First Email!

My first day here was wild. The guy that greeted me from the car was from my high school physics class. I became pretty good friends with him in Physics but honestly I can't even remember his name right now. Ha ah well.. But I was just thrown through hoops and loops. We set my stuff in my room and walked straight to my spanish class where my teach spoke only spanish the entire time and didn't let us speak in english unless we had already tried to look it up in spanish..

That's where I met my companion Elder Harvey... He is sick. Honestly we get a long so well and we both play soccer. He is from Portland, Oregon.. We are both sarcastic and mess around every chance we get to be honest... but during class and in our "practice" lessons already he knows about as much as I do doctrinally and spiritually.. I'm so stoked about him.. My entire district is sick too. The people are from Hurricane, Illinois, Provo, Saratoga Springs, Provo, Wyoming and California... We have four Sisters and six Elders total. And we are really all way tight already... Yesterday we spent 13 hours in a ten yard by ten yard room.. Like its pretty small and spending 13 hours in there for that long we are honestly good friends all ready.. All of us..

I asked Hermana Morely (the one from Provo) about that story with grandma and grandpa and she said she'll check with her grandparents about it cause her grandpa did move from California and such...

When me and my companion got back from class we got to unpack some more... We were walking in and some guy comes up to us and asks whos in our room. When we said us he said we were so unlucky cause our other two roomates were so weird.. We started looking around and seeing what they were like from their pictures and stuff and then I saw a letter addressed to an Anziano Richardson.. I looked some more and saw that it was to a Dallin John Richardson... Thats when I knew it was Elder Richardson.. So I hid all my stuff so he wouldn't know who was in the room with him.. That night at 9:30 him and his companion and most of the rest of our zone was going to scare us but when Elder Richardson saw me he freaked out and tackled me and explained to the rest of everyone else there that we knew each other. Then that guy that said we got bad roomates explained he was joking with us.. So thats all good there...

Gym is fun.. Obviously... The only sucky part is that we can't play soccer in the gym... I am only allowed to try to break the juggling record once a gym session... So if I drop the ball I'm done. I'm up to about 75 right now.. Hopefully it will get better...

I'm not going to lie its hard.. I get a lot more spanish that I thought I would and during our second day me and my companion had to "teach" a guy that "couldn't" speak any english what so ever.. When we were talking to him he contradicted stuff we were "told" earlier and so our entire lesson plan when down the drain and we just had to make it up on the spot. I understood a ton more spanish than I thought I would and said words in spanish that I haven't said since at least eight or ninth grade... Its crazy... Hard but crazy...

The bad part is I still sleep absolutely terribly... The first night was more of just laying in bed than sleeping.. the next night was more of tossing and turning for three hours then sleeping for a little.. Last night was better the still not great... Hopefully it continues to get better..

I am liking it here really. I don't think of home at all during the day but when I lay down at night I start to think of home. So sorry but I really am trying to just lose myself in learning spanish and the language.. It is good though. I know why I'm out here and the people here are super receptive.

I have seen Elders Buxton (multiple times), Buhler, Matheson, Adams (multiple times), Jensen (Kaleb is in my zone so I see him a bunch too), Thayne... Um I don't know the list goes on and on...

I'll write back to you guys through the letters too.. This is just the general update...

I really love to hear from people.. Keep writing to me regaurdless of how simple or mundane it seems.

Send everyone the best of luck!

P.S. My P-day is on fridays.. So I will usually write on fridays...

Elder Richards