Wish we could turn back time, to the good old days. November 21, 2016

Dear Family

     The subject of this email is a line from the song, Stressed Out, by 21 Pilots. We have all had that song stuck in our heads. I think it's funny but my companions started to hate it, haha. The difference is they can listen to that song tomorrow and I can't, because they will be home tomorrow. 

     On that subject, I guess you are wondering what is happening to me this transfer. That is an excellent question. Well, I'm getting transferred to the Woodruff Ward in the Long Beach East Stake. My new companion is going to be Elder Sesay. It should be fun because I am finishing Elder Sesays training, so he has only been out for one transfer. He is from Africa, Nigeria I think. They tell me he has a pretty thick accent, haha, so I'm really excited about it. It should be fun. Getting transferred is always a bitter sweet thing. You start to love the area that you are serving in and you love the members and your investigators but at the same time you get tired working in that area and going up and down the same streets, ha. I'm going to miss some people here but I'm super pumped about going to my new area at the same time.

      This week we did some fun things because it was their last week. On like Tuesday or something, we went to one of our member's motorcycle shop to help out and talk with our investigator Martin who works for him. Nash Motorcycle Company. It was fun. We did some leather work and we got to use some of their machines. Brother Nash gave us some shirts with his company name on it, super sweet! Then a guy from Huntington Beach came and picked us up. Brother Augustis is awesome! He picked us up in his brand new Tesla ! It was so cool! The car literally drives itself. Like no lie, hands off the pedals and the steering wheel and it will just drive itself. You could watch Netflix while it drives itself, ha, but I would never do that :) The screen in the car was the size of the computer screen I'm emailing from, huge. It was really fast too, it goes 0 to 60 in 4 point something seconds. It was like riding a roller coaster. It  felt so good:) 

      Oh and at the beginning of the week, I got to be companions with my MTC companion, Elder Oniki, for a day! It was really fun. My companions were at the Temple so he needed a companion and I needed one so we went together, also with another guy but it was really cool to be with him (Elder Oniki) again.
      Also, Brother Augustis also took us to an "all you can eat" sushi place. I had more sushi and fish in that sitting than I have every eaten in my entire life. No lie because I don't eat fish but it actually wasn't bad. Fresh fish doesn't taste bad. I even had fish eggs. They pop in your mouth when you eat them so it was fun.

    Still chuggin along.

Frozen is awesome.

I love you guys.

Love,

Elder Richards

Big Air 2 November 14, 2016

Dear Family,

     Did Big Air again today, I'm going to be super sore tomorrow but it is worth it. We had more people come so it was pretty fun--lots of dogde ball. Fun place. 

     There was a missionary that just come back from the same mission as Jarret Weddle. His name is Chris Farley, I know, best name ever haha.

     This week was very  ... sickly haha. I was a little sick but Monday night I lost my voice mid- prayer. That was great timing.I didn't get my voice back until Friday ish. I was very happy to get my voice back. Losing your voice not as a missionary is kind of funny, I think, but as a missionary I'm just like, aaahhh my whole job is to talk to people and I can't speak! To celebrate the return of my voice, I did a lot of singing on Saturday on an exchange. It was quite fun. But let's be honest, when don't I just sing all the time :)

     Also, Elder Miura wasn't feeling good this week so I would stay with him and Elder Ellin would go out with a member. Then we would switch and I would go out with a member so we still got work done. Sometimes Elder Ellin would be sick and we did the same thing, just me and Elder Miura would switch off. There's just this cold or something going around because it seems to be that everyone is getting it, maybe from us haha.

     We still had an awesome lesson with our investigator, Martin,  this week. That man will be baptized. He goes to Church, just not always at our Ward because he has been going on trips and other things, but if he goes to Church other places and most people barely come to Church when they are in the area. So he is very solid and we are just going to have him pick his baptism date and he should be ready to go when he gets his answer. Super pumped. 

     This is the last week for my companions so every one wants to feed us something fun. Both of my companions love sea food. We are probably going to be eating a lot of sushi this week because that is what they want. So I should have fun, maybe lose a couple pounds, haha, just kidding.  I'll still eat it, I just have to make sure that I put the monsters down head first so they know which way to go. It will start tonight because someone is going to buy us some sushi. 

