HELLO FAMILY

MARCH 12, 2018

Hello family!!! Hope you are all doing well. Sounds like everyone's having fun with no school this week. Sometimes I wish I got a vacation, but it's all good, haha. This past week was definitely a roller coaster of a week. Definitely one of the tougher weeks, but here's what I did.

Monday night was really awesome. We found like 3 new Hmong people in Marysville, which was awesome because we never go to Marysville. We decided to go back and see them all on Saturday and hopefully teach them. 

Tuesday, we pretty much just tried to contact people and find, not too much success. We had a lesson with a Hmong guy, Npliag Neeb Vaj. He's way cool. At the start, we asked him if he would be willing to hais kws txhiaj for us (basically like sing some real funny sounding Hmong music. I'm gonna learn how to sing it, haha) and usually people say no but he like spent 30 minutes and sang and taught us, which was cool. Then he fed us lunch which was cool. Also, we helped Tim again. I can't even really remember what we did though. All the weeks are blending together. 

Wednesday was zone conference. It was pretty awesome!! It was just in Yuba City, so that was really nice. I learned a lot. The theme of the conference was basically being a representative of Jesus Christ, which was really cool. I prepared a talk (in Hmong) but didn't have to give it. I learned a lot though cuz like as a representative of Jesus Christ I have to do what He did, love everyone like He did. Good stuff like that. The other 2 Hmong elders were there too, so that was a good time. We did a practice teach with them and it was rough. Me and the new elder both aren't very good at Hmong, haha. 

Thursday, we had district meeting, knocked a lot of doors and met a cool Cambodian guy named Sock. He was almost baptized way back when but didn't. He looked pretty scary but was actually a way nice guy, so we're gonna go back and see him. Probably one of the most spirit-filled lessons I've had yet was on Thursday. We went back and saw the lady who came to church last week, Maribell. She's had a lot of problems in her life, and we brought a member who has had similar problems, and it went really well. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ, and at the end of the lesson committed her to be baptized!!! So hopefully that will be happening in April. But the Spirit was really strong in that lesson. I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and can help everyone. 

Friday, we had weekly planning, and it took like 5 hours. It was crazy. Felt like the spirit really guided it though, so that was good. After that, we tried to contact some more people... who weren't home, haha. But we did have a really good dinner out in Camp Far West. That was fun. Tried some more contacts after dinner, and had a good lesson with Pedro, who we met like 4 months ago who has been trying to come back to church. 

Saturday was set up to be the best day ever. I was so excited for it all week, to go and get like a ton of new investigators, and we had 3 set lessons with all our progressing investigators, and it was gonna be great! Unfortunately, plans don't always turn out... we tried to contact 15 people (3 of them were the people we met Monday) and only like 3 people were home, but none of them were available. So it was a really slow day. Pretty discouraging, but I've been studying hope lately so trying to have a good attitude!

Sunday, we had 2 people who weren't members come to church!! Maribell didn't come though... and she doesn't have a phone, so it is like impossible to communicate with her... hopefully she can still progress. But Sunday was still a good day. Didn't meet anyone new, but had a good dinner with a Hmong member, and had a cool lesson with a Hmong lady. Apparently she had read a lot of the Book of Mormon (which was awesome!!!!) but when we read it with her she really struggled to understand... but she read!!! So no complaints! 

All in all, not gonna lie, this was one of the tougher weeks, but that's ago, it's bound to happen every now and again! I'm kinda getting tired of having everything the same though... like I've been in the same area with the same companion for over 5 months now.. but on the bright side, transfers are a week from Tuesday and something is going to change with the Hmong elders. There are so many options. This is like the most exciting Hmong transfer ever. Not that I don't like Elder Gunsay, he is great, but things have been the same for so long! 

Recently I've been studying a lot about hope, and I really like the way Elder Uchtdorf puts it in this talk. Really profound. 

"Faith, hope, and charity complement each other, and as one increases, the others grow as well. Hope comes of faith, for without faith, there is no hope. In like manner faith comes of hope, for faith is “the substance of things hoped for.”

Hope is critical to both faith and charity. When disobedience, disappointment, and procrastination erode faith, hope is there to uphold our faith. When frustration and impatience challenge charity, hope braces our resolve and urges us to care for our fellowmen even without expectation of reward. The brighter our hope, the greater our faith. The stronger our hope, the purer our charity.

