4-18-11
well this week was good parents. this week we were about to go to bed when we heard thunder. then it started hailing and raining and a lot of lightning and thunder. then the tornado warning sounded. it was pretty cool, so we were having a fun night. then everything just stopped like that. well this week we had a training from our president and i learned a lot from him and how we need to use members a lot more and how our mission is doing great compared to a lot of other missions in our area so it is good to hear that i am part of a great mission, but we need to do a lot more with members and asking for referals from them because the percent of people baptized from member referals is a lot more than from tracting and we do baptize a lot in this mission but it could be a lot more, so we are going to do our best to be talking with the members to help their friends become part of this gospel. it is going to be a great year, i cant wait. well we have been doing good with finding a lot of new people and we are hoping that something comes from it. well it sounds like you are all doing good and HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM hahah. well i hope you had a great birthday and that this year is full of happiness and joy, well i hope you all have a good week. sorry this is short. we only have one computer between the 2 of us and people are waiting so yeah. well adios mis padres. i hope all goes swell this week. LOVE YOU

(Photos: 1. after a wedding which was followed a few days later by a baptism! 2. a cool Dallas sunset, and 3. a piece of hail...
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Con Amor
Elder Ricobueno

4-11-11
hey parents, how goes it. well once again this week was full of surprises. we met a few crazy people, one guy we met wanted to find out in the bible where it says that we can become gods and i did my best to answer but i know that this man would have never changed. we talked about so many things with this man. he even said that because he is a child of god and that he has accepted christ that he has the authority of god to cast out demons and i simply asked him if he thought if i had that power and he said no and i told him how i do and i asked him why he thinks he has the power of god and i dont and he never answered my pregunta and i knew that he couldnt and then all about how he doesnt think we are christians, and i being very smart allecky, i pointed right to my chest and i said "excuse me sir, what is the name of the man on my chest" and he said "yeah i know" and he said " well i think the mormons have changed the gospel and that the book of mormon is completely against the bible" and i just simply bore him my testimony of the book of mormon and that ZERO percent of the book of mormon is against the bible, ZERO! "ok sir and we can sit here arguing all day and we are going to get nowhere because you dont want to accept anything and you never will because you simply dont want to" and we said the only way you can know if these things are true is if you pray to god in the name of christ and then he started arguing with the way we pray then i asked him how he prays and he said that you need to pray through the bible, whatever that meant. then we started to talk about the godhead and how he believes they are one in body and then i, still being a little on the smart allick side, asked him "so if that is how you believe then who was jesus praying to in the garden, on the cross?" then once again he ignored my question and then we asked him if we answered any of his questions and he said no and i said "you know why cuz, you are too stubborn and you don't want to accept anything we say that is true and you won't" and we left it at that and we left. i think ever since conference i learned how to be way bold and i have been and i think it is helping build my testimony. it's great. well this week we finally got an investigator to church for the first time since we started here and she said "ya me quiero bautizar" i am 95 percent i heard her correctly haha. well parents i love you all and got to go now. i hope you all have a great week and don't forget to share your testimony when the opportune moment shows up. love you again

hola mis padres como estan
4-4-11
well first off, conference was amazing. i loved the part in priesthood session when president monson said if you have not read the book of mormon... read it haha and then president eyrings story in the beginning of his talk - it was way funny, yeah and also this last week i have been probably the happiest i have been on my mission so far. i think it is cuz i am finally realizing to think more of others and not myself and it is the best feeling in the world. i dont know to explain why i am so happy but i love it haha and even right now i am like freaking out cuz i am still so happy about who knows what, but i feel awesome and it is good to know that i am one of those 52225 missionaries spreading happiness to all and what i learned from conference was to be bold and after conference we had an expirience where we were talking to a man and he said that he knew about the church but everything he was saying didnt make sense and then he started talking about joseph smith and how he was wrong but could posibly be a prophet and i just said you know what is kinda funny that is probably what the people were thinking when the other prophets were in the earth and that the people here are doing the same thing they were doing back like in the times of noah and moises and even our elder brother jesus christ. they didnt think it was posible that they could be prophets so they rejected them and i just simply told this guy that that was what he was doing, then he started taking things back que el ha dicho and by the time we left, all we told him is to read and pray about these things and if he really wanted to learn then he would just, like in conference those who want to learn about jesus, they will, but those that are hard of heart will reject it even when they know it is true and just as nephi said the guilty take the truth to be hard, and their pride is going to be the reason they will NEVER live with our father in heaven and i have learned that. I can say that with authority and people can take it the way they want but like before, it is going to cut them to their very center and it will be hard for them to hear but ITS TRUE and we are sent to preach repentance so they CAN live with our father again in his presence but that is up to them if they want to reject us. we cant force anything on them and one thing i started doing is when ever we get rejected i just tell them that they are rejecting something good that is DIRECTLY FROM GOD and they are going to regret this, well this week we finally got someone to church. it was great to finally see the fruits of our hard work here in dallas and i know that as we continually work hard and be happy we will have exito and a sister last night told me that a happy missionary is more exitoso than one who is not and its so true if we are preaching happiness and we arent then whats the point? so i am still way happy to be a missionary for the lord. it is the best thing i could be doing and i finally realized that, well padres I LOVE YOU ALL and i hope you all have a great week
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Con Amor
Elder Ricobueno