Jan 15 - Find Joy in the Journey

Nyob zoo

This was a super hectic week.  This week we had zone conference and since we are so far away from everyone, we had to drive an hour and a half to get there and an hour and a half back so by the time that was over, the whole day was over.  We also had interviews with President Williams at our Sheboygan ward building since he was already up this way for zone conference so this whole week was a lot of meetings and we didn’t get to do a lot of missionary work.  So next week will be good because we can finally get some work done.

Other stuff this week:  

We got to watch President Monson’s funeral on Friday, so that was really cool to be a part of that.  

On Wednesday, our ward mission leader, Brother Klunk, had his 5 year anniversary of when he got baptized.  Elder Vang and I went to the store and bought him some apple pie and we brought it to his house.  We were able to take a picture with him and celebrate the 5 years since he was baptized.

Also, there is a less active family in our ward that owns a Hmong store and sells Hmong food.  We were going to go in there for dinner because we were hungry and wanted to buy some Hmong food.  It was around 7:30 and that was right around when they were closing.  They would have had to throw all the food away anyway so he just gave us a ton of food to take home.  We got chicken, pork, sausage, rice, and some noodle dish. That was awesome and we haven't even eaten it all yet.

I also ate some pretty interesting food this week.  A member family gave us deer meat. The Hmong people like to hunt and fish so I had deer and I had some type of fried fish. I don’t even know what type of fish it was, but I think it was catfish.

On Tuesday, we went tracting, and we didn’t have that long because we had a lot of meetings this week. but we had about 3 hours that day.  The first house we knocked on was an old lady and she let us in.  The old Hmong people talk forever so she talked about 99% of the 2 hours we were there about random stuff.  It was really frustrating because I didn’t understand hardly anything - maybe 20% of it.  Oh my gosh - it was terrible.  But on Sundays, we have a Hmong class the 2nd hour of church and I understood about 80% of it  - so if it’s gospel stuff, I understand pretty good, but if it’s anything else, I don’t understand any of it.

Also this week, I learned a lot about the Hmong culture religion, Shaman.  I didn’t really know what it was before.  I knew a little bit about it, but it’s actually some pretty crazy stuff.  We went over to a member’s house named Brother Yang.  He told us a bunch of crazy stories about Shamanism.  He used to be a Shaman before he converted, but now he is really active.  HIs family is probably one of our most active Hmong families in the ward. So basically, Shamanism -  they pretty much worship the evil spirits, not because they want to but because they are scared.  The evil spirits - whenever they want something, they will do something wrong and make something happen to the Hmong people.  So the Hmong people will have to do a ritual to worship the evil spirits because they are scared.  This keeps going on and on, so they basically worship the devil which is pretty crazy.  This is why it is pretty hard for them to convert to Christianity because it is completely opposite from what they’ve always believed.  One side you are worshipping God who brings you hope and that brings you love.  The other is worshipping the devil where it brings you fear and you are scared the whole time.  Someone who is using you and makes you live in fear.  This is why we have so many less active Hmong members.  They convert to Christianity and after they are baptized and something goes wrong, they don’t understand how the church can help them because they grew up in fear.  They are scared and they go back to Shamanism because that’s the only thing they know how to do.  This week we have to go over to a Hmong member’s home and visit with her because she did some rituals or something because she got scared.  We need to bless her because she accumulated a bunch of evil spirits in her home, so… I’m pretty scared. But it’ll be pretty interesting.

This week’s quote is from President Thomas S. Monson

"Find joy in the journey --- Now...There is no tomorrow to remember if we don't do something today." - Thomas S. Monson 

These past weeks, I have watched, read, and listened to a lot of the things that President Monson said.  Life is not always easy, even in the mission field, it seems that the journey isn't going how I planned it to be. Times are hard and stressful, but that doesn't mean we can't find joy NOW.  I sometimes think about the future of my mission. What will it hold? I think how in the future, I will be able to speak and to understand Hmong, but I need to focus on today and what I need to do now. I need to find the joy in everything I do - even all the hard work because life is supposed to be a good time, not the opposite.  So "Find joy in the journey, Now, There is no tomorrow to remember if we don't do something today." -Thomas S. Monson 

Have a great week

Love,

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Pictures: (1-2) Brother Klunk and his pie (3) Lots of Hmong food (4-5) Snow pictures because it snowed a ton here

January 8 - First Week in Sheboygan

Nyob Zoo,

This is my first letter in Sheboygan.  It is a lot different than Madison, but it’s a cute, little town.  Madison is a very big city, Sheboygan is a lot smaller - I mean a lot!  but it’s a small, fun little town.  It’s right off of Lake Michigan, so it’s really cool.  It is a lot colder here than it is in Madison (if that is possible) There is a lot of wind so it feels a lot colder than it really is.  My apartment is also way bigger than my apartment in Madison.  I’ll put a couple of pictures below so you can see the town and my apartment.

