"And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all---they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted."
~Alma 53:20
What an awesome Christmas. Myself and Elder Gardiner had an awesome time teaching and testifying of Jesus Christ these last couple days as peoples hearts just seem to be more prepared to receive the message. One thing I was praying for this last week (partially because I thought it would be cool and partially because it is my purpose as a missionary) is that I would be able to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord by bringing someone to a knowledge that Jesus Christ is the Savior during the Christmas season.
Last night that happened. There is a part member couple in my area that are Hmong married and have been taught by the missionaries for about the last year. The husband is less active and his wife is the most golden investigator of all time. She has loved learning from the missionaries and wants to believe everything but has had a hard time coming to know that the Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world because she grew up shaman. We had the most awesome joint teacher with us. His name is E and he is a white guy who was a branch president for the hmong branch about 10 years ago for the hmong branch. Here is a little background on the guy. He is a multi-millionaire who owns like 15 buisnesses and he is also in the mission presidency. I once asked him what he does for work and he said, "I get paid to make people think that I'm more powerful than them, and I'm very good at what I do." So yeah he is pretty intense. Anyways we brought him to our lesson and after about 15 minutes the husband D felt like he had the whole weight of the world set up on his shoulders. Then he bore this super awesome that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and the Savior to C and the Spirit was so strong, there was a huge pause and then he turned to me. God pretty much handed me the answer to my prayer right there and I looked at C and just said,"I feel the Spirit, and if I feel the Spirit, I know you feel the Spirit. C, God is telling us both to believe. Then I bore testimony of the same truths that our joint teacher did and the room basically exploded with a spirit bomb. C started balling and D is just sitting pale as a ghost because he knew that he had been holding his wife back. Needless to say, I felt it was a success. After that experience I am now so excited to continue to go out and testify more of the Son of God and as His role as our Reedeemer. So have a Merry Christmas everyone and a happy new year. Remember, share your testimony with all those who cross your path and the Spirit of God will back you up. Love y'all peace.
So this last week I did get an awesome flu. I am doing all better know though. On the brightside I did have around 25 hours to watch church films and I got super inspired so this next week I am going to preach so hard.
This past Saturday we had an awesome baptism service for N. He was so funny the whole time and he bore a great testimony. He had everyone there laughing. It was so cool. Also one of the girls that got baptized the same day, S, was the sisters investigator but Elder Hardy and I were the ones that tracted into her while we were together in frogtown and then we passed her off to the Sister missionaries. She is the only person I have seen in the Hmong branch that has been baptized from tracting and it really was so amazing to hear her story. She talked about how she used to go to all these different churches and stopped because she felt like all of them had something missing. She had been reading the Bible and praying for a year for God to give her a path back to Him and then Elder Hardy and myself knocked on her door. It gave me the motivation to keep tracting and always knock on one more door which is cool.
Durning the baptism service Elder Gardiner and I read the christmas story in Luke and then shared the video He is the Gift. It was super powerful and as the both of us bore testimony that Christ is the Son of God and our Savior, the Spirit was so strong it was like you could see it on everyone's face. I love those moments. It really is an amazing opportunity during this special season to step into the circle of special witnesses of Christ, men like Ammon, Samuel the Lamanite, Abinadi, Nephi, and to bear witness to the world that Jesus is the Christ. After nearly a year and a half of serving I have come to understand a few of the reasons of why God sent me to be with the Hmong people. As I watch a people struggle through life with no knowledge of Christ, I have come to realize how much I need Him in my own. It has taught me to be humble, as I strive to learn from a people who most of them have never even learned to spell their own name. But most of all, it has taught me to be grateful for the many blessings and for the easiness of the way. God gave me a good life. And I am so grateful for the opportunity to help others find theirs. Merry Christmas Y'all. Sorry not much time. I just wanted to follow up and see if you had a chance to put up a picture of Christ in the home. Also you are the best mom ever.
This week has been awesome. With Christmas coming up Elder Gardiner and I are going wild talking with everybody and spreading the message of Christ. The Church came out with this new video and they are telling all of the missionaries to use it. It's called "He is the Gift." I don't know if you know this but they basically translate nothing into Hmong in the church so when we show the old hmong people the video they look at us like, what in the world was that. But it is still a sweet video and really powerful.
Elder Gardiner and I got stuck out in the cold one day for like three and a half hours because all of our appointments fall through. (In Minnesota you have to have appointments like everynight during winter because it is pretty hard to get in houses if you don't.) But we decided that we would try and be creative in teaching people. We were driving home after not teaching anyone that night and took a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end. I got out of the car to do the famous missionary humility check and saw a man putting up his christmas lights across the street. We walked over and started helping him out and he agreed to watch the video with us. It was so powerful. It really felt that God wanted our plan to fall through just so we could meet this man. He is in his 60's and was a veteran in the army and is super cool. Way excited to keep teaching him. It was neat to gain a witness that God really does lead us in ways that we don't expect.
