week 74: australia style

Gday mum!! 

This week was pretty hectic, we went on two exchanges this week!!  I went with Elder Gines from Kaysville Utah!!!  He is the man, I had heaps of fun with him he went to Davis High.  I also went with Elder Bucholz from Mesa, Arizona!!  He is also the man of the hour!  We had MLC this week, and all of the zone leaders got to watch Meet the Mormons!!  It was an awesome movie, I flippin cried I was so happy!  So Kaea and Amy's baptism got pushed back a couple of weeks, because of the mum but hopefully it will happen soon!  One of Our investigators, Cleveland overcame his fear of water this past week, so he is ready to get baptised on Saturday.  He came up to us at church yesterday, and said "I am ready."  My comp and I jumped for joy!!  But my faith has been strengthened in obedience this week, I have been thinking heaps about am I obedient just to be obedient or am I being obedient because I love Christ.  I love Jesus Christ and that is my motivation to serve.  I love it out here, want to do this forever.

Gday mum!!  You may want to go get checked by a doctor, that is not good going around in pain.  I will definitely keep you in my prayers.  I hope you recover soon, have dad give you a massage or something!  Today I am going to just take it easy, my headaches have been coming back, and I think it is because I am not taking it easy very often.  Always on the go.  So I am going to just sit back, read the scriptures maybe eat a sandwich or something.  My companion feels the same way lol!!   It was raining cats and dogs this week though, so it was good to escape from the heat haha!  But I am loving the work at the moment, I am still with Elder Cook he is the man.  I have been with him the same amount of time as Elder Richey 5 months!!  I love you so much mum!!  I hope you get better !!!  Cheers!

Love, Elder Richins

aka: CMONEY

week 73: australia style

modeling career

Gday mum!!

This week was really good, feels like it went by pretty quick!  We had transfers this week, so on Tuesday we spent most of the day transferring luggage for the new missionaries in the zone.  We have an awesome zone!!  Two days this week were 40-42 degrees Celsius!  It was so hot, so we thought we would qualify for some blessings by tracting in it :)  It was awesome, we tracted for 2 hours and didn't see much success but the last person we talked to on the last door, they were really interested!!  It was a man named Tuli and he is from Samoa, most of his family are members but he is not.  He was really interested in the message of the Restoration, so we talked for a bit and he invited us back this week!  It is cool how the Lord grants unto us miracles AFTER the trial of our faith.  I love this Gospel!!  So this upcoming week we are baptising a girl named amy and a boy named Kaea.  They are Terawa's siblings, we baptised Terawa 2 months ago!  We are so excited for them.  This Gospel is continuing to shape me into someone that I never thought I could be, the Lord has worked miracles on me, after the trial of my faith.

Gday mum!!  I am really sorry to hear that you got food poisoning, that is not good!!  Remember when I got food poisoning a couple of weeks ago, that wasn't very fun hahahaha!  You are in my prayers. Today we have zone p day, we are going to go lazer tag!  It should be awesome!  I havent been on my mission yet.  But it is starting to get really hot outside!  But life is good, and I am loving the work!  I love you so much mum!  I hope you have a wonderful week!  Get better soon!  Cheers!

Love, Elder Richins

aka: CMONEY

week 72: australia style

Gday mum!!!

This week was really weird and good!!  Christmas was this week, it is always weird as spending Christmas away from the fam.  I am super grateful for the people here that treat me and my companion like family though.  I don't have much time this week because we have to pick some elders up from the train station.  But good news me and Elder Cook are staying another transfer in WERRIBEE!!!   I am keen as a bean right now, we might be training a missionary together as well, so that would be cool I have never been in a tri panionship before.  But at this point I doubt it will happen hahha!  My testimony of Jesus Christ has been strengthened this week as well.  It has been such a blessing to be a missionary and to ponder on the true meaning of Christmas.  It is truly amazing the gift that he has given for us, and how much love he has for us.  I am thankful to be his servant, I will serve him to the end!!  I am loving it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW MUM!!!!  Man I AM EXCITED AS FOR YOU!!!!  It was so good to see you on Christmas as well, today me and my companion are celebrating our 17 month mark, but it is technically my 18 and a half mark cuz I go early :P.  I love being a missionary mum.  I am really sad to hear bro. Neilson passed away, send my love to their family. I hope you have an amazing week mum and birthday!!!  Cheers!