     The babies are very cute. Love the pictures. 

     We got a new Ward Mission Leader and he is flippin awesome!! So pumped, now we are going to get a lot of work done. Brother Higgins knows his stuff. I asked him a question and he went on this big thing about the Plan of Salvation. It was very informative and very cool. He knows his doctrine. 

I love you guys.

My teeth are fixed.

Love,

Elder Richards

LA again November 7. 2016

Dear Family,

     This week seemed to just blow by. It was fun though. We went to the LA Visitors Center with Martin and had a super good time. The Nash family took us, they are super awesome. Brother Nash drives aggressively and loves his horn, haha. It is rather funny to be in the car with him, but he is a really good driver. Anyway, at the Visitors Center we watched some videos that were super bomb. One of them was Meet the Mormons but the extended part, the part that you can only watch in Visitor Centers. We watched  the video on The Horseman. Pretty much he is a cowboy and made some references about how we are kind of like horses in the fact that we need to be submissive and trusting in our master. It was good. Mainly, the whole focus of everything that we watched was to help Martin realize how to get an answer whether the Church is true because once he does he is ready to go. He believes it all pretty much and he does what he needs to so he is on the right path. He is super awesome. And, of course, we got to drive through LA. We drove down Hollywood Blvd and saw all the stars on the side walk and went down some other famous streets. It was fun. We ate at some crazy place called Lala's in LA for dinner. I had a steak that just had so much garlic on it, for real so much garlic but what are you gonna do. 

     We had some members from our last area ( me and Elder Miuras area (Cerritos 1st)) take us to dinner and they ordered so much food. We went to a place called Panda Inn so it was Asian. There was 5 of us and they bought enough food for 10 of us, so much food, so much rice, ha, but we love rice. It is one of our favorite things to eat in the trio. Fried rice and pot-stickers, so good. That and this pizza place called Pizza Studio. We go there all the time as well.

     I also got a little sick this week. It was lame but we still worked and I feel fine now, just have a lot of boogies coming out of my face. I know that is exactly what you wanted to hear, your welcome:) 

     We met a guy named Steve yesterday and this man seems to do it all. He is a cook and a cyclist, and a photographer for USA basketball and he is a skydiving instructor, and he writes books on the Constitution and is into all that good stuff. He is a pretty interesting guy. I feel like when we see him again he will tell us some other things that he has done in his life. Some people, man. 

Well, I love you guys.

Love,

Elder Richards

Big Air October 31, 2016

Hey family,

      Today for Halloween we decided to do something a little different. We tried to go to a place called Big Air a couple weeks ago but we found out it doesn't open up until like 3 in the afternoon. We didn't have time for that so we went to Regular Sports. Llater we found out that we know a member that has a connection to someone who has a connection to the CEO guy of Big Air. So we called him and he told us that we could get in for free and we could come in at 10 and have the whole place to ourselves. Of course ! we took it! (Big Air is a trampoline park) All we had to do was clean their kitchen and then we could jump our little hearts out. It was just 5 guys. They had a lot of stuff there, it was super fun. Do some flips, play some dodge ball, and now I am soooooooo tired. Jumping on a trampoline takes so much energy. We also did some beam battling over a foam pit. I destroyed at that. Anyway, really fun.

       One of my companions was sick so we stayed in for a couple of days. For missionaries, there is like 2 things you can do if you are stuck in, study and sleep, ha.

     We had another lesson with our investigator Martin. He is so awesome, he keeps his commitments and he is super open. His friend/ boss / fellowship is Brother Nash and he is awesome. He helps him out with any question or thing he needs. We plan on going to the LA Visitors Center with him this week. We are really excited for him. All he needs is to get his answer whether or not the Church is true and he will be ready to go! He is super prepared. 

     I had a struggle morning the other day, we had a set that cancelled and then we went by a member to fill our tires with air. I filled mine up too much so one of them exploded. Then I went to the other tire to let air out before it exploded as well. So I use my pen to let out the air, and my pen kind of exploded and I got my hand covered in blue ink. Yeah, it was pretty interesting. I cleaned up and we went to the store, bought new tubes, I fixed my bike and we were off. Fun morning, ha. 

Love you guys.