Things are going well and I'm just getting pumped up for Christmas. Pretty sure Elder Gardiner hasn't quite experience this must enthusiasm for a holiday before but he is keeping with it real well so I'm pretty stoked. But, have a great week and Merry Christmas!
I hope that all of you had as good as a christmas as I did because I absolutely loved it. Here are a couple of my favroite moments. We made 300 cookies and then passed them out to all the members and went caroling. As we were walking down one of the streets it was snowing and all the church bells started ringing(pretty much like in all the movies) I know that one person who is reading this letter will know the movie I am referencing. Also my companion and I got are car stuck and had to spend an hour digging it out but because of that we got to have a sleepover with the Frogtown Elders and that was really fun. We got to go visit some people who were super lonely and truly make them happy. That was probably my favorite. One of the things that I thought was funny was that my christmas dinner this year was eating noodle soup on the ground with a bunch of super old Hmong grandmas. They are actually really funny and I really enjoyed it.
So my miracle for the week was a part member family that we have been teaching for about a month. The husband hasn't been to church since 1987 and the wife is a nonmember. We brought a lot of members over this past week and it made a huge difference. They finally brought their whole family back to church this past sunday and the husband had a really spiritual experience in the second hour. He started crying and he told me later that he hadnt been to church since his dad died and he felt like his dad was proud of him that day. Defintely the happiest moment of my life when I saw his face light up when he told me that. We also went to visit them on Christmas night and they are really struggling financially right now. They have four little girls and didnt really have any money to buy them christmas presents. The look in the moms eyes when we showed up and brought her daughters a few presents will be enough to keep me going for the rest of my life. She was so happy and never stopped saying thank. I realized then that giving gifts is so much better than getting them.
I am really looking forward to this next week because for new years we are going ice fishing which will be way fun. The Hmong people fish by just tying explosives to the end of their fishing lines and just killing all the fish. Not really sure how that will work out on ice but I am honestly really excited to see this. Dont worry mom and dad I will be super safe. Anyways I love you all. Also if any of you were wondering yes it is cold. Our mission president actually made us stay inside our house two days ago because it was so cold and that was the first time in 3 years. It was -25. Hope all of you are stayin warm
It is almost Christmasssss!!!!!!!! This is so crazy. I cant believe that it is finally here. It seems like I've only been in Minnesota for a day the next thing you know you wake up and you've been a missionary for almost 4 months. I can honestly say that this has been by far the best Christmas season of my entire life for a couple of reasons. 1.People are off work and that is really convienent when you are a missionary. 2. All of the Hmong people are making somewhat american food which is actually a pretty huge blessing to my stomach.(Hmong food is really good but when you eat nothing but super spicy peppers for a month strait it's nice to have a little break.) 3. I have finally come to understand the Spirit of Christmas. I thought that before I left on my mission I understood what Christmas was about but now that the only purpose of my whole life is to help others be happy, I feel like I understand it quite a bit better.
It really isn't about what you have, it's what you give. When I was in the MTC I'll be honest I wasn't really looking forward to any of the holidays because I thought that they would be a little sad. But I don't know if I have ever been happier in my life. My companion and I had the chance to visit a less active couple in their late 30's a few days ago and they are now some of my favorite people on the earth. My companion and I were getting to know them and they told us how they had been pregnant with a girl a few years ago but the wife had a miscarriage. They have not been to church for a really long time and they have since forgotten most of the doctrine. After telling us that the baby had died they both looked so sad and just broken. They have been going to a Catholic church and apparently they thought that since the baby hadn't been baptized then it was damned.(I was a little confused because they said it hadn't been born yet but I guess they felt that it needed to be baptized.) I have never seen a person's eyes be filled with the Light of Christ before that day. When my companion and I told them that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ their baby is now in paradise and is happier than any of us could ever imagine, I truly saw the Light of Christ fill their eyes. It was amazing. And that is what Christmas is all about. It is not about food, presents, or staying warm inside by a fire. It's all about biking in the cold, shoveling snow with your bare hands, or changing a flat tire in the mud so that someone else can be happy. As you see the eyes of someone brighten and you know that you have helped them feel the love of God in their life, I can promise that their is no greater Christmas present than that.
In my mission presidents letter he wrote to us and told us that he said it might be hard for us because we aren't with our families. I thought about that for a second and then I realized that all of us are family. The Hmong people here truly have become my family (don't worry mom your still #1 :)) Even though I don't understand like half of what they say and they probably think I'm super weird because worms stuffed with ramen noodles isn't my favorite food, they really are my family now. I'm realizing how big of a blessing it is to serve a mission. What better opportunity is there in the world to be happy can we have then to serve and help our family be happy for two years.
