Dec 10: This Christmas season - let us bring the light and love of God to others

Nyob zoo!

On Wednesday we waited at the transfer point for Elder Chue, the newest member of the Madison Hmong missionary squad. Also, our ward now has English Elders instead of sisters so now my boy Elder Kleinman is in the Madison 2nd ward with me. Funny thing is that when I was in Milwaukee, Elder Vang, Elder Kleinman, and I were all in the same ward and now we are again. I am super excited for this transfer to serve around some awesome missionaries. 

Wednesday night we went to Mai's and we ate some really good food as always. After we drew some pictures with the kids. We all drew pictures of our families and man I sure do miss my family. I can't believe it has already been 16 months that I have been away from them, time sure does fly when you love what you are doing. I am excited for the Christmas call coming up and the opportunity to be able to talk to my family again and for the first time will include my little brother Elder Rich Jr who is in Arizona.

Quick funny story: Mai's daughter, Aliza, is super cute and really funny. She came up to me while we were drawing and said, “Elder Rich can I call you Elder Reeeecch? I think that sounds better and is more fun to say”. And then she said it again “Elder Reeeecch.”  So now my name is Elder Reeeecch haha. 

On Saturday we had our ward Christmas party. Our ward went all out with decorations. It looked really beautiful. It was a really good party. We heard lots of Christmas songs, stories, and ate some really good food including some Hmong food which is always delicious. 

We found a really cool potential this week. She has actually been to our church before and knows one of the Hmong families. She said we could come by any day Monday through Friday and share our message with her. We are pretty excited about that. She seems really cool and solid, so hopefully, we will get in with her this week. 

I really love the Christmas season because it gives us an excuse to serve more. Sometimes, using our time to serve can seem like a burden and we can feel like we don't want to serve because of that. As a missionary, it takes up our time, we are away from our family, and sometimes we can just feel tired since we are always serving in the church. I really like the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:4-6. I feel we often think of ourselves as the shepherd going out and helping, but it is often good to reflect on the times in our lives when we were the one lost sheep. When we needed someone to help us, to love us, to talk to, or just to be our friend. I can think of countless times when I was that one sheep alone, sad, and needed a friend. I can also think of countless people that were there to minister and help me and they may have not even known at the time, but I knew and I will always be grateful for those people. Those little acts of service can make someone's day. We never know who is that one lost sheep who needs us. What a great time this Christmas season is to focus a little more than we usually do on serving others, acting as the Savior would, and just going out and loving others. I hope you were able to think of a time that you were that one lost sheep and the time that someone came to your rescue and helped you because those people are literally angels from God and we can be those angels that bring the light and love of God to others this Christmas season. 

Love, 

Elder Rich 

Dec 3 - Staying in Madison for Christmas

Well, another Month and another Transfer have passed. I have now been out for an uncountable amount of months and transfers. All I know is I go home in August and that is coming way too fast and way too soon. Well, on the bright side, Elder Giddings and I will be staying in Madison together for another transfer. Out of the 4 Hmong Elders leaving only my boy Elder Lo is leaving.  Elder Giddings, Vang, and I are going to miss him a lot. He will be hard to replace, but it is a good thing all the Hmong Elders are awesome so I am sure we will get another awesome Elder to be paired with Elder Vang.

This week was again a lot of finding, but it was finding in the snow which made it even more fun than normal even though it was really cold. I have got a lot of snowballs thrown at me by Elder Giddings. Maybe it isn't a good thing that we are staying together haha jk. 

We were able to meet with lots of the recent converts this week. We met with Andrew and Kaozong and that was good to see them again. I wish I would have gotten a picture. We also saw Kelly. She is awesome. We taught her about “Light the World” and that is a little weird to explain in Hmong, but she was still very excited to share her light, the gospel, and serve her community, her friends, and family this Christmas season. We also went over to celebrate Mai's daughter, Kalista’s, birthday on Saturday which, oddly enough, was my sister, Jill’s birthday too so I was celebrating both their birthdays on Saturday. 

