Hello One and All,
So before I forget my new address is: 3030 west 4th avenue, i 206 (apt #) kennewick WA 99336. Also the mail box is 189, I don't know if that's important or not. And yes mom, I could read your little insert. Thankfully the mission has gotten me to the point where I'm virtually asleep with in seconds of lying down.
So, what is new. Well I'm in Kennewick now, and besides frigid mornings and evenings the weather is beautiful. We went to the temple this morning which was great. I learned a lot. One thing I did not know coming here was that the giant Spanish branch in Pasco split 2 weeks ago, and Elder Anderson and I are opening the area here. I'm a little baffled as to why I was chosen for a big important job like this, but hopefully all goes well. The branch is great, and everyone is super excited to help us out. Us and the 3 sisters cover it. The Branch President invited us to his office for a word and told us about how great the sisters are, but that he was so grateful to have elders to open up the new branch. We spent last week fasting a lot, but this week the branch answered the call of our stomachs so we are being taken care of again.
My new companion is Elder Anderson. He is awesome, and we've already gotten to be really good buddies. That's probably our biggest struggle right now, that it's so easy for us to get distracted cracking jokes or swapping stories. But we work well together and good things should be coming. He's from Tulsa Oklahoma, and was originally called to Mexico, but 4 months and several parasites later he came to the good ol' WKM. He's been out about 10 months all together. He came here from Toppenish (the Yakima area) the same time I came here. So we are both brand new here in the branch. Because we are the first missionaries in this area we are starting from scratch which means we do a lot of tracting and searching. It's already yielded some fantastic results and we should have some baptisms coming up real soon.
We are living in the Sisters' old apartment and they were moved to a small mansion in the area. All five of us cover the city of kennewick, so we work with them a lot to determine who teaches any given person. Those Sisters really cleaned out the apartment. Seriously, anything that wasn't bolted down was taken, including every last square of toilet paper. They were efficient. Our district is made up of us and the Sisters so there's five of us in the district. I'm still district leader and we do meetings in Spanish which is nice.
Yesterday we found two really good baptism potentials. Jorge we found while we were looking for his sister who we had helped bring in the groceries and were invited back. He told us how he almost got baptized a long time ago but moved to Mexico right before and disappeared. So we told him how we wanted to baptize him for real this time, and he was very responsive to it. We also found a part member family that we are going to try to get reactivated and baptized. This is a really good area and there is a lot of great potential.
Well, thanks for everything everyone. I love all of you and am seeing miracles here in the field. The church is true and God loves all of us.
Love,
Elder Richards
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
World Keeps On a Spinnin'
Hello One and All,
Well I suppose I'll start with the recent transfer information we received Saturday. I am getting transferred to Kennewick. Elder Swenson will be staying here and receiving the trainer of his MTC companion as a new companion. I'll be with Elder Anderson, I'm certain I've talked with him before but I just can't remember who he is. Anywho, he's been out a little less than me I think. From what I've been able to gather from the word on the street about my new area is that me and Anderson will be opening the work there. The Pasco branch just got split into two smaller branches and we'll be opening the work in the new branch. So it should be fun learning an area together.
I've really enjoyed my time here in Vancouver. It's been almost nothing but beautiful weather. It would be honest of me to say I'm a little bummed we weren't able to baptize anyone while I was here, but that's not important. There are now so many people ready to make this important covenant that weren't when I got here. I'm not attributing that to myself, but I'm sure a contributed a little bit. This is always a bitter sweet time when you go around saying your goodbyes and people are all crying. (Not me of course, it seems I no longer have that reaction). It's sad, but it also feels nice to see how much these people loved and appreciated me. Which is nice because I definitely love and appreciate them.
Jose continues to be perched at the edge of the font. I'm convinced he will join very soon, every thing's ready and he always tells us about how much he wants to do it. Our investigator sobered up and is doing soo much better. That was a sad goodbye, I've been able to see him progress so much in such a short period of time. He and his son came to church last Sunday which was way cool.
Like I said I'm sad to be leaving Vancouver, but I'm excited to be back in the tri-cities. On the one hand you're more connected to the information flow over there than out here in what we lovingly refer to as outer darkness (actually outer darkness is an area called Longview, but we are close neighbors). Also in the tri-cities there are Hispanics EVERYWHERE. I'll be close byish to the old Pasco neighborhood, so maybe I'll be able to say hello to some old folks.
Which reminds me, one big change (quick side note, mom's email just came in, thanks for that). Eric your arrested development quote cracked me up and I got a couple of glares from near by library people. Mom, in regards to the package, yeah we just found out about that yesterday because we went to our old members home to say goodbye and she mentioned how the package got there on Friday but then as she was signing for it she off handedly mentioned how I didn't live there anymore and the mail man instantly whisked away the package. So yeah it's somewhere in postage limbo right now probably. As for new addresses I don't know anything about that yet, I'll send it next week.
