ANOTHER AMAZING WEEK

NOVEMBER 6, 2017

Hey family! I'm alive and doing great! This past week was awesome!! 

Tons of exciting stuff. I'll just do a quick run through of the investigators we're teaching. So the past like 2 or 3 weeks I have really been praying to find a family to teach, because that's what were looking for and what would be the best because they could all support each other, but unfortunately we teach only individuals for the most part. Before the investigators though, way super exciting thing. The branch president of the Hmong ward is in like super humble circumstances--well most of the Hmong people are-- but he farms and then works as a janitor. Anyway, he's a bit older, but is super respected among the Hmong community and really understands missionary work for Hmong people. We had dinner with him on Halloween, and he said that he had recently quit one of his jobs so that he has time in the mornings now, and he is going to dedicate some of that time to missionary work. This branch was just recently organized and hasn't had any new converts yet, so he really wants to help the branch grow and hopefully make it into a ward soon. That's a little ways off, but he said that because he now has that time in the morning he wants to meet with us, the Hmong missionaries, and teach us how to better teach the Hmong people, i.e. door approaches, how to phrase what we say, how to speak Hmong better and more respectfully, how to better teach to the people's hearts. Anyway, that is super exciting, and I'm so stoked and humbled by his goodness and desire to do missionary work. 

Needless to say, I was feeling a bit of pressure, and my Hmong is still really bad, Elder Gunsay does most of the talking, but anyway, we really made an emphasis to find Hmong people, and like I said earlier, teach families. On Wednesday, the day after our dinner with President Sai, we got a referral for a Hmong lady who was in our English ward boundaries. So we go there, her husband answers the door, and they sit down and explain to us how they were wanting to know more about Mormonism. They had requested a Bible and Book of Mormon, and then told us how they were looking for a religion other than the Old Culture (Shamanism) that they had previously been apart of. So then Elder Gunsay and I got super excited, taught the first lesson, but it was hard because they were not familiar with any of the concepts... but then at the end of the lesson, we were going to leave the commitment of praying to know what we said was true, but before we even invited them, Pang (that's his name) said pretty much to the effect of "yeah this stuff you've been telling us makes sense, and it seems like a good thing, but we're gonna have to do some praying about it and see if its the best thing to do for us" and inside I was like HECK YEAH, LETS GO BOYS, SOMEONE FINALLY GETS IT!!!!!!!!!! but I tried to stay calm on the outside, haha. Then they were super friendly and nice and invited us back and so needless to say, I am SO STOKED about them!! I don't know how many kids they have, but I know at least one over 10, so like this was the family I had been praying for!!! I was sooooo excited!!! Still am, haha. I really hope they continue progressing, and we're going to invite them to church this Sunday!

Also, Jasmine, probably our most promising investigator, came to the stake play with her husband! The whole stake put on like a high school quality play in the stake center. It was really amazing, haha. They did so good, and Jasmine loved it, so hopefully we will get them out to church this Sunday. That pretty much wraps up all the exciting stuff. Elder Gunsay and I are giving talks in the Hmong branch on Sunday. Halloween was fun. We came in early and discussed the religious freedom thing that President wanted us to over a good game of Risk, haha. I destroyed Elder Gunsay. I can't think of much else, but just know I'm safe and doing well and loving the mission. It's such an exciting time too! God answers prayers!! 

Love you all! Love, Elder Muaj Koob

 Thanks for the Halloween package!

Helping some people move with my district.

Good Ole Olivehurst

Spirit Paper. All the Hmong people hang this stuff up in their houses.

One of the many California fires

ANOTHER GREAT WEEK

October 30, 2017

Hey family! I'm still alive and well! don't worry, haha. This week was good, kinda weird though. We went on exchanges, I was with the zone leader and another elder in our district. They were both a good time, but I really like doing work in my own area, because when I leave then Elder Gunsay has to do all English work and I don't ever meet any of those people. It's fun though. We tried to do a lot of Hmong work this week, but tons of people weren't home. We did meet a new Hmong investigator though! It was super awkward because we found this old Hmong lady in Wheatland and we had set up this time to come back and meet with her and her family so we did and we went inside and then she just like kinda ignored us, haha, so we asked if any of her kids were home so we could teach the whole family and she got her like 16 year old daughter and she came out and then it was super awkward and silent for a little, but we had a good conversation with the daughter about God and Jesus and the Book of Mormon, and we gave her a BoM and now we're going back next week to see how she's doing on reading it! So that's pretty cool!

We've been working with another investigator named Jasmine who has been really promising and really has a strong testimony and for the past like month we've been trying to get her to come to church but she just kept having things come up and has not been able to make it, so that's frustrating. We're gonna keep trying though. Another problem we've kinda run into is that we don't really have any progressing investigators other than Jasmine. So that makes me sad sometimes too because like I really wanna be teaching people and helping them progress towards baptism but people just haven't really been using their agency like that, haha. They have a hard time committing to do things and then actually following through on them.  

Other stuff that happened, Elder Gunsay ripped huge holes in 2 pairs of his pants. It was hilarious. One was at a ward party thing and we were lifting some hay bales and he squatted down and that was the end of those pants, hahaha. So funny. And then today we were washing the truck and as he went to go get back in the truck, he split his other pants too, hahahaa. Needless to say, he's down to one pair of pants and we're gonna go shopping today. Our ward party thing was on Saturday. They had a chili cook off. They also had a competition to see who cooked the best chili, and guess who the judges were? Elder Gunsay and I. Yeah, just imagine me having to taste test 15 different kinds of chili. Not that fun, haha, But it's okay, the Lord strengthened me to meet my challenge, hahahaha. 

Cool meeting that happened on Saturday. They had a meeting with all of the stakes in northern California. Elder Rasband was there and talked. The topic was religious freedom and like how to protect it and what our rights are. It was good, but like I didn't even know that was in issue at all and still am not sure how I, as a missionary, can really help, but apparently its a hot topic and we will be talking about it more and figuring out ways to help protect religious freedom. Then on Sunday, the Hmong branch combined with the Marysville ward and a member of the Seventy came and spoke about trials because everyone had been close to the fire that happened in Lomarica. Elder Rasband went to the Lomarica ward and spoke there. It was really cool, and they had a linger longer with the whole ward after and there was so much good Hmong food, haha. But it was really cool to see them all speak. I don't know if I got too much out of it because I was trying to translate two of the talks, but it was a really cool experience! 

That's pretty much it for my week. Pretty normal week, not too much success but I love being a missionary! Thanks for all the support, love you guys. And thanks for the letters too! If you have any questions, I should have time to answer them today. Love you!

-Muaj Koob