Dear Family,
Yes we got TONS of snow!!! I'll send pics so you can see how
white everything was. It's all melting now so there is big puddles everywhere.
Also, I have THE BEST dad in the whole world. I want
everyone to know that. Thanks for the valentines chocolates!! :) (see photo)
To my brother Willie I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR WHERE YOU ARE GOING!!!!! I've
been praying that you can be excited wherever you go, I hope it's Spanish
speaking though!!!!! ;) I am so happy you decided to fast so that you will be
excited for wherever you get called. Remember the Lord knows you best and will
put you wherever your talents are needed. Grandpa Hall told me before I left
that missionaries are called to their missions because:
1) This is the place where your character will develop the
way the Lord wants it to be developed.
2)This is the place where your spiritual character will be
developed the way the Lord wants it to be developed
3) This is the place where special people are waiting to
hear the gospel from YOUR mouth. No other missionary can do the work like you
can wherever you are assigned.
I sure love you and can't wait till next week so I get to
know where you're headed!
SOOO many new things are happening here in the mission and
it's changing the way missionary work is done! On Monday we had a VERY
spiritual zone meeting as our zone leaders told us about more training they
recieved after our day of training. They told us about how everyone one of the
"How to begin teaching" points in chapter 10 of preach my gospel is
centered around the Atonement. They also explained to us that someone who is
not baptized cannot recieve the blessings of the atonement, only feel the
effects of it. I'm still trying to figure that one out. They also explained to
us the new way we are going to be teaching lessons! In the past we taught #1
(Restoration of the gospel) #2 (Plan of Salvation) #3, etc etc. In order. but
now when we start teaching investigators the first lesson we will teach will be
15-20 minutes about our purpose and we will go through everyone of the 10
points in "How to begin teaching". The second lesson will be the
restoration in 15-20 min (taught with the pamphlet). The purpose of 15-20
minute lessons is to help the investigator feel the spirit and leave them
wanting more. The third lesson is the gospel of Jesus Christ (I think) and the
fourth is Revelation through reading the book of mormon and attending church. I
am excited to start this new way of teaching!
Also, here in the mission we are changing the way we find
people. Instead of just knocking doors and introducing ourselves as
missionaries, we are going to be doing something called HARVESTING. What we do
when we harvest is knock on peoples doors, introduce ourselves as Representatives
of Jesus Christ, and ask them if we can come in and pray for them. After that
we ask them if they want to be baptized. Our mission is the first in the WHOLE
WORLD to try this new way of finding and according to the zone leaders they
were told that if we can pull this off our mission will be legendary. So yeah.
No pressure or anything. A few other missions have done this but ours is the
first in the world to have it implemented mission-wide. I'm super excited.
So now I will tell you about the experience Sister Floyd and
I had "harvesting" a building. Our zone leaders said it would be hard
but we didn't think it would be this hard...
We started knocking a building and no one answered any of
their doors. It was wierd because usually hispanics at least open their doors
for us. Usually hispanics are nice. One lady opened her door and we asked if we
could bless her house and she said "Ustedes son raros"=You guys are
wierd. She shut the door and we laughed really hard because we had never been
called wierd before. We got another guy from Puerto Rico to open his door and
he just talked FOREVER and gave us anti-mormon literature. We wanted to cry. I
dislike when people think they know our church isn't true when they don't even
know! Ugh.
We've been working alot with less actives in our ward and
last week we had a lesson with the pacheco family. They are from Honduras.
Brother Pacheco is the dad and he lives with his daughter (Luz I think is her
name) She is 50ish and has been inactive for a long time. During the lesson we
asked her why she doesn't come to church and she said because she doesn't want
to. She seemed pretty indifferent. We talked about the gospel of Jesus
Christ and at the end of the lesson she told everyone that was there that they
were going to church on Sunday! "Everyone" includes her, Brother
Pacheco, his son, and his wife (who is not a member). And guess what? they all
came!!!! We were so happy because alot of times people say they will come to
church and they never do. But this family is awesome! We taught them again on
Monday and talked about the restoration. We are trying to work on the wife of
the brother/son who is not a member. We'll see!
I think that's about all for this week, thank you for all
your prayers!! I love you all soooooo much!!!!!
Hermana Richardson
Oh PS the other day Martha Stewart walked right in front of
us. We were standing on a corner waiting to cross the street and she walked
right out of a car. Now I can say I had an encounter with a famous person :D
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