So the big change is that President Greer has consolidated several of the zones. So Hermiston (my first zone) was joined with Walla Walla and is now called Blue Mountain zone or something like that. And several others were joined together as well. So now we have these GINORMOUS zones with more missionaries. I have no idea why this is the case. I feel kind of like an old wine bottle with changes like this, but it's all good. As of yet I am not affected by the change.
Well, I think that just about covers things. Thanks everyone I love you all and the church is true. Next time you hear from me I will be in scenic Kennewick. Technically speaking East Kennewick zone, because regular Kennewick got consolidated into the Columbia River Temple Zone with a few others. But those are details and not important.
Happy Halloween!
Love,
Elder Richards
p.s. Happy birthday to Mike. Many happy returns. And from mom's email it sounds like Ben is hands down more inteligent than me. So, good for him.
Well I suppose I'll start with the recent transfer information we received Saturday. I am getting transferred to Kennewick. Elder Swenson will be staying here and receiving the trainer of his MTC companion as a new companion. I'll be with Elder Anderson, I'm certain I've talked with him before but I just can't remember who he is. Anywho, he's been out a little less than me I think. From what I've been able to gather from the word on the street about my new area is that me and Anderson will be opening the work there. The Pasco branch just got split into two smaller branches and we'll be opening the work in the new branch. So it should be fun learning an area together.
I've really enjoyed my time here in Vancouver. It's been almost nothing but beautiful weather. It would be honest of me to say I'm a little bummed we weren't able to baptize anyone while I was here, but that's not important. There are now so many people ready to make this important covenant that weren't when I got here. I'm not attributing that to myself, but I'm sure a contributed a little bit. This is always a bitter sweet time when you go around saying your goodbyes and people are all crying. (Not me of course, it seems I no longer have that reaction). It's sad, but it also feels nice to see how much these people loved and appreciated me. Which is nice because I definitely love and appreciate them.
Jose continues to be perched at the edge of the font. I'm convinced he will join very soon, every thing's ready and he always tells us about how much he wants to do it. Our investigator sobered up and is doing soo much better. That was a sad goodbye, I've been able to see him progress so much in such a short period of time. He and his son came to church last Sunday which was way cool.
Like I said I'm sad to be leaving Vancouver, but I'm excited to be back in the tri-cities. On the one hand you're more connected to the information flow over there than out here in what we lovingly refer to as outer darkness (actually outer darkness is an area called Longview, but we are close neighbors). Also in the tri-cities there are Hispanics EVERYWHERE. I'll be close byish to the old Pasco neighborhood, so maybe I'll be able to say hello to some old folks.
Which reminds me, one big change (quick side note, mom's email just came in, thanks for that). Eric your arrested development quote cracked me up and I got a couple of glares from near by library people. Mom, in regards to the package, yeah we just found out about that yesterday because we went to our old members home to say goodbye and she mentioned how the package got there on Friday but then as she was signing for it she off handedly mentioned how I didn't live there anymore and the mail man instantly whisked away the package. So yeah it's somewhere in postage limbo right now probably. As for new addresses I don't know anything about that yet, I'll send it next week.
So the big change is that President Greer has consolidated several of the zones. So Hermiston (my first zone) was joined with Walla Walla and is now called Blue Mountain zone or something like that. And several others were joined together as well. So now we have these GINORMOUS zones with more missionaries. I have no idea why this is the case. I feel kind of like an old wine bottle with changes like this, but it's all good. As of yet I am not affected by the change.
Well, I think that just about covers things. Thanks everyone I love you all and the church is true. Next time you hear from me I will be in scenic Kennewick. Technically speaking East Kennewick zone, because regular Kennewick got consolidated into the Columbia River Temple Zone with a few others. But those are details and not important.
Happy Halloween!
Love,
Elder Richards
p.s. Happy birthday to Mike. Many happy returns. And from mom's email it sounds like Ben is hands down more inteligent than me. So, good for him.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Ding Dong Wedding Bells
Hello One and All,
Well another week has come and gone in the WKM. It's crazy hard to believe how fast this last transfer went and to think that transfer calls are just a few days away again. It's always a fun time of year (or transfer as it were). The other night I dreamed that I would be involved in training over in Sellah. So as I am always known to say: "vamos a ver" We'll see. More or less.
The work continues to go swimmingly here in Vancouver. The rain is constantly trying to settle in for the winter, but every couple of days it gets foiled by the sun. Today is one of those such days. Lucky for us it falls on a pday. (Call me crazy but I love doing missionary work in the rain.) Maybe it's because it keeps you nice and cool and not sweaty, maybe it's because of the common held belief that the more time spent in the rain the more attractive your future spouse will be, who knows. All I know is I like it.
This last Saturday we spent the majority of the morning giving service to the Escalona family whose oldest daughter was getting married that night. I set up and pinned more chair covers than I care to remember. My thumb still bares the marks of a thousand safety pin stab wounds. Fun fact: Josolyn (the girl getting married) and her family are converts from my dear old papi elder Montoya. And now I and my posterity get to witness the fruits of his labor. She married Joel a way cool recent convert/RM. The wedding was a nice diversion from the routine and a lot of fun. Plus Brother Woodland made his bomb potato salad. Another strange result of the mission, I now love potato salad. Whenever it's available at a dinner (which regrettably isn't often) I can't get enough of it. I guess my taste buds have matured some more. Sorry mom for years of smack talk against your potato salad, I just didn't know what I was missing.
