Life of a New Jersey Missionary

Let me just start out with telling you how grateful I am for you! Yes,
you! You have played a very specific role in my life and in my
progression in the gospel. Thank you for that. Thank you for being you
and for loving The Lord. And for loving me! I couldn't do any of this
without the love and support of each one of you. Go ahead and give
yourself a hug from me :D

This week, I was pushed to my limits and then some. I have learned
what that phrase really means haha. I learned a very valuable lesson
this week- we can not go through life on our own. Nor were we meant to
do so. I learned that I need help from other people, even if I wish I
was strong enough to do it on my own. This is a lesson that I hope I
can remember forever (mostly so I don't have to learn it painfully
again haha!) Heavenly Father created us with the intention of having
us work together and rely on one another. We were never meant to be
strong enough that we never have to ask for help. Our loving Father in
Heaven wants us to learn to work together as a team with His other
children. You'd think I would have learned this lesson by now!
Weeeeell, my pride sure got in the way and I had this silly idea in my
head that to could handle some huge mission issues on my own. But The
Lord let me know that He wanted me to be willing to ask for help. I
finally did, and she arrived today! I am once again in a trio and I am
am so grateful for it! Sister Chaia White is here to save the day!

Heavenly Father knows you by name. He knows who you were before you
came to this life and He knows who you are capable of becoming. I'm
serious! If you don't know that yet, hit your knees and ask Him to let
you know. It has permanently changed my life as I I have come to know
that for myself. I know it will do the same for you!

I love you!!!

Love your Jersey-girl missionary, Sister Amber Flower Ricks

Bliss Moments

In honor of one of my best friends, Becca Smith, I'd like to explain
to you what a "bliss moment" is. It is that moment when you know,
without a doubt, that Heavenly Father is real and that he loves YOU.
Bliss moments happen all the time, it is just up to us to recognize
them. They can also be called tender mercies. This week was filled
with Bliss Moments for me, and I'd like to share a few of them with
you:

1) A twelve year old in our Branch, Sadie, invited her friend Lexi to
church with her last week and then to a luncheon afterwards. Sadie
told Lexi about the Book of Mormon and then asked me for one so she
could give it to Alexis. Sadie bore her testimony about the Book of
Mormon and invited Lexi to come back. Lexi was at church yesterday and
has been reading the Book of Mormon! These girls are TWELVE years old.
God is so real if He can give that simple courage to a twelve year
old.

2) I attended a stake Relief Society on Saturday. I am blessed to
still be in the same stake as my last area. I had had a really
difficult the day before and was feeling pretty weighed down. During a
break between the classes, in walked a woman that I had the privilege
of teaching and watching be baptized in November. She is attending
church, fulfilling her calling and doing her best to share the gospel
with her family. What a bliss moment to reunite with a woman that I
love so much and to see that she is doing so well. That is every
missionary's dream- that the people that they teach will stay strong
on the gospel.

3) A woman that we are teaching and who has committed to being
baptized has been struggling a lot with her testimony. The adversary
has been filling her with doubts and we have been praying non-stop for
her. On Sunday, in the middle of sacrament, this woman out her arm
around me and whispered to me, "don't worry, I'm in." Prayers are
answered, there is no doubt in my mind.

4) Another investigator lost his phone and has been searching for it
for days. We have all been praying to find it. Over the pulpit at
church, it was announced that a cell phone had been found. Bliss
moment. Heavenly Father is real and listens to our specific requests.

5) The members of this tiny branch are catching the vision of
hastening the Lord's work and they keep finding us people to teach
among their friends and family. We are so crazy busy teaching it is
ridiculous! The Lord gives to those who are willing, and these amazing
members are willing.

6) Yesterday I was able to connect my mom and a previous investigator
on Facebook. I watched as my mom bore her beautiful testimony to
another person I have come to love so much. Not only is this my
mission, but my family is now able to be a part of it. Heavenly Father
is so good and wants to bless everyone that He can. Technology, as I
said before, was invented FOR missionary work. And I believe that we
are just tapping into the possibilities with missionary work and
technology. Have you found how you can use it? Please share with me
ways that you are using these tools to share the gospel! I love new
ideas on how I can be a better missionary.

