April 16 - Blizzard and smartphones

Nyob zoo,

On Tuesday we had zone conference in Neenah. It was super fun because the Wausau zone was combined with the Appleton zone. We had 5 Hmong Elders there which was a blast to see them all and talk with everyone again. Basically the whole time though we were getting trained on smartphones. I was pretty excited when I heard that our mission was getting smartphones, but after all the training I was pumped. The phones will have so many extra tools that will be able to help us to be better missionaries. We will have the LDS app, Facebook, Skype, Google maps, language apps and so much more. Let's just say I am super excited.

This weekend also, it snowed a TON again. If I would guess, I’d say we got at least a good two feet of snow up here in Wausau area and maybe more. I am starting to doubt that summer actually exists in Wisconsin. On Saturday we still went out and did stuff which was a little scary because the roads were all super sketchy, but on Sunday it was a missionary snow day. Our church got canceled and we weren't allowed to go anywhere. At first, it was pretty fun to just relax and hang out. We jumped in the snow with our shirts and shorts only, we attempted to make some kua txob which is the spicy Hmong pepper sauce (It was actually not too bad), but around 3:00 we got pretty bored and started running out of things to do because you can only study and clean your apartment for so long. In the end, I really just wanted to go outside and do some missionary work.

Overall, this week Elder Tarone and I have been working on doing everything with more faith. For example finding, studies, speaking Hmong, etc. I feel like sometimes we just get in the routine of doing the same thing every day and are doing things just because we know that is what we are supposed to do.  "Faith starts with a desire to believe".   But when we start to believe and use our faith, that is when we will start to find people, learn Hmong, or accomplish whatever task we need to do and start to see the miracles and the success that we know this area is capable of producing.  

Love you all and thanks for all the support,

Tub Txib Tshwj Xeeb

Pictures: Playing in all the snow we got this weekend and out Hmong hot pepper sauce.

April 9 - There's so much snow here!!!

Lots and lots of snow here

Messing around with huge icicles at zone sports
and my companion Elder Tarone

Nyob zoo,

This week went by way too fast as every week does. On Tuesday we did exchanges with he Marshfield Elders. I went with Elder Gausse in the Marshfield area. It was a crazy time mostly because it has snowed so much this month. On the exchange, we had lots of opportunities to do service which I liked a lot. We helped some people shovel snow and also got a call from a member who said one of his neighbor's car got stuck in a ditch so we went and helped him dig it out. After we finally got it out we wanted to go see some potentials. So we typed in an address and went to a house and started to drive there. I jokingly said, "Watch us get stuck in a ditch" and guess what happened?!?  5 mins later we were stuck in a ditch. I blame it on the snow. We shouldn't have snow in April!!  Especially since it has snowed 20 inches this month so far here in Wausau. 

Also this week we were doing some role plays in Companionship study. We were practicing doing some door approaches. Elder Tarone starts out saying "Wb yog cov seev cev rau Yexus Khetos." which means "We are dancers of Jesus Christ." Instead of saying "Wb yog cov sawv cev rau Yexus Khetos." Meaning "We are representatives of Jesus Christ." The funny thing though is he said this a few times at some doors this week, but we didn't realize it until then. None of the Hmong people said anything or gave us any weird looks when he said it though. 

This week we had a cool experience on exchanges. Elder Gausse and I were waiting in the car at the halfway point between Wausau and Marshfield. We were parked on a random road. A guy pulled up next to us in his truck. We were like "oh crap this guy is gonna come and chew us out and tell us to get off his property." but he didn't. He came and introduced himself and asked us how we are doing. We said we are good and told him that we are missionaries. Surprisingly he grew up in the church but hasn't gone for over 30 years. He told us a little of his story and asked for a BOM and said he wants to start coming to church again with his family. So we got his number and he said he would be interested in visits. It was really cool. I wish Elder Tarone and I could teach him because he is in our area, but we can't since he isn't Hmong. 

