Yes, I am older February 27, 2017

Dear Family,

      Congratulations to our parents for finally having no more teenagers in the family.  You are very welcome. 

     My birthday was really nice. It was great weather because God loves me and we had a lesson with an investigator. We invited him to Church and he actually came ! We were running all over the place to get him to Church and do all the things we needed to on Sunday. But busy is good and happiness for a missionary. For dinner I got a bunch of little gifts and I got some cup cakes, a lot of cup cakes. Afterwards we went to another member's house who got me a cake. I was very happy. And of course I got the package so that was a plus as well. 

     Like I said, our Sunday was busy. Sundays are a lot more fun if investigators actually come to Church.  Mario came and he had a great time. I'm pretty sure he cried twice and the members are super friendly here so he had a good time talking with them. He told them that he was going to be there next week! So that was really awesome. Then we had a lesson right after Church so we skipped lunch. But after that we went to a members house for a quick bite.  This family just had their daughter come home from a mission in Utah. She gave her homecoming talk yesterday and so one of her former companions that she liked came to Cali to see her. So she was there. When i saw her former companion, she looked very familiar to me. So I ended up telling her I was from Cinci and then she was all like " Oh, I like you already ! because I served the first 3 months of my mission in Cincinnati!" and then I named off a few Elders that she might know-- and she did know them ! that's when I realized that I have totally met this sister before because she served in our Stake ( West Chester) when I was on my mini mission. I practiced a door contact on her. But she didn't remember me, which is fair because I barely remember her. So that is the girl that was in one of the pictures that you got. Then she pulled up the Elder I was with on my mini mission (Elder Seegmiller) and i sent that homie a message. so that was super cool. Small world. 

     The Elder I am sitting next to now is pretty new here in the mission. He is a Cambodian Elder. Turns out he is from Ohio as well, but Columbus so not as cool. haha 

Well we taught, found another one. and other stuff happened. the usual.

   I love you guys.

Love Elder Richards

I really want to see the new Beauty and the Beast. so bad

Cali February 20, 2017

Dear Family,

     It was a good week you could say. I got my new companion, Elder Hamblin, whom you have seen now if you got that picture. I know, we are cute. We also found a few new investigators. That is always a good thing. 

     My new companion really likes to work. This dude goes hard in the morning. I'm always just like push ups, sits ups, maybe switch it up and do sit ups, then push ups but he has a regiment almost. He brought some weights so he's doing curls, deadlifts, and a ton of weight training haha. Go big or go home.

     We went by a potential and he was pretty cool. But the interesting part of the story is that he got us some water that was in a juice box. It was weird tasting but I was fully prepared to drink the whole thing because hey, you cant be rude. Then he tried it and he was like "oh man this is weird tasting, you can pour it out if you want." Bless that cuz it felt weird when I was drinking it, haha. The moral of this story is that missionaries will eat and drink anything. I know this is a lame story but to be honest I feel like not much happened this week that is of grand exploitation that i need to talk about. So you get a very lame story about drinking weird water. 

      One of the new investigators we have makes steel drums for a living. He also makes things called hand pans, which is like a steel drum but that you can play.... with your hands.... bet you didn't see that one coming.  

     You know you have been out on a mission long enough when you start dreaming about watching the restoration video and teaching investigators. It's kind of funny but also very frustrating because sometimes they say really ridiculous things in your dreams and you don't know how to answer such extreme questions. Good times. 

     We also had a really big storm and it flooded the streets. We were in someone's house while it was raining so when we got out, we realized that the whole street had flooded up past the curbs a little. But the whole street was under water. And, of course, I am the driver so I'm the one that has to jump into the water to get to my side. We had dinner that night and the whole time my feet are just completely soaked haha. We also saw these canals that were filled to the top with water. They have like 10 foot walls in those bad boys so that's a lot of water. Good times singing in the rain.

love you guys 

Love Elder Richards

Cali February 13, 2017

Dear Family,

     Transfers are this week. Elder Sesay is leaving me and going to Whittier. Sad, I'm losing ebony.  My new companion is Elder Hamblin ! Now you don't know Elder Hamblin but I know him, haha. He was in my MTC district back in the good ol days. We also shared the La Palma Ward back in Cypress. So it's fun!

