MARCH 12 - #BLESSINGS

Okay let’s just start with this - This was one of my FAVORITE weeks on my mission…  #BLESSINGS!!!

On Tuesday we did exchanges with the Westbend elders and I got to go with Elder Pinter again and he came here to Sheboygan with me and Elder Vang went to Westbend with Elder Henrikson.  I love exchanges - exchanges are always a blast.  It reminded me of the last time I went on exchanges with Elder Pinter which was like the third day I was in Sheboygan.  We were going tracting and I didn’t know the area at all and he didn’t either.  We knocked on some random houses and one house let us in right away.  And I was like, “Wow these guys are awesome.  They are going to be awesome investigators.”  We were talking to them for a while and they offered us some hot chocolate and they were just a super nice and awesome family.  Somehow later I figured out that they were members and they were super active and it was just so embarrassing.  It was funny so going out with him again reminded me of that.

Blessing #1 this week:

There is an investigator named Evan that Elder Vang and Elder Lamb taught before I got here back in December.  After Elder Lamb left, we just haven’t been able to get in contact with him.  This last week we were able to get in contact with him again which is super awesome because he is a super nice guy and he’s pretty interested - he’s just been pretty busy because he has a full-time job and he’s going to school at the same time.  We set up another appointment for Wednesday with him.

Blessing #2 this week:

We had a lesson with Melanie.  She is moving to Georgia (I promise that’s not the blessing because that sounds bad) but it was a tender mercy because she said she is moving there but she does not want to leave this church or the Book of Mormon behind. That was kind of a comfort to me because I can get a little frustrated with her - not at her but later in the apartment - because she won’t really progress.  She won’t stop smoking.  She won’t read that much.  But she asked if there was a church in Georgia so that was pretty cool because even though I felt like we were wasting our time with her a little bit, it’s not going to be a waste because once she moves she still wants to go to church.

#3

Those were both on Tuesday and after, Elder Pinter and I were both pretty hungry since it was about 8:15.  We were trying to figure out where we wanted to go get some dinner and of course, two teenage boys decide to go get some Coldstone for dinner.  I was just planning on getting a pretty small size but we went there and they had a flavor called Lemon Pie.  Dang, it was so good so I bought $12 worth of ice cream.  It tastes like lemon pie and lemon bars so that’s a recommendation for all of you.

Blessing #4

Wednesday I took Elder Pinter to the Hmong store to get some Hmong food because he’s never tried it before.  Hmong food can be pretty expensive and it was going to be about $20 but the guy just charged us $2 which was pretty cool.

Blessing #5

Elder Vang and I were back together.  We had a lesson with Ariel on Thursday and she is processing super well.  Elder Vang asked her to be baptized and she said yes but she has to wait until she gets off parole which is June.  So she is planning on getting baptized in June.

Blessing #6

We had a lesson with Elder Vang’s friends, Mong and Amanda, they are Elder Vang’s friends from back home.  Mong had a cousin there and he was super interested and he expressed that he wanted to learn more and he is looking for more of a purpose in life.  So that’s our new investigator.  His name is Ki and he’s our first new investigator in a few weeks so that was a big blessing.

Blessing #7

This was my favorite day of the week - Saturday.  We had Hmong conference.  It was my favorite because we got to see all the Hmong missionaries - all 12 of us were there.  This is a conference just for the missionaries - we have some members and investigators come to give us some training to see how we can help the Hmong people better.  It was all in Hmong too.  We had a member from our ward, Vong Sa Yang, who I talked about earlier.  His family was the one I ran into the first time with Elder Pinter.  He gave us some training.  A returned missionary from Appleton gave us a training.  Vong Sa’s brother, who lives in Minnesota, skyped and gave some training.  Two sisters from Madison, Sister Chang and Sister Lee, gave training and it was really good to see them again.

And Blessing #8

Kelly and her sister, Shaun from Madison came too so that was one of the best parts - seeing them again.  Kelly is just so funny.  At lunch, she came up and gave me a hug which is probably breaking the rules, but whatever!  She was pretty much just bragging about me.  She was giving me a hug and telling all the other elders, “This is my Tshwj Xeeb.”  She's so cute and so funny.

Blessing #9

After all the trainings were done, all the missionaries bore their testimonies in Hmong which was pretty cool.  I didn’t mention before, but we had two Hmong Missionaries that went home for surgery and whatever a few months ago.  We only had 10 missionaries and there are 6 areas so we would have had to close a whole area.  We had 2 English speaking missionaries who volunteered to become Hmong elders 6 months out into their missions and that’s got to be pretty dang hard because I am still struggling with Hmong and they had no MTC training and are just learning it out in the field.  They’ve been learning it for a couple of months now.  President Williams asked them to go first to bear their testimonies and it was just super awesome to see their improvement in only two months.  It was so cool to hear everyone bear their testimony in Hmong.  After the Hmong conference, none of the missionaries wanted to leave.  I didn’t want to leave either - I love them all so much.  They are all so awesome. So we ended up taking pictures for a while and then Elder Vang and I went to dinner with the Madison elders - Elder Vang and Elder Blackburn.  