One of the days this week we got a message from some people that we had taught previously. We stopped teaching them because they only seemed interested in bashing us and not learning. Well, we got this text that said they wanted us to go over and they had something they really needed to tell us. We were pretty skeptical about going over, but we had a good feeling about it so we went over.  It ended up being such a cool experience. The guy just completely apologized to us, which we were not expecting at all, and it was probably the most heartfelt apology I have heard in my life. The guy said that he had recently scraped his knees really bad to the point it felt like the skin was almost to the bone and felt like his knee was rotting - so pretty serious. One day he was praying and he said that he heard something whisper to him saying "Why would I want you to talk to me? You have been judging your neighbor when I commanded you to love your neighbor."  Basically every time he prayed he was reminded of this until he invited us over to share all this with us. He also said that he knows he needs to open his heart to listen to what we have to say because he has been prejudging what we have to say. He said he wants to open his heart and mind and actually read his scriptures with the context they are supposed to be read in instead of reading one verse and pointing fingers saying “Your church is false.” He is completely flipped 360°. It was cool to see God's hand in that miracle. We hope he continues to stay humble and listens to our message with an open heart now. 

I know God loves us and cares for us all. I hope you all have a great Christmas season and remember the true meaning of Christmas throughout this fun season because that is what the gospel is all about. God and Christ first loved us so we therefore love and serve everyone around us. 

Elder Rich 

(1) Under the Christmas light because Christmas is finally here (2-3) Kalista's birthday on Saturday, (4) One last picture with Elder Lo (5) View of Madison

Nov 26: Thanksgiving, Hmong New Year, and Christmas all in the same week

Wow, I am super tired! This week so much went on. All four of us are super tired and are grateful for a much-needed P-day to rest so we can be refreshed for this next week.

On Wednesday we had interviews with President Williams. Nothing much to say other than I am grateful for all that he does and that it was a great interview as always. 

Thursday was Thanksgiving. Thursday morning we had our turkey bowl. Lots of fun playing football with the young men. In the afternoon we had a great Thanksgiving dinner with our ward mission leader and his family. After, we spent the rest of the night preparing for the Hmong New Years the next day. We came up with plans, packed supplies, created posters, and got the rest of the stuff ready for the booth. We ended up staying up until 12:30 am, which I want to feel bad for ourselves, but it is our fault for procrastinating and doing it the day before the Hmong New Years. 

Friday and Saturday was the Hmong New Year. The Hmong New Year is a huge Hmong gathering to celebrate the Hmong culture. People come from all over Wisconsin. I love the Hmong New Years. It is super fun to see all the Hmong people express their culture through clothing, songs, dances, and many other things. 

Since it is such a big gathering, there are a lot of people that come and set up booths to sell stuff. I bought a ton of souvenirs for Christmas presents for family and also bought some delicious Hmong food. We also ran a booth which we did from 9-4 both days. We gave out lots of Books of Mormon, Bibles, pamphlets, and were able to talk to a lot of people. It was a really good, full two days of language study. We were able to see a pretty good amount of success from the booth. Besides all the things that we gave out, we had around 20-25 people write down their address or number so that we could share with them more about our message which is really exciting. 

After the new year, on Saturday night we went to another Thanksgiving. It was at a recent converts house and she had tons of her family members there from both her side of the family and her husband's side. It was a really good opportunity to talk to a lot of their family. We also had some really good Hmong food. The sad part is alcohol is basically a part of the Hmong culture. Wherever there is a gathering there is always alcohol., so we were offered alcohol many times and even punch which probably was spiked with vodka or something else. We just stick with our water. The gathering got pretty crazy. We only stayed for support of the member. She told us countless times how sorry she was. We stayed for a little while because we didn't want to offend the member by leaving so quickly, but after about an hour or so we left because it was getting way too crazy to stay any longer. It is crazy what alcohol can do to a bunch of grown men. They all totally lost control of themselves and were going crazy. It was like they were all in college again. It was pretty sad to see from the other perspective watching the female just disappointed and frustrated with the situation. I mean that is just the Hmong culture for you and it is even worse when you pair that up with the most drunk state in the country. #Wisconsin. I am very grateful for the word of wisdom and protection that it gives me. It truly is a health code for us all and I wish everyone would just follow it because it would make this world such a better place. 

