New Pics

All of us sisters at 6:30 a.m. with Cleveland in the background

Me with our truck. Yes, it's red:)

Me eating with CHOPSTICKS! (I thought Emily would be proud of me.) We went to a Japanese resturaunt with Brother Brady and Sister Hulse, and Brother Brady taught me how to use chopsticks. He's a less active that's been reactivated and who we love very much (and his wife is an angel, too, but she's in Utah right now) and Sister Hulse is an older lady in our ward who is a sweetheart.

  

Transfer Week

Hello everyone!

 

So yesterday we got our transfer calls, and.... (*drumroll*)........................................... I'M STAYING IN LAKEWOOD WEST!!!! Sister Dahle is staying with me, which was a surprise because she didn't go to trainers meeting. So... she's training me... with no training on how to do it! I'm sure she'll be great. As far as we know, it'll just be the two of us, which will be nice. After this next transfer, I'm elligible to train. Oh dear! I do NOT feel ready. Looking back at six weeks ago, I don't feel like I'm where Sister Dahle was when I met her, even though technically I am. Still, I've learned a lot in the last six weeks, and I hope I learn more in the next six (actually over the next 16 months I'd better keep learning things!)

 

This week, Sienna was not baptized. Bummer. We're now hoping for July or August. Her mom is leaving today until July, and the girls have to be angels while she's gone- which includes being nice to step-boyfriend, who is their guardian even though he's not their dad- and they have to keep meeting with us AND learning about other religions. I don't think she's very eager for them to be baptized... But it's like I told President Vellinga in my letter to him today: We're not giving up on them because the Lord isn't. He'll help us find a way, and those girls WILL be baptized. I just hope they don't have to wait until their 18. :P

 

This week we had a bit of a... disagreement?... with the elders. We've been doing service as an excuse to go see a less-active who is in our ward but the Elders area. She tells us things she won't tell them, and we have been able to help her in her goal to quit smoking in a different way than they have. Anyway, one of the AP's reminded our District Leader about the rules about boundaries, and we were told not to go serve her. Well, our entire ward is smaller than most people's areas, and we talked to President and because there's not an issue with miles, we should be able to go. Anyway, long story short, we were obedient, but we gave the elders a really hard time about it, asking for permission for EVERYTHING for about the next two days. "Can we leave our area to go to church?" "You need to ask for permission to come home because it's out of your area." It's a good thing they know we love them. We have a wonderful district leader, even if he did drag out our transfer information last night. He had six sisters threatening over the phone to kill him. I don't think he'll be teasing us like that again. :P Sister Dahle and Sister Bell especially give them a hard time. They say they're preparing the elders for marriage. :)

 

Sister Bell goes home tomorrow. We're not asking permission, but all six of us are going to transfer meeting tomorrow to say good-bye to her and Sister Frampton (who is being out-zoned). I think technically a couple of us could stay, but we're not going to ask permission; we'll just beg forgiveness. :)

 

I hope you all have a fantastic week. I love you so much! Keep the letters coming; my address is the same. :)

 

Love,

Sister McKayla

May 20th

Hello!

 

So, we taught a crazy lady this week. Literally. Crazy. She's the mother of a ward member, and he told us she was a bit wacky, but I was not prepared. Her name is Mary Lou. She's been meeting with missionaries since 1972 and still doesn't know what their purpose is. We know this because we knocked on her door, wearing our dresses and ready for a lesson, and she said, "Oh, I have things for all three of you to do. These two flower beds need to be sprinkled, and the dog needs to be walked." So, in our dresses, we walked her MASSIVE dog that peed on everything and watered her flowers. Then we finally got to teach her while sitting on her back porch. We asked her if we could start with a prayer ("you're always praying!") and she offered to give it, but then she said, "Hold on," and looked up at the sky. After a second, Sister Bell asked, "What are you looking for?" and Mary Lou said, "I'm trying to find God." It was all we could do to keep from laughing. Sister Dahle pointed at the setting sun through the clouds and asked, her voice shaking a little, "Is that Him, over where the light is?" And Mary Lou corrected her that He is in the clouds. "Haven't you ever seen angels wings?" After another second of looking she said, "Can't find him. It's easier in the morning." Then she started reciting the usual Catholic memorized prayer, then she added at the end something about blessing us in our traditions, and then (mid-prayer, mind you) she said, "traditions... TRADITION! Have you ever seen that movie? (*singing*) Tradition!" The prayer never really officially ended. We tried to teach her the BOM introduction, but the rest of the lesson was kind of like that. She kept interrupting and wouldn't let us talk, and told us she'd read that book and knew everything there is to know about being Mormon. It was a fun visit, but I don't think we'll be teaching her again. :P