Blessing #10

On Sunday we got a call from the Madison Hmong elders.  We were like “That’s weird!”  Elder Vang answered the phone and it was all in Hmong - Elder Vang and Elder Vang talking in Hmong.  I could hear a little of it because it was on speaker phone.  Elder Vang from Madison asked, “Hey are you coming to Kelly, Shaun, and Mai’s baptism on the 24th?”  (I was going to leave that for a surprise when I went down, but I guess I’ll say it now.)  3 of my old investigators from Madison are being baptized this month.  We told him, “We want to but we still have to ask President.” They talked a little more and then they hung up the phone.  Elder Vang asked, “Did you understand all of that?”  I said, “I understood most of it.” He asked me what I understood and I told him.  He was like, “Oh you didn’t even get the coolest part!”  Anyway - Kelly asked if I would baptize her so that’s super exciting.  We asked President and he said we could go down for them so... on the 24th we get to go to Madison so we get to go see my old ward I was serving in and see 3 of my old investigators get baptized which I am so excited for.

Well this was a super long email and I’m sorry for that, but it was such a good week.

Talk to you next week,

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Hmong conference

3 of the Hmong elders I was in the MTC with

Reunited with Elder Vang

March 5 - We all have Challenges - Who will you Become

Nyob zoo,

This week we had 5 different Hmong meals so we already know it was a good week if that happened.  Hmong food is so good.

This week we had the opportunity to go on exchanges with the zone leaders.  This last transfer we got 2 new zone leaders.  They both came to Sheboygan and spent the night in our apartment.  It was pretty fun, but it was also good because we were able to do a little bit of work in our area.  I went on exchanges with Elder Evans, he is a Spanish missionary, and he served in the same zone with Jackson Gardner in the MTC so he knew Jackson which is really cool.

This week we also had interviews with President Williams so we got to talk to him which is always a great time.  President is so awesome - he’s such an awesome guy and is so loving and caring.  And the spirit that he has…it’s almost indescribable.  He’s just such a good guy.  So we all got to talk to him individually this week in my district for about 30 minutes. He always gives me such good tips and things that I can improve on.  It’s always one of my favorite parts of every transfer - getting my individual time talking to him.  it’s just awesome.

This week, we did a lot of less active work.  We are trying to get to every less active Hmong family and see if they still live there and just trying to meet everyone.  So we did a lot of that this week and not too much tracting - which is kind of nice. I’m pretty tracted out right now.  We’ve done a lot of that lately.  It was good because we were able to meet a lot of the Hmong families that we didn’t know, and we still have a lot more that we need to go see too.

Also, one of the Hmong families that fed us this week - they have a daughter named Bria who is turning 8 in April so she will be baptized in April which is right after the next transfer.  The next transfer is March 28 so I hope that I’m staying here so I can go to her baptism because she is so funny and awesome.  Her parents asked us if we could teach her a lesson about baptism, so after the dinner with her family, we were able to teach her a lesson on baptism and why it is important.  It was really fun, and even though it’s not us baptizing her, it’s always fun to see someone who is getting baptized and is so excited about it.  That’s what I love about little kids, they are always so excited.

We also met with Ariel again this week.  She is just doing awesome and she has that desire to learn.  We showed her a 15-minute clip from “Meet the Mormons” because one of the stories is pretty similar to her story.  It was cool to see how she could see the connection between her and the person in the movie and she could see how the gospel changed her life and she could really see that she wanted the same thing for her too.  What’s funny about Ariel is that we don’t have to ask her to set up a return appointment.  She just tells us, “Just text me whenever and you guys can come over.“  She just really has a desire to learn and is really awesome.

My favorite lesson we taught this week was to Nou and Cynthia who are two of our investigators.  They both are ready to be baptized but their parents just won’t let them at the moment.  They are both seniors in high school and they are both super awesome.  We taught them a lesson called, “Become”  and we read out of the Bible in Matthew 27 where Jesus is going to be crucified and we talked about all the hard things he went through.  We asked the questions, “Why is life so hard?  Why do we have all these challenges?  if we are trying our best to choose the right and follow God, Why do we have all these struggles and trials in our lives?”  And in this scripture, it shows that even Jesus Christ who was perfect, still had those problems and had those trials in his life too.  And his life wasn’t easy even though he was perfect.   We then showed the video “Become” which is the February Mormon Message and it talks about a guy whose parents both died.  His dad died when he was eleven and his mom died when he was fourteen.  He talks about how that really hard time in his life helped him to become the person Heavenly Father wanted him to become.  We shared with them that through all the hard times, we have that choice in our life - we can choose to be angry and mad... or we can turn to Heavenly Father and seek for understanding and try to understand and grow from our trials.  The spirit was really strong in the lesson and they could really feel it and they were really grateful.  It was a really good lesson.