Transferring to a new city was a little stressful to be honest and a little scary at the same time.  There’s a lot of packing and unexpected stuff.  For transfers on Wednesday, I rode up with another elder named Elder Linker to Oshkosh.  Oshkosh is the town where the Bradys, who are from our Draper ward, moved to.  In Oshkosh, I met up with my new companion, whose name is also Elder Vang, and went to Sheboygan.

Our area for missionary work in interesting.  We used to have 6 missionaries here - English, Spanish, and Hmong missionaries.  But right now there are only Hmong elders here, so we have to do English, Spanish, and Hmong work, but we’re pretty much just going to focus on the Hmong people for now.  P-days are going to be pretty boring now because there aren’t zone sports for us since we are way isolated. The nearest missionaries to us are an hour drive away :(  The ward here in Sheboygan is a pretty good sized ward.   There are lots of less actives - along with every ward in Wisconsin.  There are only about 3 active Hmong families that come every week.  If all the Hmong less actives came regularly, we could have a Hmong only ward here easily.  The Hmong people come to the same ward building  (just like in Madison) and we translate for them.

For our investigators in Sheboygan - we have a few investigators, not a whole lot, so we are going to have to do a lot of tracting and finding to find some more people to teach.

This week, we already went on exchanges on my third day in the area.  I went with Elder Pinter who came here to Sheboygan, while my new companion went somewhere else. Since I was the only Hmong speaker in the area, I took over the area, and I didn’t know the area very well, but it was fun to be the leader and take over.

The area has a lot of fun things that we do.  We have a volleyball night every Friday at the church, and this week there were about 40 Hmong kids that came, so I got to play some good volleyball for a couple of hours.  Also every Sunday, we have FHE with a family and many of our investigators and recent converts can come and hear a lesson and after we play some games so that’s pretty fun.

And for my companion, new Elder Vang; I’m very impressed with him.  He is a really cool kid. He is from Sacramento and he’s been out on his mission 10 months.  He is a great missionary and his Hmong is really really good.  The first door that we tracted together this week, I asked him to do it because I wanted to see how good his Hmong was and see his style.  The guy opened his door and Elder Vang starts going off for about 20 seconds.  And the guy was like “Uhhhh??? I don’t know what you just said.” He was a Cambodian so it was pretty funny.

This week since the prophet, Thomas S. Monson passed away, I spent a lot of time pondering and thinking about his life. I am grateful for the many great and inspiring messages that he shared. He was a great example of a disciple of Jesus Christ to everyone. My favorite talk was his last talk "The Power of the Book of Mormon."  A very short but sweet message and this talk has stuck with me ever since. It made me really ponder and think about his message of how important the Book of Mormon is and how great a tool it is in our lives. It is such a helping hand in our lives. A message of love, encouragement, and hope. I know it is important for us to read and have a testimony of it - that was the last thing our prophet ever talked about.  I'll end my email with a few quotes from President Monson's talk.

“This morning I speak about the power of the Book of Mormon and the critical need we have as members of this Church to study, ponder, and apply its teachings in our lives.”

“If you are not reading the Book of Mormon each day, please do so.”

“If you do not have a firm testimony of these things, do that which is necessary to obtain one. It is essential for you to have your own testimony in these difficult times, for the testimonies of others will carry you only so far.”

That’s all for this week. 

Love,

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Pictures: (1)Saying goodbye to some members in Madison on Tuesday (2) Goodbye old Elder Vang (3) Hello new Elder Vang (4-5) my apartment (6-7) city of Sheboygan 

Additional pictures

Ride from Madison to Oshkosh with Elder Linker

Splits with Elder Pinter

Jan 2 - New Year and New City!

Nyob Zoo!

This was a WAY cold week.  I think the average temperature was about 5 degrees.  The coldest I ever saw it get was negative 9 degree.  One day out the 7 days it was a good 12 degrees, but it was usually around 5 degrees so it was cold.

