Reflections of a True Millennial

Hello world, Hope that everyone had a great Christmas! It was definitely weird to be away from home, but the members here provided us with lots of food and love. And of course the best part of Christmas was skyping with the family. I hope you can all keep the spirit of Christmas alive and continue thinking about our Savior. Also this Christmas was the hottest Christmas of my life, which is saying a lot since I am from Florida...  This Wednesday the missionaries from the nearby town of Lontue are moving into our house, so we will have six people living there. One Nicaraguan, one Mexican, one Chilean, one Brasilian, one Peruano, and only one gringo. Should be fun. I really don´t get many opportunities to speak English here, but I´m okay with that. Also this Friday I turn 6 months on the mission! Pretty crazy. But to mark the occasion I thought I could share a bit of my testimony here with you all. ---  The first 6 months of the mission have been great, but also really hard. It´s like my ...

Hello from Molina (Well I´m actually in Curicò currently). One week down in my new sector. I am here in Molina B with Elder Ramirez, from Nicaragua. He´s pretty cool and has been here now for three months. We don´t have a lot going on in the sector and had to do a lot of contacting this week, but unfortunately didn´t really find anyone. We have one really nice investigator named Mauricio who is very interested.  Molina is a pretty cool place. It is more urban than San Clemente and a bit larger. Walking down some streets it looks like we are in Utah and walking around the main plaza it looks like we are in Savannah, Georgia. Or at least my mind thinks so. Have a great Christmas this week! Remember the true meaning of the season is that Jesus Christ was born. If you took two minutes to read this, take two minutes more and watch a short video about Christmas here Have a great week! Elder Richards

Hey everyone, I dont have much time to write, but today was an awesome p-day! We went with Marcos to the Cordillera and the Lago Colbun and Laguna del Maule. It was incredible and I have lots of awesome pictures. Near the Laguna there was still lots of snow, so we did all sorts of antics there. My companion Elder Chaves was super excited to see snow for the first time. I dont have a lot of time now, but I will send lots of pictures next week! This week we also had a Christmas mission conference, which was fun. The big Church campaign for Christmas is #HaNacidoUnSalvador (or #ASaviorIsBorn) and we are sharing that with everyone. I invite you all to view the video at christmas.mormon.org Our numbers haven´t been that great recently, but we are trying to do better this week. It is the last week of the transfer, so next week I might be moving. This Sunday Anita is getting baptised and we are really excited for her. Have a great week! Elder Richards

Hello, Hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving at home. For us in Chile it was just another day, and Black Friday doesn´t exist either. For Thanksgiving we didn´t even have lunch with any members and I made guacamole and burritos in the house. Not quite a Thanksgiving meal, but it was a good day. Anyway it has been a great week. Anita is progressing well towards her baptism on the 13th and yesterday we rode the micro with her and her brother Javier to the Stake Conference in Talca. Last night we also watched "Conozca a los Mormones" (Meet the Mormons) with their family, and it was really great. That is a powerful movie and really sheds light on what makes us tick as members of the Church, and how to find the most purpose and joy from life.  Another great family we are working with is the Rojas-Valdes family. We first contacted Victoria using church records, because her mom is a less active from much time back. When we shared the Book of Mormon with Victoria she read what we ...

Elder Chaves and I ​ Did some service out on a plot of land this week. Pretty cool ​ Local San Clemente skate park ​

Hola a todos, This has been a great week. We have had awesome primavera (spring) weather that reminds me of the old days at BYU. Good weather for walking around and talking to people.  Anyway, the work is going pretty well. We put a baptismal fecha with Anita (who is part of the family I talked about last week) for December 13th. She is really excited and working towards it. Usually when we put a baptismal date it is accompanied by a lession, but she has already seen so much about the church that we just stopped by and explained that to be baptised she needs to go to church 6 times and hear certain lessions from us, and that she can be baptised on this certain day. That was enough explanation and she is working toward the 13th. We have some other solid investigators and are working to contact more. This Friday we did divisions with the zone leaders and Elder Cardon (one of the zone leaders) helped me set some goals and such for better contacting. We have interesting experiences contact...

