ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON PICTURES -- FEBRUARY 17, 2014

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON PICTURES

FEBRUARY 17, 2014

 Panda pictures!

In the bottom right of the second one is the baby panda 

that everybody is so excited about here.

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #39

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON 

WEEKLY LETTER #39

FEBRUARY 17, 2014

It was another really long week. It always amazes me how much stuff can happen out here in just one week.

I left my planner for last transfer at home, so I'm going on memory here. Which is always shakier than you think.

Last Monday, Elder Wang and I went to the zoo to visit the pandas there for the last time. He worked for a long time in that area, and wanted to go to the zoo for one last time with some of his investigators and recent converts. It was actually REALLY cold and also raining, but it was still good to help my companion have a fun last P-Day!

Wednesday we went to the mission office for Elder Wang's exit interview. It was really somewhat surreal to be with a missionary on his last few days. Mostly just really strange. But we got through it and he's home now! Life just keeps moving on.

Friday was transfer meeting! I'm still here in Zhonghe and companions with Elder Rasmussen. He's a young guy, came on a mission straight out of high school, and he is one transfer younger than me. It's nice that we have a similar level of ability and we can really work for companionship unity. Our styles are a little bit different, but we both want to work hard and love the people here!

Because Elder Rasmussen is younger than me, I've now taken the responsibilities of being senior companion. These past few days have been especially stressful because I've also been assigned to serve as the district leader here in the Shuanghe district. It's a lot of new responsibility, but with the Lord's help we can get everything done!

Friday night we met with Sales, who just got baptized. Because he got baptized after church last week, he needed to wait a week to be confirmed in Sacrament meeting. When we met Friday, he told us that he couldn't come to church because he had to work. He has been injured recently and hasn't been able to work as much. He was also scared to call his boss because he thought his boss would get angry about missing work. We didn't really know what to do because we didn't want his boss to be angry, but coming to church and getting confirmed is also really important. We encouraged him to pray about it and figure out what he needed to do. We were very surprised and excited when he called us on Saturday night to say he would be coming to church! It was definitely a miracle that he got confirmed yesterday!

We also were blessed to have a lot of our investigators come to church yesterday! Our amazing investigator Zhou Jiemei is working towards a baptismal date soon. We are teaching a new investigator, Yu Jiemei who's boyfriend is an RM who goes to UVU. She's really interested to find out what our church believes!

Today for P-Day, we are going to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial.

Keep adding that oil!

Elder Richardson

任長老

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETER #38 -- FEBRUARY 10, 2014

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #38

FEBRUARY 10, 2014

Well, the big news this week is that we had a baptism! This is the Wu Dixiong (Sales) that I told you about last week. He is a really interesting guy, and when we first met him, we weren't sure he would ever get baptized. But he kept his commitments and he really grew a great testimony. It'll take some work to keep him on track and get the members to bring him in, but after that I think that he'll be a great member here.

So some big news! On February 22nd, we will be having a special mission conference and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland will be coming to speak to all of the missionaries! Pretty much, it's going to be amazing. He's also coming to the West Taibei stake conference. It's going to be really legit. We're really excited.

We went to our friend George's house this week. The people that he and his mom are staying with are an old couple who recently had their only son pass away from cancer. It was great to teach them about the plan of salvation and assure them that they will see their son again! They all came to church on Sunday, and we hope that we can keep teaching them and help them receive the gospel!

George also cooked us some really good pasta and made his own meatballs that were also delicious.

A family took us to TGI Friday's this week (yeah, they have that here!). It was SO delicious and we ate SO much food. It was pretty much the same as in America.

Short letter today because my companion wants to go to the zoo for his last P-Day. Going to go see the new baby panda!

Add oil!

Elder Richardson

任長老

 Pictures from our P-Day excursion to 象山 Xiang4shan1 (elephant mountain). Great view of the south part of Taibei with the Taibei 101 right in the front!

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #30 -- FEBRUARY 3, 2014

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

Ahhh it's one of those weeks where I can't really remember what happened.  But I know it was a great week! I need to do better of keeping track of the week's events as they happen.  

But hey guess what! My sign language is actually pretty good now! Thanks to God's help and language study time! 

Our ward started the M&M invite thing and it was received really well! It will be fun! 

It is still so cool to see the testimonies of the deaf members grow as they can communicate with us and feel more involved in missionary work.  I love them all so so much!

Also, the Addiction Recovery Program the church has is GREAT! We've been going with one of our recent converts, and it is always so powerful.  

One of the Elders here introduced us to "Elder" food.  He made a ramen sandwich.  You don't need the details...it was interesting...well it was gross.  But Elders eat it all the time apparently? Haha

We are almost done with our list of less-active sisters to find and visit.  We saw a lot of them this week! It is fun!

We are still teaching some great high school age girls with incredible budding testimonies!

St. Augustine is still beautiful and the Lord continues to teach me things everyday! Love you all!

Sister Richardson

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER -- #37

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER -- #37

FEBRUARY 2, 2014

This week was Chinese New Year! It's probably most comparable to Christmas in the United States. Everybody is off from school and most people are off on work. Everybody goes home and most of the city is shut down. As such, it's a little hard to do missionary work. Most of our investigators left Taibei, and there's almost nobody out on the street.

