from Jon 3/31/2009

Subject: Tsab no lig mentsis

Nyob zoo at last!

This has been a very wet week, and remains so. Wet weather, and also a baptism! Wahoo! Yes, that is why I couldn't write on Saturday. Cindy Her, Tou Choua's sister, was baptized Saturday morning by Elder Moua Ying. Yup! I got to perform the ordinance, which is always a special experience. I remembered to bring a spare "Garcia" bottom, but did not bring a spare top, figuring that since I would be standing, I would not get wet above the waist. After the ordinance, I began to make my way to the changing room when I remembered that I was supposed to pull the plug in the font. This font has a chain on the plug, but the plug only comes out part way, and is to be twisted so it stays open. You can't twist it with the chain, so I had to SCUBA down there and do it by hand. While I was changing, I tried to wring out the top in the hope that I might still be able to wear it, but it was still too wet.

Anyway, the baptism went wonderfully, and Cindy's whole family came. While we were changing, papers were passed out for everyone to write their testimonies, and we are compiling them into a binder for Cindy.

Misty and Tou Choua are still working on Mawwage. There is still red tape. Tou Choua's parents are a lot closer to baptism now, and defend the Church and her teachings when their relatives anti them. Nouchi (sounds like "NEW key"), is Tou Choua's little sister, and is loving church and primary. She said she wants to get baptized because, "Cindy is a lot nicer now that she's baptized." We have never seen this supposed not-so-nice side of Cindy, as she has always been the epitome of niceness, but if Nouchi was impressed, then I'm not going to argue. We found out that Cindy's first name is actually "Hlis" (spelled "Hlee" in English), which means "Moon". Cindy is her middle name. Nouchi's name is spelled "Hnub ci" in Hmong, and means "Bright Sun".

How does Tiara like her brother? How does she treat him?

I dunno where Denty will serve...I think it would be neat if he learned an Asian language. Maybe he'll go to California, Laotian speaking. Or maybe he'll go to France, and once he's there the president will assign him to learn Hmong, and teach the Hmong people. Maybe he'll go to Thailand!

We had an Elders quorum activity (don't remember if I told you), to which we were invited. There was lots of food there and a bunch of non-members. One of the big features was Rock Band, about which I have heard so much. Our district leader was debating whether it would be okay just to do the vocals, since that would be singing, and that isn't really "playing" a video game. ;) We mostly stayed in the back with the food and talked to the non-members.

Love you, Love you! Will write toward you later!

-Elder Moua Ying

Notes from Sam -- 23 March 2009

Dear family,

A sister in our ward just had a serious operation, and at church yesterday they asked for volunteers to go take the sacrament to her. Elder Garcia and I volunteered, so after church we went by and gave the family the sacrament, gave the sister a blessing, and visited with them a little bit. This sister had some amazing spiritual experiences as a result of her (very recent) illness and surgery, and she was just pouring out testimony about the truth and joy of the gospel. It felt good to exercise the priesthood and hear her testimony.

This family lives right around the corner from Chris Rainbow, so after the visit we decided to try by on him before returning to our plans for the rest of the day. Chris had been avoiding us, as I probably mentioned, and we hadn't spoken to him for over two months, but when we knocked by he let us in! We talked about his concerns and challenges and read from the Book of Mormon. He told us that he felt like the Spirit had left, and he agreed that he needed to feed himself spiritually again and come back to church. Right before the end of the lesson Elder Garcia asked if we could sing a hymn. Elder Garcia and I sang "Lord, I Would Follow Thee," one of Elder Garcia's favorite hymns, and it really filled the room. When we had finished, he said, "The Spirit is back." And it really was.

As we got ready to leave, Elder Garcia asked Chris for referrals and he gave us his brother's address. We went there straight from Chris' house and met Robert Rainbow and his wife/partner Diane, as well as their two kids Dominic and Tyler. They invited us in right away and we taught Robert and Diane most of the Restoration. At first the lesson was a bit difficult and got a bit distracted (Diane was baptized in another church and was sharing a lot of her experiences with us), but when we got to the First Vision Elder Garcia invited them to close their eyes and imagine what was happening as I recited Joseph Smith's words. When I'd recited it and testified of it, Elder Garcia asked Robert how he felt. As he described what he was feeling ("weird" in a good way, "speechless"), he started to get excited - he'd felt something really, really powerful and he knew it! You could see there was a difference in him from before we'd talked about the First Vision. As he elaborated, he said he felt like getting baptized, and when we agreed that it was the right thing to do and invited him to be baptized he not only said yes but reached out and shook my hand. After that we just all sat there for a moment not saying anything but smiling and laughing because we all felt so great about it. Robert and Chris should be coming to church together next week, and hopefully all of Robert's family as well. I am WAY excited about how they will progress now - I think each brother will be a big support to the other.

