FAMILY GROUP EMAIL

SEPTEMBER 24, 2018

Nyob zoo family. Glad everyone is good and that BYU won. Hopefully they will have a great year out while I'm out here. They should totally be blessed for my service. Anyway, this past week was pretty good. Actually had some cool things happen. For the past few weeks, we've posted all 0's for numbers, but this past week we set a goal in faith of 3 new people, and we ended up finding 3 people!!! (more on that later) and had 1 person come to church! Still don't really have anyone progressing towards baptism, but that's ok I guess...

But anyway, we took a lot of pictures this week, so I'm going to just explain the pictures. I made stir-fry for Elder Peterson one night. Also, made some bomb breakfast sandwiches. Also, 2 nights ago, I really wanted some pancakes, and we didn't have any pancake mix, so I made my own out of flour and some other stuff... I'll send the video later, but they actually tasted pretty good. The fruit is a little weird exotic fruit that Sister Chue gave us last night. They had a fireside for the youth about serving missions, so we came late because we wanted dinner. They were doing BBQ after. 

The next picture is me and Elder Richins. I love this elder. He is new this transfer, so I'm his first district leader, and we went on exchanges this past Thursday. He is super funny. But anyway, he came over to the Hmong area, and we set some daily goals, pictured below. Well, we hadn't found a legit Hmong new person in like 2 months.. but we made the goal anyway. Had a good lesson that morning, then we helped Shue with his house again. After that, we went to the church cuz we were going to have a lesson there at 2:00 through Facebook with our friends up in Washington... however, it fell through, and there was this homeless Hmong guy just chilling under the shade tree at the church (homeless people love the church here), so we went and talked to him. First thing he said was he was thirsty, wondered if we had any money... I hate giving money to homeless people, so we asked him what his favorite drink was and we would get him it. He said beer.... so we got him 2 Gatorades, came back and gave it to him then started talking to him about church, and after 1 minute of that conversation he got up and said "I gotta go" and then just started walking down the road... got conned out of 3 bucks by Pang, the homeless Hmong man... so that was funny. 

BUT, after that we had some time to find. I did my best to teach Elder Richins Hmong, and he was super excited to go finding. It started out pretty rough, a few rejections, and it was hard to find some of the houses, but we were just having a good time. It was getting close to 6, and we had money for dinner, so we could just go eat whenever. I asked Elder Richins if he wanted to go eat, but he said no, we should keep going a little longer, and we did, and we tried some more points on google maps, didn't find anyone, but then we kept walking a little further and E. Richins noticed these Hmong guys out back of a house, so we went up and talked to them, and then after a 30 minute conversation with one of the guys about the Bible, we left him with a Book of Mormon and a return appointment. Txuj ci tseem ceeb. We had a bowl of Pho to celebrate that night, and then took a picture that we hit our goals. Also, our apartment has a machete because the streets of Oroville ain't safe anymore.

The other picture is Elder Peem Tsheej in between that shed and Shue's house. We spent like 6 hours this week painting primer on the outside of his house. Lots of good service this week that led to 2 referrals! They didn't really pan out, but that's ok. We got that member trust. 

Other way cool stuff, last Monday we had an awesome lesson with this old niam tais. We knocked on her door and she was home, let us in, and we had a great talk about God and she was another one of the new people we found. So that was pretty awesome. I actually think she has some potential. But that was another miracle for the week.

Ok, one other kind of cool thing happened. So last week we went to Pres. Chue's daughters homecoming party. Backstory: Pres. Chue's profession is an English teacher. He teaches English to people as a 2nd language, and he invited his whole class to come to this party. Story: We show up and there is this Chinese guy named Richard who doesn't know English very well that came. Pres. Chue introduced us to him, and then we ended up translating for him and he followed us around the whole time. Well, at the end of the party, I felt like "hey, we gotta invite this guy to church, even though its gonna be in Hmong." So I did, but he said he had work, but said he would change his work schedule so he could come next week. Totally forgot about him... and then he showed up to church yesterday! It was awesome, even though everything was in Hmong. We think were gonna try referring him over to the English elders, but it was pretty funny and awesome that he came. 

