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