Tuesday I said the rest of my goodbyes to the members in Madison and then Wednesday morning headed up to Green Bay. When I left Madison I was completely healthy, but right when I got to Green Bay I started to feel sick. It was really odd. So this whole week I was sick but didn't let that hold back our week. We were still able to do a lot of stuff. We are really busy in Green Bay and it is really awesome.
Wednesday night right when I got here we went and visited a less active family. We ate Pho with them, which of course was fantastic, and after taught the kids some Hmong words and phrases which we both probably learned more than we taught, but nonetheless still really fun. After we taught a lesson and it was cool to hear their testimonies.
Thursday we had dinner with one of the Hmong members Mai See. She was really cool. We practiced a lot of Hmong with her even though she is fluent in both Hmong and English. She was able to help us both out a lot, so that was cool. She is really good at painting and painted some really cool portraits of all the characters from the TV show Naruto. Really cool.
Saturday we did a lot of finding with not really any success sadly, but we were able to meet one of the recent convert families Nhia and his wife Kia and their 5 kids. Nhia plays semi-pro football. Super awesome family and they have really strong testimonies. We had a good discussion with them and it is amazing to hear the sacrifices they made for the gospel and for God and Christ. Nhia was Shaman before and after he converted, basically his whole family disowned him, but he didn't give up on his faith because he knew it was true. Amazing example of faith to me. Honestly so insane.
Sunday was an amazing day! We had an amazing turnout at church. Recent converts that came, a few less active families, and Avania and Kardan who we are teaching came as well, so that was amazing to see. Of course, we were translating in Sacrament and while I was translating I see one of the Hmong members go up there to bear their testimony and Elder Taylor nudges me to go up and translate for her. I was like gosh dang it. It's hard enough to translate from English to Hmong, but now to go do it the other way and in front of the whole congregation was really scary. It ended up going really well though. I was able to understand and translate her testimony to the congregation fairly well. There were only 3 words that I didn't know in her testimony so that was really cool. Gift of tongues for sure. After Sacrament, we had 2nd hour which I translated for as well. After both hours I was so tired haha!
After church, we went finding and it was one of the best days of finding in honestly soooo long. We met 3 Hmong people and they all said we could come back! One we knocked and did not think it was going to be Hmong, but it ended up being Hmong. We spoke Hmong which amazed the wife and she went to get her husband. They let us in. The cool thing is they've never met missionaries before. That's a first haha, but an amazing miracle. They are super prepared. They want us to come back and teach them and their kids more about Christ. Another cool thing is that the husband is actually Chinese, but is fluent in not only Hmong but also 4 other languages. That was really cool. After that, we were super pumped to go out and find. It's cool when you find people prepared - it increases your motivation and faith a lot. The next house we knocked the guy wasn't interested, but then Elder Taylor didn't give up and asked an inspired question which sparked his interest. He said we could come back.
For dinner, we had an amazing meal to break our fast. Elder Taylor and I were getting 4ths and 5ths, it was so good. The family that had us over was married to a Chinese lady so Elder Taylor got to speak Chinese. That was cool to listen to. It was cool to hear him speak and a few of the words are the same as Hmong or really similar.
Afterward, we went to another members house to see if they were still planning on helping with the Hmong conference in a few weeks. Since I'm sick she helped me out the Hmong way lol. She made this nasty medicine that I chugged and almost threw up and wrapped medicine around my wrist and ankle. We will see if it helps at all haha.
A couple of verse I like from this week. 1 Nephi 15:23-24.
23 And they said unto me: What meaneth the rod of iron which our father saw, that led to the tree?
24 And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.
We know that as we hold on to the iron rod it will get us to the tree of life, but what is also cool is that as we are doing that, we will be able to overcome the temptations that the devil throws at us. So keep reading your scriptures! It must be the spirit, happiness, peace, and joy that we feel when we read that makes it so we can't be tempted.
Love,
Elder Rich
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| Some of the Hmong elders at transfer point on Wednesday. Elder Green on the front left and Elder Vang in the back middle both finished their missions and are home now. |
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| Green Bay Packer's stadium |
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| New companion, Elder Taylor |
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| medicine the Hmong way |
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| Naruto paintings |