In our planning session on Saturday night, Elder Garcia and I hadn't planned to go anywhere near Chris Rainbow's house. We didn't really do anything in the whole afternoon out of our own power. It was just the Spirit working through us, prompting us step by step and blessing us as we followed the promptings. It was especially meaningful to me that Elder Garcia was the first to act on some of the promptings and I was the first to act on others, and that we said a prayer of thanks after each miracle. I think that afternoon taught me a lot about what it means to be an instrument in the Lord's hands. I love being a missionary!

Another piece of great news (which I actually found out about a few weeks ago but only confirmed at zone conference). Remember the story from last summer about how Elder Phillips and I were let in while tracting by a francophone African woman and taught most of the first lesson in French? That woman just got baptized! I saw her name in the mission newsletter (where all baptisms are announced) a few weeks ago, and that was the first I knew about it. She is a way solid member, too, going out teaching with the missionaries and everything. Apparently she fell through the cracks after Elder Phillips and I taught her, and the missionaries found her not through the area book but by actually tracting her out again within the past couple of months, but even if that first lesson is only peripherally related to her progression and baptism it's really cool to be a part of it. She really was prepared by the Lord, and I know the Lord led us to her. Missionary work is so great.

On Tuesday I had probably the best bus contacting day of my mission! I was on exchange with Elder Newson in Stoke, and every bus I got on I just started talking to the people around me until I'd approached all of them, then moved to a different part of the bus and started talking to the people there. All my mission I've struggled with bus contacting, really having to push myself to open my mouth or to get up and move to the next person, sometimes not succeeding in making myself do it. I've wanted for a long time to be able to just do it, like I can with street contacting and tracting. This past Tuesday I really felt that blessing happening. It was just so easy to bus contact all of a sudden that it made me wonder what my struggles had been before. I feel like my bus contacting experience has been an illustration of the reality of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. My heart really has changed, and not through my own labors but through a measure of grace that I don't fully understand, after significant labors of my own. The gospel is wonderful because it allows us to receive miracles, but first makes us work hard enough that the miracle becomes really meaningful to us. I feel a bit inarticulate about this, but the bottom line is that I feel really great about bus contacting and just pray that I don't get prideful about it so I can keep on doing it this way.

While in Stoke I taught an amazing investigator named Judy. She's an Arabic speaker(!) and was pretty excited to hear I'd lived in Sudan. I got to use some of the three or four words of Arabic I still remember - too bad Ruth wasn't there or she could have had a good long conversation and read from the Book of Mormon in Arabic with her. : ) She is from Saudi Arabia but converted to Christianity here in England and was led by the Spirit to meet the missionaries in a pretty miraculous way. She even had a dream about the Salt Lake Temple and recognized it when the missionaries showed her a DVD that included it. She hasn't been baptized yet because she's waiting for asylum papers from the government that will allow her to stay in England, but she's essentially an active member. Also, she just got a job at an Arabic Christian radio station that broadcasts Christian messages to the whole Middle East (a Voice-of-America-type operation, it seems), and she's hoping to start reading from the Book of Mormon over the air one of these days. Pretty cool stuff!

We had zone conference in Manchester on Saturday with a very funny and very spiritual Area Seventy from Sweden. It was a spiritual boost I really needed - I'd been feeling really tired in the days just before, but now I'm excited and energetic again. We drove right through Sale to get to conference, which led me to wax a bit nostalgic ("I used to ride that bus!" *Elder Garcia rolling his eyes*). At zone conference I met Elder Stevens, who is doing great. He told me that Yvonne Matapo is going on a mission! I'm way excited for her.

Well, I'm out of time again. More great stuff next week.

I love you!