Hola hola! It has been a good week. I am getting a better handle on figuring out how to plan and lead the sector. Some days it is hard to fill all of our time effectively, but there is always something important that we can be doing, and Im figuring that out. So one strange thing that happened is that our mission president, Presidente y Hermana Warne, had to return to the United States two weeks ago so that he could do a surgery on his kidneys. Everything went well and they will be coming back on Thursday. But in the meantime we still need a mission president, so the area presidency called on Presidente y Hermana Wilhelm (former Seventy from the south of Chile) to be the interim president. We had a zone meeting with them this week and they gave us a good message about a variety of missionary topics. One important thing was to be super specific in planning because through that the Lord can bless you with success. So kind of weird to have a different mission president for these three wee...

Hola hola! This has been an interesting week! My companion Elder Bustamante changed to Rancagua and now I with Elder Chaves from Fortaleza, Brasil. He has 11 months in the mission and was previously in Buin, near Santiago. Hes a great missionary and we are trying to work hard here. It has been a weird week because now I am guiding the sector, since I am the one that knows everyone and where everyone lives and such. This has been pretty difficult because I have to basically decide where we go and what we teach. It has been hard, but Im doing alright. Elder Chaves also talks a lot, which is good, but its hard for me to get anything in to a conversation. But Im working on it and trying to keep positive. We are working especially hard with one great family. Javier and Cristian are recent converts to the church, and their parents and little sister are investigators. We have been working hard with them to keep them all along the path of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The hard part is that the p...

Hola a todos, It was a great last week of the transfer here. We finished it off with Maria´s baptism yesterday! She was definitely a golden investigator. We got a random call about 2 months ago from her saying that she wanted to meet with the missionaries. We were a little skeptical of course, but went to her house, taking the micro out to Aurora. She found our number via the chat feature on mormon.org . Everything we taught she was super interested in and has been eager to learn everything. Finally yesterday she took the step of baptism! I did the baptism and it was a cool experience. A great way to end the transfer. Speaking of transfers, I am staying in San Clemente! But Elder Bustamante will be going to Tupahue in Rancagua. My new companion is Elder Chaves from Brasil and he comes into San Clemente tomorrow. Hopefully we get along and he wants to work hard. It has been a great time with Elder Bustamante and I have learned a lot. With this transfer my training has officially ended a...

Hello hello, This week we had 85 people in sacrament meeting, a new high for my time here. (Probably because of my great talk on the Sabbath last week. Just kidding). But it was a great turnout, and from our sector we had 10 less active members, 4 converts, and 5 investigators in attendance. On Monday we had a noche de hogar with a family that includes two wayward youth, and committed them all to be on Church on time. We picked them up on Sunday morning and the kids were even in white shirts and ties. It was a good Sunday for us. On Saturday we had a branch activity celebrating September 18th and October 12th (just a little late). We were at the Church almost the whole day, and we had a great turnout from members, investigators, and less actives. It was a fun day full of ping pong, futbol, games, and lots of food. We had tons of asado, choripan, empanadas de pino, roscas, and mote con huesillos. Mote con huesillos is probably the weirdest thing I have had here so far, I´ll include pict...

Hola a todos, Today we played football (the American kind) for P-day, hence the email subject. It was a good time. Chile is a great place, but definitely missing out on American Football. But anyway, it has been a good week here in San Clemente. These past few days we have spent a lot of time having members accompany us for lessons. It is hard when you get people to go out and then can´t get in to visit anyone (that was usually my experience with the PL elders..) But I really like having members with us, as it strengthens them and us. Since the branch is pretty small,. we are actually assigned as Home Teaching companions with the Elders quorum presidency, and we did work with that this weekend. Also I gave a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday. It´s kind of weird to think that I can talk for màs o menos 15 minutes straight in Spanish with no problem. The Spanish has actually been really good lately. Living with Elder Vasquez has helped a lot, as I have to talk and listen to Spanish to ...

Hola hola, Today I am writing a bit early because we have fun things planned for the rest of the day. Today is the 151st anniversary of the city of San Clemente and they certainly know how to celebrate! For four days straight there has been a carnival/fair in the town plaza with parties and music going well into the night. There has also been a rodeo and lots of other activites. We haven´t been able to participate in much obviously, but are going to the carnival later today. On Friday there was a parade past the plaza and we were able to watch that. They invited all religions to give a prayer, so Elder Bustamante represented The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was cool to be up there with pastors and preachers from the other churches. The mayor even gave a shout-out to the Mormons in his speech and was very kind to us. It was a cool event. This week I went on divisions and stayed in Piduco, another area in Talca, one night. It was fun to be with other elders and work in...

