June 24, 2015 Good by Elder Ficklin hello Elder Dutson

This week has been pretty good! 

   It was Elder Ficklin's last week as a missionary and it was the Blooming Arts Festival also! so it was nuts!

   Anyways Thursday and Friday were both spent setting up for the art festival. We were essentially the heavy lifters for it which is alright. There are a lot of artsy folk in this ward so the ward was up and down it. I was more of a quiet observer. 

   Anyways Saturday was the actual festival. It was really nice we spent the majority of the day talking to people at the festival, and making sure nobody stole any of the art! And then once it was over, everybody left and the taking everything down responsibility fell to us, but oh well. It needed to be done. Afterwords we got transfer calls, I found out I was going to train, but the missionary's visa didn't get accepted again! Its the second one in a row! anyways Elder Dutson is my new companion from Oak City Utah, its a small town between Payson and Delta. he seems pretty cool though! so that's cool! 

   Sunday was good, Elder Ficklin said goodbye to the members and one of the really cool families the Ortons told us we just radiate happiness and they really like us as the missionaries here. It was a really kind and nice experience. 

   Monday was district meeting, I taught about consecration and missionary work it was one of my better lessons I think. After words we went to a really cool members house! And we had a really fun talk about missionary work! 

   Yesterday was spent by me cleaning and him packing! We had a really cool thunderstorm yesterday too! And now I'm just moving stuff around for transfers. But yeah! My new companion seems really cool! 

   Things are good here! One of our investigators we think Is meeting with the j-dubs (jehovahs witness) so that stinks we are trying to get ahold of him but his phone seems to be broken! And our recent convert Ross is solid! He's going to a members house with us for dinner so it will be awesome! President Smith is still in Utah! He got set apart today and is at the MTC with a ton of other new mission presidents now! He gets here on Monday I think!

   The new mission president is being set apart today by Elder Ballard! It's exciting! Just a lot of stuff is happening and it's really fun!

   My comp seems really cool he is a worker which is rad! I'm looking forward to this cycle I think it will be a good one!

   I'm know this is a good thing to do right now! And I hope I can grow, President told us today the most important thing about a mission is for you yourself to change, which is a good thing I think! I'm trying to be my best!

Anyways have a good one! Love you!

Elder Richards

June 17, 2015 President Morgan and Elder Ficklin leaving :(

So this week has been a good one,

Thursday was a quiet day we just taught our usual lessons nothing to exciting there.

Friday was the same too, nothing crazy happened other then it was wicked hot here! I’ve been drinking tons of water!

Saturday was pretty good! We had an odd amount of ward meetings we went to but it was good because it was cooking outside! Luckily we avoided most of the heat. Drinking tons of water! We are on an art festival committee to help get ready for an art festival on Saturday. The people on the committee are really cool and funny too so it’s a blast, I think its going to be a good turnout.

Sunday was really crazy! We went to church and it was good, then afterwards we went to one of our member’s art gallery open house thing, and talked to her husband for a while, he is really a cool guy! He does nonprofit work in Africa and is there a ton! But he is a really good and nice guy. After words we went and visited a less active named Sanjay, he is from India and somehow he is a Scottish prince. So that’s weird! But he's really cool! We talked a lot about what was keeping him from coming to church. I think he will be coming this Saturday. Then after that we went to a dinner appointment which was pretty good. I enjoyed it. Our dinner appointments are stacked due to Elder Ficklin leaving and we are looking to have a very busy week so that's really good! I'm going to miss President Morgan.

Monday was pretty average Elder Ficklin had his exit interview and they were running behind schedule as well so that took a good while,

Then Tuesday we spent the morning doing service by painting, it was really good! It is just fun to paint walls for some reason and not have to wear a shirt and tie.  Then after words a member from the Spanish ward takes the whole zone out to lunch once a transfer so we went and Elder Ficklin and I ate horse steaks they were really chewy. But that was the week! 

Today I’m with Elder Holtom while Elder Ficklin is at the temple with President and transfers are next week! So that’s fun! Anyways have fun during Strawberry days! Love you!

Elder Richards

Doing the weekly's

June 10, 2015 President Morgan's last Zone Conference

Hello all!

This has been a pretty good week so far!  Thursday was a pretty average day! We taught some lessons nothing to crazy, Friday was like unto it. Except on Friday we went on splits with the APs because they are doing a miniature mission tour. So that was cool. We went and looked up a less active. And he was totally cool with chatting. It was a good lesson!

Anyways Saturday we got to go help at the Cub Scout carnival! It was pretty nice they hooked us up with bagel bites which are totally rad! I was impressed with it too; it was a pretty nice little shindig.

