The One Where We Were Almost Ditsy White Girls

October 24, 2016

That's Leo. He's awesome.

Found a large gnome while Tracting whose apparently a greenbay packers fan!

This happened at district meeting. So great!

Exchanges with Hermana Duvall!

So we had the first round of exchanges this transfer and it involved me going to the Spanish area with Hermana Duvall :) This was HermanaDuvall's third transfer out here in Minnesota speaking Spanish and she's killing it. She taught an entire lesson in Spanish by herself! SO PROUD OF HER! It was so fun. I love going to the Spanish area :)

So Sister Myers is still covering from being sick and she has just been going non-stop so I finally told her that she needed to rest. We finally set some time aside to rest and it was so funny. We got home and sister Myers was like "give me the phone we can do some phone work" and I was like NO SISTER. LAY DOWN ON THE BED YOU NEED TO REST! Then I threw a blanket on top of her and locked us both in the room for the time we scheduled. It was funny :)

THIS IS THE MIRACLE OF THE WEEK YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we had another Lesson with Jolene, right after we exchanged back on Wednesday. This time at sister wrights home which was awesome. Sister Wright served a mission in Alaska and is a BOSS joint teacher! She has not lost her missionary skills :) We taught Jolene about the word of wisdom thinking that she'd probably have a hard time with coffee and occasional drinking. So we explain it to her and the blessings and she goes "well, there goes my pop". We were flabbergasted. She completely and readily accepted the entire word of wisdom and was only sad because she though she'd have to give up her Dr. Pepper. SHES SO AMAZING YOU GUYS! Oh my gosh, the difference that I've in this woman is just phenomenal! I love her so much and am so excited for her to get baptized!

My wonderful zone of a family :)

So a lot happened on Saturday. We went in the morning and helped a less active lady in our ward with some yard work, pulling out plans and digging in the dirt. Then we ran over and played some ultimate frisbee with the elders, and a group of non-members that someone in our ward invited us to play with. Okay can I just say I LOVE ULTIMATE FRISBEE. It's so fun! Who knew?!  So after frisbee we came back to our apartment and each packed a bag and were temporarily kicked out of our apartment because sister Blanchard (the wife of the couple we live with) was gone for the weekend so it was just us and Jim at home which is a no can do situation. So we ran on over to stay with the Crystal Lake sisters apartment. And man God was taking care of us because neither of us slept bad on the coach and on the floor #tendermercies. That was fun. I love sister Spiers and sister corn ridge. They are killing it in their area as well :) The Saturday adventures doesn't end their. I feel like an old commercial right now, BUT WAIT THERES MORE! So we drove out to Elko to try and see one of our new investigators that we hadn't been able to get in contact with and we were able to see him and teach a lesson.... YAY! The we went to go stop by a potential and as we pull into the cul-de-sac here was a guy in the driveway of the house we were looking for and he came charging down the driveway toward us. He said did you guys know you had a flat tire? And we looked a little to the left and see enough our tire was completely flat. He was so nice! He told us to pull our car into the driveway and he'd rein flare our tire. After he did we realized theleak was way to big so he said he'd change it for us too! I was thinking that I could do it but then hey, he offered. This is where the subject heading of my email comes in. We were getting the jack and wrench and tire iron out of the back of our car and we couldn't figure out how things came undone and  then I almost fell inside the trunk. But luckily he was not there at the moment so we almost looked like ditsy white girls that had no idea what we were doing but don't worry. Pride is still intact ;) 'haha and then we went to a Goodyear to get our tire patched and it was closed until Monday. Yeah Saturday was a  little crazy.

Yesterday, Sunday, was a great missionary day! Jolene and Mary came to church, and the elders had an investigator as well so our gospel principles class was chalk full! So much so that we got upgraded to alarger room! Such a great problem to have :) Also we went Tracting twice on Sunday and we were able to teach 3 lessons. So wonderful, you really feel like your fulfilling your purpose and you just feel happy. Even if you don't teach sister Myers and I learned a lesson on diligence this week. It was probably 8:45pm and we needed to driveback to Burnsville which would take about 10 minutes but I just wanted to teach a lesson. I just had a little bit of weight on my heart cause we hadn't had a lot of time to do good Ol missionary work. So sister Myers was like let's go where the people are..... the Target parking lot! We prayed and are up with a game plan to walk around the parking lot and try to teach someone and sorry no this isn't a target miracle story. We didn't find anyone to teach, but when we got back in the car I just felt so much lighter. Being obedient and trying to be diligent brings blessings and happiness :)

Oh my gosh we had to teach seminary this morning and I am SOOOO TIRED! Ugh. The one time I'm glad that Sister Myers is a full on morning person.

Funny Moment: So we were Tracting on Friday and came across a really old man who was just about to have his birthday. He was so sassy, we asked him how old he was going to be and he's was like I'm old "I was born before Moby Dick was a minow". 😂

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

1 Nephi 21: 13 ""...for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. 14 But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me--but he will show that he hath not. 16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;" I read through this chapter this morning and I love how the savior keeps referring to us as HIS people. He could've just said he would comfort the people or have mercy upon the afflicted but he doesn't. The reason being in verse 16. He has graven us upon the palms of his hands. He knows us perfectly. I think of what it's like as a missionary when I find someone who has had similar struggles andtrials to what I've gone through. It seems my love for them triples and I want so badly for them to be happy. Well the savior knows everything each one of us has gone through and so how great is his love for us and his desire to see us happy. We just have to make sure we don't turn our backs on hims because he has permanent reminders of us.

