The One With the Reunion

11-28-2016

Hello All, so not a whole lot to tell ya about that's happened in the last three days since I last emailed but for what it's worth here's the update...

Thanksgiving dinner was so fun. After we finished emailing on Thursday sister Cope and I took a three hour nap which was glorious and then headed over to the Dailey's for thanksgiving. It was so fun. And yummy. They are such a laid back family.

Friday we had a fun day! Our bishop and his wife invited us to come with them to cut down their Christmas Tree! It was so fun! We tromped all through the snow and helped with the cutting placing on the roof, carrying in side and getting it up. So fun. It was the first time sister Cope had ever done anything like that, because I guess they don't have Christmas tree farms in Sacramento. weird right? Hahaha she had a blast :) then also on Friday we got invited by the Marresh's, one of the families we teach, to go have thanksgiving dinner with the entire Marresh clan. SO FUN. It was the first time i had met the family and I love them. They are so cute. Especially their daughter Jazzy. She 16, she loves us and wants to come to church and is going to come to mission presidents Fireside this month! :)

It's been so great getting to share the new Christmas video Light the world with people. Everyone is so open to it and it's so non-threatening. If you haven't seen it GO WATCH IT! It's on morning.org or pretty much anywhere. We were able to share with a couple people and testify of the savior(one of my favorite things to do 😉)

On Sunday I spoke in church. As tradition the new missionary that's transferred in always speaks in church. Last year when I spoke the questions were why did I decide to serve a mission, how did prayer play a role in the past decision and why am I on a mission now. My talk this year was on the same questions with a new question. How has my understanding of the atonement changed since I've been on a mission. I LOVED having the opportunity to speak! I was still nervous, but I was able to see the growth that's happened in myself as I answered the same questions and my answers have changed. I wish I had it recorded and could just send it home. Guess you had to be there hahaha.



Lastly so exciting...... I GOT TO SEE MURIEL!!!! Ahhhh, she was one of my absolute FAVORITE people in Anoka when I was here last and after I left the sisters lost touch with her,  but we stopped by yesterday and I got to see her! Also! Exciting! Her daughter has convinced her to take the first lesson so we scheduled that! So excited!!!

Spiritual Though of Week:
Alma 33
11 And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions and my sincerity; and it is because of thy Son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, therefore I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions, for in thee is my joy; for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me, because of thy Son.

One of the questions I spoke on in my talk was how did prayer play a role in me receiving my answer to serve a mission. Upon reflecting on both before and throughout my mission I realized how important prayer has been throughout the whole process. Praying to find out if I was supposed to serve a mission taught me what it meant to pray sincerely and with real intent. It means you have to pray willing to act on any answer you receive, even if it's not what you want to do. 

One of my experiences in the MTC that left me pleading to my Heavenly Father taught me that god is ALWAYS listening. He loves us so much and will give us the help we need. I've also experienced through the wonderful moments what it means to pray and give thanks and glorify God. When all you can do is say thank you for letting you even be a part of this amazing miracle. It is prayer that has sustained me as I've been on my mission. Truly in God is my joy. God will always hear us if we will cry unto him.

The One With Some Salami

11-24-16

The Goodbyes Before Transfers-

Sister Larsen

Hermana Duvall

Nette

The Kirchers

The Tuckers 

Sister Myers

 Look out Minnesota we've got snow! ️️

Wow so it's been a long time since I've given ya an update. Before transfers was cray but wonderful. There was so much love and the great thing about getting transferred is that you see people like a lot more than you think hahaha. My saddest goodbye was with the Kirchers. I got really close with the whole family and the littlest girl Hannah wouldn't let go of me and asked if she could write to me in my new area! It was so cute, we took a family picture on the stairs haha. 

Look my new Comp! Sister Cope

So transfers happened on Wednesday and I got to see the one and only lovely sister P again. It's so fun whenever we get to see each other which is basically only at transfers since we both get transferred so much. She's doing well and is opening another area for sisters which is exciting. Also I met my new companion sister Cope. She's adorable. She's from Sacramento California and just finished her training. She's gorgeous and so kind and sweet. Like seriously she's achieved the status of Disney princess in normal life which is hard to do. We get along so well and laugh a lot together.

First ever District Meeting over Skype!

It's been so fun seeing all the members here in Anoka again. I've gotten a lot of people staring at my face confused and going wait a minute don't I know you, or didn't you serve here before? I even had one member at church check to see if I was still on my mission or just visiting hahaha.

