Itchy Vancouver

Hello One and All,

So, where to begin...mom I did get your email in time today, and your package came last night, thank you very much, it was a most welcome suprise. Also, I am on my last pair of contacts, so I don't know what you want to do about that. I do have my glasses, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to wear those, but contacts are definitely nice.

So, when E. Swenson and I opened up the package last night we could not stop laughing at one of the contents, a bag of cracker/cookies called "bug bites". The reason this holds such humor for us is because we are currently infested with...FLEAS! Yup that's right, Elder Richards serving in civilized Washington state has fleas. It is all to blame on our members stupid rat sized dog "Pokey". Needless to say I am not having an inside dog in the future (unless his hygiene is maintained constantly). The first night we figured it out we were both disgusted and afraid to touch anything, but now it's just part of life and hey, we move in two days so what's the big deal, just another fun story to tell afterwards. Oddly it turns out that every companionship in my district is having problems with their members' household dogs. Whether it is E. Dyas and DeLeon and gratuitous amounts of pet dander, or Sister Rico and Southwick and their dog that has a bathroom/throwing up problem. Is it gross? Yes. Is it hilarious? Oddly enough yes.

It's very hard to believe how fast this transfer has gone, this is the last week and then it's transfers. I hope that I have one more here in this area, one to enjoy a clean new apartment, two to finish E.Swenson's training, and three so that I can see all the awesome things that are about to go down with our investigators happen. In our district meeting we did the traditional transfer predictions, the votes were split for me, about half think I'll stay, and half think I'll go. If I do leave, I think I'll go to Hermiston. Not my first area in Boardman, but the same district in the other spanish area. I don't know why, but that's my guess.

We have one of our investigators, Ana, on date to get baptized in september, so we're excited for that. Jose continues to progress and learn every day, it is an absolute pleasure getting to work with him. Also we found this woman, Aurora, who has a ton of potential. So how found her is a little unique: We were walking around in one of our areas, a community called Fruit Valley. We saw a woman who at a distance looked kind of like she was hispanic. So, while keeping a safe distance, we kind of stalked her all the way home to find out where she lived. Low and behold she is mexican and has worked with missionaries before. Her friend/roommate Aurora is the potential golden investigator that we found. So maybe a little bit creepy, but I can totally see a whole family get baptized as a result. Vamos a ver.

Well I think that does it for me this week. Whit and Cody, it sounds like yall had a lot of fun in Vegas. A lot of the pictures looked a lot like you were in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Eric, thanks very much for the letter, I'm excited for all the awesome things happening in your life right now. I also will have my own washer and dryer in the new apartment, so you and me can be grown up buddies together. I'm super excited to be able to do laundry with out working around someone else's schedule. Mike and Jess, the kids are getting so big, it's crazy! And to everyone else I love yall too.

Love,
Elder Richards

p.s. I really wish I could go to the BYU UT game, that would be good. Be sure to give Ricardo a hard time about that one. Also, here's a picture of my current district.