I love you all so much and I hope you all are still reading the scriptures daily. Take care. I love you all

My new direction is 

15903 Yorktown Crossing Parkway

Apartment #1223

Houston Texas 77084

Remember who you are and to whom you belong to.

Off finding the tens of thousands

Hermanita Rife

The Cowans

The Reye's and the Ruiz's

The Casco's

And Laurie...

"our sweet office lady who I love. I gave her a book of mormon with my testimony and a picture of Christ and she cried. She is soooo special. Love her."

If Kynsie is anything like me change is always difficult and I'm sure she had a difficult time saying good-bye to the wonderful people she met in Oakcrest.  They will always hold a special place in her heart and she in theirs.  So grateful for this gospel that allows us to grow and have experiences to meet these choice people whom we call "friends".

Hola Familia!!!

Hey Hey Hey! How ya'll doing? :)

It sounds like you had an eventful week and that things are getting pretty intense in the rife household with chores. :) We got cleaning checks again this week and we got a perfect. Not that many people get perfects so that means our house is pretty clean. I haven't ever gotten a less that perfect so I am glad. Hopefully it will stick ;) I think it will!

This week was a good week. Lots of heat, and a lot of rain. yesterday it rained so hard. Walking out from the church to our car we were soaked. I will def. send some before and after pictures. This week is transfers. Who knows what is going to happen! Our area is being split so there is that possibility and all of them. I'll keep you updated. I did get your letter from Zone conference. It was really good. Thank you. I had to reread it because I couldn't focus really well and it was deep reading. :) It definitely gave me added motivation. I also loved getting mom's card. Thanks mom. Letters are wonderful things! :) I sent the boys letters on Friday. This week got away from me before I could get them to the mail box. Sorry.

We have been able to have a few really good lessons this week. We taught fransisco. He is progressing really well and understands the things we are teaching. He just needs to get to church. He can't because he has to work, but we are going to try to work something out. We are planning on talking about fasting and doing a fast with him. He is so sweet. He says some of the most reverent and fervent prayers I have ever heard. He always says I'll say the prayer and then is really talking with Heavenly Father. He gets all serious and it is a beautiful thing to watch. He always says thank you for sending me your angel messengers or servants to help me understand more about you. We taught him the Word of Wisdom this week because when we went on Monday he was drinking right before we came. We read corinthians 3 about how our bodies are temples and he goes off about how we have to take care of our bodies because when we go to heaven all ruined and crippled we can't say Heavenly Father I need a new body. He is going to say....Sorry that was the only one I had for you! :) He was just laughing when he was telling us. It was so funny! :D I love him!

We have been teaching Felipe and Maria as well. We hadn't been able to get into them since the past cockroach/hermana crandall crying in the lesson incident. He told us, we didn't think you all were going to come back. We told them no and that we wanted to but we weren't able to. We had a good lesson about the book of mormon and explained again the apostasy because Maria didn't understand how Joseph Smith wasn't one of the 12 disciples? I didn't understand where she got that from the restoration but I think she understands now. We passed by yesterday and took them banana muffins and tried to get them to church. All there family was over and they invited us to skip church and to eat with them. Temptations...;) Maria told us sorry that they had disappointed us. I think she really felt bad that they couldn't come. Hopefully they will come this next week. We have a lesson with them tonight and we are going to take our new ward mission leader. Hermano Rivera. We will also be extending a bap. date. Aug 10th. Keep your fingers crossed and prayers going.

Lazero. Oh. Lazero. He is the man. Seriously, I hope I can find someone as good as him. His wife died this past feb. and he lives by himself. We met him awhile ago and just stop by now and then. He isn't super interested but he always asks us questions and he was the man who we talked to at the 4th of july and he asked us to come over. He told us some really powerful stories about prayer and it was special. We were able to share a few verses in the book of mormon with him. He loved them and marked them. He told us about his wife and their life together. He gave us some really wise counsel. He was saying. "When i was about 16 or 17, one day I just decided that I was going to be a good man, a good husband, dad, brother, son, friend, and a good worker. I was going to be honest and live an honest life. It has always done good for me. When I met my jinny (his wife) I told her. You can ask me anything you want and I'll be honest with you so that you know what you are getting yourself into. After we get married, don't bring it up anymore because you knew beforehand. We lived open and honestly like that and we had a beautiful 47 years of marriage. She was a very special lady and i still cry for her daily. Find someone who will love you and who is honest and a good worker and always puts the Lord first. Don't settle. When you find him, you will know" He wasn't saying things that I hadn't heard before but I took it differently because of the respect I have for him. You can just tell how honest and how much character he has so I felt like he had all the right to say it because he has lived it. It was really special. He was showing us a few songs he wrote on the guitar too. He always tells us how glad he is that we come and that he has learned a lot from us. He found out about transfers and he said...I will really miss you if you leave. He I feel is going to be the key to getting a less active woman/family back to church as well as slowly but surely he will accept the gospel. We are encouraging him right now to read the book of mormon. He has read a little but not tons. He is really incredible.

