Update from the Land of Enchantment/Las Cruces-August 12, 2013

Dear Mom,

This week was a lot tougher, but very incredible. We found a new family to teach named the Villescas family. They are a family of six amazing people who we found through a referral through an English ward. This week I have been taking every opportunity to open my mouth and to share the Gospel with others. Through this I am seeing my gifts and talents and faith strengthened and exercised and great joy from acting on that which I am supposed to.

Even at Taco Bell in the drive-thru my companion and I passed two Mormon.org cards through the window in exchange for our receipts. I tried the famous Blake's Lotaburger this week for district lunch and I wasn't thoroughly impressed, however, the Hatch green chile is delicious! We are still working with the members to make them Preach My Gospel missionaries and are working with a lot of less-active members. Ever since the worldwide broadcast we have aimed to get the members involved and excited about doing missionary work wherever they go. It is as simple as relating something to the Gospel by use of an analogy to any conversation.

For example you are in the auto-shop getting your car repaired and they are talking about how the circuit on your battery is not working correctly. This can be related to the path and the way of Jesus Christ. Each piece of the circuit represents a different step we have to take. When the circuit is running smoothly again the power is back or the power of the Atonement is living through each and every person. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith, Repentance, Baptism by immersion, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End....or exercising each and everyone of these steps each and every day in our lives.

It is these simple steps of faith and agency that truly matter. As we see in the scriptures "line upon line, precept upon precept" "here a little, there a little." "bit by bit, piece by piece.", and " It is through small and simple things that great things are brought to pass." I have seen this even in using what I know, so that I am not putting my "candle under a bushel." The scriptures truly do teach us the way to eternal life. :)

Also this week we had interviews at our apartments with President and Sister Miller. My interview with President Miller was simple and to the point, but powerful. Here is a part that I would like to share....something that I have learned on my mission is that organization, prioritizing, and having a system, which is consistent by which you accomplish tasks is very essential in becoming consecrated and helpful to others. President Miller was so struck by this simple principle in accordance with being timely that he asked for my permission to share this when he speaks.

Salt Lake approved our apartment and we should be moving in this week sometime. I will let you know my address when we have officially moved in! This is very exciting to my companion and I; now that it is half-way through the transfer, which is a crazy thought!!

Another important insight I have taken away from this week is that no matter how bad something or someone is you have to show an increase of love towards them, because we are truly "universal disciples of Jesus Christ." This is a huge role we play in the building up of the kingdom of our Father in Heaven.

Attached is a picture of me wearing one of my new ties I have picked up in front of Missionary Ridge in Mesquite.

I hope that you have a great week!!!!

Love,

Your son Elder Sterling Grant Richards

August 5th (Mom notes in parentheses):)

Hey Mom, it sounds like everything is going well. I don't have a ton of time, but I will do my best to answer your questions from last week, as well as your letter. I got it and the cash was handy. Thank you so much!! This is how I got down to Las Cruces....it has gone digital now, but it is still very similar. I went to the chapel in Albuquerque and then was assigned to head south. There are three transfer sites: ABQ, LC, and EP. They told me I was headed down toward El Paso. My driver was Elder Hernandez and we had the purple travel flag and rode in a Chevy Cruze. The co-pilot was Elder Foulk and Elder Robledo and I were temporary travel companions.  I figured I might be serving there, however, I stopped at the Las Cruces site, which is called the Venus Chapel and Elder Robledo had to use the restroom. Right as I walked in they announced my name and my companion's name. "Elder Keddington" We hugged and then we headed out to do some shopping and then to a "golden" lesson in which we taught 5 almost 6 lessons in one!

 

Do not worry about the apartment situation. We found an apartment and as soon as I know the exact address I will let you know. Her name is Sister Hoopes and she is extremely nice!(Sister missionary in the office) That sounds like it must have been a very tender moment. I am happy to see them exercising faith, because everything truly does come down to faith and agency! I wish I could have been there and I hope that Jordan baptizes Hayley, because that would be awesome! I am excited to receive those pictures!(In response to news of Eleanor's blessing)

 

I have played Settlers of Cataan! It is one of the most fun games. It quickly became a favorite of Steph and I, but I played it on a couple other occasions as well. HAHA Hayley would drop Six-Four's name! I bet with her (soon-to-come) candid ability to speak French she puts on a great show for the fam and everyone else!! She and I are alike in a lot of ways.