Love,

Elder Richards

PP (Primary Program) October 24, 2016

Dear Family

     This week was the Primary Program. I was kind of excited to see what goes down. In the other Ward, a kid gets up to read his sentence and then at the pulpit dabbed. I wish I was there to see it. It would have been so magnificent. Apparently dabbing makes people go crazy. Once I saw a bunch of kids in a car and I dabbed as I walked by and the kid in the front seat literally just went koko for Coco Puffs, started dabbing at lightning speed and shaking the car. So lesson learned, do not under estimate the power of the dab.( if you do not know what the "dab" is, ask Ryan) Anyway, back to the Primary Program. This was a very quiet and just nice Primary Program. All the kids were super reverent and super good. No criers or whiners or kickers or screamers. It was impressive. I think the Primary Presidency bribed the kids, haha. It was nice. Missionarys like programs like this because a lot of non- members and less active members come and are able to feel the Spirit in the Church again. It's very nice. 

     We found a guy this week who is super prepared. We have a member named Bro Nash. He brought his friend, Martin, to church and then he told us to ask Martin when we could set up an appointment with him. So of course we pulled our planners and look at each other wondering if it's worth our time or if we can fit him in between the 100s of lessons planned that week... sike! thats the wrong number ! we went striaghtway to Martin and set up that appointment.  We went over to Bro Nash's house and had a lesson with Martin and it was really good. He tells us about how much of an example Bro Nash is to him and how much he wants what he has. Martin kind of had a health scare recently which made him turn to God. We are super pumped to teach and prepare him for baptism. He has a baptism date now and we are sure that he will be baptized. So that was really awesome, people are being prepared, especailly if members and missionaries come together. ;)

    We also started  working with a family that also is prepared. The Dad is a member but not active until recently he started coming back because of a few things that have happened in his life. His family is also coming with him too and none of them are members. The Mom has never gone to Church or really done anything like that so she doesn't really even know if there is a God. That's where we come in to help her with that, to help build her faith and also the family's faith. I'm pretty excited about that also. They seem really cool. 

Well it should be a fun week with all the Halloween stuff going down.

Love you guys.

Love,

Elder Richards

Well, I ran out of time so pictures October 17, 2016

Dear Family
Well, I ran out of time so pictures
 i love you guys :) :) :)

Goodbye Missionaries

sad stabbed basketball, haha

brand new apartment, super clean and super nice

back to bikes

life size Elvis in a creepy doll house, they are obsessed with Elvis

doing laundry

GA (General Authority) October 10, 2016

Dear Family

     This week was fun. We had a General Authority come to our mission. Elder Ardern is his name, he is a fun dude. He is just real bouncy and fun when he talks and lectures us. He and his wife would just play off each other really well and he was the same with President Patterson, so that was awesome. 

      We did some service this week that was pretty fun. There was this little trailer carnival going on and we manned some of the stations. My companion and I got the apple toss into bucket game for a while, then on to the darts for a min, then on some other random games. They were having a hot dog eating contest but since I was watching the games, I couldn't do it, sad day. Prob for the better because we had dinner right afterwards any way. 

      The crazy thing that happened this week for me was tranfers last night.  I just got into the area so we were pretty sure I wasn't going to move and neither was my companion because I am going to kill him, or be his last companion. We are both staying but the crazy part is that we are getting another companion. We are going to be a trio. But the craziest part about that is that the trio mate is Elder Miura! one of my former companions, the one from Japan. This is his last transfer as well so I am killing them both. So that should be fun. We spent the morning moving stuff around so Elder Miura had room. So its Elder Ellin, Elder Miura, and me now. I'm pretty excited. It should be fun. Just for extra fun we are also splitting the ward with another set of missionaries so there will be 5 missionaries in the La Palma ward, fun.

     Another fun thing was when we went over to our "sort of" recent converts' house. When we got there we noticed that he had a new toy. The new toy was a tazer. So of course I had to be tazed by it. So that is what we did. He got me in the leg. It was pretty interesting, haha, shocking and then it was just hot. I could feel just a hot circle on my leg where he got me, haha. Then they pointed us to there neighbor because they had apparently been going to Church, just not our Ward. We went over there and apparently the Dad is an inactive member who is returning and the rest of the family are non-members and there are trying to figure out if religion is for them. It is, they just don't know it yet. So we are excited about that.

