MIRACLES

JANUARY 22, 2018

Hey family! Love you guys, this past week was great!!

Some awesome stuff happened this past week. I'll start with the best stuff yesterday. So we found a new investigator this past week who wanted to come to church yesterday, and Jasmine (who we put on date like 2 weeks ago) and her husband Michael were supposed to come, and another investigating family was too. We had a pretty high goal of having 6 people come to sacrament meeting, and we got there and waited outside and waited and waited and nobody showed up for Wheatland... it was pretty sad. Everyone had a problem come up and couldn't come, but once sacrament got going we noticed a guy who was in normal clothes, so we talked to him after and he had just come cuz he's been church hopping, and then another family who is half investigators came, and they have only come like one other time since I've been here!! So that was awesome! Then we went to the Hmong branch and the whole Xiong family came to church so we one upped our goal!!! And like they were all super tired and had had such a long day on Saturday, but they still came to church!!! It was an awesome day!!! 

Also yesterday, so this week we had made a goal to find a family to teach, because it's hard to find families that are interested but they're the best. Yesterday after church, one of the Niam Tais was going to go in for surgery the next day, so pretty much the whole branch went over to her house to give her a blessing, and she made a Hmong soup in this huuuuuuggeeee cannibal pot, haha, like so much good food, but we had an appointment and we had to leave before we could eat and we were super sad cuz we hadn't even had lunch yet and it was like 4:30. So we went to the appointment and she wasn't home so that made us sad. We debated whether or not to drive back up for the food,  but we had dinner at 6:00, so we decided to not and to go try to find that family for the one last hour we had for the week. We tried some former's, nothing was working. We had like 15 minutes left and found this street that was a little more ghetto for the area but still nice and we walked to the end of the street and maybe had time to knock 3 houses, and so we did and nobody answered. We had decided to knock the last door, so we did, and nobody answered again. Then we saw a house with the light on and someone in the window, so we decided "okay, one more won't hurt, we might just be a minute late to dinner." We knocked it, and a young guy answered the door and just invited us right in and offered us root beer. We briefly explained who we were and him and his wife explained how they recently moved and were looking for a church. They had two young kids and were just so nice and we got a return appointment on Tuesday.  God answered our prayer, and we found a family, and on top of that, the family was running a few minutes behind for dinner, so we weren't even late. It was a miracle! Like I've been waiting for some awesome experiences like that.

Lately I've been studying a lot of Mormon and Moroni's writings about miracles. They both talk about them a lot. Miracles are brought because of faith, and God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He performed miracles all throughout the scriptures because of the people's faith, and he will do the same today if we have faith. It is an awesome promise! I think I saw it fulfilled yesterday, besides my doubt.

In other news, we weren't able to meet with Jasmine or Allison this past week, the two people on date. But things should still work out. Allison is being baptized in about 2 weeks, so that is very exciting. Also, I've been dreaming in Hmong a lot lately. It's super weird. Like, I will meet random Hmong people in my dreams and then they will speak Hmong to me, except I still won't understand, haha. The weirdest dream was 2 nights ago. I dreamed that some white guy from the Seventy was giving me a blessing, but he gave it in Hmong, and I just didn't understand any of it, haha. So that's kinda cool I guess. 

I can't think of too much else... and I don't really have any more pictures. There's just nothing really picture worthy here, haha. I'm in the ghetto. But today we're getting together with the zone, so that will be fun! Love you guys so much, and I love sharing the Gospel! 

Love, Elder Muaj Koob

I forgot, heres a cool dog that has won a world championship is showmanship.

FUNNY, FOGGY AND FIXER UPPERS

JANUARY 15, 2018

Hello family! So this past week was pretty great! I'll start with some funny stories. 

First, last week we watched an old Hmong lady prune her bush using a butcher knife. it was pretty funny, haha.