So this week we spent a lot of time with our ward members. It's a tradition for the ward to feed the missionaries during New Year, so we've eaten at members' houses for almost every meal! We are also expected to eat a huge amount for every meal, so I'm haven't really been hungry at all for the past three days.

The members here also cook some very interesting and perhaps more traditional food during New Year. So recently, I've eaten squid, octopus, pig ear, and my favorite was apple covered in lobster sauce.

There have been a lot of fireworks the past week. It's been hard to sleep with fireworks going off right outside your window!

Today, one of our investigators has a baptismal interview! This is actually an investigator I haven't talked about before, mostly because he's kind of hard to describe. We'll call him SALES, because that's what he told us to call him the first time we met him, which was the first day Elder Wang and I got here to Zhonghe. That first visit he wouldn't tell us his last name, because he said it was "not important." He's a pretty eccentric guy, a little bit strange and also really funny. But he loves the gospel, and wants to get baptized, so we are excited for his interview today! If I tried to completely describe SALES, it would probably take two more pages, so I just leave it there.

Well, it was a short week, so here's a short email. 

Add oil!

Elder Richardson

任長老

BAPTISM!!!! JANUARY 2014

BAPTISM

JANUARY 2014

This is the baptism we had right at the beginning of my transfer

ELDER RICHARDSON PICTURES -- JAN 28, 2014

ELDER RICHARDSON PICTURES -- JAN 28, 2014

THE FLAT DUCK IN JILONG HARBOR

SISTER HAN'S HAIR DURING THE ENGLISH PARTY

MY COMPANION ELDER WANG

MY NEW NAMETAG

A view from my area overlooking the rest of Taibei

Elder Edmunds juggling my rubik's cubes

A HUGE Buddhist temple in our area, right in the middle of the city

My companion, Elder Wang

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #36 -- JANUARY 28, 2014

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #36

JANUARY 28, 2014

It's always a long week when we have a different P-Day. Two extra days without the much needed break of P-Day is rough. But now we have a week that will be extra short, and getting to go to the temple is a huge blessing that will make the rest of the transfer a breeze.

This week, we doubled the size of our area. We used to proselyte in the same area as the sisters, and give them the sisters to teach while they gave us the brothers. But at our special training on Thursday, we lost our sister missionaries, and we've now starting teaching everyone in our area.

We had a big miracle this week. One of our investigators (called Sales...it's a long story) has been progressing really well, but he had told us for a while that he wouldn't be able to come to church. His boss is really strict about the times that he can have off, and he didn't think that Sunday would ever be available to come to church. I started praying a lot for his situation, and we invited him to go ask his boss for Sunday off. We were excited when he called us and told us that he would be able to come to church, and then he came!! It was awesome. We are so excited for him to hopefully have a baptismal interview this week, and be baptized at the end of next week after New Year.

Our other investigator Brian is still struggling with smoking. He's still making progress, but I think slower than he would like. We are really going to work with him and completely quit smoking at the end of New Year. It's an ambitious goal, but we hope he can learn to rely on the Lord for the strength to overcome his addiction. We keep praying for him. Something I've learned as a missionary so far is that there are a lot of things that the missionaries can do, but at some point we have to step back. Because what is really important is the investigator's relationship with God. And at some point it has to be his decision to get baptized, and not ours.

We had another miracle this week. Last week we contacted somebody on the street and she agreed to meet with us. After the first meeting, she came to church and discovered that her old friend from elementary school was a member! It's awesome because now we've got a fantastic peike for the next time we meet. The Lord works in ways we can't even comprehend!

I've started a nice collection of board games and card games for P-Days and nights. This week I bought Monopoly Deal in Chinese with locations in Taiwan. My apartment is also going to play Risk today. I might also steal the Settlers of Catan board I found in the chapel.

We had a senior couple who shares our area. They are super 厲害 which means that they are really diligent and get a lot of work done. They work harder than any other senior couple I've ever seen. It's really awesome to have them in our district, because they bring a lot of wisdom and advice to a bunch of young missionaries. Something Sister Garnet said this week that was really profound was "All of our problems come from a lack of understanding the gospel." I thought that was really an amazing and true statement.

We have a cool friend who's name is George. He is Canadian, and he's here visiting family for a few months. He's a songwriter, so we often open up the chapel to let him use the piano in there. He's a really cool guy and also SUPER polite. We often get to hear the new songs that he is writing, and they are REALLY good. He says he is going to have an EP at some point, and hopefully we'll get a copy!

So I had an awesome moment this week when I got to play on a saxophone! Our neighbors who are members feed us lunch one day, and he pulled out his son's old saxophone and I got to play for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the horn was in pretty bad shape, so I couldn't play much, but it was really exciting to play again! I've definitely missed it a lot.

About half of the time when I say I'm from Arkansas, the person I'm talking to mentions Clinton (ke3 lin2 dun4). So my new thing is that I tell them we are from the same home town, and that I also play saxophone. They think that is cool. One guy told me this week that when I go back to America, I should become the governor of Arkansas.

Well, we had a great week this week. And I'm so excited to go to the temple today!

Add oil!

Elder Richardson

任長老

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #29 -- JANUARY 27, 2014

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER

JANUARY 27, 2014

Greetings real world!