A lot of things happened this week so I’ll try to get through it all.  We went to see Mai and her family.  Mai is Naly's friend who came to church with her a few weeks ago.  She’s doing really good.  She really loves learning about the gospel and I think she read 10 chapters in the Book Of Mormon in the last week which is pretty crazy.  She told us some cool experiences that she’s had that strengthened my testimony too.  The first story was when she was a little girl.  Her mom told her that two missionaries came to their house because she died.  The two missionaries came and gave her a blessing and she came back to life.  It’s pretty cool to think about that.  The second story was about her past life.  She said that there have been a ton of missionaries that have stopped by her house over the years.  She never would answer the door or give them the time of day.  But when Elder Vang and I came by, she changed her mind and she wanted to hear what we had to say.  And now here we are with her progressing really well.  She’s come to church 3 weeks in a row with her family.  It just shows that it’s all in God’s time when people are ready to learn and accept the gospel.

Next up is Kelly.  Kelly is doing super awesome.  She is doing her missionary work.  This week she invited her sister, Ntxoov, (Her English name is Shaun) to come and we taught them a lesson. It was kind of a review lesson where we taught the plan of salvation to her sister and Kelly kind of helped us teach.  After we invited Kelly to continue to pray and see if the Book of Mormon is true. We also invited Shaun to pray and see if what we taught her was true.  The next time we met with them, we asked them if they got their answer.  And it’s pretty cool because Kelly got her answer AND Kelly’s sister got her answer that the things that we taught are true and Kelly got her answer that the Book of Mormon is true.  So the Madison area is doing really good and right when all this happens…I’m getting TRANSFERRED!!!  I’m going to Sheboygan.  It was kind of funny to hear Kelly’s reaction to this.  She said in her broken English, “No you can’t get transferred.  You have to tell the people in charge - Yeah I can’t go - You have to say just say No.  Sorry.”  After the lesson, Kelly and her sister, Shawn,  both said that they were going to start praying for me to come back.  Haha.  And that prayer will be answered when they are baptized and I will come back to see their baptisms.  

All in all, it’s going to be pretty hard to leave Madison, Elder Vang, and especially the people here.  I’m going to miss the area, the awesome awesome investigators, and all the experiences Elder Vang and I have had…especially all the times he slipped on the ice, all the times we tried to get chased by dogs, and all the other pretty funny experiences.  Like this week, we were tracting to a guy’s house.  And it was really cold - it was REALLY COLD - and this guy was really confused why we were there at his door.  He was like, “Why are you guys here?  It’s super cold.”  And we were like, “Yeah…we know!!!” and he said. “Yeah, you guys are going to have to find another house to live in. You can’t live here.”  We were so confused.  He didn’t really get what we were doing and thought we were trying to find somewhere to live or something.  It was pretty funny.

I know that even though it’s going to be hard to leave, It’s all in God’s plan.  And sometimes we don’t understand all the things that God does, but it’s all part of his plan and he always knows what’s best.  It’s always in his wisdom.  I found a quote by Joseph B. Wirthlin that goes along with this. It says:

If we approach adversities wisely, our hardest times can be times of greatest growth, which in turn can lead toward times of greatest happiness.

That’s pretty true because right when I was getting comfortable and getting settled in, and we were doing some great things - I’m getting transferred.  But when you are comfortable, you won’t grow!  When you are uncomfortable and you are doing hard things, that’s the time that’s going to lead you to your biggest growth.  That’s what God’s plan is all about - us improving ourselves and growing and becoming better.  My mission president, President Williams, must want me to grow because first off, he put me with Elder Lewis who is one of the best Hmong speakers in the past 6 six years.  Then I was with Elder Vang who is a native.  And now I’m going to Sheboygan with another Native Hmong person.  So President Williams must want me to be good at Hmong because he keeps putting me with a lot of really good Hmong speakers - or he thinks I suck.  That could be possible too.

That’s all I have for this week.  Have a happy New Year and I'll talk to you in Sheboygan!

Love,

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Pictures: (1) Happy New Year  (2) we are standing on the snow on the frozen lake (the whole city is surrounding this lake) (3) tracting in the snow (4) Mai and her girls (Iris 9, Kalista 7, Aliza 5) They all really like me haha. Every time we go to their house they are waiting and open the door before we even knock and in church, they always draw me pictures. It is so cute. (5) Saying goodbye to Kelly on my left and Shaun.

December 25 Merry Christmas!

