14 hours and counting

Think of the worst traveling story you've ever heard of and throw it
out the window. I'm about to top them all.

Yesterday we began our long trip to Halifax. 7 Elders and 5 Sisters.
So excited to teach the word of the Lord. Our flight out of SLC was
slightly delayed, but we still got to Minnesota on time. We arrived at
the Minneapolis airport Tuesday around 12:45pm. Our flight to Toronto
was at 1:30pm, but was delayed to 1:39pm due to weather. Then to
4:30pm. Then to 5:34pm. Then they said that they were going to swtich
out pilots and they switched it to 7:30pm. Well 7:30 came and went
without a flight to Toronto. We were on and off the phone with the
missionary travel services the whole time trying to figure out what to
do. Around 7:45pm, they got on the over com and said our flight was
cancelled! We had missed all of our possible connections to Halifax
and all the flights to Toronto were booked until tomorrow. Whaaaat. 12
missionaries found themselves in the airport with out any idea of what
to do. So what did we do? We prayed. We prayed for help and guidance
and peace.

I was talking to one of the elders and he said "I'm not worried. If
God wanted us
in Canada right now, we would be there. We are stuck in Minnesota tonight
for a reason." Fast forward to 3 hours later and I believe him with
all my heart.

Our travel leader, Sister Anderson, was standing in line to figure out
flight information and the rest of us were sitting over in the waiting
area. There was this guy  (his name is Daniel) there talking to us,
and at first he seemed really weird and we thought he was trying to
scam us, but it turns out he is part of a popular Christian Rock Band
that some of the Elder had heard of before! Since he was a musician
who sings about God we could already tell he was pretty religious. As
we talked to him, he was very open with us about religion and admitted
to us that he didn't think his protestant church  had all the answers.
He began asking us more about the mormons and then asked what we were
doing out here. So we told him that we were out here to help people
come unto Christ! He said, "people like who? people like me??" and we
said "yes!" and then he said, "Well teach me some stuff!" (side note,
that morning I as packing my carry on bag and I was leaving all my MTC
pamphlets but I felt like I should keep them in my purse) So I pulled
out my restoration pamphlet and we began to teach him. He asked about
coffee and tea and we taught him the word of wisdom. He asked a lot
about Joseph Smith and we told him everything we know! In the end, we
left him  wtih the restoartion pamphlet, the workd of wisdom pamphlet,
a pass along card, a mormon.org card and a Book of Mormon! He took the
book and said "I get to keep this and read it?? Sweet!" It was
awesome. The Elder that handed him the Book of Mormon had written his
testimony in it and gave him his email so they can stay in contact
with him.

By the time he left us, it was 9:00pm, and we were hoping that maybe
now we might be able to end our wait in the airport and get somewhere.
But the line of people trying to swtich their flight from the
cancelled flight was so long that our travel leader was still waiting.
There was a girl that was our age that was sitting by us the whole
time so we talked to her too.She wasn't super interested, but she
listened and was really nice!  Finally, at 11:00pm, our travel leader
came over with the news! 8 of us had flights to Canada for Wednesday
at 2:30pm.(Winnipeg to Calgary to Halifax-14 more hours of travel) The
other 4 were scheduled to leave on Thursday at 1:39pm, to fly to
Toronto and then to Halifax. Delta gave us 3 hotel rooms to stay in
until we could come back the next morning. YAY. WE COULD FINALLY GO TO
THE HOTEL AND SLEEP. "haha funny joke." -God

We went down to baggage claim to get out bags, only to find out that
one of the sister's bags was missing. There was a huge mess of angry
people and bags and we didn't really know what to do, so again we all
prayed and decided to give it until midight to find her bag, and if
not we would come back and find it in the morning. Well sure enough,
as midnight rolled around, the baggage check people brought out a few
more bags and hers was among them!
We went out to the curb where the hotel shuttles were, only to find
that the hotel we were staying at had stopped their shuttle services
at 11:00pm. By this time I wasn't even surprised.

