MIRACLES!!

OCTOBER 22, 2018

Alright family, buckle up, this is gonna be a dang good email. First of all though, I'm glad everyone has had a good week. thanks for the updates. Glad you liked the tie dad, and hope you liked the story cloth Sarah. I didn't, in fact, forget about your birthday dad, just forgot to email you about it last week, haha. Also, thanks for the banana bread Mom! I've almost eaten the whole loaf already, hahahaha. 

Alright, so this last week definitely had its ups and downs, but that's like every week as a missionary. However, we had probably one of like the biggest miracles on my mission yet happen this past week, so I'm gonna mostly explain that. 

Backstory: I've been here in Oroville for about 5 or so months now... In the time I've been here, I can count on 1 hand the number of times nonmembers have come to church. We haven't found anyone new that we are still currently teaching, still just teaching all of the same old people. And since I've been in the mission, there hasn't been a Hmong baptism, and perhaps hasn't been one for the year before I was a missionary as well. 

Ok, so back to the story. This week, Elder Peterson decided we were gonna go hard finding people. Well, as hard as we can with 4 hours of studies every day haha. But we spent a lot of time finding, and we ended up finding no new Hmong people, just getting a ton of rejection from people, haha. We did, however, OYM 2 English people, and one of them was a member who hasn't been in a longggg time and was like "I was thinking about coming back to sacrament meeting" so that was a mini miracle in and of itself. We also ate at Subway Friday night, and as we were walking in, this Miskas less-active lady stops us and gives us her contact info and tells us to give it to the missionaries close to Wheatland, so that was cool. But anyway, it had got to Saturday, and we hadn't found anyone yet... which like isn't a new feeling. It was pretty typical, in my opinion, just because how hard finding has been here. 

So anyway, we're in this awesome visit with a niam tais and Oroville 3rd Elders (the ones with the Hmong ties from last week) shoot us a text with an address and a voicemail explaining that they tracted into a Hmong house and the guy seemed cool, said we could come by. So right then, we were already pretty pumped. We called them back and figured we might try the dude next week or something. We go to our next appointment, and we miss 3 calls from Oroville 3 and think, huh, that's weird. We get out, we listen to the voicemails, and Elder Richins is like "come right now, we're with the Hmong guy." Meanless to say, we were pretty confused, but we went to the address as fast as TIWI would take us, and when we got there, they were all outside talking. We walked up and started talking in Hmong to the dude, and HE WAS GOLDEN!!! Super humble guy, probably like 50s or 60s, name is Pang Xiong (same name as Pheng down in Marysville). We talked to him for a few minutes, got to know him real quick, and he was like "yeah I would like to come to church tomorrow, I just don't have a car. If you could find me a ride I'd love to come." I almost didn't know what to say, I was so shocked. "OF COURSE WE CAN FIND YOU A RIDE!!" Then after that, I like asked him if he was a member (cuz I figured he had to be a less-active, there's tons of them here), he was like "no, but if you guys are willing, I would love to become a member"... WHAT?!? Who is this guy??? Apparently, he had gone to our church many years ago, and the only person he remembered was our branch mission leader. We left Pang, told him we would call him once we got a ride figured out, and then basically just threw a mini party in the car we were so excited, haha. 

So apparently after Oroville 3rd left, he called them, asked them to come back, and they started teaching the restoration, and just before we pulled up, they were going to put him on date for baptism... we kind of interrupted that, but it was okay. So that night we called Pres. Chue, and Sunday morning he ended his meetings a few minutes early, and we drove together and picked up Pang. He came to church with us for all three hours and just seemed really happy to be there. He doesn't read Hmong, only a little English, but it was awesome. He got everyone's number, and on the ride back he was talking a little bit with Pres. Chue, and we were basically like "hey, we would love to help you become a member, and we can give you a ride every week" and he was excited about that. MIRACLE!!! Like holy cow, I've never found anyone on Saturday and had them come to church on Sunday... I've never even heard of it really happening like that for English people, let alone Hmong... Miracle!!! 

"Has the day of miracles ceased? Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved?

Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith that miracles are wrought" (Moroni 7:35-37).

It was a real testimony builder for me, especially cuz most of my time here I felt like has been pretty hard and hasn't had much productive work happening, and last transfer I felt like we tried super hard to be exactly obedient and work hard and now, out of nowhere, we have this super golden guy to help live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's amazing. We never would have found him either, he lives with 5 other English speaking people. His house has nothing to suggest that it's Hmong, and he lives in an area of town where I had never been before. I love Oroville 3rd ward, they need to go looking for Hmong people more often, haha. 

So that was awesome, really cool experience. It gives me a lot of hope for the work here. We're meeting with him again on Tuesday, so hopefully that goes well and we can set a baptismal date and help him work towards that. He has 11 kids, but none of them live here anymore, and his wife passed away... really sad. He is a pretty lonely guy who could really use the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and I'm just so excited to help him. 

Anyway, sorry my whole email was just about that. There was a lot of other cool stuff that happened this week... like we went and talked with Sister Chue, cuz she was supposed to talk this Sunday, and then after we talked to her, she fed us Khaub poob, and we got to ask her a bunch of good questions about Hmong. Also, we were able to have some good lessons this week. Also, the high councilor who spoke in sacrament meeting gave a bomb talk about elk hunting, and I got to translate that. It was awesome, haha. Also, we helped Shue with his house some more. He is trying to get it done by the end of the month. Just a pretty solid week. I have a lot of hope for what's coming up. It's a great day to be a Hmong missionary, haha. 

Love you guys. Thanks for the support and all of the love and everything you guys do for me. Have a great week! 

Love, Elder Muaj Koob

Sorry I don't have any pictures, here is me with some of Oroville's natural beauty.