Liberty week 21

March 27, 2013

This week has again been lots of knocking on doors spreading the message of the Restoration. Since we've been knocking so much, I've gotten really bold with my approaches:

*knock knock*

Person answers the door

Sister Richardson:Hi! We're representatives of our Savior Jesus Christ and we've got a message to share with you about happiness.

Person:No thanks, the mormon is not for me.

Sister Richardson: What about the Mormon is not for you? Do you know what we teach? Do you know that what we bring can bring you SALVATION?!

(This is not how it actually goes. Usually I end up saying "Okay have a great day" and then in my mind I think of all the clever and awesome things I could have said)

So yeah. Knocking is great and the other day I this guy named Brother Handley opened his door and I said:

Sister Richardson: Hi! We are representatives of our Savior Jesus Christ and we have been sent here by a prophet of God to share the message of the restoration with you.

Brother Handley: Oh okay, well my wife's not home right now but can you come back Sunday?

Me: Sure!

So we went back on Sunday and when he opened the door he said, "Wow girls you really came back!"

We said of course! So they let us in and we sat and talked to his wife for a little while. They were really nice! His wife goes to the catholic church every sunday and asked us about baptism. She was worried because her daughter wasn't baptized when she was a baby, so I told her we believe that children don't need to  get baptized till they are 8. She seemed satisfied with that answer. We probly should have gotten a return appt with them but we didn't...the next day though during personal study I thought, "We should give them a Book of Mormon!" So I got a book of mormon and wrote my testimony in it and told Sister Handley to look in Moroni chapter 8 because it is all about infant baptism. So yeah. Maybe we'll go back later and see if we can visit them again.

Okay so backtracking...

Skipping to Sunday, in my journal I wrote "THE SUN CAME OUT TODAY!!!!! Literally and figuratively!" It had been snowing a lot and Sunday it was sunny and every single house knocked on we got into except one! We had 6 appointments! It was a miracle. We were super happy and grateful that the Lord blessed us with people to teach.

We set another baptism date with our investigator Eliana (spanish!!!!) this week. She had a date before but she never comes to church so she couldn't get baptized. We talked to her on Sunday and told her she can't get baptized without coming to church. We are going to work a lot with her to get her to come to church because I know she can get baptized if she'll just make the effort to come to church! Pray for her that she'll be motivated.

Also, last Friday, we had an appt with a brother L . . ., who hasn't been to church in forever. The senior missionary couple up here said he has an adult daughter who they think we can reach. I called her when we first got here 4 weeks ago and she said she is atheist and isn't interested. So we're like okay whatever. We visited them on Friday and Brother L is really nice and his daughter Jennifer is....I don't know how to describe her. I see it as being EXTREMELY insecure so she is rude and obnoxious to cover it up. She has 2 kids and said she got pregnant with the first when she was 15. Sad. Anyway, at our appt I was talking to Brother Loucks and sister Barlow was talking to Jennifer and she wanted to know our first names. When I was being trained Sister Aguirre never told anyone her first name so I never have either. Sister Barlow told her (she is very timid and I think was scared of Jennifer) her name and then Jennifer turned to me and said "What's your first name?" I said "Sister." She said no really. I said "Sister." I wouldn't give in and Jennifer called me Spunky. Which I have never gotten before but when people are rude like here in Liberty you start to get callouses on your soul and don't care anymore. So I was very forward with her and said I would appreciate it if she would call me sister Richardson. So she said okay. She also asked me if she intimidated me (she prides herself that she is intimidating) and I said, "No. Do you know why Jennifer? It's because I know you are a daughter of God and He loves you so I love you." She just tried to blow it off but I let her know that she wasn't going to intimidate me. Sister Barlow even started to stand up for herself at the end. It was great! I hope this experience doesn't sound too negative but I am just telling you to let you know that you should never let people bully or intimidate you. Just let them know that Heavenly Father loves them no matter what.

Also we had Sister Gaughan come to church on Sunday! She is the lady that called me and told me that nothing was going to get in the way of her attending church on Sunday. She's been LA for a while but she came on Sunday and I was so happy! Seeing less actives at church brightens my whole day .Sister Gaughan has a soft spot in my heart.

I think that's all for this week, thank you for all your prayers and support! Love you all!!!!

Hermana Richardson

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Liberty week 20

March 20, 2013

Familia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SOOOOOOOOOOO...

It's snowing. Alot.

