Miracles Blessings Disappointments and More Miracles
Date
July 18, 2016
Area
Parker Colorado
Companion
Elder Heiner
Miracles Blessings Disappointments and More Miracles
Anyone who says that an area is "tough" doesn't understand that all it needs is a little hard work.
People have a tendency to say that Parker is a "tough area" because the people are wealthy and prideful and that makes them comfortable. I always say that that is a bunch of hogwash. Well this week definitely proved that!
So I will start off by saying I had the unique opportunity of dropping off Elder Brinkerhoff at the mission home Tuesday night on the last day of his mission. I will really miss him, he was a great missionary and I really enjoyed him. Then the very next day I was back at the mission office to pick up Elder Heiner, on the very first day of his mission. I got to see both ends of the spectrum and how very far apart they are. The tough thing about training a missionary, is they rely on you for everything. So I have to figure out how to help him learn the important things without making it seem dumb for not knowing what he is doing. The nice thing is they have no prior expectations, so when I set the tone of working hard, he follows and that becomes what is normal for him. This week we taught more lessons than any other 2 weeks here in ponderosa combined. And they were AWESOME lessons!
I'll share a few of my favorite moments from this week. We stopped by one of our investigators, Wes. We told some young kids who live in the apartment complex we would come back and play football with them. The kid got his older friends who were all like freshman in high school and they started talking smack. While you know me. My ego says lets show them a lesson. So we beat them pretty bad. It was kind of funny. But then we went to Wes apartment and started teaching and all of the kids came barging through the door. I told them we were going to be reading scriptures and that if they would be quiet they could stay. At first they were cracking jokes and messing around. Wes likes to argue a lot so they started arguing too. Finally I just bore a strong testimony of the truth we had. It was BOLD. Everything changed. Suddenly all the kids sat down in a circle and would raise their hands and they all started sharing their testimony of how they came to know God was real. It was awesome. By the end, all of the kids were telling Wes he HAD to read the Book of Mormon and that it just made sense and he could learn something from it. All 6 kids and Wes decided they wanted to come to church with us. It was the craziest thing!
Unfortunately Satan is real. Two of the kid’s moms freaked out when the kids told them they wanted to go to church with us, so later today we are going over to go apologize to them. That scared Wes away and so he didn't want to come. But last night he promised he would come to a church tour this week no matter what and gave us permission to kidnap him if he tries to back out, so tomorrow we will do that. He keeps taking steps forward, and then getting scared and taking steps back. But he is an amazing guy!
The other cool ending to the story, is one of the kids who was there, probably the most polite and well behaved of them all, was Atheist. He said however that if he found out this was Christ's church that he wanted to join it and actually asked us to give him a Book of Mormon because he wanted to find out and he asked us to mark some scriptures for him so he has been reading that! We are going to check on him later this week!
We had a ton of success finding more less actives that we haven't met yet this week. We made contact with 2 new ones this week and the lessons went AWESOME! We taught a family that had us over for dinner and taught us how to play dominoes, and the two girls had a TON of fun with us and the dad said he hoped he saw us again real soon. We aren't sure yet the cause for their inactivity, I have a feeling the mom isn't super interested in coming to church here in Colorado, but hopefully we can find the cause and help them to feel the atonement in their lives!
The other awesome thing was when we found out this other family just built a "American Ninja warrior" obstacle in their backyard I knew that was our golden ticket so we stopped by and I said flat out we came over to try that out. After I wowed them by completing it on my first try we went inside and had an hour long lesson with them. It was awesome! The dad is the only member, but his 17yr old son sat in with us the entire time! And even added a little bit! The dad still knows the church is true but I think his wife is pretty against the church. He talked about wanting to find the happiness and be the person God wants him to be and asked us to come back. We are praying really hard that we can help unite this family for eternity.
Anyway we were blessed with many opportunities this week and were able to share our testimonies with many people. Elder Heiner is learning slowly the ins and outs of missionary work but he is learning. He asked me the first night what my favorite part of missionary work was. We had just left a lesson with a less active that we are working him towards receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood and while I was bearing my closing testimony, you could see in the man’s eyes the spirit that he felt and you could tell he wanted to be united with his wife for time and all eternity more than anything. I told him seeing that difference in peoples lives, and knowing that the Lord was able to use us in those moments to help make that difference. It was cool to share with Elder Heiner my testimony of that opportunity we have to assist the Lord.
I love this work. Not every day is sunshine and roses, but every day is beautiful if you learn to recognize the beauty. I am grateful for the many wonderful people in my life who have been such amazing examples to me and helped me get to where I am. Thank you all for everything you do in furthering Gods work here on earth. It is amazing to see the Lords hands in our lives and in the lives of all those around us!