Also, I've been spending like all of my personal study time reading the Book of Mormon in Hmong. I cranked through the Isaiah chapters this week... and those are hard to understand in English, so like... lets just say, I didn't get a whole lot out of it, haha. But the more I've been reading it, the more I've come to realize that the Book of Mormon is just so true. I wish all the Hmong people would read it. For elder's quorum today, there were 3 people there other than us 2, and we studied the Book of Mormon in Hmong (this is like the first time my whole mission we've studied the Book of Mormon in Hmong for church) and so we flipped open to 1 Nephi chapter 1 and read the introduction and then read the entire first chapter and talked about what the word Christ in Hmong means. So like... the Hmong people don't study the Book of Mormon like at all (don't put this in the group email mom, I love the Hmong people), partly because it's hard to read in Hmong, the translation is word for word so its hard sometimes. But I know it's true, even though it's hard for them to read. So READ THE BOOK OF MORMON EVERYDAY!!

I love you guys. Have a great week.

Elder Muaj Koob

LAOS LIFE

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

Nyob zoo nej! Cia siab nej noj qab nyob zoo li qub. This past week was pretty good. Things are going well out here in Oroville, I suppose. I don't know if I have a ton of things to report on, kind of another typical week, but there was a few cool things that happened. 

This past Tuesday, I led district council again. It's like a constant burden that always will just keep coming back, haha, but it's fun. We didn't have many people to counsel about, so we ended up having a pretty good discussion, and then we had a few extra minutes so we decided what type of bender everyone would be. We decided I'd be an Airbender, so that's pretty cool. I don't remember too much else of what happened on Tuesday, so I guess it's not too important... However, this was pretty cool. So there's this old guy we go see, his name is Tshuam Txooj Tsab. He's super old and his back is pretty bad so he can't do much but sit at home all the time. Normally when we go see him, there are a lot of distractions, or he will like turn on the TV or something, and it's really hard to have a good conversation, but this past time was really awesome, no distractions, TV, or anything. I got talking to him, and started asking him about his life back in Laos. I'll explain a little bit about it, because in some ways it's similar to many of the Hmong people.

He was born in Laos, in a small village and when he was 3, his mom died, and then when he was 6, his dad died. He said after that, he just farmed for himself and his family. In Laos, they don't have it like we do, where one person will do all the farming and then we can all just buy from him-- they have to farm food for themselves or else they starve. So he just farmed his whole life growing up, and they would harvest each crop like once a year and would have to save enough for each year, which is some crazy food storage and rationing when you think about it. But he explained how they all had to take care of animals, and they could like sell one of their pigs for enough clothes for one person only, which is crazy. He also explained about how, when the Vietnam war broke out, the Hmong people would rescue the American soldiers, and they had to carry around like this huge ammunition, and it was just crazy. Well, anyways, after he had explained all of this crazy stuff about how hard Laos was and how a lot of people he knew had died, I had the feeling like I needed to share a scripture out of Alma about how when we die we go back to the God who gave us life. It was really powerful, and I was able to tell him about Grandma Coburn and testify that we will see those we love again, and that we can be with them through God. I really felt the Spirit, and it was an awesome experience. 

In other news, we had like no time this past week. We did some more service for our friend Shue, and we visited lots of people, and then on Saturday there was a homecoming party for President Chue's daughter, because she came home from her mission a few weeks ago... when I say homecoming party, picture a 2 hour program held in the chapel, followed by a wedding-reception set-up in the cultural hall, complete with ornament decorations, a photo backdrop, more food than anyone could eat, and a cake. It was crazy. Super awesome. Sister Chue really went all out, but crazy that they did so much, haha. That took up like our whole Saturday.

Yesterday was really good though. Good Sabbath. We taught gospel doctrine, and when I say we, I mean I taught gospel doctrine, cuz unfortunately my comp is still in the beginning stages of knowing what to say or understanding anything that people say.... it's a tough time. I remember it well. But yeah, it was about being a true friend, and then everyone got like super into the conversation and we had a great discussion on jealousy, haha. They all had good stuff to say about that. All in all, pretty good time. 

My time here in Oroville has been really fun, and I've loved being apart of the branch family here. It's also been hard, because there are not many people to teach, and finding here is the hardest I've ever had on my mission... but I really love it here. I think it's because I love the members so much. They are totally my family out here, and i just really just love them, holy cow. 

Anyways, here's some pictures from the week.

Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Muaj Koob

 Some tswv yim from panda.

 The cake they made for the party that they sent us home with.

When we went and helped Shue.

 Some little baby Thai bananas.

All the food they had at the party.