A letter from a sweet member

I has been a while since I have sent you a note.  Elder Ruiz stopped by yesterday to visit as he felt he would get a transfer notice last night.  I saw him at church today and he did get transferred.  He will be going to the Parker area.  It is South and East of here.  Still in the Denver Metro area.   Maybe he has already let you know all this but I wanted to say something too. 

 

Josie, it has been such a pleasure to get to know your son over the almost 5 months he has served in our ward.  He is a wonderful young man and has such a special spirit about him when he and his companion stop by our home to visit now and again.  We have loved spending time with him.  He isn't just a missionary serving in our ward but more like extended family since you know Camille and her family.  We have enjoyed watching him grow and gain more confidence in himself over time and  loving serving his mission.  I will miss seeing him each Sunday and during the week.  I want you to know that Dave and I know he is ready to carry on and can meet the challenges that come his way.  He will be a great leader and example to those he is around.  We have grown to love this young man of yours.  We do hope that he will be assigned back in our Stake before the end of his mission so we can see him again.   When he was at our house yesterday I gave him a hug before he left.  It was from both me and you to him.  I told him I will keep reading his letters home that are posted on his blog to keep up with what he is doing. 

 

I am thankful for the contact with your family.  Take care and know your Elder is doing well and is happy. 

 

Love to you and your family.

Karen  

Parker!

Hey Everyone ! How's it going?

  Well today was transfer day and i got moved to Parker Colorado. So Last week we pretty good, we taught Nilli in a members home. The Lesson with Nilli went pretty well, she had alot of questions and we tried our best to answer them to the best of our ability.  We saw Jennifer Haberl and talked  to here about faith and repentence. She feels that she has to repent because she talks bad about her mom. we went on exchanges and we saw the Kubics. Brother Kubic forgot that we set something up with him for, but we still talked to him for a bit. at night we
found out that i was getting transferred, we told Nilli that night and shewas very sad. Brother Kubic came to church! He told me that i was a big help in him coming back to church. He hasnt been to church in 29 years! He said he is going to start going to church so we can go to the temple. Bishop Larson Asked me to share my testimony at the end of sacrament meeting and Ill admit, i cried a little.  Well thats all for this week, sorry There isnt more.


Love Elder Ruiz

Nilli is coming around

 Hey Everyone! whats up ?

 On Tuesday we saw brother Harrown and talked to him a little bit and got
  to understand what his religious background was. He told us that he wants
 his kids to be baptized in the church! how cool is that??  later that day
we saw Nilli Merchant and  answered  some more of her questions. Nilli's
on Brandon is slowly coming around, which is very good.Wednesday we saw
some less active members and talked to them about coming back to church and
 seeing the blessing of coming to church. On Thursday  We had Dinner with
 Nilli and talked to her son Brandon some more and we think he is close to
 opening up and willing to take the lessons. Friday we saw a less active
member named Angie and she is a very nice lady. She said that things have
 settled down with work and her and her husband who isnt a member are going
to start coming to church again. Saturday we saw some members and sunday we
went around trying to find some less active members and other people. Well
 thats all for this week. hope to hear from you guys soon.  the picture was
after the 5K

Love Elder Ruiz

Another week in the mission field

Hey everyone hows it going?

 So this week was pretty good. so im going to just start from Wednesday
 since all the other days were in last weeks email. Wednesday we went to the
 temple and later on that day we saw jarold and talked to him about the
 atonement  and it went pretty well he opened up a little more than usual.
 Thursday we went to Nilli's house and read with her some more in the book
 of Mormon. She is still trying to get a testimony of it. we decided to
 share with her the  Mormon message "you know enough"  Neil A. Anderson.
 later  on that night we saw the Trues. We talked about some of the
 commandments, Brother True is willing to follow the commandments which is
 really good. Friday we went around searching for  less active members in
 our ward. Saturday we started off the day Helping Brother Lara with
 restoration work on his 53 Apache.  then went to search for more less
 actives. Sunday was a very slow day. Well thats all for this week. today we
 are hiking table top mountain... should be fun!