Patricia came to the english ward yesterday with us. It was intense. I am not going to lie. I tried not to be judgmental but man they were noisy. There is a lot of little ones in that ward. I do have to just fall back on the fact that Heavenly Father knew what day she would come and what would happen. She was questioning why we didn't have wine at the sacrament. She took the bread but wouldn't take the wine! haha :D oh patricia. We saw her randomly earlier in the week and she was asking us a bunch of questions about missionary work. She was amazed at the different facts she learned. She was like well if one of ya'll get transferred, ya'll be fixin, to keep in touch right? We told her yes, she loves us. She never does fail to invite us to her church though. :)

We stopped by the morenos yesterday, and their bathroom flooded so that is why they have been canceling. I asked isabel if we had done anything or if something had happened she was like oh no, we have just been really busy. Juan told us that he is in 3 nephi. Future missionary. Here he comes. wow. 13. i'm impressed with that boy. Daniel Rodrigous came to church yesterday. He always has a smile from ear to ear as he comes in. He is a sweet heart. Tirza and he have been reading together. Julio (rossy's boyfriend) and Jasmin (lessactive-rossy's daughter) came to church yesterday too. It was good to see them there. :) As soon as rossy's divorce goes through we will be able to get him into the water!

That was just a few of the things that happened this week. I have been learning a lot like always. I am so grateful for this chance I have to serve a mission. I love this gospel and I know that it truly brings joy into a person's life. I know that the scriptures are where we can find our answers. They are wonderful tools. I also know that Heavenly Father listens to our prayers. We just need to really talk to him. I am so grateful for all the people I am getting to know. I learn so much from them daily. What a huge blessing this is. I hope you know that I love you all so much and miss you all. I pray for each of you. I hope you are reading the scriptures and praying. Stay on the Path. Stay Strong. Remember who you and and to whom you belong to.

Off finding the 10's of 1000's

Love you lots. Your little Texan,

Hermana Rife

Hermana Rife and Hermana Crandall with Patricia

"Lazero. Oh. Lazero. He is the man.  Seriously, I hope I can find someone as good as him."

Not sure who this is that she is pictured with unless it is  "Naysel and Cassie Casco ( Naysel - this is your shoutout!! ;) Love you!!)"

(Will have to ask her about this one when she gets home.)

Before the rain with their Matchy matchyness...

 After the rain!!!!  :)

Trust Kynsie she always LOVED dancing in the rain here at home before she went on her mission!

SCRIPTURE POWER!!!!

And a few from "Our Downtown Houston Trip!

What a wonderful Day! (Dated July 8,2013)

Hello Family,

Thank you soo much for writing me and sending me all the pictures. I am not going to lie. I really needed all of your love today. This week has been a challenging week. My faith has been weak and the bad team has been working on me a lot. Saturday night, I cried really hard. I have just been struggling for the last few weeks with different little things. Even though I know you all are praying for me...man sometimes i am just like. I can't keep doing this. But the good note is the sun always comes through and there is always hope at the end and Heavenly Father always seems to send me little things that help me pull through the hard times. I am not saying this to make you worry or feel sad but just to help you to know how much your letters, emails and pictures mean to me. I got a blessing on friday night and I woke up feeling a lot better on sunday. I fasted that Heavenly Father would help me doubt less and have more faith as well as that we could baptize a family in the month of july. I feel really good. He is helping me to have peace. But Thanks for your love, and prayers. I know your lives are busy and so it is nice to hear from you even though you are busy and have your lives going on.

I am glad to hear all went well with Kylee's baptism. Dad did a wonderful job of describing it and so basically I felt, i was there and that i could picture the whole thing. It even made me cry. Thank you. How special that decision was and how special that tyler had the chance to baptize her. I can see him soon standing in many other fonts helping people on his mission make the same commitment to follow their Savior Jesus Christ and be baptized. :) I know that both he and tanny will be wonderful missionaries. :)

This week was really wonderful and challenging. :) A few fun things

Our trip to Downtown Houston was quite fun. - We went to this Egyptian museum and walked around a lot down there. We took some really fun pictures. I think it would be fun to serve in that area. I really love texas. It is like a different part of the world but in the US. It was fun to hang out with a bunch of other missionaries too.

