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