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