Nov 26: Primero Semana en el Campo

Good afternoon, Overall such a fun week here in Arizona. I love it here so much and love the people here too.

Tuesday: On Tuesday, our entire district woke up at 4 excited to leave the MTC. We didn't have to report until 8:15, so we took our time getting ready. When our time was about up, we all took a victory lap around the whole MTC campus. It was one of the best feelings of my life knowing I had endured it and then had to look at all the people who were stuck there. When the time came to depart, we grabbed our bags and took off. It was such a weird feeling to walk out of the back doors and into the real world. Right when I got on the bus, I called both my parents and talked to them the entire time we shuttled downtown (thanks for sending a tracphone). And I accomplished something I never thought I ever would. Somehow out of my persuasive lips, I convinced my mom to meet me at the airport. It was such a beautiful feeling to see her and to talk to her for a bit. Once through security, all the missionaries ate some super good Cafe Rio and waited about 2 hours for our flight to take off. I didn't last long on the plane ride and fell right asleep. The flight was super short, and before I knew it we had landed. We met our mission president, and drove over to his house for a delicious dinner and stayed the night at some Elders’ home.

Wednesday: We got up early like always and headed straight to the church building to eat breakfast, and to go over some safety rules for the mission. We are mainly a biking mission, but we still drive cars most of the time. We walked into the gym and got assigned our trainers. My trainer’s name is Elder Badstubner (only took me like 4 days to remember lol). He is from Atlanta and is about 6'4. He just finished his training, and now he is training me so it’s a straight up party. We grabbed my stuff and went to our house and dropped off my stuff and went right out. Arizona has the prettiest sunsets ever and perfect winter temperature. There are a lot of Mexican people here who speak Spanish so my Spanish should be good by the time I leave.

Thursday: Was an absolute breeze. Because it was Thanksgiving, we could not proselyte so we played sports and games all day long. We started off playing soccer with the Spanish ward here for about an hour. I am pretty bad at soccer and Mexicans are super good. We then drove over and played football with a whole bunch of firefighters here in Tempe. We ate some super good food for lunch at a member’s home. We just relaxed and then ate more food at night time at another member’s home. Mexicans sure know how to do Thanksgiving right. We ended the night by playing some basketball - Really just enjoyed a day off.

Friday: Elder "Bad stew" and I got assigned to serve in the South Mountain side of Phoenix. We are whitewashing the whole area, which means we are both brand new to the area and have no idea what we are doing and who the people are here. It was a little difficult for both of us because we are practically starting from scratch. We have no people to teach, nobody to check up on, and no idea where we are half the time. We decided to meet with the Bishop and the Ward mission leader here. They gave us a ton of info and gave us some names of people to go by and see how they are doing. He mainly wanted us to stop by members’ homes and get to know the families and ask for referrals. The bishop here is awesome, his main focus is missionary work so he makes sure the whole ward is helping out with it. We have a member feed us every night, and actually, they cook decent food. Most of the area here is super poor. Most people live in trailer homes, or just on the side of the road in little shacks. They are super grateful though for what they have. Elder strew and I did a lot of tracking on Friday and didn't have too much luck.

Saturday: Saturday was my favorite day so far in the Mission. Our main focus was to find people to teach. We had set up a couple of appointments to teach, but most of them bailed. We did teach one to a recent convert named Antonio. We taught him the importance of attending the temple and why we should strive to enter. We invited him to work towards entering the temple on the 8th of December. We also attended 2 baptisms on Saturday. One was an 8-year-old boy, and the other was a young lady who made the changes necessary in her life to be baptized. Elder Badstubner and I were in charge of the halftime show so we had to teach the whole Restoration. It went by pretty smoothly. I sure don't know a lot of Spanish, but the spirit was there for sure. 

Sunday: Sunday was honestly a super weird day. It was my first time attending a full 3 hour church, not in English. I was pretty confused the whole time. I honestly had no idea what anybody was speaking about. Anytime anyone would try and talk to me I would just sit there and smile, and look at my companion haha. Good times! I still have a lot to learn but I know by having faith in God, anything is possible. We spent the remainder of our day tracting. We found a man named Carlos, and we taught him a short lesson. We spent the remainder of our night trying to find people. We weren't having much luck so we decided to say a prayer and asked God where we needed to go because there were people here waiting to hear our message. I felt prompted to go to a trailer park area and we did. We talked to tons of people and set 4 appointments to come back to teach. One woman, in particular, had seen missionaries before but had never wanted to talk to them. She felt something different from us, something that she had never felt before and decided to hear us out. I have really come to love Tempe. My attitude had totally flipped. I was so biased towards United State missions, but they are all foreign and they all need missionaries to teach the word of God. I am happy to be here, and I know I am here for a reason. Much Love.

Elder Rich 

The boys

Reassignment Elders

Here we go

Mom!