I love you guys 

Love 

Elder Richards

The race against time October 3, 2016

Dear Family,

     At this moment I am in what you would call a race against time. Why, you may ask. Because when we got to the library all of the computers were taken except for the express computers. So that means that I only get 15 min at a time on this particular computer. I'm just not in the mood to wait a while for some one to get off one of the normal computers, so here we go.

     This week seemed really short because of Temple Tuesday, and also General Conference. Conference was fun, it's like a holiday for missionaries. Just for Conference, my comp and i bought a huge bag of candy ( 210 pieces) and we decided we would eat it all by the end of Conference. It didn't seem like that much but it was quite a bit of candy. At least we were awake during the whole thing, ha. But of course, we shared a little with others but we did finish it. We watched the first session at a less active member's house, it was pretty nice and of course they had to take us out to lunch afterwards. I really like President Uchtdorf's first talk. Of course all the missionaries were getting super pumped whenever they talked about missionary work of any kind. Or at least I get pumped.

We found an investigator this week. His name is Fernando. He is a cool dude. It was kind of funny how we ran into him. We have this racket ball that we throw around every now and then when we are just walking. This time I threw it in a funny way while walking past a park. The ball went into the park and so we then to retrieve it. When we went for the ball, we saw a guy and a girl just sitting on a bench in the park so we decided to go and talk to them. Inspired racket ball fumble because they were totally cool with hearing the message of the restoration and Fernando said that he would like to learn more and actually read the the book of Mormon. The girl had to leave half way through our lesson but it was still a good lesson. The Church is true.

      We had a really awesome lesson with a couple we have been teaching. They are a little hard to get a hold of but we had caught them one night and we just sat down and they just opened up to us after a little bit of talking and sharing. They really just told us their concerns and the problems they are having at that moment, so of course we opened the scriptures and shared some good old doctrine with them. The Spirit was really strong and they both told us about how they had just felt peace and so much better as we talked. We even gave them both a blessing of comfort afterwards which really made them feel the Spirit as well. It was just so awesome to be there and to help them so much. That's what the Gospel is for anyways, to help and uplift us.

I was just about to close my letter but then guess what, the computer shut off haha my 15 min were up apparently but bless the fact that it saves every now and then haha

Love you guys.

Love,

Elder Richards

The Sass Master September 27, 2016

 

Dear family, 

     We were able to go to the Temple this morning. It was really awesome, truly is the House of the Lord. So peaceful, I got to see my old companion, Elder Ashton, and some other peeps from my last couple of areas. So that was really nice. It's always awesome to go through the Temple. Covenants are very big deals, especially to God.

     On Sunday I got to meet The Ultimate Sass Master. We didn't have a dinner on Sunday, so we went by our Relief Society President's house, the Higgins. They are awesome. Pretty much at anytime, we can stop by and if we need something they are always willing to help. So we dropped by and they made us dinner. Their granddaughter, she is the Sass Master. She is maybe like 5 but she is full to the brim with sass. It's really funny, or at least it was funny to me at this moment. I'm pretty sure that those who live with her do not think it is as funny, ha. But she will just go off on you, she's got all the hand motions and everything when she is doing it. She didn't want to eat strawberries but then my companion was like, "Oh, strawberries are my life " (eats a strawberry in her face) then she's all like "strawberries are MY LIFE" ( then she eats like 5 strawberries in his face ) It was a really funny battle to watch.

     We found a lady yesterday. It was really interesting how it happened. We were just coming out of someone's house and there was an old man walking. So I start talking to him of course, then he tells me that he is not interested. But I ask him if he knows anyone that would be interested. Then he's all like, "well, my caretaker would be, she is very religious. So I continued to walk with the old man until we got to his house. Clara ( the care taker ) came out. It was really cool because she believes that the Book of Mormon is true and she loves us and all this good stuff. She just really understand the Priesthood and stuff like that. So we are super pumped to start teaching her. God loves us.