Hola Hola, Another week down in San Clemente. It has been a good week, and General Conference was awesome.  This week we did a lot of contacting again, which I am not very good at.. I can never think of how to just start conversations with people, but I am working on being better at that. Maria is progressing well towards her baptism on October 17th, and this week we taught her the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity (luckily no problems there). Conference was great of course, and even more special as a missionary. We watched at the Stake Center in Talca. There was an English broadcast in a room upstairs for all of the gringo missionaries. Being in a city and going out between sessions reminded me of being in Salt Lake last year for conference. My favorite talk was the first one from President Uchtdorf. His advice to ask ourselves if we are making our discipleship too complicated and to ¨start where you are¨ was very comforting. I also loved the talk from Elder Allen D. Haynie, which is...

Hola a todos, Another good week in San Clemente! This week one of my companions Elder Izquierdo finished his mission and returned home Peru, and on Tuesday we got two more missionaries here! The new missionaries are Elder Miller (one year in the mission, previously in the office, from Utah) and Elder Vasquez (brand new missionary, from Peru). They are both really great and excited to work. We cover different parts of the city, but end up doing a lot of activities together and all live together. It has been fun to have more missionaries here, and we are all motivated to work even harder. This week Elder Bustamante and I started to do a lot more door contacting. I can see that it is definitely not the most effective way to find people, but it is necessary. We found a few promising people, and hopefully can return to them. I feel like a true missionary when we are walking down a two lane road surrounded by fields to get to the next houses outside of town. Our investigator Maria is doing s...

Hola hola, So yes I am safe from the earthquake. It was way far north of us, but we did feel it here in San Clemente! We were in a member´s house teaching and then the light started swinging and it felt like the couches were vibrating. It was a super weird sensation, but almost unnoticeable. It only last about 10 seconds, but then we felt it again a few minutes later. No damage at all here, but apparently pretty bad up north, and the whole coast was on tsunami alert. I prefer hurricanes to earthquakes.. Anyway, this was a good week. Friday was the 18th of September, which is basically the Chilean Independence day (not sure of the exact history). So everything shuts down for the whole weekend, and everyone is celebrating. We had tons of asado (barbecue) and empanadas with different people. The asado here is super good, and usually includes chancho (pork), vacuno (beef), and chorripan (a type of sausage). We also ate fried and baked empanadas de pino (the filling is a mixture of beef and...

​My eyes might be closed, but I am too lazy to upload a different one ​ The sand is black here, it is really weird ​ ​

Hola! The title of my e'mail comes from a bus company here named Talca, Paris, and Londres (London), and I thought it was clever. This week we did a lot of traveling, and it was a very different week! On Wednesday we went to Talca for Zone Conference. Presidente and Hermana Warne were there and the main theme of the conference was making and keeping goals. This is so important. As missionaries we are always setting goals, but sometimes it is hard to remember them and focus your efforts there. Afterwards we had a great gringo lunch of meatloaf and mashed potatoes (mashed potatoes are actually very Chilean, and called pure (like pureè) here). On Wednesday night we took a bus to Rancagua for a New Missionary Conference on Thursday. Rancagua is about two hours away, and it was nice to go on a little road trip. We stayed overnight at the assistants house, with about 15 other elders. We have a Noche de Hogar with everyone, and very good milkshakes (which makes me want to buy a blender fo...

Hola hola! This was a pretty good week. Things are going well here in San Clemente. On Monday night we had a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with Yohanna (a recent convert, along with her daughter) and her nonmember husband and kids. We showed a super old video "Las Familias Pueden ser Eternas" (that you could find on Youtube), and it went really well. I hope her husband and son will eventually be baptised so that their family can be together forever. Afterwards we had authentic tacos that my companion Elder Bustamante made. Everyone was amazed that a gringo like me was loading on the jalapeños. Chileans are super wimpy when it comes to spiciness, their aji is like water.... But anyway, it was a good night. This week we also set 4 baptismal dates! One is with a lady that got our number (via mormon.org , I think) and called us to come visit. She lives in Aurora and we have to take the micro to get out there. She is Evangelic and her son who lives in the US is a Mormon. We...