We've had such a wonderful time teaching. We taught a total of 16 lessons this last week since I've been here! 5 of which were lessons with members! The most exciting news is the Salami family (yes like the meat haha). We stopped by on Saturday to see if they were home, but we didn't have a lot of hope cause their an African family from Nigeria and African parents have a tendency to work crazy hours, but we stopped by and they were home!!! They let us in and we taught anicole (the mom) and her three kids the plan of salvation and it was wonderful! The kids were so engaged and Nicole was testifying to what we were saying the whole time. We challenged Nicole and Isaiah (the only child over 8) to be baptized and the accepted and set a date for January 14th!! So exciting and then we saw them again on Tuesday and sister Kastel came with us and it was another awesome lesson. We taught them the 10 commandments and the importance of praying and coming to church and it was just wonderful. Ah I love them so much and am so excited for them.

We've seen miracle after miracle here in Anoka this past week. And we've been having a blast together. I'm so excited for what this transfer will bring. The beauty of being back in an area that I was in in the beginning of my mission is that I've seen so much growth in myself. Its crazy. I finally feel like I really know what I'm doing and that I can teach and testify, I know how to be bold and show people I love them, I know what the rules are so I can be obedient, and I know how to involve members, and to have fun. Until next week I love you all and happy thanksgiving!!! 

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

I recently read this talk from this last October general Conference called the souls sincere desire by Sister McConkie, and I though it was appropriate with it being thanksgiving today...

"Sincere desires offered in a spirit of gratitude for abundant blessings and gratitude for the lessons of life instill in our hearts steadfast faith in Christ, a “brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men"

I love gratitude. It has the power to lift spirits, strengthen faith, give us hope, and helps us to have charity. Last year near the end of my time in Anoka and begging my time in La Crosse was a bit of a dark time in my mission. I wasn't happy and I didn't know why and I felt my desire to go out and do missionary work was not very strong and I didn't know why. I loved my areas and my companions and the work was fine but I wasn't happy. It was probably the closest to depressed I've ever been and I didn't know how to fix it but knew I needed to so I talked to my mission president about it. After quietly and lovingly listening to me he challenged me to except for praying for my family and investigators to focus all of my prayers on gratitude. I did. I prayed in gratitude for all of my blessings and the darkness lifted. I became happy being a missionary, happy in serving, and happy in doing uncomfortable things hahaha. Gratitude changes attitudes and helps us feel the spirit so I challenge all of you to focus your prayers more on gratitude instead of constantly asking for things :)

️Sister Richardson

The One With A Throw Back to Anoka!

11-14-16

So we went on two exchanges this week in order to get them all done before transfers. We had crystal lake first on Tuesday and Sister Spiers came with me to a lake Marion. We saw some cool miracles. We went tracting and the first house we knocked on we were able to teach a girl about our age and give her a Book of Mormon and get her phone number! 

Technology was our friend for our Stake Meeting on Wednesday. Usually we all go to bloomington and meet with the stake president, the zone leaders, and president Forbes, and the Lakeville south zone leaders Skype in. President Forbes was headed home from Duluth so the stake president, zone leaders, and us all met at the Lakeville chapel and we had president Forbes over the phone and the Lakeville south zone leaders over Skype. Crazy the kind of things we can do now a days. Also we had a really boss moment during the meeting. President Naatjes was asking all of us how it's been meeting with elders quorum and relief society presidencies. When he asked us we were like yeah we meet with the relief society presidency and elders quorum. There was a moment of stunned silence. Then he asked "you go to elders quorum presidency meetings?" Us: "yup!" P. Naatjes: "do the elders go too?" Us: "Nope" P. Naatjes: "you're probably the first sisters in the history of the church to attend elders quorum meetings!". We felt kind of great in that moment and it was funny to see their faces.

On Thursday we relearned the importance of Tracting. Sister Myers and I prayed about which street to be on and then started down. We taught three lessons in an hour. One of them was even from a van. This guy stopped his car and asked us who we were and what we were doing. Sister Myers launched into a five minute restoration (complete with pamphlet visuals), we gave him a Book of Mormon, a restoration pamphlet, our phone number and invited him to church on Sunday, to which he said he'd come!super cool.