Love,

Elder Rich

Happy Thanksgiving

Everyone dresses up in their really cool traditional Hmong clothing. 
I wish I could have worn some, but I am too tall haha

Mai and Kelly

Our booth

Madison Hmong New Year 2018

Christmas Decorations

Nov 19: Decorating for Christmas/cockroach killers/my new favorite scripture

Well, exciting news! The cockroach killers are coming today! They are going to go in the whole complex and hopefully find the problem, but even if they don't it won't matter because they are gonna kill them all...well hopefully. Well in the meantime we still have been killing them. And we even have some new Christmas ornaments for our tree. It's definitely something only Elders would do. Hopefully, you like them, mom! 

On a more serious note, this week was really awesome. We finally got in with one of our most solid potentials Chang and Mai. They are a young couple and recently had a baby. They practice Shamanism so they don't know much about Christianity. It was a great opportunity to teach them about God, his plan, and that we can have an eternal family. We taught them the Plan of Salvation. It was a really spiritual lesson. We invited them to pray since they have never prayed before. It is going to be a really cool opportunity to work with them.

The recent converts here are all doing really good. Elder Giddings and I had the opportunity to see 4 of them this week. We went out to eat with Kelly and Shaun on Monday which was really fun. On Thursday we went to Joua's house. That was really a good opportunity to practice our Hmong. Her dad is like 80 and he is hilarious. I can understand like 80% of what he was saying, but he uses a lot of Laos words, so I am gonna have to start learning some Laos words. I made a list of 200-300 flashcards that I am going to start learning. Lastly, on Friday we got a text from Mai that said she was going out to eat with her friend at Olive Garden and asked if we wanted to come. Of course, we said yes because one, Mai is awesome and two, it was with a non-member. Elder Giddings and I both got all you can eat pasta because we don't get a good meal too often anymore since we have had roaches. It was really good food and a really cool opportunity. Also, it was funny at the end because they were both fighting over who was going to pay for the bill. 

Our finding efforts are going really good. We rode our bikes 15 miles one of the days. It was a really good exercise especially since Madison has so many hills. I always wanted to ride bikes on a mission and my wish has come true. I definitely enjoy the bikes a lot. 

On Sunday we had our 2nd Hmong sacrament. We had fewer members than last time because a few families were out of town, but we had a couple less actives that haven't come in a really long time which was really an amazing miracle. 

This week I think I found my new favorite chapter of scripture. It is super good. I spent over 3 hours of study reading it. For some reason, I could just read it over and over. I really enjoyed pondering on it and really trying to understand it. So if you have time read 2 Nephi Chapter 9 because it is soooo good. I wish I could explain the things that I learned in this email, but there is no way I could fit that all in here so I will just share one verse that stood out to me. It is 2 Nephi 9:

39 O, my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in transgressing against that Holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the enticings of that cunning one. Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.

I think this scripture is very powerful, especially the last half which really stood out to me for some reason. "Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal." Our earthly desires, passions, and desires are the things that lead us to sin and go astray from God which eventually lead us to spiritual death, but if we can overcome the natural man and become more spiritually minded and focus on the things that actually matter in life like family, our relationship with God, helping others, etc that is life eternal. Or in other words, those are the things that are going to help us to learn, improve, and grow into the person we need to become so that we can reach our end goal that we all want which is an eternal family. 

Love you all, 

Elder Rich

Pictures: 

Happy Thanksgiving this week

New ornament for our Christmas tree

Jimmy Johns for lunch - I wouldn't have gotten that big of one, but 1. I have a gift card,
2. I didn't eat breakfast and 3. Have roaches so when I go out to eat I eat good

Our bike seat. We put a band-aid on it because band-aids fix everything 

Happy birthday Elder Vang

Nov 12: It's getting cold here!

