Okay let’s just start with this - This was one of my FAVORITE weeks on my mission… #BLESSINGS!!!
On Tuesday we did exchanges with the Westbend elders and I got to go with Elder Pinter again and he came here to Sheboygan with me and Elder Vang went to Westbend with Elder Henrikson. I love exchanges - exchanges are always a blast. It reminded me of the last time I went on exchanges with Elder Pinter which was like the third day I was in Sheboygan. We were going tracting and I didn’t know the area at all and he didn’t either. We knocked on some random houses and one house let us in right away. And I was like, “Wow these guys are awesome. They are going to be awesome investigators.” We were talking to them for a while and they offered us some hot chocolate and they were just a super nice and awesome family. Somehow later I figured out that they were members and they were super active and it was just so embarrassing. It was funny so going out with him again reminded me of that.
Blessing #1 this week:
There is an investigator named Evan that Elder Vang and Elder Lamb taught before I got here back in December. After Elder Lamb left, we just haven’t been able to get in contact with him. This last week we were able to get in contact with him again which is super awesome because he is a super nice guy and he’s pretty interested - he’s just been pretty busy because he has a full-time job and he’s going to school at the same time. We set up another appointment for Wednesday with him.
Blessing #2 this week:
We had a lesson with Melanie. She is moving to Georgia (I promise that’s not the blessing because that sounds bad) but it was a tender mercy because she said she is moving there but she does not want to leave this church or the Book of Mormon behind. That was kind of a comfort to me because I can get a little frustrated with her - not at her but later in the apartment - because she won’t really progress. She won’t stop smoking. She won’t read that much. But she asked if there was a church in Georgia so that was pretty cool because even though I felt like we were wasting our time with her a little bit, it’s not going to be a waste because once she moves she still wants to go to church.
#3
Those were both on Tuesday and after, Elder Pinter and I were both pretty hungry since it was about 8:15. We were trying to figure out where we wanted to go get some dinner and of course, two teenage boys decide to go get some Coldstone for dinner. I was just planning on getting a pretty small size but we went there and they had a flavor called Lemon Pie. Dang, it was so good so I bought $12 worth of ice cream. It tastes like lemon pie and lemon bars so that’s a recommendation for all of you.
Blessing #4
Wednesday I took Elder Pinter to the Hmong store to get some Hmong food because he’s never tried it before. Hmong food can be pretty expensive and it was going to be about $20 but the guy just charged us $2 which was pretty cool.
Blessing #5
Elder Vang and I were back together. We had a lesson with Ariel on Thursday and she is processing super well. Elder Vang asked her to be baptized and she said yes but she has to wait until she gets off parole which is June. So she is planning on getting baptized in June.
Blessing #6
We had a lesson with Elder Vang’s friends, Mong and Amanda, they are Elder Vang’s friends from back home. Mong had a cousin there and he was super interested and he expressed that he wanted to learn more and he is looking for more of a purpose in life. So that’s our new investigator. His name is Ki and he’s our first new investigator in a few weeks so that was a big blessing.
Blessing #7
This was my favorite day of the week - Saturday. We had Hmong conference. It was my favorite because we got to see all the Hmong missionaries - all 12 of us were there. This is a conference just for the missionaries - we have some members and investigators come to give us some training to see how we can help the Hmong people better. It was all in Hmong too. We had a member from our ward, Vong Sa Yang, who I talked about earlier. His family was the one I ran into the first time with Elder Pinter. He gave us some training. A returned missionary from Appleton gave us a training. Vong Sa’s brother, who lives in Minnesota, skyped and gave some training. Two sisters from Madison, Sister Chang and Sister Lee, gave training and it was really good to see them again.
And Blessing #8
Kelly and her sister, Shaun from Madison came too so that was one of the best parts - seeing them again. Kelly is just so funny. At lunch, she came up and gave me a hug which is probably breaking the rules, but whatever! She was pretty much just bragging about me. She was giving me a hug and telling all the other elders, “This is my Tshwj Xeeb.” She's so cute and so funny.
Blessing #9
After all the trainings were done, all the missionaries bore their testimonies in Hmong which was pretty cool. I didn’t mention before, but we had two Hmong Missionaries that went home for surgery and whatever a few months ago. We only had 10 missionaries and there are 6 areas so we would have had to close a whole area. We had 2 English speaking missionaries who volunteered to become Hmong elders 6 months out into their missions and that’s got to be pretty dang hard because I am still struggling with Hmong and they had no MTC training and are just learning it out in the field. They’ve been learning it for a couple of months now. President Williams asked them to go first to bear their testimonies and it was just super awesome to see their improvement in only two months. It was so cool to hear everyone bear their testimony in Hmong. After the Hmong conference, none of the missionaries wanted to leave. I didn’t want to leave either - I love them all so much. They are all so awesome. So we ended up taking pictures for a while and then Elder Vang and I went to dinner with the Madison elders - Elder Vang and Elder Blackburn.
Blessing #10
On Sunday we got a call from the Madison Hmong elders. We were like “That’s weird!” Elder Vang answered the phone and it was all in Hmong - Elder Vang and Elder Vang talking in Hmong. I could hear a little of it because it was on speaker phone. Elder Vang from Madison asked, “Hey are you coming to Kelly, Shaun, and Mai’s baptism on the 24th?” (I was going to leave that for a surprise when I went down, but I guess I’ll say it now.) 3 of my old investigators from Madison are being baptized this month. We told him, “We want to but we still have to ask President.” They talked a little more and then they hung up the phone. Elder Vang asked, “Did you understand all of that?” I said, “I understood most of it.” He asked me what I understood and I told him. He was like, “Oh you didn’t even get the coolest part!” Anyway - Kelly asked if I would baptize her so that’s super exciting. We asked President and he said we could go down for them so... on the 24th we get to go to Madison so we get to go see my old ward I was serving in and see 3 of my old investigators get baptized which I am so excited for.
Well this was a super long email and I’m sorry for that, but it was such a good week.
Talk to you next week,
Elder Tshwj Xeeb
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| Hmong conference |
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| 3 of the Hmong elders I was in the MTC with |
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Reunited with Elder Vang   |