I love you alllllllll! I love this gospel and I love being a
missionary. I pray that you will all have your own opportunities to
share the gospel and to experience the blessings of being a
member-missionary. It's the most exciting work you can possibly do in
this life! And I want to hear all about it!

Love, Sister Amber Flower Ricks

Me and Sister Grover right before she left

With the Johnsons! 

Maddie- a total rockstar/ best friend. I'm gonna try to bring her home with me!

The Hastening of the Work

If any of you don't know what the Hastening of the Work means, you
should take a little trip over to Cape May, New Jersey and you will
see exactly what it means! We have been completely amazed as we are
watching the hastening right before our very eyes. The members of our
small branch are starting to see the vision of full-time missionaries
and the members working together to accomplish the work of salvation.
We as missionaries are loving and supporting the members and working
hard to become better teachers, and the members in turn are praying
for and acting on opportunities to share the gospel with their
friends. It is a privilege to be a part of such a marvelous work. We
are teaching some incredible people who have been completely prepared
to accept the gospel, and the built in support of their member friends
is priceless.

We were sitting in Sunday School yesterday and as I looked around the
classroom, I was so pleased to see 3 of our investigators at church,
all 3 of whom were sitting next to the members that brought them. THAT
is a beautiful sight for a missionary, let me tell you what!

I want to share with you a suggestion for you all to pray about for
your own homes and families. A member started a Book of Mormon study
group that she holds weekly in her home. She not only handed out
copies of the Book of Mormon to her friends, but she was able to say,
"I'm holding a scripture study group in my home where we discuss this
book along with the Bible and how we can grow closer to Christ. I
would love for you to come and share your insights so we can all learn
from each other." Three of her friends agreed to come, and so far 2 of
them are getting baptized! We are starting to encourage other members
to hold their own Book of Mormon study class and invite their friends.
We, as missionaries, are even willing to teach it, just as long as
they will host it and invite people. I'm convinced that this is a
powerful tool for us as members to utilize to hasten the Lord's work!
Pray about it, and if Heavenly Father tells you that this is something
you should do, talk to the missionaries! They will LOVE to help you
out!

I looooooooooooove you all so much! I promise you that God loves you
and is aware of all that you are going through. In especially these
last two weeks, I have become even more aware of how much Heavenly
Father is playing a role in my life. And I know that He is doing the
same for you!

I'd love to hear from any of you who take this challenge to hold a
Book of Mormon class. Let me know how it goes and what miracles you
see happen!

Love always and forever, your Jersey-girl missionary, Sister Amber Ricks

Blessings Everywhere!!!

Okay, this has been an amazing week! The first part of the week was weird because Sister Grover left Sunday evening, so I stayed in a different area with a different missionary until Wednesday. Wednesday we headed up to transfers to pick up my new "Golden" that I am training. Her name is Sister Dobson from Wyoming and she is 20 years old. Let's just say this: I'm going to learn a LOT over the next 12 weeks.

 

We saw a ton of miracles though, due to all of the hard work that we did over the last 6 weeks and the work that Sister Grover did with her previous companion. We are now reaping the harvest of all of that planting.

 

We still have Lawrence who will be getting baptized March 30th. I love him and Maddie, his girlfriend, so much! They are some of the people that I know I was supposed to meet on my mission.

 

We committed Cindy to be baptized on April 6th and she emphatically said, "YES!" She is a good friend of Sister Walker, one of our ward missionaries, and just has the most incredible testimony of the church already! Then yesterday, we taught Ashley and committed her to be baptized when she knows it is true and once again she emphatically said "YES!" And on top of that, we finally met with Michael, a man we have been trying to teach for months. He was given a Book of Mormon by some members of our branch and he got online and bought the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price on ebay and read all three books! He knows it's all true and has just been waiting for his wife to jump on board. He finally decided, though, that he wants to do it on his own and hope that she'll follow afterwards. So we taught him and he told us that he's on board to join. We'll commit him to be baptized next week!

 

I love this area so much. I love being a missionary and I love the people that have become family to me out here. The church is TRUE! Families can be together forever. And peace and happiness can be reached in this life, we just need to follow Christ's gospel to reach them.

 

I love you all!

Love your favorite New Jersian missionary, Sister Amber Flower Ricks

Transfers this week!

