March 25: Lots of flooding this week and Stake Conference

Nyob zoo os,

On Tuesday we had district council and also interviews. My interview was pretty fast and rushed, but nonetheless, it was great to talk to President as always. The rest of the day I was on exchanges with Elder Israelson in the Hmong area. He is only been out for 5 months so it was fun serving with him and his fire. We worked really hard which was great and were able to meet some people as well which was good. 

We had the opportunity to help a few families this week. With all the recent warm weather all the snow has melted which caused a lot of flooding. A ton of the city was flooded, some parts up to 5 feet. A ton of houses were flooded causing lots of damage and loss of property and possessions. One of the Hmong families houses got condemned and they lost everything in their basement. So many cool memories and possession that they had to throw out. It was super sad. 

We do a sports night every Thursday. This Thursday we had a really good turnout. Alvinia who we are teaching came and a few of her friends. That was awesome and we had a great time playing volleyball! 

On Friday we had dinner with one of the Hmong members, Mai See and her daughter. Super fun and super good food as always. I told her how I need to learn how to cook Hmong food and she said that it's super easy so next time we come over she is going to teach us how to cook Pho (You're welcome mom).

We also have been talking with a super awesome Niam tais and her daughter who own a Hmong clothing store. She is so awesome and she loves us. Anyone that can speak Hmong to the older generation they love it. Anyway, she has been making some super cool Hmong ties for us and really cheap as well. I have received a lot of compliments from people about the Hmong ties, so if anyone wants to get one let me know and I can hook you up with one for pretty cheap. 

Saturday and Sunday we had stake conference. We had a super sick 70, Gifford Nielson, come and visit. He played quarterback at BYU, for the Houston Oilers, and also was a broadcaster for 25 years. He was a really good speaker and his testimony was really cool to hear. I always enjoy that. 

Saturday afternoon we went to Chuck E. Cheeses. I haven't been there in a minute. It's been a while haha. We went for one of the Hmong family's kid, Nathaniel's birthday. He is a super cute kid. Always gives us hugs when he sees us. We got him some pokemon cards and a Pikachu stuffed animal. Good times! 

Sunday we met with an awesome guy named Shoua. He made us breakfast Hmong style which was really good and after we had a good conversation. He just barely had his first child 3 months ago. He is really looking for answers to questions that he has like "What is the purpose of life?" "Is God really there?" and "Why do bad things happen to good people?" He grew up in a Shaman family, but now he is really open to learning about God. He seems very promising and it is very interesting because he has a lot of the same values and morals as the church, but just isn't a member. We are excited to meet with him more. 

Also, exciting news all the recent converts in Madison went to the Chicago temple for the first time. 

Something that I thought was cool is in the very first verse of the Book of Mormon it says the word "affliction." If you click on the word affliction something really cool is the 2 tabs underneath affliction say 1. Blessing and 2. Gifts of God. I thought that was a different twist from how we usually view afflictions and trials. It all is on our attitude and our positivity on how we view our struggles. God wants us to learn and grow, but it is up to our mindset.

Love, 

Elder Rich

snow is melting

flood cleanup

Chuck E Cheese's bday party

Madison members and converts temple trip

March 18: Hmong conference, setting goals, and the gift of tongues.

Nyob zoo os!

Tuesday we had district meeting. The Jensons are super awesome and brought a ton of snacks for us to eat. We had a good meeting about setting goals! I never really understood the importance of setting goals, so I got a little slap in the face. A good quote that I shared was by President Benson which says:

"Every accountable child of God needs to set goals, short- and long-range goals. A man who is pressing forward to accomplish worthy goals can soon put despondency under his feet, and once a goal is accomplished, others can be set up. Some will be continuing goals. Each week when we partake of the sacrament we commit ourselves to the goals of taking upon ourselves the name of Christ, of always remembering him and keeping his commandments. Of Jesus’ preparations for his mission, the scripture states that he ‘increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.’ (Luke 2:52.) This encompasses four main areas for goals: spiritual, mental, physical, and social. ‘Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be?’ asked the Master, and he answered, ‘Verily I say unto you, even as I am.’ (3 Ne. 27:27.) Now, there is a lifetime goal—to walk in his steps, to perfect ourselves in every virtue as he has done, to seek his face, and to work to make our calling and election sure.” 