If you have time this week, watch the new Mormon Message “Become.” 

Have a great week

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Elder Evans

Pictures with Brea Vang and David Vang.
Brea will be baptized in April.

Feb 26 - The more we give, the more we receive

Nyob zoo

To start the week, we had some crazy weather.  We had freezing rain so the first day we pretty much had to stay in the apartment the whole day because they wouldn’t let us go outside because it was slippery.  We got a lot of our weekly planning done.

This week we did a lot of fun things.  We went to a dinner appointment on Wednesday at Sister Hoogstra and her husband's home.  She is a member but her husband is not a member.  He is super nice and he is a pilot.  He took us to the airport after the dinner and we got to go into a flight simulator.  You just fly - kind of like a video game in a way.  We got to do that and it was really cool.  It was just like you’re flying an airplane and it was really hard.  At the end, I was trying to land it and I was going to run into a tree so he quickly turned it off and he was like, “Good job!  You did not crash!”  It was funny.

On Thursday was Elder Vang’s one year mark which is close to my 6-month mark.  Here on the mission, they have a tradition that once you hit 6 months you burn a tie, one year you burn a shirt, a year and a half you burn a pair of pants and then two years you burn a suit.  So I got to burn a tie and Elder Vang got to burn a shirt and a tie because he never got to do that.  We did this at our ward mission leader's home, Brother Klunk.

On Sunday, one of the younger kid members named Tshwm Sim had a birthday and his family invited us over for his party so that was fun.  I didn't know a lot of the people because they were his relatives, but we had a lot of Hmong food.  That was good.

We also met with Ariel this week and she is doing super awesome and her desire to learn is there and she knows that putting God first is what’s going to make her the most happy in life.  After one lesson, it’s a little sad to say that she is our most progressing investigator at the moment.  But it is what it is.  Some people take longer and some people are faster.  But she is super awesome.

We also met with Melanie’s family this week and she still has the same problem of smoking.  She is super awesome and her family is awesome.  It will just take a little longer with her.

Yesterday in church we didn't have anyone to translate for so we were able to go to Elder's Quorum.  In Elders Quorum, a comment was made along the lines of:

"The more we give, the more we receive."

That really hit me in that lesson and I think it is so true for our everyday lives. The more we give of things like our talents and time, the more we get back in return. Something that I have definitely seen on my mission so far is - the more I give of myself to the work, the more I receive. It is still hard - don't get me wrong, but to see people so grateful and to see their smiles makes it all worth it. I love being able to have the opportunity to do this every day. It is a true blessing. These are times I will always treasure and remember. 

flight simulator

Me burning my tie

Elder Vang burning his shirt 

This is Butterfly - she is Tshwm Sim's sister.  She is an awesome member

February 19 - Missionary work and the Atonement

Nyob zoo

This week we spent a lot of time knocking on doors again and finding, but here in Sheboygan most people work, both the husband and the wife, so most of the time, no one answers because no one is ever home.  And this week I was getting pretty frustrated because it’s a lot of knocking and no one is there.

We do have some new investigators the last couple of weeks that I haven’t mentioned before.  

The first one is a young lady named Chong Dee. We just knocked on her house about 3 weeks ago and she was a former investigator.  We said we could teach her again and we’ve met with her a couple of times. Things are going pretty good with her but it’s kind of the same situation as a lot of younger kids. She likes learning, but her parents won't let her go to church really. But we are reviewing the lessons with her since it has been over a year since she has been taught. 

The next investigator is named Ariel.  She is a single mother with a couple of kids.  She is a former investigator too.  She has a friend who is a member in our church and she has been coming to church every single week ever since I’ve been here and probably before.  She used to be taught by the sisters about a year ago and then she stopped.  She was telling us the other day that she has completely flipped her life around.  A couple of years ago she was in prison because she was doing pretty much every drug you can imagine, but now she’s pretty much completely flipped her life around and has gotten her priorities straight.  

The 3rd ones are Mong Kong and his wife Amanda.  It’s kind of funny because they are a couple of Elder Vang’s friends from back home and he forgot they moved out here to Sheboygan. He ran into them at the Hmong New Year before I got here and he said he was interested in learning so it’s pretty cool.

