THE LORD MAKES HIS SERVANTS BOLD...

This week has been a very good one! We had some of the best numbers in the zone. I know it's not a competition, but it feels good! lol. 

Anyway, we taught J, A, and B twice this week. We went over the Gospel Of Jesus Christ, The commandments and the baptism interview questions. Everything went great! A. had his baptismal interview yesterday after church and everything went great. Elder Sagers is going to baptize him. All he has talked about since he came out was baptizing people. A. didn't care who baptized him so I told him Elder Sagers would, so hopefully it will get that out of his system and make him realize it doesn't matter who baptizes them, it just matters that they get baptized. I don't know we will see!

D. is still on track for the 13th! We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ as well. Everything went great. It was crazy to see everyone's reactions at church yesterday when they heard that D. was going to be baptized. I think a lot of people thought it would never happen. D's wife P. gave me a great compliment this last lesson. She said "Elder Richardson, Thank you for being so bold with my husband. I think that was what he needed. All the other missionaries seemed afraid of D. but you just told him how it was going to be."
It was so nice to hear that! You don't get a whole lot of compliments like that out here and that was probably the highlight of my week! 

S. is doing good an has committed to give up coffee and tea so we will see how she does with that. Church was great yesterday. We had 5 investigators come to church!  They all stayed for all 3 hours except one. We also found out that we get to speak in Second Ward next Sunday. I am excited but still nervous - haha! 

Transfers are next Monday. This transfer has gone by so fast! I really hope I stay! We have so many great things about to happen in our area and I wouldn't be so happy if I got transferred :/ I think I will probably stay and finish training Sagers though. 

We have been invited to eat dinner with the Minor family on Easter. They are a younger family with 4 children all under 10! It should be great fun and loud - haha! I did think of something I'd like in my Easter box. Elder Sagers has gotten me into working out which isn't all that bad and I'd like some protein. You can buy it at Walmart - it is called Muscle Milk and it is made by CytoSport. Make sure to get the chocolate flavor please and THANKYOU! (It's the same stuff I got Elder Rusk for his birthday!)

I seriously can not wait to skype home on Mothers Day! I miss you guys so much and can't wait to see you again. I hope you guys have a great week! 
Love you guys!
Elder Richardson

CHALLENGE THIS WEEK: Keep reading the Book of Mormon. Also prepare to hear General Conference!

EXCHANGES, SERVICE & SHEARING, AND LOTS OF TEACHING!

So I was a little confused when I didn't see a letter from you or dad! Is everything alright? I guess I will just tell you how our week went! *We forgot all about the time difference and Jake wrote this before our letters came through to him in his email...luckily he was still at the library and we were able to converse back and forth for a few minutes which I included below*

     

      It was a good week for sure! We had one of our Zone Leaders, Elder Scott, with us on exchanges from Sunday to Thursday. He has been out awhile and I learned a lot from him. We taught a lot of people this week and had 2 more people commit to be baptized! We are teaching a girl named S. who's fiance is a less active member. They are having a child and she wants to raise it in the church! She has so many questions - it is crazy! She has absolutely no religous background at all and doesn't know who God or Jesus Christ is. But she is so open to learning and has accepted everything great so far. We are meeting with her again tomorrow night! 

We also taught J. and A. again this week! To our surprise J's. other son B. is now interested in the church and is sitting in on the lessons! We taught them the Plan of Salvation. They loved it and A. has a baptism date for the 30th of March! His brother, B., also accepted to be baptized!! They both showed up to church yesterday in suits! It was awesome!!! J. is praying about a date that she thinks is reasonable since her and C. need to get married first. I am SO excited for their family and they changes they are making!

 We were out and about on Wednesday and no one was home, and we didn't know what to do, so we started thinking. At the same time Elder Sagers and I both said we should try and see 

DB. He has been investigating the church for over 3 years now and has a tendency to skip out on our appointments. We thought if we just stopped by that they might be home and then he wouldn't have an excuse. It worked!!! His wife and him were both home and he let us come in. We decided we would just start from the begining and teach him all of the lessons again as if he had never been taught. We taught him the message of the restoration and asked him to be baptized on April 13th. He said he would! It is crazy to see how not giving up on someone who we had thought about giving up on, can change their life. We thought DB, was kind of a loss cause but the spirit told us we needed to visit with him and look how it turned out! I am so grateful for the influence of the Holy Ghost in my life. 