He loves you too

love

Elder Richards

Success September 19, 2016

 Dear Family

    Let me tell you about Mario. Mario is kinda like a lot of people we run into but not, at the same time. I will tell you how our interaction went and what was going through my mind at the same time. We go by a former investigator's house named Mario and when we walk up to the door, we notice that the front door is open but the vader door is shut. So we say "hey".  Then we see someone get up from the couch and walk to the door and he says "HAPPY FREAKY FRIDAY". We notice that both the people didn't have any shirts on but I couldn't tell if they were wearing anything else either. So in my head (oh sweet babies, don't be naked when you answer the door). Thankfully he wasn't naked. That is just what my mind put together with the greeting and what I saw, haha. But he was a very nice guy, a few tattoos on his chest and a very uneven mustache and shaved head. But he asked us, "so do you guys believe in Jesus?" "yes, He is our Savior" came the reply. Then he continued " the King of kings." " yes. " " the Lord of lords." "yup ."  " The Lord Omnipotent!" " yes that one" " the beginning and the end." at this point in my head I'm like ( yes we are talking about the same Jesus !) haha, but he was a really big talker, he would just talk your ear off. But like I said, he was a super nice dude so it wasn't bad. It's just your legs get tired of standing in one place for a really long time.

    This Sunday we had the lesson for High Priests. In my opinion that is the easiest class to teach because you just ask a question and they will just talk about. It's great. Our lesson was on something that we, as Elders, have a lot of experience in. Our lesson was on Saving Marriages:) you have got to love it. So we just talk about it for a little and then had the guys discuss it. It was off the talk by President Utchdorf, In Praise Of Those Who Save. It's a good one.

     The thing that I have been learning more and more about is the idea of success. I may have already told you but when President Patterson came into the mission, his first training was on Success. But not how the world views success, but how God views it. In the world, if you do not hit a certain quota or accomplish a certain task then you fail. Like with sales, if you do not sell a certain amount of something then you are fired and replaced by some one who can, even if it is not in your control. But God looks at success in a much different way. If you look in the scriptures, you will find many examples of this point. For example, when Alma was kicked out of Ammonihah because no one would listen, in the world view he was a failure. But God talked to Alma and said these words " blessed art thou Alma". God measures success by these two things, Effort and Desire. If you look in Jacob 5, you will find many words that illustrate this. You will find words like "prune " dig " and dugged" that describes effort, and you will find other things like their disappointment and phrases like "perhaps that we might" which shows desire. When you have that true desire, you will feel a little sorrow because people aren't making the choices they ought to. ( this is pertaining to missionary work) But there is something you wont feel, that is discouragement. You will feel that way because you truly care for the people but you will know that God is pleased with you. "blessed art thou". Why is it this way, because God honors agency. It's is a really cool subject you might to study it in your free time. But this is what I have been learning and trying to apply. Now the work is a lot better knowing that as long as I have that desire and effort, even if people say no, that is not the end. We will try and try again because we love them. That's what the people need to know, as we always do everything to share the Gospel, is that we love them. And they will feel that.

I love you guys

Love

Elder Richards

Primary is fun September 12, 2016

Dear Family,

     This week we did a few fun things. First I think I will talk about Primary (Church children's group covering ages 18 mths to 12 years old). This week for Church we asked the Primary President if we could teach Sharing Time. She said "of course and that is really funny that you asked because this week is on missionary work!" It was destiny. We prepared for it and then it came time. It was really fun to sit in Primary again and to sing the songs and to do the opening exercise with them. The kids are funny. They had it combined that week (the older and the younger group) so we had senior primary and junior primary at the same time. Our little lesson for Sharing Time was pretty good. We had their attention for like the first 10 minutes but then their attention span started to wear thin, haha. We watched a little video, Fishers of Man, described by kids, video is on lds .org. Those videos are pretty fun you should watch them. I also recommend the little, Mormon belief videos they have. I liked them a lot. But yeah, back to the Sharing Time. We were supposed to have 15 min but for some reason they gave us like 30, haha, so we were trying hard at the end to keep them settled, used the sticker approach.

     We went to a senior living home this week to sing to them. A lot of them were Vietnamese, so they would sometimes try to sing along in Vietnamese. It was 4 sister missionaries and my companion and I. We sounded pretty good sometimes. We sang and we sang, it was fun. The hymns can be really nice, calming and also powerful at times. After we sang to the group, we went by a few rooms and sang to people so it was nice. But sometimes the forgot how to sing a song, so that was funny because we all just give each other a look, then give up on trying to sing that hymn and moved on.

