News from the Mission

Home Away from Home!

Must be the FAMOUS bike shop! With E. Richards' bike
right up front!                                                                       

Left: Elder Richards......Far Right: Elder Carlson

These 4 Elders all share one apartment!

This was brought out at their Zone conference and everyone sang
"Happy Birthday" to Elder Richards.....He was totally surprised!

Hey Everyone!                                                                   12 June 2012

Thanks for all the b-day wishes! It was AWESOME and great to read all the emails. (Those are the most emails I've ever had on my mission!) :-)

My b-day was great! I got my bike fixed and we had some taco salad take out! It was great!

We got our apartment cleaned on my b-day and got all the grease off the kitchen floor! (Aha! They better clean up after themselves!) It was awesome; we put the table where it goes and the bikes in a better spot. Also, we had an investigator ride with us in downtown a few days ago and he was yelling out...."Hey, y'all have some blessings, you need a blessing?! Do You?! So I've got the white boys with me today, it's great! Haha yeah boy, that's right!" I got some pictures of us on bikes riding through town and he even found us a new investigator - so it's all good!

Things have been stressful and great at the same time. We're trying to get moving with our investigators and less-actives more; getting them to church and getting the new move-ins settled.

We're also trying to get some of our members involved doing missionary work. This ward doesn't really give us referrals very much at all; so our work consists of visiting less-active members and potentials. It's tough when not one member will give you anything to help with the work. We're trying to get the "missionary engine" started here! The leadership of the ward has given us assignments and we've been reporting to them the next hour or the next day on those items.

At the apartment we're dealing with a small case of bedbugs again...but it's all good. (Oh No! Not Again!) Our bikes are doing great. Everything is working alright - except one of the Elders' tires keeps going flat; so we've been patching it up with him and getting things working better.

Elder Carlson working on his bike!

Elder & Sis. Wiggins (Senior Missionaries in their District) gave us a ride to Walmart yesterday - that was great! We kept running into them and they've been chasing us down to fix any computer problems they have too. Haha - it's an adventure. (The Wiggins' are the ones I called and they arranged for the birthday cake for Elder Richards - they did a wonderful job!)

Well, thanks for all y'all are doing and for the b-day wishes! I love you all and would anything to help all of you with anything!!  :-)   :-)

Elder Richards

Virginia Richmond Mission
The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints


P.S. I want to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who took a few minutes of their time to wish Elder Richards' a Happy Birthday. I'm sure that made his day - any contact from home help the missionaries who are serving the Lord! Again THANKS from my heart!    Susan xoxoxo