HEY,

 It has been a crazy week here in Santa Maria. There is a lot of work to be done here. The church is so young here that it is really on our shoulders. There have been quite a few baptisms that have happened here in the past, but they were not very converted and fell away. The church is literally down to two worthy Melchizedek priesthood holders. Our success as missionaries determines the organization and functioning of the branch. Obviously we don’t want it to be like that, we want the members to run the show, but we literally have to train every member, including the branch president because they literally don’t know. Every member here is a recent convert, with exception of a few. We are working as hard as we possibly can to maintain order and find leaders that can take the lead when we are gone. It’s not easy, but the Lord will surely help us. This is a different type of missionary work, I love it.

 Elder Turner and I are getting along great. He is a super humble guy. He is a big guy, so I have to make a bit more food than I made in the past. The work is going great though.

President Mathews (new mission president) and his wife came to Sal this week. I got my first interview with him. It was a great experience. He taught me some things about leadership that I really believe can be used for the rest of my life. He is a wise man, a man of God. He even came out to teach with us. It was a great experience.

We are working quite a bit with our Branch President. We are training him how to administer in the church. There is still a lot to learn. At church we had a frequency of about 50 people attending, but unfortunately it was one of them more irreverent meetings we have had. Sometimes I feel like we are making great progress in the branch, and then the next week. It’s like we are back in the same place where we started. We are not going to let this get us down, we are going to work harder than ever to strengthen these members and really work to get more references.

There is a young woman in our branch named, Maritsa. It has been a good 5 weeks that she hasn’t came to church. We got to sit down with her this last week and she expressed a strong desire to serve a mission. We got to read a little in Doctrine and Covenants Section 4 about how we qualify ourselves for the work. She understood that to prepare for to be missionary she needed to strengthen some attributes. 1 of the most primary things is she HAD to come back to church. She accepted this invite and came back to church this week. Super cool.

 I know that wickedness never was happiness. I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way that a man may be saved. One thing about the gospel that I love is that it is impossible for me to be sad. It doesn’t matter what we may pass through, difficulty, financial troubles, death or trial. Nothing can take away the hope we have of our heavenly home. With our foundation built strongly on the rock of our Savior, Jesus Christ, we cannot fall. Times may be tough, but its all part of the plan.

 Love,

Elder Rice