March 25, 2015 Hit my six month mark!

Hello,

   So this week has been pretty interesting. But to start off, our lesson with our new investigator last Wednesday night went pretty well! 
     Thursday I went on a split with Elder Holtom, it was pretty fun his area is really interesting.

He is over the Manhattan single adult branch. So all the unmarried adults to old for a YSA ward go there And he covers the entire island. There are some really cool people in it. I really enjoyed it. 
     Friday I went to a lunch appointment with Elder Holtom with one of his ward members. It was pretty good. We then got down to planning for the rest of the day after we unsplit. So nothing to crazy happened. 
     Saturday we went to the sisters Baptism, It was a really neat service. I always enjoy going to baptisms as a missionary! They are really awesome. After it was over a Hispanic member came and introduced us to this crazy guy off the street. And she insisted he was looking for the gospel, we then proceeded to have a 2-hour lesson about the plan of salvation. He seemed crazy with a chance of being just weird and sane, so we passed him off to Elders Holtom and Johnson. Later we went to China town for Dinner with Sait. He is a really cool guy. We had some very authentic Chinese food, which was pretty good. 
     Sunday was average. None of our investigators came, which was rough, so we focused on our recent converts at church. 
     Monday was mediocre, we had district meeting which was good, but we had to come home mid afternoon because I got a migraine which really stunk but its life.
     Yesterday was my six-month mark. So that’s really cool. We went to lunch at buffalo wild wings to celebrate. The rest of the day was sub par. It was one of the more trial filled days of missionary work. But I still enjoy where I’m at so there won’t be any complaints! We have training calls to night and transfer calls on Saturday! I think I will leave this cycle! Who knows though!

Elder Richards

Lunch in China Town!

HEY I've been there before!

Zone Conference

Zone Conference

Lunch with the Elders!

March 18, 2015 Not even bad hand writing will stop the work!

Hey!  

   This week’s been pretty cool! it’s been a lot of meetings again! so that’s cool in its own way! It seems like I was just writing about last week! Anyways this has been a pretty good week. It’s been pretty warm lately! so that’s really cool! Except it decided to snow today for some reason!  

   Thursday was a interesting day, in preparation for Zone conference we all had to back up our iPad s so the majority of the day was spent backing up all the files and stuff, which wasn't very fun. Friday was zone conference so that was really fun, we got new iPad s, and talked about how to prevent athletes foot. It felt like this was more of a housekeeping zone conference rather than a Crazy spiritual one. But it was still spiritual, we learned about the new initiative the church is doing for Easter So that's pretty cool it’s going to be really awesome! It’s called "He lives". It’s really a Spiritual powerhouse. It’s going to be really good! 

   Saturday we got to go to the temple with Steven Pendergrass! he is so solid! he is getting ready to go on his mission and he leaves next Saturday. So that's crazy! Anyways after that we also had stake conference. It was the adult session and it was really good, it was all about Councils and how to have a effective family, ward, and stake councils. Then at the Sunday morning session they talked about reverence and to have a foundation of faith. And it was really chill. 

   One thing interesting Elder Hallstrom of the presidency of the 70 said, was that every member will at some point in their life have a personal Gethsemane with trials specifically tailored to us, and that we will either turn towards Christ and His atonement because it will be the only place where we will find peace, strength, and healing or we will turn to ourselves and become mad at God and eventually ourselves. Which I thought was powerful! So they counseled to build that faith in Christ and never neglect doing your daily patterns of personal worship such as praying and reading the scriptures. Make your person worship just as focused as your public worship. They used the analogy that it’s easier to pull a few weeds a day then letting them build up and then trying to work through them all at once. Needless to say it was a great Conference.    

   So after it was over we went to give a baptismal interview for some of the sisters in my district. It was pretty cool the guy is Haitian and he loves Joseph Smith! So that's cool! We also found out that a sister who was attending our YSA wards for only social aspects decided that she wants to learn more of the spiritual side of our religion so that's wonderful!    

   Monday we had district meeting And then we had a lesson with a recent convert but she didn't show up which stinks! but that's life. Yesterday was Crazy! We ended up giving a blessing to this lad who lives in Inwood. that's a long and confusing story! but we ran into one of our potential investigators, an Asian woman named Jing. She was actually looking for us because she tried to call us but she couldn't read the phone number! (I wrote on the card! whoops!) but it just goes to show nothing not even bad handwriting will stop this work! Anyways it was a great week! I'm looking forward to next week! 

Love you all have a good one!

Elder Richards

 

I got my game ON!

What a view.

March 11, 2015 Just another week!

Hey everybody!
   This week has been alright, not to much crazy awesome stuff happened, Thursday we were going to meet with a lady interested in learning more about the church, but the day before we met with her she decided she wasn't interested anymore, so that is really unfortunate, but that's life I guess. Other than that, Thursday was mediocre at best. Friday we taught some crazy guy who a random member from somewhere wrote in, he has short term memory loss, and it was just a very interesting lesson. Then we had dinner that was interesting also.
   Saturday was interesting also, it appears I'm the only one with the ability to clean in our apartment so I did some cleaning because it was really bothering me. We also got to go to Steven Pendergrass's apartment for dinner, he is an awesome guy. And we had a great dinner.
   Sunday we had church. Sait, the less active member we helped to reactivated gave a talk, it was awesome. He also set up the sacrament as well, we helped him to do that. Anyways we also had one of our ward missionaries bring a potential investigator to church, she's from Shanghai or something but she really enjoyed the meetings but she hasn't set a date to meet with us yet. But hopefully she will soon. And come to church again on Sunday.
   Monday was not so good, I had a migraine most of the day, and I hated it so once it was mostly gone I got up and we went to work. It was a really nice day which was nice. We tracked some projects but yeah the latter part of the day was much better. Elder Essler forgot to take his med pills that day so that was rough.
   Yesterday was pretty good I interviewed most of the district which was cool. It was rainy but I really enjoyed it. But really nothing to crazy happened this week. The wildest thing was we were walking to the temple, and there was a ton of teen girls in front of the Lincoln center. Then some guy crossed the street and they all started screaming and chasing him, it was like a movie. Pretty wild though!

Love ya

Elder Richards

March 4, 2015 Training, training, training.....

Hey everybody this week was petty good,
   On Thursday we had to members from the quorum of the 70 come, so that was really cool. They talked a lot about the gospel of Jesus Christ. it was a four hour training but it seemed like 30 minutes. it was awesome! I took a ton of good notes.
   Anyways then on Friday we did a crazy planning session, I helped Elder Essler get the gist of how our area works. But that was the main event of the day. Saturday we went to a baptism for a guy I was privileged to interviewed. It was really awesome. He is so prepared to receive the gospel. It's awesome to see! 
   Sunday was pretty good, everything seemed quieter than usual which was weird. Monday we had interviews with president which
was pretty awesome! He's a great guy! I really enjoyed chatting with him! He gave me some awesome things to think about which is sweet!
   Then we had a three hour training by the APs it was good though! A lot of training! then yesterday we had district meeting which was pretty good, and we then got mail and had two lessons it was pretty busy!
   Today we are going to go wander around Elder Essler has some stores he wants to check out so we are gonna be all over! 
   Have a great week though!

Preach the gospel to the world!

Elder Richards