Saturday, May 30, 2009

From Jon 5/30

Subject: Tshooj kawg muaj kev lav ris

Nyob zoo tsev neeg!

Sounds like lots of exciting things are happening out West! Always fun to hear about.

There have been some changes in our district.

The English team that covered the U of M campus, and was in our district has dissolved due to a diminished number of students during the summer. Our Zone Leaders are now the only team that covers campus.

The Saint Paul Hmong elders are still not in our district, and they didn't move with the transfers. In Brooklyn Park are Elders Erickson and Richard Vang. Elder Vang is very happy to be back in the district with all his old friends for his last transfer.

Elder Hill was sent to Minneapolis to fill the gap left by Elder Cutshall, who is now our Zone Leader on the U of M campus with Elder Brown, a 7'0" Spanish speaking elder and a great man.

I am still in Minneapolis, and the Lord has found a way to keep me very focused, busy, and engaged: I am the new District Leader. I am a little intimidated by all of the responsibility, but with the Lord, I can do anything I need to. I am very grateful to the Lord for my new companion, who is exceedingly diligent, and very good at helping me stay organized and on top of things. Sometimes I tend to be an absent-minded professor. He is also a lot of fun. With him as my companion, and all of the great investigators we have, and all the new responsibilities, I won't have any chance to be distracted and coast as some Elders tend to do. This is going to be the best transfer of my mission. Ramming speed!

On the 6th we will have the opportunity to attend a special meeting wherein Elder L. Tom Perry will speak to all the missionaries in the Twin Cities. I wonder what instruction, counsel, or promises he will give us. I am very excited. Right before I heard the news from the Zone Leaders, I was reading Elder Perry's talk about member missionary work with the sheep on the cliff (we are going to share it with John Thao). I thought it was a neat coincidence.

Fu moved his date to the 13th because he was superstitious about 6/6/9 being the date...too close to 666. This is good because he still isn't married, though he did talk to his girlfriend and they are now planning on getting married, they just don't have a date. Fu's fiancée, Nu, should be coming to church with him on Sunday.

We may talk to Tou Choua and Misty about the possibility of Misty moving in with Cindy for the time being. Cindy lives with her grandma in Brooklyn Park, and visits almost everyday anyway. We are not sure how taboo that is, or what other cultural complications that might trigger, so we are going to ask some experts first.

We moved Nouchi to the 6th, but we might move her to the 13th. Not because she isn't ready. She is solid throughout. However, as we were making plans for her baptism, her father asked us if we thought he and his wife could be prepared to be baptized by Nouchi's date too. I think my eyebrows must have dropped their sandbags and lifted off like hot-air balloons. I said I thought so, as long they make it to church this week. He then told us that he had spoken with his kwvtij (relatives) over the weekend during the wedding and helped them understand why he wanted to join our church and that he wasn't rebelling or distancing himself from them. Eventually they were all right with it, and now he wants to be baptized with Nouchi. Nouchi and Mee are ready, but we want to be very sure with Chor because he is so hard to read. For this reason, we plan to have all three of them on the 13th. Hopefully Misty will either be married, or moved out by then so she can go too.

No news yet on whether Yer's parents changed their minds. I'm sure they will. Her father doesn't really care, and her mother loves us and always supports us coming and teaching. I think she (the mother) just misunderstood what baptism is. If all goes well, Yer is scheduled for the 13th as well. That puts everyone on the 13th.


Love you all! Hurrah for Israel!
-Elder Moua Ying

Monday, May 25, 2009

From Jon 5/23

Subject: Tus Tswv muaj hwjchim heev

Nyob zoo!
I got a card from the Knapps inviting me to Elder Wilson's wedding! I guess he's just Brother Wilson now. Are these Knapps by any chance related to those from whom we bought our house? They live in Preston, ID. What is Brother Wilson's current address?---Not that you know off-hand, but perhaps you could do some sleuthing ... I've been meaning to write him, but I know not where he resides.