Hola from San Clemente! This week went pretty well. I am still trying to get the hang of this missionary thing, so my mood often changes from super eager to work and doubting my will to do anything. But that is normal, and I am figuring it out. My biggest challenge has been actually talking to people. I feel pretty good about speaking in Spanish, but my comprehension isn´t as fast. But, I am progressing and trying to love the people and open up to them. This week our numbers weren´t quite as high for lessons and such, but it was still a good week. San Clemente is usually divided into two sectors (so 4 missionaries split up), but as a trio we take the whole city, which gives us a lot of people to visit. But, a lot of people aren´t really progressing, so this week we will try to do more contacting and focusing on a few solid investigators. We had a lot of rain this past week, so it sounds like we weren´t too different from Florida. On Wednesday night we all woke up at about 4 am to terri...

Hola hola from San Clemente, This was a pretty good week, I am starting to get into the schedule of things and working hard. We are having a lot of good success here, teaching about 25 lessons in total this week. Each day we visit with converts, less active members, and investigators and usually get into several houses a day. Yesterday we had 8 investigators in Sacrament meeting, which is really a lot! Some days it doesn´t seem like we do a lot, but when we total all our numbers it really adds up. One cool thing we did twice this week was host Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) with families. For the occasions we baked cookies at our house and then went to visit with the families, taught a lesson, talked a lot, and did some little games and stuff. On Saturday we did it with the family of Andrea, who is a recent convert. We had Noche de Hogar with her, and her mom, sister, and sisters pololo (boyfriend), who are all nonmembres. Yesterday we had a Noche de Hogar with Carolina (a recent...

Hola from San Clemente! I am now in my first area in the mission, San Clemente, Chile. It is a small town in the very southern part of the mission, about 30 minutes east of Talca. Our area is really big, and extends all the way to Argentina, but we don´t have a car so will be staying around the city mostly. Our branch is very small (like 8 people I think) so there will be a lot of work to do. Today was mostly spent traveling from Santiago. We stopped in Rancagua for the afternoon for mission orientation and such. Also, I am in a trio yet again! My companions are Elder Bustamante (from El  Paso, Texas) and Elder Izquierdo (from Peru). They are really funny, and great missionaries. I am excited to be working with them. Somehow I´ve managed to have a trio in the CCM, a trio with one elder and one hermana, and now a trio with trainers. Elder Izquierdo is going home after this transfer though. This last week in the CCM was really great. We took the Micro and Metro to the Santiago Sur missio...

Hola! It is my last week here at the CCM. This week has been a crazy one. This week I got a new companion, new beedroom, new roommates, new teachers, and a new classroom. We are now the oldest group here in the CCM, which is very exciting. One week from today I will be leaving from here with all the other Rancagua missionaries and going out to the field. A new batch of missionaries came last week, including lots of Latino missionaries (in the 2-week program) who are also going to Rancagua. It has been cool to meet some of them. I hope my first companion in the mission is from South America. Anyway, this week has been great. It has been good working with my new companion and teaching with him. I am actually kind of still in a trio, because we only have one Hermana in our district and she teachers and does class activities with Elder Nolan and I. Hermana Porter and Elder Nolan came to the CCM knowing no Spanish at all, but they have progressed incredibly in 5 weeks. In our lessons, I hav...

Wow, yesterday was a birthday I won't forget! It was actually a pretty great day. All my teachers and people in my district are so loving and kind. Hermana Doll gave me 6 of her famous home-made cookies, and those have been delicious. My morning teacher Hermana Jimenez wished me a happy birthday about 100 times. And it was one of the teacher's birthdays yesterday, so I got a slice of his cake! But something really out of the ordinary that happened on my birthday was that I got a new companion. That normally doesn't happen until a transfer date (every six weeks) so it was pretty strange. One of the elders in our district had to be moved from our district, so they split up my trio companionship and put me with the lone elder. My new companion's name is Elder Nolan, and he is a great guy. He knew literally no Spanish before coming here, and has progressed a lot. He has a strong testimony, and I am excited to be working with him! I will miss working with Elder Waters and El...

Hola! It's hard to believe that I have already been in Chile for 3 weeks! Everything is going really well of course. This week it has been really cold in the mornings, and there has been ice on all the grass and stuff. Luckily it warms up in the day, but I am not used to this coldness, especially in July! I am well equipped with my sweatshirt, gloves, and Chile hat/scarve though. Sorry if I gave anyone a heart attack with my incident from last week.. On Friday the in-house CCM doctor took out my stitches, and the scar looks really good actually. It is not very big or noticeable, so I have enough of an injury to show off, but not enough to look too bad. I am really glad that everything is ok with that, and that I'm safe. I've been treading a little more carefully since then. And on Monday I can finally start playing soccer in the mornings again!(I did play kickball on Saturday morning because I figured that was enough of a non-contact sport to be okay, and everyone plays kic...