My aunt Lig was picking up her daughter, Elise, for Thanksgiving
at the same time so I got to see them too which was cool

companion, Elder Badstubner

Mission president, President Christensen and his wife

Out on "Lake Powell"

Nov 17: MTC week 6 - Last few days

Man, what a wonderful sight. Only 2 more days until we actually get to teach legit people. This past week flew by. Nothing really happened this week. 

One of the best things about the MTC is the opportunity to attend the temple every P-Day. Not only do we enjoy our time in the temple, but after as well. THE MOST important thing though is that we don't eat breakfast before, and after we finish our session - we FEAST, I'm telling ya! Today, we got to the temple around 7:25 and did Initiatories and then right after we did a session. As soon as we finish, we race to the men's dressing room and change quick. The whole basement of the temple just smells like food. Y'all don't even understand. After eating MTC processed food for days and days going to the Temple and taking your first bite of legit food is a miracle. I'm telling you, the best thing ever. One of the best moments of my week every week.

Also this week, we taught about 10 lessons to our fellow classmates. I still think back to my first lesson that Elder Flake and I taught and I distinctly remember just sitting there not saying a single word. I would write down my testimony and my prayer on paper and while teaching, I would just read it off!  Contrast to this last lesson, and I realized how much I have learned here at the MTC and how much I have learned about teaching the doctrine of Christ instead of just reading what you think you know on a piece of paper. I can't wait to get immersed in Spanish and really start the journey of a mission. 2 more groundhog days left. Next email will be from Tempe. 

Shout out to my boy T-Pac for starting the best adventure of your lifetime on Tuesday.

Also thank you for all of you that supported me while I've been at the MTC, all the letters, packages, and emails. Much love!

Happy Thanksgiving this week

Elder Rich

At the temple

The district

Elder Mitch making us all laugh

Nov 10: MTC Week 5 Tempe Arizona

Well, no surprise I didn't get my visa so I got re-assigned to Tempe Arizona for 6 weeks. I take off the 20th at 8:15 and I seriously couldn't be more excited to be out of this place. Today is my one month mark. It’s weird to think that I've been gone this long. The Spanish is still coming, we put a lot of work into it. I can already tell when I leave the MTC I’m going to know absolutely nothing.

Nothing really happened this week, typical class, study, and exercise time. We always get some crazy volleyball games going. We finished our Soda Tower with 300 cans and it was taller than I was, I haven't even gained a pound either.

A scripture that I especially liked this week was in Alma 26 versus 11 & 12

11 "I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God.

12 Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." 

This scripture really spoke to me. As a missionary, it's super easy to get frustrated with myself, or with those around me about so many things. I know that I am nothing, but in the strength of God, I can do all things. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week. 

Elder Rich

Map picture with Ecuador - I'll get there eventually

Picture with my brother, Austin's, trainer from Wisconsin, Elder Lewis, who is now a Hmong
teacher at the MTC.  He seemed like a super funny guy. He said Austin was a great missionary. I pulled off my tag and showed him my name and he like instantly gave me a hug. He told me
his first impression of Austin was him dunking a basketball and he thought it was so cool.  He also said
he went back to visit Wisconsin this last summer and he said Austin was cracking jokes in Hmong.

Elder Mabeus and the Soda Completed Soda Tower

MTC selfie

November 3: por los piebes - MTC week 4

Nothing really happened this week so this email is gonna be a little shorter than usual.

I forgot to mention in the previous emails that my companion and I started teaching TRC lessons to an actual person of interest. The lessons are for 25 minutes each and we have 3 each week. Our person of interest is named Andrea and she is from Spain. She is currently attending BYU to study English. Elder Flake and I have taught about 5 lessons now, and this past Thursday we taught the restoration of Joseph Smith to her. Every time we teach a lesson, the spirit is so strong, and I just wanna speak English and say “Do you feel the spirit that is present today"? It's honestly crazy how much Spanish I know. I can understand just about everything that is spoken in the lesson, and speak what words I need to say in Spanish. 4 weeks down, 2 more to go!

The elders in my district and I have been working on a soda tower ever since we've been here. I'd say we crank about 3 sodas each every day. Funny story… My mom sent me a loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread for Halloween this past week. The bread was just sitting there on our desk in my room so I gathered all the Elders in our zone for something I called "Partake and Pass" so I went first and took a bite out of the bread. As a couple more Elders took a bite I stopped them and said "Wait, wait. Whoever takes the biggest bite out of the loaf wins!" I swear, these Elders were passing this thing around taking the biggest honking bites ever. Every Elder kept trying to top the previous person with a bigger bite. We were all screaming our guts out - pretty funny. Also last night, P-day eve, our zone gathered together in the meeting hall. Elder Mabeus brought out his CD player and turned on the Frozen Soundtrack. We immediately started singing along. We had about 15 Elders all singing and during one particular song, we all started to mosh pit! It was so funny, mainly that we were getting rowdy to Disney songs. 

Overall a good week.

Love Elder Rich

soda tower

The boys with Sister Hatch

Welcome to Groundhog day Elder Jensen