We ended up getting a taxi van (2 actually because we had 12
missionaires) and they drove us to the hotel. By this time it was 1:00
am, we had been up for 23 hours with only an hour and a half of sleep
in the past 36 hours. We had been sitting in an airport for 12 hours
and had walked so much! (Minneaplois airport is HUGE)  I expected that
we would all throw ourselves into bed, but I was wrong. So wrong. My
companions all called their parents to tell them the intense story, (I
chose not to call home because I was so tired and it was a good thing
I didn't because the other girls were charged $65 for calling) and
then one of the cute sisters insisted we have a Book of Mormon read. :') I
did my best not to strangle her.

I'm not sure what time I ended up falling asleep, but we awoke to the
sound of an alarm at 8:30am, set out to the airport at 10:30am to see
the other 8 (7 Elders and 1 Sister) off for their flight at 1:30pm,
and then we recieved another hotel voucher and food vouchers from
Delta.

I am now sitting in a hotel lobby somewhere in the middle of
Minnesota, not really sure what to think of the last few days. Maybe
God wanted us to learn something from this situation. Maybe the
weather just sucked. Who knows what is going to happen to Daniel? But
what I do know, is that when we follow the little promptings of the
spirit, God knows he can trust us and he is able to use us to help
others find what they are seeking. I can't say that I think the flight
was cancelled so that we could talk to Daniel, but I do believe we
were all there at the same time for a reason.

Tomorrow morning we will wake up and try again and (hopefully) make it
to Halifax. And I decided when I come home from my mission in 18
months, I will be walking. It will definitley be faster than trying to
fly.

Anyways. I love all you people. Have safe New Years. Party hard. Laugh
a lot. And pray for a speedy travel to Halifax.

Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone! This past week in the MTC has been awesome! 

First of all, learning to be a missionary is hard! I have been asked to change my skirts 3 times in the past week because it it didn't go past my knees when I was standing, then it didn't go past my knees when I was sitting down, and then my skirt extender wasn't allowed to have lace on the end. At first I was really annoyed by it but I have realized that we have these rules for a reason, and it's my job to be obedient even if I don't understand them. They also asked us to all take off any rings or bracelets that "remind us of a significant other or remind us of home" and for the first few days I didn't because UHM. THAT'S DUMB. But as I began to humble myself, I learned that being obedient brings blessings that we wouldn't receive otherwise, and it was easier to learn from the Spirit.

Before I started my mission, my dad said that going on a mission would be hard, but I didn't expect it to be so hard so soon! They had us start teaching people on the very first day! We hadn't even learned anything yet. I felt like they were feeding us to the wolves. We were in a large group of other missionaries, but it was still scary! Then the second day they had us start teaching our teachers. Even then it was still really scary. But the more we teach the easier it is to talk to people, so it has actually been really good. My companion and I started teaching in the TRC on Monday, and those lessons have been interesting... The TRC is full of people who are either real investigators, or members who are pretending to be investigators. But it's really awkward for me to teach them because I feel like they are already members just pretending, so I don't feel effective in lessons.

In other news. My district is awesome. There is 4 Sisters and 3 Elders. My companion, Sister Johnson, is from Canada, and the other 2 sisters share a room with us. Sister Andersen is from Idaho, and Sister Hotchkiss is from Iowa. Elder Rogers is from Canada, Elder Alvaro is from Houston, and Elder Garver is from Provo. Since we are all in a class room together for 8 hours a day, we have gotten really close and have gotten to know each other really well. Except the Elders still call me Sister Robinson or Sister Roberts, so I guess they don't know me as well as I thought they did.... But for the most part we have all have the same sense of humor so it's fun to joke around with them! The food here is good for the most part, but I think it has gotten old at this point.  I can't imagine being here for more than 2 weeks. Some people I have talked to are here for 10!! God bless them. 

