¡Prospero Año Nuevo!

Hey errybody! I've contracted a disease this wonderful P'day... driving in on the combis, I always get "flojera".. haha. I just get super lazy after riding the combis to come into Central to get on the internet. I'm sleepy tired. Changes were last night, but Elder Garcia and I aren't going anywhere! However, Elder Lamb is heading out, and a Latino is coming in in his place.. so. I'm thinking, this next change, I'm going to loose a good portion of my native tongue, which is kinda super cool, and a little sad at the same time...

But, this week was super cool! Got to talk to my family! (Merry Christmas to me!) But, Christmas Eve, my companion and I spent all day teaching with our box, and dead serious brought a couple people to tears with our piledriving spiritual power. We're just that good. In the night, went to a members house, ate some really yummy turkey, and then went back to the room. We may or may not have purchased a 3 liter Inca Kola, some paneton (like, fruit cake. It's a Christmas tradition here), and played Monopoly til midnight, BUT it's cuz we wanted to witness a tradition here. At midnight, everyone lights off fireworks, and it is super sweet, cuz it's EVERYONE, at the same time. We were able to look out our windows and just see for miles, fireworks everywhere. It was super cool. Um... Christmas, not a lot happened. Everyone was busy basically, so we didn't do much other than call our families..

Really, not a ton happened this week til the end. Saturday, we had an activity for Christmas/New Years. Like, 60 people came, we (the missionaries) taught the Restoration with some sweet visual aids that I thought of (again... just that good), and then ate some food. It was pretty sweet. Got a couple references, and some of our investigators and less actives came. 

Sunday too was super cool. The goal for members in Sacrament Meeting for this year here in La Joya was 100, and we've been hovering about 90 every week. Yesterday, we had 104! BOOM! It was awesome. We basically talked about families and temple work yesterday, and it was maybe my favorite Sunday out of my whole mission so far. The kids had a big activity that they ate paneton and hot chocolate and got toys, the youth were watching Mormon Messages, and the adults were talking about temples and families, and the last hour, we talked about temples and stuff more. It was just like, awesome. The fact that our families can be together forever is seriously the best gift we can possibly have. It was just a really good time, and was sweet to see the families here who are sealed. The people here really are pioneers, and their kids are gonna be the next generation to lead and direct this church. They rock. I love these people.  

Um. But, I think that's it... Not a lot today. Alex has been coming every week but his dad still wants proof that he's ready. We have planned this week to do everything in our power to get permission to baptise him. Hopefully! Jessica and Gabriel are new investigators that we have that are progressing really well, so I'm excited about that. Yesterday, we met a few new familes that I'm excited about. I'll let ya'll know next week how they're doing. Anyways... until next year! Love and miss you all!

-Elder Richman

Feliz Navidad!

Phew, this letter is gonna be short cuz I have lots of people to write, and I gotta plan my call on Wednesday with my family! Bueno, lets get started.

This week, we had good lessons with Benedicto and his family. He is starting to understand well, and we taught him the box this week. Something that I found out is that, for most of these people, when we read the birth of Christ with them, it is their first time! Crazy, right? But it's been really good to help them with their testimony of Christ. But, with Benedicto, he is progressing well, but still needs a little push. We're working on it.

Maria is doing well too. We also taught with the box, and she liked it a lot haha. We just gotta keep pushing forward with her, I believe she has the potential to progress. 

We're working with another family too, Teddy and Daysy. Their really cool, and they're members, but just a little less active. We went and celebrated their daughters 11th birthday this week with them, and we ate a lot of cake, and my comp puked. I swear, he throws up as frequently as Austin hahaha. It's great.

Um... oh. It's mango season here! So we eat mangos all the time from the trees, cuz there are like a billion. It's pretty great. I do like a good mango. I don't like all the hairs though.

