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,
Love you guys, have a great week!!
Tub Txib Muaj Koob Thoj
A Knockoff Church
Just a weird door we found
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