Did I tell you about the awesome lesson with Yer? Last Sunday she came to church, and went to the Mission President's fireside. She loved them both and had her guts fellowshipped out. Before the fireside started, she and Carmen, her primary fellowshipper, arrived early and sat in the chapel alone for a while (they learned after a bit that the fireside would be in the mission home across the parking lot, and not in the chapel). Carmen told her about Joseph Smith and his experience in the grove, something that we had felt impressed not to actually share in detail yet, but had at last felt that it was time and had planned to share it at our next appointment. Yer said that when Carmen got to the part where God appeared to Joseph, she felt tingly and warm, and got goose bumps. A day or two later, at our appointment, we shared the first lesson in Preach My Gospel. Naturally, as with all good stories, the spirit was strong. When we explained the great apostasy, she immediately understood and applied it, which surprised us a little. She got kind of a sad, blank look on her face, and said, "That's pretty sad...that means that Sister Katrina's (the Jehovah’s Witness that has also been meeting with her) church doesn't have all the truth." She didn't seem confused or troubled by this; she understood that Sister Katrina is a good honest person who is doing her best to follow God, but just doesn't know that there is more truth available.

We continued on, and as I began to recount Joseph's experience in his own words, Yer immediately smiled and looked down. For a split second I thought she was smiling because she was amused that I was using the exact same words as Carmen, and that she had heard this part already. I continued, and when I was done, we paused for a moment. She was still smiling. She looked up and said, "As soon as you said that God appeared to Joseph, I felt it again...those same goose bumps." After explaining that it was no coincidence that the feeling came at the same point both times because that is the most important part of our message that God wants her to know is true, we committed her to be baptized on June 13th. She wants to, but is afraid her father may not approve, as he is a Shaman. She will talk to him about it. We know we have Yer's mother's support...she loves us. We are praying that Yer's father will recognize that church helps peoples be better people, and won't object.

Fu has quit tobacco and alcohol, and is looking into marrying his girlfriend, though there are financial issues that may slow down the process. We know the Lord will provide a way for him to keep His commandments. We are praying much for him too.

Misty and Tou Choua are in Wisconsin this weekend for their cultural wedding ceremony. Misty's mom will be coming from California. With Tou Choua's parents and Misty's parents all present for the event, they can have all of them sign the paper work for the license in the presence of the same judge. Evidently they need to all be present in the same room with the judge and witnesses, so everybody knows that everyone is okay with it. I'm sure it's loads easier to get married if you're over 18.

Nouchi has a date set for the 30th, hopefully Misty can be ready by then, and Chor will have stood his ground with his kwvtij (relatives), and they can all share in those special blessings together.

Love ya!

-Elder Moua Ying

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Church Fire in Cambridge


You've probably all heard about the fire that broke out in the middle of stake conference in Cambridge. We spoke to Ruth, and she is safe. She lost some stuff in the fire (her violin, scriptures, etc.) but she got out safe. Kind of a traumatic day. This was the chapel we attended when we were students there over 20 years ago. Here's a link to some photos, a few of which are pretty dramatic. We couldn't find Ruth in any of them, though.

From Jon 5/16

Subject: Muaj hnub teem cia

Nyob zoo!

'Twas a grand pleasure to talk to those of you that I could! Good liver sun born (Happy birthday) to Rizzu! Molly (Chor's 3-years-old daughter) turned 3 on the 13th. We went over and gave her some cupcakes, and I made her a balloon hat and balloon dog. She was pleased as punch, all decked out in new Tinkerbelle (tm) paraphernalia, with the Tinkerbelle movie playing non-stop.

We made a small breakthrough with Chor. We discovered that the only real hesitation he has about joining the church is that his relatives are putting on a lot of pressure for him to join their church, and tell him that he is turning his back on his relatives and distancing himself from the rest of them. He just doesn't know how to help them understand. We also discovered that there are some important principles he still doesn't fully understand, which we will review. We did get his permission to baptize Nouchi on the 30th. We hope he will be ready by then too. If not, we'll talk to them about Mee getting baptized with Nouchi on the 30th.

Fu is doing great. We didn't get a chance to have a lesson about marriage with him yet. We are going to start him on the program for quitting smoking this week. It is hard for us to catch his girlfriend at home, but we are trying to get her on board as well.

Yer is more solid than we thought. She had a great experience at the mother's day activity, and now really wants to go to church. We haven't had a chance to commit her for baptism yet.

Last time we visited Ia and Lia (don't know if I've mentioned them), Ia's sister, Jessie (8-10 yrs), was sick. We taught her about prayer, and said a prayer for her to get better. She got better the next day. She's a good kid... I betcha she'll be up for a little eternal life.

We're looking at a good turnout at church this week. Should be Chor, Mee, Misty, Nouchi, Fu, Yer, and possibly Yer's mom, who evidently knows one of our strong relief society pillars. Fu might be able to get his girlfriend to come too. We also hope Neng, Mai Lee, Zoua, and Ia will come, but they might be busy.