Yesterday in church, we got to help the primary make a bunch of Christmas cards. It was awesome. It felt like Christmas. The kids here are great, I dunno if I've mentioned that. And not just the members, all of them haha. Every time we are in Upis, there is this little girl that comes up and holds my hand, and says "Hermano, cuando vas a venir a mi casa?" (Brother, when are you gonna come to MY house?) It's way cute haha. But, her parents are hardly home so... haha. We're teaching this two kids, Jose and Rodrigo, and I want to share an experience I had with them, that was WAY humbling. I asked them what they asked for for Christmas, and Jose told me, almost, ashamed cuz it was SO much, "Well.. I REALLY would like a new soccer ball." Seriously, I almost cried, straight up. I was his age, asking for a bajillion expensive toys, and he is asking for a soccer ball, and he thinks it's too much. I dunno. I have been able to understand the Spirit of Christmas a lot more here. And, it's really such an important thing. When Christ was born, I feel like hope was born. We have the hope (and surety) that if we follow his example, we can be clean from our sins, and we can live with our familys for forever, and with our Heavenly Father! For me, that's a whole lot of hope. I know Christ lives, and that through him, I can truely live. I'm so grateful for that, and for this time I have to serve him and be his representative here in Peru. Love and miss you all, and I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.

Tengan una Feliz Navidad!

Elder Richman

I'm Dreaming of Wet Christmas!

Holiday Greetings from Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios, Peru! Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. I'm a little tired today, due to the fact that our neighbors in the next level of our building just got a new puppy, and it was up barking nice and early this morning. I ended up actually going up and threatening it I was gonna punt it off the roof if it didn't callarse. It didn't, but I also didn't punt it off the roof.  

So, remember all the appointments we had lined up for this week? Well, the investigators didn't. Haha. This week was kind of a pain, cuz we would go out and work all day long, and we had like 2 days this week that NOTHING happened haha. But, this week has been very very wet. It was raining all the time this week it seems like haha. So, the nice thing is, it hasn't been hot. But, Saturday, it rained really hard. Houses were flooding, and a lot of the streets too haha. I'm not talking a little bit of water, I'm talking, a raging river, complete with big rapids, was the roads haha. Kids were swimming in the road. It was pretty intense. But, with all the rain, my comp and I have been falling left and right. It's been pretty funny. My comp turfed it HARD yesterdayin a ton of mud, and on Saturday, I fell and almost was completely submerged by water haha. My scriptures were saved fortunately, so other than that I wasn't that upset, just laughed.  

I would like to talk about 2 of our investigators that we are working with, just to load em up with prayers from home. Benedicto, Juana, and Alex, and then Rosa are still doing well. Rosa came to church this week, so that was good. But, we have 2 investigators that I feel good about. The first is Maria Martinez and Pedro. Maria is kinda older, but not like, super old, and Pedro is 13. He's from Brazil, so he speaks only a little Castellano. They are progressing well, and we had an AWESOME lesson on the Book of Mormon this week with them. The other is Jessica, she is a young mother, and we're gonna start teaching with her husband this week, but she is progressing really well. She can start to come to church when she finishes up her college this week. I'm feeling real good about the both of them, but we'll see. 

This week, President Harbertson came with his wife and we had a Christmas party! We had pizza and cake (Yup, I put back on all the weight I've lost I think), and then an AWESOME Christmas devotional. I cried. Like a baby. And I'm totally fine with it. It was seriously awesome. But, also on that note, Elder Garcia and I have finished up our Christmas Box. We took it out for a whirl last night, and taught 2 lessons with it. THey were super impressed, and the Branch President came with us for one of the lessons, and afterwards was like, "Elders, that is super dope. We're gonna schedule some family home evenings with our friends and you have to come over and blow them away with the Spirit of Christmas". Okay, maybe not exactly his words, but I think some parts were lost in translation... I'm really excited to keep using it. 

