Ted the Taxidermist

January 9, 2017

The week in review.
Monday we met with a super shy Hmong girl who is a pro card player. We
can never beat her at anything. Well she doesn't want to come to
church because she's shy so we challenged her, if we beat her to come
to church. She said no, then we asked if we could both beat her and
she came in last, if she would come, and she agreed. What happened
next was we played a game called shampoo, and my companion and I were
praying super hard to ourselves. It was not looking very good as we
approached the end of the game. My companion won the game which left
us to figure out who came in 2nd, and last, and while sending up a
prayer I played my last card. She's coming to church folks. The
members said using the power of god in card games is cheating, but
hey, there are no rules against it...

This week we started an amazing district focus. To get the conversion
stories of every member, less active included. So we've been going
around recording and writing down everyone's stories and they are all
amazing. One reason is because Hmong people go less active very
frequently for a variety of reasons which are all terrible excuses but
that's beside the point. Having their story in their own words helps
to remind them of their experiences. It helped us get a few less
active families and individuals to church this week. We had 140 people
there which it's usually 80 so BIG difference. 

We also had an investigator and his family come as well and they want 
to come back.  The gospel is already playing a role in their lives and helping bring
joy and peace when they had some scary things happen.

We found a few new investigators this week, one lives with another new
investigator we already had and while we were over there we taught her
too. She knows the most spiritual member in the branch and is her
close friend....hmmm how interreeessstiiiinnngggg. The other lives 25
miles from us (goodbye miles) he's very solid. He was talking about
how he believes the Book of Mormon even though he's never read it. He
knows god is real and has blessed this land above others because of
its faith. He accepted he invitation to be baptized on February 19 so
that's exciting.

We met a man named ted and his wife who's Hmong. He and his family are
hunters and he had taxidermized stuff all over his walls. Made me
think of ole chuck testa. He is super cool and wants to take us ice
fishing one Monday, apparently the ice is thick enough to drive on.
We were called to the hospital to give a baby a blessing, she was
having tracheal issues and swallowing and breathing problems in
general. It was a neat experience, and to be around a spirit so new to
this world, babies are cool.

While recording people they go off on other things sometimes, and so
is week we ended up learning a ton of cool Hmong culture like what
kind of Hmong people wear what clothes, and how they also sing
different songs and we had an older lady demonstrate for us, super
cool, she said they don't say I like you, or I love you because
they're too scared, they just sing a certain song to the person. I
don't know if that's actually easier....but hey if that's what you
want to do...
Elder Hwj Chim