The iPads have appeared! All of the mission leaders (zone leaders, district leaders, etc.) have gotten them! They are pretty nifty.  The area book program the church created is incredible.  It is the daily planner and the area book and the ward roster and maps of the area all in one.  And it is all synced with your companions.  It's pretty great! We are counting down the days until the rest of us get them..only about 8 days until then! The church gives them to us to keep for the rest of our lives and they give us a nice protective case with it as well.

It is hard to seperate days! Everything just kind of runs together and I don't remember what we do when.  

We had a really cool miracle happen this week! Sister Sullivan and I were walking back from an appointment where the investigator had stood us up and cancelled...and we decide to go talk to these people that were out by their car.  We talked to them for probably about 2 minutes total, but we invited them to church and swapped phone numbers.  And what do you know, in walks Evan (name changed) to our gospel study class on Tuesday! We were so surprised and happy! People don't realize that as missionaries, we are just used to people not showing up to things when they say they will.  But he was there for our class and LOVED it.  We gave him a church tour and all the members in the building for youth activities and such that night were very welcoming and friendly! One brother even came up to Evan and invited him to go fishing with him this week.  Miracle! And then guess what, he followed through and came to church on Sunday! Wow.  This guy (Evan) is a miracle.  And we are so excited to keep teaching him! 

Every time we have a dinner appointment with the Elders, they always have a competition between them of how much they can eat.  They try to get us sisters into it as well...ha never works.  They are crazy, but great.  One of them might have eaten 14 french toast the other night.  

My favorite part of missionary work continues to be working with less-actives and we've done some great work with it this week! I love just feeling impressed to see a name on a paper that noone knows anything about, and then going and finding and "rescuing" them as President Monson says.  Listening to their issues with the church and then helping them feel the Spirit and feel invited and welcomed at church again.  It's a long, slow process at times, but always worth it when it eventually pans out.  It's a challenge to me to have them fall in love with us missionaries and the gospel all over again.  Kill them with kindness kind of thing. 

We had a curveball lesson with an investigator the other day.  We were going along great, felt like it was going well.  And then we invite them to baptism and then they told us a reason why they didn't want to be baptized....wabam through us for a loop.  We were silent for 15 very long seconds...trying to figure out what to say next.  It's funny now, but was very stressful then! Definitely included lots of praying for words to come to our mouths from the spirit and they did!

We had stake conference this past weekend and it was great! Lots of talking about missionary work! It's the perfect era to be a missionary because everyone is becoming more motivated to do it.  

We had a moment the other day where we felt like spys.  One of the members in our ward works at a real estate office.  Where there is also a less active and an investigator that work there.  So we decided to just go and visit that work office and try to see all those three people at once! They were all happy to see us and it was a fruitful visit!

I loved spending stake conference with the deaf people.  ASL makes so much more sense than English sometimes.  English just has so many superfluous words that all mean the same thing in varying degrees.  I love English, but ASL is nice at times too.  And signing the hymns with a huge group of deaf people is the best experience.  On Sunday, all of the deaf families were in the rs room for the broadcast translation (because it was a broadcasted stake conference from Orlando).  And the translation video kept freezing...it was so funny.  All the deaf people would freak out and mimic shaking these people's heads in frustration.  It was hilarious.  So we kept switching back from this video translation to turning on the sound from the chapel and having a member interpret.  Back and forth.  Kind of distracting, but it all worked out.  

We are planning an activity for all the deaf members! Something that they can come to for fellowship purposes but also something they can bring their deaf friends too.  No talking allowed! Only signing.  We are going to play volleyball at the church! It's going to be on the day after Valentine's day, so we are going to do sugar cookie decorating for the kids as well and I"m sure food will be involved too, whether it's just desserts or is lunch.  We are so excited! Can't wait to see some of these members play volleyball...I have a feeling that they have hidden competitive sides.  People usually see deaf people as quiet, calm people...but that's just because you don't understand what they are saying.  They are just like hearing people can be--sarcastic, witty, competitive, embarassed, kind...you name it.  

All 4 of us missionaries had dinner with the Bishop's family last night.  We were sitting around trying to figure out a way to better help the ward with the missionary work.  The spirit popped an awesome idea into my head that we are going to implement! So people have been talking a lot about how the invitation in missionary work is where the success is.  Not in a baptism...but just in inviting and giving people the opportunity to exercise their agency and accept Christ in their lives.  So we, as a ward, are going to have a goal of 1000 invites in the month of February! And as a "performance enhancer", the Bishop is going to get a jar with 1000 M&M's in it.  Every invitation will be rewarded with an M&M.  People will report on Sunday and get their reward/performance enhancer.  Bishop is going to bring up that jar and introduce it on Fast Sunday/the first sunday in February.  Hopefully everyone, including kids, will get into it! Should be fun!

