Last Week of the Transfer

June 7, 2011

Hello One and All,

It feels like this week has gone on forever, but then again it was a good week. We went to the temple this morning which is why I am writing so late today. Thanks everyone for the letters, they were appreciated.

This last Wednesday we had an extremely drunk investigator jump in our backseat. He proceeded to talk about how much he needed our help and the "pinche diablo". We rebuked him for 10 minutes or so until we finally pulled him out of our car and walked him back to his apartment. The next time we saw him he wouldn't look at us and seemed pretty embarrassed, hopefully he gets over it.

We had another baptism. Zenaida Ruiz. It went super good and we had a huge turn out from the ward and the branch. Lots of her non member extended family came too. President and Sister Greer came down too which was way neat. I got to baptize her, I was pretty nervous because she had just had her knee operated on and I didn't want to undo anything, but it went great. Thankfully she is small.

We are supposed to have a baptism this week, but we're not so sure it's going to happen now, so we'll have to wait and see.

I ate chiva for the first time the other day. It was way good.

Well, I'm just about out of time, but I love all of you and the church is true and the work is going great out here. It'll be interesting to see what happens with transfers coming up.

Love,

Elder Richards

Gettin' all Kinds of Wet

Hello One and All,

So another week has passed by, and a pretty good one at that. I guess first some business for mom. In regards to an Easter package, Reese's eggs are possibly the most delicious brand of Reese's there is. Useful things, I could really use a cd case. Also Sister Taylor gave me a box of junior mints and says it's from you, so thanks for that I suppose. The Taylors are really cool people.

So conference was awesome. We watched the first session after milking some cows and doing other farm work. I'll send some pictures next week, they're pretty good actually. Then we watched the first session with our members, after that we drove over to Connell to watch the second session at the church there. We were the only one's there so we flipped the tv around and watched from the more comfortable chairs on the stand. Priesthood session was particularly awesome. In between sessions we taught a lesson at the church to some people on track to be baptized.

Speaking of baptizing, this is going to be a pretty good week. We have a baptism tonight at 6 for the Basin City Spanish branch. Her name's Maria Elena, we've been working with her for a while, so this is exciting. Today is her birthday. President Whitby (the branch pres.) will be dunking her. Should be really cool. Me and Bao are giving the talks. Then on Saturday we'll be baptizing a brother and a sister for the Connell English ward. I'm pretty excited because these are my first baptisms since my trainer left. So hopefully from now on I'll be more successful with the training wheels off.

Last night we had FHE with Bishop Davidson and his family which was a lot of fun. Juan and Andres two recent converts came as well. So me and Elder Bao taught a pretty fun lesson about the ten commandments. Everyone enjoyed it. It's a really big family, and kids of all ages. They actually have a daughter who's serving down in Houston right now, I'm pretty sure. Also one of their older daughters looks exactly like a friend I had in college. It's borderline scary how similar they look. We also played games, sang songs, and participated in general merry making.

Well, I think that's everything notable of life as of now. The church is true. This is going to be a good week. And Jesus loves you. Thanks everyone for letters and support.

Life in the BC

So the first week of the transfer has passed by. My new comp Elder Bao is a really cool guy and I really enjoy working with him. He's from Ecuador. He's the oldest of four and is half Chinese, but he lives with his Ecuadorian mom and step dad. Really good missionary. He's been in the mission for almost 4 months, but has been in 3 areas already, Basin City being his 3rd. One for every transfer. A fun fact: he's the Elder who took my place in Boardman when I came here. So we have an area and a companion in common. His birthday is may 1st, so he's got 2 days on me. We get along really well, and his English is practically perfect. He studied on his own through out high school (watching movies in English and whatnot).

Sister Taylor told me that she was in contact with mom. That's a really cool family. Brother Taylor is the ward mission leader for one of the wards we cover. He does a great job of always making sure we are fed and taken care of. This last Sunday our dinner/lunch appointment fell through, so Sister Taylor had us come over and served us sub sandwiches at mom's suggestion. Pretty tasty. They are a really nice family, I've had a lot of fun times at their house.

