Elder Max Richards 2023-2025

Monday, Aug. 26, 2024 Que tal yall! Here's the rundown of this week: We had a great lesson with our friend Ada. She's the friend of our ward Relief Society president which is awesome. She is keeping the commitments we are giving her and she has come to church the last two Sundays. We are praying for her and going to be extending a baptismal invitation this week! We did this really cool thing as a zone with President and Hermana Lopera called "tocando corazones" (touching hearts)  Basically on Saturday we all got together as a zone in a plaza in Sacaba and for 3.5 hours we shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we could. It was awesome! We did little exchanges, and rotated the parts of the area that we were in. I got to go with President Lopera and Elder Bott for 45 minutes and it was super sweet. Got to learn from President on how to better my contacts and how to better share the Book of Mormon with others. It was a super awesome activity and Preside...

Monday, Aug. 19, 2024  Que tal yall!  This week was awesome!  I ran our of time today but the big highlights of the week were that we had a general authority 70 come to our mission! I got to go to both days and it was incredible. It was awesome to learn from Elder Becerra of the 70. He taught us so much on how we can improve as missionaries, how we can improve our teachings, be more personal with people and better live our missionary purpose. He really emphasized how when we truly understand the doctrine of Christ and apply it, we will be more powerful instruments in the hands of God to bring his children unto him. It was such a privilege to learn from Elder Becerra! There was so much more that I learned that I don't have time to write about but another thing that stuck out to me is this.  Faith is a principle of acción. We need to act, and then comes the power and the miracles.  My invitation is to try to think about that this week and think about how you can a...

Monday, Aug. 12, 2024 Que tal yall!  Holy cow this was a Jam packed week.  First off: shoutout to my sister Millie for her baptism and my dad for his birthday! I love you guys so much! On Thursday we pull up to cambios and I had no idea what was gonna happen... Well I am now with Elder Skinner! He is also 6'5, a gringo, and blonde! Literally the two tallest missionaries in the mission! And probably the two tallest humans in all of Cochabamba right now jaja!  We are also opening up a new zone as the zone leaders. He has been a zone leader for several transfers so it's awesome to be able to learn from him!  It's been awesome working with Elder Skinner! He's a great missionary and super funny. We are working really hard and seeing a ton of miracles already!  One of these miracles was our friend Antuanet. I have been teaching her my whole time here in Esmeralda. She has come to church every week since she started meeting with us and has just been doing so well. She'...

Monday, Aug. 5, 2024 Que tal yall!  This week flew by and I honestly can't remember everything that happened but I will give a rundown of what i can remember.  Got to go on an exchange this week with Elder Bott! He's super funny and we had a great exchange and worked really hard all day long. Had some great conversations about food, sports, high school, and also Jesus Christ and our missions. It was very awesome.  The family we are teaching came to stake conference which was so awesome! And I got to talk to a bunch of the members from Frutillar again so that was great!  Our pension made some amazing tacos this week. Fire My stomach got real bad this past Saturday. So bad that I couldn't work on Saturday or Sunday. I went to the doctor this morning and we will see what my results come back with.  Sorry for the short email! I will make sure to have a better one next week!  Love,  Elder Richards

Monday, July 29, 2024 Que tal yall! This week was so crazy and there was tons of stuff that happened! We had some amazing miracles! Let's get into it  Also shout out to my mom and my sister who had their birthdays this week! Love you guys!  Monday We played some soccer with the zone and ate at a fire chicken place. Yummy Wednesday  Had zone conference! It was very powerful. Got to see Elder Mitton and we had 8 hours of powerful trainings. Learned so much of how we could be better missionaries. Especially teachers of the gospel. The spirit was very strong! We also had some amazing burgers and fríes.  After zc I went on an exchange with Elder Wood in La Vina! He's from Spanish Fork and we had some amazing miracles and it's always nice to talk in English for long periods of time!  Thursday Got to go to the temple! We went as a zone and the spirit is always so strong! In the temple! It's so cool too that I can pretty much understand everything in Spanish now! The gi...

Monday, July 22, 2024 Que tal yall!  A lot happened this week. Lets get into it.  Last p day was fire. We went to the Christ statue here in Cochabamba! I've always been able to see it from my area but seeing it up close is an unreal experience. I'm so grateful for our Savior and redeemer Jesus Christ!  The view of the City is breathtaking. Pictures just don't do it justice. It's incredible. I didn't realize how big the city of Cochabamba is. It's absolutely mondo! So cool.  After packing up my stuff a member came I clutch and gave us a ride to the mission office. Chilled there for a bit and then took a taxi to my new area in Esmeralda! Esmeralda is really awesome. Lots of people here have really been prepared to hear our message. One example is a college student from Peru named Auntunet. She saw an ad on Facebook for the Book of Mormon and clicked on it, which Led her to the missionaries coming over! She has been reading every day and has come to church the last...

Monday, July 15, 2024 Que tal yall!  Wow this week was crazy! We had so many miracles and it was a very busy week!  Some of the big highlights: Had an intercambio with my zone leader Elder Heaton! Love that guy. We had some amazing miracles including finding a family who are very interested! We also caught our friend Carol walking out of her house and had a pop up lesson with her. She ended up coming to church on Sunday! So awesome.  On Friday we had planned to have a noche de hogar (family home evening) with a family who are all members except the parents. They have come to church 50 times but they don't want to get married. So we had planned such a powerful lesson on marriage and eternal families and on the temple. And the best part is that Presidente y Hermana Lopera were going to be joining us for the lesson!  We were so pumped. We confirmed the lesson 3 times and it was gonna be so powerful.  We pull up and the Loperas pull up too.  And we call the fam...