Talk you to you next week

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

April 2 - First few days in Wausau

Nyob zoo,

At the beginning of the week, Elder Vang and I said our goodbyes to all the people in Sheboygan.  On Wednesday we went to transfer point and I drove up to Wausau and got my new companion, Elder Tarone.  It’s kind of funny because at the MTC, when I was waiting in line to get my stuff, he was the very first person I met. Then we ended up being together in the MTC and now we are together in Wausau.  It’s been a long time since we’ve been together, so we are excited.  He is a fun and cool kid.  He’s way better at Hmong than me haha. He is literally a genius.  We are trying to do a lot of SYL together which is "Speak Your Language" so basically speaking in Hmong to each other rather than English because it is a lot easier to speak in English, but when we push ourselves we will see a lot of growth.  We have been doing a little bit of this over the last few days and it has been really fun.  It is like speaking in a secret language because no one can understand us except the Hmong people.  For example, we were eating at Mcdonalds after one of the sessions of conference, and Elder Tarone says to me in Hmong, "The Hmong girl behind the counter is pretty cute."  And all the people in Mcdonalds had no idea what we were talking about haha.  We are going to continue to work on doing SYL more and more.  Our goal is that by the end of this transfer, we will only speak in Hmong  So shout out to Elder Tarone!

So April 1st - on Easter we look out the window and guess what? It was snowing!!!  It is a lot colder here in Wausau since we are super far up North.  It is supposed to snow a couple more times this week too :( 

We also got our Easter baskets and it said, “Do not open until Easter” and… We opened it right when we got it.  We couldn't wait, We were too excited!! haha.

The Wausau ward only has one active Hmong member. The ward used to be pretty big a couple years ago, but members moved or passed away.  So we have a lot of work that can be done and we have high hopes. This area is the hardest area for Hmong work in Wisconsin because it has not had a Hmong baptism since 2016, but we are going to do our best to help the area out. We won't be having any baptisms any time soon unless some crazy miracles happen.  This area is more of a long-term area at the moment... So our Motto for the transfer is "We may not baptize this transfer, but we are going to learn Hmong."

These past few days have been really fun, but also super busy.  We didn't have a lot of time to do actual missionary work because we watched 10 hours of General Conference, but I loved General Conference. It was awesome. There were so many great talks.  My favorites were Brian K. Taylor's talk about how everyone is a child of God, Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk about Easter, and Russell M. Nelson's talk about personal revelation.  Also the opportunity to sustain a prophet  - that was such a cool experience and the spirit that I felt.  It was the first time that I can remember in my life doing that.  I thought that was super cool and also to see right away how he has received revelation on how Jesus Christ's church can be improved.  It was overall a super cool experience. 

Hope you all have a great week

Elder Tshwj Xeeb

Happy Christmas... I mean Easter!

Easter Basket

Saying goodbye to Sheboygan - Brother Klunk

The squad

Ariel

March 26 - I love being a part of this work!!! and headed to Wausau

Nyob Zoo,

This week is transfers and BOTH me and Elder Vang are being transferred which is crazy! But Elder Vang from Madison is coming here so we know that the people in the ward and the investigators will be taken care of because Elder Vang from Madison is awesome.  Transfers are very hard - leaving all the investigators, the members, and the area behind.  It’s hard with the change, but it’s also a good thing to meet new people.  I am going to Wausau with Elder Tarone.  He was in my MTC district and he is super awesome.  I like him a lot so I’m excited to serve with him!

This week we set Ariel on baptism date for the 23rd of June.  We also had a lesson with Melanie and her family.  It was really cool because a guy in our stake just got back from his mission to Germany so he is fluent in German and she grew up in Germany. We brought him with us and they pretty much just talked in German the whole time.  We found out a lot of different ways we can help her and learned a lot about her and her culture.

And on Saturday, we had the Madison baptisms.  In the morning we drove there and the baptisms started at 10:00.  Kelly, Shaun, and Mai were all baptized.  I had the opportunity to baptize Kelly and... it was sooooooo awesome.  Those three are so awesome and it was so neat to watch them all to take the next step.  To be honest I was super scared for the baptism. I was really, really, really nervous.  Kelly, Shaun, and Mai didn't seem too nervous. They seemed really happy and excited.  I think that is the best way to explain baptisms - it is a very happy and exciting time. The baptisms were very special.  I was so happy, scared, excited, all at the same time, but the overall feeling was a feeling of peace and comfort.  Their baptisms were great. I had the opportunity to baptize Kelly and Elder Vang baptized Mai and Shaun. It was such a great experience and the spirit was so very strong.  In the changing room after the baptisms, Elder Vang and I gave each other a hug because we were so happy haha. The baptisms give you that sense of accomplishment and make you feel like you made a difference.  Now the next step is for them is to go to the temple. 