Sunday was good also we went to a dinner appointment with a family who is really into church history so it was cool to talk about it and stuff! I really enjoyed it!

 Monday was sort of crazy I taught district meeting and the. We came home for lunch and our bishop called us out of the blue and asked if we would come help him move a member who is moving in. So we went to the address and they pull up on a truck and we start unloading this stuff, and elder Ficklin and I got to move a fold up bed couch and those things are wicked heavy! It stunk! We had it up one flight of stairs and it took about 15 minutes and we were both drenched in sweat. But we ended up getting it to the apartment. So we head home and Elder Ficklin jumped in the shower when the bishop called again to have us help another member move, he found out about both moves about 2 hours before they wanted to have people there, anyways we show up at this one and I ended up mostly packing the kitchen and doing their dishes so they could pack them. It was great service but we got them on their way so hooray.

Yesterday we had zone conference it was pretty awesome, I took a ton of notes so that's a good thing! It was President Morgan's sort of goodbye it was sad because he is so cool but it was good too. He is going to be missed! But he gave a great talk to us about consecration, and also he just gave us good advice. It was really a special meeting. I loved it.

Things are good here! Today our goal is to skateboard the entire island starting at our house which is at the very top all the way to south ferry at the bottom of the island. So that should be fun we are making stops along the way too, so I can hopefully check in with you guys! It's Elder Ficklin’s last real p-day today. And this is what he wanted to do. Yeah our skate trip ended rather abruptly, we were riding across a weird bridge thing on the river, I hit a bump and jumped off so I wouldn't fall and the bump hit my board in such a angle as to send it flying off the bridge. So I walked home. It stunk. I spend a good while just staring into the river; Elder Ficklin captured a picture of it. It really stinks. But life keeps going

 But yeah zone conference was awesome. Its crazy it's already summer vacation, the school year was just starting when I left! Its nuts! Time flies!

But that's the extent of my week! I hope you all have a great next week.

Elder Richards

President Morgan, Elder Richards, Elder Ficklin, Sister Morgan

My board is in there!

June 3, 2015 Baptism was Great

This week has flown by!

            Holy cow! It has been really good too! Thursday we had interviews with president Morgan it was really good! He goes home soon and I’m going to miss him! It is always good to chat with him! Later we went over the final details of Ross's baptism with him. Which is always a good thing!  

            Friday I got to go to the Mission Leadership council. Usually its just Zone leaders but District Leaders are invited every now and again. So I hopped on a train up to Scarsdale, It was nice to see a ton of my friends there also! We talked about a lot of stuff at the meeting. We are going to be online Proselyting again so that will be fun! One of the senior sisters in the office got up and threw down on baptismal forms being filled out incorrectly. (The one for Ross was filled out perfectly at this point) So I just sat back and enjoyed my self as she showed some examples of some bad ones. And it must be hard for some people.

            Saturday was Ross's Baptism it was really good! He didn’t want a whole ton of people there so we kept it Low key, Two of our other investigators came which is solid.

Then the people giving talks, a couple from the ward and the bishop and elders quorum President and that’s basically the crew. We called in the heavy hitters for the talks though. And they delivered. Brother Gay gave the first talk and I always love his Elders Quorum Lessons but he did a great job, Ross got Baptized then Brother Scott gave a fantastic talk on the Holy Ghost. So at this point I was letting my guard down because the scheduled talks were done so Bishop got up and I thought it was going to be a cheesy welcome to the ward but he basically gave an amazing talk on how wards work and how we are a support and just how awesome being in a ward is. I did not see it coming. It was a passionate talk I loved it. Then the Elders Quorum President got up and taught from the book of Mormon, which was awesome! And then it was done! It was really good though!

            Sunday I confirmed Ross a member, and for some reason I was so nervous my knees were shaking! I couldn't figure out why. And then all of a sudden they quit buckling and I got on with the blessing!  I don't know it was pretty weird.

            Monday was pretty slow the highlight of the day was Zone Leader Training and it

was mediocre. Not much to talk about there.  

            Yesterday we went to get mail and to give the office elders the baptismal form but we missed them so we went and put posters up for a ward art festival coming up around our area. Then we taught a guy named Mark. He is progressing really slowly. Then we had dinner with some cool members and on our way home we got some hot chocolate at Starbucks and we ended up teaching the plan of salvation to a lesbian Rabbi. It threw me for a loop. She tried to confound us with Woman not having the priesthood, and then we explained that both genders have equal yet separate rolls. And she asked us what Gender God is and it blew her Mind when we said we have heavenly parents. Anyways that is the most recent detail. We are going downtown today to buzz around! But hope you all have a great week!

Our newest member!

Elder Richards