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

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

LA again November 7. 2016

Dear Family,

     This week seemed to just blow by. It was fun though. We went to the LA Visitors Center with Martin and had a super good time. The Nash family took us, they are super awesome. Brother Nash drives aggressively and loves his horn, haha. It is rather funny to be in the car with him, but he is a really good driver. Anyway, at the Visitors Center we watched some videos that were super bomb. One of them was Meet the Mormons but the extended part, the part that you can only watch in Visitor Centers. We watched  the video on The Horseman. Pretty much he is a cowboy and made some references about how we are kind of like horses in the fact that we need to be submissive and trusting in our master. It was good. Mainly, the whole focus of everything that we watched was to help Martin realize how to get an answer whether the Church is true because once he does he is ready to go. He believes it all pretty much and he does what he needs to so he is on the right path. He is super awesome. And, of course, we got to drive through LA. We drove down Hollywood Blvd and saw all the stars on the side walk and went down some other famous streets. It was fun. We ate at some crazy place called Lala's in LA for dinner. I had a steak that just had so much garlic on it, for real so much garlic but what are you gonna do. 

     We had some members from our last area ( me and Elder Miuras area (Cerritos 1st)) take us to dinner and they ordered so much food. We went to a place called Panda Inn so it was Asian. There was 5 of us and they bought enough food for 10 of us, so much food, so much rice, ha, but we love rice. It is one of our favorite things to eat in the trio. Fried rice and pot-stickers, so good. That and this pizza place called Pizza Studio. We go there all the time as well.

     I also got a little sick this week. It was lame but we still worked and I feel fine now, just have a lot of boogies coming out of my face. I know that is exactly what you wanted to hear, your welcome:) 

     We met a guy named Steve yesterday and this man seems to do it all. He is a cook and a cyclist, and a photographer for USA basketball and he is a skydiving instructor, and he writes books on the Constitution and is into all that good stuff. He is a pretty interesting guy. I feel like when we see him again he will tell us some other things that he has done in his life. Some people, man. 

Well, I love you guys.

Love,

Elder Richards