Crazy!

Hey Mom and Den,

Well, things have been super crazy with transfers.  And for whatever reason mail doesn't seem to get to the house where they have us staying.  Instead, it goes to the houses of other missionaries...which means mail takes forever!!  :(  Bummer!  But things here are good.  It seems, as fate would have it, I am yet again to establish a teaching pool for this area.  Since this area is also affected by the stake boundary change, everything is awry here as well.  But the good news is that my companion, Elder Nelson, is awesome and we seem to get along other than the fact that he's a Cowboys fan!  But I think we can get past that though!  The family we are staying with is a little strange.  They like to get upset about little things like "us washing our own dishes".  They don't want us to.  I guess they might be afraid we'd break something.  I don't know.  But they're a little  odd.  Like, the other night...  Bro. Butters came into our room at midnight and then turned on the light and then told us how we need to clean up the apartment.  (Minor note:  I had been in the area all of 4 hours!)  So, yeah, things are a little crazy right now, but I did get Hunter's letter and will be sending him something back soon.

Love you guys tons!
Elder Ririe

Transferred Again!!!

Hi Guys!

So, I'm being transferred again.  Ugh.  I don't really want to move, but I guess I have to.  This time I'm being magically whisked away to...you guessed it...SPOKANE.  haha  Yeah, still here, just two wards south of where I'm at now.  But the news is that I'm all bike now, so no more luxury of a car.  Oh well, it'll be nice not to have to worry about mileage or gas tanks or that kind of stuff.  My new companion is Elder Nelson from Oklahoma.  He's pretty cool.  (He was in my district before so that's how I  know him.)  So, yeah, things are good.  Loving it up here and will now have spent over a year in Spokane alone!  haha  more than half of my time here!  Whoo!  It's awesome!  I'm almost out of time today with transfers and all.

I love you tons!
Elder Lance Ririe

Treasured Phone Calls!

Mother's Day and Christmas are my favorite holidays....as any missionary mom will tell you!  We had a FANTISTIC  phone call with Elder Lance yesterday.  He sounds great, is doing awesome, and sends everyone his love!  His knee seems to be doing much better, but still bothers him a little.  The stake he was serving in just had their boundaries all realigned so now he covers two brand new wards.  Also with the changes to the boundaries they lost all their current investigators they were teaching, as well as their apartment (its now in a different ward).  With having to find a new place to live and no one to teach in their teaching pool, this week will be a busy one for sure.  Transfers are next week, so he's not sure what will happen with those.  He is still loving his mission and feels more than blessed to be there.  He said words just can't describe.  He had a great time talking to the kids, who were actually all pretty chatty this time.  I had a hard time getting them off the phone!!!  I asked him if the calls home make him more homesick...and he reassured me it helps the homesickness go away.  He said, "You just have no idea how good it is to hear you guys!"  Only 9 short months left to go!  We both agreed it would go by fast, but I'm definitely counting the days till Christmas!  haha

Awesome!

Hey Mom and Den,

Things up here have been pretty crazy to say the least.  We found an awesome family to teach, the Steiners.  Jim is a great guy but he has post traumatic stress from the war and his wife left him for a younger guy, so he's going through a lot.  But his daughter came to a member's baptism and loved it and wants to be baptized, which is great!  So we have started to teach both of them.  However, they just changed all the ward boundaries and so now we cover two wards in two buildings both with church at 9.  So President is working on possibly moving some of the missionaries around the wards, so we are kind in limbo until we are told which wards we are to serve in.

My knee is doing lots better.  I have this massive metal brace - makes me feel like Robocop.  And I have been fighting the urge to play or do anything on p-day because out here all anybody does is play basketball.  So sitting and watching for 3 hours is not so fun.  But maybe I'll get around to some letter writing, although its hard to know what to write when I write out all the stuff I've gone through this week in my email  :)  Oh...and I'm getting my mail too!  It's great!  And we are currently staying with the Browns.  They are awesome!

I love you guys tons!

Love, Elder Lance Ririe