I thought that was a really good quote on why we need to set goals in ALL aspects of our lives, not just specific aspects like I was doing. I am excited to work on setting some more goals. 

Thursday we had lunch with a super sweet Hmong Niam Tais (Grandma) as Hmong people call them. Her name is Niam tais Ying Moua and she is literally the sweetest. She made a really beautiful Hmong tie and it's all hand made which is insane. Super cool. She taught us a few things about Hmong culture and also shared her conversion story which was powerful. It is always crazy to hear how much the Hmong people have gone through, but they trust in God and know they are doing the right thing even though they face ridiculous trials in the process. It is always a testimony builder to hear their faith and testimonies. During the night we went to one of the people we are teaching, Alvinia to support her at her talent show. She did a super insane hip hop dance. It was super cool. 

Saturday was definitely the best of the week! Not only did we get to see all the Hmong Elders again, but we had an amazing conference just for the Hmong elders. We learned a lot about Hmong culture and how to help the Hmong people. It was really helpful and I learned lots of things I am excited to apply. The highlights of the conference were listening to all the Hmong Elders bear their testimonies, Awards which had a compliment and also a funny roast for every Elder, and afterward, we all went out to eat together. We definitely have a strong brotherhood and it was hard to say goodbye to everyone. I wish we all lived closer to each other so we could hang out and see each other more often. It was also so cool to see how much we all have grown personally, in the language, and our love for God. It was just like when Ammon and his brethren all got together again. Super cool. 

Sunday we had the opportunity to hear from a return missionary. He gave a really great talk on revelation and the lessons he learned on his mission. The second hour of church I translated again and it was by far my best translating of my mission. It was really cool. Something that Elder Taylor and I have been talking about recently is the gift of tongues. He asked me how I see the gift of tongues in my missionary work since I have been out a long time. In the beginning of my mission, I would have said that the gift of tongues helped me to be able to speak and understand which is true.  Now, I feel like I can rely on my own abilities to speak because I don't struggle and need to rely as much. But... I still always will need to rely on Heavenly Father to help me know the things to say - things that can help the Hmong people to feel of God's love and feel the spirit. Even though now I can rely on my own skills pretty comfortably, if I don't help them to feel the spirit than my words are vain and honestly are a waste. I am grateful to be out and serve the Hmong people and know how important it is for me in all my actions to help others feel the spirit. 

Love you all, 

Elder Rich

All 12 Hmong elders

Thought we were finished

 Most Improved Hmong 

Most likely to become a Hmong rapper - roasted award.

March 11: Jordan High reunion in Green Bay

Nyob zoo,

Monday night we had a really good lesson with 2 of the people we are teaching, Alvinia and Kardan. We taught about the Plan of Salvation and about Jesus Christ's role for us individually. We were able to testify very powerfully about Jesus Christ's love for them both. The spirit was very strong and they could feel the love of Christ for them from the spirit. It was a really cool experience to be with them. 

This week we also had zone conference. It is always a good time to learn and grow, as well to see a lot of past missionaries that I served around before. Always really fun and learn a lot. 

A funny coincidence was this week I was talking to Elder Jenson. He and his wife are senior missionaries in my zone and also in my district. I was talking to them and asked where they grew up and he said "Draper" and she said "Sandy." So I asked where they went to school and they both said "Jordan High school" which I thought was cool. Not only that, but I found out that his dad is the same Jensons who live on 7th west and own the farm right by my house. So he grew up 5 or 6 houses away from where I live right now. I thought that was so cool. 