There is probably a foot of snow outside and it's still snowing. It's been snowing for the past 3 days. I feel like I'm serving in Alaska or something...

This week has been a lot of knocking doors again and visiting less actives. The sad thing is that many of the less actives here in this area want nothing to do with the church anymore. We will call them and they'll say things like "Do me a favor and don't call this number again" or "My husband hasn't been a part of that church for six years! Don't call us!" :(

It makes me sad.

Last Thursday we had the opportunity to visit with Sister Gaughan (Gawn) who is a less active and the bishop says he really wants her back. We went to go visit with her and her and I just clicked. She is such a sweet spirit (I'm really saying that because I like her not because she's a "sweet spirit", no sarcasm!) We had a really nice visit and we talked to her about why it's so important to renew our baptismal covenants and why the sacrament is so important. I felt like the Spirit kept putting things in my head to tell her and I was really grateful. We read the sacrament prayers in D&C 20 and then talked about what we are promised when we take the sacrament. I could tell the spirit was working on her! The problem of why she doesn't come to church is cuz she doesn't want to walk the half mile to the bus stop when the weather is bad to drive her out to monticello. I felt like she was giving excuse after excuse and I just felt so sad because I knew if she really wanted she would walk to the bus stop. Anyway, we had a really nice lesson and about an hour after she called us and told me "I just wanted to thank you for coming over. I know that is just what I needed and I want to tell you that NOTHING is going to stop me from going to church on sunday." It was aweeeesome and I was so happy to hear her say that. But, it is easy for someone to feel the spirit and decide that and then in following days forget about it. She called on Saturday and said she couldn't come to church because she had forgotten she promised to help someone move on Sunday. Boo. But we're not going to give up and I know we're going to get her to church someday.

Also, our zone leaders texted us last week and told us the trainers and trainees would be having a training down at the temple on Tuesday! (Yesterday). We were suuuuper excited first because sister barlow has never been to the city and I was excited to go back to my old area in Harlem. So Monday came around and it started to snow and we were informed we had to drive to poughkeepsie (1.5 hours away from us) Tuesday morning at 5 to catch the train that would take us down to the city. So yesterday morning we awoke at 4 AM to get ready and we left our apt around 5:15 to go follow the elders to the train station. The roads were pretty bad because of all the snow and when we were almost to our destination Elders Atwood and Sevy called us and said to turn around and go home because the roads were really bad and President had said it was too dangerous for us to go all the way down to poughkeepse. They also said that they had slid off the road...so yeah. We turned around and went home and were way disappointed because we really wanted to go to the training. Also sister barlow and I were just tired of knocking doors day after day and getting nothing. So we got home at 6:30, sister barlow went back to bed, and I started praying. I prayed because I was frustrated with how everything was going, frustrated that we couldn't find people to teach and (it's hard being a trainer and sometimes having to do things all by yourself) so I was frustrated that I didn't know how to help sister barlow reach out of her comfort zone. So I laid it all out to the Lord and told him all my frustrations and asked him to bless us.

I'm here to tell you that when you ask for blessings, the Lord pours them out on you! I decided that we were going to have a good day even though we didn't make any plans since we thought we were going to be at the temple all day. I refused to have a lame day and I was ready to see what the Lord had in store for us. We went to go visit a lady named Elizabeth Vargas and her family (we've taught them once, we found elizabeth one day when we were walking and she was waiting on her driveway for her daughter to get home from school). She has a daughter named Shauna who is 12, a daughter named Savannah who is 5ish, and a son who is 2 named Landon. Last time we taught them I asked her if she would be baptized when she came to know the truth for herself and she said yes. So yesterday we taught the restoration and the spirit was soooo strong. Sister Barlow did awesome because sometimes she gets really shy and is scared to say things but she taught right along with me which really helped the lesson. Shauna was there too and we taught her to pray at the end. It was so sweet and her prayer was so sincere. Anyway, we set a baptism date with them! April 20!!!! Yayyyyyyy! I can't tell you how happy I was. Definitely on cloud 9. As we were leaving Shauna said that she loves when we come over and she can't wait till we come again. I know that is because she recognizes the spirit and she wants to follow it! Please pray for this family and that they can stay firm. They are pretty legit, we just need to get elizabeth's husband chad involved. He came in for a little bit during our first lesson but yesterday when we taught the restoration he wasn't involved. So pray for them por favor! :)

Our ward is super awesome and at ward council on sunday we discussed some ways to help missionary work move forward. We have a few awesome ideas and thanks mom for your idea!! I will definitely share that at PEC on Sunday.