Nyob zoo,

This week we had Zone Conference. It was by far my favorite zone conference of my mission for a couple of reasons. One it was super spiritual. Almost everybody was crying because the spirit was so strong. It was really cool. We have some awesome missionaries here. The second reason I liked it so much was because of the things we learned. We really focused on the basics like how to set goals, planning, finding, and lots of other things. It was really good for me because the longer I am out, the more I over think things and do more than I really need to. It was a good reminder to me of the importance of the small and simple things in missionary work.

This past week we had a few people that we stopped teaching because of various reasons such as not progressing or being unable to contact them. So this past week and next week are gonna be very focused on finding which I am very excited for. Most missionaries aren't huge fans of tracting, but I actually don't mind it. Since getting all the addresses into the phone, we are able to find people a lot more effectively and the time we took to put those in has already paid off. We were able to tract all the Hmong houses in the city of Deforest this week. We have set some goals this upcoming week to really help us find people to teach. We are gonna spend about 4-5 hours finding a day and then outside of that we are going to talk to 10 extra people a day while we are tracting.

It definitely is starting to feel like Winter here in Wisconsin. It snowed a couple times this week, but luckily it isn't cold enough for it to stick yet. We had a funny story this week. Elder Giddings and I rode this bus to an area to knock some doors. We knocked most of those houses in that area, but it was so cold so we wanted to get a bus for a few minutes to warm up. We checked our phone for the bus stops and then while we were waiting we kept thinking we saw the bus, but every time it turned out to be something else. It was like being in a hot desert and dreaming about water. It was hilarious. Eventually, the bus came and we were grateful when that happened.

Also, this week Elder Giddings got sick, so that was no fun. Even though he was sick, and it was very clear that he was sick, he still was determined to go out. So we went out even though his voice sounded like a worse version of a teenage boy going through puberty. His voice was so squeaky and his voice cracked after every other word. I feel bad for him, but it was honestly really funny to listen to at the same time. By the time Sunday rolled around his voice was gone. He couldn't really speak at all. So it was really weird knocking doors for 3 hours and being the only one to talk. It was really good practice for me which I was grateful for, but you do start to miss your companion’s voice and testimony after hearing only yours for 3 hours. It definitely is true that 2 testimonies are more powerful than 1 and that is why I am grateful I have companions to testify alongside me. Hopefully, his voice will be back by Tuesday. 

Love you all, 

Elder Rich

Sister Wilson from my stake got transferred here for the winter from Nauvoo. 
She is in my zone so I have already seen her twice.

Riding our bikes

The snow this week

Elder Giddings and his foggy glasses haha

November 5 - Txoj Hmoo Phem (Bad Luck)

I have officially been out 15 months now. That is so crazy! 

On Tuesday I went on exchanges with my bud, Elder Goodworth, who is the ZL. I went to his area. We had a few good hours of finding in the rain. The highlight of the exchange was meeting with a recent concert. Recent concerts are so cool and always have such an awesome spirit. 

Well since last week our effort to get all the addresses into the Google Maps failed miserably, this week we had to enter all the addresses into our area book individually. We entered over 1700 addresses into the area book 1 by 1. Man, that was so boring - a whole 7+ hours of doing that, but it is awesome now that is all done. We can find the Hmong houses super fast now.

The battle with the cockroaches is still raging. We are in a full on war. We have our weapons all over the apartment just in case we see one and if we do see one they are dead pretty fast, well except for this one time when Elder Giddings was messing with one and chopped it in half with a knife and somehow it lived and crawled away. Dang roaches!!! Because of that, we decided we can't mess around anymore so we decided to go to Walmart and upgrade our weapons of war. We got some nice traps that we placed and some spray. And let me say, that spray is the best! No escape for those dang roaches anymore. #instakilled

One of my MTC teachers actually moved to Wisconsin for school. The funny thing is he is now in my ward. It is fun having him here since he served in Wisconsin a few years back. This week he took us 4 Hmong missionaries out to eat. That was a lot of fun.

24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things

A lot of bad luck for us the past couple of weeks. It seems like everything isn't going our way at all, but I know things are put in our paths for a reason - even if we don't know why. God wants to help us to learn and grow and I have definitely learned and grown a lot from these obstacles.

