Spring is Coming!!

Hey Everyone!

I can't believe another week has gone by! All the weeks blend together now and I can't remember what happened last week vs the week before. But things are still going great! It started to warm up a lot (and by warm I mean 60 degrees) but some days I don't even need a jacket so that's a blessing.

Sorry if this email is boring but not a ton happened haha. President Wong wants us to completely focus on working with members which has been hard because our ward doesn't want to work with us... but we're doing our best and hopefully we'll be able to make things work this week!

I met a lady on the bus who is one of the White Faced Women in a Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix. I've never seen it but I heard about it before I came out here. She was really really cool though. She talked all about working hard and doing all I can to achieve my dreams... I felt like I was listening to my parents hahah. I asked if she knew anything about our church and she said "I've heard about it and that's all I want to know. You can believe what you want but I don't want to hear anything about it." It made me really sad how misinformed people are about our church. But she was still very kind to me and we had a great conversation.

Another lady at a bus stop approached Sister Daku and I and started asking questions about our church. I sat next to her when we got on the bus and she asked me why I believe in God. I got to share my testimony with her and she shared hers with me. She said that she could see the light shining from us so she was interested to know more. She had to get off at the next stop so I hurried and gave her our phone number and the address to our church and she said she wanted to try and come, but hasn't contacted us yet. We're praying for a miracle!

While being here and talking to people it's been interesting to learn what they do and don't believe in. Sometimes we'll show people the "Questions of the Soul" and ask which one they would want an answer to. The questions are like "What is the purpose in life?", "Why does God let bad things happen?", and "What happens after I die?". Most people choose "What happens after I die?" and when we ask them what they believe happens they say they think that we just cease to exist. It makes me sad that people go their whole lives not knowing about eternal families and what our purpose is! I am grateful to know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that He wants us to experience joy in this life and someday return to Him. My love for my Savior and His Atonement grows more and more every single day! I am especially grateful for the temple... if you live by a temple, go! And go lots! I miss it so much.

Love, Sister Rigby

1) Spring is coming! There are cherry blossoms everywhere!

2) Best book in the world :)

3-6) Our hike today. BC is beautiful!

Traumatized According to Western Culture

Hey Everybody!!

Sorry I didn't send a email last week, I ran out of time. I MADE IT TO CANADA! 🇨🇦 My first area is in Vancouver so I've been in the city. My first two weeks have been... interesting. But a good interesting:)

My companion (and trainer) is Sister Daku! She's actually from BC and served in an area where her family lives for a while. She's super sweet and very patient and I've learned lots from her already!

We had our first Zone Conference last week and it was AMAZING! For those of you who don't know, Zone Conference is where we meet together with our zone and the mission president comes and basically tells us what we're doing wrong and what we need to be doing to be better and more effective missionaries. Hahaha it sounds awful but it's actually the best. My mission president is President Wong. Out of over 400 mission presidents in the world, he is one of two that are currently General Authorities. Pretty awesome. He's from Hong Kong and likes to throw water bottles at elders that ask stupid questions. My favorite quote of his from Zone Conference was "You have been traumatized according to western culture." Apparently the Chinese don't have a word for "traumatized" so he likes to use it all the time. Something he taught me was that I'm in the growing stages of my mission and I need to be patient because it takes time. You wouldn't pull on a plant to try and make it grow faster, if you did you'd just end up pulling it out and killing it. The same goes for serving a mission. As much as missionaries want to be perfect and amazing immediately, it takes time and trying to force ourselves to grow faster will just do damage. We need to enjoy the growing process and be okay being a little plant for now! This really applies to all aspects of life.

Vancouver is so diverse! I've met people from all around the world. Just the other day I was sitting at a table with people from Canada, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Peru! And at Zone Conference I was part of a musical number and we had sisters from Hong Kong and Korea and elders from Brazil and Peru. No matter where we are from or what our culture is like, the gospel has a way of bringing us all

together! We're all children of God!