Last week we started teaching this guy named Gary who is the brother of one of our members Sister King. We had a really nice lesson with him and he seemed really excited to learn more and progress. He called on Saturday night and asked how he can get to church and that he would be at church this sunday. Well...he called on Monday to tell us that he wanted to stop "bible study" and that he would be moving. It was wierd. I was like "Oh okay brother carrington" but didn't know what else to say. We got off the phone and I felt like my boyfriend had just broken up with me or something. Which has never happened to me in my life since I'm always the one breaking their hearts so I didn't know how to handle it! I talked to sister barlow and I was like ok whatever maybe he'll be ready to accept it in the future. It was just wierd how he all of the sudden just didn't want to learn anymore. Oh well. It's sad when people don't realize what is right in front of them.

So yeah! Thank you for all your emails, I love love love love them even though sometimes I don't write responses to all of them! Thank you all sooooooo much for your love and support. I have the best family ever. :)

Les quiero muchisisisisisimo!!!!!

Hermana Richardson

Liberty week 19

March 14, 2013

Well.....Monticello is a lot different than Harlem! Mom you were right that the area is very poor, most of the town of Liberty is old and run down. But it certainly makes for interesting tracting!

Thursday we made phone calls to almost all the members trying to find people to go visit. Luckily we have an amazing relief society president who gave us a couple names. Then, we had the blessing of having the traveling sisters (The sister AP's :)) come stay with us for a couple days to help us. They made a map of our area, set up our furniture, and do some visits for us. We were SO grateful because we were running around crazy trying to do our grocery shopping and stuff so they were a huge help. Thursday night we were invited to a member's house for dinner. Their name is the Roberts and they are great. They have a cute little 14 month old named Skyler.

Friday we made more calls and met our branch president, President Fuller. He is awesome! He is a convert but his wife served a mission in Japan. I love their family already. We also visited brother vacarro, a member. He is from Italy and hard to understand. He also lives in a Ski resort so it was a little difficult to find his apartment. It took us 45 minutes and I felt so bad because I could hardly understand him and I'm sure he was frustrated. But we eventually found him and he was nice.

Saturday we went to go help the Relief Society President (her name is Lisa Banks. Sweet right?) and her husband, the ward mission leader, clean the church. After, sister banks came with us on some visits, one of which is an investigator. Luckily for us the elders passed on about three investigators to us so we already have a headstart in the area. Our appt went well, despite the fact that the investigator prefers spanish so I talked to her in spanish and translated for both sister barlow and sister banks...it was wierd but the spirit was there! Sister banks commented on how it's easier to understand spanish when the spirit is there. I definitely can attest to that! This investigator, Eliana, is from Columbia (I think) and has been investigating for 11 years! She needs to be baptized! It really makes me wonder how someone can investigate for 11 years and not be baptized. She had a bap date for the 29 of Dec but never went to church so she couldn't get baptized. I asked her again if she would like to set up another date to be baptized and she said yes. But then she didn't come to church on Sunday because she said she was sick...one of the hardest things for me is knowing how to help people have the desire to go to church. It's hard!

Saturday night we went to go visit the Pyram family. The branch president warned us she has a 2-3 hour long story of her life and if we ask the wrong questions we'll be stuck there listening to her. When we went to go visit her we didn't realize it was the same lady so we started talking about her life and she said she used to be a protestant preacher in Alabama. (Willie is going to be getting a lot of people like this so be prepared.) I said "Oh you used to be a preacher?" Wrong question. We spent the next 2.5 hours listening to her story. Which was actually REALLY awesome and inspiring! It was just a long time to be at someone's house. She raised her granddaughters and has a FIRM testimony of the church. Maybe someday I'll tell you the story but right now I don't have time to write it all down.

Sunday we went to church! The building (cute little chapel!) is out in monticello and we are in liberty so it's about a 15 minute drive. We have brother vacarro from Italy, sister pyram from alabama,  the mulholland family (6 kids ages 7-0) from Trinidad, and others. The ward members are so loving and I was able to play the piano for singing time in primary. The kids are so cute!