                                                                

The things we hope for lead us to faith, while the things we hope in lead us to charity. The three qualities—faith, hope, and charity—working together, grounded on the truth and light of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, lead us to abound in good works."

                                               

I love this quote because we always read in the scriptures, like faith, hope and charity, but I never thought about how they are all related. Also, before this he talks about how faith and hope and charity are all like a leg of a three-legged stool that is the foundation upon which we can have a lot of good works. So I  thought that was really cool. My invitation for you guys is to look at ways you can have more hope in Christ! That's what I'm trying to do through this past tough week at least. Love you guys!! 

Love, Elder Muaj Koob

This is what we did for service, I remembered. Put in this palm tree. Also, that dog is a world champion.

 Comp study in the mothers lounge.

 We tried to take a really epic missionary picture, but it just looks like were holding hands, haha.

 Had some good breakfast this morning at Duke's Diner with a member.

 This cat really just loved me. I still hate cats though.

Took some pics with the Xiong family cuz Elder Gunsay is probably headed out.

7 MONTHS AND LOTS OF RAIN

MARCH 5, 2018

Hey family! I hit 7 months a few days ago, so that's pretty cool. This past week was really great though! 

Last Tuesday was a pretty good day. We did a lot of finding and contacting, nothing too crazy though. We had dinner with Michael and Jasmine though, which was way nice because they are pretty tight on money. Also, she made a homemade cheesecake and we stopped going no sugar!  So it's been nice to have treats again I guess, haha. I'll probably get fat now but it will be fun. Also, we went on exchanges with the zone leaders!! So that was awesome, cuz we didn't get to last transfer. I was with Elder Moon, and he is a really awesome missionary! That was for all day Wednesday. I took over the area and Elder Moon was with me, and we had district meeting and then a few lessons and some time to find. I really learned a lot from Elder Moon's example. He's been out 18 months now and is a great missionary! Also, I got to drive the truck! First time I had driven in almost 7 months, it was so much fun!! Nothing too crazy happened Wednesday, mostly just typical missionary work. We did have dinner with the branch president though, and his wife made some bomb pho. I ate way too much though. That's a big thing with Hmong people, they really like it when you eat a lot. 

So then on Thursday, we did some service for a less active lady named Julie, who actually came to church this week!!! But anyways, we took her old sofa to the dump, and then took a picture because it's not everyday you go to the dump. We then decided to do some finding in Marysville, which we don't normally do, but we met 2 new Hmong people!!! One of them said we can come back. She said she had just turned away from Old Culture, so that's awesome! Hoping good stuff will happen with that! Had dinner with Tong and Lee, they sign up every other Thursday night, and they make such good Hmong food. Anyways, not really too much to report from a lot of these days, but there was some cool stuff this week.

Friday, we weekly planned and then ended up doing some free moving for someone. She wasn't interested in the gospel but needed help, so we helped her with that. Then we finished weekly planning, and it just took so long. Most of the day was just planning. But this week should be awesome and filled with the Spirit!! We had dinner with a Hmong couple in the branch, and they made Mexican food, which was a surprise but it was good. After dinner, they told us stories about Laos and it was cool to listen, even though I didn't understand that much. 

Saturday, we had planned to have a bunch of lessons and lots of time to find. It was going to be great. We tried a less active lady right in the morning who we had never really been able to meet before, and when we went over she was really having a rough morning and needed help so we ended up just changing clothes and helping her for a little bit. We like built this makeshift pen thing for her horses because it had been raining so much and they needed to be in the barn. After that, we didn't have nearly as much time as we had planned for, but it was ok. We made it work. Originally, we didn't have a dinner, so we ate at this Mexican place in downtown Olivehurst and it was actually way good. They served so much food so we were pretty much just going to skip dinner. We had a good lesson with Juan Yaguaca and his family after that. The Spanish sisters came and taught the Plan of Salvation to Juan's wife cuz she only speaks Spanish, and it went really well! Unfortunately, Juan works a lot, so he can't come to church much. After that, we had a bomb lesson with the Xiong's. We taught them how to do family home evening, and then did a fun activity and brought the cookies you sent me like a month ago mom, haha. They were still good! But it was lots of fun, and then they came to church the next day too! After that, we decided to go see a less active Hmong lady we hadn't seen in a really long time, the one who gave us Hmong ties for Christmas! So we go and have a lesson and are about to leave and she asks us who we are having dinner with and we say just at home by ourselves and she proceeds to feed us literally like the biggest servings possible of everything they had for dinner. It was awesome, but I was still full from lunch. Like picture one of those huge, oval Dixie plates filled with rice and a bunch of meat and chicken. It was really good, just so much food. I literally prayed to have the room to eat all of it. Luckily the carrot cake had walnuts though so I didn't have to eat that. Funny story, so on the English dinner calendar we write no walnuts for obvious reasons, but on the Hmong dinner calendar, we don't worry about it. Well, Friday night, they brought out some banana muffins and they looked really good so I was about 2 bites into it when I began to get suspicious... sure enough, it had walnuts in it. They grow so many walnuts here that all the people in California love to put them in like everything. Meanless to say, I took an allergy pill and was fine, but I learned my lesson. 

