Aug. 12, 2013

August 12, 2013

The mission here is cool but different. It is almost like I went to a different country. There are tons of people from the Dominican Republic and from Puerto Rico. It is pretty sweet. I also am a Spanish speaking missionary so I get to go to all the cool Spanish filled parts of town and use my corrupted Portuguese Spanish, but I try.

Spanish is a lot similar but a lot different. When I went to the mission here I was under the impression that I would be speaking English. I guess the mission president here had a different plan for me and someone else. But it is cool, I also get to study Portuguese every day for like an hour.

As I told Cory it's kind of ghetto around here. I don't think I will ever make fun of Galvin or Centralia being ghetto as much. I still probably will a bit. But it smells like cigarette smoke and garbage. And a lot of the row houses and apartment things are a little shabby.  But it is good the people here are mostly pretty nice. Especially all the part member and member inactive Hispanic people we visit. They are always giving us juice and rice and stuff to eat.

The people hear have some cruddy problems though. Like we have met some people and are teaching some people who have been through a lot. Like being kicked out of there house and having ex-husbands who don't pay child support when the wife isn't able to work or can't find a job and has little babies that are like a couple of months old. Or other junk like a person who had their kids taken away from her from like cps or something like that for some old stuff that had happened before I got here. So as you can tell I’m kind of in the hood. And I feel more like I'm in the ghetto by contributing because I have been wearing the same two shirts pairs of socks and tie and pair of pants since like Tuesday. Since there are so many more people in the mission my companion had to give up his car to the sisters in a different area. That I don't mind but we couldn't fit all the stuff in the car that we were riding in to are apartment so the A P's told me just to take some stuff for a night and they will get my stuff to me the next day. Well that never really happened. Crappy huh? At least my companion gave me his old deodorant stick and some one let me borrow a t shirt and I brought some shorts and a T shirt. So yeah I'm living in the hood and I now know the struggle and what it is really like to live in the ghetto. I also got to spend half a day in Philly. So I spent the night with all the other new missionaries in the mission home on Tuesday night. Then the next morning after break fast we loaded up and drove to Phillly and we were right next to west Philly and we drove threw west Philly. Oh boy was that an experience. Tacoma looks live Beverly hills compared to west Philly. Well I guess that Is exaggerated but it was petty sketchy. And we got to do some street contacts and proselyting. I also ate lunch and got a Philly cheese steak and it was pretty good.

Then I met my new companion. I was partnered up with this kid and was going to go to Delaware but he couldn't drive and I can't either because I am a visa waiter so here I am in Reading which sounds like red-ing and that is why in monopoly it is Reading Railroad.

So the work is good and I'm working hard. My companion is cool and not too old, he has only been here for 2 transfers and this is his third. This week I got a new investigator because of me and I decided to help this old Dominican lady with something and my companion talked to another old Dominican lady she was with while I was helping and trying to talk to the other old lady. Cool huh. It is kind of a bummer that all our lessons are with people who would go to the Spanish ward. And if we get a contact that speaks English and wants to hear more but would go to the English branch, we have to turn it over to the other missionaries. Hey I should wrap this up. Oh do you want to hear something cool I saw I saw real lightning bugs once after playing soccer at a park and the first night at the mission home.

Well I love you very much. Tell mom that a letter is on the way and you can feel free to post this and share it. Tell Cory that I wrote him a long one if you can. I think he might be in Vegas if my info is correct.

Well love you again Elder Richardson