Elder Pimentel

Notes from Sam -- 16 March 2009

Dear family,

Another busy week!

I think one of the best blessings has been our progress with the Bailey family (Lisa, Christian, and Cara). They are all still great. Their baptism date has been postponed temporarily (because Lisa needs to get married still) – Christian initially wanted to get baptized by himself on the 28th but after seeking revelation about it we decided he should wait and get baptized with the rest of his family. Now he’s encouraging his mum a lot to get things sorted out so they can all be baptized, and Cara’s also agreed to be baptized with her mum! Better yet, when we went to teach them on Friday one of their stepsisters, Jessie, was visiting for the weekend. She is 12 years old. We involved her in the lesson quite a bit, gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon, and invited her to church, and she came, with all the rest of them! Christian, Cara, and Lisa are all really comfortable at church now and seem to look forward to, and although Jessie was pretty nervous about going into Young Women’s all by herself she did fine too. At church Lisa told us that Jessie had the read the chapter we’d left her from the Book of Mormon a few times, once with Lisa. She is a great new investigator, and I think her involvement will help us to teach the dad (who is out a lot and very difficult to get involved in the lessons). It’s such a blessing to teach a family.

Gisela has kind of been dropped from our teaching pool at the moment, which is too bad, since she’s always so great when we can teach her. She just doesn’t keep appointments very well and she hasn’t come to church. We took three of the young single adults up to visit her the other day, but it turned out she’d gone to work at Primark (a big clothing store in city centre) without telling us. So we brought all the YSA to Primark so we could make contact with her at least and invite her to Institute. It felt quite weird to walk through the store on a non-P-day with a bunch of young single adults in tow! Unfortunately, we couldn’t find her even after searching the store, but the YSA were very understanding about it all. The university-age members of Newcastle ward really are great – Elder Garcia always says that he would love to be a YSA in this ward.

Another exciting development: we have a new ward mission leader, Tim Hooker! Tim is a recently returned missionary and is our number one fellowshipper (he was one of the three we took to see Gisela), so we already know him really well. We’re looking forward to doing a lot with him in the next four weeks.

Also, we got our car back! It is nice to be off the buses – we can now work in all different parts of our area without substantial travel time and we can take more members teaching (the ones without cars). But it was good to be out on the streets for a while and to come face to face with bus contacting again. I had a particularly good day of bus contacting right before we got the car back. Elder Garcia and I were on exchange with the Shrewsbury elders, and Elder Wheat and I were tracting a street in the evening when he felt prompted to go and ride buses for an hour instead, bus contacting as we went. So we did, and we were able to set up 2 great appointments, one on the bus and one by the bus stop in town as we waited for the one home. The next day on the way into town Elder Wheat cast his fears aside, went to the front of the bus, stood up, and started preaching to everyone! It was great to see. On the way home he challenged me to get up and preach, so I did! It was great – pretty scary at first, but not too bad once I got up. Missionary work can be so great sometimes.

I love you all! More stuff next week – sorry if this letter’s a bit shorter than usual.

Love,
Elder Pimentel

From Jon 3/21/09

Subject: Huab cua zoo nkauj

Nyob zoo!

We had a nice week. Nice weather as well.

Monday was the first day we've had REALLY nice weather. The sun was a-shining and everybody and their dogs were out and about. We were in a terrific mood as we cycled 'round the 'hood. Oddly, the first five or so people we talked to were rather rude to us and wanted to argue about doctrine. This was rapid fire in the space of about twenty minutes. Later in the day, we met two delightful people with whom we had very uplifting conversations. One of these was with a skinny, old, black, homeless ninja named William. He wasn't drunk, just a little weird. He had some nunchucks, and showed us a demonstration.

The next day we were blessed very much, and were led to a man who had investigated the church in Iowa, but had recently moved. He lost his BoM in the move and really wanted God in his life. We were able to "hook him up", as it were. There was also another nice guy who called himself "Ron the Don", and gave us all "gangsta" names to give us some street cred. We were on exchanges, so I was with Elder Hadlock and Elder Nielson. Elder Hadlock's gansta name was "Shnalley", Elder Nielson's was "Prince Charles", and mine was "E" (to keep it simple).

Nothing really too interesting to report about our investigators; we still don't really know when the new baptismal date is going to be. Zoua and Mai Lee and Neng should be coming to church this week.