Also, we went to go see a hmong guy who was in the area book but I hadn't met yet. So we knocked on his door and he tells us to come on in. So we do, and there's 3 white people sitting on the couch, and we faintly hear "oh, it's the Mormons." So we walk in, and he was meeting with JW's, hahaha. So we sat in for like 30 minutes of the lesson, and let me tell ya, it was one of the most comical things. He only speaks Hmong, but his wife speaks English. So the JW missionaries or whoever they were were super old and like would only speak English, haha. They would ask him a question and then throw in like one Hmong word and then expect him to understand, and then wouldn't even pay attention to his answer. One of them actually was pretty decent at Hmong, but they didn't let her speak at all, haha. They didn't let us speak at all, but I think they had been studying Hmong for many years and they were terrible. Like I'm not good, but holy cow, the gift of tongues is real. So that was a real testimony builder. Also, they like low-key tried to bash us, and the things they were teaching made no sense... like the doctrine itself they based on one bible verse that could be interpreted many different ways, and that was a huge testimony builder too, because holy cow this is the true church and the Book of Mormon clarifies everything. So we get up to leave early and the Hmong guy just starts talking to us in Hmong and then tells us to come back and it was funny. So we're going to try him again this upcoming week, but before the JWs get there, haha. 

Another funny story, so I left my food at the church in the kitchen in a bag for like 4 hours... came back to pick up my food, and there was a mouse in it! :) That was a pleasant surprise, haha. He ate my bread. We almost caught him, but he hid in the oven...

Oh also, last Monday night we met with some Muslims, the ones we met a few weeks ago. We gave them an Arabic Book of Mormon, and then the one guy asked us if we thought Jesus was going to die again. Well of course, we said no, but he thought that the title of the book said another killing of Jesus Christ... apparently in Arabic the word testament and the word killing are the same. So that was fun to explain it to him, haha. Hopefully he will read it. 

This past week we had interviews, which was awesome. That was pretty much all of Friday. The interview was good, but after we were sitting with Sister Ward and we had a lesson with Jasmine and Michael Booth (who we have been working with since I got to the mission field. Every week for a while we've said we were going to put her on date, but issues have come up, and they have some word of wisdom issues, and maybe law of chastity, but they are married). Anyway, so we told Sister Ward we were going to put them on date and she says "Let's say a prayer" so of course we did, and let her pray and then we went to the lesson, taught the Plan of Salvation, and then we committed Jasmine to be on date!!!! It was amazing!! She's going to be baptized Feb. 24, and then we told Sister Ward, and she was super happy and told us how the Lord answers our specific prayers. It was a great day!

Other than that.... we had a ton of lessons fall through this week, and only one investigator came to church, but it was still a great week! And these next few weeks should be great too!! 

The weather has been great lately. It rains a little bit off and on, and every morning is sooooo foggy. It's awesome. Never colder than like 50 though so it's great. Also, a nice Hmong lady gave us a cool Hmong tie yesterday too. 

Oh, something else that was cool, the girls will like this. For the past like month, we've been helping this nonmember named Tim with a fixer upper house, and by fixer upper, I mean the house was a piece of trash and we've torn out the yard, the walls, and the floor, and this past week we worked on the floor. So picture like all those fixer upper shows that you guys love, and then just picture this house being so much worse, but we're doing the same thing. So that's pretty cool. Can't think of anything else. They let us leave for P-day today, so that is fun. We are all about to play basketball together now. 

Love you all!

Love, Elder Muaj Koob

FINDING THE HMONG

JANUARY 8, 2018

Hello family! Hope you guys are all doing great! Thanks for the emails!! This past week was great! Here's some of the highlights.

So we had another lesson with Pheng and Mai, and we taught their two kids the restoration. This lesson they only spoke Hmong though and it was way tough. But, they had made some new years goals to obey all the commandments!! So that was awesome, and it's so amazing to see them like become more and more converted as time has passed. Pheng had been like not the most committed to the whole church thing, but this week things changed for him and he's super committed now! So that's awesome!

On Friday, we had a lesson with Mai's parents. They're old culture, so this was like a pretty big deal. We don't teach old Hmong people very much, at least not people who actually want to learn about Christianity. They only spoke Hmong, and this week I realized that I actually understand a lot, but I just can't speak it very well, and I don't really understand specifics, but it's coming, very slowly. We brought the branch president, and he did most of the talking. It seems like Mai's mom wants to convert from old culture, but her dad is pretty... well, stuck in his ways. But, we are going back again this Friday and will continue to meet with them, so anything can happen, especially if he feels the spirit!!

We had another lesson with Allison, the girl on date. We covered the Law of Chastity... she's 9. We let her mom do most of the talking, haha. Things are still looking good for her baptism though, and her 8 year old brother might get baptized too!!

