Nyob Zoo,
This is my first letter in Sheboygan. It is a lot different than Madison, but it’s a cute, little town. Madison is a very big city, Sheboygan is a lot smaller - I mean a lot! but it’s a small, fun little town. It’s right off of Lake Michigan, so it’s really cool. It is a lot colder here than it is in Madison (if that is possible) There is a lot of wind so it feels a lot colder than it really is. My apartment is also way bigger than my apartment in Madison. I’ll put a couple of pictures below so you can see the town and my apartment.
Transferring to a new city was a little stressful to be honest and a little scary at the same time. There’s a lot of packing and unexpected stuff. For transfers on Wednesday, I rode up with another elder named Elder Linker to Oshkosh. Oshkosh is the town where the Bradys, who are from our Draper ward, moved to. In Oshkosh, I met up with my new companion, whose name is also Elder Vang, and went to Sheboygan.
Our area for missionary work in interesting. We used to have 6 missionaries here - English, Spanish, and Hmong missionaries. But right now there are only Hmong elders here, so we have to do English, Spanish, and Hmong work, but we’re pretty much just going to focus on the Hmong people for now. P-days are going to be pretty boring now because there aren’t zone sports for us since we are way isolated. The nearest missionaries to us are an hour drive away :( The ward here in Sheboygan is a pretty good sized ward. There are lots of less actives - along with every ward in Wisconsin. There are only about 3 active Hmong families that come every week. If all the Hmong less actives came regularly, we could have a Hmong only ward here easily. The Hmong people come to the same ward building (just like in Madison) and we translate for them.
For our investigators in Sheboygan - we have a few investigators, not a whole lot, so we are going to have to do a lot of tracting and finding to find some more people to teach.
This week, we already went on exchanges on my third day in the area. I went with Elder Pinter who came here to Sheboygan, while my new companion went somewhere else. Since I was the only Hmong speaker in the area, I took over the area, and I didn’t know the area very well, but it was fun to be the leader and take over.
The area has a lot of fun things that we do. We have a volleyball night every Friday at the church, and this week there were about 40 Hmong kids that came, so I got to play some good volleyball for a couple of hours. Also every Sunday, we have FHE with a family and many of our investigators and recent converts can come and hear a lesson and after we play some games so that’s pretty fun.
And for my companion, new Elder Vang; I’m very impressed with him. He is a really cool kid. He is from Sacramento and he’s been out on his mission 10 months. He is a great missionary and his Hmong is really really good. The first door that we tracted together this week, I asked him to do it because I wanted to see how good his Hmong was and see his style. The guy opened his door and Elder Vang starts going off for about 20 seconds. And the guy was like “Uhhhh??? I don’t know what you just said.” He was a Cambodian so it was pretty funny.
This week since the prophet, Thomas S. Monson passed away, I spent a lot of time pondering and thinking about his life. I am grateful for the many great and inspiring messages that he shared. He was a great example of a disciple of Jesus Christ to everyone. My favorite talk was his last talk "The Power of the Book of Mormon." A very short but sweet message and this talk has stuck with me ever since. It made me really ponder and think about his message of how important the Book of Mormon is and how great a tool it is in our lives. It is such a helping hand in our lives. A message of love, encouragement, and hope. I know it is important for us to read and have a testimony of it - that was the last thing our prophet ever talked about. I'll end my email with a few quotes from President Monson's talk.
“This morning I speak about the power of the Book of Mormon and the critical need we have as members of this Church to study, ponder, and apply its teachings in our lives.”
“If you are not reading the Book of Mormon each day, please do so.”
“If you do not have a firm testimony of these things, do that which is necessary to obtain one. It is essential for you to have your own testimony in these difficult times, for the testimonies of others will carry you only so far.”
That’s all for this week.
Love,
Elder Tshwj Xeeb
Pictures: (1)Saying goodbye to some members in Madison on Tuesday (2) Goodbye old Elder Vang (3) Hello new Elder Vang (4-5) my apartment (6-7) city of Sheboygan
Additional pictures
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| Ride from Madison to Oshkosh with Elder Linker |
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| Splits with Elder Pinter |
