I am so Happy!

My Dear Family,

My life can´t get any better. I have never been so happy in my entire life, like I am right now. We baptized this week! His name is Gonzalo and he is the husband of a sister. Now every person in his family are members! I have seen so many miracles this week that I don´t even know where to start. This week was so hard. So many people lied to us in the contacts we did. We ask for their directions to pass by their house and share the gospel with them, and their directions were almost all fake. It was hard. Sometimes we felt like Satan was winning. Then we saw miracles. The family we are teaching right now, to be baptized this Friday is a blessing from God. This family has become part of my life. I will never forget the Family Charmin Cruz. I have never, in any family that I have taught before, seen such drastic changes. Before the father, drank, smoke, and was caught up in the sinful life of a musician. Then we came. He has turned his life 360 degrees and is has one of the strongest testimonies of prayer I have ever seen. I will do everything I can in my power to take this family to the temple.

This week we had a special experience with "the family". We came one night to see how they were and they told us that some weird things had been happening. To get to the point, Satan was working hard on this family. When the father would prayer he would tell us that he felt like someone would come into his body and make him feel weird. He told us that the "person" made him say things like he was God and that he could take away sins with hand signals. This was a super red flag for us. God doesn´t work that way. Jose Antonio (the father) was confused because he felt like these were his answers to his prayers. Not knowing really what to do when we got back to the house, Elder Harmon and I prayed to receive inspiration as to how we could help him. We knew that it was not God dealing with him. Something different and something not so good.

We studied how the spirit talks to our souls. How it feels and we searched scriptures about the still small voice. We used Heleman 5:30 and Moroni 10:5 and D&C 6 and 9 to share with him. We explained that the spirit of God is tranquil, peaceful and warm. As children of God we have to be able distinguish between the good and the bad. Satan can imitate so many things and make them appear like truths. But he can NOT imitate peace, and joy, and pure love. He can NOT answer prayers. After we explained and bore testimony, we layed our hands on his head to give him a blessing of comfort and peace. He was shaking so bad before the blessing. He told us that he knew in that moment that what he had been experiencing wasn´t from God. He wanted to be free from Satan. I gave him a blessing of comfort and peace and protection from the Son of Lies. The spirit was so strong. We finished the blessing and the father and his wife were in tears. Later, we told us how he felt when we were giving him the blessing. He told us he recognized Elder Harmon and I as representatives of Jesus Christ because he could feel the power of the Holy Priesthood.

All of these things and successes and miracles that we are having right now are not because I am the best missionary in the world. It is not, in fact, because I have done ANYTHING. It is God. God is at my side. I am surrounded by his angles. I have a branch full of sisters who would go without food for a week to be able to feed the missionaries. I am accompanied by an Elder called of God. I hold the power of Him. Like it says in Alma 29:9, I am nothing. I glory in my God and in HIM, I have strength.

I love you all so much. So many things passing in our family right now. So many good things. We are moving forward and THAT is the key. We should never be still, and even worse, moving backwards. The Ricks Family or in Spanish, La Familia Ricks, is moving forward and progressing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This church is true. It is the only true church on the earth. We are so blessed. I love you all so much and think of every day! Until next week!


Elder James Ricks

ENOY THE PHOTOS! - I attached a photo of the family. Elder Harmon and I, Jose Antonio (dad), Mari (mom), and their sons Jose Angel, and Omar.


P:S: Yes I was able to watch the video of Grace dancing! Too cute! I haven´t heard anything about the package but they will let me know as soon as possible! My size is 13 in shoes right now. I am going to take them to a place to fix them today. They are all over the place here.