So, President Harbertson gave us a Book of Mormon for Christmas, and a challenge to read it, but to mark every time it says the name of the Lord, and when he is speaking. It actually is quite surprising how much I'm marking! Truely, this book is another testament of our Savior, Jesus Christ! Anyways, I'm having a good time. My comp and I are always laughing and enjoying ourselves, even when we're soaking wet, but we still can teach with the Spirit, so it's great. Loving life haha. I know this church is true! Hope all is well back home! 

Con Amor,

Elder Richman

The pictures are of lots of stuff, our Christmas decorations, our visit to the bridge, our Christmas box, me getting ready to go trapse in the rain.. haha. Enjoy! 

¡Venid, Adoremos!

Hello everyone! I have heartbreaking news... this computer won't let me upload my photos, and I had good ones! That's okay. Next week!

This week was awesome! Seriously, we worked crazy hard, and we saw the results, and I loved it. I'm not gonna go through every day individually, cuz I want to talk about some of the people we are teaching.

First off, Benedicto, Juana, Alex, y Lizbeth. They are a family we are teaching right now. Alex, is like, 10 and he comes to church every Sunday. He has a baptism date for the end of this month, but we're working hard with his family. His family struggles to understand a little, but they always tell us how happy they feel when we come and teach them. I feel like they just need a little push, so we're gonna keep working with them. I'm excited to see where they go. 

Rosa Gregoria. She is another investigator we're teaching. She has a huge amount of faith, but struggles to understand kinda too. She is progressing well, reading her scriptures, but she doesn't seem to understand how important the things we are teaching are, so we have to help her to realize that. We have a member called Brother Valera who has been helping us out a lot with her, so I've seen a lot of the effectivness of the missionary with member team going on. It's sweet. 

We're working with a ton of less actives right now. We have Manuel, Rosa, Saturnina, Americo, Lizbeth, Jimena, Eva... lots. But, this Sunday, Americo, Saturnina, and Manuel came. Manuel is now reactivated (SWEET), and Saturnina and Americo haven't come to church in YEARS. So, it was way cool. Really, we just have a lot of people who are progressing really well.

This week rocked! We had citas almost the entire week for every hour, so it was way busy. There was times that we were running cita to cita, from one end of our sector to the other, but I seriously saw so many blessings for our sacrifices. This work is real. I love it!

I saw a sloth this week! So that was cool. I wanna have a pet one now. I hope my future spouse is gonna be okay with that. My comp and I also were invited to some strong chicha this week. It's like, a drink made from corn, but when it is hot for like, a day, it ferments. So, Juana our investigator invited us to some of her chicha (which is usually REALLY good) and we both took a drink, and almost threw up. It was WAY strong haha. So, we had to tell her that we couldn't drink it. But it was funny. Speaking of my comp, we're getting along really well. I'm having a lot of fun with him haha. We have a good time, but we work way hard, and teach well together. We put up Christmas decorations in our room this week, so that was cool. I have pictures, but I can't send em. We also have planned a big Christmas lesson that we're gonna start giving to people, with a box! We've wrapped up a big box like a present, and inside have built the Nativity. We're gonna talk about "Venid, Adoremos" or "Come Let Us Adore Him" and how we can do that now, through our church attendance, baptism... basically, it's a super well rounded lesson that we can use in whatever situation. I'm really excited about it, and I'll send some pictures when it's done. 

This week, the weather was nuts. We would leave in the morning, start sweating like a couple of animals, and then at like, 12 every day, the rain would start falling. Like... a lot. Since all the roads are dirt, the roads turn into rivers almost instantly haha. I'm not exhagerating(?) either haha. Like, a foot of water running down the roads. Fortunately, we have big old boots we wear haha. So it's sweet. 

Well. Time is a little short today, and I'm not sure what else to write. I'm excited for this next week, we already have lots of citas lined up again. It's gonna be a good one. Thanks for everything, love and miss you all, but I'm having a good ol' time down here in the jungles of Puerto Maldonado. Keep my investigators and the people I'm teaching in your prayers. As time progresses, I'll keep ya'll posted about it. Anyeways, until next week! 

