Staying in Visalia!

5/23/2016

Dear Peeps,

Garden update: The corn has doubled in size already!!It's crazy to see how big it's gotten already!! And Samantha the watermelon (yes we named all of our garden plants....)is doing very well too!! 

This week was pretty exciting! On Thursday we did service from 8 in the morning till 3 in the afternoon for our investigator Nicole!!! Again I have to give credit to my parents for making me pull weeds when i was younger! Cause we definitely got our fair share of weeds that day!! it was all worth it though because nicole only had 3 cigarettes that whole day because of us being there to help her not do it!!! 

On Friday we had a zone conference and Elder Cardon of the seventy was their!!! It was a really awesome conference and I definitely learned a lot to help me be an even better missionary! 

On Saturday we had transfer calls!!!1 Annnnnnnnnnnndddddd (drum roll please) Elder Sparks and I are staying together in Visalia!! We are pretty happy about it too. We were both worried one of us might get transferred and didn't want to be because we both know that there is more work for the both of us to do here together!! 

Also, on Saturday we found a new investigator named Teneya. She was a media referral from Salt Lake. We went by to visit her and talked with her at her front door. She has just recently moved from LA and talked with missionaries back in 2008. She has a pretty good knowledge of the Bible and is willing to learn more! We taught her the Restoration and the Spirit was SO STRONG! She set up 2 appointments in advance for us to come back! So we are going to see her Wednesday and Saturday!! We are going to invite her to be baptized on Wednesday as well so we are very excited!!

On Sunday we had stake conference and afterwards we went to Elder Crosby and Elder Taylor's apartment and had lunch! We cooked hamburgers and pasta! It was pretty yummy. 

That's all for this week! I love you all!!! 

Elder Richardson

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED - ELDER BEAR

5/16/2016

Dear everyone,

Holy cow this week has been fun!!

On Monday we went to Buffalo Wild Wings and Elder Taylor (missionary in my district) decided to do the 'Blazin' Challenge. The 'Blazin' Challenge is 12 wings with their hottest sauce straight out of the oven and you have top do it in 6 minutes! And if you do it the meal is free and you get a free shirt! So seeing the opportunity to save money Elder Taylor and I both ordered a Blazin Challenge. And we did it! It wasn't even hot (thanks the Hmong peppers for ruining spicy foods for me for life)!!! I did it in 5:40 and Elder Taylor did it in 5:47!! It was tons of fun doing it at the same time as someone else and would do it again in a heartbeat! After that we went to Lowes and bought startups for our garden!!! We have 12 corn, 2 watermelons, 1 squash, 1 cucumber, and 1 cantaloupe!! And they are all doing well and are excited to keep growing!! We tore apart the rocks we had in our backyard and tilled up the ground and got right to work! The corn has already grown like 5 inches! Our "kids" are growing up so fast! 

On Tuesday our district leader had to go to something Fresno and got a ride with a member so we got to use their car!! We  knew we only had the one day with the car so we knew we had to go all out...so we found an extra suit that had been here from a past missionary, a shirt that's a little ripped up from one of my bike accidents, a belt, and a tie, and we dressed up Elder bear!!! We even put one of my Hmong name tags on him and then we put him in the back seat of our car!! Haha it was so much fun and lots of people thought he was so cute!!! A little later we went and helped a less active member move a bed into another room and found out he's missing 3 toes!! Isn't that cool?! HAHA because we helped them they offered to take us to home town buffet this next Monday! We're excited for that! 

On Wednesday, we went over to Jada's and solidified her date for June 4th for her baptism. Her family is going to be coming from LA and Utah so it's going to happen for sure!!! 

On Friday we went to a ward barbecue and saw one of our old investigators their! It was nice to see him again even though he was a little awkward around Elder Sparks and I.

on Saturday we went over to Nicole's and talked to her about her baptism again. She truly committed to be baptized on June 18th!! She even came to the Addiction Recovery Program meeting the next day at the institute building.

Today, we went with like 10 other missionaries up to the Sequoias! It was a blast!! We're all exhausted but the sights are absolutely breath taking and worth the hikes!!! 

That's all for this week!! Love you all!! Hope everything is going well for you!!

Elder Richardson

Proselyting with "Elder Bear"

We saw a wild Bear out in this green meadow!!    

That's a BEAR in the distance

  

MOTHERS DAY

5/9/2016

Happy Mother's DAY!!! 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day! This week Elder Sparks and I were on fire!! We found 8 new investigators this week! 

We picked up this girl named Monique is the girlfriend to another one of our investigators named Manuel and they both want to take the lessons together!! Then we found the Munoz family (family of 6) who have been taught by missionaries before but decided to give us another go! Elder Sparks, one of our members, and I went over on Wednesday night and were just a testimony POWERHOUSE to them about how much the gospel has changed our lives and how much it can change theirs!! We're going to see them again on Wednesday! Then we found a guy named Robert. He's a single father of I think 2 children. he has a strong faith in Christ but isn't thrilled about church! We're excited to help him continue to get closer to Christ though! 

