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