On Wednesday we said our goodbyes to Elder Giddings and Elder Vang. Elder Chue and I waited until around 2:00 when our companions finally got there. Like I said last week, my new companion is Elder Parker who I actually served with in Appleton for 2 transfers and Elder Chue's companion is Elder Tarone who I served with for 1 transfer in Wausau. It has been super fun to serve around both of them this week.
This week was the coldest week of this whole winter so far by far. We have been blessed with sunny and non-snowy days this year. The majority of our days this year have been in the 20's, 30's and even some in the 40’s, so this week was so cold. The Wisconsin winter I remember from last year sadly decided to come around, windy and in the negatives. We were so blessed this year so far with the higher temperatures and overnight it went from 30's and sunny to negative temps, snowy, and dark and dreary skies. Let's just say that we got wrecked by the cold this past week.
A couple quick funny stories this week. First, we were riding the 30 bus up to the mall to catch the 20 to go the Northside. After getting off the 30 the app said to wait where we were for the 20. Well, a few minutes later we saw the 20 we wanted driving past another bus stop we didn't see. So we decided to wait for the next 20. We waited in the cold for 30 mins and while doing so checked out the times of the busses. We saw that the next 20 would come soon, so when the next bus came, for some reason both of didn't check the number, but just hopped on - probably cause it was so cold and we just wanted to get on the warm bus. We'll then we see the bus driving back towards home and we were both like “Nooooooooo!!!!” So we ended up getting to the Northside a little late because I am still not super good with these bus routes haha. Funny times though.
The other thing that happened is that dropped a good foot or so of snow. That happened to be our car day which was crazy to drive in. Anyways we were following our GPS which was taking us to the next house. It took us to T crossroad. Turning right was a steep hill that already had 2 cars stuck and left was a dead end culdesac, so we went left and were planning on gunning it up that hill. We waited while the cars came backwards down the hill and drove back from where they came from. Then we were about to go, but a dang minivan thought he would be able to make it up that hill, but obviously, he didn't and got stuck halfway. So we were gonna gun it around him but then started coming down the hill, so we decided to wait until after. Finally, the minivan came back down the hill and turned around, but at that exact moment 2 more cars went up and both got stuck blocking the whole road and then on top of that, 30 secs later, another car tried to go up when there was already a car stuck. Not smart because he got stuck too and the road had a 3 car pileup. After all that waiting we decided it would just be a good idea to come back the way we came and go the long way.
Elder Parker and I have been working hard and it's been really good. We set a couple return appointments for next week which should be exciting. Also, our studies have been insane. We have been learning so much about the gospel and the language. We started reading the New Testament in Hmong this past week in our language study and have learned a lot of grammar and words. We also have been going through a Grammer book and learning a ton from that. I also started learning Moob Leeg (Green Hmong) which is just a different dialect from Hmoob Dawb (White Hmong). It's pretty fun and I have caught on to the difference pretty quickly. It is still going to take a little time to get it down. Here is an example sentence between the two.
So white Hmong -
"Wb xav qhia ib zaj txog Tus tswv Yexus uas yuav pab nej heev"
and green Hmong -
"Wb xaav qha ib zaaj txug tug tswv Yexus kws yuav paab mej heev."
Pretty cool and fun!
Sunday we had Hmong sacrament meeting again and also 2nd hour was also Hmong class, so we had 2 hours of just learning in Hmong which was really fun and a good Hmong listening practice. We had a pretty good turnout so that was good. Later that night we had dinner with one of the Hmong families, the Yangs. They are super fun and would do anything for the missionaries. They made us Khauj Poob (Probably sounds like Cow Pong minus the tones). It was really good plus they added something into that I never had before Ntshav (which is just a cube of dried blood. I was really scared to try it, but it really wasn't too bad.
Overall it was a really fun week! I got a tie from my brother which was a fun surprise and also got a fresh haircut.
Love you all,
Elder Rich
Pictures: (1) Saying bye to Elder Giddings (2) Wrestling in the snow with Elder Chue (3) New snow (4) khauj poob with the Ntshav (cube of dried blood) (5) My boi Tarone - headband bois reunited!