Then on Friday we had exchanges with the Prior Lake sisters. Sister Myers and Rosier worked in Lake Marion and I got to go to Prior Lake with Sister Killpack! We got to be companions again! It was so fun. We taught like crazy too. We were able to teach two other lessons, 1 less active family, 1 member present, and get a new investigator. It was so cool to see how we've both grown. The last time we were companions we were practically babies. It was only my second transfer out of training and sister Killpacks first. We've both grown A LOT. I loved being able to see that cause you don't really notice the amount you've grown cause it's so gradual.

After we exchanged back Sister Myers and I had a really big (and good) heart to heart which involved a lot of feels and a lot of tears. Sister Myers had a pretty rough time on exchanges and so after listening to her and doing basically a mini comp study to invite the spirit back into our hearts as we were headed to our next appointment she started crying and just shared something good she realized about our companionship while on exchanges and what she appreciated about me. I know that me sharing this might sound a little prideful but I share it because it helped me to see better about the affect normal actions can have on people. Throughout my mission I sometimes wonder if I'm even making a difference or helping people around me and my companions and haven't really made much of a difference. But Sister Myers sharing what she did, and then also getting to hear about the impact I had on Sister Killpack as well as what Sister Clegg shared with me a couple weeks ago I've come to realize that just being someone's friend and being reliable is SO POWERFUL. That's all we need to do to make a difference. We don't need to do everything over the top and showy. If we can just be someone's rock to lean on that's what matters. That's what the savior is to us. "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation;... a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."- Helaman 5:12

Sunday was great too. We weren't doing so hot on our Goal for teaching recent converts and less Actives so that's what we focused the day on. Those are usually pretty hard for us to get but we were able to teach 3 less Actives! One of which I have been trying to meet for the whole 4 1/2 months I've been here and we finally caught her! It was great :) Such a good week. Stay tuned for next weeks adventures!

Spiritual Thought of the Week: 

I found a scriptures that I just LOVE. It's 2 Nephi 9:45 "O, my beloved brethren, turn away from your sins; shake off the chains of him that would bind you fast; come unto that God who is the rock of your salvation." This scripture just hit me with a lot of power when I read it. There are a lot of things in this scripture that requires action. Turn away from your sins. Shake off the chains of him that would bring you fast. Come unto that God who is the rock of your salvation. To me it just seems really empowering. We are in control of all of these things. We choose whether or not to do them. Salvation is always an option but it's also a choice.

️Sister Richardson 

The One with the Accident and Duluth

11-7-16

Okay so we had a lot of meetings this week and things that happened. I feel like every week seems like a crazy busy week that random things happened, but hey I guess that's just my life right now. So on Tuesday we had MLC (Mission Leadership Council) so we all traveled up to Bloomington and all of the zone leaders, sister training leader, anddistrict leaders gathered with president and sister Forbe's and the assistants to council about our mission. So not gonna lie I have mixed feelings about MLC and it was slightly frustrating this time around. BUT. The good thing was that I got to hear the most beautiful music number I have ever heard in my life! I'll attachable snippet of it, it involved the guitar, piano, and a three part harmony of the hymn O My Father, and audience participation. My goodness, I watch the video all the time!

So also a fun thing that came out of MLC was that the Duluth STL's (Sister Clegg and Sister Fuchs pronounced Fukes) came down, and due to some other factors, they needed to spend the evening and part of the day Wednesday in the cities before they made the trek back up to Duluth. So they came and worked with us for the day! That was wonderful! I loved being able to hang out with sister Clegg again! We all had a super cool lesson with our 17 year old investigator named Alex. All 4 of us were there and we all switched off teaching liked we'd been doing it forever and he was engaged and asked questions. It was a really cool experience. :)

Our crew for the day :)

Wednesday morning the 4 of us did some service for a member of our ward and then went and got Pho for lunch. Sister Clegg was almost crying she was so happy. Apparently everyone is white in Duluth and there is like no variety of food haha. Then here comes the tender mercy of the week! So after lunch we all went and got ice cream and then split up so I was with sister Clegg and sister Myers and Fuchs were together and we did interviews! When we o on regular exchanges with the sisters in our zone we do interviews with them to see how they are doing personally and how the work in their areas are doing, and how their companionship is going. We basically are the person they vent to and listens to what they say and tell them we care about them.  One of the worst things about being an STL is that we don't have that. If there's anything you're struggling with or your companionship isn't
getting along we don't have anyone to talk to. Well w/ the Duluth sisters with us WE FINALLY HAD SOMEONE TO TALK TOO! It was awesome. Sister Clegg and I were able to talk about everything we are dealing with and our struggles ad it was nice to feel like you just had a friend you could tell anything to and they wouldn't judge you. Talk about a breath of fresh air!

