A Big Kid Toy March 21, 2016

Dear family,

     The week was good I would say. We found some new investigators so that's good. We found this one family, they are pretty cool and the daughter seems super prepared. b\But the problem is that her parents speak Spanish and she didn't want to really do it without her family.  So, of course, we had to pass them off to the Spanish Elders.  It's a bummer but I know the Spanish elders will take good care of them. 

     To address the title and the picture, we have a member who is now retired but in his spare time he likes to build things. Sometimes it is out of wood but lately what he has been working on are mini motorcycles.  I won't lie, it was pretty fun. That little bugger only has a lawn mover engine on it but to me it went pretty fast, haha. It probably wasn't that fast if you were looking at me but riding it was fun. So this guy just made a little motorcycle and he also made a little 3 wheeler.  That one isn't quite finished yet so I haven't got to try that bad boy. 

     This Sunday I got to confer the Aaronic Preisthood and ordain Marion. It was pretty cool. It's interesting to me that now I am a part of his line of authority.  He is doing very well.

     With Jyssika, we are pushing her baptism back a week.  It is all good because she is still super pumped for it,so things are going well there too. Her Aunt has been super helpful through this whole time. She is a blessing because she basically teaches her when we are gone so Jyssika is progressing super well. 

      But yeah, that's what's been happening in the hood here.  I need a hair cut. 

Love,

Elder Richards

Bam March 14, 2016

Dear Family,

     I will tell you of the awesome thing that happened this week. We have a 9 year old investigator named Jyssika, and she has told us that she wants to get baptized but then won't as soon as we try and set a date. So that's a little bit of a struggle but we were working on it.  One night we were about to get ready for bed and we got a text saying Jyssika wants to get baptized and this time she means it! haha, not exactly those words but pretty much. So we went over and we found out that she really meant it, ha.  One night while they were reading the scriptures as a family, they read about someone getting baptized and she just decided then that she wanted to get baptized so she "could live with Heavenly Father " haha I love it!  We had a lesson with her and we set a date for Mar 26.  That will come up soon. While we were teaching the lesson, she was telling everyone in her family that they need to get baptized, haha like multiple times, in their face haha. She was like "Grandma, you need to be baptized so we can be together. and you too,  Briana! ( her sister)". To be honest, they felt the Spirit at the Temple and in the lesson so we have a good feeling about that family.  That has been a miracle.

     The rest of the week was kinda normal, talking to people and meetings. I am pretty excited though because we have a new Easter intiative we are sharing with everyone and it is really cool. It's called HALLELUJAH. I flippin love it. Check it out and share it with people. It really is good, warms the heart, good stuff. 

and I look pretty good in a lavalava 

Love,

Elder Richards

#hallelujah

she's the Sister that gave me the lavalava

and yeah.....March 7, 2016

Los Angeles Visitor's Center

Dear family,

     This week was good, we did some neat things. First to tell you transfers, I'm staying in Cerritos for another 6 weeks. I'm like happy but at the same time I kinda want to go some where else now, haha. At the end of this transfer, I will have been here for 1/4 of my mission and yeah, apparently the Lord still has something for me to do here. But I know missionaries that stayed in their areas for like 10 months, so yeah. 

     A fun thing we did this week was that we went to the Los Angeles Visitors Center again with one of our investigators. Her name is Jyssika and she is 9 years old. Her whole family ended up coming so we had a party, ha. Jyssika didn't seem too interested but her Grandma did.  She totally felt the Spirit while we were there and we are going to be working with her very soon. I'm pretty pumped about that one and if we get her to progress, it will definitely help Jyssika progress, and yeah. 

     Now on a more funny slash salty note. We got locked out of our apartment. Now the reason that was super salty is because we also left the car keys inside, our phone inside the apartment, so we couldn't drive any where and we couldn't call anyone. Of course you would think that the apartment manager would have a spare right, makes sense right, EH! WRONG!  He did not have a spare key. We tried calling the one place for the key but they were on vacation or something so we couldn't get the key from them. so it is Sunday morning and we have to get to Church. So what do we do, we walked. It's not that far but we were late so the whole thing was just a bugger. We walked a bunch and then decided to stopped by a less active member's house to see if he would give us a ride to church and then come inside with us. Well that day he decided to go to Church and on time so he wasn't home to give us a ride, but his random cousin was so we got a ride from him. When we got back, that less active member got a ladder and climbed in through our bathroom window and unlocked the door. So, all is well, peace be still. 

      One of the Sister Missionaries is going home, back to Tonga. Before she left, she gave me a LAVA LAVA! you know one of those Samoan / Tongan man skirts. I love it.  I'll send you a picture of that one later.

I love you guys 

Love Elder Richards  

Jyssika and her family

Walt Disney Concert Hall... March 1, 2016

This was the place I was telling you about in Get Smart.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

Life is good, life is great and I'm tired right now..... March 1, 2016

Marion's Baptism

Dear Family,

     You are right, the Devil does really get in the way of things. But not this time muchachos because Marion's baptism was good. There were not a whole lot of people there but he didn't want a lot of people there anyway, is what he told us. I was really pumped because he asked me to baptize him. I had to dunk him twice because the first time his toe came up, but the second time he was all in. He made it kinda hard to pull him back up because when he went under he would kick his feet out and then as I was trying to pull him up, he didn't put his feet back down on the floor, haha ,but it was still really good. He came up and just stood there and smiled for a good while, then he opened his eyes and whispered to me "Did you get them all?" haha yes, all of your sins are washed away, haha. I thought it was pretty funny.  Then I totally forgot to bring a change of clothes so I was sitting in wet clothes for a while, but you couldn't tell so we were good. Marion was actually sick through this whole thing but he didn't want to push it back. So he was baptized. It was great. The Spirit was strong. 

     Life is good but I'm tired because we just got back from the Temple. So yeah, waking up at 3:30 am and going to LA Temple is always fun but you are tired as a slab of chicken breasts on a rainbow. But like I said, it is always great to go to the Temple. I love it every single time. I keep seeing and talking to the same old guy that works there. He really nice but they all pretty much are. After the Temple, our ride decided to take us to breakfast and we got some gosh darn good french toast. Then we had a little trip to a candy store where there were just boxes on boxes of candy, like a kids castle shop for candy. It was cool.

     I also just wanted to mention how good it was to confirm big M (Marion) as a member. As we stood in a circle, I just felt the Spirit super strong. It was nice .It's always interesting when the Spirit hits you like a bag of wet kidney beans. But yeah, life is good for us right now.

  I love you guys 

Love,

Elder Richards

PS: Batman vs Superman must be pretty big now because there are poster and billboards every where downtown, for it. 

PPS:  that tie you gave me is awesome. Thanks for everything. You guys are awesome.

Elder Miura and Elder Richards at the Los Angeles Temple March 1, 2016

Happy Birthday Elder Richards! February 25, 2016