We had a really good lesson with Misty and Cindy about scripture study, and how great it is, and watched "The Testaments" with them in the branch President's theater room. They loved it and wanted to borrow it to show some cousins so they will start going to church again. It's a powerful film.

Well, that's about all I have time for, so farewell for now. Love ya!

-Elder Moua Ying

from Jon 3/14/09

Subject: Huab cua pheej hloov

Nyob zoo!

Well, the work keeps a rollin', and the weather keeps oscillating.

The other day we experienced a Hmong blooper very similar to another one I think I may have told you about. During a dinner appointment, the topic of hunting and eating many different kinds of animals came up. The father began talking about the different kinds of monkeys he has hunted and eaten, and how different ones taste better than others. At one point, he said (in Hmong), "Oh, yes, I'm always happy when I hunt tasty monkey!" In Hmong, 'liab' means monkey, and 'qab' means tasty, but the phrase 'liabqab' means 'naked'. He didn't realize he had said anything unusual, and one of the Elders choked a little on his papaya salad and started shaking with semi-silent laughter, his face bright red. The rest of us started laughing too. The hosting family thought we were all laughing at the crimson-faced Elder because he couldn't handle the spicy salad. When we realized they still didn't get that the father had proudly announced that he enjoys hunting naked, we laughed even harder. Good times.

It turns out that Tou Choua and Misty still have some paperwork to do on their marriage license. They thought they only needed one more signature, but it turns out that there is a whole other set of papers they need to chew through. We postponed the baptism until they can get it sorted. This means Chor and Mee have more time to prepare, so we may be able to baptize the whole family together!

We've found a bunch of new people to teach, and many of them are still working on the concept of God---understanding who He is, why we need Him, how He can help us, etc. We have certainly experienced the benefits of teaching simply.

I love you much, keep being wonderful!
-Elder Moua Ying

Notes from Sam -- 9 March 2009

Dear family,

Great things are going to happen this transfer in our zone! Elder Garcia and I had a great district leaders' council with Elder Rose and Elder Newson on Saturday. We talked about airplanes attacking Japanese ships in World War II and related it to our work as leaders - when all the airplanes attack one boat at once, the airplanes can protect each other and destroy the target more effectively than if they all go off after their own targets. Then we agreed upon some specific targets for the four of us to attack together this transfer - getting investigators to sacrament meeting and having lots of quality gospel conversations - and set goals. There was a great sense of unity and I felt the Spirit a lot in the meeting. In particular, Elder Garcia and I had decided, just before we went to the meeting, to use the story of Naaman in one part of the training. As we made the decision I wasn't too sure if it was the best example. But as we unfolded it in the actual meeting, I realized that it was actually the perfect example to use, and I felt the Spirit teaching us and the district leaders and preparing the district leaders to accept our commitments. I'm convinced the Spirit gave us that scripture to use as we planned in the morning, blessing us with the revelation we needed in the short time we had.

Since that district leaders' council, we've seen some great miracles in the zone. All week we'd been collecting the names of the investigators in every area of the zone who had committed to come to church and had gotten their transportation arranged, and on Saturday night Elder Garcia challenged both district leaders to pray for all those people across the zone to actually come to church the next day. The next day we had 26 people come to church! Newcastle zone hasn't had that many people at church since before I came into the field. No zone in the mission has had that many people at church since 2007. It was just a miracle! Particularly sweet to me was the way our district leaders shared in the excitement - when Elder Rose called in first to report his numbers on Sunday night, he was asking about Stoke district's church attendance and Elder Garcia had to call him back later and share the miracle. It's almost like Elder Rose and Elder Newson are our third and fourth companions now.

Needless to say, I'm excited to see what greater miracles are in store for us in the coming weeks. The missionaries in our zone are just really great, and now that we have such great unity with our district leaders we will all be able to work together and accomplish even more: get each of those 26 people back to church next week, help each one of them feel the Spirit and progress and be baptized, and all the time find more people who will humble themselves and keep commitments.