Sunday was an awesome day! As a missionary, I am always so worn out by Sunday that I always look forward to taking the sacrament. It truly does give me the energy I need to keep going and doing the work. But anyway, we weren't gonna have any investigators come to the Wheatland ward because just nobody could make it and then Michael got sick so Jasmine and him couldn't make it, and we were just gonna have nobody come. It's been a long time since we sat by ourselves... Well, miracles do happen. You guys probably don't remember, but about a month ago (Jan. 30th) to be exact, we were walking out of our apartment and about to get into our truck to hit the day, when this lady drives by, stops and asks us if we are church people. We answered yes, and she proceeded to explain all of her problems with her divorce and alcohol and whatnot, and seemed really sincere and wanted to change and have God in her life. We were stoked! We gave her a card with our number and she drove off, and we hadn't heard from her since... until yesterday. SHE JUST SHOWED UP AT CHURCH!!!!! She had wrecked her car a few weeks before and so she biked to church and just walked in and came and used the bathroom and some guy came up to us and was all like "non-member spotted" and so we waited to ambush her as she came out of the bathroom and it was the same girl we had given the card to!! Her name is Maribell, and she came and we sat by her and she had a great experience at church. She even  knows a family in the ward... which this family actually just lost a son in a tragic head on motorcycle collision, so that was very sad. It was a great testimony meeting though, I almost cried. But we got her address and we're gonna go see her this week and MIRACLES DO HAPPEN!!!! THE DAY OF MIRACLES HASN'T CEASED!!! So that was way cool. She remembered us and the card we gave her. And despite us not thinking we would have anyone come to church, lot's of people came and it was great.

That's my week.. it's hard to summarize it in a few long paragraphs, so if you've got any questions, hit me. I should be free for the next like 3 hours. We're just home. Love you guys so much, keep choosing the right!!!

Love, 

Elder Muaj Koob

Putting the Panini Press to good use

Our friends, the Eyre's went home, and I'm super sad. They're awesome.

NYOB ZOO NYOB ZOO

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

Nyob zoo tsev tuab neeg! Hope you guys are all doing well! Crazy that it snowed in St. George. It's been a lot colder here than usual, but we've just got rain. Nothing too bad... I've survived the whole winter with just a windbreaker, so its pretty nice here, haha. But, Jasmine and Michael were baptized and confirmed this past week!!! Woot woot! I was able to baptize and confirm Michael, and it was awesome!! The baptism went really well and had a good turnout from the ward. Also, the bishop likes us now, so that's nice. Elder Gunsay baptized Jasmine, but he started doing it with his left arm to the square and someone from the audience caught it like mid baptism. It was funny. Then when he did it right, Jasmine's foot came up and they had to do it again, haha. So it was rough, but everything went smooth for me and Michael. It was kinda hard helping him up out of the water though. He's kinda heavier, haha. The confirmation went really well too. They were nervous but it was all good and the ward has really reached out to them. I just love the Wheatland ward so much. Anyway, it was a great week.

Tuesday was pretty busy and packed. We had like 4 lessons and did service for Sister Femling again out in camp far west. All in all, it was a great day. I love days that we are really busy and have a lot going on. It's the best.

