Back to Work

Hello One and All,

So, I guess there's a lot of things to say, I'll try to go chronologically.

Last Wednesday I headed off to tri-cities in a van full of missionaries. The following three days were filled with a lot of awesome lessons to be learned, and what I was most excited about, I got to work in my old area with my old companion Elder Bao. It was me him and two other way cool elders. We had a lot of fun, and since I already knew the area I got to go off with the other extra elder looking up my old investigators and having lessons with them. It was interesting to see that everyone I visited had been praying for me the day before, or feeling that morning that they were going to see me soon. It was so nice to be able to be back there. It was like going home, and I got to see almost all of my old companions and other cohorts which was great. We learned a ton of great things in the training as well. And leadership training wouldn't be complete without the carne asada barbq party for all Spanish missionaries visiting. See pic.

Come weekend time the church was back up and running which was good. We had our usual attendant Jose there, and then at sacrament meeting Alex and his son Josiah arrived (they came to the branch activity). They are super solid and I can really see them progressing far. We had a really good lesson with them last night, that we got out of a little bit late, but it was still really good. We showed them the restoration DVD and then explained about the priesthood authority being restored.

Today for Pday we went to the punchbowl falls in Oregon. It was a really pretty hike, but maybe not as grand and impressive as some of the other waterfalls we've visited during the mission. That's why I'm so late in writing, we were only just now able to make it to the library.

Congrats mike on a baby boy, that's way exciting! And Joy and Scott, you're little girl is so cute, I'm really happy for yall!

Here in the mission we're all getting excited for conference, it'll be way good, it always is. I can't wait to listen to the words of a prophet again.

This transfer is really flying by. It should be interesting to see where I end up for Halloween. I've always gotten transferred after 3 transfers in an area, so we'll see if the pattern holds true. Going back to BC Connell, really made me want to work there again, but hopefully we can get some baptisms before I go wherever it is I'll go.

Well, I guess that's all for this week, I love yall and hope you have an awesome week!

Love,
Elder Richards

Vacation

Hello One and All,

Well life in the WKM is pretty good right now I suppose. I don't think there's any items of business to discuss, but thanks mom for the Texas package, I'll touch more on that later. Oh yes, and happy early birthday to mom and dad, the check should be coming in the mail...ok there's no check. But I am thinking happy thoughts your way!

So this last week was pretty good. The cultural event was a blast! It was a typical Spanish activity, the start time was 7 pm, so the opening prayer didn't get said until about 8:30ish! We got called and asked to set up so we were there at about 6 to make sure everything was ready on time. Needless to say I was a little stressed and impatient, but it was fun once it started. They had all sorts of cool native folk dances from Mexico complete with the authentic outfits and dresses. There were tables featuring Mexico, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Our branch mission leader Hno. Mendoza was kind enough to share the El Salvador table with me, so it also featured Texas. Everyone who went over to look got a big laugh out of it. And I had some fun "arguments" with some of the natives. Apparently they still feel Texas was stolen from them. Well, their loss. But if things are as hot down there as I've heard, they can have it. We had a new family of 4 show up that we had just started teaching, and they had a great time, it was so great! We finally got out of there at about quarter to ten, yikes! But we didn't want to leave our investigators there by themselves. The branch did great in fellowshiping them,

This last Sunday we were all set to have that same family come to church, plus a couple of other investigators when we get a call from the Branch President. Turns out the church burned down. Well not burned down so much as there was a small fire which caused the sprinklers to go off and make everything all wet so all meetings were canceled. So we scrambled to make calls and get permission to go translate at one of the other building's English services. We eventually did but could only get one investigator there, plus one from the sisters. So I got to translate on the headphones. It had been a while but I did pretty good. They were actually having their ward conference so the stake presidency was there and all gave great talks. The 1st councilor talked suuuuper fast, but the 2nd councilor and president were fine and I was able to translate theirs quite nicely I think.

So tomorrow morning I head out for Kennewick to have the 3 day training, I'm really excited, I hope I get to go down to my old area in Pasco to work during the evenings. I'll try and pull some strings. So I get kind of a mini-vacation, so it should be fun, although I would definitely pick working to sitting in meetings all day. But I'm sure I'll get to learn a ton to share with the district.

This morning we played a round of golf. It was a lot of fun, and I've improved a lot since the last time I golfed 10 years ago. It was a 9 hole par 3 course, and I hit a 75. Not too shabby I'd say...

Well thank you everyone for all the love and support, I do appreciate it. Mom made a reference to a package from Whit, I'll keep a weather eye out for that. Too bad about Utah and UT games, at least it sounds like we did good at UT. Utah however, ooh that was a sad night. The zone was constantly texting each other to see if anyone had heard any developments. Next year will be better. Speaking of texting, I finally put two and two together...if dad received the texts from the family we helped out here, and if mom received a text from Eric the day he moved into his apartment (as she mentioned some weeks ago) then that means you have texting now. Why the sudden change of heart? I thought there was a vendetta against texting. Oh well, church is true with or without texts. Have a super awesome week!!

Love,
Elder Richards

Almost Finally Settled In

Hello One and All,

So, we are almost finally settled into the new apartment. We finally got the mountain of kitchen supplies put to use or stored away. That just leaves the need to find a truck to go pick up our couch, and a few other homey touches. We are loving the new digs, and it is nice having a place of our own without walking on eggshells because other people live there. The only down side is the giant glass door that goes to our balcony in front of the study/living area. It kind of puts us in a fish bowl kind of environment. Or at least it feels that way to me.

This week has been a really good one. The highest lesson count I've gotten in Vancouver, so that's a good start to the transfer.

We had stake conference for all of Washington and parts of Alaska. President Packer, Elder Holland, a 70 and the Young Women General president spoke. It was a very good meeting, and our investigator Jose loved it. During the adult session we couldn't find the translating headphones that other investigators were using, so I had to sit behind Jose and whisper the translation to him for one of the talks. It had been a while since I translated a meeting, but I did all right. Eventually we were able to find some headphones and I got to take a brake while he listened to the provided translator.

I'm very excited for next week. Wed-Fri there is a mission wide leadership training in the tri-cities that all mission leaders will be attending. So I get to take a little road trip and go see all my old comps/friends in the mission which will be a lot of fun. And I have complete confidence in E. Swenson taking care of the area while I'm gone.

Well, I know I haven't written too much, but this last week was pretty straight forward, work work work. I'm loving it out here. Last week was a little toasty (mid 90's) But yesterday it was gorgeous, and today is a nice overcast that I hope sets in for good. (I'm not being depressed, it would just be a nice change of pace).

I love you all, and hope everyone is doing very well!

Love,
E Richards

A New Transfer

Hello One and All,

Well, the transfer news is that I and E. Swenson will be remaining here for another transfer. Maybe I'll finally see some rain. Everyone thinks I'm crazy for wanting it, but I've had nothing but sun for my whole mission, some never ending rain would be a nice change of pace.

Before I forget a couple of points of business for mom: Our new address is 4602 NE 72nd Ave. #72, Vancouver WA 98661. On the 16th of September our branch is having a culture night activity where everyone is bringing typical things from their home country, I was wondering if you might be able to send me a little box of typical Texas things to share with the Latinos up here. Other than a crazy big belt buckle I'm not too sure what all that would entail, but it would be nice. If you're too busy, no worries.

So our transfer started off with a terrific bang! We taught 5 lessons, and found 2 new investigators on the first day. I'm pretty excited for what this transfer is going to bring. There will for sure be some baptisms here in the coming month and a half.

The fleas have not moved with us I am happy to say. We moved, swapped out our mattresses for some nice new ones, and then sanitized the daylights out of everything else we own. It's so nice to have a clean apartment to come home to. We went by to see our old host members one day and Pokey (whom I have harbored much anger and resentment against) received a home haircut. He looks awful, quite literally like a rat. There are bald patches all over the place, his face and ears are miss-shapen due to uneven cuts, and his tail is down to skin and looks like a rat tail. I am no longer angry at him. I feel justice has been served and the score has evened up a little.

On the topic of our new apartment, I will send pictures once everything is organized, but it is so great. Yesterday we received SO MUCH stuff from all the different wards because the call went out abroad: "the missionaries need furnishings and appliances!" Now we are the owners of 3 microwaves, a George foreman grill/skillet, lamps, tables, chairs, odds and ends, and enough dishes to last through the rest of the mission. So over the next few days we will be doing a lot of storing and organizing. I can't wait to have everything in it's proper place...only to get transfered. It's all good. hat's the life of an Elder.

Well, thank you everyone for letters and everything. It was good to hear from you Mike. Whit, Cody, Eric, Jess, don't be strangers. I hope everyone is doing great. Go cougs! I was a good missionary and didn't look at the TV to see kick off. I love yall, and the church is definitely true!