So ever since we've come here, I've been wanting to get a tour of the Florida school for the deaf and blind..the residential school that almost all deaf people in this town go to or work at, including all the deaf members of the ward.  We finally made it happen today! This morning as part of our P-day, we had an AWESOME tour.  This school is incredible.  It's a private school that is free to florida residents.  They have so many cool resources for those kids! There are 600 kids that go there and they are just normal kids that happen to be blind or deaf.  They have basically everything any other school would have including all kinds of sports teams and dance teams and music and art resources.  Their education program is incredible...with small class sizes and great teachers and great learning tools.  They have psychologists and social workers.  It's a huge campus with beautiful buildings with several gyms, indoor swimming pool, dorms for the kids that stay there all week, bowling alley, auditoriums, library, football field.  All students get a laptop computer that they keep for the year.  70% of their students go on to college/university/technical school.  Being fluent in English and reading comprehension is a big focus too.  It was so impressive.  It was cool to see videos of their dance troupes...they sign instead of singing and dance by feeling the beats of the music or just memorizing counts with the moves.  It was cool to see the blind part of the school too.  Braille is so incredibly cool and crazy! The machines they have to type braille and all the braille books...blew my mind.  And the kids were just normal kids..but just learned in different ways whether they were deaf or blind relying on either sight or hearing to learn.  Also, search on youtube for goal ball.  It's this sport that only blind people play.  It's like human bowling and seems super intense.  We saw their goal ball court.  They use a ball with bells in it...and I don't exactly understand how the game works...I think it's one of those things I'd have to see to understand rather than just having it explained to me.  We saw Brother Price, a deaf member from our ward at his office.  We also saw Brother Snow who is the head librarian! He was so happy to show us around his library and tell us about his job.  I've talked to him about books a lot before...so he has a special place in my heart because he loves reading too.  He had remembered that I had told him that I LOVE classics.  So he took me right to that section and showed them all to me. I loved being able to help these members feel important and valued as we were interested in what they did in their everyday lives.  The school invited us back to their open house where the blind band will perform and also the deaf dance troupe.  Great finding activity! I've officially decided it's my dream job to work there at FSDB as a psychologist, or a place like it.  Hooray! 

Well my friends, the church is still true and God still loves us, and thank goodness that never changes! The gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to change our hearts and our families if we open that door to let Him in (Revelations 3:20).

Also, look at my blog and tell me what you think! You can even comment on the blog too :) song ofsisterrichardson.blogspot.com

Be better today than you were yesterday! Praying for all of you and love you all!

Sister Richardson

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #28 -- JANUARY 20, 2014

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER

JANUARY 20, 2014

Brownies, brownies, brownies.  I'm so sick of brownies.  EVERYONE feeds us brownies.  But life is good, especially if brownies are my only complaint!

The 2nd counselor of our bishopric told me this week that he put in a request for me to stay until the end of my mission..mostly because i play piano.  But I'm sure he was joking.  Although I wouldn't mind staying here that long!

We had 2 investigators at church this week! Both of them are older teenage girls that we've been teaching on facebook! Hooray success! 

At church yesterday we had a "linger longer" where everyone stayed and chatted and we had food! I usually try to visit mostly with the deaf people since the pool of people that they can talk to is limited.  So I have one joke...only one. It's the only one I can remember.  And kids really like it.  So I decided to try it with the deaf boy, Ty who is 11.  BIG MISTAKE! I realized halfway through the joke that this was going to make no sense to him.  The joke is how do you get pikachu onto a bus? And the answer is "Poke-him-on"...like Pok'emon.  It's a hearing/english joke.  Woops.  I felt bad because he was really confused.  Oh well! Ty is one of my favorites.  He is one that is obsessed with Michael Jackson.  He was showing me yesterday on someone's iPad all of the places that Michael Jackson has lived.  And then showed me where he is from (Guatemala) and his brother (Thailand).  He's a smart kid!  Seth, his older brother, got called to be a ward missionary! We are excited to work with him! He has an incredible testimony and will be leaving on his mission in less than a year.  He recently got accepted into Gallaudet University, which is the prestigious deaf university in D.C.

Last night, we were eating dinner at a ward member's home and I kept eating more of these green beans...they were so good.  And I didn't know why, b/c they were the normal not-so-good canned ones.  But then I found out they had been soaked in and cooked with bacon grease.  That explains it.  

We did some service for a ward member in cleaning their house.  It's so sad to see poverty.  And was also one of those breath through your mouth and try not to get sick kind of tasks.  Lots of prayers are said in our minds!

We had a GREAT relief society activity this week and had so many sisters! Our ward is doing so great at reactivating less actives right now! It is great to see our missionary efforts succeeding as we visit less-actives and they come, and then the ward immediately jumps in and fellowships them.  

We are struggling a bit in finding more people to teach and in setting up appointments with investigators that they will actually show up to.  But the work goes on! The good news is that Sister Sullivan is feeling lots better! Hooray!

We ate dinner this week with this older couple that has a house right on the beach..I'm pretty sure this house is worth a couple million dollars.  It has an elevator, 3.5 floors, a bajillion TVs (including TWO at the end of their bed), lots of patios with a view of the beach, a private pier and walkway to the beach, a swimming pool, a laundry chute, lots and lots of bedrooms, offices....so so big.  It was pretty cool to get a tour of their house.  And mind-blowing.  They have the best view and the moon was full that night.  Pretty incredible.  

We met with a deaf homeless man this week that a member knows.  He was cool, but hard to understand.  He's from Michigan so his "accent" is a little different and he has some different signs.  Who knew I've only become fluent in Florida sign.  