     We had a fun time on Monday. We went to an appointment with a member, Bro Davies is his name. He is awesome. We went to the door and he wasn't home. This was at 7 pm, so we walked to our cars and we talked for a while. Just to let you know, Bro Davies can talk, but he talks about really interesting stuff so you get sucked into it! He was telling us about how many jobs he has had and all that stuff and then he was telling us about how he saved his daughter from a burning house. Literally the whole room was on fire, he runs in and saves his daughter, everyone's safe. Isn't that just an awesome story ! and so after a while I was like man, I feel like we should leave and go somewhere but we didn't and then.... the man we had an appointment with shows up as soon as we were thinking of leaving, hahah. So our talk we had was inspired because we had a good lesson sharing testimonies and it all worked out very well, so that was cool.

      Then the rest of the week was pretty normal. One of our members is pretty hardcore with his sharing the Gospel. This was his story. He was in Sam's Club with his non-member friend that isn't too interested but will listen. He starts telling him about the law of Moses because he has to tell people about what he learned in his pathway program. He said he noticed that people at the surrounding tables were listening in, so he started to speak louder until he noticed that about 15 people were listening to him talk about the law of Moses. Then he stood up on the table at Sam's Club and bears his testimony about the law of Moses and Jesus Christ. He heard some Amens and got some hugs afterwards. Then he told us about how it's not hard to share the Gospel, we just have to open our mouths. Yup. This dude is hardcore. Soap boxing at Sam's Club. I thought it was a crazy story so I had to tell you. 

love you guys

love 

Elder Richards

Good times February 6, 2017

Dear Family,

     So it seemed to be a good week. It also seemed to blow by. On Monday I played golf for the first time in my life. It was fun. I only lost one ball because it hit a tree then flew into someone's back yard. But that was pretty good I would say. I had some pretty good shots. I did step in some puddles. I got a chip out of a puddle onto the green, like a boss. 

     On Tuesday I went on an exchange with Elder Mathews, one of the homies. I was with him in Huntington Beach. We just had a good time. I felt like we got tons done that day. We were packed. We did service for a guy whose whole backyard was covered in weeds. For real, the whole thing was just weeds. Weeds that went up to your knees and higher. That was fun and good because this guy has back problems so he cant really do it. He told us that he will always remember the service we did for him and how grateful  he was. Doing some simple service can go a long way for people.

     We also taught our french investigator, had a good lesson and then right after that went to another appointment with some other guy and picked him up as a new investigator. So that was freaking awesome. This guy seems to have a very sincere desire to know the truth, his words. He really does want to know if the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. That's really awesome. 

     We covered both of the areas pretty much that day because we had the car and our companions were on bikes, probably wasn't as fun of a day for them, haha. But you got to do, what you got to do. Then we made a trip to a hospital and they have really fast elevators. So we had to mess with the elevators. Not for too long though, there are souls to save. 

     We saw our french investigator a few times this week actually. He's a pretty smart guy because when we read with him he reads his Book of Mormon in French and we read it in English and he follows super well. He constantly is going back and forth from French to English. He read the Book of Mormon and had questions, so that's nice. That is what we want people to do. It's hard enough to just get people to read the thing. It will change your life! Don't you understand! That is kind of what you want to tell people. 

We also helped set up a tea party for another church.  Now I kind of know what it was like to be in the Relief Society Party committee, minus the tea part :) 

love you all

love 

Elder Richards

Change is so nice January 30, 2017

Dear Family,

     First off. OH YEAHYUH LETTTTSSSS GOOOOOOOO!!!!! that is awesome that Jeff is out already. Blessed 

      Anyway i think you already know because of the others emails but the Church's missionary board had a worldwide broadcast that told us some changes in our work. They changed 2 things. One, our schedule and B our key indicators. 