The CD we recorded is finished, and Leng is making us copies. I haven't heard it yet. I've been mulling over some ideas for the cover art. ;) Elder Hill suggested a title for the album: "Moua Ying and The Destroyers: Live in Minneapolis". Heh, heh.

Well, thanks for being all you are and doing all you do! Sib ntsib dua!


-Elder Moua Ying

Monday, May 11, 2009

Dr. Bret

On Saturday, May 9, we attended Bret's Doctoral Commencement. On Sunday, he gave us a brief presentation regarding his "doctoral document" (dissertation), which is about ethnic flutes. The clips are him playing penny whistle, bamboo flute, pvc flute, dizi (Chinese), and Native American flute.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

From Jon 5/9

Subject: Vajtswv foom koob hmoov rau wb heev

Nyob zoo!
Thanks for the info about school, Dad.

Remember the experience we had with Zoua and Ia? This week we employed the "Holy Ghost-restoration-baptismal commitment maneuver" on Fwm (...um, I guess the closest way to pronounce that in English is "Foo", so I'll call him "Fu" from now on). Previously he had mostly been stuck on his own ideas and only regarding our visits as informative. During the lesson, he felt the spirit, and knew it. He committed to be baptized, and we set a date, but he has two or three things to get in order first, one being that he will have to marry his girlfriend, with whom he has lived for 3 years and has two children.

We were tracting a few days ago and as we were locking up our bikes, a young man came out of his house and asked us if we had any mini-bibles that we were giving out. He was a 19 -years-old African American attired in gangster garb, and half of his hair was braided, while the other half was a fluffy 'fro. We told him we didn't have any bibles at the time, but we had another book that we highly recommended. We told him a little about it and he seemed rather interested. He asked if he could have one, and we said we would like to come over the next day (when his rowdy cousins weren't over) and give him one, and explain a little more about it. We arrived at the appointed time the next day, and he invited us in. We followed the new pattern (the one we used for Fu), and when we got to the first vision, he was smiling big. "Wait, wait," he said, suddenly excited, "does the Holy Ghost---is it kind of like a-a...huuhaahuuh feeling---like light in your chest?" We were pretty sure we knew what he was talking about, so we said yes. "'Cuz that's what I'm feelin' right now, and it feels great!" We continued with the painting out the blessings and the baptismal commitment. We asked him how soon he wanted these blessings, and he said, "When can I have them?!" We set a date for the 30th. We said a closing prayer, and as we began to speak afterwards, he stopped us suddenly and said,
"Wait, wait...can the Holy Ghost also feel like...like kinda hot, like a fire inside your chest---but it feels good? 'Cuz that's what I feel like! This is the best I've ever felt in my life! I mean---I've felt the spirit a little bit before when my grandma read to me from the bible, but never like this! Excuse me---I gotta go outside!" He did so, and we followed. We found him breathing deeply and fanning his face, smiling, and laughing a little. We are going to have another lesson with the English speaking Elders, then they will take over from there. I hope we can attend his baptism. His name is Derek.

We are not positive when we will be able to call tomorrow. Anytime from 5-8 pm Minnesota time.

We are having a Mothars' Dee activity with the branch today, which the missionaries planned. The primary is going to sing a song as part of it, and the Elders will help. I think someone is going to record it; maybe I can get the clip to you.


I love you all, and I am sending a clap-hug 'cross the plains to ye. *clap*
-Elder Moua Ying

Friday, May 8, 2009

Notes from Sam -- 4 May 2009

Dear family,

Hey! Elder McIntosh and I found an Internet cafe that is open on bank holidays. So I can email you today after all!

On Friday we dated Sharon for baptism! In our last lesson with her where we'd talked about the Questions of the Soul she'd told us the question "How do I avoid sin?" was important to her. So we'd planned to teach the Plan of Salvation and focus on sin and how Christ's Atonement allows us to be free of it. When we started the lesson we asked her about that question, and she explained that in the past she'd done things that had set a bad example for her children that she now regretted, and that she wanted to put those things behind her. The Spirit really came into the lesson at that point and we ended up abandoning our plans and teaching about the gospel of Jesus Christ. As we taught about faith in Jesus Christ I realized that Sharon really has a lot of faith in Christ, and that it was her faith that was leading her to study the scriptures and come to church every week. When we invited her to be baptized, she thought about it for a minute and then said something like, "I want to be a better person, and maybe being baptized is the only way I can do that." We testified of that and she accepted a baptismal date of July 11th! Right when she agreed to it her boyfriend Richard (who is a member, now semi-active) joined in and testified of just how much Sharon has changed for the better since she started investigating the gospel. It was a great moment. After we finished the closing prayer, Sharon said, "Thanks guys, I've really felt good today." It was a wonderful moment.