On Friday we had Zone Leader training which is a big meeting within our zone. I was asked to teach a break out session which is where we break into 4 groups and rotate through  4 - 30 minute lessons. The lesson I was asked to teach was "Revalation through the Book of Mormon". I got to teach the same 30 minute lesson 4 times. I was able to get very familiar with what I was teaching and really came to understand how vital the Book of Mormon is to our Church. Without the Book of Mormon we literally have nothing...so my CHALLENGE to you guys this week is to read in the Book of Mormon and pray about it to reassure and strenghten your own testimony of the Book of Mormon.

 On Saturday we were in Kalispell helping the Zone Leaders shear sheep! It was so much fun. We didn't actually get to shear the sheep we just had to wrestle them and take them to the shearer! I'll send you some pictures of it! 

I think that is pretty much it though! I hope you are all doing great!

 Love and miss you tons!

Elder Richardson

SO BELOW IS A LITTLE OF THE CONVERSATION WE WERE ABLE TO HAVE:

We asked about the time difference and also talked to him about a friend of ours, Mitzi Baker, who's friend has a son in the same mission and their family was in a few episodes of THE DISTRICT...

Yep...I guess I should have told you last sunday we switched our clocks! It is honestly the dumbest thing ever! Yeah - Elder Rodriguez was in my comp district in the MTC. He is pretty much a celebrity out here - haha. Everyone knew who he was when he arrived. Yea...maybe we will get the chance to serve together.

We asked about the weather and filled him in on our week and a friends wedding we attended where he knew the bride and groom...

It snowed 2 inches yesterday after all the snow had just got done melting! It sucks and it is snowing right now again :(  I can't believe weslin and nicole are married! 

We asked him if he got our package last week. We sent some missionary business cards with all his information on it as a missionary and on the back of the card has his information for home so he can hand them out when he leaves an area and stay in touch people... 

 Yes - they are good. It will be easier than writing out all that information when someone asks for it or when I leave an area.

Asked what he'd like in his Easter Package from us...

 I honestly don't know what I want in my easter package. Money is honestly the best, or gift cards to subway and pizza hut - haha!

Asked him if he had any big plans for P-Day today (P-Day is short for Preparation Day...this is where the missionaries have a chance to shop for groceries, do laundry, clean, and run errands that they need to for the week. It also usually includes a physical activity such as a sport, hike, snowshoeing, etc.)...

No big plans for p-day today...but we have a lesson tonight though which is great!!!

JUST OYM...

Hey!,

This week has been a pretty good one. It started out great with a wonderful lesson Tuesday night with J. and A. J. has had all of the lessons already and is just waiting to get married and then will be baptized she said! :) We decided we would focus our lessons on A. for now and it would give J. a good refresher of them! This last week we taught A. the message of the Restoration! We were talking about Joseph Smith and right after I recited the First Vision I felt promted to Invite him to be baptized! He accepted and you could tell he was feeling the spirit so strong! To see a 13 year old boy make that decision for himself and not because his parents wanted him to is such a strong testimony builder for me! I have really come to care for J. and her sons A. and B. and I hope B. follows A's example and starts coming to church!

We had dinner this Friday with the McCanns. They are the youngest couple in the 2nd ward. Bro. McCann served a mission and is a very mission minded person which is great! They had their friends C. and S.  join us for dinner! C. is an Inactive member and S. is interested in the church! She has no religous background at all so it is almost harder to teach her! We committed them to come to church and they did!! She said she liked it a lot and wanted to meet with us again! :) We are having dinner with them over at the McCanns again this Tuesday!

Then on Saturday we ate at a little place called Fox's Drive In. This was the first time we had eaten there. There was no one but us and the lady that owns the place in there. She randomly came up to us and asked if we could have more than one wife. haha. We preceeded to tell her no and how the church is against polygamy now. Then she asked if we believed in "Miracle Heelings". We told her that we do and then she got really excited. We told her about the priesthood and how we can perform blessings for many different reasons. Elder Sagers shared a great experience when he was giving a blessing and how it affected him and she was amazed and her response was "I totally believe that can happen!". We gave her our phone number and she said she would call if she ever had any questions or needed anything! When we finally left the last thing she said was "Who knows maybe I'll even convert"! It was such an awesome experience!

Saturday we were able to help the Wendts, some members in the 2nd ward move. They are going to burn their old house down and build a new one on top of it. Brother Katzenmeyer is the fire chief and he said I might be allowed to light the house on fire next Saturday!!!! How cool!

