First Impressions of Richmond

May 4, 2015

Dear Family,

So my area is pretty interesting. Although we cover a pretty big area, we spend most of our time down in Richmond, which is cool. There are a lot of less actives down there and we do most of our OYMing (OYM is "Open Your Mouth")) there too. Richmond is pretty funny. A couple of highlights are the random four way intersections that have no speed bumps or stop signs making it quite the adventure. My other favorite thing is ghetto barriers. Ghetto Barriers are basically just a curb they put in the middle of the street to separate the nicer parts from the not so nice parts. So you can just be driving down the street thinking you are going to get to your appointment on time when you get diverted and have to go around the block. Driving in Richmond is an adventure, but it is fun.

We had a pretty great week this week. We taught 19 lessons, 1 short of our goal of 20. And we had one investigator at church and added one really solid new investigator that we are really excited about. We also are teaching a hindu man from Fiji with mysterious wounds on his feet that the doctors can't figure out. And we got a member referral! That was huge for us. The ward has had an interesting history with past missionaries so we are working on winning them over and it has been going well. One thing we have started doing is teaching one active member lesson a week, where we ask at the beginning if we can help them so it is not a last minute sort of insincere question, and then have an actual lesson that we plan for in advance. It has been going really well. As Elder Schaeffer is fond of saying, this area is about to blow up, its just a matter of time and the effort we put in.

My days are so full so I won't go in depth on each of them like last week but I will tell you the highlights I guess.

On Monday I got to teach my first real lesson with a totally new investigator and it went really well! Unfortunately he lives on the wrong side of the freeway in El Cerrito (we cover from the freeway to the bay) so we gave him to the 1st ward elders. But I was happy and I think he will be a really solid guy for them. We've had a lot of really good lessons this week in general. We ate at a Tacqueria in Richmond on Friday since we had no dinner and did not feel like wasting time and miles driving home. It was a letdown. But it was still fun. We are on the hunt for some authentic Mexican food and Richmond is the place to find the cheap but good stuff it seems like. What was a good dinner was last night at the Maui'a's. Brother Maui'a is a member who went to culinary school in Tennessee and is Samoan from Hawaii. He fed us really well. I love him, he is awesome. Unfortunately he has had trouble finding a good job in his field so he will be going back to school soon. His wife is not a member but has agreed to take 1 lesson so we are really excited. They are super cool and hardworking so I hope they do alright. We have a lot of polynesians in this area in general so it is fun. The ward is pretty funny, I like them.

This past week was really good for us, and we are very excited about the upcoming week, we have a lot of good people planned in to teach. This area will blow up soon, Elder Schaeffer and I are working hard on it.

Love,

Elder Hyde