Elder Ira Conner McArthur: MY FIRST WEEK IN CALI

OCTOBER 9, 2017

Wow, ok where to start. This is gonna be a long email but bear with me, cuz its been the best week of my mission. Which isn't saying too much, but hey still, its been a great week.

Tuesday, I got up at 3:30am and got everything ready to go, went to the travel center place, got on a bus, got off at the trax, took the front runner to SLC, then got off and got on the trax thing and took that to the airport. It took forever. Then we flew to Sacramento, and the first people we saw when we got off the plane were other missionaries!! Only thing is, they were going home on the same plane that took us here. There were two Hmong elders, one of which was my trainer's trainer, but I'll get to that later. Then we went down the escalator and saw President and Sister Day, as well as the AP's. And lemme tell ya, they are all so awesome. I love them.

Then we went to the mission home, which is actually just a little portion of the stake center in Antelope, haha. So I had my interview with President Day very first, and that was fun. Everyone else had to wait a day to find out who their trainer was and which area they were going to, but he just told me right away cuz there's only 1 Hmong trainer, haha. So my trainer is Elder Gunsay, and he is so awesome! He's been out for a little under a year, and he was the newest Hmong missionary until I got here. But his Hmong is really good, even though he will always say it's not. Our area is in the Yuba City zone. I live in an apartment in Wheatland, and we double cover wards. We cover the English Wheatland ward, as well as the Hmong Linda ward. Oh but anyway back to the first day in the mission field ... after the interview they had me go out and proselyte and I knocked doors and nobody wanted to talk to us, but I did buy a tie for a dollar. So that was cool. That night we stayed in a hotel, which was super weird cuz I'm a missionary now and it was just a normal hotel hahaha. But I did go to bed at like 8 o'clock so that was nice. Next day was mostly just meetings, but I also met Elder Gunsay and we drove to Wheatland.

So more about Wheatland. Its a sleepy, tiny little town on the freeway. There's a railroad right by our apartment, and lemme tell ya, I love it when the train whistle goes off at 2 in the morning. It's so loud! It's like such a small town though. The apartment is good I think. Best apartment I've ever lived in, haha. We drive a 2017 Toyota Tacoma. I love that truc. It's so nice. Our apartment is right in the middle of a bunch of park models, and the sign in the picture that I'm about to send. HAHAHAHA. God knows me so well, hahah.

Ok, so later that day I went to my first, and so far only, Hmong dinner appointment. That was crazy. We walk into his house, which is kinda small and super messy, but I'm not judging. His name is Brother Xyooj. I really don't know what to call him, cuz you call Hmong people weird things that I haven't figured out yet. But we had some rice, boiled pork, veggies, cold eggplant (which I didn't really like, but ate anyway. Look at me go mom.) and also some bear meat, which actually was really good. Apparently all the Hmong people really like to hunt. So as soon as I learn Hmong, I'm gonna talk hunting with them. Then later that day (which was my first like half day in the field) we taught Dalton the law of chastity. Dalton is an 11 year old boy who lives with his grandma and his mom. He's one of the few investigators who actually lives in Wheatland. He's a really great kid. We met with him a few more times, and then baptized him on Saturday!!! That was a really awesome experience. There was only 7 people there, 5 of which had to be there, and then Dalton and his grandma. Not much support, but it was still a great experience. Elder Gunsay baptized Dalton, and I gave a talk about baptism. I was also the pianist. I know what you're thinking mom, I should've kept playing the piano, yeah yeah yeah I know, but hey, all that time and money and practice, and I was able to sight read the right hand melody of that one song that is always played at baptisms. Shout out to Kathy Bentley. Also played the music while we waited for Dalton and Elder Gunsay to change. Sweet hour of prayer and I am a child of God have never been so lucky.

Let's see, what else... We spent 4 hours this week painting Sister Femlings deck. She's old and can't do it herself, but she fed us dinner. I went to the grocery store to buy food to survive on for the first time. That was hard. I bought a loaf of bread, a huge bag of malt o meal frosted mini wheats, a thing of hamburgers, but the fatty kind from Walmart, haha, some lunch meat, lots of cheese, and a carton of eggs, just in case I ever figure out how to scramble eggs, haha. I probably won't make myself much food over the next 2 years. But hey, the members have fed us a lot. Like last night we went over to a members house for dinner and it was so good. And even just barely this morning, we went to Duke's Diner, which is owned by a member, and they fed us for free. So the members in both wards really take care of us in that respect, we typically have 5 dinner appointments a week.

We have lots of people to teach. Only really like 3 real progressing investigators though. A lot of the Hmong people are super nice, but aren't so much interested in hearing the Gospel. But we'll work on that!

Yesterday was a fun day. Went to my first ward council, and then during Sacrament meeting I confirmed Dalton a member of the church and gave him the Holy Ghost. That was really an awesome experience; a little pressure, but still good. Then after about 30 minutes of Sunday School, we went over to Linda for the Hmong branch. Oh my heck, I don't know like any Hmong. The people are all super nice though. But we get there and the Sunday School teacher talks sooooooooo incredibly fast, like I don't even know how it's possible. And what makes it even harder, and is creating a crisis for me, is that almost everyone in the branch, and apparently a good portion of the Hmong people in my zone, speak GREEN HMONG!!!!! All I learned at the MTC was White Hmong. We spent one day learning Green Hmong cuz they said I probably wouldn't need it, and here my first area is like all Green Hmong speakers, so now IDK what to learn hahah. They are somewhat similar, but a lot of words are different and there are some different pronunciations of normal vowels and consonants. So that was fun to get there and really not understand anything. But a lot of them also spoke English. Oh, and then in sacrament meeting they had me come up and bear my testimony in Hmong. It was probably the equivalent of a 6 year old's testimony, but they understood it, even though it was white Hmong! Apparently Green Hmong speakers understand White Hmong fairly easily, but its harder the other way around. Then after church all the brethren (which is like 8 of us) gave one of the old niam tais (grandma) a blessing, cuz she was sick. That was really cool.

That is pretty much the highlights of my week. There's probably a lot of other stuff, and sorry if I forgot it but I think I hit on the important things. One super cool thing, there's like xfinity wifi here that I got signed into so I pretty much have wifi everywhere now. Like we're driving in the car right now and I have wifi, which is sweet, So I'm just typing this as my comp drives around, haha. If I think of anything else, I'll email it. I can email all day till 6, so that's good. Love you all! Any other questions I'll try to answer. The church is true!

All in all, such a great week! I'm so happy with life right now, and I learned an important principle that I think applies to everyone. We can't always choose our circumstances or what happens to us, but we can always choose to be happy. :) So I invite everyone to choose to be happy this week!

Love, Elder Muaj Koob