A Week of Highs and Lows

Hello One and All,

Well to start off, mom I do know about the recent zombie outbreak.
Apparently there's been more than one. We had a local soldier shop
owner give us the low down during a very enjoyable visit to his shop.
The Miami one actually isn't the most graphic one, there was another
one with a engineering student and his roommate, now that one is not
for the faint of heart. But I digress...

The week started out with a really good specialized training with
President and Sister Greer. It went really well. It was all about the
"elephant in the room", or that is to say, the fact that the mission
is not reaching the goals we have set and nobody is talking about it.
That's been one of my pet peeves, so it was really nice to have
President draw everyone's attention to it. We went over a lot of
statistical stuff, which is nice (I like numbers because they do not
lie). So now hopefully everyone is all jazzed up about finding new
investigators, so we can reach our baptismal goals. Now if only
president and I could talk about our Elephant...I digress again.

Wednesday was Elder Weeks birthday so we all joined him in eating
birthday cake Oreos (I had never heard of them either, not sure if I'm
a fan or not, they're very sweet) for breakfast. He got a package from
his folks, and I knitted him a slouchy beanie (dangerously slouchy
some would say). Then came balloon animals and silly string ambushes,
a fun day to be sure.

On Thursday the other half of our companionship (the zone leaders)
went to Vancouver for a zone leader conference. Afterwards we found
out that the conference consisted of them playing at the new visitors
center at the Portland temple, so they had it real rough. While they
were gone I got to drive around in the Chevy Colorado which was
sweeeeeeet, I love driving trucks when I get the chance. We had to take
it in to get the oil changed which took forever, so my patience was
pretty much shot (I'm usually so mild mannered). Then our schedule was
way open so we had to go out knocking and trying to find referrals,
(an activity that requires patience) and it might have ended with me
yelling at a guy that was hassling us on the street...maybe. But no
one got hurt, so we're good. Also some nearby teens seemed to get a
kick out of it. Thursday was equally frustrating in my eyes. Good
stuff happened, but in a very slow drawn out way,

We had an awesome FHE with a recent convert family where we taught the
Doctrine of Christ as found in the Bible. It went super well and
everyone seemed to really enjoy it. They're a really cool family, and
they love the missionaries so much.

When the zonies got back the flood gate broke and investigators
started jumping out of the wood works. We have a lot of good things
happening, we had 9 people at church, and 15 new investigators. So
we're really excited to see what the future will bring.

Hope everyone is doing well. Whit, enjoy pregnancy. Mike, how've you
been? Eric, if you're interested I know a middle aged lady who is
interested in dating you ...oh boy cowboy. Love you all very much, and
have a great week.

Love,

Elder Richards