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
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