Richie Tackles Reno: Week 12 - A Day in the Life of Elder Todd and Christmas Time is Here!

December 8, 2014

Howdy guys!! How goes it in VA?? Life is awesome in the Lord’s work. I can’t believe that I have already been here a whole transfer! I got my first transfer call last night...and I am staying with Elder Rivera in Sun Valley haha so no worries.

So I want to give you guys a little sample of a day in the life of Elder Todd:

Morning sports at the church

5:55-6:05 am About 10 different alarms go off, all over the apartment, forcing us to get out of bed to turn them off.

6:10 am We are out the door to go over to the church which is 1.3 miles away to play basketball or "oompa loompa ball" (which is like indoor football). There are usually about 8-12 people there for sports.

Chef Todd cooking eggs for everyone

7:00 am We return to the apartment, and take turns showering and eating breakfast. (I always race upstairs to get in the shower first because our hot water heater is TEENY (like it fits under the counter in the kitchen). I usually make two scrambled eggs and eat it with a bagel and cereal for breakfast. We usually make a big smoothie with frozen fruit for everyone. Once a week I make french toast for everyone which is fun.

Breakfast with the homies

8:00 am Personal study. I usually switch off between reading the Book of Mormon and studying “Preach my Gospel.” But I also mix in the Ensign magazine, my patriarchal blessing and other study stuff.

9:00 am Companion study. We talk about what we studied in personal study, read three pages out of the "White Bible" (the missionary handbook), watch a short DVD segment from "The District" and then do a role-play of something we will use later that day, like practice teaching a lesson, (which takes a while) or just street contacting someone. We then discuss our investigators and study other things.

10:00-12:00 We either have more studies if we don’t have appointments (because I am still in the 12-week training program) and language study, or we go to appointments.

12:00 noon. Lunch for an hour. We usually come home if we are nearby, and do something like quesadillas with sausages and rice or frozen taquitos or frozen pizzas.

Isaac (front and center) is awesome!!
He feeds us well
if we don't have dinner plans.

1:00-5:00 pm We contact people! During these hours we usually don’t have many appointments, so we just visit people who are considered our "potential" investigators, or just go tracting.

5:00 pm Dinner. We are blessed to usually have dinners with members, and the few times we don’t have dinners with the members, we usually eat with some of our close investigators or Isaac or Hermano Verduzco (our family away from home). They usually take us out to eat – which is fine with us!

6:00-9:00 pm These are our most productive hours...we usually have appointments during these hours and most people are home – so if we just stop by we can usually teach them. The Hispanic people are SO friendly and welcoming, and so they often invite us in if they are home.

Nightly planning with Elder Rivera

9:00 pm Return home and start nightly planning. This is when we plan what we will do during our next day, literally every hour of the day. We also plan what we will teach to those we will see the next day, and what we will study. We also set our goals for the day as far as how many lessons to teach. This is very important. It takes about a half hour, and then we hangout for the last hour of the day or so.

10:30 pm Lights out and bedtime!!

Thank you guys for fasting for my families, we fasted for them too. The support means a lot, and the fact that James fasted too just brings tears to my eyes!! You guys are the best!!

Christmas party at the church with the Spanish group

This week was awesome. By far the highlight was the Christmas party we had for the Spanish group on Saturday night! I posted lots of pictures of it. It was so much fun and we had like 9 investigators show up and 2 less-active members!! And that was just from half of Sun Valley...the other elders had a bunch show up too! The turnout was great, the food was delicious, and it was by far my favorite night of my whole mission.

This is the Christmas tree that
Juan and Laura gave us!!

We rode over to the party with a few investigators, but then when we showed up, a family of three was sitting there and when I saw them I couldn’t stop smiling!! It was Juan Rivera, and his "wife" Laura Lopez (we are not sure if they are married yet) and their five-year-old son, Adrian. I actually think they have the most potential out of all of our investigators, and they are like family to us! They have fed us dinner twice already, and gave us an awesome Christmas tree with lights and stuff for our apartment!! They are awesome. Please keep them in your prayers.

I love the Flores kids so much!!!

The familia Flores hasn’t made much progress this week...they are always home and we can teach them whenever but they just don’t keep their commitments!! I gave their grandpa a blessing in Spanish this week cuz he has been sick, so hopefully they can see how that helps and want to keep their commitments. But I love their family so much. Their littlest boy, Chuckie, has opened up to me and loves me - haha!! He is always showing me his toys and stuff. I love it!!

We haven’t been able to contact the familia Lira since last week...kind of a bummer. We have stopped by many times but they are never there! It’s just the workers working on their house. But we are hoping to catch them soon, because they said they are moving in this week, so we will see. Hopefully the fasting works.

I love you guys!!!! Have a great week!! The church is true!!

Elder Todd