This past week has been so awesome and so much happened! On Wednesday Elder Giddings arrived in Madison and man he is such a good guy and such a good missionary. What a blessing it has been to serve with him already. He is such a good example to me of a consecrated, urgent, and faithful missionary. He literally is the hardest working missionary I have ever met. Super excited to serve with him and grateful for his example to me.
We did quite a bit of finding this week and it was awesome! We and the other Hmong Elders are in a car share, so Elder Giddings and I got to do a lot to walking which is something I have never experienced as a missionary before. I have always had a car before, but it was awesome because we were able to talk to so many more people. As we were walking around we would just talk to everybody and I mean everybody. We had a couple of funny stories this week. First, we were walking around and we saw a white guy get out of his car so we started walking over to him. He saw us coming and said “Hey! I am not buying anything.” and Elder Giddings replies “well great we aren't selling anything”. He didn't really like that. The second one, we were walking around a complex looking for a specific Hmong house and a lady was watching us, but we didn't think much of it. So once we found it, we knocked on the door and right after she asked us what we were doing and I said “Knocking doors.” She said that there is no soliciting in this apartment complex. And of course, I replied, “Great we aren't selling anything.” She didn't like that either. She made us leave the apartment complex, but the funny thing is that the guy answered his door and all we said was that lady won't let us talk to you and just left. Last one - we were walking around and we see a Hmong guy pull up in his car. Of course, since he sees us he doesn't get out of his car. So we just walked by and went and knocked on his house, but they didn't answer so we just went and knocked on his car window. Haha.
On Saturday we had the annual Hmong conference. This year it was held at Sheboygan. We had a super good turnout. I don't know how many people came exactly, but there was a lot of people and it wasn't even everyone. We were still missing a lot of people. This year's theme was “Christ-centered homes.” It went really well with the new time change for the church. They had a few workshops on Family home evening, sabbath day, and other things that can help us to have a more Christ-centered home. It was really good and will be very beneficial to all the Hmong members. We also had a great lunch and were able to have a lot of get to know you games. It was fun to see a lot of members from old wards that I have served in previously and also to see the other 14 Hmong missionaries.
On Sunday we had our first Hmong sacrament meeting. It was all in Hmong and it was really awesome! We had over 40 Hmong members show up and a had a few families missing. It was really cool to hear a few Hmong members share their testimony in their own native language and to also feel the spirit testify that the things they were saying were true. It testifies to me that God knows us all - no matter what language we speak, race we are, or where we are in the world, God understands and loves us and that was really cool for me to experience that.
I love this work and I am grateful to be a part of it!
Love,
Elder Rich
