Primary Cuts Off My Tie - Captain Moroni-Bear - Funny!

JUNE 20, 2016

Dear everyone,

So we've had a number of things happen this week.

On Monday after emailing, The Avengers (Elder Crosby, Taylor, Sparks, and I) all went to a sports park here and town and played football and baseball! It was tons of fun! That night we went out on a team up with a recently moved in member who is recovering from getting shot in the arm by a gun!! So he can only drive one-handed and it was kinda sketch the entire time driving with him cause it's his non dominant hand that he has to drive with! 

On Thursday we had a lesson with our investigator John and we invited him to baptized!!! John said that when he comes to know it's true he would love to be baptized! john is an honest truth seeker that wants to follow God the best that he can. We left him Moroni 10: 3-5 to read and we're seeing him tomorrow to see what he thought about it.

We went and taught Jada almost all of her new member lessons. She and her mom are both excited for when she turns 12 so that she can go do baptisms for the dead!  And her mom is starting to work on going through the temple.

On Sunday night Elder Sparks and I walked in and noticed that our leather chair was gone. Immediately we went searching around the house and found it in our bedroom. Turns out our District Leader (he has a key to our apartment) and his companion came by and moved it and left a little surprise in it for us. It was pretty funny. i hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day!!! love ya!

Elder Richardson

P.S. So on Sunday we went into the Primary for a little activity. The kids were learning a song and the better they sang, the more of our tie they would cut off! Eventually it got to the point where the the kids were just screaming the song so that our ties would get cut off! it was so much fun!! haha they gave us other ties to put on though so we didn't actually have one of ours cut off.

PRIMARY CUTS OFF OUR TIES!

MORONI-BEAR

Eyebrows Threaded - The PRICE IS RIGHT!

June 13, 2016

Dear all you beautiful people out there,

This last monday after I emailed, Elder Crosby, Elder Taylor, Elder Sparks, and I went to the mall! Elder Sparks and Elder Crosby went and got 20 minute massages while Elder Taylor and I went and got our eyebrows threaded!!! (ELder SParks and Elder Crosby talked us into it). Let me just say that it hurts!!! My eyebrows were super sensitive the rest of that day and the next!!! but, Elder Taylor's and my eyebrows are now ON FLEEK!!! We are two of the most handsome devils in Visalia now because of how ON POINT our eyebrows are now! 

Later that night we went to Jada's to start teaching her the new member lessons!!! She says that she still feels the SPirit from her baptism and we talked about how the Holy Ghost can always be her constant companion now as long as she is worthy of it! 

on Tuesday we went on exchanges, Elder Taylor came to my area for the day while Elder Sparks went to Elder Crosby's are with him. Elder Taylor and I had LOADS of fun!! We went to dinner that night at the Johnsons (awesome family in our ward; all of the families are awesome though) and they had that Jelly bean game called Bean Boozled! Elder Taylor and I probably ate about 12 Jelly beans each and spit out about 10 of them!! They were so GROSSS! For some of them we even did 2 at a time and both got the combination of booger and barf! It was pretty nasty! Dinner was great and made those nasty jelly bean tastes go away.

on Wednesday, Elder Crosby had to go with some other District Leaders to a meeting in Fresno so Elder Taylor stayed with Elder Sparks and I for another 8 hours!! It was awesome! Tri-panionships are tons of fun on bikes!!! We went to Jasmines (newer investigator) and taught the Restoration! The Spirit was super strong and we invited her to be baptized on the 25th of June!! We're so excited for her! She is 20 though, so we might have to hand her off to the YSA  Elders. but we're still happy for her!! 

on Friday, our ward had a party that we went too! The theme was based off the TV show, "The Price is Right". it was awesome! And the theme of it was based on Food Storage and it's importance! We were able to get a Less Active family to come and their 11 yr old daughter was picked to be a contestant and won the even she was in!!! It was definitely a good experience for them. That's about it for this week though! I love you all!!