This week also, Elder Vang has some family who lives out here.  His aunt lives here in Sheboygan and he has a couple of cousins.  We’ve stopped by his aunt’s house a couple of times and talked with them and they are super nice and they’ve fed us.  She gave us his cousin’s number and so we went and stopped by his cousin’s house this week and he opened the door and let us right in.  He was like, “Hmm….you look familiar.”  and Elder Vang was like, “Yeah. You’re my cousin!”  He was like, “OHHHH!!!”  There’s quite a bit of an age gap between them because Elder Vang is 19 and his cousin is about 38 so they are not super close in age but they are still family.  They invited us to stay for dinner and you can’t pass up Hmong food.  Hmong food is the best.  I love Hmong food.  So we ate with them and then he invited us to come back and teach his family.  I don’t know if it’s necessarily because he’s interested in learning about the church or just a curiosity thing, but hopefully, when he hears it, he’ll realize it’s true.

Like I said earlier I was pretty frustrated this week on Thursday. I was pretty mad, angry, and discouraged. Elder Vang could tell I was too. A little later in the day, he showed a part of a talk that helped me out and is really powerful. It is called "Missionary work and the Atonement" by Jeffrey R. Holland. 

"Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?

You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price.

For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.

If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.

The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

If you have time to read the rest of the talk, it is really good, but this was the part that helped me this week. 

Love,

Elder Tshxj Xeeb

They have lots of cool churches in Sheboygan.

We call them the temples since there isn't a temple in Wisconsin

Valentine's Day treats in the mail

Scarlett.  She is Eden's older sister.  I've sent a picture of her before.

Elder Vang and his cousin, Koua and family

February 12 - Staying in Sheboygan

Nyob zoo

Not happened this week in our area for missionary work, so I’ll just talk about some other fun things that happened this week.

This week is transfers on Wednesday, and me and Elder Vang are both staying here in Sheboygan so that’s good.  On Wednesday last week, we went and helped clean out the old sisters’ apartment that used to be in Sheboygan, so it’s official now that we are the only missionaries in Sheboygan.  This last transfer was a tough one. We didn't really make any progress with anyone and we really didn't find anyone promising. It is funny to me how many doors we knocked on. We could knock on doors for like 5 hours and not one person will answer but sometimes if we knock doors for 5 mins, we get 2 answers. It is just weird. We are still working hard, but no success. I am doing good though. I made a pretty good plan for my studies. I am hoping to learn around 2000 words in the next 6 months, so by my year mark it will be a lot of hard work, but very rewarding. I am excited about this next transfer and hopefully, we can start seeing some success. 

On Thursday, we got a referral from the sisters in Manitowoc. They are teaching a lady there and her son is in the prison here.  The lady wanted us to go and talk to her son., Devyn.  On Sunday, we left church early because that was the only time we could go.  We left and we went and talked to him at the prison and that was really interesting because I’ve never been in a prison before. He’s a super nice guy and he seemed kind of interested, so that’s good.  On the way home though, we were driving home after talking to him, and a car rear-ended us.  I guess that’s what we get for leaving church early.  Kind of funny. It doesn't look like any damage was done, but we will have to have someone look at it.

A new family, last name Prusse, moved in a couple of weeks ago and they invited us over for dinner last week.  We just had a simple meal - potatoes, sausage, and some salad.  I got some salad - I don’t like salad - but I was being polite.  So I put a little salad on my plate and I got the dressing and - I poured out about 1/2 the bottle on accident so… I had a lot of salad that day.  It was a good first impression I guess.  After the lesson, we played PieFace and that’s a game I think my sisters would like. I’ll put some pictures below. 

We went to another dinner appointment this week, and it was really cute because right when they opened the door, the little 5-year-old daughter came right to us and gave us little valentines and some stickers.  I put one of them on my name tag.  It was cute.

Also this week, we went to a house and right when we got there, the girl was crying really hard.  I won’t say who it is, but she was crying.  We started talking to her and she said that she isn’t satisfied with her life and she isn’t satisfied with who she is and wasn’t happy.  She always has these suicidal thoughts.  That was a really sad experience for me being there because she really is so awesome and no one deserves to have those types of feelings that they’re not worth anything or no one cares for them.  It just really made my heart sad.  We ended up showing her a Mormon message and shared a scripture with her and it cheered her up.  I think the lesson was really good because we just stopped by and didn’t tell her we were coming by and it ended up really helping her. It’s really sad that people in this world are mean, honestly, but she is super awesome.  Sometimes people don’t tell her that, so it’s good that we can go over and tell her how awesome she really is and cheer her up.

That’s what this gospel is all about is picking people up and helping them see how much they are really worth and how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ truly love them and care for them. The way they can feel this love is through Christ's atonement because he - Christ knows what we are going through and understands our pains. The atonement really does show how much Christ loves us because it wasn't an easy thing to do, but he did it anyway because he loves and cares for us so much. This scripture explains just that.

1 Nephi 19:9 And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.

Thanks for all you do for me.

Have a great week.

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Another picture of all the snow

lots and lots of snow

Welcome to Sheboygan

Valentine heart sticker

PieFace