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