RICH MISSION MEMORIES: OCTOBER 5, 2019

WEEK 1: WELCOME!

Hey guys!! Welcome to my email! I will be serving for 18 months for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Columbus, Ohio. Some reading this email are not non-members our my church so I will do my best to explain how things work or what they mean. I will only be emailing on P-days which is a preparation day for missionaries. (P-days are usually on Monday's but for now in the MTC it will be on Tuesday. )

Wednesday

Okay, okay just let me tell you the first day of the MTC was intense but y'all some how I was so happy and peaceful. My journey began when I flew out to SLC, Utah Monday morning at 6am (the 23rd)! Early I know! My brother picked me up at the airport and took me to his apartment. I stayed with him till Wednesday (the day I would report to the MTC). Bethany and Luke took me to get some ice cream at Brooker’s Founding Flavors! Super good! That Monday night I fell asleep so fast and slept for 17 hours. Oops! I was just so tired. Tuesday my brother took me to his work! Guys my brother works at the coolest place, the VOID, which works on Virtual Reality! I got to do it with him and it was a blast! Being short, it was kinda hard to get the gear on but I managed. We experienced the Star Wars and Wreck-it Ralph VR, crazy amazing!

Wednesday came and I said goodbye to my brother. That was it I was on my own...well for a split second til a sister came to take my luggage. I slapped my name tag on and was ready to go! I have been waiting a long time for this moment and just couldn't believe it was here!! Right after that I went straight to class and little did I know I would be come best friends the guys in my class! I met my companion Sister Reynolds and she is the best!!! She is so kind and we get along so well! (Picture down below). She gets to deal with my weirdness and somewhat try to keep me focused. I love her! She and I will both be going to Ohio together and it's going to be fun! She has a way of seeing the needs of others and is ready to help anyone! Sister Reynolds and I also have two elders going to our mission! They are so funny!! Elder Crane is a hoot! There is just no words to explain him, you just have to meet him. He doesn't fail to make me or the district laugh!! Elder Marler is awesome! He is so patient with Elder Crane and has such a strong spirit with him.

I just need to talk about my roommate cause y'all it's party each night!! Here we have Sister Robert's, she's quite something!! Not sure what to do about her. Will we ever know?...no. She eat popcorn and fruit snacks like nobody's business!!! So clumsy that she trips everywhere but will give you a Broadway performance!! You just gotta love her!! We're already so close! One of my favorite people I have met here! Moving on to Sister Sengsourysack!! (Try saying that!) She is Lao and Thai but that doesn't matter cause she is from Connecticut! For the longest time I kept thinking that she was from Kentucky because Connecticut sounds like it starts with a K. Now if she and I were companions we would get nothing done! I'm serious, like we have so much fun together!! She laughs at everything I do cause you know I'm weird, especially when I'm slap-happy. She can't open things to save her life! It makes me laugh! I just can't explain our relationship!😂

These two will be serving in Arizona, which I'm sad about because we won't get to be together for the rest of my mission! So I will treasure this time that I have with them! God is so amazing! He knew that I needed these sisters and I wouldn't have it any other way! Something special we do each night is a prayer circle. We all hold hands and go around saying what we feel in our hearts to Heavenly Father. This has been a testimony builder for me because God really knows each of us, knows who we need and what we need to hear. I look forward to our prayer circle each night cause it just brings so much happiness, love, and peace.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

This day was full of classes. Class after class. Don't get me wrong, I love the things I'm learning but it's a lot to take in and takes so much of my mental energy. I'm learning to teach people and not lessons. We have already started teaching people and it's been a good experience. Lots of work to work on but I'm learning slowly but surely. My district makes it 10x better though! (A district consist of 15-20 missionaries that are serving) There are 9 elders and 4 sisters in my district. Our leader is Elder Berezay who we call Mama (Bear)zay and he loves it! Through the course of this week I have had some interesting things happen to me. For one after Book of Mormon study with my group, I decided to challenge Elder Crane to a high kicking contest, cause for some reason he loves kicking high! :) Can you guess what happened? Well right as we went to kick up, I slipped right on my bottom! My roommate capture the perfect picture for this incident and it made us all laugh! What can I say, classic me. I also seem to fall into ice chest and hit my head against opening doors. It's been a rollercoaster of a week!

I love and miss all of you! I'm so excited to share my journey with you! I know that Heavenly Father really knows each of us and puts people in our lives to help us. I know that this gospel is true and that we have a living prophet to be the mouth of the Lord and guide us. I have such a strong testimony of the Restoration and Joseph Smith. Without this gospel I don't know who I would be or where I would be. I'm so grateful for my Savoir and his atonement.

Love, Sister Richardson

1: Sister Reynolds behind me, Sister Robert's next to her, and Sister Sengsourysack on the right.