Elder Austin Rich : 2019-06-16

Nyob zoo os,

Monday night we had a lesson with Vince. He is a super cool guy! He was so impressed that we could speak Hmong. After I said the prayer in Hmong he was like "Wow that was freaking awesome!" He was very emphatic about how cool he thought it was. He does have quite the mouth and may or may not have changed half of those words to other words haha, but hey we can work on that haha.

We taught him about the Restoration and The Book of Mormon. He was super excited to hear about all of that. He said he has been to lots of churches, but still feel likes there is something missing and hasn't been satisfied with any of the churches he has been to. He is sincerely looking for truth and is willing to put in the effort and time to find it. I am super pumped to continue to teach him.

Wednesday we had exchanges with the APs. I was with Elder Winborg in the Hmong area. We met a lot of Hmong people which was fun to be able to practice my Hmong. We accidentally knocked into one of the ladies we are teaching named Ze. I had a really good conversation with her. She speaks Green Hmong so I was able to have a full 30 min plus conversation with her in Green Hmong which was really cool. When I first started learning Green Hmong I had to translate between White to Green - kinda like when I first listened to White Hmong I would translate White Hmong to English, but now I just listen to it without translating. And fairly well too. It's pretty cool to see the gift of tongues in action!

We also had another lesson with Ee. She fed us Hmong food which was really good food and also good for us to have a little time to get to know her a better. For our lesson, we talked to her about prayer. It was a really good lesson. We testified of the blessings of prayer and blessings of the Book of Mormon to help her in her life.

Sunday we had church. We had Ze come to church which was super sweet. It was a really good Sunday for her to come. All the talks in sacrament were on the Restoration and Sunday school we read in the Book of Mormon from 3rd Nephi 11 when Jesus Christ comes to the Americas. She was like "That is the first time I ever heard about this before." I think she really enjoyed church and learned a lot of good stuff. So that is exciting.

These past few weeks we have had a ton of cool miracles happen. Honestly so many that I can't even count them every day. It's been really cool to see how much we have been blessed in the work and with the people we are teaching. I think a lot of the success and miracles we have seen have happened because of our attitudes. No matter what happens we are smiling, laughing, and loving doing what we are doing. I think this is a really important principle. I don't think we realize how much of an impact our minds and attitudes can have towards our success and mental health. I have felt discouraged plenty on my mission and let me tell you from my experience that discouragement, negativity, and lack of faith will profit you nothing. The only one that profits is Satan because when we are discouraged, negative, and don't have faith in ourselves or the things we do we can't expect to do or to accomplish anything. We can honestly do anything we put our minds to as we believe in ourselves and have faith in God.

"The mind is a powerful place and what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way. Just think about it for a second if you look at your face every day when you get up and think you'll never be great, you'll never be great. Not because you're not, but the hate will always find a way to cut you up and murder your faith."-NF

Don't doubt the power and the blessings that can come into your lives because of your positivity and faith. Most of the things we go through in our lives and who we become are based on our attitudes and how we decide to face the hard times. Be happy and be positive! No better way to live a happy life!

Love,

Elder Rich