Elder Garcia and I had some great experiences with our finding this week. We had a lot of meetings and an exchange outside our area, so we had only a little time to work in our area. But through the week as we walked from place to place, sometimes not having the time to stop everyone we met, I felt more than once a specific prompting to stop a specific person I saw walking down the street, and as I acted on those promptings I found that most of those people were willing to set up appointments with us or at least lesson. I can't express how amazing those experiences felt, and how much faith they give me that I can have success. A similar experience came on Sunday afternoon: we'd finished our big afternoon meal and were going outside to work for the rest of the day, and as we prayed to leave the flat we specifically asked to get in at least one door that day, something I felt really good about as we prayed for it. Within ninety minutes, we knocked on a door and were invited in almost immediately! Later that night, Elder Garcia and I had been tracting a rather tough street and had five minutes left before we had to go home. We decided to walk down the street and trust the Spirit to lead each of us to one more door to knock before ending the week of work. After a minute I pointed to a door that I felt good about knocking and Elder Garcia gave a big smile - he'd felt good about that same door! We knocked it and were promptly rejected. But as we walked back out onto the street I saw a man walking very quickly down the other side of the street. I went over and talked to him and set up an appointment with him! When we got home and totaled up our key indicators, I realized that with that final appointment we'd just reached the mission standard for appointments set up in a week. When the Lord, through the mission president, gives us a standard to achieve, he also provides the way to do it! The gift of the Holy Ghost is real. It's incredible to see that so clearly every week I spend out here.

Neither Gisela nor Lisa's family came to church this week. : ( But the Baileys at least are still doing well, still very committed to be baptized. Lisa has a very difficult family situation on her hands but she is working hard to get things sorted out so she can get married. Christian is still way excited about baptism - apparently he "moaned" at Lisa all day when they weren't able to come and wanted to take a taxi down all by himself.

Elder Garcia and I decided some time ago that we were using words like "dang", "flip", "shoot", etc. too much. After President Bullock's powerful training about our communications and the potential they have to drive away the Spirit, we noticed that those words didn't add much to what we said and detracted from the Spirit. So we decided to pick a code word to say when we hear the other one using one of those words. Our word is "Pahoran." It's amazing how well this has worked - I think I've only had to call Elder Garcia out once or maybe twice in the past month or so. It's been a bit tougher for me, but I'm getting there too.

I forgot to mention last week that we had a special street display last Saturday (February 28th) in Newcastle town centre. We had a couple of tables with pamphlets and a chalkboard on which Elder Garcia (who is an accomplished artist) had drawn a really well-done picture of a woman's face and the words "The Truth about Life's Great Questions has been Restored" (just like the Church's new Truth Restored pass-along cards). We got the Newcastle sisters and the Stoke elders to come and help us with the display, plus one of our ward missionaries - a couple of people manned the tables, and the rest of us went out and stopped people. I'd had a lot of doubts about the display, but Elder Garcia had felt really good about it, and it turned out to be an amazing success! We saw a lot of people looking at the chalkboard thoughtfully as they passed by. I was talking to people, and some guys in a nearby flower stall motioned me over to talk to them. At first I thought they were going to tell us off for setting up our display so close to their turf, but the man in the stall said he'd noticed the display, had been wondering what it was about, and wanted me to tell him about it! He'd never come into contact with missionaries before, either. I left with a real testimony of revelation (the one Elder Garcia received about the display at least) and of the street display. Hopefully we'll do it again this transfer.

I love you all! Happy Osam Mart yesterday, by the way.

Love,
Elder Pimentel

Notes from Sam -- 4 March 2009

Dear family,

Sorry for the short letter last week! The library computers went down. : ( I’ve got lots to report now!

Lisa and Christian Bailey came to church again, and so did Christian’s sister Cara! They are great. It turns out that one of the Primary kids is in Christian’s class at school. Apparently after attending church and making this connection, Christian brought his copy of the Book of Mormon to school so he could discuss it with Josh. : ) Last night we taught Lisa with the couple who has kind of adopted them (gives them a lift to church, etc.) and she was telling us that she doesn’t think she ever would have come to church in the first place if not for Christian’s desire to. But now she is committed as well. It’s great how families support each other in learning the gospel. Elder Garcia was telling me how he’d once thought teaching families must be a lot more difficult than individuals, because you have to resolve a lot more concerns (a different one for each person), but it doesn’t work that way at all – family members help each other and resolve each other’s concerns! No wonder Preach My Gospel tells us to strive to find and teach families.