 

I really loved reading the primary kids' class note to me, it was cute. Hayley can spell Bonjour now?! Crazy crazerson! Keep me updated on Sister, well, Hannah Schieving I guess now..... and the ward. By the way that was really cool to hear that Becca Thacker got her mission call to Recife! Tell her CONGRATS!! Tell the ward I say hello, especially my leaders and the Bishop. Also, President Holmes. Anyone you see who asks about me.

 

I realized that it is very hard to hand-write letters every week with all of the demands and time required to be a consecrated and exactly obedient missionary. I will do my best to respond to the letters and such, that is why e-mail is very handy in that regard!

 

Tell Olivia to enjoy it while she can! I also hope she writes me soon! :)Summer is flying by. In October I get to go on my first temple trip and I hear there is a new temple video being played now?

 

Any advice you can give me is awesome. I also would like to see your perspective on the blessings from the night before I entered into the MTC in your own words. I am learning from Elder Morris everyday...taking phone calls and leading at times in correlation meeting and ward-council. My Spanish is increasing immensely each and every day. Living with the zone leaders has taught me a lot, too.

 

I am making a Spanish quad with materials I bought from Hobby Lobby, and I am really enjoying this transfer.  I am really watching what I am spending a lot more carefully now. I should be fine, because my mission card got refilled. I have a good feeling I will need a GPS soon, but I will let you know as the transfer goes on. We cover a huge area...technically up to Hatch Spanish-wise. It is massive!!!! We had to cut the grass at our trailer with kitchen knives, because we did not have any tools. You sometimes just have to use whatever you have.

 

Elder Morris is my companion, yes. We have instated a program for our ward. We also got a new ward mission leader and the work is hastening immensely in our area right now! We are doing a lot of less-active work and member work. Elder Morris has taught me the importance of a system and prioritizing. I have had the chance several times to exercise my priesthood and give priesthood blessings in English and now, since last week in Spanish. I am learning everyday and the counsel from President Miller and his wife Sister Miller is incredible! We still check mail at the trailer every postal day. I am praying very hard right now! Thank you Mom! Good luck with everything and I love you very much! Tell the family the same. Give hugs. Have a great week!

 

Love,

 

Elder SG Richards

July 29th Letter: Holy Cow, almost 3 months out!

Hey Mom, it is so great to hear from you, and it was very hard to hear that Sister Schieving was going home, but I do know that everything happens for a reason! This week especially, as we have been dealing with a gas leak and living with the zone leaders and apartment shopping on top of our teaching and meetings and everything else we missionaries have to do weekly! My new companion is a much older zone leader from Santa Fe Espanola. He got stepped down from the zone leader position and is the district leader now, but he told me that he is going home in September and that the mission is relying on me very heavily as I mentioned before, to help these younger missionaries coming in.

My new companion is Elder Tyrell Morris from Rupert Idaho. He is going home after this transfer and he has really helped me a lot. He speaks perfect Spanish and has gotten my Spanish to improve immensely in just a week!! He and I are very similar and I know that I am having two trainers for a reason. In a couple weeks I am taking the new zone leader Elder Harris on an exchange in my area, which means I have to lead all of the lessons in Spanish and drive everywhere. As far as the driving situation goes....right now he is driving and I am navigating from memory. However, the last two weeks of the transfer, essentially I will become the senior companion.

This week I took my first phone call in Spanish and held it consistently for 20 minutes! My Spanish is increasing more and more each day. Elder Morris and I have implemented member missionary work already and are focusing on helping the members in every aspect and way we can! We found out that we actually cover the Spanish part of Radium Springs, which is the town that "Cars" the Pixar movie got its name from. We also got a new ward mission leader and stood in on his setting apart yesterday after church. He reminds me a lot of grandpa Grant and asked me to prepare a musical number for the meeting on Wednesday. He used to be a trumpet player and he is the bishops' dad.