We've been meeting with a Pentecostal guy named Steve. He hasn't come to church yet, but he committed to come to a baptismal service yesterday! It had to get moved, but hey, he still committed, so that's cool! 

Had another lesson with Mai and Pheng this morning. Covered the priesthood and the Law of Chastity. It was a good lesson. Mai fasted yesterday, even though they weren't able to make it to church so that was pretty amazing. She did it of her own free will and accord. 

Sunday, we had invited a bunch of people to come to church, and a lot of less actives did come! Even this really, really old lady named Maryellen who has investigated for eternity! So that was really cool too!

That's most of the cool stuff that happened this week, idk, i cant think of anything else. Today we sent out a ton of pics to everyone explaining how to find a Hmong house, so hopefully the other elders and sisters in our zone will find some people who are Hmong! Here are the pictures:

HAPPY NEW YEAR

JANUARY 1, 2018

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! Hope you guys all had a great time celebrating and what not. We just played a little Catan because we had to be in early. But it has been an AWESOME WEEK!! Sure, there was still highs and lows...  but i think i can say this is the first week that I feel like the numbers have actually matched how hard we've worked. We found 6 new investigators (3 of which were Muslim), had 5 people came to sacrament (the whole Xiong family came) and.... drum roll please.... SOMEONE IS ON DATE!!!!! SUPER EXCITING!!!! I'm so pumped!!! Her name is Allison Parks, and she is 9 years old, but her mom didn't want her to get baptized at 8 because she wanted her to learn and choose for herself. Allison is amazing and has wanted to get baptized for the past like 3 months, but it hasn't been planned because her parents are divorced, but now it's working out!! Feb. 3, and I am SO EXCITED FOR HER!!! Like, she LOVES the missionaries! She wants to be one when she grows up, and it's amazing. We gave her the kids picture BoM, like the one with like 50 chapters... and she read the whole thing in under a month!!! Like she is the most amazing little girl, except my sisters of course, but I'm so excited for her!!

Other exciting stuff, so this Saturday we have a meeting (hopefully) with Mai's parents, who are Old Culture, and hopefully will convert over!! Exciting, exciting stuff happening. This past week consisted mostly of just going to see people and having lessons and lots of finding time.

So the Muslims ... we just knocked on their door, the guy was super nice and let us in, and then we had a good talk. It was crazy. The lesson ended when their prayer clock was going off. They said we could come back though, so that's awesome. 

Also we had another lesson with the Thao kids, in the picture. They are amazing too, but probably moving to Texas soon, so that's kinda sad. The Thao kids are just some kids we've been going to see every week that are partial members, but their parents aren't active, but they believe in God so it's been awesome seeing them every week. 

The Xiong family attends the Hmong branch. Pheng and Mai speak Hmong but their kids don't. The Hmong branch combines primary with the Marysville ward so their kids have English primary, and they just sit there during Sacrament meeting.

Also, I don't know why but my back still bothers me more than it should. probably because we sit down so much. I'm trying to do my back exercises morning and night so hopefully that will help. 

I'm looking forward to the new year!! It should be great. Here are some of my new year's resolutions:

1. READ THE BOOK OF MORMON EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!! I'm actually pretty committed to this one. I love the Book of Mormon so so so much, like its so helpful for me in my life and it's what I'm telling people about, so my goal is to read it every day, even if not very much at a time. If you're looking for a good book, I highly recommend it, hahahaha.

2. GAIN 20 POUNDS (of good weight, like not fat but muscle). When I started the mission I was like 143. Then a few months ago I was like 152 or so. and this morning I was 144. So my weight fluctuates a lot and I don't have a very active lifestyle here, but I have 30 minutes every day so I'm gonna make the most of it and not eat very much sugar. I also can't really cook worth anything, so it's gonna be hard to eat healthy.

3. So this is pretty cool that I thought of, or at least I think it's cool. So in one the of books for missionaries, it talks about Jesus Christ and His attributes, and it lists 9 of them. So for the first 9 months of the year, I'm going to focus on 1 per month and develop that in myself each day, hopefully, until... well, until forever. But the goal is to become more like Christ :) Here's the list in the order I'm doing it: 

Jan: Diligence

Feb: Charity and Love

Mar: Hope

Apr: Faith 

May: Obedience

Jun: Humility

Jul: Patience

Aug: Virtue

Sep: Knowledge

So that will be lots of fun. I'm excited.