Anyways thats all for now and I hope you all have a very merry Christmas. Also I'm glad you all enjoyed the news thing that was super fun.
Love Elder Henrie
Also Fam I will Skype around 12:00 Minnesota time. I have no idea how it works or what your number is but I'm sure the Spirit will guide me. :) haha jk ill call you guys before and figure it out. Love ya
What's up everybody-
So first to answer my parents questions. Yes it is vey cold and yes all my stuff works. Im happy so no worries. Also dad Im sorry that I dont have time to answer all of your questions but things are going well.
This week we had some super awesome miracles and some super funny stuff happen. First I want to tell the story of one of our investigators and her less active husband that we've been teaching for some time and has finally comitted to be baptized on January 18 so I am super excited for that. The dad s a less active and is a way cool guy. They are married the Hmong way and so we have to get her married legally before we can baptize her(small side note) and her and her husband are way excited. They have four little daughters. Her husband was a truck driver and he was never home before so we could never get them married. But the most amazing thing happened a few weeks ago. The husband was hunting and fell and broke his back. I know this sounds terrible but it actually was a miracle because now he is always home so we can teach them the marriage class and get them married. Right now they are having some super hard finacial times and are struggling to keep their house and their car. Also they don't have any work and don't know how to pay their bills. But God has promised that if we keep His commandments he will bless us. About one week ago we comitted her to start coming to church and reading her scriptures and she started doing it. She asked us to come over one night and pray with her that her and her husband would have enough money to pay their bills and keep their house. Two days after we prayed she got a letter in the mail that said her and her husband would be getting money from the government and it turned out to be just enough to keep their bills. When she told us that we were sitting in her house and in my head I was like OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH SNAP! It was the coolest thing of all time.
One other crazy thing that happened this week waas this girl who is 23. We found her tracting one night at like 8. The first thing that she said to us when we walked in was that she is an athiest pull dancer who likes to drink and hates church. It kind of caught me off guard I'll be honest but I figured if she let us in that means she is interested. We taught her the entire restoration and asked her if she wanted to go to church and she said she'd think about it so I told her that we would be at her house on Sunday at 10 to pick her up and walked out. We went to her house on Sunday to pick her up and she was all acting like she didn't want to go but I could tell she did. Then she told us about a dream that she had the night before about how she was standing in between two roads and one of them was all bright and clear and the other one was all dark and muddy. She said that in her dream she didn't know which way to go. I was sitting their thinking to myself "Wait a second, you just had a dream about a good path and a bad path and you dont know which way to go, then the next day two guys from church show up and you still dont know if you want to go to church." I tthought it was pretty obvious but maybe not. She did end up going to church though and the coolest thing happened. One of her really good friends was there and she had an awesome experience.(I have learned on my mission that church is actually terrifying because you're so scared that someone is going to stand up and say something crazy and ruin your investigators experience.) It was cool to see someone who was athiest just a few days before start praying and feeling the Spirit. She now has all these awesome questions and is really coming closer to God. Her family and her boyfriend hate us but that won't stop us. Her boyfriend keeps telling us that Mormons are evil and all this stuff but she keeps inviting us back and my companion and I aren't about to get intimidated by some kid. Unfortunately for him we have God on our side so he's kind of an underdog in this one.
So those are the two super cool stories for the week. Also I'm getting way pumped for CHRISTMAASSSSSSSS!!!!!!! None of the old Hmong people celebrate it so it's really funny to talk to them about it. You tell them oh yeah we wrap toys in newspaper and put a bunch of lights on a tree and then we have some old dude dress up in a red suit and crawl down your chimney at night and eat all of your cookies... They always give me the funniest look. But all the people here are really cool and love the missionaries and they have made this Christmas season so great. Also on my mission I've learned that it is so true that it doesn't matter if you have presents or good food or anything like that. It really is about the people that your with. And I wouldn't have it any other way than to be with my Hmong family out here in Minnesota. I really think I understand now what it means to love the people that you serve.
I love you all too and hope you have a very merry christmas. Also you guys need to go check me out on Youtube because I got on the news. The link is Maikou Xiong talk to a group of Elders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The chanel is the HBCTV chanel. Im FAMOUS NOW!
Elder Muaj Zoo
P.S. Shout out to my boy Kiki the Sauce Boss Amachur for givin a stellar farewell talk. I hope that as you walked off the stage you lift off those firecrackers I gave you and pulled out an american flag. I have no doubt that you did though. Because I can always count on you to rep the USA! and SAN-D!
P.P.S. Mom you have to send my package to the mission home. Also could you make sure that Gracie Amachur gets my emails. \
P.P.P.S. Carl my address is 1244 Hazelwood Avenue St.Paul Minnesota 55106
