Have Five!

June 19, 2013

Hola everyone!

I absolutely CANNOT believe another week has gone by. It's been so fast! Time here is seriously so weird. It freaks me out. Thanks for the letters and emails from everyone, they have been great! Letters though are fantastic because I get those every day... makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. so, I'm gonna just hit the exciting stuff from this week.

So, Elder Rempel, one of the guys in my district (the really tall one), earlier in the week got a Dreamsicle, and stuck his tongue on it, and it got stuck. I know that might sound really dumb, but once you've been in the MTC for 2 weeks, stuff like that is hilarious. I was in tears, because we were all trying to pour water on his tongue to thaw it off, and he was just hopping around, yelling cuz it hurt so bad. Pretty funny.

With our investigator, Maria Jose, last Thursday, we were able to get her to commit to baptism! We went in without any notes, and just really put our trust in the Holy Ghost. It was seriously crazy. I could not believe how much Spanish I was able to use. We started the lesson, and Elder Brown went right into it after our follow up without a prayer. He was in the middle of teaching about the Holy Ghost and I was just panicking because we hadn't started with a prayer, when I had a prompting. So, when he got done teaching about the Holy Ghost and how it testifies of truth, I just said, "Now that we've taught you about that, would you please say the opening prayer? During your prayer, please pray that we can have the Spirit here with us in the room, and that it can testify to you of the truth of our message." (All in Spanish of course). But, she did, and then we taught, and she committed! The Spirit is a strong thing.

So, we now have a new investigator. His name is Walter. So, I have a hard time understand the language sometimes, right? Well, Walter has absolutely zero drive, so when he talks to us, he talks with his hand in front of his mouth, and mumbles SO bad. I struggled teaching him the first time, but it's all right. We had a short lesson, and we felt like he felt the Spirit, so that's good.

So, Walter is actually our teacher Hermano Hale. So... Hermano Hale is without a doubt the most inspired man I have ever met in my entire life. Seriously. He seems to ALWAYS have a lesson about what we need, the day that we are struggling with a specific thing. Plus, it's so weird, because everything he teaches, without fail, when we have devotionals, they talk about the same thing. He's seriously amazing. Anyways, yesterday was his birthday, so we surprised him and sang happy birthday. He had us start doing a compliment circle to build unity, so we did that to him too.   It was awesome. He has started challenging us to make inspired questions, because if we aren't, we are just being acted upon, and we are not going to be effective missionaries. I'll explain later in the letter! And also, as for the title. We were talking about ways to relieve stress, and we said, to give high fives! So, Hermano Hale writes on the board, "half fives" and we all were like, "What?", so he looked at it, laughed, and then fixed it to say "have five", and we were dying. Apparently his whole life that's what he thought it was. It was pretty funny.

 

Oh, so we said goodbye to the oldest district here this week. I've only known them for 2 weeks, and we were all crying saying goodbye. I can't even imagine saying goodbye to my district right now. Makes me sad. Haha.

The devotionals  have been good. Yesterday was a little disappointing because there were rumblings that it was Elder Holland, but it was Elder Gay of the Seventy. it was good... pero...

Um.. my district is good! We grow closer every day! I'll have to send home a picture with names for everyone. Elder Brown and I are still getting along great, and I grow to love him more day by day! He's great, and he is a great example for me. We play volleyball every time we have gym, and it is the best. I seriously love it. Highlight of my week (besides eating at the temple cafeteria. ) But one of the Hermanas broke her finger halfway through the game, and didn't say anything until after, and KEPT PLAYING. I wish I was half as tough as her haha. But yeah, volleyball rocks. The other night for language study, I was drawing Elder Rempel on the board for fun, so other people started... so we started a game that we would close our eyes and have the marker on the board, and then everyone else would speak Spanish and try to have them draw a face. It was pretty hilarious.

 

Just to describe my district a bit... Elder Brown is from Sandy, and he is really cool. He's going to Peru too. I really was blessed with a companion I get along with so well and we really click. We have a lot of good laughs. Elder Packer is from San Antonio Texas, going to Long Beach California. He is just a goofball, but he has a super strong testimony. Well, everyone in our district does. But he just is fun, and he is an incredible beat boxer. Elder Angel is our district leader. He's from Carlsbad California, and going to Chile. He's a nice guy. Elder Rempel is from Canada, and he is going to Colorado Springs. He is so funny. We talk a lot and have a good time, but he has a really different but cool testimony. Elder Jensen is from Wisconsin, going to Long Beach California. He is super chill and laid back, and but he's super friendly. Elder Christiansen is from Tennessee going to McCallahn (?) Texas. He is seriously the nicest and most humble guy I have ever met. I can't even believe it. We call him Osito Blanco (Little White Bear) because he's always giving hugs. Elder Renshaw is from San Fransisco, going to McCallahan Texas, and he is super nice too. He is really quiet, but he has an amazing singing voice. Voice of an angel. Hermana Nielsen is from... uh.. I can't remember, but she's going to Chile. She's really humble and nice! Hermana McNeil is from Orem, going to Chile, and she is just super friendly and outgoing. Hermana Davis is from South Carolina, going to Anaheim, and she is really strongly convicted in the gospel. Hermana Miller is from Utah, and going to Houston Texas, and she is just super bubbly and fun. I absolutely love our district. Honestly, I feel like I've met them all before, but I know I haven't. That's one of the ways I really know that it wasn't by accident that we are together, and we have some sort of purpose for being here together.