This last Saturday me and Elder Bao got to go and help out one of the Spanish branches do baptisms at the temple which was way cool. Me and Elder Bao were the only one's baptizing so we each did well over 50 names. It was a really cool experience. I also gained a new found respect for people like Alma, or Ammon. It had never occur ed to me how tired your arm gets after about 15 or 20 baptisms. Another good thing about it I now have the Spanish baptism prayer memorized. And I got plenty of practice to perfect my technique, so I don't think I'll have a repeat of my four dunk first baptism.

This was a pretty good week work wise. We have a lot of baptisms coming up real soon. One for this Saturday (it might get pushed back a week for time sake, but he's solid) and another a week from tomorrow. Exciting times here in Basin City. One rather funny story I ought to share. We were teaching a lesson to the Luna family Sunday night, and we were watching Finding Faith in Christ with them. There's the mom and dad, two older sons, two middle school aged girls, and a little 1 1/2 year old-junior. Well we were watching the video and it was right at the end, when everything is real quiet and spiritual and Thomas is explaining how he knows that Jesus is the Christ, and how the 'antagonist' can know too. So it's real quiet and like a raspberry being blown junior let's one fly. Immediately afterwards the room is filled with the sound of all the kids and Elder Bao and I trying to stifle our snickers and maintain calm. It was one of those situations where you can't laugh and therefor it's a thousand times funnier. As soon as me and Bao got out of the trailer we laughed for about 10 minutes straight.

We had a pretty serious lesson with two kids (some of our investigators) about why they need to be baptized. It was real good, and they were a little more willing to commit by the end of it. We had another lesson last night in this small town called Hatton with a less active's 9 year old grandson and his 13 year old friend. Neither are members, but they have family in the church. We taught the plan of salvation which can be kind of complicated, but kept things simple. And it was really cool to see how involved and interested the 13 year old was. He was a really sharp kid that picked up on everything.

So that's my week. Thanks for all the letters, I love yall a lot and the church is true.

Another Transfer Ended

Well, we had a good week this last week. Quite a few lessons. It was the last week of the transfer. The news is that I'll be staying in Basin City, and Elder Powell will be going to Ellinsburg. I'm kind of sad to see him go, he's been my favorite companion thus far and I had a ton of fun with him. He's pretty sad to have to leave his greeny area, but he's also excited because his new comp was one of his roommates in the MTC. So tomorrow we'll drive to Kennewick to make the swap. My new comp's name is Elder Bau. He's from Ecuador, and he's half Chinese. Bit of an odd mix, but I'm sure we'll work together good. He's actually the Elder that replaced me down in Hermiston with Sauceda. He's been out one transfer less than Powell, so this will be his 3rd transfer he's starting. I guess my Spanish must need a lot of work since they keep giving me native comps. (That's a joke.)

One thing I forgot to mention in my last letter was that I gave a talk that last Sunday in one of the branches. On Thursday while I was out at leadership training one of the branch presidents called and assigned me a 20 minute talk. No topic, just a talk. So I talked about how God loves us. Touched on the restoration and my experiences with hurricanes. I think I did well enough communicating myself. That night we taught a lesson at the branch presidents house and his wife (who also speaks Spanish) told me how impressed she was that I just rattled right along and was talking nice and fast. So I guess my Spanish is getting better.

Earlier in the week Elder Powell and I were out tracting in a trailer park (as usual) and a bunch of the branch members were out having a party. Music and grilling. So we stopped and visited with them for a while. They were barbecuing oysters, shell and all. So me and Powell had oysters for the first time. They were...interesting. Not bad, but not amazing either. They were covered in lemon and hot sauce and salt, so I couldn't taste much of the actual oyster. I was told not to chew, so I just swallowed it like a pill. We also exchanged a lot of jokes with the members, which was a lot of fun. Some of the ones I told were: Hay dos hombres en un clase de ingles. Uno pregunto el otro "como se dice nariz en ingles?" El otro penso por uno momento y dijo "no se'" And then there's: Que hacen los pes todal dia? nada. And finally: porque los nefitas tienen las ropas mas suave? Porque ellos tienen las planchas. Oh que chistoso. It was a lot of fun.