Yesterday one of our Zone Leaders Elder Scott showed up and we are going to be on splits with him until this Thursday. So I have to be on my best behavior ;) HAHA

I think that is it for this week. I am doing well. Staying healthy and avoiding the sick people - haha. Elder Sagers is big into working out and got me going. We do 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 curls, and 100 back things lol. It kinda sucks but it is good for me! I hope it will warm up some more so we can go running and not slip on ice!

I haven't gotten your package yet so hopefully it will be there today! We are going to check mail right after this! 

Well I love you guys tons! Hope you have an awesome week!

-Elder Richardson

THIS WEEKS CHALLENGE:

OYM - that stands for "OPEN YOUR MOUTH" and just share how you feel. The gospel is a gift in our lives so why wouldn't you want to share that gift with someone else!

 Abbey and me 

 Elder Sagers, Abbey, me

 The sun is warming things up

 Thought this was way cool

 You can really start to see what things really look like here without snow covering it

 Elder Sagers and me

 The wildlife are starting to come out as things warm up

 We still have cloudy and cold days

 The snow is starting to melt off in some places

LOVING MONTANA!

VERY MOTIVATED THIS WEEK...

Hey Dad,

This week has been a good one! With the Baptism and all but I will talk about that in my "Big" letter to Mom. I honestly miss looking for deer and fishing with you more than anything and it is hard to be up here without you. We had a little forky along with 10 does and fawns walk through our front yard a couple days ago. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be up here with you on vacation instead of on a mission, and boy would it be fun! But I know that isn't why I am out here right now and Abby's baptism has helped me stay very focused this week! I am so excited for Tanner and talked to him already today about him being ordained. I just wish I could have been there! :/ Anyway I will tell you more about my week in moms email.

Love you,

Jake

Hey!,

This week was a good one especially becuse it started out with Abby's Baptism! Which motivated me to work hard the rest of the week! So about the Baptism. It had been a while since I had been to a baptism and I was pretty nervous! Everything went great though! I only had to dunk her once! I dont know that I have ever felt as good as I did when I was in the font with her! It is something I will never forget and something I absolutely want all of my investigators to progess to and experience it for themselves! I will send all of the pictures you asked for next week! 

We were able to teach J. again this week and her son A. is now interested in the church and is going to sit in on our lessons! We watched the movie "The Restoration" and J. cried during it! There is no doubt in my mind she knows this is the true church! They just need to get married and then she will get bapized! 

On Friday we had dinner at the church for the scouts Blue and Gold Banquet. After dinner they had a cake auction to raise money for the scouts! Some members gave us $60 to bid on any cake that we wanted!! We ended up getting one for only $25 which I was happy about so we didn't have to use all of the $60 and we could give some back. It was such a fun time! I honestly love the ward members up here! They treat us so well and make us feel like family! 

Unfortunately J. and S. dropped us this week, they said they got an answer to their prayers and it was to go to the cowboy church. It kind of sucks how you know some people didn't read and pray with real intent and to actually find out for themselves, but everyone has agency and what a pain in the butt that can be sometimes! Haha - just kidding! 

On Saturday we helped with a huge ward/community service project we spent 6.5 hours splitting wood! We ended up getting 22 cords cut and delivered!!! Some of the rounds we split had to have been 1150-175lbs! Needless to say I am a little sore today! 

Church was great yesterday! I love testimony meeting! Especially because a lot of the members up here are converts and they have some of the strongest testimonies! It just helps strengthen my testimony so much. Abby was also confirmed yesterday at church and I was able to stand in on that! After the blessing was over she was crying and I could tell how much this meant to her and I am so glad and honored I was able to be a tool in the Lords hands to help her make these steps to coming closer to our Father in Heaven!

I think that is it for this week! I just want to remind and challenge everyone who reads this that holds the Priesthood - what a wonderful gift it is to have and that we should be exercising our Priesthood regularly, and if we do so we will be blessed greatly!

I love and miss you guys so much!

-Elder Richardson

“Each of us has duties associated with the sacred priesthood which we bear. Whether we bear the Aaronic or the Melchizedek Priesthood, much is expected of each of us. The Lord Himself summed up our responsibility when He, in the revelation on the priesthood, urged,

‘Wherefore, now let every man learn his duty, and to act in the office in which he is appointed, in all diligence’ (D&C 107:99).”