Primary is fun September 12, 2016

Dear Family,

     This week we did a few fun things. First I think I will talk about Primary (Church children's group covering ages 18 mths to 12 years old). This week for Church we asked the Primary President if we could teach Sharing Time. She said "of course and that is really funny that you asked because this week is on missionary work!" It was destiny. We prepared for it and then it came time. It was really fun to sit in Primary again and to sing the songs and to do the opening exercise with them. The kids are funny. They had it combined that week (the older and the younger group) so we had senior primary and junior primary at the same time. Our little lesson for Sharing Time was pretty good. We had their attention for like the first 10 minutes but then their attention span started to wear thin, haha. We watched a little video, Fishers of Man, described by kids, video is on lds .org. Those videos are pretty fun you should watch them. I also recommend the little, Mormon belief videos they have. I liked them a lot. But yeah, back to the Sharing Time. We were supposed to have 15 min but for some reason they gave us like 30, haha, so we were trying hard at the end to keep them settled, used the sticker approach.

     We went to a senior living home this week to sing to them. A lot of them were Vietnamese, so they would sometimes try to sing along in Vietnamese. It was 4 sister missionaries and my companion and I. We sounded pretty good sometimes. We sang and we sang, it was fun. The hymns can be really nice, calming and also powerful at times. After we sang to the group, we went by a few rooms and sang to people so it was nice. But sometimes the forgot how to sing a song, so that was funny because we all just give each other a look, then give up on trying to sing that hymn and moved on.

     I have been thinking, some of my letters have just been about the things that go on during the week but this time I would like to tell you something I learned, a little more Spiritual note to the letter. Lately, as I have had some struggles with certain things, I have notices that something I figured I could do was pray. Now that sounds really basic and obvious but at the same time, I feel that sometimes we forget that we can really pull the powers of heaven to help us when we need it. So, I was kind of frustrated about something and on my wall there are a ton of pictures of Jesus with a ton of quotes. While I was upset and kind of down, I just looked at the wall and the picture I looked at was of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The thought came to me to just pray, but at the same time I didn't want to pray because I was just kind of mad. But as I continued to look at the picture, I still got the impression. I decided to do it anyway. It was a good thing. I just kind of talked to God about things and asked for help. You can feel a little peace as you do. So if times are rough, did you think to pray? I think we all know it, but do we actually do it. I know that it does help, because Jesus has suffered all those pains and afflictions and everything else so that he could help us. But we have to let him, we have to pray and repent and be humble and I know that it can help in any trial. So that was something that kind of stood out to me as I thought about this last week.

I love you guys

Thank you for everything you do, you guys help me a lot

 

love

Elder Richards


A picture is worth a thousand words.   We tried to re-enact this picture that is in the Church.

True Story

Baller.....September 5, 2016

Isn't he a cute one :)

Dear Family

  Being in the La Palma Ward in Cypress is fun. It is right next to my old area in Cerritos.  It is just on the other side of the street but it's alot different. For my first week, I felt like I have watched more movies then usual and I have also played more basketball than usual. We have a movie night played here. We watch a Church movie and the members can invite their friends to it so they can do their member missionary work. Hasn't been too effective but we got a few people there, only like 2 but we will take what we can get. Then we watched Meet the Mormons with some less active members so that was fun. And don't worry when I say we watched movies, I mean Church movies like Meet the Mormons and Mountain of the Lord, stuff like that. Then with basketball, we wake up every morning and just play ball hard with a couple of other companionships for like 45 min to an hour.  It's pretty fun. But another basketball experience was we knew that there are a few kids that found out how to get into the building. So some member kids let a bunch of their non member friends in. We decided that we would go over there and let them in and we would play some basketball with them. There were like 20 kids there and only like 2 of them were members so we talked to them. Well we balled out for a little in our pros clothes then I sat on the side lines and talked to the kids while the my companion played more ball, haha. I got to know the ones sitting down and he was getting to know the ones playing, haha. It worked out. A few of them were Muslim so I learned some new things about Muslims, pretty neat. The dudes were pretty cool. At the end of the night we had a game where it was the Elders verses the other peeps. We had 2 companionship's there and another member kid on our team and we beat them pretty well, haha. It was a good game but of course we won.   

     The area I came into is pretty good. We are working hard to make sure this investigator of ours is ready for Baptism by Oct 8. So that's really awesome. Her name is Wanda, her only problem is that she works on Sundays and she is basically on-call all the time. She's a nanny, and she works for a couple of doctors in Huntington Beach. When they go in, she goes in. but she is super prepared so that's awesome. 

     Well things are pretty good here, my companion Elder Ellin is a fun dude so that's good. 

I love you guys 

Love 

Elder Richards

The time has come.......August 29, 2016

Dear Family

     Well, the transfer is over and the news is in. I am leaving Huntington Beach. I am now going to be in Cypress, La Palma ward. My companion will be a guy named Elder Ellin. It should be interesting. I am pretty sure I will be killing him [this is missionary terms for someone who will be going home] because he only has 2 transfers left. Should be fun. 

      This week has been one of those weeks. But it was all good because we did some good things. We stopped by a guy that has been inactive for a while. We tried earlier but we couldn't get past the gate. But this time when we rolled up, he was in his garage. He was just a super cool guy. He had a little rough past but he has turned his life around. Now he is married and has a little baby girl. He was telling us about how he wants to get his baby blessed and he knows that he should have come back to Church. He told us that he has actually been waiting for missionaries to come by, he was praying for it he said. And now we finally caught him and he knows Heavenly Father is helping him get back on the right path. So that was super awesome. 