Also Sunday night we went tracting and when we stepped out of our car we saw these kids walking down the road so we stopped to talk to them. When we first met them it looked to me like a family with an older sister and 3 younger brothers. We introduced ourselves and asked if they knew anyone who would like a message about Jesus Christ. The oldest girl, Lakera, said "Yes actually my mom would!" (we assumed she lived with her mom in Liberty) so we got her moms info and said we would go visit her. But when we put the address in the GPS it didn't come up. And the phone number she gave us didn't work...so we were way sad. But while we were doing this we saw them walking back so we kinda followed them. And saw them walk into an apartment complex so we decided to follow them! We found their apartment and her "little brother" answered the door. It actually turned out to be her friend but she totes dresses in boys clothes so it was wierd. Anyway, they were willing to let us come in and talk to them! so they did and the friend who dresses in boys clothes said she's studied alot about different religions but she doesn't know which one is right! And she is scared to ask a preacher because she knows they will say "mine!" so anyway yeah we got a return appt with them! And Lakera told us that when she first saw us she thought, "I want my daughter to be like them!" Lakera is 20 and has a 4 year old. they live there and their mom actually lives in Monticello, so that's why we were confused with the address. So hopefully (crossing my fingers!) we can go back and teach them on saturday. We gave them a book of mormon and told them to pray about which church is right.

The next day right after we saw lakera we met another lady outside her house. Her name is Elizabeth and we just stopped to talk to her and shared a pamphlet of the plan of salvation and asked if we could come by later. So we have an appt with her tomorrow! I'm crossing my fingers that she is there. It makes me sad when I get my hopes up only to have them crushed. (story of the mission life :(( We also found a lady named Ana who speaks spanish and said we could come back too.

Monday we had district meeting and we talked about different ways of contacting and it was awesome because we tried it later and it worked!!!!! I forgot to tell you that we have super awesome senior missionaries named the Longs who went through the ward list before we got here and found some people for us to teach. So monday we had a lesson with Gary Carrington (brother of a less active) and it was sooooo good! The spirit was really strong and he seems really sincere. He said that he'll be baptized when he knows the truth for himself. So that was exciting!

Also monday we went tracting right by our apartment and had a GREAT experience! We tried some of the things that were suggested during district meeting. What we do when we tract is

Formula for MIRACLES :) (Willie do this when you get out to north carolina)

1) introduce ourselves

2) Say"we don't have too much time but we'd like to share a pamphlet with you and leave a blessing on your house."

3) do that and say the prayer and get a return appt!

4) watch peoples hearts soften and see miracles happen!

It was so awesome and we were able to have 9 lessons and get 3 return appts. One of which is with a family that has 8 kids! Also at one of the houses the guy came out and started talking to us because he had never heard of the message of the restoration. We explained it to him and he was really nice. He also gave us a couple people to visit! One was his next door neighbor who is from Uruguay so that was sweet. I never thought I would say I look forward to finding spanish people. It's amazing how much spanish I can speak now and I know it's only cuz the lord is helping me!

We found another guy but couldn't go in because he was home alone. He was really nice and emphasized that he is greek orthodox but we sat and talked to him for about 45 minutes. He gave us hot chocolate and kept asking us if we were going to give his info away or print our conversation in the newspaper. It was really funny. I guess people don't believe there actually is nice people in the world who will sit and talk to you for a while and not expect anything of it. That's why I love being a missionary because we can do stuff like that! :) :)

Yesterday was realllly rough. It rained ALL DAY. That meant no tracting and we didn't really have any appts set up except for one with a member and another investigator except when we got to her house she was sick so we couldn't teach her. After that we went through the whole ward list and called every less active we could find. We finally found a lady to go visit. We went to her house and I told sister barlow "I hope she doesn't smoke because I already have a headache." We went and lets just say her house really smelled like smoke and I've never had anyone be so rude to me before. Poor lady. She must have had a hard life. We talked to the elders after and said we went to go visit her and they laughed and said "yep don't go visit her!" Shoulda told us that before!

Anyway, I've been praying ALOT because opening a new area is not easy especially training and trying to help a new companion learn how to teach and help her learn spanish at the same time even though we hardly speak spanish to the people we visit. Pray we can find spanish people! We keep hearing that there is a lot of spanish people in Liberty, so we just have to find them. I've been a little discouraged because our ward is so spread out and our area is so huge and we only have a limited amount of miles for our car. So much to worry abotu all at once! But I've been praying really hard and I know that Heavenly Father knows I can do it or he wouldn't have called me here in the first place. He must see something in me I don't see yet :) I'm sure I'll learn a lot these next couple cycles! Please pray for me always!

Also we are trying to find ideas to help our small little branch become excited about missionary work. Any ideas??

Thank you for all your prayers, letters, and thoughts! You are all wonderful!