Elder Richardson

Elder Taylor getting his eyebrows done

THE PRICE IS RIGHT! - Food Storage Theme

Jada Got Baptized

June 6, 2016

Peeps,

Where to begin...

On Thursday we had a team up with us and we went to drop by a less-active member's house and she let us right in even though we were unexpected. We went inside and one of her friends were there. We talked with them all for a while and then Elder Sparks and I did A little overview of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ!  Afterwards we asked if she'd like to learn more and she said yes!! her name is Valerie and she loves what our church does. She loves the fact the we have missionaries who serve the Lord full time for 2 years and wishes other Christian groups would do it too! We're going back on Friday to have another lesson with her!

Friday morning we got up and got ready right away and went to an 8th grade promotion/ graduation thing for one of our less active members who are starting to come back to church!! It was a solid 94 degrees and everyone was dying and I was just sitting there like, "This isn't even hot people!" I didn't even break a sweat while others were out there practically melting! Props of growing up in AZ :). It was cool though. I've never heard of a promotion ceremony to high school but it was fun! They kinda treated it like they were like really graduating high school though. Kinda a sad day when they realize they still have 4 more years to go!!!

On Saturday was jada's baptism and it was awesome!!!!!!1 We started a little late but it happened! She got baptized! After about 2 years she has finally gotten baptized! I'm so proud of her and the steps she is taking to continue to better her relationship with God. 

On Sunday, a little 8 year old boy who literally could be my brothers twin got up and bore his testimony. the Spirit was so strong while he bore it and he even started crying and had to stop so he could wipe away his tears! At that point is when the WHOLE congregation started just bawling because of this little boys testimony. It was so simple but it was so genuine which is what made it so powerful. That can be the same as all of us. We may not all have HUGE testimonies of the gospel, but if our testimonies our genuine, no matter how long, can be some of the most powerful tools in our lives. Just like the scriptures say,"By small and simple things can great things come to pass". I love you all1! And hope everyone is having a wonderful beginning to their summer so far!! 

ELder Richardson

Left:  I broke a branch off a tree by accident....don't know my own strength still. I was kinda playing with it and ripped it clean off.

Right:  I need an umbrella to protect me from the heat of the moon. :) 

JADA'S BAPTISM!

HERE'S MY GARDEN

I took this on Wednesday and they have already doubled in size again!! The corn reaches the top of my chest now!! Ad the squash and cantaloupe have flowers now!! 

GREAT QUESTIONS - NEW SUITS :)

May 30, 2016

Dear supporters of the Elder Richardson mission!, 

This past week has been filled with many adventures! 

So the garden continues to double in size every week!! I forgot to take a picture of it this past week or else I would totally show y'all!! but it is awesome!! 

We found 2 new investigators this past week! Their names are Bill and Victor and they both have a pretty good knowledge of the Bible and some very good questions to back them up too! They are both pretty cool though. Bill has just recently lost his wife too cancer back in January and was wondering if he will be reunited with her as husband and wife again; and Victor has questions about having prophets here on the earth today. Good questions right? What makes this better is that we answered their questions using the Bible and then introduced the Book of Mormon to them and said that could help answer more of their questions and they both committed to read it!!

SO, we have a baptism this Saturday for Jada!! And we are more than excited for her! Elder Sparks is going to be baptizing her and it's his first time baptizing so i am more than thrilled for him!! 

Nicole is still working to stop smoking by the 4th so she can be baptized on the 18th of this month! So please pray for her! She really wants to stop but doesn't have a lot of faith in herself that she can cause she has been smoking since she was 12 years old!!!

Yesterday after church we got a call to go to the hospital and give one of our members a blessing. His name is Brother McNabb; he's 81 and has congestive heart failure and pneumonia. He is the sweetest old man you will ever meet though! So if y'all could send a prayer his way that he will be ok as well that would be great!  That's all for this week!1 i love you all and hope you're all doing great!!

Elder Richardson

PS:  Elder Pace (my trainer) is home now.  it's just crazy to me. I'm so happy I got serve with my best friend though.

Elder Taylor and I wanna get some different colored suits ;) - see below: