Birthday WEEK is over!

         

This week has been crazy busy and loads of fun. So as I told you last week my roomies decided on Birthday week—not just day. It was surprisingly extremely fun!! Monday the other Sisters found a Thai restaurant and off course we went! It was extremely delicious!! I got a lot of the usual and wasn’t disappointed one bit!! It was fun to sit down and chat around a table. I have really missed that! Gotta love Pdays!! Tuesday night was "birthday eve" We pulled all our mattresses into the study room and had a sleepover!! We painted our nails and told mission stories. It was extremely fun! I think Birthday Eve should be an official thing. Birthday Eve Sleepover!! Wednesday (BIRTHDAY DAY!) We left bright and early for Genève! As soon as I walked through the door President greeted me with a huge!! IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY!!! I felt special! Throughout the entire meeting and day everyone would call on the birthday girl, reference my birthday, or just randomly say Happy Bday. I felt extremely special. I told Soeur Bowman that this was probably the most attention I have EVER gotten on my birthday. We have started a Chambéry tradition where we all match when we go to meetings. We wore pink lipstick, bows, and black/white. It was a hit!! President loved our Unity had us stand up in front of everyone and said....Elders where is your matching lipstick?! Hahaha, classic President! I love that man! Soeur Bria and Soeur Roney...demanded a photo shoot of us. Hahaha! It was great!

The highlight of the day was interviews with President. We had a great interview!! He is just so inspired and really does love me! We talked for a long time about the work I am doing and I expressed how I was worried I was doing something wrong in my Missionary work because I wasn’t have the standard "success" of a missionary (aka baptisms) He just chuckled and told me, "Soeur Richardson you are in Chambéry aka most of your work will be with the Branch. The branch here is just not able to support a lot of convert baptisms right now." He then told me if I were in a more compatible ville I would be baptizing every month. I was really shocked and he said..."Well it’s true!! Unfortunately that is just not the type of work the Lord is needing you to do right now!" We then discussed many other random subjects. I am just so grateful for President and the time he puts into each missionary. The rest of the meeting was AMAZING!!! Such fabulous speakers!! The Bria's are great! They instructed us on how to better teach to Families needs. We also discovered Elder Bria is the inventor of the Snicker wrapper!! Pretty cool claim to fame!! They are the missionary couple in Nice. They told me they wanted me to come serve with them. My Zone leaders Elder Olivier and Elder Elvidge bought me special chocolate bars (that were incredibly delicious)! Over all my Birthday was absolutely amazing, filled with love, happiness, and lots of laughs!! I am so grateful to be a missionary. I am so grateful for the occasion to serve EVERYONE around me. (Members, Non Members, and Less Actives, and just everyone).            

After we got home from Conference (we left for conference at 8am and got home 8pm) we set up the Tangled decorations and had a little party (sang, blew out candles, laughed, ate, ate, ate)! One we had about finished we had my BIRTHDAY CONCERT! Each Sister sang their song they wrote from me and my heart literally melted!! I will treasure those moments FOREVER. Each song was so personalized, love filled, and just SO cute!! Ne vous inquiétiez pas..... I filmed them!! And I am getting copies of their lyrics!! It was so much fun!! Dare I say the best birthday of my life!! 

Thursday was quite and experience!! We attended Catholic Prayer with a Soeur who is less active who went back to Catholicism.  She invited us and we felt good about going with her. Let me tell you it was a learning experience! Now I can completely relate to our Amis who are coming to Church for the first time and how weird and unnatural it feels! We sang songs and they passed around a microphone so they could "pray." I just really know 100% that our church is true. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind. After the Catholic prayer they invited us to a little get together after to eat. We decided to go. Boy, oh boy, was it a great experience! There were about 17 of them and us. We decided that our less active is actually an undercover missionary for our church because she provided us with the following opportunities: Give a blessing on the food (to show how we pray), sing a couple hymns from our songbook, and give a lecon 0/our role as missionaries. Needless to say there is now a whole congregation of Catholics that have had their minds changed about how we are as Mormons and changed in a very positive way. It was amazing! I want so badly for this Soeur to come back and attend church. But I have to rely on the Lords timing. 

Speaking of the Lords timing. A lot of great things/baby steps have been happening with our Amis. We help a Soirée Film night in which we played Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. We had 2 families attend!!  We also had a potential Chatale come; she was VERY touched by the film. It was a very positive situation!! A few members came as well! It’s amazing to see the Lord work on these people in the ways that are best compatible to them. All I really have to do is follow the spirit and provide an invitation. At the very last minute we had another amis show up! She was extremely happy to see me (and I was extremely happy to see her too)! She told me I was glowing and we had a great conversation and I told her to come to church again. She came. She came and was welcomed by EVERYONE!! She came up to me after church and asked for a rendezvous. I was extremely happy....I almost cried! Our Rendezvous is tonight. We have decided to treat her like a newish ami. Pray your guts out people that it goes well!! 