We had the opportunity to have dinner with one of the Hmong families here. Their son is leaving for his mission this upcoming Wednesday. It was really fun to talk to him and see how excited he is to go serve a mission in Fresno California Hmong speaking. I am super excited for him. 

On Sunday he gave his farewell talk and also another Sister in our ward did too. So we had 2 future missionaries giving farewell talks which was so cool. I really enjoyed listening to them. Neng who is going to Fresno I was really impressed with his talk. It was very short but very powerful. He talked a lot about how the gospel has blessed his family and his reason for wanting to serve a mission. He said "I am going on a mission because of God. I am going to help others because of what God has done for me. I am going to bring others to the gospel because of God." I really liked that, and even though it was so simple, it was really powerful. God really has done so much for us and blessed us with so much. We can't even count all the many times he has patiently helped us and blessed us even when we didn't deserve it. It made me think of the true simplicity of the gospel. Everything we do comes down to our love and respect for God and all that he has done for us. The reason we follow his commandments, the reason we go to church, is because we love him. I hope we can all remember that this week. 

Love, 

Elder Rich 

Neng who is leaving for his mission to Fresno this week

Found this huge icicle while tracting. It was even bigger -
about 1/3 of it broke off when it fell

Neng's sister

Elder Taylor

Got to talk to my sister Sadie on her birthday last week.

March 4: Busy in Green Bay

Nyob zoo os,

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 

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.

Green Bay Packer's stadium

New companion, Elder Taylor

medicine the Hmong way

Naruto paintings

Feb 25: The cycle is complete! Headed to Green Bay

Nyob zoo os!

Today I found out that I will be leaving Madison and will be heading to Green Bay on Wednesday! Finally, the cycle is complete! I am going to be able to serve in every Hmong area in Wisconsin! What a blessing! My new companion is Elder Taylor, he has been out for only 5 months and actually met my brother Ian while they were in the MTC at the same time. He is an awesome kid and I am super stoked to serve around him. Although I never met him in person he is already my favorite missionary. I have told that to him the couple times I have talked to him on the phone haha! He responded by saying that everyone says I am the goat. So from the sounds of that, we are gonna have a grand time in Green Bay together! I am excited!

This week we had a lot of preparation for the transfers. I knew that things were going to be switched up in the Hmong area. We got a text before transfers that our apartment would be closing, so we spent a lot of time cleaning and fixing things. This apartment has been open for around 15 years so it had a lot of stuff to do. We patched probably over a 1000 holes in the wall haha! Good times. 

This weekend we had stake conference. We had a visitor from the Seventy, Elder Kim B. Clark, come speak to us. I enjoyed listening to him. One thing that really stood out to me is that he still acknowledges his weaknesses, his mistakes, and his dependency to the Savior and his atoning sacrifice. Growing up, and even now, you think the general authorities of the church are so righteous and don't make mistakes, but it was cool to see that we are human beings and are all trying to improve and become more like Christ every day no matter what stage of life we are in. A couple of other things that I enjoyed in his talks were using the correct name of the church, importance of being missionaries in our everyday life, and asking God for 1 thing that we can remove out of our life and 1 thing that we can do better. 

Although I am very excited to leave Madison and head up to Green Bay, I am also really sad to leave. I didn't think it would be this hard to leave. This morning Kelly invited us over for breakfast and to say goodbye. After we ate we took a picture together and then said our goodbyes. She started to cry and then everyone knows me I started to cry too! Man, I really am going to miss all the people that I have met here. So many wonderful people and it is going to be hard to say goodbye. Grateful that we don't have to say goodbye forever and I can see these amazing people again someday. It has been such as blessing to serve in Madison for 9 months of my mission and see the growth in these wonderful members. It's been amazing and will be something that I will always remember. Glad that I had this opportunity to come on a mission and serve the Hmong people. Even though I am not great at the language and it's been harder than anything I have done before, there is nothing I would want to change it for.