The schedule change: we used to plan at night but now we plan in the morning and our lunch is shorter and we plan our companion study when it best fits our time. It is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo nice. I like it a lot. It used to be kind of burdensome to come in and plan at night because if it went over time, we would have no time to write in journals and do other stuff but now we just come in at 9 and write in journal and go to bed. So nice. That was one of the purposes of it. So nice. Less stressful. 

The key indicators: we used to have 9, now we only have 4. They are,

investigators baptized and confirmed 

investigators with a baptismal date 

investigators who attended sacrament meeting 

new investigators 

I think its nice because it helps us really focus on the things that are really important. 

And again we see that these changes fall into the Lords way of doing things, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little there a little. (2 nephi 28:30 )  :) 

     To be honest, I feel as if not a ton happened this week, either that or my memory is going bad. But we had a lesson with one of our investigators, she talks a lot but we brought a member with us that also talks a lot. Now you might think that this would be a bad idea because then they would both just talk a ton and we wouldn't teach much. You would be correct but with our member she talks a lot but she would stop our investigator from going on these long tangents so it was kinda nice, hahah. Sounds awful but our investigators need some one like that so that they can answer her questions with her interrupting and asking another question. So it worked out. It was good. But, like I said, didn't really get to teach what we wanted but I still think it was good. The member got really excited for missionary work again so if anything it helped her. I'm good with that.

     I love you guys.

 

Love, Elder Richards

Pigeons January 23, 2017

Dear family,

    Well this week was fun. So to start out, we saved a pigeon. It was honestly kind of annoying but in the end I believe God wanted us to save it, so it started like this. We went by a referral and she opened the door. Then her dog came out and ran over to the car. There was this pigeon who couldn't fly and the dog was chasing it around. So we noticed the bird was a little hurt. I chased it down and caught it with a basket and a towel. Then the people were like "well, we have to go to work and so can you guys deal with this" " ahhhhh alright then" we said. So we had this bird strapped into the back seat and we took it into the animal hospital but apparently they don't take birds. We were running around trying to find a member to pass it off to but who is going to take a bird for us. We ran into a recent convert of another ward and we went by to do some service for her. Afterward we asked her if she would be able to take the bird. I know that sounds like we are trying to make a deal. We will give you service if you take the bird, ha, but she was willing to take the bird. While I was in her house, I looked over and saw a picture. It was a picture of one of our new investigators, Francios! He's French. Apparently that is her son-in-law and we were able to talk about him and some of his needs so it is really good. Apparently God needed us there so he gave us the stupid pigeon, haha, but hey, the pigeon is now in a good home in a wildlife care facility.

     Also, today we did hot yoga. It was a room of people who are a lot better at yoga than the four of us. We went with some other Elders. It's 105 degrees and 40 % humidity. It was hot. and sweaty. It was great. I learned that breathing is important because if you don't pay attention to your breathing, you can pass out, hah,a which almost happened to me ,haha. But it's all good, I survived, didn't go down though. But yup, sweat a ton and feelin pretty good. Yoga is a little more intense then I thought it might be. 

     We picked up a family it was awesome... until they dropped us. It was sad but it is the up and downs of a missionaries' life. Stake Conference was really good. Lots of speaker on intense subjects-- like having depression and having gay children and being divorced in the Church and being single and going inactive, it was really good. Oh and how to improve relationships between husbands and wives. But metal chairs hurt your back and butt after a while.

Love, Elder Richards

Elder Holland Jauary 16, 2017

Dear Family,

     Well, let me just tell you a few things that Elder Holland said and did. He got loud a few times, of course, but with the Spirit so it was awesome! We all go up and shake his hand and we told him our name and where we were from. When Elder Holland gets up he tells us " I don't know if you know, but we interviewed every single one of you. When you came up and shook my hand, I asked you who you were and where you were from but to be honest, I don't really care about either one of those things. I just needed enough time to look into your eyes... and see your soul. And as a compliment, President Patterson, your mission is good in the soul department."  So yeah, Elder Holland saw into my soul. It was pretty sweet. He told us all about how there is a gap between us and our investigators and we need to get down to their level and then lift them up. We read John 3:4 and Holland said " That is the stupidest response in all of recorded scripture! " he said something like that and it was soo funny and low key savage. But he went further into it and showed how there was a gap between what Jesus was explaining and what Nicodemus was understanding. It was sweet. He is just a funny, super loving guy. 