So as you know in France things for missionaries are a little rough. We get mocked and laughed at constantly and rejection is just unfortunately too normal! Well it was taken to a whole new level. Haha!  I forgot to compost my ticket (meaning I didn’t stamp it before getting on the train). So I went to the conductor and asked if he could compost it. Well...he saw my nametag and began to mock/sarcastically question me—in front of the whole train car. Of course it was extremely embarrassing and very rude on his part. But it gave me an opportunity to testify AND I counted all the people who were staring wide-eyed at me as contacts. TAKE THAT EVIL CONDUCTOR DUDE!!! Basically the fact of the matter is this. I would not endure being mocked, laughed at, or shot down for something that is not true. That would make no sense. My testimony is deepened by the fact that there is opposition. Unfortunately opposition is always present. But lets look at the brightside people—this church is true!! Hip hip hooray!! 

Valentines day was great. Soeur Bowman and I made pink crêpes, which ended up creepily looking like raw meat.  In truth, however, they were delicious. We then ate a Candle light Pizza dinner as an apartment (Soeur Witt’s Family tradition). I really love this holiday!! It gave us a great reason to celebrate love. Everybody needs to love today!! What a fabulous opportunity I have to be in France sharing that love!! I just love love!! I love you all! You are probably noticing I am emailing later than usual. Well we went snow shoeing again. It was even more perfect than the first time!

So gorgeous and ended with Pain au chocolate et chocolate chaud!! YUM!! Profitez les montagnes!! That’s my DMPs moto! I am so grateful for him and his work!! Such a member missionary!! So grateful for my Branch. Their capacity for missionary work is growing sooo much!! At branch council they all made a pack to make missionary work #1 priority!! It was so cute!! Go President Ferraris!! It’s such a blessing to see progression!!  

Love you all time is short!! gotta go teach and preach!! 

Challenge: Pray for my amis to come to church. 

They Say It's Your Birthday

Hahahah I had to laugh at your birthday experience from your mission Dad because I highly doubt mine will be anywhere the same. The other sisters in my apartment have decided that my birthday is not just on the 12^th, but in fact it is the whole week!! So happy Birthday week to me!! They are determined to celebrate my birthday in some way each day of the week! Today we are going to get Thai food together!! Yes...we found a Thai Restaurant!! #blessingsfromheaven.  On the 12th I will be having a big party in Genève, I even invited President and he is coming!! (aka Zone Conference with Pres. Interviews! haha). I told each Sister in my apartment that the only thing I wanted for my birthday was for them to write me a song! We....(I) have been making up songs lately—it’s very entertaining.  So will be decorating the apartment with the Tangled decorations you sent mom and having my Birthday Concert!! The other sisters are being so cute about it! My companion has been practicing her song for days, Soeur DeO is sooooo worried I won’t like it, and Soeur Witt has started over multiple times because it "just wasn’t good enough!" I am so blessed to live with such amazing Sisters! 

Last week was a great week. This week we FINALLY got on the Miracle (a mission wide newsletter) for the number of contacts!! We had been trying since Week 1 of this transfer and each week missing it by less than 10. But hard work will eventually pay off. On Tuesday we contact 414 people. It was A LOT especially in little Chambéry! We had to contact just about every single person we saw (old, young, groups, Muslims…everyone, Haha!) And it was a full day of "NOs!", getting no numbers, and setting no Rendezvous.  It kind of shook us a bit. We were being so diligent and then nothing came from it! Not only was it a little disappointing, but it was also absolutely exhausting and really run us down. But we kept our heads up and did our best. All though by the end of the week we both had colds. Sigh. Missionary work is just not effective while you are sick! My comp took about 15 minutes to talk me into taking a nap. She is great! She gave me some cold medicine and put me in bed, where I basically just laid there until I couldn’t take it anymore (30 whole minutes!) and so we got back to work! We might not have seen immediate results from our huge day of contacting but I know the Lord will bless us. Just in his timing. All in his timing...patience...hahaha :) 

We had a huge miracle with less actives this week! We have been trying to see one of our conacts for months now and with no success. We felt inspired to go out and try to visit one of her less active daughters. She lives in a tiny little town. We went out knocked on the door and our original contact answered the door! He daughter immediately invited us in to join her daughter’s birthday party. Not only were we able to spend the night celebrating with her and her mother but another daughter as well who is less active and  hasn’t been seen by missionaries for quite some time! By the end of the night they were in love with us!! We were in love with them. We were playing with all their kids and they insisted we stayed finished the party with them rather than taking the bus back home. One daughter said she would take us back. It was AMAZING!! We were in shock for days!! It was such a positive experience and I know God inspired us to go on that day and that exact time! She is one of the coolest people I have met in France. She served a mission in England and we talked for quite a while about mission life. I have just been so blessed with Less active work throughout my mission. I absolutely love it! 