The lesson with Lisa last night was on chastity, which is the big topic for her (since she and Alan aren’t married yet). But it went a lot better than we’d hoped. Lisa has a testimony of chastity already – her parents had a great marriage and she wants her kids to have the same kind of happy family life – so she just has to actually get married, and she was willing to commit to do it. She should have a marriage date by the end of the week. Lisa and Christian’s baptismal date is still March 28. It’s kind of amazing how fast people’s lives can change when they are willing to keep commitments.

We also saw Gisela again this week. I don’t think I’ve ever taught a second lesson to a more excited investigator! She’d been reading the Book of Mormon and had felt every time she read it that it was true. She had us go over her reading (3 Nephi 11) with her and help her understand everything that was in the verses. When we got to the part about Christ conferring authority to baptize, she asked us why baptism is so important. We flipped to verse 38 in the same chapter, which explains pretty clearly that you cannot inherit the kingdom of God without being baptized. As Gisela understood that, she asked us if she could be baptized and when. When our fellowshipper explained that we had to teach her several lessons before she would be ready, she said, “Well, start teaching me now, then!” That’s how everyone should feel about baptism, but it’s still kind of a wonderful surprise to find someone who actually does. She’s been difficult to contact and we have yet to see her again, but hopefully we can teach her again this week and get her a baptismal date.

I didn’t have time to mention it last week, but this week is transfers! As you can probably tell from the above, Elder Garcia and I will be staying together. We were both pretty surprised – it’s not too common for companions to stay together more than two transfers – but also excited. I still have a lot I can learn from Elder Garcia, and we make a good team. Not only are we staying, both our district leaders are also staying, so the “leadership team” for the zone is the same as last transfer. That is really great because it means we can build really directly on what happened last transfer. We’ve already identified specific things we want to work on and will be planning everything out in district leaders’ council on Saturday.

Other changes from transfers: our zone is losing some experienced missionaries and getting some younger ones instead (so I’m now the “oldest” missionary in the zone – yikes!). We’re excited about that – young missionaries tend to have a lot of fire. We’re also getting a companionship of three sisters in the zone to replace one of our sets of elders, which means 7 of the 19 missionaries in our two districts are sisters. Sisters tend to be really great missionaries, and we’re excited to see what happens.

As a side-note, preparation day is moving from Wednesday to Monday starting next week, although in transfer week preparation day will still always be a Wednesday. So you’ll be getting my emails on Mondays most weeks now.

Dad, Elder Garcia was really interested in your trip to Nepal and the pictures you sent. He taught and baptized a man in his last area named Sarasati Barchai. He’s a political refugee from Bhutan, where he apparently headed a heavily-persecuted opposition party, and he lived in Nepal for a while before coming to England and finding the gospel. Maybe your recent converts know of him.

Last night Elder Garcia dreamed that Elder Ballard and Elder Maxwell came teaching with us for a whole day. Elder Ballard and I really clicked and taught with unity. Elder Garcia mentioned to Elder Maxwell that he had thought Elder Maxwell was dead, and Elder Maxwell explained that it the Church had just told people that and that he’d actually just been released for medical reasons. A true missionary dream . . .

One more great experience from this week to finish off. From Monday to Tuesday we went on exchange with a companionship in our zone that has been struggling a lot. The missionary I went with has been having a really hard time, having doubts about his testimony and feeling like he’s wasting his time. In particular, he’s been feeling really overwhelmed by an assignment he’s been given this next transfer to be the senior companion to a fairly young missionary. It was good to talk to him as we worked and give him some words and ideas of encouragement. The next morning, this elder had a really spiritual experience as he read Ether 12 during his personal study, and as he told me about it in companion study the Spirit helped him open up and share the depth of his concerns. I felt a lot of love for him, and was able to point out to him that he did have a testimony and testify that he would be able to succeed this transfer. We agreed on a couple of things he would do in the next couple of weeks to meet his challenges. It was a great experience, and it brought me really close to this good elder. As we closed our companion study, he pulled out his address book, and said, “Elder Pimentel, I want to keep in touch with you.” : ) Sometimes I think the greatest blessings of my mission have come not from teaching and serving investigators but from teaching and serving other missionaries.

The Church is true!

Love,
Elder Pimentel