The Cursed Tie August 1, 2015

Elder Ashton's Mom sent us matching ties. I asked if she could get sea foam green ties and just plain and she did. They are bomb

Dear Family,

     My bed isn't that comfortable but I'll live.

     Well, I will tell you the story of the cursed tie. I went on an exchange with my district leader. He told me that he would be willing to trade ties with me. So while I was looking through his ties, I found one that i kinda liked. It was a green tie that had criss-cross lines and then it had little sailboats on it. It was awesome. So I said " I like this one but I know you won't want to trade it". He said, " yeah, you can have that one" and I'm like, "for real?" "Yeah, you can have it but I should tell you that it's cursed" and so he told me of the cursed tie. Apparently he trained a guy who had this tie and one day his little nino (mission language for a trainee) decided to wear it. That entire day they got nothing done and no one wanted to talk to them.  So they decided that it was the tie that did it. After they got split up and for Christmas, Elder Roth ( my District Leader) got the tie and it had a sticky note on it. The note said "the curse is yours now".  After waiting like 5-8 months, Elder Roth figures, OK, you know this tie is fine. There is no curse on it. Do you want to guess what happened. Nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean that they didn't teach or talk or anything. Not even members would give them time he told me. That happened twice. So Elder Roth laid it in the box and hasn't touched it since, until I grab it. For that exchange, I decided that I was going to break the curse. After my shower, I decided to pray over the tie. So I did that and then I put it on. There was no going back. Either I broke the curse or now the curse was mine. That day I was determined to find a new investigator. and guess what happened.... we found a new investigator!!!! Take that one. And it was a YSA (Young Single Adult, a person between the ages of 18 and 30). That awesome because Elder Roth is one of the YSA Ward missionaries. So,I  broke the curse of the tie. Now it hangs triumphantly on my tie rack. I won but only with the help of God, of course. That prayer prob helped.

New Mission President and his wife, top right

      We had a meeting and we were trained. That meeting went on for 8 hours. President didn't give a hoot, haha. It was really awesome though, lots of good training. But the awesome part is what we did
after lunch. After lunch President was all like, "alright, now let's have the fastest game of knock out / speed that we can before we go back to the training. So we had 3 zones of 20 missionaries shooting hoops and playing knock out / speed. It was awesome. President won. I lost my voice because I was yellin and making alot of noise. I was so hyped about it. So fun.

     The work has been a little tough lately but we are still working hard and loving it.

     Love you guys.

Love,

Elder Richards