Love, Elder Richins

aka: CMONEY LOVE

week 71: australia style

Gday mum!!!

So this week was really really really good!!  So Colin and Pue got baptised this week, that was grouse(good)!!!  They are so awesome, and I have really enjoyed teaching them the Gospel.  We have had heaps of meetings this week as well, we had another zone meeting this Tuesday and another meeting with our zone with the Stake Presidency.  Our zone has picked up so much it has been awesome to be a part of, because it just goes to show that the Lord is truly preparing his children to receive the Gospel.

On Friday we went carolling at the train station, we had 8 missionaries sing and 2 people would walk and talk to people.  Man, it was funny as, I was trying to talk to this dude and all of a sudden he just gaps it...  He left me in his dust man, I was like "what a stonch dude!" I started busting out laughing though!!  It was cool though, there were some people that stood by and just listened to the carols, must have been my beautiful voice!  Hahah jokes! 

This week was special because I was thinking about a gift I could give back to the Savior.  He has given me so much, and I came to the conclusion that I need to be more grateful in my prayers and to continue to try and help anyone that is in need.  Gratitude is the catalyst to all Christlike attributes, and my companion and I are going to have a grateful week.  Everytime something happens good or bad, we are going to be grateful in prayer for the things that we have been given!  I hope we all can remember the important attribute of gratitude this Christmas season!!

Gday mum!!! This week has been hot as!  It is finally looking like summer down here, I am really excited for Skype!  For Christmas we have a few islander feeds so that equals death.  Hopefully I wont be in a food coma for the Skype call hahahha!  So we are gonna have to do it on facetime, we are doing it as Bishop's house and he doesn't have Skype, just facetime.  So I hope that is all goods!  Can you send me the email where you would like to face time from??  I love you so much mum!!!  I am really excited for our family, so many blessings coming forth!  Talk to you soon :) Cheers!

Love, Elder Richins

aka: CMONAY

week 70: australia style

merry christmas

Gday MUM!!!

This week was good as!!  We had our mission Christmas party, and we got to watch How to Train Your Dragon 2.  Everyone was freaking out is was awesome!!  We also had a chance to teach Pue and she is golden as, she is already putting together her own baptismal program and her baptism is this Sunday!  We also taught our other Progressing investigator, Colin and he passed his interview as well so he will be baptised on Saturday yipeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!  The work is hot right now in the WERRI-bizzle!  Me and my comp are having heaps of fun together, we are flippin weird together at a district meeting this week my comp and I did a short training on planning and then we talked about our zone goal and to get every one pumped I threw the marker up in the air after writing the zone goal down and said "peace out."  I don't know what got into me, but I was just fired up!!  Our zone is going HARD to achieve this months zone goal so the work is heaps of fun right now! 

I was reading in Luke 7 today and it was truly humbling to read about the woman who was a sinner and she did all that she could to serve Jesus.  She washed his feet with her tears, and dried them with her hair.  Then anointed Jesus with oil, and because of her humility and faith, Jesus forgave her of all of her sins.  How great is it to serve the Lord, I know that this church is true and that we can strengthen our faith through the scriptures!! 

Hey mum!!  I loved the package thank you so much!!  I love the yo yo, I am becoming a yo yo master!!  I love the socks and the ties and the pants it was all fantastic!! The Christmas party was awesome though, it was really good to get a taste of home.  I cant believe I will be back in 6 months, feels like I just barely left so my return date now is June 17th but that is subject to change.  Today we have a zone p day and we are going head up in b ball against another zone of missionaries hopefully we smash em hahaha, jk!  That should be heaps of fun though, Maguire is crakkup as!!  Thank you so much for all that you do mum!!  I love you so much, sorry I don't have too much time today!  Cheers!

