The Life and Times in Vancouver

Hello One and All,

Well I'm finally starting to feel a bit more settled in. Thanks to Whit and her recent blog post about waiting a week, that really helped me keep my head on straight. So Vancouver is different. It is a world apart from Pasco. Pasco resembles the desert prairies of Utah, and Vancouver is what comes to your minds when you think of the evergreen state. They are so different, but I love it here in Vancouver. The weather is no where near what I was expecting. Every time you hear about the West Side it is coupled with comments of never seeing the sun. There have been several beautiful bright sunny days, granted I'm pretty sure that's due to the summer time. But there have also been dark dreary and rainy days as well. I really like it when it rains, that's one thing I do miss about Houston, the big rain storms, and those were seriously lacking in Pasco and Boardman, deserts. It'll some time rain right out here, but the more common is a constant misting that goes on for hours at a time. We have a car, but still spend a lot of time on our feet doing "loops" (walking in giant circles so as to look like we're going somewhere, but in actuality just talking to people we come across). The temp. is nice and mild as well.

My new companion Elder Diaz is way cool. We get along great. He's from Snowflake Arizona, both of his parents are Mexican, so he grew up speaking it in the house, so another native comp. I guess my Spanish is lacking enough to merit having 4 out of 5 companions be native. He's almost brand new. He was trained by Elder Hanson (my big Tongan comp from the mtc). In regards to training him-the church is trying out a new pilot program for training new missionaries with our mission to see how it goes. When a new missionary comes to the field he will be with his trainer for 12 weeks (2 transfers). During the 12 weeks they are given an additional hour of companionship study where there is a semi specific curriculum to study. In theory at the end of the 12 weeks the greeny should be ready, if called upon, to train. So Hanson got transferred after Diaz first 6 weeks. So I am technically continuing the training process, but I don't consider myself his trainer, I'm just a glorified greeny buster. It's kind of like when Quigon Jinn was killed by Darth Maul and Obiwan had to complete Anikan's training. Yes dad, that is a star wars reference.

So I'm doing that, and I'm also a district leader. The district is much smaller than Pasco, and has some english elders in it so I get to do the training in English which is easier. Yesterday was the first district meeting, it went pretty well. Numbers are super low here in comparison to Pasco, it's actually a kind of tough area. So the agreement was made if the district could make a certain number to report this week I would shave my legs. I don't think they'll make it, but then again I guess we'll see.

Vancouver is a city. So this is the first time I've worked in this environment, I've always been in the secluded towns in the middle of nowhere, It takes some serious adjustment, because now I can't talk to everybody. We cover several English elders' areas, so we have to try and find the Hispanics mixed in, and we send referrals of everyone else we find to the English elders. It's really different, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

It turns out I'm walking into some success. We have a guy on date to get baptized this Saturday. I'm not sure if we will be able to get him ready in time, but I hope so. Either way, he'll get baptized soon.

Well, I'm just about out of time, but thanks everyone for everything. I appreciate all you do for me. Happy Belated Fathers day dad!

Love,
Elder Richards



p.s. It sounds like I wont recognize the house when I get back.