FINDING FUN!

I just want to say that I love the last 3 months of the year!!! I just love colder weather in general! The weather here isn't much different from Arizona but the only difference is that here, it gets so foggy in the mornings that you can literally only see about 30 ft in front of you! Which is awesome and scarier than heck at the same time! 

This past week we did a lot of finding. We found a ton of Hmong people and asked them if they wanted to learn about God and if they said no then we asked if they had any friends that would like to learn! We ended up getting about 6 referrals total! We visited all 6 in one night and have return appointments for all but 1!! 

We also committed another person to baptism this week. Her name is Emily (she's not Hmong but is a roommate to Pa(a recent convert)). We have asked hr about 4 times to get baptized and she always said "maybe but not yet" until we had this awesome lesson at the church were she ended up crying and said yes!! She'll be getting baptized on January 9th!! That's about all that's happened this week though. I hope everything's going good for everyone back home!! Kuv Hlub Nej!

Elder Tub Ntxawg

18th year of siting on Santa's lap.  Can't break tradition!! :) 

left to right- Pa, Gabrielle-investigator, Mee, and Emily-just committed to baptism.

We pranked another companionship's car that was in the parking lot.

TRANSFERS Dec. 2015 - Receives Trainee

This is the full video.

This is the same video of Daniel only.

MERCED CHRISTMAS PARADE

Nyob zoo, 

This past week was crazy awesome and just overall fantastic!! After emailing last week,  we went out with our favorite recent converts for lunch (they didn't know I wasn't leaving yet) and then went to take pictures at a park! Halfway through lunch (we went to Denny's) I told them I was staying and they were both beyond excited!!! 

On Tuesday we finally decorated our apartment! We found a HUUUGGGGEE box of Christmas supplies and got right to work! We ended up finishing around 2 AM but it was all worth it!! 

On Wednesday we had the amazing opportunity to go to the temple with my companion to get together our thoughts on how we want to train our trainee. Unfortunately since we stayed up till 2 we slept past our alarms and had to cut off a half hour of the hour and a half trip to the temple. it started at 9:30 and we ended up getting to the parking lot at 9:29 (we left at 8:27). We rushed inside the temple just to find out the session had just started. We were super bummed at first, but then we had the opportunity to go be witnesses to sealings for an hour!!! it was amazing!!! I learned so much during hat and we think that that is what the Lord wanted us to do!! Later that night we were visiting some of elder Pace's recent converts from Fresno and this one lady fed us what looked like beef on a stick. Turns out it was bear meat!!1 It was so weird to find that out but strangely...it's pretty good!!!

Thursday Elder Pace and I got our trainee!!!!! his name is Elder Gray and he's tons of fun! he's from West Jordan, Utah and loves everything basketball!! He's super good at Hmong too!!! 

On Saturday we got be in the Merced Christmas parade!! WE went around handing out over 1500 pass along cards!!! It was amazing! I felt like a STAR! I evenn got the crowd going oce cause when we were introduced I screamed, "YEEEAAAHHH WE"RE THE MOOOOOORRRMMMOONNNSSSSS!! WHAT UP EVERYBODY!!!" and people starting whooping and screaming! This one black lady screamed, " AWWW LAAAAWWWWDDD! THESE PEOPLE ARE HERE TO SAVE ME!" I don't know if she was being sarcastic or not but I ran onto the sidewalk and gave her a high five and a pass along card anyways. Aftwer the parade we were starting our mile and a half walk back to our car and I saw this huge group of cheerleaders...so naturally being the nice guy that I am I said "Merry Christmas ladies" to all of them. I kid you not, every single one of them in unison told me Merry Christmas back! It was awesome!! I've also found out this weird thing I have developed, every time I say Merry Christmas I wink at the person I said it too. So I winked at about 150 girls and 50 guys on the way back to our car....

