A Great Start to a New Transfer

Hello One and All,

Well I suppose I'll start with the transfer info. I'm getting shipped to Ecuador! No, I can't actually back that up. I'm staying here in Kennewick and so is E. Anderson. So we're pretty excited. So my address remains the same for another 6 weeks. To be honest we were a little surprised to find out we were both staying. We're some of the oldest Spanish speakers in the mission (weird when did that happen?!) so they usually tend to put us with younger elders getting started. But the Lord has a plan so we are happy.

Another bulletin of note and importance is that this is officially my last Tuesday Pday. From now on Pday will be on Monday. So any emails you want to get to me need to arrive on Monday. Apparently the first presidency has been encouraging mission presidents to make the change for a while now. It'll be interesting but we'll see how it goes. One good thing about it is that it will stomp out peve-ing once and for all. That means partying the night before pday, which some elders do. Fortunately no one around here.

Yesterday we started off the transfer with a bang and went out for some good ol' fashion tracting. I'm hearing from a lot of sources that the church is trying to phase out this finding tool, and I can understand why, it's not the most effective tool, but with out it I don't know what we would do when every other plan falls through.

Then last night we went and did a FHE with the Ramos family, a part member family we've been working with for quite some time. The father Abraham is a member, and he is married with three children, he's the only member. Last Saturday they came out to a baptism the ZL's had. So last night we had a lesson all about baptism. The spirit was super strong and when we invited two of the kids, Omar and Alejandra to be baptized they both agreed. Now they are on date for December 10th. We're very excited because this baptism can totally happen. This Sunday we're going to arrange a meeting with President Hernandez (branch pres) and Bro Ramos to make sure he can baptize his kids. Afterwards for the activity we played Mexican bingo, and I impressed everyone with my announcer skills. A good time was had by all.

Thanksgiving was good. Unfortunately every charitable organization in the state of Washington was completely booked so we didn't get to go help out anywhere, but we did have fun. We had dinner with the branch president and one of his councilor's families and the sister missionaries we serve with. It wasn't the most traditional feast, but it was still delish. Afterwards we all played games together and it was a ton of fun. I really am looking forward to spending Christmas here with the members that we have here.

Today we have to cut our Pday a little short because of an assignment we got from the AP's yesterday. They want us to take out the incoming new Spanish elders tonight and use them in a few lessons. So me and Anderson are going to split up and cover a couple of our investigators with fresh off the plane greenies. It should be fun.

Well I think that about covers this last week. I hope every one's doing good and keep on keepin' on. The church is true!

Love,
Elder Richards