We had loads of Rendezvous with great potentials!! I just love "Leçon 0s"!! Soeur Bowman and I are really trying hard to establish a spiritual enlightening experience in each Rendezvous and are perfecting our teaching together!! I just love Soeur Bowman!! We get along so great!! She has a real fun personality and is so funny!! We get along great!! I have been so blessed with all my companions. I love each and everyone!! (Shout out to all my comps: Soeur Mod., Bayles, Luthi, Caldwell, and Beeny!!) 

We even had a Rendezvous inside of a Casino.....missionary appropriate??? Not quite sure! Hahaha! It’s a gorgeous huge Casino in Aix-les-bains and we sat in a lounge area. It surprisingly wasn’t weird at all, and the spirit was still there....sooooo, I am taking that as a good sign! I felt like I entered Vegas. It was fancily decorated and so shiny! We also had a great rdv (rendezvous) with Beatrice, a student in Chambéry. We gave her a tour of the church and talk about the BoM. It was so filled with the spirit. This week was filled with many positive Rdvs!! But there are always two sides—so now for the bad news. My favorite Ami, Daniel, is leaving the country for the month of February. Sigh. He is off to The Holy Land!! He was so sad to be leaving and sad to be missing my birthday!! Its just so crazy how attached you get to people! How your desires and thoughts are all targeted towards other people. That is one of the blessings of a mission. Everything is all about everyone else.....unless its your birthday #holla :) 

I just love our little Branch with all my heart!! We had so many fun experiences with members! We made Crêpes with Soeur Belibi and laughed the night away. I love her. We had the Relief Society Party in which we played games and laughed till we cried. I absolutely love the RS Sisters!! We were playing, "Who sings what?" and of course majority/all were French artists. Then Sr. Gaggini said, "qui chante Toxic?" Half asleep/zoned out I shouted out BRITNEY SPEARS!!! We all busted out laughing!!!! They love us missionaries!!! I can see their love for me in their eyes. It’s so touching!! They send us texts of appreciation, come up and give us hugs...they just love us. Fr. Gonon came up in Church and said...what are the chances of you giving a talk today. (it was the second hour of Church)....being a Richardson of course I said, "Sure!!" This gave me about 15 minutes to prepare a talk. I talked on the importance of prayer and how this gospel is never ending and improving our lives is an ongoing process. And one way to do that is by improving our prayers. I then used the examples of Joseph Smith and Nephi. I talked about how they were specific during their prayers. Then invited them to make their prayers more specific so that they could get answers that were more specific. For only a few minutes to prepare....it went pretty well. I cried of course. I mean how can you not cry when you get to share things that are so close to your heart while looking at a room filled with people that you care for sooo much! I sat down and Arsène (a fairly recent convert) turned around patted my knee and said tearing up, When are transfer calls? I told him at the end of the month. He then said, "you are going to leave. I really don’t want you to leave but because I really don’t want you to leave, I think you are going to leave." We started crying together and then laughing! :) Then Neomie, one of my favorite kids in the ward, came up and handed me the cutest little drawing in the world it said, "Pour Soeur Richardson... tu est la meilleure!!" I started crying again. She was sooo concerned!! Actually I think the whole Branch was (I mean there are only 40 people there, if someone is crying it is VERY noticeable). But I just couldn’t stop my tears. I love these members SO much!! I want only the best for them. I want them to exceed SO badly. This much be how having kids is...you just love them sooo much. I am obsessed with this little branch. They are the best. They have become such better missionaries in the past few weeks...its so heartwarming. This gospel is so undeniable true. Being a missionary is undeniable the best thing in the world. "Then sings my soul...How great thou art!"

Friends, Family, loved ones....if you are not keeping the covenants you have made I beg of you, put your confidence in the Savoir. Be free. Be Happy. 

Challenge of the Week: Listen to the Taylor Swift song "22" and buy Cold Stone ice cream, sweet cream with brownies. You can even blow out a candle in my honor!! Cause guess what folks? "I don’t know about you but I’m feelin’ 22!!!!!!!" 

Love you all!! 

Ten Months!