I'm running out of puzzles to do at night time.  So I've just started asking members for their puzzles.  I do them all in a few days then give them back.  Don't worry, it's not consuming my life and missionary work.  I only do them after we are done for the day...so like 9:45-10:30.  But they make my brain so happy and are a good relaxation for me.  

It's going to be a warm week again this week! The sun continues to shine in St. Augustine! And God loves us all, no matter what! The only way to peace and happiness is through following His will for your life.  Follow Him and show your love by keeping His commandments! 

Love you all! Go out and make a difference for somebody today!

Sister Richardson

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #35 -- JANUARY 19, 2014

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #35

JANUARY 19, 2014

Well, I am officially no longer 田長老！ Last Monday, I got my new nametag, and now they call me 任長老 (ren4 pronounced like the English word "run"). Now all I have to deal with is my ward being confused for the next three weeks until they get used to it.

Our investigator Brian is doing great! This week is going to be rough for him, but he's working hard to quit smoking so that he can get baptized on the 8th of February. We met with him yesterday and he said that he has completely quit coffee, which is a really big step! Yesterday, we all fasted for him, and I think it has helped him a lot. He wants to be baptized so bad, and just has to quite smoking. I'll keep you updated with how he is doing.

Something cool that I learned about Chinese culture today:

Around Chinese New Year (and also most of the year) the people here will hang red banners on the door frame. It comes from an old Chinese folk tale that told about a dragon who liked to eat children, especially the firstborn son. He would come at Chinese New Year, but if there was red hanging around the door frame, he couldn't go in. Sound familiar?

We went and visited a part-member family, and heard a really cool conversion story. Before she knew about the church, this lady went to Austria to participate in a clothes-design competition. Before the competition, she said a prayer, and told God that if He would give her the gold medal, she would join His church. She ended up getting the gold medal, and a few weeks later, some missionaries knocked on her door, and she got baptized and is now a really strong member in our ward!

My companion and I started a guitar class for the Single Adults in our ward. We had a pretty big group on Saturday, including one of our investigators and a less-active ward member!

My jar of Nutella that I bought at the beginning of last transfer is almost gone.....guess I need to go to Costco again. Good thing there's still one in my area!

The convenience store behind our chapel has recently been selling full-size Snickers bars for Buy 1 Get 1 Free. Usually Snickers are too expensive, about $1, but now since they are $0.50....I think I ate at least eight this week.

Good week! I hope things are still going great in the States. The weather here is beautiful right now!

Add oil!

任長老

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON PICTURES -- JAN 13, 2014

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON PICTURES

JAN 13, 2014

So we went to the pier last P-day.  It happened to be a rather cold and windy day...so it was slightly torturous.  But still beautiful! I forget sometimes that I'm so close to the coast!

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #26 & 27 -- JANUARY 8 & 13, 2014

SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER

JANUARY 8, 2014

Well I changed planners for this new transfer...and I forgot to bring my old one with me.  So I don't remember what happened this last week! But I'll do my best in remembering the highlights.  

We had a great week! We got some new investigators and have been able to do the most teaching this past week than we have since we got here! Hooray! Most of them have been member referrals! We are teaching some great people and are hopeful that they will be able to progress towards baptism.  One of our new investigators is a 17 year old girl who is a friend with a girl in the ward. She has such a desire to have a relationship with God, it's great!

Wow I really can't remember what happened this past week without that planner!
But anyway transfers are tomorrow, and Sister Sullivan and I are both staying here in St. Augustine!  I am so so glad! We are just getting rolling here.
A highlight of the week was testimony meeting at church this past Sunday.  One of the deaf members got up and bore his testimony about how it was such a great experience when us sister missionaries came over and taught their friends a lesson and had dinner with them.  3/4ths of the people that bore their testimony were part of our little deaf community in the ward.  It made us feel good about the work we are doing! They are really getting enthused about missionary work now that they can communicate with both of the missionaries in a companionship.

Sister Sullivan has daily chronic headaches...and she has had this same headache for about 2 weeks now.  So when it gets to a severe pain level, we have to stay in.  And we've stayed in a lot this past week.  Which is different, but hopefully things get better soon! We're working on it!
This ward is so great, we get dinner appointments 5-6 days of the week.  Everyone is so giving and aware of others and their needs.
It has gotten COLD here! The coldest that it's been in 4 years apparently!  It's so funny with everyone complaining about it! And it is cold...just not Utah cold.  It's gotten down below freezing a few times...and that is just BIZARRE for people here.  They have even cancelled school in a few areas of Florida just because of the cold! Kind of like Arkansas and how every one freaks out with a couple inches of snow.  I love it :)

My two catch phrases for the week:
-Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved. (Pres. Monson)
-People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
My testimony is continually strengthened.  God gives us experiences to learn lessons.  You can learn a lesson from everything that happens to you in your life, good or bad.
All of the answers to ANY situation are in the scriptures and in the words of our Latter-Day prophets!
We have access to so much power and support through relying on Jesus Christ and His atonement.  We don't take advantage of it enough! It's there and the price has already been paid, so use it!
God has a plan for each one of our lives.  Trust in His will, and you will be happy and everything will work out.  I know these things to be true!
Love you all,
Sister Richardson

Weekly Letter January 13, 2014

In order to have good weeks, you have to have bad weeks, right?  Just kidding, it wasn't that bad of a week.  Just one of those trial of your faith ones.  Sister Sullivan has had this horrible headache/migraine for about 3 weeks.  And it puts her out cold, so we have stayed in a lot.  I definitely appreciate my companion more now, it's hard to do missionary work on your own!   But we got her some medicine finally this past week.  So hopefully we will be able to work hard this week and teach some lessons!  

