October 30, 2014

Received this great picture in the mail last night along with a letter from President Batt that says Elder Richards has a great testimony.  He also said that after he had an interview with him, he left the mission home with a big smile on his face and was excited to get to work.  Oh I love this kid.

October 27, 2014

My companions are great! They are so funny and we have a lot of fun! The area is huge.  We mostly are in trailer parks on the east side of the mission. Farmington has the most trailer parks in the nation.  They are everywhere. I can't believe how big they are! I really like the area already.  The people that we are teaching and meeting with are just so nice and friendly! We are liked a lot as the Spanish elders because they are fun and all of the English elders are more focused on the number where the Spanish are focused on the people more because we are in the same spot for about a 1/3 of our mission. So I am really glad that we are more focused on the people and everyone was super nice that we taught.  There are only 3 Spanish areas so that is why and also 7 Spanish elders as well. The only time I really speak Spanish is in the house and lessons so not too much but we are trying to speak more! We get fed the most from people of different wards and the Spanish branch so it is pretty good. This whole week I haven't had to cook dinner once so that is super nice. Do you think that you can send my football cleats and gloves because we play football on p-days? 

So my first day we were walking through this trailer park when this guy asked us if we were from the church so we said yes and asked if he was interested and he said no but don't take this offensive and flips us off.  We just say thanks and walk away but it was pretty funny!

October 21, 2014

Just a short little email I received from Easton this morning.  He's made it to Farmington and all is good.  When I got to talk to him yesterday he said that he had had strept throat over the weekend and was pretty sick but he was feeling a lot better yesterday.  He still sounds so positive and happy.  Love that kid!

Hey I am here and I am in the Farmington West Branch so my mailing address is the mission home one.  My companions are pretty cool so that is going to be great and I start working after I get done with this email so I can't wait it is going to be fun! My p-days are on Mondays and there are only three Spanish speaking missions here. Two in Farmington and one in Bloomdale so that is alright.  Maybe I will be able to go to the reservations. Love ya and everything is going to be great!

October 16, 2014

Thank you for the letter and conference talks. I loved it. Everything is still going great and I can't wait to get out to the mission field. I am ready to be out of here but I know that I am going to miss it. I leave at 3 in the morning on monday so we will see how that goes. I am the only one from here going to Farmington so that is cool. I also almost broke my wrist playing soccer Monday, but don't worry it was only a sprain so that was good and it is only a little sore and the doctor said no sports for two weeks so we will see how that is going to go. 

I hope to get to talk to you on Monday but not sure.

Me and Elder Torgersen have matching yellow and green cabraisamo de mar(that translate to little horse of the sea)  ties! 

October 9, 2014

Everything is going great here! I am finally getting Spanish and I can give a discussion without reading anything so that is really nice! I am almost ready to go and get out of here but I still have a lot to learn! I have about a week and a half left in here so that is really nice and on Wednesday it was our one month mark so only 23 to go!

Thank you for the package.  That was much needed and it was really nice too:) I loved it and I loved how conference talked a lot about helping the poor and needy because in my patriarchal blessing it says to help them out a couple of times so I really enjoyed it! And yes the broadcast was in Spanish! I understood everything.  It was like it was in English. The gift of tongues really helps out here;) The time is flying by and I can't even imagine what it will be like out in the field .

We went to the temple today so I will send pictures and thank you so much for looking for sweaters and ties for me.  We didn't do a session because it's under construction because of the foundation. But it was nice to get out of the CCM.  If you get a chance I would love Elder Holland and Elder Ballard's talks sent to me.

To answer your question, yes things with the discussion are getting so much easier and I have noticed that when it is personal study time to study the scriptures and not the language, and only the language during the language study time it has helped me improve so much.  Being Exactly obedient is very necessary here.  And lots and lots of praying too! Thank you so much again! I love you and tell everyone the same.

-Elder Easton Richards

October 2, 2014

Things just keeps on getting better and better every week! I only have less than 3 weeks left and it is crazy how fast time flies here! The days feel like weeks but the weeks feel like days! The language is doing better.  I am slowly getting better but I still have a long ways to go! My stomach has just now this past week been pretty bad. I have had a couple of close calls but it was all good ha! The food is getting better or I am just getting my used to it now so that is good!

Thank you so much for the letter.  It is always really nice to get that kind of stuff here and thank you for the talk it was really good! To answer your question, yes we are watching conference.  We are just having everything be worked around it so I am really excited for that and we have a big auditorium that everyone can fit in!

About the package, thank you that is going to be really nice to have! I don't have any big preferences but some gold fish would be nice if you could ha!

Things with my companion are going good.  He would rather play piano so he goes and plays piano with another elder and I go with Elder Torgersen and we get a long so well it is crazy. We have quite a bit in common. He is from Provo.  He wrestled, played football and was in student government, so we are pretty close!  And to answer Kinley's question my bed was the farthest one away and the top bunk in the picture!  Thank you so much for everything.  Love ya!
Eder Richards