Wednesday was district meeting, which was awesome. We talked about the Book of Mormon some more and how it answers questions of the soul. The district leader is a bit of a goon, but he's a good guy. I like him, haha. Then we pretty much had like nothing. It was the complete opposite of Tuesday. We only had 1 sort of lesson. We met a black guy named Michael and had a good talk with him. He said "I'll make every effort to come to church this Sunday," but he didn't make it, haha. We pretty much just tried to contact people, and it was rough because like we're trying to Hmong work, but there's just like nothing going right now, besides the Xiong family. It's tough! The Hmong work is going really slow, but the English work is going well!

Thursday was pretty similar to Wednesday, not too much happened. We had 2 good lessons planned, but they both fell through so we took that as a sign that we needed to go find someone. So we had like 2 hours to knock doors, and like the 3rd or 4th door we knocked on, this younger dude named Alex invited us in, offered us some coffee (which we declined), and then we sat down. We're talking to him for a few minutes, and then his brother Dan came in and offered us coffee again. It was pretty funny. They are somewhat Pentecostal. They were just trying to be nice by offering us coffee, haha. It was funny. But we had a great talk with them about religion for like an hour, and we testified about the Book of Mormon and asked if he would want to read it, but he said no... and we didn't even get a return appointment or leave a pamphlet or anything. Meanless to say, I think we kinda dropped the ball with that contact. They seemed like really good guys searching for the truth, they just didn't know where to find it... But that's ok I guess, maybe we just needed to plant the seeds, who knows. Everyone has off days.

Friday we had interviews with President Ward. It was great. I love Pres. and Sis. Ward so so much. They are the best. They were like 3 hours behind though, haha. He gave me lots of good advice about learning the language, which was helpful. Hmong has just been kicking my butt lately. I've been out almost 7 months and still can like can just barely have conversations with people, and I can't really translate worth anything, but it's ok. President said that it's about a lesson I need to learn, not so much the language. So I'm trying to learn that lesson and just be patient with myself and the Lord and keep on trying and practicing I guess.

Saturday we had the baptism, but here's a cool story. So as Satan always does, we had a problem that could have made us late to the baptism if we weren't prepared. The baptism started at 10 and Elder Gunsay was like "we need to leave the house at 8." It's only a 25 minute drive to the stake center, so I thought he was kinda crazy but just kinda agreed to it. So it's time to go, and we're searching and searching and searching and can't find the keys anywhere, so we walk out to the truck and WE HAD LEFT THE KEYS IN THE IGNITION ALL NIGHT LONG!!!! The truck was just sitting there, unlocked, ready to drive for anyone who wanted to, and the lights stayed on all night long, so of course the truck was dead. Luckily, we were able to get a hold of our downstairs neighbor, and he jumped us real quick and we were on our way.  It was proof to me that like, holy cow this really is the Lord's work because Satan tries so hard to keep baptisms from happening. After the baptism, we had a celebratory lunch at El Pollo Loco, and met some cool guys who wanted to go to church, so we referred them over. We were supposed to have a lesson with Juan, who came to church with his family last week, but he was flaky. It was a good rest of the day though.

Sunday we had the confirmation, and it all went smoothly. We had a lot of people we hadn't planned on come to church though, and it was awesome. This month, we had investigators come to church 26 times!!! It's been an amazing month. The Lord has really blessed us with people to come to church. We've had a struggle finding new people to teach, but it's been a great month. We had dinner with the Chilsons. Originally, we didn't have a dinner but then they asked us at church and fed us. It was awesome! They are so nice. Also, this last week was Miskas dinner, and we had lasagna 3 times... I mean, I don't necessarily like lasagna, but I don't hate it... but 3 times was enough for the rest of my mission. I was doing good too, but then one dinner appointment, instead of noodles, they used zucchini... it was like my nightmare dinner, haha, but it actually wasn't bad. Since being on my mission, I'll pretty much eat anything... it's part of the job description, haha.

Oh, one other exciting thing, we're getting a new Hmong Elder towards the end of March!! Then there will be 5 of us, and 2 areas so there might be a trio, or Pres. might open Chico back up, or there's just a whole lot of exciting stuff that could happen, so it's an exciting time to be a Hmong elder, even though there are only two areas, and right now I'm in the nicer of the 2, haha. 

Love you guys, have a great week!!

Tub Txib Muaj Koob Thoj

A Knockoff Church

Just a weird door we found