On Thursday our amazingly wonderful Relief society President Sister Kircher took us adventuring out to Hampton! amp ton is forever away (farther than it takes for us to get to the mission home) but it is in our area and we had a couple of less active there, so we went less active hunting! So fun.  The town only had around 600 people in it

Also so we learned on Tuesday we found out at MLC that we apparently had a Zone specialty training of Friday of the same week So. That's what we did on Friday. That was fun. The Minneapolis, Lakeville, and Lakeville South zones.  Luckily we were not asked to give a last minute training and we got to hear about the upcoming Christmas initiative! So excited for that!!

Also we finally had our lesson with Jolene going over a commandment we knew might require a lot of change for her and be a little difficult. It went well, I'm definitely thankful for the confidence the spirit provides in teaching and being bold. She had difficulty with the commandment like we thought and is going to be working on it so keeping her in your prayers would be much appreciated.

First of the Week:
This week was the first time I've ever been in a car accident. We were driving the Duluth sisters back up to Bloomington on Wednesday on thefreeway. I changed lanes and looked in my rear view mirror just in time to see the car behind us hit us. It wasn't bad but we pulled off on the edge of the freeway to talk to the other driver about getting off the freeway. The other driver pulled off a ways in front of us. Got out, checked over her car and then got back in her car and drove away. Yup. Talk about all kinds of illegal. Luckily for us and our car, we missionaries have bike racks on the back of our cars so that took most of the impact. Our car looks fine for the most part.Some paint damage and our bike rack is bent but other than that not too bad. So yeah, that was exciting.

Spiritual thought of the Week:
So this Sunday we had a Regional Broadcast. Our Stake President, President Naatjes, spoke before the broadcast and it was SO GOOD. His talk was filled with stories and analogies and he shared some insight into classic parables that I hadn't ever thought of. The one I want to share with you all was his thoughts on the story where Jesus Calms the Sea. Here's the story in Mark Chapter 4...

37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

President Naatjes shared that Christ likes a good storm. It does not appear that he had any intention of stopping the storm, and only did so on the request of his disciples. We all have storms that roll through our lives and that's a good thing. We are given those storms to learn and grow. To develop needed faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

-Sister Richardson

The One Where the Leaves are Falling, Winter is Coming, and We Are Biking

10-31-16

The Hermanas left us sticky notes!

So we have been Biking all over Lakeville this week because we are out of miles. Biking in the wind, rain, you name it, we did it. It was really cute cause we were biking in the rain and we were FREEZING on Tuesday and then we went over to Nette's and brother Lightners for our lesson. I was still really cold so they wrapped me up in a blanket and gave me hot chocolate and cookies and that's how I taught their lesson. I wish every lesson was like that, wrapped in a blanket. I felt really loved :)

Really cool lesson with Sister Stetler. It was one of those moments where you are able to listen to the promptings of the holy ghost and discern their needs and teach what they needed to hear. One of my favorite things ever. Seeing yourself be an instrument in the hands of god is such a wonderful thing. I got to experience that with Sister Stetler this week. 

We had a fun time with the Heindels for dinner. They had us and the elders over and threw a Halloween party with them and another family. So fun. We had pizza, built a dry ice bomb, carved pumpkins, and had pie. SO SO SO fun. I'll attach pictures below.

Had a super sweet miracle this week at the trunk-or-treat. We were walking around the church looking for ways to be useful and help right before it started and brother woods walked up to us trained by a teen. He said "sisters this is my new friend Corbin he just walked in the church looking for some more information". I have never had that happen on my mission before. As sister Myers said that's like Mormon folklore. He said he had talked with his friend about the church and was looking for a Mormon book. We taught him about the book of Mormon and gave him one, a mormon.org card, invited him to a church tour, gave him our phone number and got his and then we all went on our way. Wow. Talk about miracles.

The other miracle of the week was the RICHARDS. OH MY GOSH. So. They are a less active family in our ward that we have been visiting ever since I came to the area and for probably two months now Sister Richards has been promising to come to church. Yesterday they finally did!!!! Then we went over to their house afterwards and she said they both loved it! Probably was one of the best testimony meetings they've ever been to and they want to keep coming. She said she even set aside some time to read the book of Mormon that night. Oh my gosh. Miracles!

Well I think that's it for this week :) HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Love, Sister Richardson 

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