Happy 10 Months everybody. Is anyone else freaking out how fast time is going? But really? What is going on? By the end of this week another transfer will be half way over. I am on my 7th transfer and we only have a total of 12 on a mission. Mercy. Time is flying! Everyday I spend on my mission, I love it more and more. How grateful I am that I got to stay in Chambery!! I have seen so many great miracles and continue to build deeper relationships! For example, as I have already mentioned before, I have been playing the piano every Sunday. A small and simple way to serve the Branch.  Well Soeur Vivant asked me to teach her how to play the piano.  When she asked me, I about died and I heartily agreed. It was such a fun, sweet experience. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to play music. It was such special experience to use my talents in that way! My heart about melted as she plunked through the right hand of the simplified hymn version Choose the Right. I just love moments like these!! 

We were able to having a winner FHE last Monday! We made Croque Monsieur's, salad, AND MET DANIELS WIFE!!!!! She is soooooo legit! En plus!!!! She already has attended the "Mormon" Church multiple times with a friend. Unfortunately spending 10+ months in a different time zone has really paid a toll on her and she is struggling adjusting back to the time zone. It’s been a little difficult taking rendezvous with them but when things settle. I have a GREAT feeling about both of them!! She was very happy to meet us and was sure to assure as with a "à très bientôt" when saying goodbyes. (translation: see you very soon!) It was a very positive experience and we are excited to continue!!

These week we attended Zone Training! It’s always an adventure going to Genève! Our zone leaders are fabulous—Elder Olivier and Elder Elvidge. Elder Elvidge is from England and has a rockin' accent. As you can imagine our apartment hasn’t stop talking in English accents since the meeting! Elder Olivier is still as amazing as ever (he has been here since I arrived). He is French and is such a great missionary! He did Zone training ALL in English!! It was sooo great! We were all so happy and proud of him! It was extremely weird to have our training in English again (normally our Zone has all our missionary meetings in French). This transfer is going to be great!! My comp and I have been working extremely hard!! We have been contacting like mad women! We have been very diligent! Our District Leader, Elder Heck, had nothing but praises to give us at our weekly report! He is soo funny! We all made code names for ourselves. Soeur Bowman’s is Black Scarf; Elder Heck’s is Silent Thunder; Elder Duckworth’s is White Tiger; and nine is Fresh Bologna. Ya...we were in a mangez-vous when we had to send our codenames in and I looked around and put the first 2 words I saw. But It was a hit :) Sometimes I realize how weird I am but it usually works out for the best and makes other people not feel as stupid. Hahaha! That’s just my excuse to make me feel better about myself—Heehee!  

We did Service at Marie Christine’s last night. Then stayed and ate dinner together to Celebrate Soeur DeO's birthday. She went all out as usual and made us two desserts, cheese course, homemade applesauce, and Fois Gras Burgers...Ha. She gave Soeur DeO a scarf that she especially picked out to go with her hat she wears. She is so thoughtful. She then called me this morning to tell us just how grateful she truly is for us and how much we have changed her life. She told me that we have truly changed her life and mode of thinking. She told me that she can in fact feel loved and is so grateful for the love we bring each time we visit. She can’t wait until her house is in order so then she can get her spiritual life in order. I was nearly crying on the phone with her. She loves us so much. I feel so blessed. 

Our little branch loves us soooo much as well. We have been invited over by so many families!! We are eating Crepes with the Menets, had dinner with the Gonans Friday night (I love them sooooo much), ate with the Family Arnaud, and  have loads of rendezvouses set for next week. I love small branches because our love for them is so apparent and their love for us is so apparent. We are really going places with this branch!! Especially with less Actives!! We have a less-active lesson scheduled for each day of the week this week! We have also been scheduling loads of rendezvous while we contact!! Miracles upon miracles!! DILLIGENCE IS THE KEY. We have got a booked week filled with solid potential amis, Amis, and less active souls to bring back to Christ!! Pray that everything goes as planned!! 

Well my friends, Sophie (our golden contact that told us she wanted to be baptized) could make it to her Rendezvous so she rescheduled for this week before hanging up she said, "ne vous inquiétez pas, je veux vraiment de vous voir!!"(aka dont worry about me changing the time, I still am very interest and want to see you!) Keep the prayers coming! 

Shout out to Megs!! THEY SAY IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY DA DA DAHDAH DAH DAH! Have a great day as you celebrate your 26 years of being alive. que dieu vous bénisse.  Sorry this email is random!! Know I love you all!! I LOVE being a missionary! And I know with out a doubt that this church is true. The only way to live and be happy is through this gospel and keeping the covenants you have made. Choose the right! I beg of you, Choose the right. True happiness comes from doing just that. I watched this video a few days ago and it really touched me! (as do most Mormon Messages. Haha! I cried) My Challenge to you this week is to watch it: 

https://www.lds.org/youth/video/stay-within-the-lines?lang=eng 

God Speed. Choose to be a missionary today. 

Proud to be a missionary,

Soeur Richardson