(Hmong)

Peb muaj ib lub cib fim zoo hnub Christmas no thiab txhua txhua Christmas xav txog Yexus Khetos  thiab nws lub neej. Yexus yeej hlub peb thiab nws pub rau peb txoj kev cia siab, txoj kev thaj yeeb nyab xeeb, txoj kev nplij siab, thiab txoj kev zoo siab. Hauv John, tshooj peb, nqe kaum rau, hais tias:

"Rau qhov Vajtswv hlub neeg ntiaj teb kawg li, nws thiaj li txib nws tib leeg tub los rau hauv ntiaj teb, tus uas ntseeg nws leej tub, tus ntawg yuav tsis tau kev ploj kev tuag tias sis nws yuav tau txoj sia ntev mus ib txhis." (John 3:16)

Kuv paub hais tias Yexus Khetos muaj txoj sia thiab hlub peb heev. Thiab kuv paub hais tias Yexus Khetos Lub Koom Txoos Ntawm Tsoom Haiv Neeg Ntseeg Hauv Hnub Nyoog Kawg muaj tseeb. Thiab kuv ua tub txib tsaug thiab ua Vajtswv txoj hauj lwm tsaug. Kuv hlub nej thiab kuv xav kom nej muaj ib hnub Christmas zoo. Sib ntsib dua no nawb!

(English)

We have a great opportunity this Christmas and every Christmas to think about Jesus Christ and his life. Jesus Christ truly loves us and gives us so much hope, peace, comfort, and happiness. In John chapter 3 verse 16 it says:

"For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever shall believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

I know that Jesus Christ lives and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true. I am grateful to be a missionary and grateful to do God's work. I love you guys and hope you guys have a great Christmas. Bye!

Dec 18 Busy Week!

Nyob Zoo!

This was a really good week - lots of great stuff happened this week.  We did exchanges so I went to Sun Prairie which was fun.  I got to eat sushi for the first time in 4 months and that was really good.  I finally figured out how to pronounce the letter D in Hmong so that’s pretty awesome!

This week so much happened.  To start the week, we had a lesson with Kelly and we brought one of the members named Sister Chang with us.  The members here are really awesome at loving the people and sharing their testimonies and they have a desire for others to come unto Christ.  After the lesson, she invited Kelly and us to come over the next day to eat.  So the next day, we went to her house and we got to help make the food.  We made some eggrolls which a lot of fun and really good.

This week we finally were able to have a lesson with Naly - you may remember she is Kelly’s daughter. It was really awesome because we have really really really wanting to meet with her and her family for a long time.  She lives outside of our area a little bit, but we got permission to go see her.  It was 17 miles there and 17 miles back, so it’s really far.  That day, we drove all the way down there.  She said to meet her there at 6:00, so got there about 5:55 and she texted us and said she wouldn’t be there until 7:00because she was still closing up her flower shop.  So Elder Vang and I didn’t have anything to do because we had just used a lot of miles and we only have a certain amount of miles we can use each month.  We couldn’t go back and tract so we just sat in the car and talked about life.  Life before the mission, the mission life, and after the mission life.  It was fun to just talk to each other and I realized as we were talking that I’m really grateful to be out here as a missionary.  It made me really reflect on my life and got me thinking about going to college and life after the mission and I’m totally not ready for that, so I’m grateful for having a little break and just being a missionary and doing something for someone else.

We were able to meet with her family at 7:00 and we had a really good lesson.  She said she really wanted to come to church, and the next day her whole family ended up coming to church.  And it was a crazy day at church for Elder Vang and me.  it was crazy and stressful because we had Kelly come, Naly and her husband, Tou, and their 4 kids, and also another investigator who is friends with Naly came with her 3 kids.  So we ended up have a ton of people there and it was stressful helping them all get where they needed to be.  It was hectic and stressful, but at the same time, it was good.  It’s crazy to think how much you can grow to love and care for the people you serve.  4 months ago, I didn’t even know these people, but now I have such a great love for them and care about them so much.

I’ll end my email with a challenge for this Christmas week. If you do not know this story, I encourage you to watch the Bible Video “Christ and the Rich Young Ruler.”  In this story, we learn of a man who comes to Jesus to see what he needs to do to make it to heaven. Christ tells him to follow the commandments. The young ruler tells him he has been doing that ever since he has been little. He then asks Jesus what he lacks? Jesus says he needs to sell all his things, give it to the poor and come follow Christ. 

A lot of us are similar to this young ruler, but we have the one thing that is blocking our paths. It may not be money like in this story, but we all have things that we can improve on in our lives so that we can get the greatest blessing which is eternal life. What is better than living with your family forever? It could be many different things - for example, our time. Time is the most precious gift we have because we can't get it back. So for Christmas, I encourage you all to give Christ a little bit of your time as a gift to him for all that he has done for you.  When you do that, you will get an even greater appreciation for him, a greater appreciation of what he did for us, and become closer to him. 