The highlight of our missionary work is our great ward.  They are all so helpful.  We get fed every night, every week.  And people always make a delicious feast for us when we come...going to work hard to not gain weight! The deaf members continue to welcome us into their circle.  They gave us sign names this week.  Mine is the letter "R" on my cheek...because of my dimples...I didn't make it up but that's what I was given.  

I started a blog! it's songofsisterrichardson.blogspot.com.  There's not too much on it yet, but I will be adding more to it this next week.  

We have had a lot of less-active reactivations these past few weeks, with the start of the new year! The ward mission leader and us missionaries are very excited about that.  And hopefully they will continue to come.  

A lesson I have learned this week is that God knows what we need and want...but He won't do anything about it until we ASK.  Then He will speedily answer our prayers. Sometimes we bemoan a lack of blessings our knowledge, but then realize we never actually specifically prayed and asked for help.  Joseph Smith didn't receive answer to his prayers and the first vision until he made it a point to kneel down and ask God for knowledge.  

My favorite concept to teach people, members or not, is the parable in Alma 32--specifically the part about how we must constantly nourish the tree.  Just like we need physical nourishment every day, we need spiritual nourishment every day.  Even if you eat a huge thanksgiving feast one day or have a super awesome experience at sacrament meeting...that doesn't mean you'll be sustained for the next day, or the rest of the week.  Constantly nourish! Kind of the same concept as Hyrum's phrase of Add oil! Don't let your testimony tree get withered.  It is the most important thing you possess, than can never be taken away from you! Value it by nourishing it constantly, every day!

I am not perfect! But I am working hard and becoming more and more aware of how much I need the help of the Lord every day.  I truly need Him every hour! 

Love you all!

Sister Richardson

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #34 -- JANUARY 12, 2014

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #34

JANUARY 12, 2014

Had an awesome week this week! Elder Wang and I are getting along really well, and we're having a lot of success with our investigators and everything else.

We scheduled quite a bit of time this week for visiting less-actives and exploring the area so that we don't get lost all of the time. Zhonghe is a really confusing area. All of the roads are small and none of them are straight! On the ten-minute ride to the chapel, we have to zigzag back and forth on like 10 different roads. Our area is also fairly large. We rode to a member visit last night and it took us about 25-30 min to get there.

We have an amazing investigator. His name is Brian, and he might be one of the most humble people that I've ever met. He has such a sincere desire to follow Christ and to obey the commandments. Every time we walk out of a lesson with him, Elder Wang and I are just amazed at what a spiritual and honest person he is. We really hope that he'll be able to get baptized at the beginning of February. Right now, he's struggling with quitting smoking and coffee, and he feels like he isn't able to do it, so we want to keep helping him understand the power of the Atonement to change his life! I'll keep you updated on how he is doing.

We found a pizza place that was REALLY good and not terribly expensive. We might be going there again soon.

My companion's English is already really good, so recently I've been teaching him some more advanced idioms and slang.

This week, we found a buy 1 get 1 free for full size snickers bars. I then bought 4, and ate them all in one day.

There was a guy from Texas that came to church with his aunt. He is Taiwanese, but mostly speaks English. I thought it was funny because as Elder Wang and I were talking to him, the roles were reversed, and Elder Wang was not understanding some of the more difficult words like I usually do with Chinese.

We have members who live right next door to our apartment. So every once in a while they ring our doorbell and bring us food or other things. They are just such nice people, and it's great to have good neighbors!

Had a good week!

Keep adding oil!

Elder Richardson

田長老

SISTER RICHARDSON PICTURE -- JAN 2014

SISTER RICHARDSON PLAYS THE ORGAN 

IN CHURCH WEEKLY

JANUARY 2014

ELDER HYRUM PICTURES OF CHRISTMAS CHOIR -- DEC 2013

CHRISTMAS CHOIR PICTURES

TAIPAI TAIWANN MISSION

DECEMBER 2013

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #33

JANUARY 5, 2014

It's been kind of a crazy week. One of those where you look back and say, "How did I do ALL of that in ONE week??" So I'll just start from the beginning.

Monday for P-Day, the 6 Neihu missionaries went to eat at a great Italian place that was in our area. We love this place because their all-you-can-eat soup is delicious and they have orange juice with QQs that you can drink. Then we went to the mission office where I passed off my Phase 2 test!

Tuesday we went to Jilong for district meeting, where we saw the giant rubber duck sitting in the harbor. It's really weird that everybody is getting so excited about this duck. Literally every store in Jilong was selling duck-themed stuff and there were tons of people crowded on the harbor looking at it. We were all in the chapel where we could see the duck from the window. And then we all looked back a few minutes later and the duck had popped! We don't know what happened, but suddenly the duck was flat! The next few days, it was all over the news and everybody was going crazy about it. I think I also saw that CNN did a spot on it, so Dad, you'll have to find that and share that with everybody. I was there!