     I have been thinking, some of my letters have just been about the things that go on during the week but this time I would like to tell you something I learned, a little more Spiritual note to the letter. Lately, as I have had some struggles with certain things, I have notices that something I figured I could do was pray. Now that sounds really basic and obvious but at the same time, I feel that sometimes we forget that we can really pull the powers of heaven to help us when we need it. So, I was kind of frustrated about something and on my wall there are a ton of pictures of Jesus with a ton of quotes. While I was upset and kind of down, I just looked at the wall and the picture I looked at was of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The thought came to me to just pray, but at the same time I didn't want to pray because I was just kind of mad. But as I continued to look at the picture, I still got the impression. I decided to do it anyway. It was a good thing. I just kind of talked to God about things and asked for help. You can feel a little peace as you do. So if times are rough, did you think to pray? I think we all know it, but do we actually do it. I know that it does help, because Jesus has suffered all those pains and afflictions and everything else so that he could help us. But we have to let him, we have to pray and repent and be humble and I know that it can help in any trial. So that was something that kind of stood out to me as I thought about this last week.

I love you guys

Thank you for everything you do, you guys help me a lot

 

love

Elder Richards


A picture is worth a thousand words.   We tried to re-enact this picture that is in the Church.

True Story

Baller.....September 5, 2016

Isn't he a cute one :)

Dear Family

  Being in the La Palma Ward in Cypress is fun. It is right next to my old area in Cerritos.  It is just on the other side of the street but it's alot different. For my first week, I felt like I have watched more movies then usual and I have also played more basketball than usual. We have a movie night played here. We watch a Church movie and the members can invite their friends to it so they can do their member missionary work. Hasn't been too effective but we got a few people there, only like 2 but we will take what we can get. Then we watched Meet the Mormons with some less active members so that was fun. And don't worry when I say we watched movies, I mean Church movies like Meet the Mormons and Mountain of the Lord, stuff like that. Then with basketball, we wake up every morning and just play ball hard with a couple of other companionships for like 45 min to an hour.  It's pretty fun. But another basketball experience was we knew that there are a few kids that found out how to get into the building. So some member kids let a bunch of their non member friends in. We decided that we would go over there and let them in and we would play some basketball with them. There were like 20 kids there and only like 2 of them were members so we talked to them. Well we balled out for a little in our pros clothes then I sat on the side lines and talked to the kids while the my companion played more ball, haha. I got to know the ones sitting down and he was getting to know the ones playing, haha. It worked out. A few of them were Muslim so I learned some new things about Muslims, pretty neat. The dudes were pretty cool. At the end of the night we had a game where it was the Elders verses the other peeps. We had 2 companionship's there and another member kid on our team and we beat them pretty well, haha. It was a good game but of course we won.   

     The area I came into is pretty good. We are working hard to make sure this investigator of ours is ready for Baptism by Oct 8. So that's really awesome. Her name is Wanda, her only problem is that she works on Sundays and she is basically on-call all the time. She's a nanny, and she works for a couple of doctors in Huntington Beach. When they go in, she goes in. but she is super prepared so that's awesome. 

     Well things are pretty good here, my companion Elder Ellin is a fun dude so that's good. 

I love you guys 

Love 

Elder Richards

The time has come.......August 29, 2016

Dear Family

     Well, the transfer is over and the news is in. I am leaving Huntington Beach. I am now going to be in Cypress, La Palma ward. My companion will be a guy named Elder Ellin. It should be interesting. I am pretty sure I will be killing him [this is missionary terms for someone who will be going home] because he only has 2 transfers left. Should be fun. 

      This week has been one of those weeks. But it was all good because we did some good things. We stopped by a guy that has been inactive for a while. We tried earlier but we couldn't get past the gate. But this time when we rolled up, he was in his garage. He was just a super cool guy. He had a little rough past but he has turned his life around. Now he is married and has a little baby girl. He was telling us about how he wants to get his baby blessed and he knows that he should have come back to Church. He told us that he has actually been waiting for missionaries to come by, he was praying for it he said. And now we finally caught him and he knows Heavenly Father is helping him get back on the right path. So that was super awesome. 

     Also another good thing that happened this week is that we finally saw our recent convert again. He has been all over the place for like 2 months but we talked to him a couple of nights ago.

