2-6-17 Give 1 away and Get 1

February 6, 2017

Hello!!

On Monday, we went over and had dinner with Jessica at a members home! She brought her kids and we taught her and her 8 year old daughter the message of the Restoration!! 

On Tuesday we had over 100 plus miles to use so we decided to spend the day in Three Rivers!! It was pretty and the river up there is just rushing along because of all the rain that we've been receiving here (it's raining today as well, by the way). Not super productive though! 

On Wednesday, we went and had a hand-off lesson with Laura with the YSA Elders...it was sad to hand her off! She's so solid!! But I know the YSA is where she will be able to grow in the gospel better with others her age.

On Thursday we went and taught Ray and Sasha the Word of Wisdom! They didn't commit to fully live it unfortunately though. But they did commit to trying out the Stop Smoking Program!!!

On Friday, I got to go on exchanges with Elder Facer (Spanish missionary). It was fun! I actually had a hand-off lesson him. They had some English people that they handed off to us. Cool family. They're names are Martin, Corina, Cecilia, and Marina. I only counted Martin as a new investigator for now though. He seems to be the most interested.

Unfortunately, we didn't have any investigators at church this week! Jessica's ids were sick and we actually had to take them to urgent care! We are going over in a little bit to give her kids a blessing. 

That's all for his week though!! Love you!!

Elder Richardson!

P.S. if any of you see a gorgeous blonde running around on Wednesday, it's probably my sister!! She's turning 17!!! Wish her a Happy Birthday!!! 

1-30-17 I'm staying in Exeter

January 30, 2017

Hey Hey Hey!!

Lots of exciting things happened this week!

So, unfortunately...our baptism fell through. We think the April's husband had something to do with it because now they want to get baptized on September 16th this year. Needless to say, they were dropped immediately. They still came to church though, so hopefully they'll stay strong till the 16th of September and afterwards! 

We did pick up the former investigator that came to church though! She now has a baptismal date for the 18th of February and were going to baptize her 8 year old daughter as well!! She is almost solid (just has to read when we ask her too!! Bu I'm sure she will!). She went to the Relief Society broadcast with sisters from our ward and then fed us the next night! She is on fire right now. And the cool thing is, her kids are what really brought her back. When she stopped investigating and her and her husband separated, she went to 3 other churches and prayed that her kids enjoy it more than they did the church! But they never did! They always had some sort of thing they found wrong with it! But she still didn't really want to come back because she was embarrassed that her and her ex separated and they were married by the church! She finally got up the courage to come back though a couple of weeks after we went and knocked on her door! She talked with her kids, and here she is! Elder Blume and I are so excited for her. 

We also had a another investigator named Laura come to church. She's 23 years old, so this week we're going to try to have a hand off lesson with the YSA Elders, if she wants to go of course! She has a date for February 18th and I think she said she loved church! SO we're excited to go see her again tomorrow at 3PM.

We had transfer calls AND.........I'm staying in Exeter with Elder Blume!!!!!! I'm actually very excited because I want to be here for the baptism of Jessica Rocha (lady mentioned previously)!!!

I love you all and I love my mission!

Elder Richardson

1-23-17 "The Hammer"

January 23, 2017

Hello from the rainy Exeter, California!!!

We had a pretty good week this week. It's been raining almost everyday this week! But does that stop the Exeter Elders? NO!!!!!

We found a new investigator named Delvon Blunson this week. When we first met him he was with his buddy named J-Peg AKA The Hammer walking on the sidewalk. The Hammer has lots of interesting views about the Bible and such was going on about a 10-15 minute monologue while it was raining on all of us! After a while The hammer said something about finding out the truth and how if you think something is true then lay it out on the table cause it's an option!!! At this point I had 2 copies of The Book of Mormon in my hand and I whipped them up and said, "Well that's exactly what we're doing! We're out here proclaiming the truth and that it's in this book and we want to give you both a copy so you can find out it's true for yourselves!!" J-Peg took the book and said he had to go. Afterwards we kept talking with Delvon and ended up teaching a really quick review of the Restoration! And 2 days later we invited him to be baptized on March 18th!! He said yes!!!

We are also going to be having a miracle baptism!! An eternigator named April has committed to be baptized on the 31st!!! We are very excited that she is finally making the decision to be baptized!

We also had a former investigator from a couple years ago randomly show up at church with her 3 kids and stayed the entire time! She's already been previously fellow shipped by the members and they love her. We are going to see her on Tuesday. Based off of her teaching record from the past she was very solid, but a separation between her and her ex-husband is what dropped them off the board for a while. We are excited to see where this goes though! 

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

Elder Richardson

1-16-17

January 16, 2017

Hi!,

Elder Blume and I found 4 new investigators this week! 1 of which we've never even met yet!!!!! Some other Elders found a guy named Chris for us! We're going to see him tomorrow at 1 so wish us luck!!! 

The other Investigators we found are named Deedra, Cheyenne, and Jennifer.

Deedra and Cheyenne are a mother and daughter that we found up in Woodlake last week. We went over with a member and taught them the first lesson and committed them for baptism on March 4th!!! They are really cool and really seemed like they are interested in going o church. The only problem is that Deedra works on Sundays early in the morning so she wouldn't be ab;e to come; and since her mom is at work, Cheyenne has no way of getting their!! So pray Deedra will be able to get Sundays off or just to be able to come into work at a later time. And hopefully we can work out a ride for Cheyenne to be able to come to church!

Jennifer is a woman hat we contacted in Farmersville a couple of weeks ago but, just haven't been able to catch at the right time! We finally were able to catch last Wednesday for like 15 minutes!! She has been through a rough last year...husband decided they shouldn't be together anymore, has to go into the work force now, is looking to move, etc...but she knows that her relationship with her Savior has definitely grown through the troubling times. We talked about how God has a purpose for each of us here on this earth and then committed her to be baptized on the 25th of February!!! We weren't able to meet with her on Saturday when we scheduled but we will hopefully be catching her this week sometime!!! 

On Saturday, we got to go to the Vineyard and help replace posts that were rotten and tighten wires so that they are nice and strong for this next grape harvest!! It was fun and I got to ride in a members Polaris! (He drives his vehicles like a 21 year old and he's like 60)

Love you all!!,

Elder RIchardson