Elder Austin Rich : 2017-09-03

Nyob zoo

Thanks for all the emails this week! It is crazy that I have been here 5 weeks now. It feels like just yesterday I got here. On Saturday, it marked exactly my halfway point through of the MTC. Only one more month and I will be heading out to Wisconsin. All the “older” Elders in my zone officially left yesterday. Today it felt so empty and weird with 40 Elders gone from our zone. Do you guys remember the Elder I talked about in my very first email? Probably not haha. His name is Elder Leseur and he is the funniest kid ever. He is a legend around here. He was the Elder who would sing at the top of his lungs every single morning to wake us up. He wasn't even a good singer either. He was completely awful, but he would do it every morning to wake us all up. Anyways, in honor of him leaving, my entire district started singing “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” the day before they were all leaving. It started with only 15 of us, but it grew into our whole floor. All 80 of us singing at the top of our lungs. As well, we had to sing the Air Force fight song because that is what he sang almost every morning. It was super loud, but it was really awesome because you could feel the brotherhood and unity. At the same time, it was super sad because we all knew they were leaving the next morning, and more than likely I will never see any of them again. It's crazy how close you can become to people you have never met before. I’m sad to see them all leave, but I know they are gonna do awesome things.

The language is still coming along. It is definitely a grind. Studying and learning all day long. The Hmong language is still really difficult and honestly, 95% of the time it doesn't make any sense at all. But I am definitely starting to understand more and more. This past week especially, I felt like I learned a ton. A lot of things are starting to make more sense and "click" in a way. The words are just really random and a lot of them are super long so it makes it really hard to learn them. For example, the word “peace” is “txoj kev thaj yeeb nyab xeeb.” The Hmong Book of Mormon is around 800 pages compared to the English version that has about 500. Another thing is there are 18 different ways to say the word "The".

Quick Story: These random sister missionaries came up to me and asked me if I would be willing to listen to them practice their lesson on the plan of salvation for like 5 minutes so they could practice their Spanish. I said yes and they did a quick practice in Spanish, and I honestly understood like 75% of what they were saying and I haven't taken a Spanish class in over 2 years. I can understand more of their Spanish than I can Hmong and I have been here a month. Sometimes I think, man it would be so much easier if I were speaking English or learning an easier language like Spanish. But I honestly wouldn't want it any other way. I know this is where I am supposed to go and these are the people I am supposed to teach. I am grateful for the opportunity. I am one of 13 missionaries that are Hmong speaking out of thousands of missionaries that are going out for this whole year. I am grateful that Heavenly Father trusts me to learn such a hard and rare language. The language is a struggle, but I know I will get it eventually.

My scripture for the week is Alma 29:9. It goes right along with this so. And it says:

9 I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.

Now on the lighter side of things, I am really having a blast. Every week gets better and better. The MTC is honestly a lot of fun and has lots of good people. I really love my district and my roommates. We all have a good time together. Lots of jokes, teasing each other, and pranks. I always steal Elder Tarone's picture of his girl back home from under his bed and put it under my bed to mess with him. Sometimes he doesn't notice for quite a while. I think the longest it was under my bed was for 3 days haha. There have been some hilarious pranks, but I won't write them for time's sake. Somehow my district gets every sickness possible. A guy got pink eye this week as well. So that is going around our district too. Gotta love that. We exiled him though haha. Somehow I have been able to avoid all the sicknesses which is a miracle. I am the only Elder in my whole district who hasn't gotten anything. Quite a blessing. Some other cool things. I saw Elder Drayney who I haven't seen in like 2 years. Ian is probably the only one who knows him beside me. So I threw that picture in here for you, Ian. He is going somewhere in Africa which is super awesome. I also played volleyball with Parker Fillmore, which was fun. He went to my school and Ian is good friends with his brother.

Last thing, shout out to Elder Bud Jackson Gardner who left to Argentina yesterday. Good luck bro. I know you are gonna kill it out there. I’ll miss ya!

Miss you all and thanks for all the emails this week.

Love,

Elder Tshwj