      Well, I am a fat kid in someone else's body.  I just love eating ice cream and brownies, I really love those 2 put together now. I like mint cookies n cream milkshakes. It's so flippin gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.I just love dessert thingys. I bought ice cream sandwiches last week and a couple weeks before that i bought a ton of Popsicles and some Creamies ( utah thing) and a bucket of ice cream. Oh and don't forget pie, pie and ice cream are just like scrumptious.  

    I love you guys 

Stay awesome 

and please tell me at what point and where Princess Leia says "scruffy looking nurf herder". Please tell where they say that line. Like where were they and what were they doing 

Love 

Elder Richards

heellooo....August 22, 2016

Dear Family,

     Well, to be honest it was a rough week but we did have a super miracle on Tuesday. We stopped by these members house on Monday but they were busy so they told us to come back the next day, so we did. We showed up and we get into the house and we start talking to this guy named Brian. Turns out Brian is not a member and he just moved in just earlier that day. Brian is a super cool guy with a little bit of a rough past. we were talking to him and he apparently had one lesson with the missionaries before he moved and he is reading the Book of Mormon and started going to Church! We even heard him talk to his girlfriend about getting Sealed in the Temple. It was super awesome because he is super ready. He is ready to learn and he does things. He is already a good chunk through 1st Nephi and the family he is staying with is helping him so that is super awesome. These are the kinds of things we missionaries pray for all the time, and it happened. He didn't show for church so that was lame but there are some things going on with the family so I'm pretty sure he had a good reason. But it was still awesome because, like I said, we have hit a bit of a rough patch and now we have a super good investigator. God loves us, ha. We brought up baptism and he was totally cool with it. It is just so good.

     The other  day I sat down, chillin in my shorts and I look down at my legs. I just flexed as a joke but then I was surprised with the appearance of nice looking leg muscles. That's pretty nice. I had my companion come over and give them a feel. He was impressed of course. Anyone would be but my guess is that i will be put in a car again and lose all that muscle. But I will it while I have it haha, jk, it isn't that deep.

     I met this woman the other day and she apparently is going to be serving a senior mission in Cincinnati. I don't know her name, haha, but she is good friends with the Mission President. I thought that was neat.W e had a good talk about it. She said that she is going to a rural part of the mission though.

Love you guys 

the Church is true 

Gordon B Hinkley was a prophet 

Love, Elder Richards

later update:  the sister coming in is actually from Lehi, Utah but she was in Huntington Beach visiting family 

The day of rest August 15, 2016

Dear Family,

     So, to talk about my Sunday, Church was pretty normal, we had meetings before and after. We were at Church for like 5 hours. You know the feeling I bet. But after Church, we biked to another Church building so my District Leader could take me to Cerritos. Why go back to Cerritos, you ask? Because Debbie got baptized ! Debbie is the grandma to Jyssika. I don't know if I told you but like a month ago I went to her sister's baptism as well. It was super cool. At both baptisms, I gave a killer talk about the Holy Ghost. I could feel the Holy Ghost's approval as I finished, haha. A lot of people showed up for both baptisms and for one of my talks I said these words, " Nephi is the cat's pajamas". Yes, it was good. No particular reason why I said it. Maybe the Holy Ghost prompted me. Maybe not.  I just felt like it. But it was awesome to be able to be a part of that family's journey. It was crazy to think that I haven't been in that area for 4 months now but it was  awesome to be there to witness their baptisms. Both times I was super red because it is so flipin hot in that room! but all is well . After that, we got back and we ate dinner, then  hit the bathrooms, than planned for the next day. Fun stuff .

     Yeah, lots of fun stuff. We are trying to work with members, it's fun. But yeah we have been doing missionary work stuff. We picked a up a new investigator while she was walking her dogs. It was quite fun. We walked for a good while and every now and then we stopped at the Spiritual parts. It was pretty cool but she was Young Single Adults age so we had to pass her off to the Young Single Adult missionaries. She was all like, " I don't want other missionaries, I want you guys to teach me ". We are all like "same ". We would like to teach you but that is not the Jedi way. 

Love you guys 

Stay awesome 

Love,

 

Elder Richards

 

PS: in the pictures my face was red because it was super hot