My Prayers Are With You

Date: Tuesday, May 19

Familie!

At last we meet again over email. :) Mom, Dad, Ritchie, Chris, Jason, Crozier, thank you for the letters you wrote to me! I got them the day after I emailed you last week. They were so fun to read! And I loved reading the 10 things you all want to do before you die. I read them to my companion because I loved them so much. Speaking of my companion she is going home tomorrow. Sister van den Berg was\is a great trainer. I am going to miss her so much. For German study this morning we interviewed each other in German and recorded ourselves on tapes and sang our favorite German hymns. It was a lot of fun. Speaking of language study, Ritchie way to be on diving into learning Spanish! That is so cool. I think it is so awesome that dad is reading to you his mission journal. That would have been really neat. Treasure that! Jason asked how many converts I have had. Well, since I have been here none of our investigators have gotten baptized. And we don`t convert people. The Spirit does that. Our investigator Baffour from Ghana who wants to be baptized, we just told him that the church of Jesus Christ had been restored and he could come to church. He did, and liked it, and wanted to learn more, we taught him, and he wants to be baptized. IT had nothing to do with us. It is amazing how the spirit works. There are just prepared people that are ready to hear the gospel and those are the people we are looking for. It was funny though, I was talking to an elder who has a sister in South America somewhere and he said she has only been there for 3 weeks and they have had 3 baptisms so far. He said he wrote her a letter and said, Well we got a new investigator this week. I thought it was funny. I was thinking how that is how it will be for Ritchie and I. :)

I wanted to say too that we are teaching two boys in our ward. They are about to be baptized in July and therir moms want them to be taught by the missionaries. Anyway, one of the little boys named Felix reminds me so much of Crozier. It is so fun to teach him because I feel like I am talking to Crozier.

I also wanted to just say that last week for Preparation day we went to a palace. I went to my first palace and it was pretty neat. Very rich looking and a lot of ornamentation. It was very pretty. Along with the tour though we were told about the family that owned it and they were so miserable. It was just a testimony to me that money does not bring happiness. I just think back to Nauvoo and all the humble pioneer homes and what they went through (definitely not the life of luxury) and I realized again how happiness really does come from living the gospel of Jesus Christ. People can seek happiness wherever they want, but they will not find it until the live the gospel. Then you can have happiness no matter where you are and what you're going through.

One funny story. Yesturday we were walking down the street adn my companion was on the phone and we passed this old man and I smiled at him and we both kept walking. He called out to us and started talking to me. First of all he looked exactly like a mountain man from the Swiss Alps. He had this old swiss hat on with a feather in it. He had on a really old looking suit, and a long white beard kinda curly\frizzy and he was holding a boquet of flowers with some of the flowers were also stuck in his beard. Anyway he started to talkign to me. He asked about my name tag, and I read it to him. He asked where I was from and I said the USA he said which state, I said Idaho, he said which city, I said Rexburg, he said, Is it a nice place? I said yes, he said are there beautiful rivers in teh city? I said no, he said are there high mountains? I said no, he said Well are there woods? I said no, he said, Well then what is so nice about it, besides you? I said, Well the people are nice. He just smiled then said you are very modest. I said thank you, he said we weren`t trying to brag, we didn`t have fancy cars, we just were walking down the street smiling. We said yeah. It was really funny.

Candace thanks for the pictures., They are so cute!

Anyway, I have to go, but I love you all very much!

Sincerely,
Sister Fitzgerald

P.S.
Mom I would like to see Annika´s pictures. I am glad you went to Coles funeral. I did graduate with him, and my prayers will be with his family. He was a very nice guy. I respected him a lot.