Love, Elder Richins

aka: CMUNZ

week 69: australia style

Gday mum!!

So this week was pretty awesome!!  So we had an awesome zone meeting on Thursday.  My companion and I put together with the help of the wonderful members, a re-enactment of Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life.  We had the different members act as temptations, some had food and some pretended they were at the beach, etc.  So the missionaries had to hold onto the iron rod and make it to the tree of life, and in the tree of life room we had a testimony meeting.  It was so powerful and it really strengthened my faith.  It was heaps of fun too:) 

We also had an awesome experience with Pue, so we invited her to pray for a baptism date last week, and she prayed this week!  So what happened was she went for a run after praying and she felt a very strong impression that God was waiting for her for the past 2 years to get baptised.  When we went there on Saturday she told us she wanted to get baptised as soon as possible!!  What a miracle!!  So she will be getting baptised on the 20th of this month.  I am really so greatful to be a missionary, it strengthens my faith each day seeing people like Pue, who just are so prepared.  No thanks to me of course, but to the Spirit of the Lord...  I love being an instrument in the Lord's hands.  I love this work with all my heart!! :)

Gday mum!!  Yep!  The Christmas party is this week, I am so excited!  It is really awesome to be a missionary around the holiday season, many people who wouldn't be interested the rest of the year become interested around this time due to the message of Christ's birth.  I am glad that you liked our beat box showcase, there are many more where that came from hahaha!!  I practice all the time in the car, it is becoming a pretty cool hobby.  Today my comp. and I are going to kick back and relax, we went HARD this past week....  I am so excited for this upcoming week, Christmas is almost here I cant believe it.  I have 26 Sundays left on my mission.... Because I found out on Tuesday at MLC I will be coming home in mid June instead of July.  Due to visa difficulties.  I love you so much mum!!  I hope you have a wonderful Week!!  Cheers!

Love, Elder Richins

aka: CMONEY

week 68: australia style

thanksgiving yo

Gday mum!!

This week was really good week!!  So I started off the week on an exchange in a wonderful place called Geelong.  It's another beach town, and it is beautiful as.  I went with these two Elders named Elder Long and Elder Concardes.  They are a part of a tri panionship, we had so much fun.  So we played a game at the bus stop, whoever could get the most return appointments got a slurpee.  So we found for like 2 hours at the bus stop.  At the end of it, we all deserved a slurpee, so I bought one for all of us.  It was heaps of fun, to work together that way.  We also had THANKSGIVING!!!  It was pretty funny, we were all sitting there with like 6 other missionaries and one of the missionaries told the hostess that my companion and I love to perform.  He said that I could beat box and my companion could sing.  So she made us perform of course, and we beat boxed and sang to "Praise to the Man."  It was epic, I wish I could send videos. 

Had a really spiritual experience this week with a woman named Pue, who was a former investigator from a year ago.  She almost got baptised and then some stuff happened.  We just stopped by her house and talked to her about God's purpose for his children.  In the midst of the lesson she told us, "I need to get baptised as soon as possible, it is what God wants me to do."  We invited her to pray for a baptismal date.  I really know that God has an ultimate purpose and plan for us, we are so lucky to know his plan, others are not.  That is why I love sharing this message.  I know it is true with all my heart!

Sounds like a busy as week mum!  I was pretty busy as well with 3 thanksgiving dinners haha.  EVERYONE and their dog wanted to feed us for Thanksgiving it was funny as.  Today is our zone p day and we are filming a nativity and then going lazer tagging, should be flippin awesome!  I am loving the work right now, seeing a bunch of miracles come forth.  I cant wait for next thanksgiving, it's just not the same over here hahaha....  No orange rolls hahaha, Australians don't believe in them.  

I love you so much mum!! 

Have an awesome week mum!!  Cheers!

Love, Elder Richins

aka: CMONEY