Yesterday we went to an investigators house and went in planning to invite her to be baptized, we got about halfway through our lesson and were told by one of our recent converts that she had just had a couple of "drinks"...so that way depressing! But we're meeting with her again on Tuesday to teach her the Word of Wisdom!!! We can't wait!! I hope you all had a wonderful week!! Love you!!!

Elder Tub Ntxawg

SELFIE

3 Months out!!!!

Hello Everbody!!!!!, 

How has everyone's week been!? Mines been the craziest one of my life so far and here's why....Holy cow this past weekend has been such a roller coaster of emotions!!! The week was awesome! Monday we picked up a new investigator from one of our recent converts and she already agreed to get baptized!! She wants to come to church first before setting a date though so hopefully she can make it this Sunday!! And then we had a total of 6 Thanksgiving dinners!! But yet I was still able to lose 2 lbs!!! And then to top it all off, Saturday was the longest day of my mission thus far!! Nobody was opening doors, everybody was canceling on us, and to top it all off we were both super anxious about transfers! SO when we finally went home for the night we both had massive butterflies about call out. We got it at 10:30 and listened to it and freaked out! I was a Hmong Elder! After about 5 minutes of hooting and hollering and hugs we got a call from the zone leaders saying the Assistants missed saying that I would also be getting transferred...I went from the happiest I've ever been to absolutely crushed. I sat on the floor until it was time for bed with my head in my hands. I was so crushed. I was so confident I would be a Hmong Elder that hearing that I wasn't literally broke my heart. I didn't want to leave. I love the people here sooo much! I had worked so hard for this! We had a lot of investigators that we are preparing to invite to baptism within these next few weeks. We both just were down in the dumps for the night. I prayed and was laying in bed at 11 and then decided I wasn't going to be able to sleep until I really prayed to God. So i got on my knees and poured my heart out to him. I told him how grateful I was to have served in the Hmong Elder. I asked for comfort and immediately I got it. I asked for continued guidance and thanked him so much for the opportunity to go to a new area! I went to bed that night excited for transfers again. I couldn't wait to meet my new companion and go serve in a new area! And then we got a call at 8:34 exactly this morning from President I thought i was getting called to train a new Elder and I got even more excited! But, then he  said I was staying with Elder Pace and that we were training together... we both leaped up, knocking over our chairs and just hugged and bounced around! We are ecstatic and have more fire and desire than ever now! 

So thank you to everyone who prayed for me!! I appreciate it sooooooooo much! I am so honored to continue as an OFFICIAL Hmong Elder for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and cannot wait to see what the future holds in store for me!! 

I love you all!!!! 

Elder Richy!!!

No! Don't Leave!

Another Baptism - Members Take Care of us.

Hellllo My HIttas on the other side of the border of CALI!!!,

     This week was a new milestone for me! I finally got sick on my mission!!!! It was the worst thing in the world!!! I developed some sort of food poisoning Tuesday night and was up throwing up from 1-5 AM. Twas not fun. I was sick until Friday before I could go out and do anything again. Being sick as a missionary absolutely sucks!!!!!! You can't do ANYTHING!!!!!!! It is 10 times worse than being sick at home! I've never wanted to go out and do something more in my life than when I was sick! And I don't know if any of you have ever seen The Testaments (highly recommended, he end makes me cry every time) but I can quote that movie from beginning to end now....

     Sam's baptism this last Saturday was freaking hectic....We told him to be at the church at 5:30 and by 5:55 he was nowhere to be found!!! We sent out 3 different search parties for him and Elder Pace and I rode with our BML (branch mission leader) and finally found him on the other side of town just chilling at his sisters!!! So we didn't even start till 6:45! After that it went great though. Amid all the confusion nobody got pictures sadly (sorry mom).

      This week is Thanksgiving and my companion and I are so blessed as to have 4 Thanksgiving meals!!! So much for the 30lbs that I've dropped. Oh well, at least the members love me enough to feed me!!!