 

We met with Hayley and Sienna's mother last Friday about their being baptized. She is a very nice lady, but very pushy and her daughters are not. What came from the meeting: Hayley (the eleven year old) is going to wait, but Sienna is hoping to be baptized on her fifteenth birthday THIS WEEK!! She just had to talk to her grandfather about Catholisism over the weekend, she's (hopefully!) having her baptismal interview with Elder Graf tonight, and then going with us to meet our Buddhist investigator tomorrow. If that all happens, she'll be baptized the next day. We're praying!! Because the Elders and the Jacklins are going to their house tonight, we decided that not all three of us should go and overrun their house with seven missionaries. So Sister Dahle is going (as Sister Jacklin's companion) and Sister Bell and I will be working on the baptism program at home (actually, on the Jacklin's computer, but whatever). With the Lord's help, I'll be reporting a baptism to you next week!! :D

 

This week was Zone Conference. We met with our whole stake, which is actually two zones (Cleveland and Cleveland West). I didn't know this, but apparently there are lots of different missionary meetings: District meetings, with our district; zone training meetings, with just our zone; zone conferences, with one or two zones; mission conferences, which rarely happen and are usually split in two anyway; coordination meetings with the ward missionaries and all the full-time missionaries in the ward (which in our case is us, the Jacklins, and the Elders); and then there's the occasional training meeting, transfer meetings, etc. I guess you missionaries knew this already, but this was a new thing for me.

 

GUESS WHAT?!?! Family, do you remember Mr. Hoopes, my sixth grade teacher? Well, our ward mission leader, Brother Hoopes, is his cousin. Crazy! When I heard his name I thought, "Oh, Hoopes, that's cool. There's no way they can be related. Wyoming, Ohio: Not possible." But while we were mulching the other day, Bro. Hoopes and I were talking and I mentioned Wyoming. He said he had family that lived there. Apparently Richard Hoopes is his cousin. "It's a small world after all..."

 

Speaking of mulching, we've done a LOT of that in the last few weeks. It's a HUGE thing here in Ohio. I've seen all sorts of different colors and sizes of mulch, more than I knew existed! (For those of you who don't know what mulch is, it's that shredded bark that people sometimes put in their yards.) People here are very proud of their yards, and they must be mulched. I'm not kidding; we did 13 hours of service this week, and eight of it was mulching or pulling weeds. Yikes. And we're mulching again tomorrow. Hooray! It's really fun to get into the sun (and into jeans!!) and work with my hands. We do a lot of sitting and talking, so yard work is fun. Saturday was a bit overkill when we literally spent ALL DAY in service clothes, but it was good.

 

I love you all. Have a wonderful week!

 

Sister McKayla Richards

Pics from Lakewood West

The first pic is at the beach, and the second is with my two companions, Sis. Dahle and Sis. Bell.

MTC Pictures

The First pic is Sister Caldwell and I in front of the temple. The second is the elders from my MTC district

Baptism Invites. Oh, yes. :D

Hello Everyone!

 

I remembered my camera this week. Be prepared for pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. :D

 

This week, I invited someone to be BAPTIZED for the first time!! We were in a single's FHE, and there were three nonmembers. I made a boo-boo and only invited Mike and Cindy, but Sister Bell invited Rob and covered for me. We had just taught the Plan of Salvation and I asked Cindy first, then added, "And you too, Mike?" Without hesitation, Mike said YES!! (Not like that, though. That was my enthusiasm.) Cindy was too overwhelmed and not ready to make any commitments. Don't worry; she's coming to FHE again tonight and we're hoping to get over there to teach her again. Here's the real problem: All three of them are not in our area, so other than FHE we don't get to teach them. We officially handed Mike over to the Elders yesterday. If he keeps coming to Church as consistently as he has been, we'll still get to teach him on Sundays. :D

 

We had another new investigator this week named Shelly. She's the nonmember sister of a less-active, Denise. Denise is divorced and has her two youngest children living with her, and Shelly lives with them. They've had some hard times, so Denise came to see the Bishop about welfare and such. Shelly came with, but was so nervous and stressed that she drank rum earlier in the day. That was at four o'clock, and she hadn't eaten since (this was at seven or eight). One of the things I've learned on my mission is that it isn't good to drink and not eat. (Wasn't what you were expecting, was it? :P) Well, we were listening to Shelly talk about all the hard things going on, and tying it to the Atonement, when all of a sudden Shelly asked to go to the ladie's room. Once there, she "lost her cookies", as she put it. Apparently, rum tastes a lot worse coming up than going down. :P She needs to gospel so much, and we're hoping she'll be open to it. She already loves us, and we're going back to paint their porch steps this week. Service is the key to entering these people's hearts!

