hermana k. rife goes to texas: 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