     We had some interesting lessons this week. One was with a guy and he brought his friend. His friend is named Chuck. Chuck thinks he is a prophet. He was telling us about the Bible, because he has studied it on his own for the last 26 years and he tells us that everything is going to happen in Palm Springs and something went down with this Church called the World Wide Church of Christ and it was foretold in Psalms. Everything kinda is dependent on him because he told us that he found out that the Second Coming will happen when his ex-wife remarries him. Yup, it's a good one. He is for real trying to start his own church. 

     Then we had another lesson with a lady from Germany and she is super nice but she just likes to take everything that she likes from every religion and make her own  thing. The lesson was just kind of all over the place but she is funny so it was enjoyable, ha. 

Still working hard doing the Lord's work

love you guys

love Elder Richards

The fire spitter is coming January 9, 2017

Dear Family,

     Just to let you know what I mean about the subject is this. Elder Holland will be visiting our mission on the 14th with Elder Hallstrom, so that should be really awesome.
     This week has been pretty good I would say. On Sunday we went by a less active's house at like 6 and when we got there she was like " did you guys eat dinner yet". I knew that my companion didn't really eat much so we replied "not really" and then of course they threw on some extra food, boomshakalaka. The next night we went by a part member family, they are super nice. We walk in and a few minutes later she asked " wait, have you guys had dinner yet?" " I  had a hot-pocket" I replied. " A hot pocket!"  Then she went into super-Mom mode and decided to make us dinner on the spot as well. People like to try and make us fat or something but it is also much appreciated because what ever they make will probably be better than what I make.  Then afterward we were able to teach them and pick them up (as investigators) so that's also a huge blessing. 

     We had a lesson with the lady we went to the Temple with and it went pretty well I would say. We were able to set a baptismal date with her so hopefully we can reach that goal. So things are going pretty  well for us. The lady's name is Shirley. She is super nice and she has met with the missionaries for a while. She has read like half of the Book of Mormon. The more she reads it she tells us she seems to find a lot of the same doctrines and stuff in the Bible. They seem to go together. Crazy, right!?! it's not like we try and tell the whole world just that if they would take the time and read it. So that's super cool. 

     Yeah it gets to 50 degrees here and people put on winter coats, it's pretty funny. I just have the one thin sweatshirt, usually good enough for me. 

     It's kind of funny what people say to us sometimes. Like, people will tell us, "man you guys are like salt and pepper" or " you are almost an Oreo!" minus a one cookie I guess. Ebony and Ivory

love you guys 

Love,

Elder Richards

Happy New Year January 2, 2017

Dear Family,

     This week was pretty good I would say. At the beginning of the week, we had a pretty good lesson with a former investigator. She seems like she is really seeking but her problem is that she has some health problems which makes it a little hard to meet and to come to Church. But all is well. With God all things are possible. 

     We have been having fun getting dinners with people. We had a former investigator and less active family feed us but it's just funny because we ask them like the day of if they can. Or one night we just walked in and they were like "hey you need dinner" "sure " we replied. And they weren't even Samoan.

        Went on exchanges, taught some lessons, it was great. One of our investigators asks a ton of questions.  Like a ton of questions. Non stop, level 12. It's always very tiring because your mind is just all over the place.

 Also tranfers. I'm staying, Elder Sesay is staying. Ebony and ivory for life.