Love, 

Elder Rich

Saying bye to Kelly

patching walls

Stake conference

Shoveling snow for days

We saw this lady shoveling and went to help.
She wanted to take a selfie with us

Feb 18: Too Much Busing!

Nyob zoo os!

Tuesday ended up snowing a lot, so we drove around with our shovels and went shoveling contacting. We helped a few of our potentials and some new people. That was a good overall day. 

Wednesday we were on the busses and let me say I am not a fan of the busses. We rode the bus for about an hour to get to the area we wanted to go finding. We stayed in that area till around 5. We had an appointment at 6 and the busses said we would get there by 6, but the busses ended up being late and slow so we ended getting there around 6:30. Luckily he was still there. He was about to get in his car and leave, but luckily we were able to catch him. He thought we weren't coming because we were late and told him 6. So we got in with him, but sadly we weren't able to stay very long because the last bus was coming in about 30 mins and we had to walk to the bus stop from his house. Dang busses!! Thankfully he was kind enough to invite us back next week! 

Thursday was Valentine's day. We decided to go to an area that we have never tracted before. We knew it was probably not going to be Hmong because it was in Middleton which is a super wealthy area, but we tried it anyway because you never know until you go. Sadly, we ended up being right and it was a lot of Non-Hmong Asian people. For dinner, we went out to eat at Chick-fil-a with the English Elders. 

Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Purvis in the English area. We visited 2 medically less active members and read the scriptures to them, so that was really cool. We also had some service that we did. Dinner we had at a member's house. She is a single old lady so we brought a member over will us. We ate dinner and after "attempted to share a message." I read a scripture and after Elder Purvis asked her a question which was super simple and should easily be answered in 30 seconds, but instead she went on for a whole hour story. We were trapped and had no escape. Towards the end, I zoned out for literally 3 seconds and she caught me haha. I felt so bad, but it was so hard to listen for that long in such a warm apartment. I was trying so hard. After she finished we forced into the conversation and wrapped up the lesson. It may not have gone as planned or as Elder Purvis and I intended, but that is the way of missionary work. We are here to help the members and non-members alike and if want she needed was people to talk to because she is lonely then we accomplished our purpose. 

Saturday we had a lesson with Kelly and Shaun. We are teaching them about the temple. Last week in the temple class they asked us to translate a 30-page pamphlet all about the temple. Again that was a good test of our Hmong skills. I would say it was pretty good. They understood it and we did pretty alright. Definitely a lot of room for improvement, but when your learning such a hard language like Hmong and have literally no resources, but the Hmong people it can be pretty hard to learn especially since we sadly don't get to use the language that often. So with all that being said, we are doing pretty good - I mean all we can really do is do our best and God will help us with the rest. We also had some Pho with them. It was a Pho that I never had before called Fawm Xib Nyias and it was pretty good. It had a lot less broth then normal Pho and a lot more noodles and meat. It was pretty good. After we tried pronouncing some Laos and Green Hmong words. We would try and try again and fail over and over again, but eventually, we were finally able to get it. They were both laughing their heads off as we both made a fool of ourselves. It reminded me of the MTC it was exactly the same making a fool of ourselves. Good times! 

Sunday we had Hmong sacrament and Hmong Sunday school. It is so good to hear Hmong for that long. It's like being immersed in the language and it is so awesome! I am totally jealous of all the missionaries in Thailand, Laos, Korea, and all the other missions that get to only speak in their mission language and are fully immersed in it. That would be so cool and a dream come true. 

I have been enjoying reading the New Testament and reading about the Saviors life and teachings. One of the passages I liked this week was in Matthew 16. 

25 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.

26 And now for a man to take up his cross, is to deny himself all ungodliness, and every worldly lust, and keep my commandments.

27 Break not my commandments for to save your lives; for whosoever will save his life in this world, shall lose it in the world to come.