     Also another good thing that happened this week is that we finally saw our recent convert again. He has been all over the place for like 2 months but we talked to him a couple of nights ago.

      Well, I am a fat kid in someone else's body.  I just love eating ice cream and brownies, I really love those 2 put together now. I like mint cookies n cream milkshakes. It's so flippin gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.I just love dessert thingys. I bought ice cream sandwiches last week and a couple weeks before that i bought a ton of Popsicles and some Creamies ( utah thing) and a bucket of ice cream. Oh and don't forget pie, pie and ice cream are just like scrumptious.  

    I love you guys 

Stay awesome 

and please tell me at what point and where Princess Leia says "scruffy looking nurf herder". Please tell where they say that line. Like where were they and what were they doing 

Love 

Elder Richards

heellooo....August 22, 2016

Dear Family,

     Well, to be honest it was a rough week but we did have a super miracle on Tuesday. We stopped by these members house on Monday but they were busy so they told us to come back the next day, so we did. We showed up and we get into the house and we start talking to this guy named Brian. Turns out Brian is not a member and he just moved in just earlier that day. Brian is a super cool guy with a little bit of a rough past. we were talking to him and he apparently had one lesson with the missionaries before he moved and he is reading the Book of Mormon and started going to Church! We even heard him talk to his girlfriend about getting Sealed in the Temple. It was super awesome because he is super ready. He is ready to learn and he does things. He is already a good chunk through 1st Nephi and the family he is staying with is helping him so that is super awesome. These are the kinds of things we missionaries pray for all the time, and it happened. He didn't show for church so that was lame but there are some things going on with the family so I'm pretty sure he had a good reason. But it was still awesome because, like I said, we have hit a bit of a rough patch and now we have a super good investigator. God loves us, ha. We brought up baptism and he was totally cool with it. It is just so good.

     The other  day I sat down, chillin in my shorts and I look down at my legs. I just flexed as a joke but then I was surprised with the appearance of nice looking leg muscles. That's pretty nice. I had my companion come over and give them a feel. He was impressed of course. Anyone would be but my guess is that i will be put in a car again and lose all that muscle. But I will it while I have it haha, jk, it isn't that deep.

     I met this woman the other day and she apparently is going to be serving a senior mission in Cincinnati. I don't know her name, haha, but she is good friends with the Mission President. I thought that was neat.W e had a good talk about it. She said that she is going to a rural part of the mission though.

Love you guys 

the Church is true 

Gordon B Hinkley was a prophet 

Love, Elder Richards

later update:  the sister coming in is actually from Lehi, Utah but she was in Huntington Beach visiting family 

The day of rest August 15, 2016

Dear Family,

     So, to talk about my Sunday, Church was pretty normal, we had meetings before and after. We were at Church for like 5 hours. You know the feeling I bet. But after Church, we biked to another Church building so my District Leader could take me to Cerritos. Why go back to Cerritos, you ask? Because Debbie got baptized ! Debbie is the grandma to Jyssika. I don't know if I told you but like a month ago I went to her sister's baptism as well. It was super cool. At both baptisms, I gave a killer talk about the Holy Ghost. I could feel the Holy Ghost's approval as I finished, haha. A lot of people showed up for both baptisms and for one of my talks I said these words, " Nephi is the cat's pajamas". Yes, it was good. No particular reason why I said it. Maybe the Holy Ghost prompted me. Maybe not.  I just felt like it. But it was awesome to be able to be a part of that family's journey. It was crazy to think that I haven't been in that area for 4 months now but it was  awesome to be there to witness their baptisms. Both times I was super red because it is so flipin hot in that room! but all is well . After that, we got back and we ate dinner, then  hit the bathrooms, than planned for the next day. Fun stuff .

     Yeah, lots of fun stuff. We are trying to work with members, it's fun. But yeah we have been doing missionary work stuff. We picked a up a new investigator while she was walking her dogs. It was quite fun. We walked for a good while and every now and then we stopped at the Spiritual parts. It was pretty cool but she was Young Single Adults age so we had to pass her off to the Young Single Adult missionaries. She was all like, " I don't want other missionaries, I want you guys to teach me ". We are all like "same ". We would like to teach you but that is not the Jedi way. 

Love you guys 

Stay awesome 

Love,

 

Elder Richards

 

PS: in the pictures my face was red because it was super hot

SQUAAAA August 8, 2016

Dear Family,

     We have been trying to meet a lot of our members lately. It's been pretty interesting, it's fun to get to know the members better. We are doing this because we are trying to get our members to do missionary work. After talking to them, we found out that they actually have been working with people and their friends. It was really awesome to find that out because now we can help them with their missionary work, that is the goal anyway. We used to tract a little bit. Well, we didn't really do it until lately because we didn't have any one to go by. But then our Mission President came out and said that we need to stop tracting, it's not effective. There is a better way and the Prophets and Apostles have told us it's through the members. So, it was a slap in the face but a good one. So far it seems good.

        We ran into an "intellectual black man", his words not ours. He called us over while we were biking by and he was all like "hey man, you guys are great". This guy loves Mormons and Utah. He was going on and on about it. He's not Mormon but he says that he is "Mormon-ish". He gave us like a pump up talk about how awesome we were. It was pretty nice actually. But the best thing he said was at the end. He said " you know when people reject your message, just tell them this - you know we talked to an intellectual black man once and you might not convert and you might not read our scriptures and stuff but you might want to consider being Mormon-ish" " hahaha" and then he just walked off. It was pretty funny, he was a super cool guy, we don't know his name but we hope to find him later. He's married to a member so we are hoping to find him that way.

        The Harry Potter thing is pretty cool.

Love you guys

Stay awesome 

Love,

Elder Richards

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