We ran into a little stumbling block with one of our best investigators yesterday. We found him quite drunk and depressed about his lot in life. We talked him through it a little bit and prayed with him. Hopefully he'll have sobered up for tonight's visit so we can help him out more. He's a super nice guy and just hit his breaking point. I know the gospel can help him.
Jose continues to flourish as our golden investigator, he is in the process of searching for work, we're praying that he'll find something that doesn't require him to move out of the Vancouver area.
Hmm...well I hate to say it but I think that that is everything worthy of mentioning at the moment. There's always a lot more that goes on than what I write about, but I try to leave out the dull day to day stuff and just talk about particularly interesting things.
Anywho, I love all of you (whoever all this gets forwarded to) and hope all is well with you and yours. Thanks for the letter whit and grandpa. The church yes is true, and I truly love preaching it in the Lord's chosen language, espanol.
Much amor,
Elder Richards
Well another week has come and gone in the WKM. It's crazy hard to believe how fast this last transfer went and to think that transfer calls are just a few days away again. It's always a fun time of year (or transfer as it were). The other night I dreamed that I would be involved in training over in Sellah. So as I am always known to say: "vamos a ver" We'll see. More or less.
The work continues to go swimmingly here in Vancouver. The rain is constantly trying to settle in for the winter, but every couple of days it gets foiled by the sun. Today is one of those such days. Lucky for us it falls on a pday. (Call me crazy but I love doing missionary work in the rain.) Maybe it's because it keeps you nice and cool and not sweaty, maybe it's because of the common held belief that the more time spent in the rain the more attractive your future spouse will be, who knows. All I know is I like it.
This last Saturday we spent the majority of the morning giving service to the Escalona family whose oldest daughter was getting married that night. I set up and pinned more chair covers than I care to remember. My thumb still bares the marks of a thousand safety pin stab wounds. Fun fact: Josolyn (the girl getting married) and her family are converts from my dear old papi elder Montoya. And now I and my posterity get to witness the fruits of his labor. She married Joel a way cool recent convert/RM. The wedding was a nice diversion from the routine and a lot of fun. Plus Brother Woodland made his bomb potato salad. Another strange result of the mission, I now love potato salad. Whenever it's available at a dinner (which regrettably isn't often) I can't get enough of it. I guess my taste buds have matured some more. Sorry mom for years of smack talk against your potato salad, I just didn't know what I was missing.
We ran into a little stumbling block with one of our best investigators yesterday. We found him quite drunk and depressed about his lot in life. We talked him through it a little bit and prayed with him. Hopefully he'll have sobered up for tonight's visit so we can help him out more. He's a super nice guy and just hit his breaking point. I know the gospel can help him.
Jose continues to flourish as our golden investigator, he is in the process of searching for work, we're praying that he'll find something that doesn't require him to move out of the Vancouver area.
Hmm...well I hate to say it but I think that that is everything worthy of mentioning at the moment. There's always a lot more that goes on than what I write about, but I try to leave out the dull day to day stuff and just talk about particularly interesting things.
Anywho, I love all of you (whoever all this gets forwarded to) and hope all is well with you and yours. Thanks for the letter whit and grandpa. The church yes is true, and I truly love preaching it in the Lord's chosen language, espanol.
Much amor,
Elder Richards
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Mingled Rain and Sun
Hello One and All,
Well, I haven't even started writing yet and I'm already burned out on writing. Crazy.
Last week was way good, especially conference. For half of the time we listened in Spanish and the other half was English. But it was such a good conference. My favorite statement came from president Uchtdorf when he said that Compared to God we are nothing, but to Him we are everything. He really hit the nail on the head with that one. And nothing like a little hell fire preaching from E. Holland. Fun times. Our investigator Jose came to a few sessions and loved it. He was so excited to hear a prophet speak.
I'm just finishing up an exchange from yesterday. Another elder in the district came and joined me for the day. Elder Dyas (pronounced Die-ez). We had a lot of fun, he's a convert of about 2 years, and has a lot of funny stories. We actually have a lot in common. He had a tape recorder that his lady friend on a mission sent. So I was helping him fill up a response tape (p.s. if anyone wants to send a tape I have a player that I can listen to it I'm ...just sayin).
Next week we have zone conference so that should be a lot of fun and very enlightening. We're also getting members at every appointment that we can, it's really a blessing to the work. Vancouver is really turning into a successful area. There's a lot of baptisms right around the corner. But I probably won't be here to see them come to fruition. Is that a real word? I'm not sure...oh well it's not important. It's always great to hear from yall. Keep up the good things in your lives.
Love,
Elder Richards
p.s. Thanks mom for the info on the contacts, 3 months is better than no months, and I could probably stretch it a little...
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