Letter from December 30

December 30 2013

So things are going fine here in Berlin Maryland area. This last Christmas week has been great and filled with love. We had several people invite us over for dinner. I even got to go to this one nice older couples house for brunch on Christmas and they gave us some grits and hamoney and other southern food that i don't eat a lot or hardly ever in Washington.

So yeah that was cool. We also had dinner at a family named the sanders, and they are really cool and have 3 little kids under 4 so the husband was glad to have us over and have some young men around he can do stuff with like play board games and kick a soccer ball around with.

So yeah life is good. I also got some killer suspenders and some other cool stuff from home so I’m looking good these days except I think with this car riding and candy eating I’ve picked up, my stomach is getting a little bit bigger than it has been in the past, but that could be my imagination.

The work in this area is also growing. Because of my language skills I’ve got 2 new investigators this week. One is because last Monday at the library we were emailing and i was asked a word in Portuguese by one of my companions and the lady in-between us lived in Brazil and speaks Portuguese. So we will be visiting her hopefully this week. She seemed pretty excited to have me come over. Also I went searching for this spanish speaking guys apartment i met at Wal-Mart and he wasn't home so we talked to his bilingual neighbor in Spanish and found out he speaks English also and said we can also visit him.

So that should be pretty good. Sometimes we don't have a lot of people to teach near us so this can be great. We do a lot of service around here and i like it.

Its always good to get out of our church clothes and get to do some work and let some energy out. For this one guy we do a lot of splitting wood big rounds with a hydraulic wood splitter for this guy who gets wood from trees that other people give him that they don't want or that fall down. so that is usually fun and we do stuff for a lot of other people.

 Hey i also have some some what visa news. Not really news for me but there are 2 more people from my MTC district who got their visas and one of them is my old companion elder Smith who is in this mission and will be leaving when the transfer is over. so I hope I might get my visa soon and can be on the plane with him but I don't want to bank on it and not get my visa before the transfer ends but its possible.

Man my Portuguese sucks these days. I’m starting to forget how to say simple things when I do my personal prayers in Portuguese and i have to look it up when I’m done.

 However there is only me and 2 other people in the states waiting now for a visa from my MTC district of 12 or 13 so things aren’t looking to bad. 

Well talk to you later i love you a lot

Love Elder Tyler Richardson