Ridge's Mission: Baseball with drunks, Walker, and a stake conference talk! 9-16-13

Hello everyone! The Washington North and South missions were given special permission this week to attend the Nationals vs. Phillies baseball game this week! It was frikin awesome! And what are the odds that the two missions in attendance were the two that me and my cousin were assigned to while we wait for visas! We found each other during the 7th inning stretch and got to talk for a little bit, it was incredible! After the game there were like a trillion drunk people all with a slight understanding that those kids in the white shirts were "Mormons" and they were a lot of them at the game. One guy came up to us and was like "hey! all you Mormons, you're like celebrities right? Well uh... I wanna a umm.. picture with y'all! Gather round!" and after he trapped like eight of us with him he got a picture and made us all do "tough guy" poses. I cracked up and was just laughing during the picture. I mean there were eight LDS missionaries posed around this drunk guy all trying to imitate his "tough guy" face while his friends took a picture... it was pretty entertaining. We got several greetings like "Oh **** it's the Mormons! I promise I'll come to church tomorrow!" and stuff like that. Either way I got a hat and a first baseball game certificate from the Nationals so I thought it was great to do something that wasn't tracting for a little bit. We didn't get back home till one in the morning though so I've been destroyed the last few days sleep wise...

We also had stake conference this sunday which was my second stake conference in the last three weeks thanks to my transfer. I've actually been in the same amount of areas and attended the same amount of stake conferences and almost had as many companions as my current companion who has been out for almost a year! My path has been crazy so far haha... Anyway, part way through stake conference the president gets up and says "we will now be hearing from Elder Ni from the Springfield ward on his relationship with Jesus Christ" my companion looks around, realizes they're talking about him, and then goes up to the stage completely unprepared and gives a talk that is being translated into two languages and being broadcasted across the stake in front of hundreds of hundreds of people. He killed it! It was an incredible talk. He has the incredible ability to talk with the spirit when he talks about something he cares about which in this case was how the church had helped strengthen his family. It was awesome. I'm glad they didn't call on my because I have no idea what I would have said. So now I've thought of a few stories and scriptures I'll share if I ever have to give an emergency talk haha!

Everyone went to the MTC this week! Cole Miles and Jake all at the same time! What the...

I've also heard a little bit more about my visa. From my underground sources it sounds like the majority of our visas are going to arrive after the transfer date in Denmark which means there is a chance they may keep us in the states for five to six more weeks so that they can have us arrive right on a transfer date which I think is dumb. I'd rather just get there to work on my Danish even if it is in a trio or something. I can tell my language is starting to slip, and I need to work on it with others that can speak the language. I guess it will all work out but it's just a little frustrating right now.

We've been kind of struggling as far as finding people to teach. We couldn't find any new investigators this week, and the ones we've been teaching haven't been great about keeping their appointments. Teressa is super hard to get a hold of and Steve is so busy that we were just happy he could come to the adult session of stake conference the night before. He is so weird about the way he is investigating though because he does all the parts most people consider hard like reading and attending long church meetings but he keeps telling us he has no idea if any of it is true or if he is willing to join or be baptized or anything of the sort... odd.

Keep me updated on what's going on back at home, and really if any of you have music that is "conducive to the spirit" then send it to me over email would ya? I have an MP3 but not a lot of music so far... thanks!

PS, Walker wanted to make sure the picture below makes it to his Mom! and I found a street called Royal Ridge so I just had to pose by it haha, it's kind of hard to read though!

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