28 And whosoever will lose his life in this world, for my sake, shall find it in the world to come.

29 Therefore, forsake the world, and save your souls; 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?

I really enjoy the Joseph Smith translations and the extra insight we are able to receive. Without it, we are confused and left to wonder what exactly the Savior means because of the things that were lost over time and the things that weren't correctly translated. Great blessings for us to learn from and study from to further understand the teachings of the savior. 

Love you all, 

Elder Rich 

Waiting for the bus in the snow

Rising the bus

Fawm Xib Nyias

Feb 11: Ice Ice baby

Nyob zoo os,

We have been living in Antarctica this last week. It hasn't been cold, which is super nice, but it melted all the snow that we got and rained. And then after all that happened, it got below freezing and froze all the water. So everything, and I mean literally everything, is ice. Sidewalks, roads, plants, even the snow that didn't melt is ice. It was pretty sketchy walking around. We had to walk super careful. Luckily I didn't fall even though I was really close over 100 times haha.

Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Reynolds and his companion in his area. We served around each other in Appleton so that was fun to serve together again. We had a pretty great exchange. We had a lesson with one of their investigators and she was asking some really, really good questions about what makes our church unique and the Book of Mormon. They were really thoughtful questions and you could tell she had a sincere desire to learn. The rest of the day we actually did some Hmong and English finding even though it was the English area because the city of Middleton is about 40 mins away so we don't get over there too often. We had one of the funniest door approaches I think I ever saw. Elder Reynolds knocked on an English door and a girl answered - she looked like she was 17, but sometimes you can't tell and they could be older. He did his regular door approach and threw in the would you or your family be interested in this message just in case. She then looks at us real weird and asks us "Is this a joke?" He then responded, "Noooo this is for reals." She then responded with "Oh, well then I am not interested" and slowly closed the door awkwardly. It was really weird and funny. Never experienced anything like that before. The only conclusion we could think of is she saw 3 guys dressed up nice and probably thought he was pulling a prank to ask her to prom or something like that.

Wednesday I got back to my area with Elder Parker. We had a really successful day of finding people. We had been in a slump for quite a while and were pretty down, but we had a tender mercy of finding a super prepared family. We knocked on their door. I saw that they had lots of boxes outside their house, so once they answered, I introduced who we were and asked if we could help bring in these 7-8 boxes on their doorstep. Of course, he said yes and after we had a great talk with them. They have met with missionaries in the past and even came to our church with a couple of their friends before they moved to Minnesota. They were super open to hearing more and were very welcoming of us in their home.

Thursday we had interviews with President Williams. Good to talk with him as always. Very loving and caring guy. I am grateful for all that he has done for me over the last 18 months. 

Sunday morning we had a correlation and pancake breakfast at the Oliphants house. Afterwards, we went to church and after we had a great opportunity to translate for the temple preparation class. The 4 people taking the class are all Hmong and 3 are recent converts of the last year, so that is very exciting. The translating part was definitely a struggle to explain some of that stuff. You get a lot of Hmong culture and more complex church concepts to try to explain. Try to explain the sealing in the temple and how that connects your family, family history, millennium and what happens then, and a lot more fun stuff like that. I never talked about 99% of that stuff in Hmong before so it was fun to think about it and give it my best shot. I mean that's all you really can do in Hmong. It was a really good overall class and they all super excited to go to the temple in a couple months for the first time. 

Sunday night we had a great family home evening lesson with the Lee family. Super fun and awesome family. We had a great lesson on Alma 8:8-18. Talked about how times in our lives hard things happen, but no matter what, don't give up. We always have prayer, the scriptures, church, etc. to help us. And at the end of the day even if life's hard, we can always know that our father in heaven is proud of us. Afterward, we played some Exploding Kittens which is a card game for those that don't know and ate some pizza.

It was a good week.

Love you all, 

Elder Rich

Ice

Pure ice

Elder Tarone a prime example of the ice

Finally a pic with Elder Parker