For New Year's Eve, everybody goes to the GIANT party at the Taibei 101. At midnight, they shoot fireworks from off of the 101. One of our less active's went and showed us the video. It's REALLY cool; you'll have to go find it on YouTube.

I think it's interesting, for the calender new year's day, they call it 跨年 which means to step or leap over the year, and then for Chinese new year they call it 過年 which means to pass through a year.

Wednesday afternoon I ran into somebody who was wearing a KU sweatshirt! Apparently he studied aerodynamics there for 3 years. It was cool to see of piece of home!

Wednesday night was our English class party. Almost nobody came because it was a holiday (New Year's Day), but with the two members who did come, we played charades and talked about Chinese character writing.

Friday was transfer meeting! I'm now with Elder Wang in Zhonghe! Zhonghe (it might be spelled Jhonghe on Google maps) is just south of the main part of Taibei city. It's definitely way different than Neihu was. It's a lot more crowded and more ghetto than Neihu was. Somebody told me that it's one of the most densely populated areas in the world. I don't know if that is true or not.

Elder Wang is awesome. He's 27, so quite a bit older than most missionaries, and he is on his last transfer. In missionary jargon, I would say that I'm "killing" him, because I'm his last companion. So he'll go home in February, and he's already got a wedding date in March. He is a fantastic guitar player. For mornings at the beginning of companionship study, we can pick any hymn, and he can play it while the other three of us sing. He's a really experienced missionary, and I'll be able to learn a lot from him over six weeks. We both just got out of somewhat rough companionships, so we both really want to focus on companionship unity during this transfer. 

Elder Wang and I are "whitewashing" this area, which means that both of us are new. The other two missionaries both left, and neither of us have been here before. So, needless to say, we've spent quite a bit of time the past three days getting lost. We spent the first evening with a map trying to find the chapel. It's especially difficult here, because none of the roads are straight, and pretty narrow. I can say that we now know how to get to the chapel and home, but beyond that, I'm really not too sure!

It was strange, because Saturday night, we had a baptism! We had never met the guy until about an hour before he got baptized. Thanks to a good ward mission leader and excellent preparation by the previous missionaries, it all went really smoothly, and we'll work on getting to know the now recent convert over the next few weeks.

The ward here is awesome. It must have been weird for them to have two new missionaries show up to their sacrament meeting, but they were all super friendly and enthusiastic about missionary work. I tried to learn as many names as I could, but I'm sure I've forgotten them all by now! 

I'm really excited to be in a new area! Zhonghe seems to be an awesome place, and we both hope we can see a lot of miracles over the next 6 weeks.

I started reading the Book of Mormon in Chinese this week. It's really cool to read the same stories that I've always read in English, but to do it in a different language. I'm in 1st Nephi Chapter 5 so far, and I really love it!

I'm looking forward to a great week and for a lot more getting lost!

Keep adding oil!

Elder Richardson

田長老

SISTER RICHARDSON'S WEEKLY LETTER #25-- DECEMBER 30, 2013

SISTER RICHARDSON'S WEEKLY LETTER

DECEMBER 30, 2013

It's been a great week! We had fun celebrating Christmas and we also got to spend a lot of time signing this week, which was great!

On Monday, we went to eat dinner at a deaf members' home and they had two of their friends there to be taught! Best day ever! This member family is part hearing, part deaf.  During the prayer, the mom started yelling at the dog to be quiet and the dad (deaf) who was saying the prayer never even noticed.  Sis. Sullivan and I, the only other hearing people there were trying not to laugh.  But we taught our first lesson in sign.  And it was rough.  We both froze.  It was a good wake-up call for us to know we need to practice the lessons more! We are fine in communicating with deaf people...we just need to be better with the lesson sequences.  

I had a trade-off on Christmas Eve and went to Julington Creek for a day with one of our Sister Training Leaders.  It was a very wealthy Jacksonville suburb...a lot different from anywhere that I've served on my mission so far.  When we were in Julington Creek, I started feeling sorry for myself as I started thinking about all the fun things that were going on at home with the Christmas season.  But then we went and visited this lady whose son is on a mission.  She was missing him so much.  So I just decided to stop having my pity party and just serve her.  So I jumped in there and helped her do her holiday baking and got her mind off her son.  I got her laughing and cheerful.  By the end, she found out that I wasn't permanently staying in Julington Creek and she was so sad.  Serving others is the solution for anything!

Facebook missionary work is great! I've kept teaching an investigator in my last area.  And we've gotten a new investigator over facebook. It's a teenage girl who wants to learn more about the gospel, but she doesn't think her parents would let us in the house.  So we are teaching her on facebook!

Christmas day was fun!!!  We went and had a huge breakfast with a several families in the ward.  And then we went to the house of another family and got to skype home! I was super nervous to call home...I was shaking.  I was afraid I was going to break down crying or hate being on a mission after I called.  But I just said a prayer and it was great! It was so good to see everyone and hear your voices and see that the house still exists and the family is doing well and is happy! Don't tell Benjamin, but he is so tall! Is he taller than Joseph now? 