Love,
Elder Richards

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.

Big Changes in Vancouver

Hello One and All,

So, life in the WKM continues to move on as usual. The big news I suppose would be the visit with Elder Perry yesterday. It was way cool and super spiritual. He also had his wife and Elder Clayton (one of the presidents of the 70) and his wife with him. For an 89 year old man ol' L. Tom has a spring in his step. After walking in he jogged up the stairs and then turned around said in a kind of amused frustrated way "oh sit down, sit down!" (We all stood up when he came in). Also, he was a lot taller than I would have imagined, he was way up there. The talks were way cool and I got an answer to my "inspired question". The Greers wanted each of us to prepare a question and look for the answer in what we were told by E. Perry, and I totally found the answer.

Dad, no worries about the no letter, I did notice, but you're constantly on the road and busy, it's all good. Whit, thanks for the note this week, sounds like Vegas is treating you well. Also, does apple pay you every time you promote their products to me or something? And thanks very much for putting together the package, I appreciate that.

So this last week has been pretty good. We got this couple with us to a church tour for the first time, it was really cool because they actually showed up. We had a member of the stake presidency with us who contributed some really good stuff in the chapel. At the end when we invited them to come to church the following day. The husband said yes right away but the wife was super hesitant about it. She's not too interested in the church it seems. They didn't end up coming on Sunday, but now we know that we can maybe focus things in on the wife and try to get her interested in it. We also went to this old investigator for a haircut, she's actively coming to church and paying tithing. So we plan on jumping on that opportunity. We're seeing her in a members home this Thursday and plan on inviting her to be baptized on a specific date. Hopefully that goes well. She also gave us some awesome coupons for the special treatment at sports clips (where she works) for the face massage and all that stuff, so I'm hoping my hair grows fast so I can go cash that in.

In regards to our moving. So we had interviews with Pres. and Sis. Greer this week. And president is asking me what we can do to revamp the work in Vancouver. The Spanish work is there, but it's struggling a little bit, we're going through a lot of changes. So now what it sounds like will happen is we might get 2 more Spanish elders and just completely restart the work here, which I think would be a way cool move. We'd get a lot more baptisms that way. So there would be 4 of us in the companionship. So now instead of moving in with new members tomorrow, we'll be moving into an apartment next week. Should be fun, I've never had an apartment as a missionary before. The 4 elder thing might not happen, but it's one of the options we're looking at.

I'm on exchange with Elder Dyas right now. Despite the Hispanic name he's totally white. He's been out for about 7 months, really cool guy and he's a convert of 2 years. Great testimony. We've had fun together. We went to WSU campus yesterday and filled out a form requesting permission to have a table and proselyte to all the students, hopefully that'll work out. His area is really struggling right now because they don't have a lot of support from the members. The members like them and feed them and everything, but they're not helping at all with the work. So I'm grateful for the areas that I have served in. It was a rough exchange as far as the work goes. So remember everyone, the missionaries need your help.

Well, I think that about does it for me this week. I love you all and hope every one's doing awesome. Hasta luego.

Love,
Elder Richards

News from Vancouver

Hello One and All,

Well today was a good day, it started off with a trip to the Portland Temple. It's absolutely beautiful and probably my new favorite temple. The Celestial room was absolutely gorgeous, and had two levels which surprised me.

The week was good, the district all preformed well. I had an exchange with one of the zone leaders, we actually sat next to each other on the plane coming out of the mtc, so it was cool to catch up with him and swap stories. It was his 11th month mark that day (he's English so he was only in the mtc for 3 weeks). I really enjoyed spending the day with him, and didn't mind that I had to talk to everyone because he doesn't speak Spanish.

We also found a particularly luscious blackberry bush that probably occupied 10 minutes of our time. Other than that nothing of huge note happened during the week. We went to go visit a potential and found the member daughter of one of the sisters' investigators and she asked us for a blessing. It was cool because afterwards she told us how every time she needs help or a blessing or anything the elders always show up right then. We weren't even looking for her, so that was a cool testimony builder.

Well, I know this is kind of short but I think that about does it for me this week. We're all getting ready to hear from E. Perry this next Monday.

Love,
Elder Richards

P.S.
Just so yall know, we'll be moving a week from tomorrow, I'll send the address next week. Every area I've lived in we've had to move, there's a lot of crap we have to get rid of from other missionaries so it should be fun.