WEEK 53 RICHMOND: Gotta love Richmond 😂

Holy bro, Richmond is sometimes insane, and I love it! This week was crazy and crazy chill, our friends are elect, life is good, and we just out here on an adventure of a lifetime.

Wednesday was pretty great. We had MLC and it was pretty amazing. Shoutout Costa Vida. The spirit is always so strong, and much revelation is always received. After the meeting we met with Li once again, and he's just stelllar as always. Then read the scriptures with some of our friends!

Thursday morning we had a lesson with Frank, taught him laws and commandments, and he was pretty chill with it. He said it'll be hard, but like, at the end of the day, life is also hard, and following God makes it better . We to DC afterwards and it was pretty good. Met with our new friend Max, he's super cool, super open minded about religion, and wants to know more about 后期圣徒 (latter-day saints) so we gave him more. Met a guy who really wants to convert Brandon Sanderson to Roman Catholicism. Good luck buddy . 

Friday we had zone conference which was super good. Main topics, Holy Ghost, BoM missionaries, consecration and sacrifice. So not bad, not bad. Met with Adair afterwords, and he's just amazing. Bro's just the goat. Loves the gospel.

Saturday morning was just contact grinding, inviting all our friends to church. Met some cool people while finding...hopefully they lock in. Had a once-in-a-blue-moon language study which was nice. Had a lesson with our new friend Michael, who is apparently a TaiQi master, so hopefully I'll come back with some cool moves! Finished the night with some pickleball.

Then Sunday

Top 10 "what the heck is going on" day of my life. 

Everything in the morning went swimmingly. First hour of church was amazing. We started gospel foundations today, and a bunch of our friends didn't come (thankfully).

But the ones that did come, Frank, Li, and Adair are all super goated and were locked in. Loved it. Then sacrament. One of the best sacraments yet here in Richmond, it was quiet, peaceful, spirit was strong. Branch presidency member gives a fire testimony about fasting. Then invites the people to come give Christ-centered testimonies.

Ohh boy

As soon as bro says that, a member and his girlfriend pop right out of there seat and march up to the stage, with a massive yellow folder in hand. And my heart dropped. 

For a lil context, there's been some drama in the branch for the past 6 months, and luckily most of it hasn't leaked to our church services yet.

Until today 

They get up there and just start going off, pulling "receipts" out of the folder and it's pretty cooked. The poor branch president is trying to shut it down, they aren't, and it's just a havoc fest. So they end up ending the meeting right then, and everyone just dips. 

I love Richmond .

It's got its little kinks to work out, but hey, don't we all!

Luckily our friends didn't really care too much and weren't super affected by it, so nothing too crazy. 

Then the day goes on and we are finding all day, and we just are meeting the weirdest people. Holy. First off, Fake Moses who is living a sad life. A random, incredibly drunk dude who can't stand up straight telling us we aren't ready to read the bible, and are going to hell for preaching the word haha. Commanding us to repent. (don't worry bro, I do every day :) And Dr. Albert Einstein who was just a lil off his horse. But also a pretty nice guy.

But we also saw some really cool miracles. We ran into this kid who Elder Wengert used to teach, and is apparently back from China. Ran into this Chinese dude who apparently is super famous and interviewed Elder Wengert, and said he'll pull up to church. And this guy named Queinton who saw a BoM in a hotel, and read a lil bit. Then told us he was planning on going to our church to buy one. But we gave him one and bro was so excited and happy. 

Get the crazy with the good I guess.

Monday was good, had a awesome lesson with Frank, who brought a friend, who brought her son. And we taught all of them the temple, and they are all so elect and so cool. The son is a senior and was so locked in. It's flippin' dope! Had interviews with Prezy, and did a bunch of finding. Ate some Pho, and it was amazing.

Today we went to the temple and played beach volleyball which was a blast. Richmond is blessed, and the district is so much fun!

Being a missionary is just lit.

And always,

Glory to God!

During MLC we talked we talked about the speech Elder Kearon recently gave, that talks about Peace. It's fire so go listen to it.

In it he talks about the story of Martha and Mary.

"One way to think of this might be that Martha is doing a great deal for Jesus and not enough with Him."

"Mary was listening. She had sat down at Jesus's feet, still and ready. Sitting and attending are necessary parts of discipleship, and for many of us that is harder than hands-on service"

So what's the principle here? Well, We need to sit and listen. We need to be with Jesus Christ. 

Sometimes we are so busy in the day to day busyness of life. Some of that busyness is even good, and it's helping people. But if we aren't spending time WITH the Savior. Then we really aren't helping ourselves and our conversion to Him.

No matter where we are in life, we can find peace and Joy. And that only comes from us being WITH Jesus Christ.

So find your WITH, whatever that may be. But sit at Jesus's feet. Listen. And we will Hear Him.

:)

Love ya'll 

ZoCo core