Love, Sister Richardson

The One With Jolene

October 17, 2016

Got to see sister Xiong at Presidents Fireside! She's so cute she makes me feel so happy whenever I'm by her.

Can't get over how beautiful Minnesota is 

Outfits from Goodwill

Despite not being able to teach very much this week turned out awesome :) On Monday after emailing we headed to Apple Valley to help Sister Spiers clean the apartment there because it was SO BAD. Not even kidding, it looked like stuff exploded everywhere. Two and a half hours later we finished cleaning just the bedroom and the closet, and we ended up with about 7 garbage bags of stuff and garbage. Afterwards we were planning on staying and doing work in apple valley but we all forgot proselyting clothes so we went on over to good will and all found outfits to wear. That was SO much fun! I'll attach some pictures below of the final products. 

Tuesday we finally got a call from president telling us the fate of our tripanionship. Sister Spiers went to Crystal Lake because another sister went home for medical reason. She is happy to finally have an area (she kept saying she felt homeless for a while there. hahaha) and I'm happy to finally be sleeping in a bed again :)

Also cool experience, while we were at our weekly zone service, the prince of peace food shelf, I got to host so I got to interact with a lot of people. I was helping a Russian lady and I asked if she would like to say a prayer at the end and she said yes. The spirit was strong and when I finished praying I looked up and she was crying. We couldn't talk very much because of the language barrier but we hugged and she went on her way. I loved that, I felt like even though all I did was pray for her I was helping God tell her he loved her.

On Tuesday night I had one of the most spiritual lessons I've had on my mission. The lesson was w/ Nette and Brother Lightner and we talked about repentance. Last Sunday was fast Sunday and the new elder in our ward, Elder Moore bore his testimony and mentioned that he was a convert and had gone less active for a while because he didn't understand repentance. That has really stuck with me and I realized that I have hardly taught an individual lesson solely on repentance and challenged people to repent. It's always been a side thing that you just teach when you teach about the gospel of Jesus Christ but I kind of realized that it's not. That lesson was so powerful as we all talked about repentance and I thought after 'if that's what preaching repentance feels like I want to do it all the time'. I am so thankful that I get to serve around Elder Moore, his testimony on repentance has helped me to see the importance of it.

So fun fact, there are now Elders in Apple Valley instead of sisters. Weird right? I know. But I guess we'll keep 'em haha. I think they're exactly what Apple Valley needs right now.

********* HOLD THE PHONE! PUT DOWN YOUR POODLE AND READ THIS *********

Let me set the stage for you. So It's 12pm on a beautiful fall Thursday in Burnsville Minnesota and Sister Myers and I have gathered at the home of the wonderful Sister Thayer to have a lesson with our investigator Jolene. We all arrive on time and get situated on thee couches. We have planned to teach the Plan of Salvation and are equipped with visuals and scriptures galore. But we need an opening prayer to start it all off. Jolene offers the prayer and in her prayer says that she will be baptized!!!!!!! Then we teach an awesome lesson that was full of the spirit and we set a date with her for December 3rd!!!! Ahhhhhh! So exciting. She is one of those people that you can almost see the spirit working on and see her Change right in front of your eyes! I love her so much!

*** Okay you can now pick up your yapping poodle and finish reading this email ***

 RS Activity

Our tripanionship

 Crafting (the small lady with the long brown hair and glasses is Jolene)

On Friday we got to go to our ward relief society activity which was a crafting night cause Jolene came! She was really a super star this week. It was so fun I made a necklace out of an arrow head given to me from a less active member in my last area and two rice bags which I love! Our Relief Society is awesome! I have to say, the nice thing about being in an area for more than 3 months is that you actually get to know the members and they know you :)

Saturday the elders and us got invited to play ultimate Frisbee with a member and a group of his nonmember friends and then 4 more elders showed up and it was so much fun! I am still so sore but hey, it turns out I love Ultimate Frisbee even though I'm not the best at it. 

Miracle of the Week: So from what we have learned about Jolene as we've been teaching her, we know that she might have difficulty with the commandment of Paying Tithing.  So Jolene walks into church on Sunday and just goes, girls I know what my purpose is! It's to make money to give to the church to help keep it running! Our jaws just about hit the floor. Basically Jolene wants to pay tithing. Ummm, WHAT!? #MiraclesHappenOnceInAWhile

First of the Week:

We are teaching the Parco's in our ward the missionary lessons and Brother Parco is a food Scientist. He let us try some of the stuff he was using in his next project. So I tried freeze dried Broccoli, corn and dried pineapple for the first time. Not gonna lie the broccoli was kinda weird but I loved the corn and pineapple. I just might need to get some of that :)

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

Like I mentioned in my email I have been thinking about repentance a lot this week. During one of our companionship studies sister Myers shared that she realized that sin was not only disobeying God’s commandments but also failing to live righteously. As she said that I started to realize that all of us are not living up to God's standards. None of us can ever get to the perfect level of Charity or Kindness or diligence. We are all falling short of God's standards and so are all sinning continuously. No matter how good people say we are we can always pick out a million things we can do better. How grateful I am for Jesus Christ and his atonement. I sin all the time whether I like it or not, and without the atonement, without Christ, I would be lost forever and would never be able to make it back to be with my father in heaven again. I would never grow or learn to be better than I was or than I am. I am so thankful for my savior and that he promises to make up the difference. 

Love, Sister Richardson