Mucho amor!

Hermana Richardson

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Liberty week 17

March 7, 2013

Hola family!

So much has changed!

1. I'm no longer in Harlem

2.I'm training a new missionary!

3. We're opening up a new area in Monticello, NY (Look it up on google maps, it's in the middle of nowhere USA)

So....yes! I'm now with my new comp sister Barlow in Liberty, NY. 2 mondays ago we had interviews with President and when I went in to talk to him he told me that "The spirit has been prompting me to make some big changes in your mission. Big changes with a capital B." So I was like okay am I going to be traveling sister? (Sister Ap's) Then he told me my assignment. That the Lord was calling me to train a new missionary and open up a new area up in Monticello. I started to cry and said "What if I'm not ready?" And president said "Well the Lord thinks you are!" He told me not to tell anyone till Wednesday night last week that's why I couldn't tell you!!!!! :)

I was so overwhelmed but excited for my new responsibility and I prayed alot about it and knew that's what the Lord wanted for me. So I packed and said goodbye to dear old Harlem (it was so hard to leave all the ward members there and the people we were teaching. Sadness:( ) I met sister Barlow yesterday (yesterday we made transfer history-40 new missionaries in one transfer) and she is so sweet. She's from Kaysville. She's 20 so she's one of the one's that heeded the call of the prophet. It's going to be strange up here because technically monticello is an english area so there is NOT alot of people to teach in spanish. But President told me to speak as much spanish with my comp as possible and find as many spanish people as we can. I have faith the Lord has people in mind for us to teach. Pray for us and our new area! And also that Sister Barlow and I can keep up our spanish. I feel like I hardly know spanish myself so it's wierd I'm helping someone else learn.

We had a good week this week. Besides being stressed for all the new changes that were happening in my mission we were still teaching Amilio (Still has his baptism date for April 13-he is so cool!). Last saturday I got to work with Sister Richie for a day because sister floyd went up to yonkers with sister Aguirre. Sister Richie and I clicked and basically she is one of my favorite sisters. She did the same thing I am doing right now about 3 cycles ago so she had a lot of good advice about training and opening a new area. It was definitely an answer to my prayers! Anyway we were able to teach amilio but I felt like when we were teaching him something was missing. Like we weren't exactly meeting his needs and he just wasn't getting it. So on Tuesday (2 days ago) sister floyd and I decided to teach him the plan of salvation. We had manuel saldivar (the guy sister aguirre and I taught and he got baptized) and a member darren jackson. The lesson was SWEET. The spirit was so strong and the best part was that Amilio GOT IT. We could literally fill relief fill his countence and we knew we had taught to his need. It was an amazing lesson and he said he is so excited to get baptized and that his mom might even fly in from Florida to see him get baptized. I love being able to teach people like Amilio because he just gets it and it's so rewarding to see him understand things and to be able to help him.

So yeah! I'm sorry I feel like I have SO MUCH to tell you but we're in the library and I only have 14 minutes left and I still have to read all your letters. But just know I am loving it here so far in Monticello (we're in the middle of the forest and the public library is the size of our house. It's tiny.) It's so beautiful here with so many trees and it's just what you think of when you think of a cute little town backeast. Like the front of a postcard. Night and day difference from Harlem!!!

Thank you for all your love and support!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Richardson

NYC week 16

February 27, 2013



Dear Family --

I ADORED your emails this week. I love being a missionary but love being able to hear from my family each wednesday. My heart is positively jumping for joy and I almost cried when I watched the video of Will opening his mission call. AH! Charlotte North Carolina. If the black people there are anything like the ones here in Harlem, you'll loooooooooove your mission. :D Los morenos aca en Harlem son MUY chistosos y a veces son muy locos. Pienso que va a reir MUCHO. :) Nunca va a tener una dia aburrido.

Today for Pday we were able to get a tour of the United Nations because a member of ours works there! It was sweeeeet and I will send pics next week.

 

Next week is transfers and I'm not sure if I'll be staying or going so send all your mail to the mission office from here on out. 

This week we have done a lot of less active work. Also our investigator Amilio who has the baptism date is doing awesome! He's really committed to changing his life. I love being able to help him understand his purpose and that he can put his past behind him and move on with his life.

I don't remember what else happened this week, just a lot of knocking doors and something I will have to tell you about next week because President said not to tell yet! (nothing bad don't worry mom) So yeah! Bye! :D

Mucho amor,

Hermana Richardson