WEEK 11: Training, Training, and more training!

Hello all!

This has been quite a week! Most of the week was spent in meetings, so there's not too much to update on.

Monday we had an all sisters' meeting- which was really fun! (If I've already mentioned this, sorry! ha) It was cool to be with almost every sister in the mission! There's a lot of us! 

Tuesday was district meeting- that was AWESOME. It was a really good meeting, and the topic was exactly that which I needed to hear. District meetings are the best. We talked about Faith and Hope, two of the Christlike Attributes in Ch. 6 of Preach my Gospel. (Also, that book is the best. After, of course, The Book of Mormon. (also this is going to end up a weird email, I'll just warn you now. haha))

Wednesday was one of 2 days this week we didn't have meetings, so we did our emailing and weekly planning. We did teach a couple lessons though! One was with one of our investigators, and it went pretty well. He has a lot of tough questions- those questions of the soul - that are going to be hard for us to answer for him - he needs to search, find, and understand those answers for himself. 

We also visited with an elderly sister in the ward- she is the sweetest, funniest person ever. She is a convert of 10 years, and it's incredible to get to know her and her stories. That, and she says whatever she wants because she's an awesome old lady and it's pretty funny sometimes. :D

Thursday and Friday we had leadership training - it was for all new missionaries in the mission since October - I guess there was supposed to be one in December but that transfer was a little crazy with Christmas and a million other things that were happening, so there was a lot of missionaries at the training, which was awesome. It was only half of the group though - they did 1 training session in the south part of the mission last week, and this week was the north part. (If you're wondering if I've run into Elder Welch, I have - I talked to him at the training meeting. He's pretty cool! Pretty awesome to have someone from my hometown out here in NJ.)

Thursday night we did like 20 minutes of street contacting, which was pretty interesting. Sister Pack said something like "we'll follow the Spirit and pick a place to park" I was kind of laughing, but I did find a place to park and we walked around - Quickly and with purpose of course! - and found these two pretty awesome people. We didn't get any of their info, (sad face) but it was really cool to talk to them and they were really open and receptive to us walking with them and talking a little bit about the Book of Mormon. (:

Friday night we had an appt with a potential investigator - one that we called up out of the area book and he was like "sure come on over!" (we almost didn't know what to say - we were too surprised that A) someone answered the phone B) it was the right person and C) they weren't incredibly busy) He is a pretty solid man! We had a great conversation about the Restoration and about Christ, and we are going to see him again this week. 

Saturday was another interesting day. Friday I started having a really nasty cold, and so I took cold medicine before studies - bad idea! I was silly and forgot that non-drowsy medicine puts me straight to sleep. Needless to say, I didn't have very effective studies. :P  Sister Pack and I actually got a good laugh out of it a little later because I had tried to plan a lesson, but I couldn't read anything I wrote down for the lesson. hahahha. 

We left right after personal studies to try and visit a family, but they didn't answer their door. We got back home and Sister Pack sent me to bed, so I slept for a good part of the morning. I got up at 1, and I think I went to bed at like 9:30 or 10... I was tired!

We visited a couple people that afternoon and evening, and it was a pretty good day, just weird because it was out of order and I slept for half of it. 

Sunday was a really awesome day! One of the less actives we work with gave a talk in Sacrament meeting, and it was awesome. He did so well!

We had an interesting gospel principles class- there was some creative discussion among the class members. Some of the elders were teaching (the teacher was one of the several people in the ward that were home sick yesterday. Weird how that happened here and back home*), and all of us missionaries were doing our best to try and keep control of the lesson and not let it run too rampant haha. Gotta love class sometimes!

That about sums up the week! 

I thought I would answer one of Mom's questions for everyone -"Any other interesting missionary life things you didn't expect?"
I definitely didn't expect how weird it is sometimes- like we have this one homeless guy that recognizes us and asks us bizarre questions, wearing durags, (i still don't even know), the things Sister Pack and I think of and talk about sometimes - we have some pretty funny conversations. I think I'd be a little lost without some weirdness though, so I love it. 

Another interesting thing i guess is that that there is rarely a "normal" week. Maybe those will come more often in the future, but there is always something different that throws things off - training meetings, snow days, going to Ellis Island...

Next time you hear from me, I will no longer be in training! I am almost at the end of my 2nd transfer (3 months!!), so my training is almost done! SO CRAZY! I'm excited to see what next transfer brings- we find out Sunday night/monday morning about transfers, so it will be an interesting week. 

I love you all, stay smart, stay awesome, and I miss you!

Love Always, 

Sister Richmond

This is a photo that Sis Burt shared on Facebook page of the all Sisters Training - Sister Richmond is in the back - mostly hidden - but directly under the yellow and red footprints on the wall. 
(if you click on the picture it will appear bigger)

*in my letter to Sister Richmond - I mentioned that our ward was missing a lot of primary workers and kids yesterday - mostly due to illness.