The baptismal interview went good. It was for this 17 year old named Emanuel that the sisters were teaching. It was really neat because this kid was so ready for baptism. He had a really strong testimony that he shared with me and you could tell that he was really excited to get baptized. He couldn't wait to get his family converted. Real sharp and nice kid.

Last night Elder Powell and I had a pretty eventful evening. Throughout the day each of us was feeling progressively less healthy. Then at dinner with a branch member, Elder Powell excused himself and threw up in the bathroom. Then he came back out and finished dinner. After wards we had a member drive us to a small town to teach a 9 year old boy in a less active family. After the 20 minute drive we arrived and I threw up pretty violently outside. Then we went in and taught the lesson. Then afterwards I threw up again. So we were both feeling pretty crummy. Elder Price (the man we live with) and Elder Powell gave me a blessing, and Sister Price gave me and Powell some meds. We're both feeling better today, but we haven't eaten. But it's not going to stop us from working.

Well I think that is everything of note from the week. Thanks everyone for the letters and support. I love yall and the church is true.

Hola

Well this was a good week. Not as good for numbers, but I expected that after the phenomenal week we had before that. One thing that is actually pretty cool, I just got out of the temple. It was our zone's day to go do a session. So that was pretty fantastic. Afterwards, because it is a rare thing to get to be in "big city" that is Kennewick we ran around to do a little shopping. I got some really cheap Trump ties, and then some super cheap new Cleats.

At the start of last week we had a cool service opportunity. We helped Elder Price (the guy we live with) tag some fresh born calves. The new calves need to be vaccinated and then have there ear tag put on. Mom, you're probably not going to like this, but my job was to keep momma cow off of Elder Price while he tagged the calf. I had an axe handle (3 1/2 foot very dense wood) and I had to beat the mom back with it. It was a little bit terrifying, but that's ok it was fun. Also I got to hit a very angry cow in the face several times.

This last week I had leadership training for two days. That was a lot of fun, I learned a lot and it has helped out the work. It also gave me the chance to see my old buddies from Hermiston.

I'll be conducting my first baptismal interview tonight for one of the Hermanas' investigators, so I'm hoping that goes all right.

We did a lot of tracting this week. Had a really good lesson yesterday with this younger girl (20-21) named Corrina. She's dating a Mormon and wants to learn more. We tracted into her last week. I don't know how good her boyfriend is, but it sounds like his mom is a good example and keeps inviting her to church. I can see good things happening with her in the future.

Well, I guess that's everything note worthy of the week. I know it sounds kind of slow, but it was a good week where we worked a lot. Thanks everyone for letters and support.

Transfer's Almost Done

Life in Basin City is good. We had a fantastic week last week for numbers. We blew both of our records for total lessons out of the water. I won't say how many but we got over the mission standard of excellence which is 20. This week is pretty slow by comparison. It was pretty neat because we figured out how to get into a lot more houses. It seems kind of obvious, but it had never occurred to us. We would do our little door approach speech and then if they invited us in we would teach. But that left things too much up to the potential investigator. So this last week we started straight up asking to come in. It works pretty effectively.

We got two more people on date for baptism this last week, which brings us to a running total of four. The first one my comp and one of the ZL's put on date during an exchange. Her name is Alma, she's the sister of another lady we have on date. And the second person is this 12-13 year old girl named Kayle. (sp?) She's been attending church for about 8 months now and finally decided she wanted to talk to the missionaries, so we got called up by some members The Hadleys and started teaching her at their house. She's on date for April 9th. So we're excited to have so many people on date, but we are really really hoping that neither of us gets transferred because all of their dates are next transfer.

