Hey family! First things first, I am doing well, I'm safe, have basic necessities, and am far away from the fire that destroyed one of my favorite towns in the mission. Really sad for all the people who live in Paradise and who have been affected by the Camp Fire. It's been a crazy week. I'll do my best to sum it up.
Nothing really noteworthy happened before Thursday. Thursday
morning, we woke up, did everything like normal, then went out the door after
having done our studies, and we saw some clouds of smoke forming over Table
Mountain. We didn't think too much of it, just went about our normal work for
the most part. We had a good lesson with Pang in the afternoon (update: still
no baptism date for Pang, he learns pretty slow, so we’re taking it slow and simple
for him. He is progressing though and it’s awesome) and just before going into
the lesson, we got a call from our zone leaders saying that the Chico Hmong
elders were going to come down and be staying with us. They were being
evacuated. We were pretty excited, we love those elders. They got here, we did
some good work, had a good dinner with the Chue's. After dinner, we saw that we
missed a call from the former Paradise elders (both sets, all of their stuff
burned up) telling us we were being evacuated. By now it’s like 8:15 at night.
We go straight home, and President calls, giving me instructions to pack up as
quick as we can, and take the Hmong elders to Gridley that night.
Ok, if you've never had to pack all your valuables and
everything you might need in 15 minutes, you should totally practice so you
know what to grab. I grabbed a few of the essentials and by about 8:45, we got
on the road, headed past Gridley to Live Oak, where we met up with some other
elders who live in a big house, and that night we went and grabbed food, filled
up with gas, and tried to get situated. There were 10 elders staying in that
one house. It was kind of cold and hard on the floor, but I was glad to have a
place to sleep while so many others didn't. The next day, we got keys to an
apartment in Gridley that was empty, so now all the Hmong elders are staying
together there. Friday, we had a call with President. He informed everyone what was
going on, filled us in on what to do. Basically, we just got a whole bunch of
groceries to last through Sunday, and figured out how to do the work. We split
Gridley and Live Oak all up to go tract and find people... the problem is these
places are pretty small, haha. So this is when the miracle starts.
Friday afternoon, Elder Peterson and I were assigned to do
work in Biggs, which is like such a tiny town north of Gridley. Of course, we
figured we'd still try to do Hmong work, cuz it’s in our area still, but
there's next to no Hmong people there. We decided to look up the 18 last names
on white pages, and found like 3 houses. The only one we met, she opened the
door and invited us right in.. unfortunately, she was the only one home, so we
set up a return appointment for Saturday when her son would be home. Miracle in
and of itself that we even found a Hmong house. It didn't even look Hmong at
all. So we go back to see this Hmong family on Saturday, and this senior in
high school answers the door and says "hey, do you remember me?"
Backstory: Our apartment complex in Oroville is pretty big,
so we park a little ways away from our apartment. Back in June through like
August, there was a Hmong kid who always parked his motorcycle right by our
parking spot. He was such a cool kid. I would always talk to him whenever he
was outside, and he had come to play basketball at the church before. I never
had invited him to learn before, and then one day in August we saw him driving
away in his car, and he tells us he and his family are moving. Super sad. That
was in August, and we’ve never seen him since. Back to the story.
THAT WAS THIS KID!!! Joe, the Hmong kid who we talked to all
the time, was here in Biggs. We NEVER find in Biggs. It’s so far away from
Oroville, and there was no way we ever, ever would have found Joe and his mom
again. They invited us in and we are talking to his mom and she's like
"yeah we've always wanted to believe in God, we just haven't ever gone to
a church, and the question I've always wanted an answer to is "why are there so
many churches?"" I was like wow, this is the stuff that I dream about as a
missionary, perfect transition to the restoration. We answered her questions
about Christianity, informed her who Christ was and how he Atoned for all of
our sins, and taught how God has always called a prophet, and has called one in
these days. Just an awesome lesson, she really wanted to learn and was so nice,
and Joe had some questions too, and then midway through the lesson, their dad
got home. We were able to have an awesome talk with him, and gave him a Book of
Mormon. He said he's always wanted to believe in God. He doesn't like Shamanism
that much, and we're like "no problem, we can help you make the
switch!" The only problem is that his parents practice shamanism and
aren't willing to let them believe in God, but he said he would talk to his
parents again, so we'll see. They even talked about coming to church just to
see what it was like. Evacuation/fire miracle!!!! There is no way we
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever would have found these people if we
weren't evacuated to Gridley and stuck doing work in Biggs for 2 days.
Honestly, I think this is one of the most prepared families I've met on the
mission, so, while you're praying for the safety and comfort of all the people
of paradise and the surrounding area, throw an extra prayer in for the Vang
family, cuz the Lord's work moves forward no matter what.
That’s my week in a nutshell. Definitely a crazy week I'll
never forget, and some amazing miracles that proves that God is in the details
of our lives. Thanks for all the prayers already. Please pray for Paradise.
Love, Elder McArthur
Sleeping on the ground the first night woot woot.
They gave us masks for breathing, so had to take a picture looking like doctors.
The smoke was pretty bad in Gridley, but is getting better.
All the elders the first night together. 10 in one house. 4 of those elders lost everything they had.
Camp Fire from Oroville, before we got evacuated.
Hmong elders all together eating some good stir fry. It's
been a party haha.
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