4. I wanna be better at following promptings. Like sometimes, I'll get the thought "hey, go talk to that guy" and I won't cuz I don't like just starting conversations, so I'm gonna get better at that and conversing with people. 

So yeah those are my goals. It should be a great new year as a missionary!! Sad I wont see you guys at all, but it's for a good cause!! Bye mom and dad, love you!!!

FIRST CHRISTMAS IN THE MISSION FIELD

DECEMBER 25, 2017

First Christmas in the field has been kind of sad. Like it was great talking to you guys... but I'm still stuck here and we just sat at home and played monopoly and made some hot chocolate. Then we went to our dinner appointment. Dinner was good. It was with Sister Caldwell, an old lady in the ward and her neighbor. She's super nice. It was... pretty good I guess. Super kind of her. That ended up being like 3 hours though, they just talked to each other so much, haha. Yeah, wishing I could do something or be home, but I'm really not very homesick, so that's good. Anyway, goodnight, Merry Christmas. Love you so much dad and mom and the girls. Thanks so much for everything you do for me!

 Christmas Morning

 Skyping with the family

The Panini Maker is already coming in handy

NYOB ZOO CHRISTMAS

DECEMBER 18, 2017

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been a minute, but I'm still alive and preaching the gospel! Definitely have seen some miracles as I've been serving, even though we haven't been able to baptize anyone. The Hmong family we're working with won't be able to be baptized anytime soon because the dad's dad wants them to stay Old Culture until he dies... so that is kinda sad, but they are still progressing and preparing and praying, and it is amazing to see the positive impact it has had! 

In other news, I still don't really know Hmong. I'm getting kinda good at pretending like I know what people are talking about, but as soon as they ask a question it's tough, haha. But I've come a long way from the MTC, so constantly improving!

I finished training this past week, and transfers are tomorrow, but I'm staying in Wheatland with my trainer. There are only 2 areas that Hmong elders can go to, so we will probably be companions here together for a good little while, hahaha. The Hmong branch is awesome though, they feed us lots of good food and take real good care of us. 

With Christmas coming up, I want to invite everyone to remember why we have Christmas!! What better time to remember our Savior and everything that he did and continues to do for us than this season!! 

I love Christ, and I love being a missionary! Happy Holidays!

Elder Muaj Koob 

 Cool festive firetruck

This is a Hmong door. If you see anything like this back home, 

knock it and say nyob zoo

 Homie District

Lovin the apron

HEY FAMILY

DECEMBER 11, 2017

Hey family!  Still alive out here, doing well!! Thanks for all of the emails! It sounds like everyone is doing well. That's good to hear! I'm excited for Christmas. It's coming up pretty quick!! Anyway, this week was actually pretty eventful. I led out all the planning and teaching for the week as part of my training, and Elder Gunsay didn't help too much so it was pretty much all me for planning and like running all the lessons. Kinda stressful sometimes, but it was a good week! I think I'll just go day by day.

Tuesday: So Tuesday we spent a lot of time finding people. In the spirit of light the world, we saw an old Hmong lady on the street unloading her car, so we pulled over and helped her carry some huge things of rice and gigantic pots into her backyard, and then talked to her for a little bit after. It was awesome! Also, we went and saw some other people and what not.

Wednesday: District meeting. As a district, we've been really struggling to hit our goals this transfer. Idk why, it's weird, but still doing well. Also, we met a few more new Hmong people. They weren't necessarily interested, but they didn't slam the door on us. They actually talked to us so that was cool.

Thursday: Highlight of Thursday was going to Yuba college with Elder Fahrni and Elder Bishop and doing a finding booth for light the world during lunch time. There wasn't very many people walking around, and it wasn't the most effective, but Sister Ward wanted us to try it, and we met a member so that was pretty cool. We also had a good lesson with Karen Wortham and her sister, Kristen. Karen is an investigator who used to go to church a while ago, but had some problems with the people, but now said we could teach the missionary lessons!!! So that's awesome!