Funny story of the week-

Friday night we all went into a building to learn about the TRC investigators and we were standing in the hallway waiting to go into to big room. There was 3 Elders sitting in a computer room right next to us so I started talking to them. One of the Elders (Elder Lee) asked where I was from and I said South Jordan. He then went on to tell me about this girl named Mica that he met at EFY from South Jordan and she goes to Bingham High School. I told him I didn't go to Bingham and I didn't know who she was. Elder Lee then grabs my hand and writes his email on my hand and told me to write him. 2 days later, I am sitting in my classroom and Elder Lee comes to the drinking fountain outside and peeks his head in. He sees me and then walks into our classroom and looks to see if his email is still on my hand. Seeing that it wasn't, he pulls out his daily planner and asks me for my email. I told him no, so he grabs one of my papers off my desk and writes his email again. My district leader asked him to leave our classroom and find his companion so he left, but later that day when we were at lunch and guess who shows up without his companion to sit right next to me at lunch? You guessed it. Elder Lee. Our Zone always sits together at lunch, so luckily my Zone Leader was there to save me and asked him to leave and find his companion. Then yesterday we were in the coat room next to the cafeteria, and the Elders from my Zone were talking to a missionary that went to West High. Me and my companion joined their circle and I told him where I was from and we talked about football players that we both knew from Herriman. At the end of our conversation on our way to the cafeteria, he stopped me and asked for my email too! Hahha dang it. I thought this ended once you became a missionary! (I told him no)

Tuesday night we had a devotional and Elder Nielson from the 70 came. He told us a lot of awesome spiritual stuff (most of which I can't remember) but what I do remember from his devotional was that he said "Go and Become." Become what you ask? He said that is up to us. Go and become more Christlike, more grateful, more serving, more courageous, more studious at reading your scriptures. So I would like to invite all of you to pick something to work on and to Go and Become. YAY. The gospel is awesome ladies and gentlemen.

For the past two and half years, I have watched all of my friends leave and serve their own missions. I always thought it would be cool to serve, but I never actually saw myself with a badge on my chest, walking up to random people and teaching them about Jesus Christ. But now, that's exactly what I am about to do! I can't believe that in one week I will be in Canada!!! And I have already been here for a week!  Days here seem to be as long as a week, but then they actually go by really fast and then they all get smashed together in my memory so I can't remember what is what. But one thing that I do know is the work is going to be amazing and I have really enjoyed learning here. It's been really fun! Yesterday was MTC In Field training and it got me so excited to go out and actually teach people! I'm getting less scared of talking to strangers because we have to teach our teachers and people in the TRC. It's really awkward but it's really good to practice. 

In our Zone, it is a requirement to be apart of the MTC choir. At first I wasn't very excited because if we aren't in choir that means that we get free time (And if you've been to the MTC you know that you NEVER get freetime) but as I have been going to the practices, it has been an amazing experience! Tomorrow is Christmas, and we get to sing for Jesus on his birthday! They keep telling us that it's going to be a very special program, so I am excited to see who is going to be our speaker! (I hope it's Tommy:)) Our choir director is the coolest guy you'll ever meet, and he makes it super fun! On Tuesday night, he told us that the chances of us being a missionary while the Lord is hastening the work is comparable to combining the Marriot Center and Lavell Edwards Stadium and having the Lord come in and say, "I need one person." One person out of the many thousands. That is the chances of me being here today doing missionary work! I'm so blessed and lucky and excited that I was chosen to be one of his missionaries in the these latter days! 

Anyways, I love you all! There hasn't been a day this week that I haven't received a package or a letter from someone in the family or one of my friends. I am overwhelmed with the love and support I have received for you guys.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas! Please be safe and remember the Savior. He is the reason for the season! Go to www.mormon.org and click on the link to watch The Savior is Born! It will make your life happier. 

Xo, Sister Richardson