Rain!

Hello all!

This has been a good productive week! We taught 20 lessons! It still
felt like we had a lot of down time where we could be teaching more. I
hope so! We need new investigators! We hope to keep up being busy! It
rained and poured and we got our electric bikes and had interviews
with president and hiked to a small waterfall in my. Baldy with our
mission president and his family! It was so cool! It is beautiful in
the mountains. It reminded me so much of mill hollow. There's a little
town with a cute little school and post office and small police
station. Definitely some place I want to visit more. It'd be fun to
spend a summer or spring break there!

I'll try to give highlights instead of everything that happened.

Well Monday we had dinner with a couple in the neighboring ward
because they had a friend who is interested. She is so sweet and has
good morals just like us! But the next day she said she didn't want to
lead us on and have lessons because she's happy where she is. Sad! But
that's okay.

Tuesday we did some service for a family who is moving a few houses
over. Then our investigator  taught us a lesson! She did such a
good job! She taught about the restoration but instead of the
restoration of the church she did the restoration of faith and the
soul. I learned a lot from it! She's amazing! Going through a hard
time but she's working things out. We got our bikes today too!

Wednesday we taught lots of lessons. We helped the family more with
packing then taught some good lessons.

Thursday we had a good district meeting on the spirit. We are really
close with the other elders and we all get along well. It's really
nice. We went to find people after and we found a less active. She is 
so sweet! She let us in and invited us to come back. She is so nice! 
Then we had dinner with a cute family in our ward. They have a son and 
two daughters. All really cute! They gave us tons of stickers! One says 
be ye baptized! It's awesome! We need to give one to every person we 
meet! Haha then we went and taught more lessons.

Friday we had interviews with President Villanueva. It went well. He
asked me about my family and why I decided to come on a mission and if
it was an easy decision. I ended up telling him a shortened version of
my experience. He said The Lord needs me here and there are many
people who I have helped and many people who I will help. I'm excited
for what The Lord has in store for me. It's crazy I've been here in
Claremont for 7 months now! That's crazy!!! I would love to stay here
one more transfer and finish sister thatchers training! But who knows.
He also said that this mission is blessed or lucky to have me as a
missionary here. Something along those lines. He says he's proud of
me that I'm a hard worker. He told Sister Thatcher that not all her
companions will be as hard working as me. I hope that's a good thing.
Anyway, after interviews we did weekly planning then taught our
investigator. Then we went to the ward picnic in the park and
the Jewish man and his family that we are teaching came! He also
brought his mom! Then we had a meeting with our ward mission leader.

Saturday we taught, went finding, taught, had a dinner lesson, then
taught some more. Busy day! Before dinner we had a good lesson with
one of our investigators. However we feel he is wasting our
time a lot. He makes up way too many excuses but we want him to
understand this so bad! It's hard to tell sometimes his intent. But
Sister Thatcher wasn't feeling too well so we took a little break for
her to rest before dinner at the members house who came to see our
investigator with us. I'm afraid I may be working her to hard... I
need to learn how to still have fun. We rode home in the rain which
was nice.

Sunday was good. We taught a few lessons and it poured! We got caught
in the downpour! I'll send pictures! It was so fun! I love the rain
and if thundered and it smelled so good! I loved it! We had a really
awesome lesson Sunday night. We had a FHE with a family in the ward
and their niece is one of our investigators. They have 5 kids ranging
from 5 months to 11 years old. We taught them the Ten Commandments and
the kids knew most of them! I was so impressed! It was really nice to
be in that type of environment. I am so blessed to have been raised in
the church by good parents who taught me since I was little. I will
never take that for granted again! I loved that lesson! I want to do
more FHE lessons with investigators. So nice!

Well today we woke up at 5:40 to get ready for a short hike. It was
really pretty though! I kinda already talked about it but it was a 30
minute drive up the mountain to walk 10 minutes to this small
waterfall but it was really fun! I loved it! I love being outside and
it smelled so good after the rain and the wet trees! Reminded me so
much of Mill Hollow in the Uintah mountains in Utah. The creeks I would
play in and the hikes we would all go on! So fun! I love the
mountains! The canyon also reminded me of driving to Mill Hollow with
some larger desert plants of course. Not as many evergreens but some
other type of pine trees. I loved it! I'll send pictures of that too.
I am so thankful Heavenly Father created such a beautiful world for
us! How can he not be loving? He loves us so much and has done so much
for us that we can't even comprehend! It strengthens my testimony he
loves us and know us and is always there for us!

I love this gospel and I know it is true!

Thank you all for your prayers and support! I love you all and pray for you all!

Love, Sister Riches