Christmas night we ate with this sweet family.  They made us a huge breakfast feast as well! Lots of bacon on Christmas day.   People around here give the best gift--gift cards!! You should see my wallet....there's about 10 of them in there.  Hello eating out! 

I did my 750 piece puzzle in less than a week.  Just by working on it a bit every morning during breakfast and a bit every night after daily planning/before bedtime. It was so fun.  Puzzles just make my brain happy.

We are working with a great recent convert family.  We are helping one of them overcome her smoking relapse.  I really enjoy it! It's fun to help them progress.  We had a fire with them the other night in the backyard.  And I told them about banana boats and they thought it was so cool, they ran inside and grabbed the stuff to make it and we had banana boats!

So we have surpassed our mile limit for this month...it's hard sharing a car with two areas (2 sets of sisters).  A lot more ground to cover! 2 wards worth.  So we have been biking.  Skirts were not made for biking.  But somehow we've done it.  Although I don't enjoy biking down the highway with cars all around me.  And I don't enjoy biking at night.

We went and ate with this AWESOME deaf family on Thursday.  They have two adopted kids (one from Thailand and one from Guatemala) who are both deaf as well.  They are so GREAT! The 11 year old is obsessed with Michael Jackson.  And can tell you how old Michael Jackson was when you were born.  And can tell you all about Michael Jackson's siblings and family.  And how Michael Jackson died.  Everything in life relates to Michael Jackson for him.  They are such a great family.  We had fun talking with them and giving our lesson about missionary work. 

Thank you for the 2nd christmas package I got! Packages and letters always seem to come at the right time...always when I need a pick me up.

So this past Sunday, I taught the combined Relief Society/Priesthood 3rd hour about hastening the work/missionary work.  Somehow I got singled out of all the missionaries to teach it.  I prepared it in like 30 minutes on Saturday. And so just went up there and just had fun with it and followed my scribbled lesson plan.  And it went well! It was fun! There are some great video clips about member missionary work on hasteningthework.lds.org.

I'm loving the deaf sunday school more and more every week.  I am getting better at my comprehension and at participating in the class.  I'm still a bit oblivious to deaf culture though.  So the teacher asks us all to get a paper and a pencil from off the table.  So I decide to be helpful and pass out all the papers and pencils to everyone.  But because I did that, I had my back turned to the teacher.  So he is explaining what to write on the paper and apparently he and the rest of the class was laughing at me at how I was so oblivious to needing to SEE, not hear the directions.  So then I sit back down and he looks at me and signs are you ready? what's the answer? And I just stare at him.  It was really funny.  I'm learning! Amazing how much we depend on hearing and we don't even realize it!

Last night, we ate with another part deaf/part hearing family. Fun! So S. Sullivan and I shared a poem called the touch of the master's hand...the one about the violin and the auction.  The deaf family member just lip read it, so we didn't sign it.  But then the deaf family member took the poem and signed it for us.  Oh my goodness it was incredible.  It brought the Spirit like nothing else.  English has so many words that we use to be fancy and pretty and as filler/connecting words.  In ASL,  it's so simple and you sign only the necessary words like nouns/verbs and then the rest is filled with body language and emotion.  I have a testimony of ASL storytelling!

I found a family in the ward that I am related to! We have the same great-great grandpa! (Charles Edmund Richardson).

Happy new year! Hope everyone has a great week! Love you all!

Sister Richardson

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #32 -- DECEMBER 29, 2013

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #32

DECEMBER 29, 2013

Merry Christmas! And Happy New Year!

This week we finished up our performances for the choir. We had about 12 performances all over the Taibei area. It was a lot of fun to sing everywhere, and especially to get to know some of the other missionaries in the choir. We had a really cool program, and a lot of missionaries saw miracles in their area as a result of the performance. In our area, we had a couple of LA members come that we hadn't seen in a while. 

Elder Monson and I tried to get a tie exchange going for the choir for each performance. It didn't ever really catch on, but we had fun trading ties between ourselves.

On Christmas, we had an all day zone conference. In the morning we had training as usual, and had a giant Christmas lunch with homemade food that all of the senior missionaries made. We also had a talent show, and a presentation of our Christmas presents. From the mission, we all got a three-column Doctrine and Covenants, as well as a Christmas card from Salt Lake.

After the zone conference, we came back to Neihu and a member took us to an all-you-can-eat hotpot place.

There is now a giant rubber ducky sitting in Jilong. I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago, and it finally arrived. It's a really big rubber duck, but I was expecting it to be bigger, so it was a little underwhelming. All of the missionaries and members in Jilong hate it, because it makes everything in Jilong more crowded, especially because it is almost right across from the church.

I think it would be funny to hook a goPro camera to my bike and record us riding on the streets here. It's pretty ridiculous. I'm pretty sure everybody would have a heart attack. I know I did when I first got here.

It is always a happy moment when a missionary goes to his investigator's house, and sees a Book of Mormon sitting in the place of honor, right next to the investigator's bed.

Yesterday, after our last choir performance, the ward provided some snacks/desert afterwards. They had cheese cubes, which was amazing. I don't think I've had cheese in 6 months! It was delicious.

Add oil!

Elder Richardson

田長老

P.S. Transfers are this Friday. Because I've been in this area for 4 transfers, it's very likely that I will leave and be in a new area next week! So we'll see!