Nyob zoo,
This was our last week with Elder Lewis. He goes home to California on Tuesday so then it will just be two trainees going at it, me and Elder Vang. This week, Elder Lewis taught us literally everything he could about being a missionary, about taking over an area, and missionary work. He taught us all the tips and tricks of how to be a missionary.
This week we also had transfers. Obviously I’m still staying in Madison with Elder Vang, and it’s going to "fun" with two little trainees running around, not knowing what to do; not knowing the area. Usually, when missionaries come out, they get trained for 12 weeks and then they can go somewhere else and usually they are with an older missionary. Elder Vang and I have been trained for 7 weeks and we are stuck together. It’s going to be interesting.
This email I’m going to talk about our investigators that we are working with. People have been wanting me to do that.
So I’ll start with a lady named Kawm. Elder Lewis taught her a few times before I got to Wisconsin, so we’ve been teaching her the whole time I’ve been here. She has a really strong faith in God. She’s come to church a couple of times. She knows that the church is true, but she has been going to another church for over 20 years, so it’s hard for her to make the transition to our church when all her friends and family go to her other church. So we are just taking time with her to build her faith, and helping her to know why and how our church will help her. She is in her mid 50’s and is a sweet, nice old lady. She said she will be baptized, but it will be in the future when she is more comfortable making the transition from her church to our church.
Our next investigator is Kelly. She is also in her mid 50’s and she is the one that we went and helped at her farm a couple of times. We found her through her sister. My second week here, we went tracting in an area, and we met her sister. She let us in, but she wasn’t really interested. She told us that her sister was interested and she gave us her address, so that’s how we found her. We’ve taught her three times. The problem that we’ve had with her was that she didn’t have a lot of time with her farming, and she needed to get it all done. That’s why we went and helped her so that she’d have more time. Since we helped her and she’s finished, she has a lot more time to meet with us. We were able to meet with her again yesterday. She also came to church yesterday and she really loved it. She stayed the whole time and stayed for our baptism (I’ll share about this in a bit) so she stayed for almost 5 hours and that was her first time going to our church. That’s pretty awesome for her to stay the whole time. And she honestly really loved it. She was telling us after how much she liked it and she wants to come again next week. She’s going to tell one of her different sisters to come with her next week so that’s pretty awesome.
One quick story about Kelly that was pretty funny this week…So all the Hmong people here think I am so tall and it is really funny, even though I am just an average sized white person. Hmong people are all really short. When we were eating with Kelly this week, she was just going off on how tall I am and she thinks it is so crazy and she always makes fun of herself compared to my size. It is really funny. At the end she asked me how tall I was. And she guessed I was 6’7” I must really seem tall to her.
Our next investigators are Naly and her husband, Tou. They own a flower shop and Elder Lewis met them before we got here. Every P day we go to their flower shop and talk to them for a little bit. We never taught them anything about the gospel - we just went and said hi. A couple of weeks ago, Elder Lewis and Elder Vang went to their house for a birthday party and were able to have a conversation about our church and their church and our beliefs and their beliefs. I wasn’t able to go because I was on splits. So this week, because of their conversation, we decided to give them a Book of Mormon and talk about faith because that was the topic from the birthday party. Since she owns a flower shop, we talked about Alma 32, which compares faith to a little seed. And we read the last two verses from Alma 32 which says
42 And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.
43 Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you
We read that to her and it was really cool because she started to get really emotional and you could tell that she was really grateful. She told us, “I’m really grateful for you guys coming and talking to me today. This was something I really needed to hear. God knew I needed to hear that.” One interesting thing that we did not know until just a little bit ago, is Naly is Kelly’s daughter. When we were teaching Kelly one time, we made the connection that they are related. Pretty neat.
Our last two investigators, who are no longer investigators are Andrew and Kauzong. They were baptized yesterday. Elder Lewis has been teaching them the entire time he has been in Madison, and previous Elders have worked with them too. So they have been investigators for over a year. One of the main reasons they decided to get baptized is because they had a daughter who passed away about a year ago when she was about a week old. That's kind of the reason they decided to get baptized. They are super awesome. Elder Lewis said they are the first adults to be baptized in Madison in the past 6 years so that was pretty cool to be a part of their baptism. It was pretty awesome.
To end my email I just want to give a tribute to Elder Lewis. I am going to miss him a lot. He has been an awesome companion, friend, and trainer, especially in prepping me and Elder Vang in taking over the area. I am grateful for all the things that you were able to teach me and grateful for you always pushing me to become a better person and missionary. I will miss you for sure, but you will have tons of fun at home and college. Love you Man.
Hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving this week.
Love,
Elder Tshwj Xeeb
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| Elder Lewis's last time at the Thai Gardens |
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| Last of the trio |
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| Andrew Yang and Kaozong Thao were baptized finally after a year plus!! Elder Lucas got to come from Waukesha for the baptism. We had a great turnout from the ward to support them. They were baptized by Andrew's cousins, Joseph and Adam (the two standing behind) |
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| The Family |
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| Dinner w Kelly! She's the one in the very center, on the left is her daughter Naly, one of our other investigators |
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| Surprise package from Aunt Lisa from San Fran |
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| First Snow |
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| Dinner at a Thai restaurant with member Tina Manavong |