I am..............staying in Cape May!!!! Okay, we all knew that was
going to happen with Sister Grover going home. But the real news is
that I will be training this transfer! There is only one new Sister
coming in, so she will be mine. All I know about her is that she is
from Wyoming. I received a blessing before I found out that I was
training that said that my new companion and I will be united in our
cause and purpose and we will work really well together. So I'm
excited about how this is going to go! I'm also kind of nervous
because I'm still pretty new on the mission and they really don't give
you any training on how to train. So I've gotten some good advice from
Sister Grover and Sister Haas (my temporary companion because Sister
Grover left yesterday) and I just hope things will go well haha! I'm
bummed to have Sister Grover gone because we got really close, but
such is the life of a missionary :)

I realized that I don't always say a lot about what all is actually
happening in my area, so I thought I'd explain in a little more
detail:
Our investigator, Lawrence, who is getting baptized this month is
dating a member and they are getting married in about 2 weeks. We are
working with the senior missionary couple, Lowell and Joyce Johnson
(they're like our second grandparents), to help teach them how to be a
gospel family. It's definitely new territory for me to teach about
this simply from the examples of strong church families that I have
been around in my life. So thank you, all of you who are reading this,
for playing that role in my life. You may not realize it, but your
examples are effecting people out here in the Pennsylvania
Philadelphia Mission in a great way. Keep doing it!
We are also teaching a recent convert how to "date" because she's
never done it that way before. Hahah this is just a crazy world out
here and I continue to learn this main lesson, "The gospel blesses
families." Which means you've got to LIVE the gospel for it to be a
blessing to your family!
Anyway, we are teaching a girl who is 23 with 2 little kids who is
living with her boyfriend. She really is resonating with what we are
teaching her, but the Jehovah's Witnesses have been visiting her every
week for many months, so she doesn't know how to ask them to stop. And
they always meet during the time that we have church. Complicated.
We are also now teaching Cindy. She was invited by a member to attend
the member's Book of Mormon study class. She was really not
understanding it's importance and hated all the talk of war. I had a
cool experience in one of the classes where the spirit kept telling me
over and over that I needed to direct her to Alma 40. I did and the
next week she came back SUPER excited to learn more. We taught her the
Plan of Salvation which she loved and then she showed up to church on
her own just because "she felt she needed to stop in." Coincidence? I
think not! She came the next week to church, this last Sunday, and it
was wonderful. The Spirit was really strong and we had some great
testimonies given. Because it was Sister Grover's last Sunday, we
invited a lot of people that we are working with. One lady, a less
active who has not been to church in 20 years showed up for sacrament
to say goodbye to Sister Grover. She said she really enjoyed the
service and wants to get back involved with the Relief Society! That's
a HUGE step for her. She also said she'd bring her 14 year old son
(who was at church with her) to the mutual activity this week. What a
miracle!
Another girl, Ashley, has been coming to the Book of Mormon class. The
first time I met her I had this feeling that I already knew her. The
second time, I had this overwhelming feeling that I am supposed to
teach her. I told Sister Walker about that feeling, she told Ashley,
and Ashley found me on Facebook and asked if we could set up an
appointment to teach her. Okay. That's cool!
In a final tribute to Sister Grover, she taught me how to do
missionary work in a completely different way than I had been doing
it. The trick? Love the members. We just love them and spend time
uplifting and strengthening them and proving that we can be trusted.
As we've done so, the members have just brought these people to us to
teach. It's been incredible to watch this happen so successfully here.
Unfortunately the reality is that most converts found by the
missionaries tend to go less active, while converts brought by the
members stay active because they have the built in support. THAT IS
WHY MEMBER MISSIONARY WORK IS SO IMPORTANT! Okay I wasn't yelling at
you, I'm just passionate about this haha. You, as the member, are the
key to this work of salvation. I love the work I'm doing and I don't
want to stop, but I'm also excited to one day be a member missionary
again and to really get to work. Missionary work can no longer happen
without you! Pray about it! Heavenly Father will tell you it's true.
Okay, I'm off my soap box :) If anyone is still reading this.... I
love you. A lot. I'm so grateful for you in my life. The Church is
true, the Book is blue and God loves you!

Love, Sister Amber Ricks