Check out the long wavy hair from the humidity.

These birds look just like Moni's birds--Peri and Sweetie (who wasn't very sweet).

Sister George.  (Moni said to notice the clean stove in the background.  She cleaned it!)

Sister Olsen with a chocolate beater.

 

New haircut!!

 

This was an interesting week!!! So I'm going to start with the raccoon. We were driving the other day and this raccoon jumped out in the middle of the road and we almost hit it! Luckily, we missed it by a hair. When we were about a holler away from it, we just started laughing. The shock had worn off. Then I told Sister George, "Good thing the raccoon didn't jump onto the windshield." Then I hissed and put my arms up like I was the raccoon. It scared Sis. G so bad haha :) She was driving so lucky we were on a back road with no other traffic :) We'll be a little more careful next time. It was funny though.

So I went to downtown Richmond this week. I had a doctor's appointment so the Chappells (the senior missionary couple) took me so we wouldn't have to use our miles. That was lucky. So after my appointment, it started pouring. LITERALLY! So Elder Chappell ran out to the car to grab his umbrella and he was soaked by the time he got there. It was funny. So anyway, they had an appointment at the prison, but apparently it was locked down all day. So they couldn't go to that. And since we were already in Richmond, they needed to run a few errands. So I got to go with them. It was pretty fun.

 

I saw the state capitol, which Thomas Jefferson designed and which was built before the Civil War. That was cool. I also got to see narrow houses that had just a teeny alley in between them. I thought those were just in movies but I guess they're real. :) I saw lots of other cool things too :) Also, we drove through a really ghetto part of town and it was a little sketchy. It was complete with graffiti on the walls, murals on the walls, bars on the windows, and a random girl leaning against the wall. Richmond is interesting.

 

Oh! And it was the Chappell's 45th Anniversary and since they were already out, they wanted to go to lunch. So Elder Chappell asked me to be their surrogate child. So I agreed and he took Sister Chappell and me to lunch. We ate at this cute little place called the Strawberry Street Cafe. I had a rockfish sandwich :) YUMMY!! It was awesome.

 

Then we went back to little old Farmville and I rejoined my companions and we contacted a referral and got 4 new investigators and 3 of them have a baptismal date for September 21!! Awesome, no?

One last story: I don't know if you know, but I am sooooooo afraid of spiders. We hates them. But anyway, we were tracting last Saturday and I saw this HUGE spider run across the road. It stopped about half way because it knew we were there. It was a wolf spider and it was about the size of a ping-pong ball with an egg sac on it's bum. Well, I froze. I told Sister George to squish it and she said she can't squish big bugs. So I told Sister Olsen to step on it. She said, "Step on it? It's gonna step on me." So here we stood at an impasse. Anyone looking upon the scene may have laughed out loud. There were three Sister missionaries standing in the middle of the street frozen in fear. Then a movie quote came to me from "We Bought a Zoo."  "Twenty seconds of courage." Then the next thought was something that my brothers and I would always say. "I'M GONNA EAT YOUR SOUL!" (Said in a low, creepy voice.) Then, as my companions would tell it, I took a deep breath, stomped over to the spider with my hands clenched in fists, and TRIED to step on the spider. I got the egg sac, but that just made the nasty creature mad. So I lifted my other foot and squished it into the ground, moving my foot from side to side for good measure. Then I started hyperventilating. I had just conquered my greatest fear. I probably will still scream and run out of the room if there's a teeny one on the wall, but for a moment, I was not an arachnophobe. I was a spider bounty hunter.

It was a pretty eventful week. Not many conversion stories, but we planted a lot of "seeds" this week. It was good though because we were committed :)

Ok just kidding. One more story: So last week, Sister George was making brownies to give to some of the Elders in our zone, and she stopped after the batter was done and she left the room. So Sister Olsen and I grabbed spoons and put batter all over our mouth. Then we sat outside of the door and waited for Sister George. When she came out she laughed so hard!!! We were like children haha :) We have lots of fun :)

I love y'all!! Have a blessed week and share the gospel with someone you know!!

Love,

Sister Simona/Moni Richardson