ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #14 -- AUGUST 18, 2013

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #14

AUGUST 18, 2013

Hello all!

This week was a little bit slower. We had high hopes for a lot of investigators, but a lot of them canceled. We had 4 lessons planned for Saturday, but then none of them were able to meet! So we had quite a bit of finding time to work with. It's amazing how the Lord can lead us to prepared people. Almost every time we go finding, we find someone who is really prepared. Although it's always frustrating to me how difficult it is to schedule a lesson with those people. If only everybody understood how important this message really is!

We didn't have a lot of meetings with our investigators this week, but we did take a peike to visit Huang DiXiong. That was a really great experience, and I think it helped him and his family find a friend. If only they would COME TO CHURCH!! They always seem to have family stuff on Sunday mornings.

We have the hardest time getting any of our investigators at church. In America things slow down on Sunday. But in Taiwan, people keep working and keep having class. So a lot of the cool people we meet with just don't have time to come to church. It's super frustrating. Our motto recently has been a quote from the District 2, where Sis. V gets exasperated and says: "Just come to church!!!" That's how we feel all the time. 

Probably nobody else will get that. Melissa will!

We had an amazing miracle this week. A few weeks ago, we meet a really cool Argentinian couple that we felt really needed the gospel. We sent the referral to Tianmu, but it seems Elder Pratt had written the number down wrong. Then this week, we just randomly ran into the husband at a seven. We talked to him for a few minutes, and then fixed the number and resent the referral. We are human missionaries, and we make mistakes. But the Lord's work is bigger than us, and He will always compensate for our imperfections in order to do His work!

Here's our weekly schedule to give you an idea of how much we do in a week:

Mon - Studies 8 - 11

          Preparation Day until 6pm

Tue - Studies 8-12

         District Meeting (sometimes here in Neihu and sometimes in Jilong, an hour bus ride away)

Wed - Studies 8-12

          English Class starting at 6

Thu - Studies 8-12

         Weekly planning session 1-4

Fri - Studies 8-12

Sat - Studies 8-12

Sun - Church 8-12

         Studies 2-6

There's a lot of studying! We're always trying to become better missionaries. As long as we improve a little each week, that's what counts!

Last night, we rewatched the Work of Salvation with our ward. I was impressed with how many people came! It was really great to be reminded again how important members are in missionary work. It was fun to hear it in Chinese, and I really appreciated that the translator guy spoke slowly enough that I could understand.

Last P-Day, we along with another district when to a place in our area where they have a GIANT bing which is like a giant shaved ice thing with fruit and beans and stuff. It took nine of us an hour to eat the whole thing! It was a lot of fun and there's a picture attached!

Some other things:

Most of the Sevens (7-11) here have slurpee machines and have 60 cent slurpees. So after most meals we go to a seven (there's always one close) and get a slurpee.

I met my first person with the English name Apple. Apparently there are a lot.

In America, everybody wants to have tan skin. In Taiwan, everybody wants to have white skin. People will wear long sleeves and hats when they ride their scooter, cause they don't want to get tan.

It was a great week! Next week will be interesting, because my companion will be gone a lot on exchanges. So I'm leading the area for awhile next week!

Love you all!

Elder Richardson

田長老

A Carrefour!