Friday: So Friday we had a lesson with Mai and Pang. It was a good lesson, we brought a member and taught the Word of Wisdom, and what's amazing is that they were already trying to live the Word of Wisdom for the past 2 weeks!! And like, Mai would drink a cup of coffee every morning, and now she's not!! Amazing!! Also, they are like saying prayers as a family, and they went to church last week in Sacramento and are just doing awesome. Unfortunately, Pang's dad talked to all of his sons 2 weekends ago and said that his dying wish is for all of them to keep doing Old Culture, but then after that they can do whatever they want... so meanless to say, baptism is a little ways off. Pang is only like in his 30s, and I would bet his dad is only like 60 maybe... but Pres. Ward had some good advice, he said as long as they are praying, reading their scriptures, and going to church, everything will work out, so that's what we are really trying to help them do! And actually that lesson was on Thursday, haha. 

Friday: We had interviews with Pres. Ward!! It was awesome. He gave me some great advice. He talked about Christ, when He told the disciples to move the net to the other side of the boat, after they had fished all night, and they caught 153 fish (John 21 vs 1-6). Pretty much, there hasn't been a convert baptism that's Hmong for like a year... anywhere in the mission. So like Hmong work is pretty.. well... stalled I guess, but President Ward shared that analogy and told me pretty much like "Look, I know there are fish out there. There are Hmong people who God has prepared. I'm evidence of that, because if there wasn't any work to do, then they wouldn't keep sending Hmong missionaries." So that was really motivating, and Elder Gunsay and I have been trying to figure out how to find better. Right now, we're using the phone book and looking up Hmong last names. 

Saturday: We did some finding, also went to the Vang family Christmas party. It was awesome!! A lot like the thanksgiving party, but for Christmas, haha. They got us presents too!! I got a super cool Hmong tie. It is awesome. The only problem is they like tell us to come at 12-1 so we get there at 1 and don't eat till 3. Its tough, but a good time. Then that night we had stake conference, the adult session. Mai came and we met her there! It was so awesome, she is amazing!!! Pang is too, but he had work and couldn't make it.

Sunday: Stake conference. Elder J. Scott Dorius presided, and Pres. Ward spoke. It was amazing. They both gave such great talks about the fundamental basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then after, we had like 3 hours to find. And last weekly planning, we made the goal for this week of finding 3 new investigators, and this was my week to lead everything, so I really extra wanted to meet those goals. But by Sunday, we hadn't found any, even though we had spent much time finding. But then on Sunday, in that time we had, we found 3 new investigators! 2 of which were Hmong!! It was amazing, really a miracle because of all the time we had spent finding earlier. That's pretty much most of the highlights of the week. We still haven't put anyone on date, but that is ok. I'm just going to keep trying to be exactly obedient, and do what I can to help and invite others. 

Oh also, I found out that I'm probably not training, so that is comforting. Elder Gunsay will probably leave though. We will find out next Sunday. It's kinda sad, but to everything there is a season, and his time here has been long. I just hope I get to stay here. I'm really now getting settled into everything, and the work is starting to pick up. Anyway, love you guys! 

HELLO FAMILY

DECEMBER 4, 2017

First things first, thanks so much for the pizza, the music and flash drive, and the Christmas package!!! It was all great! We got the pizza Friday night, and everything worked out really well! Then, the package came Saturday and we put up the tree and are really excited to give out all those little tiny stockings. We have a lot of kids who will like that! Thanks so much, love you guys.

So this past week, not too much happened. Our teaching pool is kind of small right now because we've been dropping a lot of people who aren't interested or don't really care about what we're teaching. So now most of our investigators are English too, which is tough. The Hmong people just typically aren't very interested. I think maybe we're doing something wrong. We decided that now for Hmong door approaches, we're gonna ask them to teach us about their culture, cuz as soon as we say God or Jesus Christ, they typically shut down, or say they are CMA (which is a different christian church that has a Hmong branch) and then, like what are we supposed to say? "Yeah, you're church is wrong." No. Like a lot of Hmong people say they are Christian cuz when they came to America, everyone is Christian so they just did that, or like it's all one God, we're good. And then they respectfully close the door. So now we're just gonna ask to learn about their culture, or at least learn more Hmong, cuz at least then they will talk to us, cuz right now they aren't really, haha.