We've also been richly blessed in other ways this week, in particular as we've sacrificed for our zone. On Saturday we spent most of our day driving out to one of our most remote areas, working with the missionaries there, and driving home. We put 160 miles on our car in one day! As we left in the morning Elder McIntosh and I were both doubting whether it was worth the trip (I was worried also because we hadn't hit all our goals and had only one new investigator for the week), but we prayed about it and felt a confirmation that we should go. As things worked out one of the missionaries in the outlying area was sick, so I stayed in the flat with him, and Elder McIntosh and the other missionary had a lot of things fall through and weren't able to accomplish much. As we drove home, though, we felt good about what we'd done. And the Lord blessed us so much!

The next day, Sunday, we taught a first lesson to a great lady named Deanne (sp?) who has really been prepared to receive the gospel. Her manager at work recently became a born-again Christian and Deanne has seen a major change for good in her; she's also been feeling like she and her nine-year-old son should start coming to church, and towards the end of the lesson she actually asked us, "When can we start attending your church?" After that lesson, we tracted a street in her neighborhood, and we got in a door and taught three young people. It was kind of a crazy lesson with lots of distractions, but they all became new investigators and we're going back to see them next Sunday! Then, right at the end of the evening, we decided to try by a referral. At about 8:50 PM we knocked on the door, and the couple let us in to teach! One of them was someone Elder Garcia and I had taught back in December (he had just stopped investigating at the time), and the other one became a new investigator. So altogether we had 5 new investigators in one day! Kind of amazing how much the Lord can bless you at once.

We had another great finding experience this week. During our weekly planning session Elder McIntosh and I prayed about a focus area (a place for us to go to do finding during the wekk) and we felt good about a certain neighborhood. That evening we went there and went tracting. That's when we first met Deanne, and Elder McIntosh also street contacted a man named James. He was in a really big rush but offered to give Elder McIntosh his address right away (quite unusual) and actually invited us to come visit him the next day! When we came back and met him the next day, we all sat down on the couch and he said something like "I feel like I've gone astray in my life. I've done a lot of things wrong and I want to get back on the right track. What should I do?" That took us aback a little bit. : ) We taught about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he accepted everything! When we gave him the Book of Mormon, he committed himself to read it and also to come to church before we had a chance to invite him to do those things. Now I think I know how Aaron must have felt while teaching King Lamoni's father when the king said he would believe all his words. It was great to teach a lesson like that, and I really felt the Spirit as Elder McIntosh testified of the Atonement. James seemed to really appreciate our visit. He comes from a Catholic background and kept on calling us "Fathers" instead of elders. : )

As you can probably tell, I am very happy. Things are going really well in our area and our zone, and I love the missionaries that I am working with. I had the chance to go on exchange with a few of our missionaries this week, including Elder Farley, who is from England and is one of the few people I have met who knows of the verb form "to proselytize," and Elder Bills, one of our district leaders. They are both great. Elder Bills has an amazing story - his family has not been active in the church for most of his life, although they came back to church for a short period when he was a child, during which he got baptized. During the first few days when he graduated from high school and moved out on his own, he was sitting in his apartment in downtown San Diego thinking about his life and what he wanted to do with it, and he felt prompted to read his scriptures. He had never really read his scripures in his life before, but he started reading them and praying. He also got on the Internet, found the nearest singles ward, and went there on Sunday. He told the bishop he wanted to be on a mission within a year, and now here he is. I'm really grateful for all the amazing people I get to meet as a missionary.

I'm excited to hear that Eric Davey will be a freshman at Stanford next year. I'm looking forward to meeting him. One of the other LDS freshmen who will be returning from his mission to Stanford this fall, Logan Ensign, is also from Santa Rosa. Maybe he and Eric know each other.

I'll try and send you some photos. Looking forward to talking to you all a week on Sunday (the 17th).

Love,
Elder Pimentel

Notes from Sam -- 27 April 2009

Dear family,

Sharon is doing really well! A couple of days ago we taught her an amazing lesson where we talked about the Questions of the Soul. We'd been struggling to plan for her because she wasn't being very open in lessons. Although she was reading and coming to church and had even told a member that she was really enjoying it and had felt something good about the church, we hadn't been able to get her to tell us that or identify her concerns.

