In Which Nashville is Full of Famous and Good People

Hello everyone!

First off, thank you so much to all who wished me Happy Birthday last week!  I wish I could respond to each one but I suppose this will have to do.

This week was kind of a rough week.  The adversary was working really hard to keep us from meeting with our investigators.  We ended up having to reschedule multiple times and not being able to teach any of our new investigators, lessons.  But I don't feel down about this.  In fact, this just confirms to me that we're doing a good work and miracles are about to happen.  Actually, forget about the future miracles waiting for us; we still found many small miracles throughout this week!  We were able to find other people who are interested in our message and also, finally visit a less active in our ward.

On Saturday, our mission had a conference, in which Elder Craig C. Christensen, Elder Meredith, and Elder Bednar were present!!  It was so cool!  We covered a lot of topics, some of which were faith as a principle of action, agency, understanding the Holy Ghost, and learning by the Spirit.  Some things which impressed me were learning that even if we are obedient and righteously qualified, we cannot demand the Spirit and nor expect immediate answers.  That causes very own selves to be the barrier for the Spirit.  And sometimes, we must consider that the Lord just trusts us to do what is right, without a constant reassurance from Him that we're doing okay.  The Holy Ghost provides answers that are line upon line, and precept upon precept. Instead of praying for more answers to our questions, we should pray for the eyes to see what we have already received.  Also, we give our will to His by making covenants and by doing so, our agency is enlarged.  The entire conference was more of a large discussion than a lecture-styled talk from the pulpit.  The way Elder Bednar taught us was engaging, honest, funny and inspiring.  He constantly asked us what we were learning from the Spirit throughout the three hours and toward the end, we had a question/answer session.  I almost raised my hand to ask a question but a lot of other missionaries had questions too and I was pretty sure with a little digging, I'd find the answer on my own.  After everything, all three plus President and Sister Anderson bore their testimonies and then we all got the opportunity to assemble in a line and shake their hands!  When it was my turn, Elder Bednar shook my hand, sincerely looked into my eyes and quietly said "Thank you, Sister Ririe."  

Whoa.  I totally just shook hands with one of the 15 Most Important People in the World! 

Later that day, the Bellevue ward had a musical testimony meeting in which, Sister Peyton and I performed at the end.  We sang "God Be With You 'Til We Meet Again," whilst playing the ukulele, mainly because that hymn was the easiest for Sister Peyton to learn on the instrument.  I don't really know how well we did but a lot of people told us that our number was good so I suppose it turned out all right after all! :)  The Spirit was definitely present that evening and it was a great opportunity for the ward members to get to know us better, as well as us get to see the musical talents of many other people too.

I forgot to mention this last week but we'd gone out to dinner with the Relief Society secretary of our ward, Sister Olsen.  As we were getting to know her, she told us that she tours the country with her sister, singing as a duo, and loves to share her testimony with her fans through her musical career.  I really wish I had Google available to look up a Kori Olsen because neither Sister Peyton or I have a clue as to how famous she is :P

Two other fun things about being in Nashville: David Archuleta is currently the YSA ward mission leader.  Their ward meets after ours but I've seen him around a few times for brief moments.  And some of the band members from Imagine Dragons are in one of the wards here.

This email is a little scatterbrained but hopefully y'all can tell that I absolutely love being here and am so thankful I've been called to serve the people of Bellevue.  I wish y'all the best!

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Sister Ririe