Should be fun.

love you guys 

Love, Elder Richards

and a happy new year, ours was very normal, worked and then went to bed at 10:30 :)

After party December 26, 2016

Dear Family,

     We had Christmas dinner, it was good but then we went over to the Bishop's house. It was pretty great. It was great because they have a trampoline and a ping pong table. We played the white elephant game but with every gift there was an envelope with some mystery amount of cash in it. They wouldn't let us chip in but they let us play so we pretty much got paid to play:) got 30 bucks :) ha just kidding but i did get 5 dollars. $9 was the top amount. And as a great way to end, we had a little spiritual message reading Luke 2 about the Saviors birth. The Christmas Spirit is great and so is peppermint ice cream which we had after the spiritual thought. So it was a good Christmas, especially since I got to talk to you guys.

love you all 

love, Elder Richards

Fun December 19, 2016

Dear Family,

     This week had some fun points. The first one: we went to the Sheriffs landing pad for the helicopters. It was pretty fun. we watched a helicopter land and one take off. Standing underneath one when it takes off is pretty windy. Who would have guessed. We also got into one called the Pumba. It was a very big one. There are so many little buttons in those things. But yes, it was pretty cool.

     Then for the weekend we went to the LA visitors center. We dropped by a former investigator and she was all like, "hey, I was trying to go to the Temple thingy last year" "oh, do you want to go this Year" said me. "yes" So we were off! One of our members took us all there. Shirley is the investigator. She is very talky but fun. Sister Gilliland, the member,  made us all sandwiches to eat on the way up and then she told Shirley all about the Temple. It was just awesome. Since its Christmas time, the Temple does a bunch of performances at the visitors center. We went to one of those and we saw the bell choir. It was awesome. I have never seen that before and they were good. We had front row seats. We all had a really good time walking around the Temple, just enjoying the peace of it all. While we were there, I ran into people from the Huntington Beach Stake. They were not from the ward I worked in but I knew them anyway. Brother Augustus was there. I see him all the time I feel like. He's the guy that worked on my foot. He's the guy that we taught his mother in Japanese. He's the guy we got a ride in his Tesla and the one who took us to all you can eat sushi. So of course I had to bump into him at the Temple ha. 

     I gave a talk on Sunday, went well. But it was pretty hot in there for some reason. I thought it was just me being nervous but then I was talking to a guy about it and he told me that he was burning up too. So that was good because I was like man, why am I so hot, am I that nervous. But no, it was actually hot.

     We had a couple good lessons with people this week. For some reason, they were both kind of long but we learned a lot about what they needed so that was good. 

     I love you guys 

Love,

Elder Richards

Lauper White Elephant Exchange

Lauper White Elephant Exchange

Lauper White Elephant Exchange

Lauper White Elephant Exchange

Best dinner in the mission December 12, 2016

Dear Family,

     

     Last night I am pretty sure I had the best dinner of my mission. Now you may be wondering, what did they make for dinner that could be the best thing.  We went to the Andersens and they are cool. I talked to them the week before and he was like "hey, so you are from Cincinnati right" yes" I replied. "so they have like a different chili there?" then I got kind of excited "why yes, they do " "Sweet, we are going to try and make it for dinner when you guys come over. Suddenly in my mind a song plays.. I've got a golden ticket...I've got a golden twinkle in my eye. As soon as we walk in the house, it smells like good old Cincinnati chili. Of course it was a little different but it tasted pretty dang close so it was really good. They all loved it, I loved it. We had all the spaghetti and the cheese. So I gave him a hug when we left dinner to thank him. A taste of home. 

     We had our Ward's Christmas party. We were the greeters. I' starting to remember people's names so that's always good. But we ran into a lady that said she would love for us to come by and teach her mother, and to help get her family back to Church. Ah, of course we would love to. That was really good.  Hopefully we can get those meetings started. We had lots of ham and potatoes. One of our sort of investigators came towards the end so that was another good thing. He is (sort of) an investigator because we don't meet with him that often and he doesn't come to Church but he will come to Church parties. He is a little hard to get a hold of but he seemed to have a good time. Of course we got a picture on Santa's lap.

     I don't know if I have mentioned this before but the holidays are best time of the year for missionaries because every one has their minds on Christ more but it is also the hardest time of the year because every one is gone or they have family in or something of that nature. But it is still a good time. We are just trying to share the # light the world with everyone and get them into the true Christmas Spirit. 