Con amor,

Elder Richman

Sicksgiving!

Hi everyone! I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, ate delicious food, and gained just a little weight. Unfortunately, this week, we were all sick! But, I'll let you know what happened haha.

So, Monday, after email, we went to a place called the Obelisko. It's basically this big tall tower that you climb for forever, and then you can look out over all of Puerto Maldonado! It was really cool, and the view was actually really impressive. Afterwards, we went to this place called Copasu. It's a famous ice cream place here in Puerto, and it was actually SUPER good, especially cuz Monday it was very hot haha. 

So, this week, we had tons of citas lined up, and we were ready to work hard. However, Tuesday, my comp started feeling kind of sick, and then got to a point that he was REALLY sick, so we came back to the room. Wednesday he was feeling about the same, so I sat around and read Jesus the Christ (which I finished! It was awesome. I highly recommend it.), and about 2 o'clock, I started to feel super sick. So, we were feeling about the same, but we live with 2 other elders, Elder Bazan (Part Peruvian, part Chinese), and Elder Lamb from Indiana, and in the morning, Elder Bazan got sick too. Basically, all our bodies were hurting, we felt nauesious, and it hurt to move. Friday, we started feeling a little better, so we went out and about to start working again. We happened to find out about a woman here who passed away recently, and they were having a viewing service. So, we went to ask if we could help with anything. The woman who had passed away has a daughter with like... 12 years, and a baby with 2 months. So we asked her widower if we could do anything, and he told us to come back at night to offer a prayer. 

So, a bit of background on my comp before I tell you about this. My comp is Elder Garcia from Mexico. He is seriously awesome. He is my age, so we get along really well, and we laugh and joke a lot, but I feel like we teach effectively together. But, he cracks me up, cuz he loves Christmas so much, and even though he doesn't speak English, he can sing a ton of Christmas songs in English, word for word, almost perfectly. It's pretty great. So, we go to the funeral that night, and we are just kinda waiting around for about half an hour to say the prayer. This was a Catholic funeral too, and we don't know the traditions of a Catholic funeral, so we were really unsure of ourselves. But at one point, Elder Garcia started singing quietly, "I'll have a blue... Christmas... without you...."  I smacked him and told him to be quiet, cuz I almost started laughing.  He is kinda spacy so he forgot where we were, and just started singing. Cracked me up. But I told him that in the prayer he offered, he had to teach parts of the Plan of Salvation. So, he did the prayer, and was basically teaching Lesson 2 during it haha. Afterwards I gave a quick rundown of our message, and that we were here to share it with all in this time of difficulty and need. It was cool, and we actually got a few new investigators from it. All in all this was with like 30 people. It was cool. 

Unfortunately, Saturday, the pain came back to me like, 3 fold, mostly in my chest. I dunno what I had, but I seriously couldn't breathe without feeling like my chest was gonna explode. It was nuts. Wow, it's raining a ton right now. Anyways. 

Yesterday was better. It was testimony meeting, and it feels really good to be in a branch that everything is running quite smoothly already. It was really relaxing and refreshing to just sit back and listen to the peoples testimonies yesterday, cuz that never really happened in Echarati haha. I just am really excited about the branch that we are in.

Well, I think that's it for this week, I was sick, and even though I was sick, it was good. I did a lot of studying my scriptures and other missionary books, and got to bond a bit with my comp and the other missionaries in our room. Today we have plans to go and decorate our room for Christmas, so that's exciting. But, I'm excited for this week. Yesterday we hit up a TON of houses to get citas, so our week is already almost full, so I'm excited to see how it goes. Wish me luck. Anyways. Can't think of anything else. Love and miss you all, and I'm doing well! Hasta la proxima semana! 

Con amor, 

Elder Richman