I Love It June 13, 2016

This is John the beloved, he is awesome

Dear Family,

    I really like all the pictures you sent. I'm still really jealous about the Tough Mudder but some day, just not this day. Babies are super cute.

     I have had a pretty good week. I  have really been loving reading the Book of Mormon lately. I don't know why, but I am just loving it every time I read it and it's just got so much in it. I have had some pretty baller studies lately with the Book of Mormon. It is true! So, that's been really awesome. I don't know why but I am noticing so much more now when I read it-- about doctrine and stuff. It's sweet. Read it everyday.

    So I dropped off my companion at the airport, he was quiet but that's just how he is. He sent me an email, he's happy, ha. My new companion is Elder Ashton, if I didn't already tell you, from St George, Utah. He is a really cool guy and a hard worker so we are going to get WORK DONE SON! I'm pretty excited. Rough start this week because I was super tired from waking up super early to go to the airport. But I'm all good now. Elder Ashton and I have been dropping Book of Mormons on people. Since I have been getting ubber-pumped about the Book of Mormon, it's been like the main focus on the Book of Mormon. It's been fun. 

     We have seen some cool cars lately and talked to some nice people. We ran into this one guy who told us that he had literally just prayed for some help for him and his brother and then we showed up.  Usually he would never talk to us but this time he felt like he should for some reason. It was awesome to talk to him and share a little of the Gospel with him. He should be pretty good to teach. I'm pumped! 

I love it!

Love you guys. 

Love,

Elder Richards

Balut and Duryin June 6, 2015

Dear Family,

       So, yeah, as you know I had balut for dessert at a members home. It was pretty interesting. When you first crack the top (of the egg),  you actually drink the liquid that is inside first and then peel the rest and eat it. To be honest, it just tasted kind of like egg yoke. Yeah, my stomach wasn't doing well with food in general that night, but it was interesting. I bit the head of the duck off. It was also fun to pull little bones out of my teeth. But wait, there's more! We also had this stuff called Duryin. I am prob not spelling that right at all but it is mostly described like this: "tastses like heaven, smells like hell" and yes, it does kind of have the smell of propane and something else but the taste wasn't that great either, haha. It was not terrible, just not something I didn't really want to keep eating. So that was the food adventure I had.

     This week was also the Jubilee for the Huntington Beach Stake. They put on this little show and other things in the building to celebrate it in the church building. So we got an investigator and we went to see the show. They were just singing a bunch of random songs and dancing, but it was pretty good. I really liked it. Some people have some awesome talent. They had the little kids running around singing too. Some songs were like "The Circle of Life" and "Seize the Day" from Newsies and also things like "That's How You Know She Loves You" form Enchanted. It was pretty sweet. Our investigators also liked it. But now I really want to watch Disney movies and stuff like that. But it can not be.

     My companion is going home tomorrow....at like 4:30 in the morning. Then my new companion should come in. His name is Elder Ashton. I don't really know him but he seems pretty cool.

Love you guys.

Love,

Elder Richards

Yum! New Foods May 6, 2016

Editor's note:  Let's start with the picture of Elder Richards.  I picked up my phone yesterday and there was this picture of Elder Richards.  The text conversation went like this:

Them:  Picture of Elder Richards and Elder Daw....Elder Richards tried balut. They're here at dinner with us.

(I had never heard of balut so I looked it up. A balut (spelled standardized as balot) is a developing bird embryo (usually a duck or chicken) that is boiled and eaten from the shell. It originates and is commonly sold as street-food in the Philippines. They are common food in countries in Southeast Asia, such as Laos (khai look ໄຂ່ລູກ in Lao), Cambodia (pong tia koun ពងទាកូន in Cambodian),^[1] Thailand (Khai Khao ไข่ข้าว in Thai) and Vietnam (trứng vịt lộn or hột vịt lộn in Vietnamese).

 Me: How nice to pick up my phone and find a picture of my son enjoying his dinner.  Thank you!..

Them:  It is my privilege to serve.  I grew up on Ohio myself in Canton.  I'll tell him you said hello.....

Me:  How did the balut go down?  Both of my parents are from Akron.  Small World....

