Prepared

January 25, 2017

Boy am I glad my teacher forced me to take a citizenship test in 8th
grade. All these Hmong people out here need help studying and some of
the questions are weird. Especially to try and translate. But
everything I did whether I knew it or not, prepared me for these
people and I am glad for that.

Had my first presidents interview this week. That was fun. We learned
we're getting new Hmong missionaries this week. Also that the schedule
missionaries run on every day is changing pretty dramatically and that
should be released this week. And we learned who the new mission
president will be this June, his name is president Barney.

Unfortunately the stake president here died on Monday from a heart
attack while riding his bike. For now the 2 counselors have been told
to continue on in their duties until a new president is called.

We taught an investigator about temples and showed her a few pictures
including some of the salt lake temple. I had just downloaded a really
nice one of the salt lake temple and when we got to that specific
temple she said "oh no" we were like ummmm what's up...? Then she
launched into this very hard to understand thing about how she saw
that in a dream but couldn't go inside yet because she didn't have a
pass...Hmong people always have dreams like this.

I was asked as a missionary in training to invite 7 people to be
baptized this week. And at the end we have 5 date sets for the coming
month. One on feb 19, is actually the investigator's birthday.

A Hmong granny taught us all about Hmong medicine and gave us a ton.
She made us drink this water with some root in it that smelled like
rotting flesh and tasted about as bad. Apparently it's very curative,
but I may pass next time.

We learned some Hmong, Hmong culture and stuff from some members and
they showed us their stash of money from back in Thailand and Laos.
They even had the silver bars you buy wives with.

A lot of Hmong people are ready for baptism and believe and even want
to follow Jesus Christ but their husband or wife holds them
back...like VERY frequently. So it's hard for us to see them stuck,
and not progress when they want to. But I know the gospel is true and
if people open their hearts enough to hear a little bit, then they
will feel the love of Jesus Christ and know at least that the things
we teach are good.

Some Hmong money
A super heavy necklace
And some Hmong stitching which is pretty cool, they make nice ties

Note: technical difficulties with photos--stay tuned---