 Love Elder Ruiz

Hey Everyone!
 This week was good!  so I forgot my planner from last week so im going off
 of what i remember.... here we go! so we went on exchanges and had
 alot of fun!  I was with our district leader Elder Clark. He wrestled in
 high school as well, so for our work out we wrestled in the morning.... I
 lost 3 out of the 5 matched we had. We saw Nilli merchant and  we talked
 about the commandments so more. it went really well. Later on that day we
 went to see a less active family the Graves, We talked to them about
 reading and praying and the importance of church. we talked  to
 some less actives in our area. we got canceled on alot! but its
 all good it happens.  and we had a driving ban for  half of
 the day because the roads were really bad.We shoveled peoples walks pretty
 much all day. I broke an 88 year old mans shovel so when we were able to
 drive again we went  to the store and i got him a new one.  we went
 around visiting the elderly in our ward and shoveling their driveways. We
 found out who was getting transferred that night and me and my comp are
 staying together for another 6 weeks. So it looks like im going to start my
 "sister Mission" in Arvada !  as you all know was the superbowl. We
 went around TRYING  to see people in our ward. lets just say we got alot of
 food when we went over to their houses. So Elder Houldridge and i  this
 transfer got a total of 110 lessons!!  how cool is that?? we worked so
 hard. Well thats all for this week.

 Love Elder Ruiz

A Busy Week

Hey everyone !! hows it going?? 

So on Tuesday we went to see Nilli Merchant and talked to her and answered some of her questions that she had, she has alot of great questions ! Wednesday we had a zone meeting to start out the day. We saw sister Maximoff and talked to her about going to thew temple and finding her a ride from the members in our ward. Thursday  we saw  Jennifer Haberal  and talked to her about coming back to church. She told us that when she gets up to go to church she always finds a way to stay home, she told us she always stops herself and doesn't know why.  after seeing her we went to Nilli's house again and talked about the plan of salvation more. it went really well. We ended our night by seeing Eli Brackett a recent convert of a few months and talked to him about  his trip to his dads. We talked about coming to church and told him we can get him a ride if he needs one. Friday we went to see Jarold and we took a priest from our ward with us....  he wasn't the best person to bring a priest to.  We had a fun lesson though. Saturday we had dinner at Nilli's house She invited her friend Mark Jackman over. ( he is the person that got her interested in meeting with us.) We broke the rules a little, we stayed over for 2 hours but we talked about her concerns and mark helped out alot. we pretty much went over lessons 1-3 in about 30 minutes without even knowing. Sunday was pretty good. I had to give  a talk in church  on how to receive personal revelation. We saw some less actives in our area and then finished the night off  by going to jennifer haberal's house and giving her a blessing. All this week we went around in our time we didn't have appointments and looked for all our less active members in our ward. Thats all for the week. love all of you guys!!

Love Elder Ruiz

Happy New Year!

Hey everyone!! how's it going ?  

This week was a decent week. On Tuesday we went to go see a former investigator named Peggy, she is a interesting person but very nice. We talked to her for a long time...( she likes to talk)  Wednesday we had a 100 taco party  for the Zone. The Conelys hosted it. We ended up eating 187 tacos.....  the top 4 missionaries had 27,23,23,17. a sister ate 17 tacos.. WOW!!  WE went to sister Maximoffs house and talked to her about for a little before heading over to Nilli Merchants house. We talked to Nilli about the plan of salvation  and after we put her on date to be baptized on the 25 of January. She is preparing herself and I know she is ready for this. Thursday we went to see Renea Kubic. She looks like she is doing alot better since having surgery. We talked to her about the importance of reading the scriptures . We told her to continue to pray  before we left. Friday we  went to Rubi and Bato's house and talked to them for awhile.  Bato showed us his double and triple platinum records!!  We talked to their family about church and  its importance. we also talked to them about the scriptures and printed out a talk from general conference in Spanish and gave it to him. Saturdaywe tried to see people but we decided to go shovel peoples driveways. We went to all the elderly people in our ward and did that. Sister Mooring saw us outside and came out and said " what are you doing???"  and I told her we were shoveling her driveway and she said  smiling " is it because im old" ..... I stopped myself from saying something dumb. I told her she does look a day over 56...... she is 84. she tells me that I know how to make a lady smile.... looks like I still got it guys!!!! haha. Sunday we had church at 9 so we came a little early and helped shovel the sidewalks of the church and other things. Guess who got to teach primary yesterday ??? haha  we got to Teach the 11 year old class..... Super fun, The kids love me here like they do back home its so cool!!  We went in early yesterday because it was pretty cold so no one wanted to open their doors... makes sense.  Thats all for this week. love you all !!

-Elder Ruiz