Living with the zone leaders has taught us a lot about how people use their agency. Sometimes as humans we have no sense of urgency and we get complacent and think that someone else is going to do something or I can do this or that later. We cannot stay in our trailer, because there is gas....however, we were blessed and recognized a miracle and a huge tender mercy of sort. We found ourselves and the zone leaders two very nice apartments that we will be moving into this week!! Back to agency; although someone may feel that they will act on something or choose to do something when they talk about it, they do not always carry it out, which is very disheartening. Just like our investigators, we sometimes have to put ourselves in the shoes of others and see what they are experiencing.

My companion and I are pushing ourselves to help this area out more and more and have really seen progress already in ways that we would never have imagined. None of this would be able to occur without the strength of the Lord in all things! The lesson this week is to really put your full confidence in the Lord and TRUST no matter what, because our Heavenly Father and our Savior know what is the best for us. They are preparing a way for us and with their help, there really is no such thing as failure.

I love you all, have a wonderful week!

-Elder Richards

July 22 Letter

Hey Mom and everyone,

Wow, that is some interesting back history about those words. It sounds like lice is hitting like the plague! I am not dealing with that, but I am starting to see cockroaches in the trailer and the church! Big ones too!! I will be lucky if we don't get a big infestation in the next little while with this hot and humid weather, especially because I am taking over the area and getting step-trained. My trainer is going on to bigger and better things. On Saturday night he got the zone leader call and is getting transferred in the morning. My next companion could be a missionary who will finish their mission while completing my training and again my companion will be the district leader; that seems to be the pattern.

I am probably going to be the driver and I haven't driven in New Mexico at all yet. Well, I guess it is time to start, but this last week was great and full of many neat experiences and miracles galore!!!! We decided to go out and talk to a lot more people this week and we had a lot of success of contacting ten people within an hour on Friday! My Spanish is improving immensely by speaking and practicing along with teaching. I am excited to be half way through training and this transfer has definitely flown by. I cannot believe that it is almost August already! I am already learning how to play soccer, because little kids like to play soccer here. I usually just play goalie.

We went to Apadaca Park to contact people on Tuesday, which turned out to be very fun. It really helped me overcome the fear of people scattering when the missionaries walked right up to them. We talked to nine people in total within 40 minutes of being at the park. This week was really tough to see people and to get into houses. We talked to people in between appointments and sometimes even pulled over just to talk to someone. :)

We got a lot of rain this week, but it was very humid, which took away from the cooling down factor. Last night at a dinner appointment with the Del Hierro family we left in a monsoon and a lightning storm in Mesquite, NM. Also yesterday I saw some people from Lyceum who happened to show up to the Spanish ward. They were traveling and their grandparents live in Las Cruces, and I think that they might have spoken a little bit of Spanish.

On Wednesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went with the more experienced missionary who has five months left; Elder Kemp. He taught me to knock a door or two and to talk to everyone no matter what! Although I enjoyed speaking English for a day, I missed the Mexican culture all of Wednesday. I met some really nice people who were very interested in my background. The Cantrell family: Janet and Gary, were fun to be around and reminded me of grandpa Grant and granny Pete. They were into hunting and big band, and were fascinated by my voice. This was the first true American home cooked meal I have had in a while and it was mashed potatoes and vegetables and bread with meat and mushroom sauce.

I met another family (Guerrero/Hester) who were having a birthday party and their daughter liked to entertain the crowd by singing "Call Me Maybe" (Sophia, Abigail) and then their daughter Hannah looked just like Seattle Sperry; I wonder if they are cousins. The mom (Malia) reminded me of Jeannette and she talked like her, too. She is a cake maker and she made a really fancy cake and homemade ice cream. Her husband Terry looked like Jordan and he was into hunting too, which was awesome. I could relate to a lot of people on exchanges and they gave some really good advice as well.