So, Elder Brown's sister did this thing on her mission that she marked, and tabbed all of the scriptures from the lessons in Preach my Gospel in here Book of Mormon, and then made a chart to make them easy to find. So, I did it too, and now our whole district is doing it. we call it the Book of Mormon project, but it's SO nice during lessons!

Yesterday we had our first experience with TRC. Basically, members come in and we teach them to practice. Our first member was Lisa, and she served her mission in Salta (Yo dijo, "Mi padre sirvio en Salta!") Anyways, it went well, and I felt i did well. Then we taught Hermana Fernandez from Mexico. Native speakers... phew. Hahaha. I struggled, but I really surprised myself at how I was able to keep up and such. It was cool.

Oh! Just a quick funny story. i was running late the other morning (no matter how early i get up to shower, I'm ALWAYS last. I dunno how it happens.) So, Elder Brown was waiting, and we got ready and went to the classroom, and everyone looked at us all weird. Then we realized Elder Brown forgot his tie. He just turned to me and was like, "Seriously Elder?" It was really funny.

 

Another quick story. So, this is gonna start out by sounding kinda weird, but I promise it's good. So, earlier this week, I was getting ready to go do bed for lights out (10:30), and I just felt like I needed to be awake. So I was really having a battle with myself, because strict obedience is hit SUPER hard here, and I didn't want to break the rules. But I laid down in my bed and just REALLY felt like I needed to be awake for some reason. So, I walked into the bathroom a few minutes after we were supposed to be asleep, and found an Elder in there who was really having a rough time. We were able to get some zone leaders, give him a blessing, and take care of him. I know it sounds weird, but it felt a bit like Nephi and Laban. I'm not saying breaking rules is good, and I paid for staying up past 10:30 the next morning cuz I was so tired, but I know that the Spirit was prompting me, because this young man needed a friend that night. But other than that, I want everyone to know, I have been NAILING the rules. Just so you know. I'm not making exceptions, just for the Spirit.

So, my spiritual thought for the week. In our lesson yesterday, Hermano Hale was likening our missionary work to the song, Give said the little stream. So, for those of you that don't know the song, it's just a cute little song about a little stream rolling down a hill and making everything green on the way down. It's like that with missionary work. It's our responsibility to make everyone we teach a little better, and to spread the work. However, I took it a bit farther. Unless the stream has some sort of water supply at the top, it won't last too long. So, I like to think of us as the stream, and our Heavenly Father as the lake, and our pride as some sort of water gate. We have to humble ourselves if we want to be effective missionaries, and we have to realize that without the Lord, we cannot do this work. I hope as I continue in the MTC I can continue to humble myself, and align myself with what the Lord would like me to be. We can all do this in our lives. Also, about my VISA that everyone is so worried about... I decided, Esta bien! Our old zone leader, Elder Mann taught us an important lesson. When we were in heaven, we had a best friend. Our best friend in heaven, knew he or she wasn't going to have the opportunity to be born into the gospel. So, I promised this friend, that I would find them, and I would bring them the gospel. And I don't break promises! So, maybe my friend is in the United States, and I need to find them before I can go find my other friends in Peru. As cheesy as that sounds, I just know deep down that that's true. Every time I think about it, I get goose bumps, and just KNOW that I have someone who I have to find and help. So, don't feel bad for me if my visa doesn't come. I get to help more of my friends, AND, I get to kinda serve 2 missions. Not a lot of people get to say that.

 

The pictures are of our district in front of the temple this morning, Elders Brown, Richman, Angel (our district leader), Packer, Hermanas McNeil, Neilson, Davis, Miller, and Elder Rempel, Jensen, Renshaw, and Christiansen (Renshaw and Christiansen are our new zone leaders as of Sunday), Elder Christiansen and Jensen after our Spanish face drawing game, the only Ute fan in our district, with Elder Christiansen and Jensen decked out in their BYU garb. We always pray over my bed, and Elder Brown always gives me a hard time about praying over "such an unholy alter" because I have my U blanket draped across. We have fun. Haha.

 

Anyways! I love and miss you all, but I am so happy and proud to be doing this work, and especially at this time. It is so powerful to walk to our Tuesday night devotionals with THOUSANDS of missionaries in tow! We really are flooding the earth with missionary work, and I'm so proud to be a part of it. Please write, I love hearing from all of you!! Until next week!

Con Amor,

Elder Richman