I had the chance to see Hermana Rivera: Jasmin was in Texas for this last week and she was able to stop by for a little bit and see me. She is so wonderful. I don't think she will ever realize how much she did for me and how much she has changed my life. I look up to her as an example and she is just such an amazing person. She lives in provo now so when I come home that will be fun that she is close. She is still inspired by the spirit. I am almost out of razers and she gave me some for my birthday present. :) It was fun to talk with her and to catch up as well as talk about old memories from the mission.

The Fourth of July was a BLAST: We had training with President Pingree. We went to try to pass by a few people but not many were home. Hermana Crandall had this awesome idea that we could do at night because we didn't have any appointments. There was a firework show and tons of stuff going on by our apartment and so she said, lets go and contact people and give mormon.org cards or Jesus Cards with our phone numbers. We did just that and we were able to talk to a ton of people and make a few really good contacts. It was sooo fun. We also ran into a few other people that we had talked to a little bit and they asked us to come over. We saw a less active in our ward too and she asked us to come pass by and visit this week so it was a successful night. Hermana crandall said, hey lets go down here on this road. We get to the end of the road and I saw the Martinez family from my last ward. It was sooooo fun to see them and talk to them. They gave me huge hugs and told me that they missed me. I told them to send my love to H6. it was so nice to see them. I think they were surprised with my spanish. :D We went back to our apartment and watched the fireworks from our balcony, sang songs from the Hope of America program ( hermana crandall totally sang in that) so we sang all the songs we could think of.) and then we roasted hot dogs and made s'mores, then we slept on the balcony. Don't worry we are on the 3rd level so we were safe. I woke up sooo hot though. It is super humid. Doesn't even cool off at night. We had a fun day. I do have to say too that i was proud of myself because I made that fire with not lighter fluid. I think i would pass if i got stranded in the forest.

We weren't able to see any of our progressing friends this week. Maria, fransisco, morenos. I was wondering why is all this happening? I know it is for a reason though. We were going to contact this guy named raul that we talked to and one our old investigating friends named celestino lives across the road. He was outside and we were able to talk to him. He has been listening to missionaries for about 5 years. He never has come to church though but loves us sooo much. He said that he feels like it is his time now and that he was always feeling off about something but He is going to start listening and really trying to figure out if this is what Heavenly Father's will is. He is on chapter 12 of the book of mormon. He said on saturday (a different day) that he feels that a lot of changes are going to be happening in his life and he feels that it is going to be very beautiful. :) We are excited for them.

Well I love you all a lot. I am going to send you a lot of pictures today. Take care and keep reading and praying. I hope you all know how much I love you. I love this gospel and I love my mission. Even though some moments are hard, I know that it is nothing compared to what Jesus Christ had to sacrifice. I know this is the true church of Christ. I love the scriptures. They are the words of Heavenly Father. I am becoming a bit more and more aware of how much he is involved in the details of our life. He prepares everything for us and is always there but sometimes we just don't look for Him. Stay Strong and Keep Movin' On!

Love you. Off finding the 10's of 1,000's

You're lil' Texan - Hermana Rife

Egyptian Mummies or Sister Missionaries???

You choose!!!  :)

Enjoying a trip to Downtown Houston...

I'm glad they are able have a little down time once in a while

Another fun picture from Downtown Houston  

"It was fun to hangout with a bunch of other missionaries too."

Enjoying the 4th of July on the mission 

(One of Kynsie's favorite Holidays)

Cute Kynsie on the 4th 

(Anyways, I'm assuming because of the red, white and blue attire!)

July - Hope it won't fly!

Hello Family,

How are you all doing? It sounds like you had another busy but successful week. How nice of you to take care of good ol' zz. :) Glad to hear Dad is loosing weight and being healthy. Mom is doing crafts and cleaning and taking care of the fam. Kendra is doing great and finding herself. Tyler is working like crazy and going to efy. Tanner is all clean and learning about leadership. Kylee is making such a wonderful decision this weekend.

