Hello Everyone!

Happy Monday everyone! 

The weeks are just flying by! Sister Pazmino had a great week as we saw two of our investigators make some great progress! Cindy has quit the E-cig! She also shocked us yesterday by coming to church all three hours even though she wasn't feeling well! She kind of hit rock bottom last week when she was in the hospital and I think she's been humbled a bit and now she's ready to progress. Because of the busy-ness of our Sundays we cannot attend all the church meetings with her which is actually a blessing. We have found such a great member fellowshipper for her- a wonderful widowed woman in the ward and she has invited Cindy to sit on the "Celestial Row" as they call it with the other older and single women! Cindy just loved that. We were so happy to see her stay all three hours. We told her we'd continue to teach her these next three weeks to help her prepare to be baptized on May 2nd. The other thing that shocked us was that we've been trying to get Cindy to do family history work with us and she hasn't been to excited about that but she told us that she wants to! She's definitely making progress and we're so happy for her!
The other investigator is Kalyn from the YSA. We taught her the Restoration and Sister Pazmino committed her to a baptism date next month! She wasn't referred to us by the YSA members but there are many members who went to High School with her at Westwood and they are so excited and really want to be involved! The sisters in the ward have invited her to the fireside this Saturday and have planned a game night for afterwards just to fellowship her! We're excited to follow up on Kalyn's Book of Mormon reading. She think that just us visiting her is a sign and her answer but we tried to convey she needs to pray and read to receive her witness that what we taught is true. When we taught her the Restoration lesson this week I feel the Spirit so strongly as I looked her in the eye and recited Joseph Smith's First Vision. I know that he was a prophet of God and did see God and our Savior Jesus Christ.

As missionaries we really try to receive member referrals. We've been trying to do some Facebook finding with our members. Right now there are so many RMs in the YSA and other members doing missionary work and having missionary experiences- it's awesome!!! Sadly, all of the people they are inviting to meet with the missionaries are in another area. It's been hard to receive any referrals for our ward but we are so happy to see them inviting friends from school, their coworkers, etc to learn more about the Restored Gospel! Members really are so key to help us and the work progress. We really saw that with Cindy this week and hopefully it will be the same for Kalyn. This past week we had some of our ward missionaries out doing visits with us which was awesome! The one night we weren't having much luck, everyone was cancelling and no one was home so we decided to try and contact this referral that Sister Pazmino and I had already tried to contact quite a few times and that night she was home! She was caught off guard a little by our visit but we introduced ourselves and invited her to learn more about the plan of salvation. The member we had with us couldn't have been more perfect as they are both young mothers and could relate as this woman's daughters were running around. We were able to pray with Shanita and her daughters and we were able to set up an appointment for this evening! We're super excited and hope it all works out! 

Here's my member missionary plug- help the missionaries out and go out with them! 

Last night we attended a music fireside and some recent converts bore their testimonies- it was so great. The Spirit was so powerful! I'm so glad we are having firesides because our recent convert Tania is currently working on Sundays but is able to attend the firesides. She thinks she'll be able to attend the upcoming one this Saturday with Elder Andersen so we're going to try and help her prepare by studying conference with her! Elder Andsersen has asked us to come prepared with our favorite talk from General Conference and our goals and plans of how we're going to apply the message! I think this is such a great invitation! It's one we've actually been using in our dinner messages. 

Our other RC- Lexi will be out of Rehab at the end of this month. We don't know where she'll be moving to but Bishop Arnett hopes she can stay within the ward. We have received so much help from the members. They are so good at picking her up and taking her to church. This next week she will receive more free time so she'll be able to attend FHE hopefully and start receiving her new member lessons- finally! She has been such a great missionary in her rehab program. She's been bringing friends to church a lot. 

We volunteered at Butterfly Wonderland for the first time on Thursday and I loved it! We are able to interact with so many children and families in such a non-threatening environment. Usually people see missionaries and run but here we're able to help them enjoy some of God's most beautiful creations! I really hope that our interactions with them will help them be open to missionaries knocking at their door. It really is a great service opportunity and is so fun! I'm grateful to be able to participate!!! 

We have a very busy and exciting week coming up. We have planned visits nights with our ward missionaries to less actives, a "touch the temple" night with the YSA where those unable to go to the temple will be watching Meet the Mormons at the Visitor's Center, more volunteering at Butterfly Wonderland and we'll be going up to the mountains to Payson for a Relief Society women's retreat! We're super excited President has approved us to attend because their will be two women attending whose families are potential investigators. And we'll be attending the fireside with Elder Andersen. 

I'm so grateful to see this work move forward! Thank you all so much for your support and prayers! 

Love, 

Sister Richards

​Being a missionary in YSA sure has it's perks! We were able to attend the Stake Luau activity which is the biggest event of the year! Delicious food and fire dancers! Everyone was able to be greeted by the Sisters with a lei at the entrance. Two of our potential investigators came! 

​here's a picture of our zone! Such great missionaries