It will be interesting to meet my new companion tomorrow, and it will be hard to see Elder Keddington go, but I know that the Lord needs him as a zone leader. Taking over the area will be difficult and interesting, but I know that the Savior is there always and I do not need to fear! I am excited though for this next transfer, and to finish my training. We literally drove on some dirt roads this week, but they were very muddy!! I will send some pictures of the filthy truck, just for kicks. :)

I hope that you all have a great week!

Mom as far as some of the other questions go: After re-arranging our trailer I am sleeping a lot better at night and the airflow has been circulating so much better. I am eating a lot, because I love the food! Transfer day is tomorrow like I mentioned earlier. If there are ever any changes I will let you know right off the bat. I saw a bat this week too while running in the morning. I cannot wait to see my niece! :D I would love it if any family write. I am slowly getting used to e-mail and being able to write to whomever I want. I cannot reply to everyone every week, but I will make my best effort to do so!!We eat out a lot in this mission, which can be pretty expensive. The trailer has its own washer and dryer, we just buy soap and dryer sheets, which is awesome and handy!

I will be awaiting the package and the snail mail. :) I love you and pray for you everyday. I will work harder and pray harder. I hope the lice sichiation gets better! I wouldn't have expected that at all. I have gotten much fatter and slightly taller, but it shows, especially in pictures. I will send those in just a few! Enjoy the week and I hope everything gets better!

Love your son,

Elder Sterling Grant Richards

July 15th Letter (He did get the email from home before he was done on the computer!)

Dear Mom....Well,
I was looking forward to seeing an update of this week, but I know that life gets busy and that sometimes it is hard to do things. Speaking of which this week was very interesting. I had a lot of opportunities to do things that I hadn't had the chance to do before and with our mission president's new challenge of contacting 10 new people a day and finding more and more people who are prepared, because the Lord truly is hastening his work.

 

Yesterday in sacrament meeting, I got asked to prepare the sacrament and bless the sacrament in Spanish! I was pretty nervous at first, because in Spanish my voice is still low, but it is not as low as you would think and I didn't think I knew how to pronounce every word in the prayer on the water, but the Lord provided a way for me to get over this self doubt and everything went just fine. The other thing that I was asked to do was to offer the closing prayer in sacrament meeting in Spanish, again for my first time in a sacrament setting, but I was prepared and it wasn't as scary.

 

The point is I learned this week that sometimes you have to do things when you are asked and gear up for anything. It is "after the trial of our faith" that we see the blessings and the miracles unfold and that was a huge testimony booster to me this week. We contacted someone through a pool fence in the bushes, and they were swimming while we were talking about the after life and the Plan of Salvation. It is the awkward moments that you really have to be on your feet to be prepared to answer questions and to relate to them in a way that you wouldn't have thought of before.

 

As far as our investigators and lessons went this wee,k we saw some hard things as we taught people. They had lost hope, they were down, and then some were just lazy about keeping their commitments. These moments not only are frustrating, but they are very devastating and you have to learn to keep going forward and to "live in the moment, but not let it take control to the point where you get caught up in it."

 

We started contacting more and more people and I started relating to more and more people. The funniest moment while we were tracting a neighborhood was figuring out how to relate ceramic cats outside of a woman's home to the Gospel, as well as a man we walked up to who said, "What has John Smith done for me, he ain't done nothin' " You live for these moments as a missionary, because it is okay to have a laugh sometimes to keep you optimistic and enthusiastic about the work you are participating in! Yesterday we contacted a referral from an English ward and Jesus (hay seus) was so prepared. We brought up baptism in the first discussion and are going to commit him to baptism on Wednesday!

 

I hope everything is well at home. Enjoy your week! I had trouble sleeping one night this week to the point of only getting two hours, but I have Melatonin to conquer that from now on. Thank you so much for the package. 

It is perfect, everything I needed and some treats! Tell Doug I found a Batman action figure that I sometimes use, and you find inventive ways to have fun. We might be playing Dew Pong and such on P-Days and I cannot believe that the transfer is almost up!! Thanks for all the love and the support. I'll send some pictures! :)

 

Love,

Elder Richards