As for me. I am here in texas. I am actually enjoying the heat. I am getting some pretty horrid tan lines. I might have to get a spray tan before I go swimming when I come home. I even have tan lines on my feet. I will include a picture.  It is pretty hilarious. Whenever I get out of the shower hermana crandall laughs at me because of how white my skin is compared to my arms. Oh well. At least some part of me is tan. Even though it is hot and I can't wear my hair down because it grows in volume too. I like the weather. I prayed and asked for it and He answers prayers so now i need to be happy with my answer. I am also glad that if i have lived in Texas I can live in Infierno too. That is Hattie in spanish! :) Hopefully I won't ever have to live there.

This week we went to the temple and it was so great. I love the temple. The peace that one can feel there is so amazing and sweet.  You just walk on the grounds and you feel something so sacred. I love it there. I always get so excited to go because I love how the rest of the day is soooo nice.

We met this new family Felipe y maria. We had a lesson with them and let us just say it was something. :) Poor hermana crandall. She had a really bad day and then we go in to the lesson and she HATES bugs. There were cockroaches EVERYWHERE and mice. They were crawling on us and i was having a hard time focusing. Then her part comes and she can't even speak spanish. She just starts tearing up and i was like hermana you can do it. you are fine. she is like no i can't and she just starts crying and says disculpe. And is just crying. It was soooo sad. I felt so bad. She pulled it together though and was fine after. Poor thing. It is funny now but that house is sooo gross. It is hard to feel the spirit there because of how dirty it is. It was a pretty bad but i think we were able to leave the spirit there.

Morenos, Maria, Fransisco - are all doing good but we weren't able to get them to church. They all have different things coming up. We will try again this week. They are progressing but church is just soo hard for everyone. Satan works hard. When we were teaching Morenos, they were telling us about their experience at church. They said during the sacrament that they all felt something really special. We explained about the holy ghost more and how Heavenly Father is trying to answer their prayers by giving them these feelings. It was great. How special these people are. Please keep praying for them that they may come to church.

Yesterday, for 5th sunday. I had to speak in the 3rd hour. It was sooooo scary. Oh my goodness. I was shaking. It went well though. I had to speak on what we can do as members to help the work of the Lord move forward. I just took some quotes from the broadcast and different things I had been studying. Hno Arredondo told me I did great but I was so nervous. It was all in spanish and I thought I was going to die. Hopefully we can get our ward more motivated. We got a ward mission leader finally. He will be great. A beautiful miracle happened last night after church. Hermana Ortiz invited us to dinner and the elders can't go in because they didn't have a woman. Then she is like let me get my nephew and he will come. Jose Franklon. We ended up talking to him and sharing our testimonies and Nephi 3:7. He said he would listen to the messages. It was sooo cool. He used to go to church with Hermana ortiz. I think he really felt something special and he is looking for something like this. The elders will teach him but it was a neat experience!

Two random things. Sooo first. We totally got our car towed on saturday. We were parked in a permit area that didn't have any signs. It was annoying but its whatever. 2nd time on my mission. Its for a reason I guess. Who knows. But we got our car back  and everything turned out but still. Craziness.On Sunday we were talking about Disneyland- hermana crandall and I. We figured out that we have the same love for it. Ohhh how i love disneyland. I said sometimes when i am walking down main street I seriously want to cry because i feel so happy. I said like it is like you can feel the spirit. She was laughing hysterically. She was like I feel the same way. :D I am so excited to go with her. We planned a while ago that we are going on Oakcrest reunion to disneyland Oct2014 when Hermana Crandall, Elder Barney and Elder Howe are home. So it will be The 5 of us. I am sooo excited. But its like in forever but it was just funny.

Well, today we are going to downtown houston sooo i am in a rush to get out of here but I love you all and I hope you have a happy 4th. Know I miss you all so much and I love you too. Last night I dream't that Mila ran away from me cause she didn't know who i was, but that kinley remembered my name and I cried. I also was at gap in my pajamas when all of this was happening. You were shopping and I left hermana crandall durning the night to go to the store and i saw you there. :D but who knows what the interpretation of that dream is. :D

I love you all. I know this work is the work of the Lord. Stay Strong in the Gospel and Find those who need to receive this gospel or those who need to remember it! We all have a part in this work. Take care. Until Next week!

Love you!!!

Off finding the tens of thousands and remember who you are and to whom you belong too!

Hermana Rife

Two cute sister missionaries emailing home!  :)

"I am getting some pretty horrid tan lines. I might have to get a spray tan before I go swimming when I come home. I even have tan lines on my feet!!!"

AND... Mom loves those Blue Toes Kynsie!!!
That's my girl!  ;)