Hola!! So P-day is Tuesday this week. It could be Tuesday or Wednesday each week, so I was worried I wouldn't have any e-mails since it is only Tuesday, but thanks for the letters everyone wrote! Anyway, I had sure an interesting experience this week! We have started to get some rain here (which is great because Chile is in a major drought) so everything is really wet in the mornings. On Friday, we were coming back from playing soccer in the park and I bolted across the street to catch up with everyone, then stepped on a utility cover in the median, slipped, and slammed my head into the pavement. Oops. When I stood up I saw my glasses broken in front of me and my water bottle rolling into the street. Then I put my hand on my head and saw blood coming down. So everyone hurried me up and away, and Hermana Doll (CCM president's wife) helped me get to the hospedaje and clean up. After I got all cleaned up and showered, I went with Presidente Doll to the hospital in Los Condes to ge...

Before leaving for my mission, I spoke in Church on the topic of "Preparing to Serve a Mission for Christ." --- Hello, my name is Brian Richards, and I am leaving this Tuesday two years. I will be in the Santiago, Chile Missionary Training Center for six weeks, and then serving in the Chile Rancagua mission (which is about an hour south of Santiago).             A mission is a big commitment. Those who decide to serve a mission are basically giving 18 or 24 months of their time to God. Referring to missions, Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said “That time is the Lord’s. [Missionaries] devote their skills and talents full-time to help build His kingdom. When missionaries think that way, they don’t have trouble following the mission rules.” A mission is not a vacation or social event; it is an obligation we are fulfilling to preach the gospel around the world. When we give our time to God, He wi...

Another Testament of Jesus Christ "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." - Moroni 10:4-5 The Book of Mormon ends with this famous promise from Moroni, that if you pray with real intent about the truthfulness of these scriptures, the Holy Ghost will reveal it to you. Lots of people have stories of grand experiences where they pray and can feel strongly inside of them that this book is true by the spirit. These accounts can be powerful and strengthen our testimonies, but it is important to remember that the Holy Ghost speaks to us in many ways. In Moroni 7:13, Mormon instructs that "that which is of God inviteth and enticeth...

Following the Pattern of Faith "For he did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance lest they should be destroyed, saying unto them that by faith all things are fulfilled— Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God," - Ether 12:3-4 Towards the end of the book of Ether, the Jaredite nation grows increasingly wicked. At this time, the prophet Ether had a mighty desire to preach the gospel unto these people. In the selected verses above, he outlines a special pattern for faith. Faith is believing in something you can't see, but know is true. It is an essential aspect of salvation. In this pattern of faith you must believe, then you must act, and finally you receive power. Initially, Ether exhorts his people to believe in God. Faith is a principle of belief, but we must show our willingness to believe before we can have f...

Solving problems with the Lord "Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men." - Ether 3:5 The book of Ether in The Book of Mormon covers an entirely separate people than the preceding books. This short account contains the record of the Jaredite people, who came to the promised land much earlier than the Nephites. Before they could travel to the Americas, they had some problems that the brother of Jared brought to the Lord for His consideration. In their barges they lacked light, air, and the ability to steer. The Lord helped solve these problems in different ways. Obviously, the most pressing problem was a lack of air. The Jaredites were provided a direct answer to this problem as the Lord instructed them to make holes that could be plugged and unplugged for air. Sometimes, God will just tell us what we need to know and do. Concerning steering, the Lord told the brother of Jar...

Choosing Hope "That ye may know that ye must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, yea, every soul who belongs to the whole human family of Adam; and ye must stand to be judged of your works, whether they be good or evil; And also that ye may believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, " - Mormon 3:20-21 As we near the end of the Book of Mormon, the Nephites begin to descend into wickedness that eventually leads to their final destruction. Their military leader, Mormon, was practically the only righteous person left in the entire civilization. As the people turned away from God, they became more susceptible to their enemies. For the first time, the Nephites retreated from the Lamanites due to fear (Mormon 2:3). They did not have faith in God or his gospel anymore. While the entire Nephite civilization was dwindling in fear, Mormon displayed extreme faith in difficult circumstances. He lead the army of the Nephites until his death in battle, and he followed the commandme...