So we watched the Church's new DVD Finding Happiness with her and had her identify the questions that it raised. The first time she had trouble recognizing them, so we watched it a second time. After the second time, the Spirit came strongly into the lesson and she told us about some questions she had about life after death. I was excited that we'd identified something and was all ready to end the lesson, but Elder McIntosh opened up Preach My Gospel to Chapter 5 and read through the whole list of 15 questions of the soul it has there, asking Sharon to identify ones that were meaningful to her. As he finished the list, she told us that there were several of those questions that she cared about and mentioned one or two specifically, things I never would have imagined she had been thinking about. It was exactly the lesson we needed to help us help her progress! Even better, right at the end of the lesson she told us she had felt the Spirit as we'd read from the Book of Mormon in a previous lesson and also that she'd felt it at Church. She came to church again this week and seems really committed. I love watching people become spiritually committed to their investigation of the gospel.

We also had a great lesson with Kirk, just yesterday. He has so much insight into the scriptures, it's incredible. He told us about how he has concerns and questions about contradictions in the Bible, and we shared 1 Nephi 13:40 and testified of how the Book of Mormon establishes the truth of the Bible. Then we read 3 Nephi 11 with him. Often it's very difficult to read the Book of Mormon with investigators at first, because even when they understand it you have to work hard to get them to ponder upon what they read and have and express spiritual insights. But after we read a few verses with Kirk and asked him how he would feel if he'd experienced what the Nephites were experiencing, he spent several minutes bearing testimony and explaining just how meaningful it would be to him to hear the voice of the Father and see Christ in person. I actually learned a lot from his comments about what it means to see Christ. Kirk also understood very clearly from our teaching and his Book of Mormon reading that he needs to find out if Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that everything depends on that. He is now quite committed to that. He has so much potential if he has the real intent to find an answer to his prayer!

All-mission conference was fantastic, but in quite a different way than I had expected. There was immense build-up to the conference across the mission - President Bullock talking up the conference in zone leaders' council and zone conference, missionaries serving in the outskirts of the mission (including me!) traveling in closer to Chorley on Monday night and sleeping over with other companionships, etc. - and I figured we would be rewarded by some kind of mind-blowingly eloquent and spiritual 90-120 minute discourse by President Packer. I couldn't have been more wrong. The whole conference lasted barely two hours, and President Packer answered questions for about 20 minutes and spoke for maybe 30 minutes at the end. The Bullocks, Sister Packer and one of President Packer's sons and his wife all spoke as well. President Packer spoke very quietly and simply, without any kind of fanfare or drama. I think his son summed it up best by something he mentioned in his talk, which I'll paraphrase: "The most wonderful thing about my parents is that they consider themselves to be just ordinary people." Listening to President Packer, you could tell he thought of himself as just an ordinary person. That his humility purified his words and made them powerful even though they were delivered undramatically. I could also sense that President Packer trusted the Spirit completely to guide what he said, and that he wasn't nervous at all. I couldn't imagine him being afraid of anything. That's what real faith is, I suppose.

Because of that, the conference was even better than I'd imagined. I think President Packer's unassuming counsel provided me with a clearer witness of his apostleship than the impassioned discourse I'd imagined would have.

This week Elder McIntosh shared with me an important insight he had about being a zone leader. He said that he felt we needed to care more about other missionaries' areas and even view them as our own, sacrificing more time from our area to go and help their investigators progress and to go and help them find new people. I pondered about this afterwards, especially with regards to key indicators, and I felt that there was no reason for our area to be getting really high key indicators if other areas in our zone were struggling - better to get the basic standard here and then spend the rest of our time working with other missionaries.

Then Elder McIntosh and I had a great opportunity to apply this idea yesterday. On Saturday night we had nine lessons set up for Sunday, eight of them with potential investigators. Essentially, our day was booked solid from the end of church to curfew. Lessons with potential investigators are notoriously unreliable, but we decided to exercise our faith, set a goal of 10 new investigators for the day, and (at Elder McIntosh's suggestion) fast throughout the day for success in achieving our goals. I wasn't too keen on the "fast all day" idea at first but decided I better not be a wet blanket and went along with it.