In other news, we weren't able to meet with Mai and Pang this past week because of their crazy work schedule, but we're meeting again with them tomorrow! Also, they said they were gonna go to church in Sacramento yesterday with his brother, so we called the missionaries in the north Sacramento branch, and I actually got to briefly talk to Elder Tayler!! But they said they didn't see them at church. So anyway, we'll find out tomorrow. But this past week, we met with Michael and Jasmine at a member's house and had a good lesson about repentance. It was good! Also, we had a lesson with a woman named Karen, who has been investigating for like 3 years, but just now decided to allow missionaries to teach the lessons again, so that is pretty exciting! It's kinda tough because no one has been on date the whole time I've been in the area, after Dalton got baptized, but we have big hopes and good plans for this week! Hopefully we'll be able to put Mai and Pang on date! 

Funny story, so on Friday night our appointment fell through and there was like a big Christmas celebration going on in downtown Wheatland... and Wheatland has population of like 3000. It's so tiny. So of course, we had to go check it out and try to talk to people. Man, it's hard to talk to people here. So many people just don't really care about what we have to say. We tried to pass out a lot of "Light the World" cards, but some people would just say no, or a few others actually took it, but didn't really care. It's tough just going around and talking about the gospel to people like that. That's probably one of my biggest struggles right now, opening up my mouth and talking to everyone. But anyway, the first person we found and went up to talk to was a JW and was super rude, and then her daughter, who is probably like 16, asks us if we believe in the Old Testament or the New Testament, so we said both and thought maybe she was interested... But then, with all seriousness and a little crazily asks "is the earth flat or round?" We just looked at her and she repeated her question, to which I said "Is this a trick question?" and she just asked again, so I said "Last I checked, the world was round" and she starts to go off about how the first page of the bible says that the earth is flat. Her mom shut her up and we walked away, but it was pretty funny. We just laughed, cuz like, I'm fairly certain JW's believe in the bible too, haha. But anyway, that was pretty much my week, most of it that I can remember. I can't think of too much else.

I get to lead this week out as part of my training, which means I make all the decisions really, so that will be interesting. Oh also, we had zone conference, and Elder Dube came. It was awesome. He talked a lot about obedience, and I got to meet the other 3 Hmong elders. It was awesome! I really learned a lot, but it's hard applying the things I've learned. But I'm trying!

Love you, Elder Muaj Koob

 Merry Christmas, haha

HAPPY LATE THANKSGIVING FAMILY

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

Hey family! Happy few days late Thanksgiving! I hope you guys ate a lot of food. It looked like a real fun time with everyone and the turkey shoot and what not. I missed you guys, but it was a great week! Not numbers wise, nobody came to sacrament, we still don't have anyone on date, and we only found 1 new investigator, but it was still a great week. 

Tuesday: We met with the Xiong family, Mai and Pheej and Kennith and Carissa. It was awesome, they are really progressing, and working towards baptism! They don't have a date yet, but they are still awesome and progressing. The kids didn't have school this whole week cuz of thanksgiving, more on them later. I can't really remember too much else from Tuesday, so i guess that was the most important thing. 

Wednesday: I went on exchanges with the new zone leader, Elder Goodman. It was a good time. I went to his area and learned a lot, except we didn't have any lessons. Mostly just contacting, haha. Still a good time though. We found a Hmong house while we were in Yuba City, so we knocked it and started talking to the guy in English, cuz he was younger and obviously spoke English to us, cuz we're white, but then I asked him a question in Hmong and he just said "ha nice try. Almost perfect." He was mean and he didn't really want to talk to us. So that was discouraging, but hey at least I'm trying to learn his language. 

Thursday: Thursday was great! We woke up and went to a turkey bowl with Elder bishop and Elder Farhni's ward, cuz our ward didn't do anything. It was a great time. I caught an interception. After that, we went to Pheej and Maiv's house again! When we were setting up a time to come back on Tuesday, they just said Thursday, and we weren't even really supposed to go see anyone or anything, so it was great! We got there at like 10 in the morning and THEY FED US THANKSGIVING DINNER FOR LUNCH!!!! They are literally the nicest people, like we met them 3 weeks ago and they had us over on Thanksgiving and made us a Hmong feast because they knew we wouldn't be with our families on Thanksgiving. It was amazing. I love them so much. And then we taught a good lesson, and then Maiv and Pheej taught Kennith how to pray, and he said the closing prayer and I almost cried I was so happy. Like, that's why I left you guys, so I could help other families like them. Then later that day we went to a Miskas (American) thanksgiving dinner with a member and their whole family, and played games for pretty much the whole day cuz we weren't supposed to proselyte. Great day, didn't have any good rolls, but still pretty good food.