Love, Elder Richards
People have a tendency to say that Parker is a "tough area" because the people are wealthy and prideful and that makes them comfortable. I always say that that is a bunch of hogwash. Well this week definitely proved that!
So I will start off by saying I had the unique opportunity of dropping off Elder Brinkerhoff at the mission home Tuesday night on the last day of his mission. I will really miss him, he was a great missionary and I really enjoyed him. Then the very next day I was back at the mission office to pick up Elder Heiner, on the very first day of his mission. I got to see both ends of the spectrum and how very far apart they are. The tough thing about training a missionary, is they rely on you for everything. So I have to figure out how to help him learn the important things without making it seem dumb for not knowing what he is doing. The nice thing is they have no prior expectations, so when I set the tone of working hard, he follows and that becomes what is normal for him. This week we taught more lessons than any other 2 weeks here in ponderosa combined. And they were AWESOME lessons!
I'll share a few of my favorite moments from this week. We stopped by one of our investigators, Wes. We told some young kids who live in the apartment complex we would come back and play football with them. The kid got his older friends who were all like freshman in high school and they started talking smack. While you know me. My ego says lets show them a lesson. So we beat them pretty bad. It was kind of funny. But then we went to Wes apartment and started teaching and all of the kids came barging through the door. I told them we were going to be reading scriptures and that if they would be quiet they could stay. At first they were cracking jokes and messing around. Wes likes to argue a lot so they started arguing too. Finally I just bore a strong testimony of the truth we had. It was BOLD. Everything changed. Suddenly all the kids sat down in a circle and would raise their hands and they all started sharing their testimony of how they came to know God was real. It was awesome. By the end, all of the kids were telling Wes he HAD to read the Book of Mormon and that it just made sense and he could learn something from it. All 6 kids and Wes decided they wanted to come to church with us. It was the craziest thing!
Unfortunately Satan is real. Two of the kid’s moms freaked out when the kids told them they wanted to go to church with us, so later today we are going over to go apologize to them. That scared Wes away and so he didn't want to come. But last night he promised he would come to a church tour this week no matter what and gave us permission to kidnap him if he tries to back out, so tomorrow we will do that. He keeps taking steps forward, and then getting scared and taking steps back. But he is an amazing guy!
The other cool ending to the story, is one of the kids who was there, probably the most polite and well behaved of them all, was Atheist. He said however that if he found out this was Christ's church that he wanted to join it and actually asked us to give him a Book of Mormon because he wanted to find out and he asked us to mark some scriptures for him so he has been reading that! We are going to check on him later this week!
We had a ton of success finding more less actives that we haven't met yet this week. We made contact with 2 new ones this week and the lessons went AWESOME! We taught a family that had us over for dinner and taught us how to play dominoes, and the two girls had a TON of fun with us and the dad said he hoped he saw us again real soon. We aren't sure yet the cause for their inactivity, I have a feeling the mom isn't super interested in coming to church here in Colorado, but hopefully we can find the cause and help them to feel the atonement in their lives!
The other awesome thing was when we found out this other family just built a "American Ninja warrior" obstacle in their backyard I knew that was our golden ticket so we stopped by and I said flat out we came over to try that out. After I wowed them by completing it on my first try we went inside and had an hour long lesson with them. It was awesome! The dad is the only member, but his 17yr old son sat in with us the entire time! And even added a little bit! The dad still knows the church is true but I think his wife is pretty against the church. He talked about wanting to find the happiness and be the person God wants him to be and asked us to come back. We are praying really hard that we can help unite this family for eternity.
Anyway we were blessed with many opportunities this week and were able to share our testimonies with many people. Elder Heiner is learning slowly the ins and outs of missionary work but he is learning. He asked me the first night what my favorite part of missionary work was. We had just left a lesson with a less active that we are working him towards receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood and while I was bearing my closing testimony, you could see in the man’s eyes the spirit that he felt and you could tell he wanted to be united with his wife for time and all eternity more than anything. I told him seeing that difference in peoples lives, and knowing that the Lord was able to use us in those moments to help make that difference. It was cool to share with Elder Heiner my testimony of that opportunity we have to assist the Lord.
I love this work. Not every day is sunshine and roses, but every day is beautiful if you learn to recognize the beauty. I am grateful for the many wonderful people in my life who have been such amazing examples to me and helped me get to where I am. Thank you all for everything you do in furthering Gods work here on earth. It is amazing to see the Lords hands in our lives and in the lives of all those around us!
Love, Elder Richards
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