Thanksgiving ...

Pues como estan familia mia?
Feliz navidad! Or at least that is commin up soon! Yeaaaaaaa!
I love Christmas time more than any other time…its sooo happy and even the church of Christ ppl don’t hate us as much in this wonderful time of the world!
I kinda already talked to you for a bit but this is the stuff I didn’t cover at all.
Anyways for thanksgiving we had a turkey bowl estilo latino! Which means we went and played soccer. It was colder than I ever expected and the wind was blowin a ton…now I think it was about 38 degrees out but I am not going to lie the cold that comes here in the south is a whole different beast to that of Idaho or Washington…the humidity is killer and everyone played in sweaters and thermals but the hispanos around here make true sacrifices for futbol…if only it was the same way for church…jaja. Anyways we played in the freezing cold and even with that the tempers got a lil heated at times, but all in all it was sweet. Brother Maranon drove us down there to Brentwood and we played at a park over there and the whole time it was 98% overcast….soooo cold. After that we just went home and cleaned up a bit (the house, we didn’t even sweat at all because of the frio) and later that night we went and had a classic thanksgiving dinner at the Ruiz family house and it was sweet it reminded me soooo much of our thanksgivings with Grandma and Grandpa Richardson because the whole family came together there were more than 20 ppl there and there was a ton of food and they also had about a gazillion kids there (all cousins) runnin around doing there different things and it was awesome…the only bad part was that the MP wanted that we would be in the house at 7 o clock and we had to cut the night short…but oh well…
As for the Maraon family there doing good, still truckin along the Sister Maranon had a tough time with tithing but only because money is tight for them right now. But we talked about it and when they learned that nobody is paid in the church for there callings and that tithing is basically just a giant leap of faith and relying on the lord it cleared up a bunch of doubt…but they just still need to make that leap of faith. But other than that they are doing super awesome. She doesn’t drink coffee jamas and he hasn’t smoked for over 2 weeks. And they tell us about there spiritual experiences that they have and there sweet…idk what it is with a lot of Hispanic ppl but they are very open to dreams and receiving their answers in dreams… Brother Maranon is like that and its pretty sweet. The spirit is workin hard on them.
An for the rest of the stuff going on around here the last week went by super fast, I don’t like that tooo much, I am not gonna lie that is kinda sucky but I deal…
As for this week its going to be super busy as well, the sisters in Madison called me and told me that one of the ppl that I know up there and that plays soccer with us is going to get baptized and he wants me to do it. That was a awesome call to get, his name is Ciro and he is about 17 and he told me that he is super nervous so if you could keep him in your prayers too along with the Maranon family and that they can not be nervous and not doubt. We had a great lesson with them last night and Brother Alduenda and Brother Alduenda shared his story and his conversion and it was really powerful and then we talked about actions of faith.
God makes us do challenging things so that we know more clearly and without a doubt that he was the reason we received a blessing, that is why there written in the scriptures. We see the promises and the challenge and after completing it we see the blessing and the testimony comes. Keep making those great leaps of faith, not the easy ones but the hard ones…
I love you all and hope you all had a super fantasticle thanksgiving day.
Elder Richardson(nide haizi)