Friday: Weekly planned for the morning, then went and saw some people, showed the light the world video to people. Just typical missionary work.

Saturday: Today was a great day. We went and saw Mai and Pheej's family AGAIN!!!  We talked about baptism, and it was exciting because they want to get baptized, and Pheej decided to talk to his dad at a family party yesterday about it, so were really hoping that worked out well. Also, we haven't even got to talking about the word of wisdom yet, but Mai has mentioned that she drinks coffee every morning right to wake up. So we were talking about baptism and she told us how she had decided to finish the thing of coffee packets that she had, and then to not buy any more, and she was already 3 days into not drinking coffee. WE HADN'T EVEN TAUGHT THE WORD OF WISDOM YET. THESE PEOPLE ARE AMAZING!!!!! I'M LITERALLY SO EXCITED FOR THEM :)))) Also, she thought that anything with caffeine in it was bad, so Kennith wanted like a Pepsi and Mai said no because it was against the WoW, but he didn't like that too much but did it anyway. So when we told them that caffeine was actually okay, he lit up and this look of "I told you so" went all across his face, haha. It was awesome. Then we also met with Jasmine. It had been a while, and we talked about baptism with her. She has some work to do but wants to get baptized so we're working for that. Exciting stuff!

Sunday: Well, nobody came to sacrament meeting. Mai and Phang had a big family party that's for the new year and a really big deal in Hmong culture, so they couldn't make it but next week! Also, we went to a Hmong congregation of a different church! We have been meeting with the leader of the congregation every week cuz he's been wanting to learn more about our church and how it's run. He may not be super wanting to learn for the right reasons, but we'll teach him. So that was fun. Picture like what a pastor would normally do, but now he's speaking Hmong. I didn't really feel the spirit there, haha. That's pretty much my week. Love you guys!!!

Thanksgiving dinner with the Xyoojs. Some normal food, stuffing with noodles, the best egg rolls ever, and some interesting Korean noodle stuff, but it wasn't bad, haha.

NYOB ZOO

NOVEMBER 20, 2017

Nyob zoo tsev neeg! Hope everyone is doing well! This past week was alright.. maybe not the best week ever, but still good! I'll just go day by day I guess.

Tuesday:I don't even remember really what happened this day... So I guess it wasn't too good of a day, haha. Still fun though cuz I love being a missionary. 

Wednesday: This was the day that I took over the area with Elder Bishop. We had a good time, haha. We had set up the day so that I would have tons of do and we'd have lots of good lessons... and we did, we had a great lesson with Maiv and Pheej in the morning. But then after that literally everything fell through. We ended up tracting and contacting formers for about an hour... 30 minutes of that in the pouring rain, haha. But luckily Elder Bishop is super cool and we both had good attitudes, so it was a good time. Then we had dinner with the Xyooj family. They're pretty old and only speak Hmong... and Elder Bishop doesn't know Hmong, haha. It was a good time. I actually understood a lot more than I thought I would... still not as much as I wish I could understand, but more, haha. That was pretty much Wednesday, but it was really fun to actually be able to like lead a conversation in Hmong, cuz most of the time Elder Gunsay just talks to people.

Thursday: Another day that everything fell through, haha. It was a rough week because all of our lessons and contact attempts and plans didn't work out, but still a good time.

Friday: District meeting and weekly planning. District meeting was fun to meet the new sisters. I still don't really know who they are, but they all seem cool. They weren't very talkative though, which made district meeting more quiet than usual, but that's okay. Dinner also fell through on Friday, haha.

Saturday: I think most of our plans fell through on this day too. BUT, WE GOT DINNER!!! And oh boy, did we get dinner. The whole Vang family got together, and they are pretty much most of the people in the branch. They invited us over for dinner and it was like their Thanksgiving!! It was awesome. Hmong people LOVE food, so there was SO MUCH food, haha. That's what the picture is of. I'm pretty sure that most of the ladies had worked like all day to make all this food. But meanless to say it was all delicious and they let us take some home and the branch is just super awesome and super kind to us.