Thanks for all you guys do. Love you guys and enjoy the Christmas season. 

Mathew 16:25-26

25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Love, 

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Photos: (1) We helped an older couple last name Hieloshime set up their Christmas tree (2-3) making egg rolls with Kelly at the Chang's  (4)"After you prepare a 1 hour lesson for your investigator and then they cancel on you 5 mins later"  (5) sushi

Dec 11 - Ice and McDonalds

Nyob zoo!

It was a great week except for the fact that it has been super cold and snowing. It has been good though because I have been able to see Elder Vang slip on the ice like 100 times haha. This past week was honestly quite amazing. A lot of great things are happening here in Madison, Hmong including, and a Christmas card coming out soon :) We have a lot of great potentials and investigators. We also found a new investigator named Ntxawg. When we first found him we didn't really think much of him because he goes to a Baptist church and we thought he was going to just bible bash us the whole time. But actually he has been progressing really well. Everything we teach, he is very open to and he always says, “That makes a lot of sense.” We have given him a Book of Mormon and taught him the first 2 lessons. We are excited to see what happens with him. 

This week also we won the award for the cleanest car in the zone. It basically is an award to motivate people to clean the cars haha, and we won. We set a companionship goal that we wanted to win the award (mostly because you get a McDonald's gift card if you win). So the day before we cleaned our car really good and put some air fresheners in the car. It was all worth the cleaning because now we have the Golden license plate to show off on our car and also the McDonald's gift card. The cool thing though is a few days later, we ended up going to McDonald's for lunch really quick before one of our appointments. After we were done we went outside and saw a couple of kids just sitting in the snow. It was really cold outside and we were confused why they were sitting outside in the cold all by themselves. Elder Vang went up and started talking to them. We found out that the oldest boy, Deyizon, a 6th grader and his little sister, Kamariah, a 4th grader just left their home and started walking to their aunt’s house in the cold by themselves in a busy area. While they were walking, the sister got a headache and started crying, so they had been sitting there ever since. After talking to them, we took them inside, bought them their little Happy Meal and toy, and called the parents. Even though we didn't teach them anything, we left a good memory for them about missionaries and our church. You could tell the mom was appreciative and so were the kids. So hopefully in the future when missionaries knock on their door, they can remember this experience and have an open heart because of this.

This week we also had our ward Christmas party combined with the YSA ward so the campus Elders were there too, which was fun.  We invited a ton of people, but none of them were able to come. It was still a great time with all the members of our ward though. We ate some food and sang a lot of Christmas songs. One of the members, Chakong Lee, bought Elder Vang and I Christmas ties. So the three of us all wore our Christmas ties to the Christmas party. 

This past week, Elder Vang and I were thinking a lot about the Christmas season and the true meaning of Christmas. We shared a message with a less active family and showed them a video called "Jesus is Scourged and Crucified.” It is one of the Bible videos that the church put out and is on lds.org, youtube, and the lds app. After we were done watching it, we asked them all 

“What does Jesus Christ Mean To You Personally?”  It was really cool to see all their different answers and after the lesson was over one of the kids texted us and said he really appreciated the message and said he was going to share with some of his friends “What Jesus Christ Means to Him.” 

This week, I was able to ponder on this question too. As I was thinking about this, it reminded me of a story that I heard called “The Interview.”  Basically it is about 2 friends. After they both die the 2 friends go to heaven. The first friend goes in a room and is interviewed. The interviewee asked him one question. “Who is Jesus Christ to you?” He answered with some great answers like “He is my Savior, he atoned for my sins, and he died on the cross for me.” The interviewee says, “Great what else?” He then says, “He was a great teacher, he is the son of God” and other similar answers like these. After the interview is done, the next friend comes in to be interviewed. Right when he gets into the room he gets on his knees and starts crying and says, “Jesus Christ, My Lord, My Savior.” 

It got me thinking - after I die and go to be judged by Jesus Christ, will I recognize him? He is not going to be wearing a name badge like we do as missionaries. So this past week I have been just pondering that question “Who is Jesus Christ to me Personally?” If any of you have any spare time this week, I recommend watching that Bible video and then just ponder on “Who is Jesus Christ to you?” for 5 mins or so.

That is all for this week. Hope you guys have a great week.

Love Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Pictures: (1) Elder Vang slips and falls again, (2) Christmas Card Preview, (3) Picture with Chakong Lee, (4) Christmas party with the Campus Elders, (5) Wisconsin Christmas Lights, and (6) Deyizon and Kamariah.