Love you all, 

Elder Rich 

Helping Kelly with Farming

And no I didn't actually ride the tractor lol 

This was on Halloween.  We just got glow in the dark stuff for pics

lunch with old MTC teacher, Richard Lee

Oct 29: Looking on the bright side

Nyob zoo,

This week's email will be a little shorter because of a lack of time due to other things we have to do today which you will find about later in the email. :)

So this week we had a couple great days of finding. We finally got bikes and bus passes since we are in a car share with the other Hmong set. We are super excited for that since we have been waiting a while for that. Every other day we will be riding bikes and taking the bus which I am super excited about since I have always wanted to ride bikes. We got all the bikes fixed up, and the funny thing is, the first day we were super excited to finally have bikes and after only 1 hour, one of the tires popped already haha. So we've got to fix that. 

Tuesday we went to Kelly and Shaun's farm and we helped them to prepare for planting. We used these super sweet knives and whacked the old flowers down and dug up the roots for planting next week - Super fun. I still remember helping Kelly plant the Tulips last year so it was really fun to help again this year. 

On Wednesday we went to Mai's. We had dinner and painted pumpkins with her kids. It was really fun and I do have to say mine was pretty good. I am not very artistic, but I am pretty proud of what turned out. Afterward, we shared a message with her about Patriarchal blessings. She was very interested and is working on getting one. Pretty awesome! 

On Thursday we had dinner with Kelly and Shaun. They both are doing awesome and that was really fun to talk with them. 

Friday was one of the worst days of my mission. We were trying to go to the libraries to get access to the A-Z databases to look up Hmong address and then put the file into our Google maps on our phone so then we can find Hmong people more effectively. We decided to do that and we thought it would only take an hour or so, but it seemed like everything just went wrong. We went to 5 different libraries and by the time we found one that worked we were in a city called Oregon, Wisconsin which is a super small town in the middle of nowhere. I don't know why they had it there of all places, but they did. By the time that was all done it was 6. And we were both pretty mad because we felt like we wasted a whole day. I mean we did a little, but it was just a lot of bad luck. We went online and messaged the workers for the A-Z databases to find where the nearest library was that had access and every time they told us a place we would go and they wouldn't have it. It was a little frustrating. The 4th library told us they did have it so we were super excited and then we went and tried it and it happened to be that they actually didn't and he was confusing it with the other library they worked at, so that is why we drove all the way out to Oregon. We were able to get over 3000 Hmong addresses. So after, we went to eat at a barbecue place called Ziggy’s which was really good. We treated ourselves with ribs and brisket because we deserved it for that awful day. So now we had a full stomach and drove an hour back to our apartment and we find out that our Google maps on our phone doesn't even work so we can't even access it. We were so MAD!!!  Stupid MaaS360 which prevents us from doing everything. What is the point of having a smartphone if we can't even use it?  Hopefully, that will get fixed soon. Sorry, that was a long rage. 

Also, another thing that was a bummer this week is that we found cockroaches in our apartment. So we spent 3 hours last night killing cockroaches and cleaning up. We assume they are coming from our neighbor's apartment through one of the cracks. So today we are gonna be continuing to clean our apartment really good and getting rid of food. We really don't have much food anymore since we found some in our fridge too, so we basically chucked everything because we thought it was gross. Better be safe than sorry.

This past week it seemed like everything was not going right. I swear we had the worst luck with everything, but we decided to be positive throughout all the situations. I mean I would never have had the opportunity of going to Oregon, Wisconsin. I would never have had the opportunity to make funny videos of us attempting to kill cockroaches, or getting scared like 3-year-old girls from the cockroaches. Overall it was a pretty frustrating week, but we chose to stay positive and happy, Well as much as we could haha.

Love, 

Elder Rich 

Painting pumpkins on Wednesday with Mai's girls

Pretty proud of my pumpkin

Elder Giddings, me, Elder Lo

You can see the capitol in the background

Helping at Kelly and Shaun's farm

It was fun to be able to help them again this year

More matching Hmong ties