Served from

Served as a missionary from August 2, 2017 - August 8, 2019

Monday, November 12, 2018

Nov 12: It's getting cold here!

Nyob zoo,

This week we had Zone Conference. It was by far my favorite zone conference of my mission for a couple of reasons. One it was super spiritual. Almost everybody was crying because the spirit was so strong. It was really cool. We have some awesome missionaries here. The second reason I liked it so much was because of the things we learned. We really focused on the basics like how to set goals, planning, finding, and lots of other things. It was really good for me because the longer I am out, the more I over think things and do more than I really need to. It was a good reminder to me of the importance of the small and simple things in missionary work.

This past week we had a few people that we stopped teaching because of various reasons such as not progressing or being unable to contact them. So this past week and next week are gonna be very focused on finding which I am very excited for. Most missionaries aren't huge fans of tracting, but I actually don't mind it. Since getting all the addresses into the phone, we are able to find people a lot more effectively and the time we took to put those in has already paid off. We were able to tract all the Hmong houses in the city of Deforest this week. We have set some goals this upcoming week to really help us find people to teach. We are gonna spend about 4-5 hours finding a day and then outside of that we are going to talk to 10 extra people a day while we are tracting.

It definitely is starting to feel like Winter here in Wisconsin. It snowed a couple times this week, but luckily it isn't cold enough for it to stick yet. We had a funny story this week. Elder Giddings and I rode this bus to an area to knock some doors. We knocked most of those houses in that area, but it was so cold so we wanted to get a bus for a few minutes to warm up. We checked our phone for the bus stops and then while we were waiting we kept thinking we saw the bus, but every time it turned out to be something else. It was like being in a hot desert and dreaming about water. It was hilarious. Eventually, the bus came and we were grateful when that happened.

Also, this week Elder Giddings got sick, so that was no fun. Even though he was sick, and it was very clear that he was sick, he still was determined to go out. So we went out even though his voice sounded like a worse version of a teenage boy going through puberty. His voice was so squeaky and his voice cracked after every other word. I feel bad for him, but it was honestly really funny to listen to at the same time. By the time Sunday rolled around his voice was gone. He couldn't really speak at all. So it was really weird knocking doors for 3 hours and being the only one to talk. It was really good practice for me which I was grateful for, but you do start to miss your companion’s voice and testimony after hearing only yours for 3 hours. It definitely is true that 2 testimonies are more powerful than 1 and that is why I am grateful I have companions to testify alongside me. Hopefully, his voice will be back by Tuesday. 

Love you all, 

Elder Rich

Sister Wilson from my stake got transferred here for the winter from Nauvoo. 
She is in my zone so I have already seen her twice.

Riding our bikes

The snow this week

Elder Giddings and his foggy glasses haha