I've had a lot of cool experiences so far and plenty of rejections to last me a lifetime, but my favorite experience so far happened yesterday. Sister Daku and I had gone out to teach a woman but she left a note on the door saying she was sorry she wasn't home but to call her to set up another time. We decided to go visit some members in the area so we pulled up our area book and found two names nearby. The first woman wasn't home so we went to the next person who lives in a rest home. We got there and found out he had recently suffered from a stroke and was stuck in bed. All of his family lives in Utah so he's alone most of the time. About 8 months ago some elders would visit him but stopped coming after they were transferred. We asked him if we could sing him a hymn and he said yes and told us that his favorite was We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet. As soon as we sang the first word, he burst into tears. We had to leave after that to get to another appointment and as we left he said "It just gets so lonely here." It broke my heart! We promised him that we would come back and visit him as often as we possibly could and make sure that somebody would bring him the sacrament every week. He was extremely grateful. It was no coincidence that we found him that day! If the first woman hadn't cancelled and the second woman was home, we never would have met this man! Heavenly Father was aware of his needs and sent us to him at a time when he needed us the most.

I love you all! Remember that Heavenly Father is aware of you and He knows exactly what you need when you need it. Trust Him!

Love, Sister Rigby

1. First night in the mission home with President and Sister Wong
2. Our hike today in North Vancouver
3. The city!
4. Sister Daku and I

Time to Leave the Harbor

Hey everybody!

The time has come! I'm leaving for Vancouver TOMORROW! I can't believe how quickly my time at the MTC went. It feels like I've been here for 3 years but also 3 days at the same time. Saying goodbye to my district was one of the saddest things I've had to do. After our last class on Saturday night I got to my room and just started crying. And then I'd stop crying. And then I'd start crying again. It went like that for about 2 hours. Every time Sister Williams would walk into the room she'd go, "You're still crying?!" hahah I think everybody knows I'm a little emotional...

Sunday night we had to say goodbye to Elder Wood because he was leaving for England so I cried some more Sunday night and when he wasn't with his companion at breakfast, I started crying again. Then at noon seven more from my district left for Australia. I cried lots more all day. And then I cried that night again. So clearly what I have learned from this experience is that I get attached too easily and cry a little too much haha. But I know the real reason I was crying so much... I have been praying constantly that I would be able to feel Christlike love for the people I meet, especially the people I teach and my district. I've had to put in a lot of effort to make it happen, but I have grown to love so much more. I've been able to see past things that may have bothered me and just truly loved them like a family. So seeing them go and knowing that I wouldn't see them for a long time- or possibly not see them ever again- was so difficult.

That whole experience has put into perspective for me how much our Savior loves us. I would do anything to make the people I love happy, but Christ can and has done everything to make us happy. Why would we not use His Atonement in our lives? I know that through loving Him and using His Atonement your life will be full of so much joy! I would also like to challenge you all to start praying to love others like Christ loves and then do everything you can to make that happen. It will change your life and your perspective. Take it from someone who has spent the past 3 days crying over people she just met 3 weeks ago!

As sad as it was to say goodbye to everybody, I am so pumped to be getting out of here and into the field! I was a little nervous about it on Sunday but we had a devotional for all the departing missionaries and one of the speakers said, "A ship is safe and comfortable in the harbor, but that's not what ships are for." She taught that the seas will be rough but we have no need to fear because we have Christ who calms the seas (Mark 4:39-41). The MTC has become comfortable to me, but that's not my purpose as a missionary. It is time to leave the harbor!

I can't wait to get to BC and meet all the people, especially the members! We did a few workshops this week about working with members. We learned that in the US and Canada baptism rates for people who the missionaries found on their own were only at about 25% while the baptism rates where the members were involved were at 59%! So for everybody back home thinking you can't do missionary work until you are on your mission, you're wrong! The missionaries need you to be successful and Heavenly Father wants you to help him in His work!