     My companion had a talk this Sunday, but they didn't ask me. I was like, hmm, guess they don't want to ask me yet. Then, in the middle of Church, of course, one of the bishopric come up and gave me my talk. I'm actually kind of excited for it. I'm going to drop some major knowledge and Spirit bombs on these people. Ha, just messing but going to have a good time with it.

love you guys 

Love,

Elder Richards

Let me tell you of the ups and downs December 5, 2016

Dear Family,

     Let me start with the UPs of the week. It started in the beginning of the week. We have been focusing on finding and the area isn't the easiest to find in, but we had a former investigator call us and ask if we could come over and do some service for her. We  did. We fixed her super wack gate but it functions now lol. Afterward we were able to sit down with her and talk a little, share the Christmas initiative the Church put out. It's a good one, check it out and do it and share it. But anyway, we talked to her. She actually seems pretty solid like she would be totally willing to keep meeting and everything, but her job has just absolutely crazy hours. She has no set time, she has nothing but call in. But we are hoping that we can start figuring out a way around that because she could really progress I think. So that was cool to find her. We also found two other people that night but of course they go to the Young Single Adult Ward. So we passed them off to the Young Single Adult missionaries. But it is still good, we are still trying to find all those we can.

     So that was an up, we hit our goal of finding. Now let me tell you of the down. On Friday I got some weird bug or something. I felt pretty bad like all day. I couldn't really eat anything and it hurt to lay down, sit up and stand so nothing was comfortable. That lasted all day. Couldn't work, couldn't do much of anything. So we had a member watch me and another member go out with E. Sesay so he could still work. That was nice.  The nurse told me I couldn't eat or drink that much. I could only take a sip of Gatorade and 1 to 2 crackers every 20 min. That was fun.  It was lame because we had to cancel dinner. Uncool part about that is that it was with Bishop, and I had never met the Bishop and apparently our text didn't get to him so he sat and waited for us and then he finally called us after we were 20 min late and found out we weren't coming. But it's all good. He still likes me and understands, bless that. I ended up throwing up later that night. But I felt better. Good times, right.

     The other thing happened this morning, got a call this morning from a senior missionary. He told me the cops just called them and told us that someone bashed out the back window of our car. We go out and guess what, it's true. Som one smashed the back door window and they took our bags. My camera was in my bag so goodbye mission pictures. It was quite the mess. We cleaned out all the glass and are going to get a new window in the morning. Fun stuff, right:)  They smashed out a few car windows on the street and stole some other things, welcome to Long Beach :)

 love you guys 

love 

Elder Richards

Turkey November 28, 2016

Dear Family,

     First of all, my new companion is actually from Sierra Leone in west Africa but he went to Chicago for most of high school so he knows English for the most part. He still has a pretty thick accent but now that I have been with him for a week or so, I can understand him a lot better. But he's cool, he's very patient and nice and he just wants to be the best missionary he can be, I can live with that haha.

    Well anyways, Happy Thanksgiving. Yes we got fed, a few times actually. We went to our fist dinner, got ful,l then we left that one to go to our second dinner and ate another dinner. Yeah, it was pretty fun but a struggle at the same time. I was trying all the tricks to fit in more food, beside throwing up, the Tongan roll, the Utah squish, holding your breath and flex your abs and squish, lots of squishing. And then we went somewhere else for dessert. Good times. I seriously think that there should be a Thanksgiving nap time set into place by the entire world, the whole world will nap for a period of time on Thanksgiving. If you don't take a nap, you will be prosecuted in a court of law and sentenced to jail time. Sounds good, right :)

    My new area is pretty good, it's pretty big compared to some of my other areas. I had to give a lesson on the fly on Sunday. It wasn't bad but I wouldn't say it was good either. What can you do, haha, the life of a missionary is winging it at Church when no one else can. It's funny, there was a family that I knew from my first area in this Ward because they moved into the Ward while I was other places. So that was cool. Lots of other cool people that I know like their sibling in another ward. So tha'ts fun too.

      I love you guys

Ryan, you low key look like Mario in those pictures, luv you :) 

love 

Elder Richards