To answer dad's question we don't do exchanges with the members, but we do try to get them present in the lessons. The mission is actually discouraging splitting up, they prefer us to bring members with us

This last week on Wednesday I think, we had an interesting/unfortunate experience. There's a trailer park we do a lot of work in in Basin City. It's run by a member in our area. Well, he approached us while we were tracting and trying follow ups and told us how this lady had been bit by a dog (dogs aren't allowed in the park but everyone has them, they just lie when he comes around) and he needed us to translate for him while he talked to this lady. So I acted as translator. In the end he was pretty mad and I had to tell the lady to get rid of the dog. Needless to say it was not good press for us as missionaries. We don't want to be associated with the guys that run the place. Afterwards we discovered that the lady was someone who told us to come back, so that will be an uncomfortable follow up.

Today we are having a zone pday at some members in BC, so that should be fun, I'll be sure to take pictures. Thanks for the email Whit, I appreciate it. It's always good to hear how the fam is doing. I think that's everything important for this week, thanks for the address info mom. I love you all and the church is true.

Just Another Week in Zion

Well this last week has been pretty good. We were able to hit the desired 20 lessons again. We didn't think we were going to make it, but then due to a miraculous Saturday we only had to get 3 on Sunday to reach 20. The work is progressing, we have a few people on date for baptism and are trying to get more.

One of the awesome moments this week is that on last Pday we found an awesome 90% off deal at the Van Housen in Pasco, so I saved $80 on some awesome argyle sweater vests. It seems like I always have the best luck at finding sales.

The past few days it got really cold and the wind kicked up super strong. Maybe it was all the dust in the air but for 2 or 3 days last week my allergies were absolutely terrible. I could hardly even function, but I bought some meds at a gas station and those helped a bit. It's funny, when I got my call I didn't think I would be seeing and experiencing sand storms in lush green Washington. They probably don't compare to the ones that Eric has seen over there, but they're still pretty big. They're just like you see in the movies there's just a wall of brown and then the car in front of you disappears and then you can't see anything too well. What fun adventures, I like to pretend that I'm on Tatooine.

We had a really fun lesson with this RCLA family (recent convert/less active). I taught them a 10 commandment lesson I learned in the MTC where there's a sign for each of the commandments you make with your hands and it helps you remember the order and whatnot. It was a ton of fun, everyone was laughing and yelling (yelling isn't bad with Mexicans, they're very loud people). One of the daughters' non member boyfriend was there and he enjoyed it. It was good because it showed him Mormons can be fun too, which was good.

The other day I dreamed in Spanish. That's the second time that's happened to me. I always love it, you wake up feeling so accomplished.

We're teaching these 3 kids from a family that are way cool. We tried to get them on date for baptism Sunday night, and they would have done it except that their mom talked to them earlier and taught them the "wicked traditions of their fathers." That is to say Mexicans don't commit on the excuse that something this big is not "un juego." It's just a way to keep from getting too committed. But I know the kids will get baptized with a little more time.

Last night I was on exchange with the Zone Leaders, one of them went to basin city with Elder Powell, and then I came to Pasco with the other, there's actually four of them. The 2 ZL's, a 3rd comp, and an Elder temporarily stateside for health issues. So all four of us worked last night. It was different but way cool, at each lesson it's just "ok, you and me for this one." So I got to teach with 3 different elders last night which was way cool. They're all way cool guys.

Yesterday's district meeting went a lot better than my first 2 weeks ago. I still feel like it was a little rough but then again maybe I'm just being overly hard on myself.

The work continues to progress. I love my comp Elder Powell, we get along real well. The members we live with are cool. There's tiny rat dogs EVERYWHERE. We have all the free eggs we can eat. Pretty soon we're going to be tagging and branding cattle. And the church is true. Thanks for everything and I love yall.