Read your scriptures, say your prayers, God loves you, Christ loves you, and I love you! Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Rigby

PICTURES!!
1. Sister Solomon and I hating on Australia for taking our friends.
2. PANTS DAY!
3. Last day with our district (from left to right- our teacher Sister Siebach, Sister Hill, Sister Williams, Sister Memmott, Sister Danielson, Sister Solomon, me, Elder Hrabik, Elder Prusse, Elder Wood, Elder Ison, Elder Hopeau, and Elder Wilkerson).
4. 3 sisters that I went to high school with (Hermana Zerkle, Hermana Hafen, and Sister Weaver).
5. Our favorite gym outfit.

What Do You Find at the End of the Rainbow?

Hey everybody!!

I can't believe it's been two weeks! Time flies wayyyy too fast here! Before I came on my mission, I just wanted to skip over the MTC and go straight to Canada. Now I honestly would be okay staying here a few extra weeks... I am not looking forward to having to say goodbye to my district next week. They all leave Monday morning to go to England and Australia while Sister Solomon and I aren't leaving to BC until Wednesday morning :( We had to say goodbye to some Sisters that we've become really close to last night and I bawled my eyes out... I am going to be a wreck saying goodbye to everybody else.

I realized that last week I didn't say much about my companion... Sister Solomon is THE BEST! We get along so well and have so much fun all the time! Her strengths in teaching are my weakness and my strengths are her weaknesses so everything works out really great. I feel like I've learned so much from her and I adore her. We've been learning the Canadian national anthem but we only know like the first 4 lines hahah. We agree on most everything except she likes polka dots and I like stripes and she's a cat person and I'm a dog person... pretty good things to disagree on if you ask me.

Teaching has been getting so much better! We met with a woman named Jocelyn three times and had so much fun teaching her and getting to know her. Then we got to meet with a guy named Jared and those lessons were AMAZING! We really relied on the Spirit to know what to say and what to ask him and surprise surprise... it worked! I could feel the Spirit so strongly as we testified about what we knew to be true. Most of the people at the MTC are already members and it's their job to act like an interested person (not called investigators anymore) to help us practice our teaching skills. It's amazing how much I've grown to love those people even though I only got to see them two or three times. It makes me excited to get to know the people of British Colombia and get to love them.

Everyday we start a list of quotes to write in our journals. Here are a few of my favorites-

"I just wish I lived in Africa so I wouldn't have to worry about anything." -random sister in the hall

"I am the most humble person that I know." -Elder Wood

"Why did the plane crash? Because the pilot was a loaf of bread." -Sister Solomon

"Ireland is the most self destructive country in the world. You go into a city with the wrong licence plate and they'll kill you." -Elder Wood

"I've been cutting stone since I was 13." -macho pioneer man from Legacy trying to impress a pioneer woman

"Please don't tell your joke." -Me to Sister Solomon when I though she was going to tell her awful pilot was a loaf of bread joke

"I hope she doesn't tell her joke" -Sister Williams to Sister Hill when she saw Sister Solomon raise her hand to tell a joke.

"Wut do yeh find aht thee ehnd of thee rehnbow? ME FIST!" -Elder Wood in an Irish accent

"This is where they hide the p-day kids" -Me to Sister Solomon as we walk down a sketchy cement hall to the laundry room

"SIGHT AND SOUND!!! SIGHT AND SOUND!!" -every missionary ever when their companion is not within two inches of them

Writing those out I realize that they are probably not as funny as I think they are... but I promise it was actually funny and not just I've-been-isolated-from-the-outside-world-for-two-weeks funny... you just had to be there.

The Church is TRUE!! Our Savior loves us so much, whether or not we show Him our love in return. As I've learned more of my Savior and studied His life I have been able to get a small glimpse into just how much He cares for us. If you haven't prayed or read your scriptures recently, DO IT! Doing things to draw you nearer to Christ will bless you in so many ways! I promise that it will bring pure joy and peace into your life that you can't find anywhere else. Read the Book of Mormon everyday! It's the best thing you can do for yourself. I love you all!

Love,

Sister Rigby

Best part! Pictures!!

1. My amazing companion <3
2. Provo preparing me for Canada
3. The incredible sisters in my district
4. Elder Hrabick and us at the temple this morning