We also set a date with an 11 yr. old girl named Jada for June 4th! She's part of a Part-member family that have been coming back to church more and more! 

Some funny things that happened this week: 

-my companion gave me a black eye while we were wrestling (he just threw elbows the entire time!!! What a cheater!! ) 

- Elder Sparks and I have this thing we do now called "Date Night". Ever Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night after we are in for the night we go out onto our little back patio and have a "date". The other night we had a tub of ice cream and some FRESH (like picked that morning from  the farm) STRAWBERRIES!!! It's awesome! We love doing it!

-On Wednesday morning we were helping a member move and they gave us a GIANT life size teddy bear! We named him Elder Bear and we make him do everything we do around the apartment so he doesn't feel left out. He's kinda creepy to look at at night though so we make him sleep in a chair in the other room.

- On Saturday we were walking down the street and a drunk bride yelled out the window for us to come to her house! We weren't going ionto until the car she was in pulled into a driveway 3 houses in front of us! So we kept walking and she came stumbling out of the car and yelled at us to "convert her". Her friends told us that she had just gotten married and was really nervous beforehand so she had a couple drinks. The kicker is she's like 5 ft even and a couple drinks gets her pretty much drunk off her rocker which why she was the way she was now. It was hilarious though. She even started to follow us down the street after we said bye! And a little while later we were walking back by the same house and saw her puking in her front yard! 

Mother's Day was awesome! I am so happy I got talk to my family! It was so cool! I hope you all did something to show your Mother that you love her!! That's all for this week! Stay tuned for next week cause Elder Sparks and I are planting a garden in our tiny backyard this week! We're hoping to grow some corn, cucumbers, squash, and watermelon! Love you all! 

Elder Richardson

Grilling at it's finest!

Elder Bear

       

Dinner with Collinwood Family

MY BIRTHDAY!

5/2/2016

Dear cool kids,

Today's my birthday!! Yippee!! I'm 19 now!! Now I only have 365 more days till my next birthday!!! 

Haha Everyone keeps asking me what I'm doing for my birthday and I'm just like, "well we have these potential investigators we're going to see later tonight." SO ya! Another day in the life of a missionary!

This week was pretty fun! 

We picked up an investigator named Ericka this week! She's a single gal with 2 kids and really cool tattoos!! She is a strong Christian but is still in the middle of some intense soul searching. Which is perfect and she asks us all the right questions! We are going back to see her tomorrow to start reading the BOM with her tomorrow. 

We did a lot of service this week as well, Elder Sparks and I did about 20 hours of Service a piece this week! It was awesome! We helped a family move twice! Went and planted a ton of flowers for someone else, worked at an old folk’s home, etc...We are just serving machines!! And it is honestly a blast!! 

On Saturday our ward had a Desert Potluck with outdoor games activity that we were able to attend!! It was so much fun! We played wiffle-ball and kickball. And let's just say, I think the members enjoyed seeing me roll up my pant legs and get down and dirty with everyone else. Also, looks like I'm not allowed to play kickball with the ward anymore cause of how competitive I am. Haha just kidding I found a sister in the ward who's about as competitive as I am so it was ok!!! 

That's all for this week!! Love you all!! And everyone give your mom's a big ole wet one and tell her Happy Mother's Day on Sunday!!! 

Elder Richardson

I saw this random dog that was having a staring contest with me and wanted to take a picture without the people in the other car knowing...I won

 

Elder Sparks and I!!

I got to drive the  truck while towing all this stuff!! We call ourselves the Missionary Movers! We're pretty boss!

SNAKES STUMPS AND SCRIPTURES

4/25/2016

Dear peeps,

So this week I would like to thank my parents again for making me mow the lawn every Saturday morning cause we did a fun landscaping project for some other people this week and I hulked out and pulled a tree stump out of the ground! 

Also, I was able to brake not one but 2 bikes this week! Both of them happened while I was sitting on it and peddling like a normal person. Needless to say, because of all these injuries our area might be getting a car now!!!Woo!!!!!

Anyways, Elder Sparks and I have been on fire again this week and found another 3 investigators!! We have been talking with everything that breathes!!! (I started talking to a couple cats on our back fence at one point). It's been awesome!

We had this really fun street contact with this black guy who we are going to teach Saturday! As soon as we walked up he started rattling off scriptures at us and I can't remember how the conversation all went but I quoted John 3: 16-17 for him and then he said we could come by! I literally had just memorized it that morning for what I thought was no REASON!! But I definitely needed it! That's about it for this week though! Love you all!!

Elder Richardson

Matching Headbands

I found a SNAKE!!

  

Selfie with Elder Sparks

I HULKED-OUT this stump