For after much tribulation come the blessings‏ Feb. 2, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been a really crazy week. Well at least a crazy weekend. Definitely the craziest weekend of my mission, arguably the craziest of my life. haha but anyway. This is how my companion described our weekend: 

 Quite honestly, I don't know how to describe the whole experience over email so in a year or something, ask me about the last weekend of January 2015.

Island life is good and was really usually warm until today. 

Today I would like to talk a little bit about hispanic culture and how much I love it. We met with a sweet couple from Mexico about a week ago and had our first lesson with them. They told us they had met missionaries before and seemed semi-interested. And told us we could come back next Sunday (yesterday). So we went over and had a really good lesson. After we finished teaching, the lady visiting them who was listening in asked us how we learned Spanish. Then we got into a discussion about Mexico and naturally their food came up. 

I love Mexican food and I really like spicy Mexican food which is something that intrigues the hispanics. So they asked me if I wanted to eat something and I said yes of course. Anyway, long story short, it turned into pretty much a full on dinner and they invited us back to eat with them on Friday. (And people wonder why we gain weight on missions haha) 

Also I would like to talk a little bit about Faith. Alma 32:21 teaches us:

And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

This brings me a lot of peace because I don't have to be perfectly sure of something. I just have to hope for something. I have to hope that even though I can't SEE how it'll work out. I HOPE that it will. 

I know that God know us and that He loves us and that all of our trials are for our good. I am grateful that "whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world."

-Hermana Ries

p.s. As of late I am a fan of Vietnamese food. And Hermana Allen and I are crazy.