 

I love you all so much! You other missionaries, thank you for sharing your experiences and testimonies with me. You all inspire me. I love this missionary support system we have as we all preach the same gospel all over the world! :D

 

Family, it was wonderful talking to you yesterday. I love you all! Have a fabulous week, and keep writing me letters. :D

 

Love, Sister Richards

 

Hello!

This week has moved twice as fast as the first week did. It's like in the MTC when they said that it moves faster after the first Sunday. That principle applies out here. I've heard that in the field, the first three months feel like the same amount of time as the last fifteen. We'll see. That scares me a little bit, not gonna lie. :P

This week we had some cool encounters. First off, Sister Bell and Sister Dahle (which is actually pronounced "Dolly," so their names don't rhyme, unfortunately) have been working on "The Musical Rendition of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ" fireside for weeks, and it was last night. We had 20 nonmembers there! It was so cool. I want to do it again later in my mission. We had lots of ward members involved, lots of youth (so lots of squeaky violins), and five investigators, plus us missionaries. Even though the musical numbers weren't all perfect, the Spirit was there. Sister Bell sang "His Hands" by Kenneth Cope, and it was BEAUTIFUL!! Elder Graf (our district leader) sang "A Disciple of Christ", which I'd never heard before, but it's all about being a missionary, and it really touched me, and hopefully members of the audience as well. Afterward we had refreshments (Costco cakes supplied by the High Priests with tablecloths and everything; who knew?!) where we missionaries mingled and taught. The problem is, for me and Elder Moreland at least, that we can hardly tell the nonmembers from the members we haven't met yet! So I found one I knew was a nonmember and talked to him. He's in high school, very intelligent, and very skeptical. After I answered all sorts of questions about tithing and prophets and he started getting into the nitty-gritty, I handed him a Book of Mormon and said, "All your questions will be answered if you read this with an open mind and an open heart." I put our number in it and said, "Read it every day and call us in a few weeks." He got kinda fresh and said, "Will it give me the answer to quantum physics?" But I laughed and said, "All your religious questions. Just remember, open heart." I did a hand gesture like a flower opening, and he caught on and asked, "Like a flower?" We both laughed and left on really good terms. I hope he actually reads and won't just leave those questions undone.

We've been going down our ward list and trying to meet with every nonmember and less-active in our half of the ward (we get Bay Village, Rocky River and Fairview Park and the Elders get Lakewood). We called one lady, set an appointment, then found out that she is a "do not contact"! But, she set the appointment, so we went anyway. (It was just Sister Bell and I, because Sister Dahle was sick and at home with Sister Frampton, who is part of the other tripanionship.) Her name is Cathy, her son is a 16-year-old pot addict, and her house is foreclosing and she doesn't have good relationships with  her family. She needs to come back to church. She basically laid out her whole life story for us (people in Ohio are very open) and invited us to come back any time. Why? Because her visiting teachers have been coming religiously as her friends for years while missionaries have been asked not to. Members are the key and, in this case, the miracle.

We have a new investigator! He is the husband of a member, he loves the church, knows the doctrine, and basically has a testimony. He's had all the lessons twice already, but wont' be baptized because he doesn't want to be a "hypocrite" because he has some "bad habits" that he won't give up. We just need to teach him the eternal significance of the gospel. Third time's the charm, right? :)

On Tuesday, Sister Titera (the stake president's wife) brought us to the Family History Center and showed us the ropes so we can teach investigators. I was able to find sources (scans of old censuses and such) for Great-Grandpa Richards and Grandpa Larsen. Go on Familysearch and see what I did! It's pretty cool. I didn't realize Grandpa Larsen would be on a 1940 census (the most recent census we can see) but I found him! I think he's like six years old or something. Anyway, take a look. The changes to family search are pretty awesome.

Thanks so much for the letters! Keep'm coming! :) I love you all. Have a wonderful week!

Sister Richards