      Last thing, so this Saturday is transfer calls. Which means, this is the Saturday that I will find out whether or not I am staying a Hmong missionary!!! Pray for me please cause I really want to stay a Hmong missionary more than anything else in the world!!! I love you all! Happy Thanksgiving!! 

Kuv hlub koj, 

Elder Richy!

 

P-DAY - Do you think my Missionary TAG is visible?

Zone Conference and Cool Swords/knives!!

Was Up My Hittas, 

    So this past week was awesome!   We also had a zone conference this week that was amazing!! These Elders gave a training about being Exactly Obedient and I've never been more excited to be obedient in my life!!! They talked about Alma and Amulek and their journeys and teachings throughout the land and how because they were always obedient, not only were they saved from a burning fire but they converted thousands of people!!! I left that conference so pumped and just ready to kill people with the gospel (in a spiritual sense). 

     Also, i went on an exchange this week and we went to this members house who had this INSANE sword collection!!! I was in HEAVEN! He has a sword from the Civil War that still had blood stains on it!! 

    It's been raining a bit up here but that's about it! But we have another baptism this Saturday that we are preparing for!

     Love you all!!, 

Elder Richy

Asian machete!

Don't get me agree.

Civil War Swords at an investigators house - he collects them.

I like to play with big knives!! :) 

Fog every morning.

At the other Hmong missionaries' apartment there's a big drawing of Navoo.  Pretty cool.

Just a cool selfie.

I know what you're thinking... was the car in motion?  We may never know.

Pang was baptized - I baptized her

11/9/15

Hello Beautiful people in support of the Elder Richardson Mission Foundation!, 

Guess what!?!?!? Your homie had his first baptism on Saturday and baptized this petite little Hmong lady!!! She's so aweome! The baptismal service went great and no I didn't mess up! We have 3 more invetigators getting baptized in the next 2 months as well! I'm so happy and love them so much!! I love the Lord and this opportunity he has given me to come serve in the California Fresno Mission and am so excited for the many wonderful things this mission has to offer!!! 

Also, yesterday we went and did a baptismal interview for this little boy that live in Los Banos and they had a pillar in front of their church, so obviously...i took pictures in it. I love you all! 

Kuv Hlub Koj,

Pang was baptized.  My companion and I. The interviewing missionary Elder Cunningham and his companion.

We all look better in White.

Halloween / Airplane Service

Nyob Zoo!, 

SO this past week was pretty awesome! Every other Tuesday my companion and I go to this plane museum and help kill wasps and pull weeds and stuff. But then we are aloud o go explore the museum. Well this past week I was exploring with one of my favorite Elders (Elder Smith) and we found out that we can get on top of the planes by pushing random buttons on the side of the planes hat cause ladders to sprout out! He and I are pretty close ( he was also a wrestler back in high school so we are pretty comfortable with each other...). We took pictures on the plane and then saw some workers coming so we hid on top of the plane until they drove away. It was a close call but we jumped off before they came back. It was lots of fun. 

Halloween was pretty fun, the recent converts brought up two other Hmong Elders from Fresno (basically our best friends) and we played at a park for about an hour and the had some intense volleyball/basketball games at the church for 6 hours!! SO ya that was a pretty eventful Halloween.

So after the prayers and fasting of everyone in the Merced stake....we finally got rain!!! On Monday it started raining at like 4 in the morning and didn't stop till about 9 that night! it was awesome!! 

This Saturday we have a BAPTISM!!!! And I couldn't be more excited!!! She is Hmong and I am most likely going to baptize her (I've said about 5 words in Hmong to her total and she absolutely adores me more than my companion for some reason but hey I'm not complaining). So ya I'll take lots of pictures for you all to see! Kuv Hlub Koj! 