Sunday: Mai and Pang came to church!!! They brought their two kids, and they came with their cousin who is a member from Sacramento. The whole branch really stepped up in making them feel welcome and comfortable. The branch was organized about a year ago, and I think this may have been the first time a new investigator has even like come to church, so it was really awesome and got everyone pumped about missionary work! We had like 3 people come up to us after sacrament meeting and say they wanted to help fellowship, haha!!! And their kids made friends with some of the kids there too, so we're really hoping they will want to come back! All in all, it was a great day, even though dinner cancelled, haha. We also got to watch the face to face event with Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard. That was really good. 

That's probably most of what's been going on the past little bit, but I would really encourage all of you to make time to READ THE BOOK OF MORMON!!!!! I love it so much, it is truly the word of God to us in these days. I promise that it will help with any problem, I've seen it in my own life, and I've seen it in the lives of the people we teach, I love the Book of Mormon! Please, find time to read it! 

Love you all, thanks so much for the support and emails and love! I'm thankful for each of you and all you do for me and all you have done to help me get on a mission! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the best, and I'm grateful to Heavenly Father and Christ for the opportunity to be a missionary. Love you all!! 

Love, Elder Muaj Koob

A Hmong Door

INVESTIGATOR'S AT CHURCH

NOVEMBER 13, 2017

Hey mom and dad!! I hope you guys are having a great time on your cruise!!! Soak it all in. Vacations are awesome. You don't realize how nice they are until you never get a vacation or a day off, ever, haha. I guess p-day is kinda like a day off, but not really. First off, thanks so much for the package with the sweaters and the food!!! I really love the sweaters, its super nice to have them, and we have so much food now!! It's so great. Thanks so much. Also, I got 2 packages from Walmart. There was a lot of good food in them. Grocery shopping today is gonna be real easy, haha. 

So this past week was super exciting. It was a great week. I don't know if anything really crazy happened, but Mai and Pang and their two kids came to church yesterday!!! It was so awesome! It made me realize how weird everything we do in church would be if I didn't know anything about it, haha. Like they didn't know anything about the church before we taught them last week, and then they went to church yesterday in the English ward. It was awesome. Next week, they're gonna come to the Hmong ward for the whole 3 hours. It's awesome. Also, I invited them to be baptized last Friday. They didn't commit cuz they needed to talk to Pangs dad about it, cuz that's one thing with Hmong people. Family is like the most important thing to them, and they don't really do anything unless they talk to the family about it, but still, exciting stuff. They said they thought they would work towards baptism, so that's sweet. Also, this other investigator that was the most promising didn't come to church, so that was sad, but oh well. 

Also I gave a talk in the Hmong branch yesterday. I talked for like 20 minutes cuz Elder Gunsay and I were the only speakers. My topic was tithing. It was crazy, probably a bad talk because I don't think I spoke very clearly, but oh well. It was a good experience still. 

Last Monday night, we met with a member and he had made a whole chain mail vest. It was awesome. I'll send a picture. Also, I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. They were way good. We gave some to our neighbor Ruby. She watches out for us and packages and stuff. 

Also last week, we ate with a Samoan family, and oh my heck, I understand how they are all so big now, haha. We had ribs, sausage, and they made wings but forgot to bring them out, haha. They gave us a ton of extra food too. Way nice.

Cory's wedding looked fun. I wish I could've been there with everyone, but it's a good thing that I'm out here. Transfers are this Tuesday, so I have now made it 1 whole transfer. We're getting 3 new sisters in our district too, and a new zone leader, so that will be fun. After next transfer, I'm done being trained and Elder Gunsay will probably leave cuz he's been here forever. Then we're getting 1 new Hmong elder, but there will only be 4 of us and 3 areas to cover. So that either means I'll probably be with someone who only speaks English or training the new missionary after this new transfer. It's kinda scary. My language skills are nowhere near where they need to be, but oh well. God will help me do whatever He needs me to do, I guess. Also this last week on Thursday was 5 week training with all the trainers and trainees. It made me wish I was in the MTC with all those guys, cuz I didn't really know any of the people that I had come out with, but I've made good friends in the district, so its fun.I think that's pretty much it. I'm gonna play some basketball right now, but I'll email you guys back later. Any questions? 

Love you mom and dad. Thanks for all you do. 

There are orchards everywhere.

The Chain Mail Vest