Them:  He couldn't handle it :)He tried nem chau (Vietnamese Sausage) a month ago and he looked like he was going to explode.  Slightly spicy.  I told him not to worry on balut and that it's not like an alien was going to pop out of his chest.  At least it's not too likely...

Me:  He does love to try new foods.

Then Sings My Soul May 30, 2016

Dear Family,

      Well, it is the last week of the transfer which is a big deal because my companion will be leaving at the end of it. Sad but it must happen. So of course, he is a little trunky ( if you don't know what that means, ask someone ) because that's just what happens on the last week. But what I didn't expect was how trunky every one would be for him. Like, every single member that we talk to just goes on this whole thing about him going home and blah blah blah. They announced it at Church and people were praying about it. Then his family is super trunky for him, so yeah, it's been pretty fun, everyone is trunky, trunky for him. But, I guess this is normal when your comp is going home. Fun stuff. We plan on having a bomb week. My comp has lost 20 pounds in the past 4-5 weeks. Neat, right.

     Well, we didn't find but we did have good lessons this week. We had a good lesson with Dick, he has a ton of potential but it's just hard to get him started. But he is fun. He will actually be moving to Pennsylvania soon so we will get him started before he goes. But he is reading the Book of Mormon and he wants to be a good person, so he will get there. 

       This week Elder Daws' bike died. It went into surgery at 6:30 in critical condition but was pronounced dead at 7:20 pm on Friday. His back axle broke and then we were stranded at a park for a good while waiting for our rescue. A member came and saved us. Now we have a borrowed bike. Fun stuff, his bike just couldn't have waited 9 more days. 

     Well, while I have been sitting here in shorts, I  looked and saw a bright light. Right now I am sitting in my shorts and I had one of those moments when I realize how flippin white I am. Like for real, my legs are super white. I might have to get a tan when I get home but we all know how tanning and me go so maybe not. 

How great thou art.

Love you guys.

The baby is super flippin cute, another member of squad :) 

Love,

Elder Richards

Hello May 23, 2016

Dear Family,

     This week was good. We found 3 new investigators, which is pretty good. Although for one, we went back for a return appointment and he gave us a wrong address. It really makes me wonder, do people just forget their addresses or do they just think of a random off the top of their heads that actually exists. Sometimes people give us addresses that sound legit but when we go there, the numbers on the street will just skip like one number and it just so happens that the number that it skips is the one we are looking for. I don't know if that makes sense but yeah. Since it is Cali, a lot of the places are just behind other houses. A house behind a house behind a house, that's a thing here and sometimes its interesting but that is just how it goes. Our other investigators seem pretty good. But right now we are in the beginning of their teaching so we haven't really run into any problems yet, hopefully won't. 

     In the Huntington Beach Stake, they are actually building a new Family History Center. It is actually pretty legit. It is supposed to be like the Church's 3rd largest history center, or something like that, with all the new toys and gadgets. They called in the missionaries and about 6 of us went and we set it up. I happen to be one of those missionaries because I'm a boss ;) ha psych, it's because my companion knows how to make and work on computers. So yeah, it was just people from our district so it was fun. They have two 70 inch TVs that are touch screen. All of the computers are touch screen as well. Live sauce. That was fun to set up. we put the computers together and did all that stuff.

     Church was interesting because we actually had 2 wards at the same time because of a big mid-singles conference that they just had. Church was pretty packed and apparently a General Authority was there, Elder Gay. I'm pretty sure that we are going to have a missionary conference with him too in the upcoming week so that should be neat.

     Also, I went on exchanges this week, that was fun. For some reason the Book of Mormon play kept coming up with the people we talked to, but it was cool because then they were actually curious about the Book of Mormon. The guy I was with started singing it and handed out a Book of Mormon that way. It was pretty great. We also talked to this one lady who just went on for days talking to us about some pretty deep and hard stuff that has recently happened to her and she seemed totally cool and ready to hear the Gospel but finally after like an hour, we tried to teach her and then she was like, Oh you guys are Mormons , oh I don't want to hear your message. Bruh, it happens all the time but man my legs were tired after standing there for so long.

     Well, I won't lie, that picture with Owen in a bowl in pretty gosh darn cute.

Love you guys.

Love,

 

Elder Richards