September 7, 2015

HEY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!!!

Things are going good here.  The work is really starting to progress and slowly starting to cool down for us finally. But it is still pretty hot! Everything with Elder Hozman is going ok.  There are a few things, but I am just trying to ignore them and be fine! haha  Everything with our investigators are going well and we are staying busy. Our one investigator on date is progressing and we have a lesson with her tonight so that should go great!!

Tell Hayden congrats on his mission call.

I gotta go. Love ya and have a great week.

This was an email I received last night:

Doing well. Thanks for the pacķages
I am sister McGee in the Farmington NM Mission office. I am new to the office and met your Elders today. They  are doing very well and are in good spirits. We love having them visit the office. They certainly bring a special spirit into our day. Thanks for sharing them with us
I hope these photos will open correctly. Enjoy!

August 31, 2015

HEY! I am doing great here! Can't complain too much haha! So this past week we put an investigator on date for October 31st.  We are super excited for that! Besides that we have not had that crazy of a week. 

We are teaching 9 lessons a week which is triple from what Elder Sanchez and me taught. Elder Hozman and I have a few issues, but nothing I can really do but just keeping a good attitude about it! 

Yes i got the packages and i will wait for the other one! And yes I know Elder Stevens. He is actually in Shiprock right now and ya he doesn't speak Spanish at all haha but my Spanish is progressing a lot and I bought a couple more books to help out with it so we will see how that goes! So how is Holden doing?? 

Oh also I forgot to mention that Elder Golden from the 70 was here on Wednesday! It was really great. He spoke to us for about 3-4 hours so that was pretty cool.

Will you please sent me my temple packet?  We are going to the temple at the end of September. 

Love you guys and have a great week! 

Elder Castro and Elder Jensen.

August 24, 2015

Hola! 

We are doing great here! The work is starting to pick up and we are getting the members involved with missionary work! There is a priest who we take out with us quite a bit now. His name is Blaise. He loves coming out with us and it is a lot of fun. He is a great kid. A little weird but we love him haha! 

We are starting to also get more members who are wanting to help and all we needed to do was just ask for help and they jumped on the invitation. This week we found 2 new investigators and one of them wants to be baptized soooo bad but she is having to wait on a divorce to go through so she can marry her boyfriend. The other one wants to learn more about temples and we started talking about how families can be together forever and he loved it and wants us to share it with his family. 

Karina, the less active member we found, is doing great and came to church yesterday again. She is getting to know a lot of people which is great. She is awesome. Right now what we are doing with her is just teaching her the lessons like we would to an investigator because she just wants to be refreshed on all the basics of everything which is fantastic. We have a lot of potentials that are interested as of right now and hopefully will then become investigators later on in the future.

Me and Elder Hozman are doing great and are getting a lot of work done! Time is flying by so fast!!!!!!!! Next year at this time I will be home.  It feels like I have just barely left. I don't like it!! Haha!

Love ya,

Elder Richards

Also tell Kinley that for the past 2 weeks or so we have been playing tennis with the Ap's and I am starting to be alright at it. It's harder than you would think!

August 17, 2015

Hey! So we are doing very well here in Farmington. Elder Hozman and I are doing awesome so far!! He is obedient and we  taught 6 lessons this week, which is an improvement from our 3 with Elder Sanchez.  So the work is starting to spring up. We did find a new investigator and she is in her 70's so we will see how it goes. Yes I got the packages. Thank you very much!! Everything is going good right now as a DL.  It is fun, just besides the fact of doing numbers every week. That is where O get the numbers from everyone in the district then report them to the zone leaders. 

We had an awesome miracle this past week!! Elder Hozman and I were trying potentials in this trailer park in Troy King and we saw one and we decided to try it, so we were looking everywhere and we found it. We see the truck and it has a Chihuahua license plate, so we knew that they were Hispanic. We knock on the door and a girl answers and we say hi and ask her what her name is and then we told her we were the missionaries and she said I know who you are and we have been waiting for you. Elder Hozman and I look at each and we are like seriously?? She said yes and told us how she just moved from Casa Grandes about a month ago and she told the missionaries in Mexico to make sure her number got up here so we could call her and find out where she lives so we could show her where the church is. The funny thing is, we didn't get her number and we just tried a "random" house. So it was really cool. She is a less-active member and her husband is not a member and wants to learn more when he comes back from North Dakota. Then the next day we took President Eyring (our branch president) out with us and she was telling us that when we left yesterday she was wishing she could hug us and that after she was crying and so thankful that we were able to find her house "randomly". She came to church with us on Sunday and her and her daughter loved it so much.  The branch has been praying for more members and then we found her.  So it was awesome!

So it has been a really good week for us!! 

Here is a pic of the gang back together again.

August 11, 2015

Just a bonus picture for the day :)

Last night together before transfers.

August 10, 2015

HeY!!! 

So ya transfers happen tomorrow.  I am staying in Farmington and I am getting a new companion. He is from Columbia and he was serving on the rez, but Elder Sanchez is going to Sheeps Springs on the rez so he is not to excited to leave but it is all good!  His name is Elder Hozman and yes he does speak Spanish. He has been out for about 6-8 months i believe!  To answer your question, I went to the doctor in April for my back because I was having some serious pain. I have a really bad muscle strain in the left of my back but I can't really do anything about it on the mission, but it is all good!

So this week we have done a lot of service. We worked at the Bishop's store house and I thought that I would never use my grocery store skills ever in my life again, but what we did was fill orders and stock shelves. It brought back a lot of memories though haha.

We also are now helping in the animal shelter by walking the dogs which is a lot of fun actually! 

Then we helped paint the inside of an elderly lady's house on Saturday. We felt really bad because of how bad it was in there. Her granddaughters, they are 10 and 7, write all over the walls and made it a mess in there! So it was a pretty neat experience. After we were done it looked a lot better. Here is a few pictures of the after math!! 

And yes I got the packages from you and the ward, thank you so much for that!!

June 29, 2015

HEy!   I. am very glad to be back actually, I have really missed it here! Elder Sanchez and I get along very well and we have a lot of fun while getting a lot of work done! This week we found 4 new investigators and they have never been taught be for so that was way cool!

It is not that bad living with the AP's because they are pretty cool guys! I am not a trainer but I am still a District Leader!

We meet our new mission president Thursday! He comes in today and he is now the new one!

It is very nice to see everyone again too! I have really missed it here and I love it here as well, we have a lot more to do here than in Bloomfield!

 Chaco Canyon

 We had to go through this groove to get to the top of the mesa

 This is the Alba family.  They are awesome and love them alot.

The Spanish Elders