Nyob zoo,
This week is transfers. After 2 transfers in Appleton with Elder Parker, I am sad to say that Elder Parker and I will not be together anymore. It has been the hardest 2 transfers of my mission, but also the 2 greatest transfers because I have learned the most these past 2 transfers. I have learned a lot from Elder Parker and will always be grateful for his example to me. He will be missed, but I know the Lord has greater plans for us both. So... I am going back to where I started my mission. Back to Madison. I am so hyped. Madison is my favorite area and I am excited to see all the people again. I will be serving with Elder Carlson who has been out for 11 months - the same time as Elder Parker. I am super excited to serve with him. I have met him a few times and he is super cool. Also, Madison will have 2 sets of Hmong missionaries. Elder Cheemeng Vang and Elder Lo will both serve in the ward too. It is gonna be a good time.
This week I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Humphries who is my District Leader. Man, that was a blast. He is super fun to be with. We ended up having the whole day to find because our lesson for the day got moved to a different day. It was pretty nice because Hmong work is all polk tracting, but in the English area, we were able to knock on any of the doors we wanted which was pretty nice. Overall it was a good day. We were able to find a few potentials for their area.
We had a lesson with one of our Investigators Ntxhais Xyooj (Sai Xiong). She has come to church 6 times and has a really strong desire to learn more about church and God. We were able to teach her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we talked a little about baptism and she talked about how that is something that she wants to do, but the sad thing is she is moving to Michigan for an unknown amount of time. We will miss her and hopefully, she comes back soon. She has so much faith and trust in God, it's incredible.
Our time for church changed from 11:30 to 9. So this week we had about half the Hmong members show up at 9 and the other half showed up at 11:30. So this week we translated two sacrament meetings. Afterward, my brain was fried, but it was all good because after church we went to Yami’s house. My mom would be proud because I made Pad Thai all by myself and by the way - it was super good. We also made eggrolls and Hmong lettuce wraps. I also had Hnyuv Nyuj, which is just cow intestine. I thought it was gonna be nasty, but it was actually not bad. Fun day!
This week I have been studying a lot about prayer, and as I was thinking about this, I thought about gratitude. We really have so much to be grateful for. God has blessed us with so much and we could pray forever in gratitude for our many blessings. It is sometimes easy to forget the little things that we already have like being able to see, food, and our families. It is so much easier to focus on what we don't have and be mad or sad about what we don't have, but in reality, we already have been given so much and we just need to remember what we already do have. Gratitude is such an important aspect of our lives because when we are grateful we are happy. I know this to be true and I invite you guys to choose to be grateful and by so doing choose to be happy.
Have a great week,
Elder Rich
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| Appleton district |
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| My Pad Thai |
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| Yami...I am pretty sad to leave. She is awesome! |
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| Hnyuv Nyuj (cow intestine) |
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| Last P-day, we went to High Cliff State Park. We hiked and climbed this huge tower |