Elder Richardson

Holloween - Learning HMONG

So this week my companion and I did some fun things! we decorated our apartment for Halloween!! (thank you mom for the package!) And we absolutely love it! I'm starting to really understand Hmong a lot better and can usually keep up in the conversation! As for my speaking....that's definitely still a work in progress, but i will get there! I want to become a Hmong Elder so badly!! And i will get there slowly but surely!! 

I found out like a week and a half ago me and Cogi have the same Hmong name. So he put me in their family! The mom even calls me her son in Hmong now! And Cogi is my older brother (Big Jer) and I am obviously his younger brother (little Jer). I love Cogi more and more everyday. And on Tuesday, he told me that he finally gets to see his kids that he hasn't seen in over 5 years!!!!!!!!  I guess you could say...I was a little excited. Also, we comitted two investigators to get baptized in November!! One's name is Christina whose like 48 and she is alright. Her date isn't completely solid cause it took us a half hour for her to give us a straight yes or no answer about baptism. But hey she said yes!!! And the other one's name is Sam, he's 24 and stays at home all day raising chickens. He knows the BOM is true and reads it without us telling him too! Christina is getting baptized November 21 and Sam is on November 14.

Last thing...I LOVE MY COMPANION!! He is a straight gift from God! We get along so well and we love each other and make fun of each other all the time!! (it's a guy thing) We pretty much do everything except snuggle...but hey that's ok! We still sing every Mormon gospel song known to man at the top of our lungs! Well, that's all for this week. 

Kuv Hlub Koj, 

Elder Richardson

Big Jer and Little Jer

Halloween Decorations 1

Halloween Decorations

Smoking and Smoothies

This week was interesting. Well we got our new car last Tuesday! It's the same thing but a year newer. 

So our investigator Cogi started smoking again so we have to push back his baptism date for November 7 which is annoying cause so many people want him to stop smoking so badly. But i know he'll pull through eventually!

So Elder pace and I have started dieting and every morning I make us delicious fruit smoothies (I like to thinkk I make the best smoothies ever). So all week we had amazing smoothies and then today came....all we had was apples and apple juice so i made a compromise. I made a smoothie with $ apples, apple juice, 2 eggs (for protein), 4 oreos (Elder Pace decided it was our cheat day), almond milk, and an ice tray full of ice. Needless to say, it was the single most disgusting thing I have ever had in my life, but it was our breakfast for the day so we drank every last drop!

That's about it for this week though! Love you all!

Kuv Hlub Koj!

Elder Richardson

P.S.- I've started saying my prayers in Hmong now!!

Air Bags don't feel so nice

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has been awesome!!! Last week I had the opportunity to go to Yosemite and it was soooooooo much fun!!! Some members took us and it was lots of fun!!! i got to hike 12 miles which was amazing!! Not much else happened that was too exciting this week.  We had to 2 investigators drop us this week which was disappointing but we are bouncing back hard by parking our car a block a way from our appointments and talking to EVERYONE we see on the way!! We have about 7 new appointments this next week because of it!!

Ok so here's a story that happened on this wonderful preparation day today, i was driving down the road and my light was green and apparently this lady in the turn lane on the other side thought her light was green too no she turned right in front of me. I put both feet on the brake and slammed them down as hard as I could!  I hit her front of the car and honestly I felt like I was in an explosion. Just to let you all know, airbags don't feel as awesome as they look. And mine didn't excatly work all the way and I ended up hitting my head on the steering wheel causing a massive headache. Funny thing is the girl that pulled in front of us got out and immediately said it was my fault. i just kind of looked at her and with a smile on my face said, "Hi nice to meet you too. I'm not too hurt just a bad headache. I'm Elder Richardson. Are you ok Ma'am?" She was very surprised and finally realized that she was kind of mean in what she did and said sorry. Other than a massive headache and whiplash I am pretty much ok. My companion got out without a scratch though! I know the Lord definitely protected the both of us from getting too injured though and i am so thankful for that! But ya that about wraps it up for the week . i love you all sooo much! Till next week!!!