Unfortunately, some of our appointments fell through or turned out to be false as we tried to confirm them by phone on Sunday morning, and as the day progressed the remaining appointments fell through one by one. By about four in the afternoon, we had a lot of free time on our hands, which meant we would be doing some finding! We had already achieved the mission standard for quality gospel conversations, though, and so we decided to go to Crewe, where finding has been a bit tougher in past weeks, and help them for a couple of hours. I knocked one side of a street with Elder Larson and Elder McIntosh knocked the other side with Elder Breisch. It was a pretty normal day of tracting and we didn't get in any doors or set up too many appointments, but for some reason I felt amazing about it! Just really close to the Lord and the Crewe elders. We ended up getting 0 new investigators for our area but somehow I felt really successful and happy about how our fast and our day had gone. Later that night Elder Newson (the Crewe elders' district leader) thanked us for going up there and said it had meant a lot to Elder Breisch and Elder Larson. It meant a lot to me too - I feel a lot more faith in and love for our flock since then. I think that experience taught me what it really means to magnify my calling as a zone leader. Now I'm really excited to go and spend as much time as I can helping out my missionaries in their areas!

I'm humbled sometimes by how the Lord blesses us for doing simple things like thinking about our callings and praying and fasting. Late last night I realized that if Elder McIntosh and I hadn't been fasting we might have just gone home for tea in the afternoon and not even thought about going to Crewe. Good thing I listened to him. : ) I feel so blessed and so guided. This is really the Lord's work.

Love,
Elder Pimentel

P.S. Sorry about the mix-up with my email two weeks ago on the Wednesday instead of Monday. Our preparation day is indeed Monday, but In England Easter Monday is a bank holiday, which means all the libraries are closed. The Tuesday in that week was zone conference, so I wasn't able to email until Wednesday. I forgot to let you know about that the week before - my apologies.

In the spirit of repentance, be warned that next Monday (May 4) is also a bank holiday. So expect my email on Wednesday the 6th. : )

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Miles Smiles

Miles Swings

from Jon 5/2

Subject: Kuv txais lub thawv

Nyob zoo!
I got the package! Ua tsaug 'os!

Did I tell you about how we (the Minneapolis and Brooklyn Park Hmong Elders) landed a record deal? One of the counselors to the Branch President liked the musical numbers we have done for a couple of past sacrament meetings so much, that he asked us if he could record us singing some hymns in Hmong so he could make a CD for members of the branch. We assumed he just wanted us to come over to his house and sing into a USB mic on his computer. Turns out he booked a recording studio in St. Paul for an hour. We practiced four or five songs for a week, then went and recorded them last Thursday. None of the Elders has any singing experience but me, and only one other had any musical experience. One of the Elders served four years in Iraq as artillery, and has experienced ear damage. He is virtually tone deaf, but miraculously, he is so flat that most of the time he sings a consistent major third below the melody, creating a lovely alto-like flavor. We ended up recording seven songs, and are waiting for the studio to edit and clean up the CD. The recording room was designed for one or two people only, and the owner was a little overwhelmed with the odd situation of having four tall Americans want to sing at the same time (he mostly get Hmong soloists). He had to do a lot of microphone adjusting. It was also very hot in there.

We had some incredible lessons this week. One was with a girl named Yer who has been very hesitant to come to church, and didn't really see the big importance of taking the gospel very seriously, and was mostly just curious. We took a joint teacher, and she (the joint teacher) did a wonderful job testifying and pouring out her heart with love toward Yer. They made a real connection, and the joint teacher invited her to church and said she can pick her up. The lesson was very spiritually charged.

Another lesson was with Zoua and her sister Ia. This was on the day of Zone Conference, where we just had a training on inviting for baptism on the first lesson. We have been working with Zoua since December, and she still hasn't come to church. Ia had just moved in, and this was our first time talking to her. We watched "The Testaments" because Zoua responded very well to "Finding Faith in Christ", and we really wanted her to feel something. Ia watched it with us, and afterward we talked about the Spirit, and testified of Christ and how we felt the spirit during the film. They felt it too, and we challenged them to be baptized. They accepted! Now we need to help them prepare. They planned to paint their house this Saturday and Sunday, but we are going to talk to their mom and offer to help them finish early so they can make it to church.

We may just baptize Nouchi with Misty as soon as Misty has her license, but we are going to do everything we can to prepare Chor, so he and Mee can join them. We are still trying to figure out what Chor's real concern is. It's a puzzle. We are praying.

I love you all! Kuv hlub nej sawvdaws! I look forward to talking to everyone on Mothars' Dee!

-Elder Moua Ying