Aug. 26 2013

Hey happy birthday to you best sister ever. Hey sorry I forgot to tell you but yeah the plan is that I’m still going to go to Brazil and this is just temp. When I mean temp it can be 5 more months. However I think that I have heard that if I don't get my visa in like a year they will probably just keep me here.

However things are pretty cool here most of the time. I am defiantly getting a little bit of culture over hear. I just got my hair cut by a Dominican guy. It doesn't look like I usually wear it so I will probably fix it up a little tonight. I also went to a bodega or a corner type convenience store run by Dominicans.

I got your Birthday present there and if things work out you will get it this week. The work here is going. Some days are quicker than others. Yesterday I taught a lesson in Spanish to a super catholic guy with a weird accent it was kind of weird cool and funny all at the same time. Like when he pulled out this card thing with all these prayers that they recite in their country. Also we asked him about prayer and I was telling him why we pray and why it is important and my companion challenged him to pray with us without using a card or a recited prayer. So he started to explain it while we were kneeling and he said something like we say what we are grateful for and this old Dominican guy started praying and extended his arms and said the things he was grateful for while he looked up towards heaven. And he would say some things and then kiss his hands and do a circle around his head with his hands while praying. It was a little different. And when we started with prayer my companion would day something and the guy would like repeat the words to himself out loud, super weird. 

  

We are always looking for new people to go teach and this last week we got a bunch of new investigators. And it kind of sucks sometimes they fall through or we go and they are not home it's a bummer. Well things are going good here and I like it a lot. I'm working on my Spanish and it is improving a little… I hope. And my companion and I are working hard. Oh happy anniversary too. I totally forgot until a day after it was over. 

The days fly by and I am almost always tired around here. Especially when we play soccer and basketball. We played basketball for our exercise one morning on this ghetto black top court in a park it was cool. And we try to play soccer every Saturday with investigators and people in the ward. My foot still hurts from being cleated and my calves are a little tired. Oh even though we are walking every day I have gained a little weight and I even work out every morning. Maybe I should fast more often for my visa and for our investigators.

Hey I love you a lot. Thanks for your emails there the best. I am a little disappointed in Cory he told me about going on this date with this beautiful girl from Lacey and he told me about it when I called from the Dallas airport and he never wrote me or told me about it. And it's been like 3 weeks. Hey I need to email some more people from my MTC District there really awesome and I miss them a lot. But not as much as you and Josh and Ellie. Tell Ellie I said hi and give Josh a big kiss for me 

Love Elder Tyler Richardson

Pictures from Aug.19 Email

Middle Part Mondays with Elder Smith (At MTC)

Group at MTC

The nicer part of town

Tyler and Elder Calister (His companion)

August 19

Dear Maranda and family, because Maranda is going to share this since it is amazing. Well I’m still in Reading. I think the work is slowing down for me. It seems like I can be a lot more productive, but I don't tell my companion that. It seems like we spend a lot of time at members houses... but he still is awesome. And the members love me. Hey for my birthday you can send me some anti young woman missionary spray. However I heard from this member that my companion and me are looked at a lot by the Hispanic girls. They especially like us because we are different. I guess they probably like my eyes. That’s what the people at the MTC told me.

Oh By the way family they all thought you looked good when I shared the pictures of you. They especially liked the pictures of Ellie oh boy they thought she was the cutest baby ever and totally ate her up.

Hey some crazy things that happened this week in our area and zone. Some elders found a little dime sized bag of weed. I saw a bunch of homeless people under a bridge, and when 2 other companions in my district were teaching a lesson on a porch some guy came running out of an alley with blood coming out of his side like he was just stabbed. Oh also I played some kids on this court at horse and totally beat him. He wasn't from Puerto Rico and I gave him a pass along card.

Oh and something crazy, people here think I'm kind of shy whats up with that? So i need to change something I have a image to uphold. It isn't all my fault that I don't know Spanish really well and I have only been hear for like a week. Oh and I did get my own clothes and things after like a week of being in Pennsylvania. So I am actually pretty happy.

Man another crazy thing about being in the mission field is that I am always so tired well almost. If I stay sitting down to long without saying anything or doing anything active I will start nodding off for sure.

Hey last thing before i got to go what’s up with the wart dog Cory. I was so excited today to hear from him about his date. Don't they have computers in Vegas or where ever he is at? Just joking he is just living young and wild and free. Every thing i don't feel. Hey I love you so much thank you for your prayers and letters and thank josh for his. Well i am going to try to compose a couple more of these baby’s and send some pictures to you. Love always elder Tyler Richardson

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

Old pictures

Here are a few pictures from Tyler's days at the MTC,

Hey All!

So this is Maranda, Elder Richardon's older sister who will be keeping this blog up to date.

You can email Tyler at tyler.richardson@myldsmail.net or send him snail mail at this address (which is subject to change, so pay attention in the future)

 Elder Tyler Richardson 
721 Paxon Hollow Rd STE B 
Broomall PA 19008 United states 

(this is for the mission office, where packages can go) 

His apartment address is,

555 pearl street Room 203
Reading  PA 19602