Kuv Hlub Kaj!

Elder Richardson

Our Car

Bad Headache After Accident

1 MONTH - YOSEMITE

     I've been out on my mission for a month!!!! Holy crap!! Its gone by too fast!!! My HMong gets better everyday and my fridge just keeps filling up with more and more rice! Ok so this past week has absolutely been amazing!! On Tuesday I was able to testify to an  investigator about recovering from addiction and it made him cry! His name is Cogi and I got him to commit to stop smoking so he can get baptized on October 17! He's my favorite investigator ever! So my Hmong name that I was given means youngest son and  turns out thats his name too!!! So he calls me Little Cher and I call him Big Cher! He told me that I am now his brother! 

     Thursday was even more exciting cause we picked up 5 new investigators!!! And we are going to be teaching them all this next upcoming week! On Sunday we went to an old folks home and I had a very interesting experience...We went to give sacrament to 2 Hmong members staying there and there were 3 beds in there room, 2 for the couple and one with an old white lady. The Hmong couple only spoke Hmong so I wasn't much help to my companion. I was standing there smiling and looking pretty and the lady in the 3rd bed calls me over to her! her name is Annabelle and i think she has short term memory loss cause every few minutes she would look at me and ask who I was. When she first called me over she asked my name, told me i was cute, and that when I got off my mission she wanted me to marry her grandaughter! Thi happened 5 more times but with a new grandaughter she wanted me to marry each time. After that we played solitaire together cause that was her favorite game! in the end when I had to leave she kissed my hand and said i'm going to make a great grandson for her! 

So ya that was awesome! Thats all for this week! i love you all!!1 Next week i'll update you on my trip to Yosemite i took today!!!

Elder Richardson :)

MEE (that's really her name), Desmond next to me, me(Daniel), and my companion Elder Pace.
They are my favorite recent converts ever!

YOSEMITE

HOT PEPPERS / KUA TXOB (sounds like "quit" and "saw" put into one word)

Hiya Everybody!!! Lots of exciting news for this week!!!! To start....the unthinkable happened! I got a hair cut last Monday!!! I had to cut off my curly locks yet again! At first I didn't like it but now it's really growing on me! And just to let everyone know that are planning to serve missions. If you get called to learn another language and get to go to the MTC to learn your foreign language... I severely envy you...Not!! Learning a language out in the field is 10 times easier than at the MTC! You catch on with In-field experience! But it is still super hard! how it works is that one word can be said in 8 different tones and then turn into 8 different words! So the other night at dinner with a member i was trying to say no thank you I'm full, but i ended up saying "No thank you I farted". The member and his whole family erupted into laughter and I had no idea i said that until my companion told me 2 minutes later!! So ya, kinda embarrassing but still hilarious. .Oh and Hmong people love to send you home with more food then you actually ate. As a result: we took home about 5lbs of rice...Hmong people lovvve rice. Rice Everything! Anything you can think of they put rice in it...It's crazy! 

one last crazy story though. So Hmong people basically praise these peppers called kua txob (sounds like quit and saw put into one word). Anyways they are super hot. We had a member give us a full bag of them. So being the mature missionaries that my companion and I are...we decided to both eat 5 at the same time. What came next was the worst 10 minutes of my life. i immediately started bawling and my entire body was on fire. After 10 mintues of hell fire. I stared feeling better and then about 5 minutes later i threw up...and my comp took pics of the whole thing...Moral of the story: if you and your companion each eat really hot peppers and suffer together, you bond about 10 times faster. 

Last thing, the members here really love me cause they bought my comp and i some dope shades for when were cruising around town!! 

Love you all! Hope your week is amazing!! 

Kuv Hlub Koj!

Elder Richardson

AAAWWWWEEE YEEAAAA!! SUP?

Let's do this!!

I got this.

No Prob!

Notice the tear dripping down his right cheek.

I hope I thew it all up!