What I thought was so awesome about the baptism was to see all the support from their friends and family and also a lot of members too.  There were probably about 80 people there and more than half of them were non-member Hmong people. That is what I love about the Hmong culture - family is the most important thing and that totally showed with all their support. After the baptisms, we changed back into our church clothes and Elder Vang and I took longer than the 3 girls to change which is really funny.  We played the Restoration video while we were changing which was good for all the non-members that came.  I didn't see this, but I heard from Elder Blackburn that when they came out from changing, they came at the perfect time in the video right when the Tabernacle Choir started singing. Funny and really cool. It was like a HALLELUJAH moment!

After that, the Madison ward had an Easter party so we stayed for a couple of hours and spent some time with some members.  The Easter egg hunt was super fun.  I played with Mai’s kids which was fun. I love her little girls so much. They are so cute. Mai was telling me how much they've missed me. I missed them a lot too. Right when I walked in the door of the church, Iris ran and gave me a hug and it was so cute.  During the Easter party. I was able to spend a lot of time with them which was really fun. We drew some pictures and I helped them with the Easter egg hunt.  When we were looking for Easter eggs outside Iris just grabbed my hand and held my hand. I am not gonna reject a cute 9-year-old girl, so some rules were broken haha. It was a lot of fun and I was so sad when I had to leave :(

It was a great week. I am very blessed and grateful to be a part of such a special work. It is the best!

Tub Txib Tshwj Xeeb

March 19 - not a lot of time today!

Nyob zoo

I don't have a lot of time today so I am stealing a little bit of my comps email today :)

This week went by so fast. On Tuesday we had District Meeting and after we went out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings with the West Bend Elders and the ZLs. I have wanted to do the blazing challenge for a long time and I finally got the courage to do it. It is 12 of their spiciest wings in less than 6 mins. Elder Pinter and I decided to try. I finished it in 3:17 and got my free T-shirt. It was fun!

After we went back to Sheboygan. We tried some potentials and formers. We had a little bit of luck and a few people said we could come back. We had an appointment at 7 with Melanie and we had about 15 mins so we decided to try one more house.  While driving to this house, Elder Vang jokingly said, "Watch, this house is going to let us in and we are going to be super late to our appointment." Sure enough, that was exactly what happened. We knocked on the door and the Hmong lady told us to come in because it was cold outside. The husband and wife were really nice to us, we spoke a "little for like for 30 minutes. It was about 7:30 and we were still in the house. So we nicely said we had to go and told them that we'd come back. They agreed and so we will be trying their house again later on this week.

Wednesday, we met with our investigator Evan at a Sushi restaurant. Evan is awesome. He is super busy with a full-time job and going to school on top of that, but he still finds time to meet with us and read a little bit of The Book of Mormon. He is really liking it and is slowly working on changing some of his bad habits like smoking, alcohol, and coffee. He has made a lot of progress. He has cut down from around 16 cups of coffee a day to about 2 now. Later in the day, we met up with our investigator Chong Dee and we taught her and her little brother Ben The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

On Friday we went on exchanges with the ZLs. I went with Elder Evans again and went down to Neenah. It was the first time that I have left Sheboygan for exchanges since I have been here so I was pretty excited to go somewhere new. Elder Evans is a Spanish Elder so I basically was useless the whole time. My 4 years of Spanish didn't do anything for me haha. We still had a lot of fun together though. We had 6 appointments that day, but somehow all 6 of them weren't home. So we went a solid 0/6.  After the successful day in Neenah, we got ice cream at Dairy Queen to celebrate our day haha.

Saturday morning, we exchanged back and headed straight to our new investigator Kij's house. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and set a baptismal date with him for May 26, 2018. It isn't a super solid date since we still have to teach him a lot of stuff and he has some Word of Wisdom problems, but we set the goal and expectations for him.

Last week of the transfer next week. So hopefully I don't get transferred.

Love
Tub Txib Tshwj Xeeb

Photo shoot at Brother Klunk's house on P-day

Exchanges in Neenah

Exchanges in Neenah with Elder Evans:  The frozen lake is in Neenah, Lake Winnebago.

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.