I Love Her So Much

Sorry, but the librarian lady is on a power surge right now and they have some rules that would take to long to explain so I don't have to much time this week. Things are going well though. The deaf mom that we are teaching is doing well and I love her so much. It is amazing to watch her focus even though she can't understand. Also, the mom and her son that we are teaching absolutely love the branch. They are progressing really well. The son went to the young men's campout on Friday and Saturday and had a blast. They had the young men cook their own breakfast, but then all of them ended up getting sick from some uncooked eggs so unfortunately they couldn't come to church yesterday. 

      Congrats to J Dub and Jessi on the new boy!!!!!!!! What's his name? Love you all, bye

The Spirit Got Me Good and I For Sure Started To Cry

This past week has been possibly the best of my whole mission. The Lord is blessing Elder Lao and I a ton, please keep praying for us because it's working. 

     Last night I had one of the most special experiences of my entire mission. A man named Brooks that I taught in Bloomington was baptized yesterday. At the service the whole chapel was filled with people from the ward there to support him. Elder Craft, who was the first missionary to begin teaching him three years ago performed the baptism. Elder Crapo (my old comp,) A member from the ward, and myself were also in the font to help dip him under and to get him out of the water. We had the curtains open with so many people there, and right as he came out of the water they closed the curtains. The five of us were in the font together and Brooks started crying. You could see and feel 59 years of guilt being lifted and the hope come into his eyes. It reminded me of the scripture In Mosiah Chapter 18 Verse 30 

      And now it came to pass that all this was done in Minnesota, yea, by the waters of Minnesota, in the forest that was near the waters of Minnesota; yea, the place of Minnesota, the waters of Minnesota, the forest of Minnesota, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to his praise forever.

     Minnesota really has become sacred ground to me because this is where I came to know God as well as watched others do the same. 

     We also found a few investigators last weekend that are progressing really well and came to church yesterday. We are teaching a deaf mom who's three daughters were recently baptized. No I don't speak sign language, but the daughters translate for us, and last week she committed to Sept. 12 for baptism. As well as the mom and son that I talked about 2 weeks ago came to church yesterday and the son is going on a young mens campout this weekend. Elder Lao and I are going over tonight and plan to commit them to Sept. 12 for baptism. 

     Elder Lao and I have grown so much the last couple days, we started off the transfer with a desire to work, and be obedient and that has made all the difference. I hope in the coming days it will only get even better.

     Last Thursday, our district leader asked Elder Lao and I to train on receiving revelation, and we started our training by reading our call letter to Minnesota. The Spirit got me good and I for sure started to cry. It is amazing how much more those words mean to me now than they did almost 2 and a half years ago. Thanks for everything, good luck this week.

And though I don't usually include the letters we write to Marshall, here is a response from JW: 

Dear Marshall, 

I love you! 

Love,
Big Bro

P.S. Never stop sharing this magnificent gospel! Everyone you see needs it. They need to know there is a God who loves them and a Savior who can free them from their mistakes and carry their burdens with them.
P.P.S. Picture is from a date night with the kids. Jessi and u have started to doing one-on-one dates with the kids. I took both this week cause she's about to have a baby (Monday the 24th!). Probably named Bonecrusher, but August as a backup.

Handsome Dragon

Great news everybody, in addition to the new baby in the fam, I also have another son. His name is Elder Yang and he is from California. He has such a great spirit and it has been fun to train him along with Elder Morrow. 

     We have been so blessed in our area lately and I know it is because of the faith of these two young elders. The family of 7 that we are teaching told us that they want to get legally married this next week and we are teaching them the word of wisdom tomorrow. Even though we haven't taught them it yet they already stopped drinking and said that they want to quit smoking now as well. They asked us this last Saturday to take out their Shaman alter and bless their house so also tomorrow we get to do that which is always a blast. This family has changed so much since we met them. In literally a month they went from not knowing anything about God and doing shamanism to being regular church goers who cook for the missionaries. :)   The only reason that they have made the changes that they have is because of prayer. They have seen so many miracles and it has been really humbling to witness. 

    One of the investigators we teach has this attitude of wanting proof or wanting us to compel him to believe. Yesterday I finally told him, It is great that you want us to give your answers and prove to you that what we teach is right but there is two problems with that, 1. I'm really not intelligent enough to do that. and 2. the source of all truth is God, so if you want to find these things out then get on your knees and start searching. It is such a comfort to know that in life's biggest decisions and in searching for life's answers, a simple prayer is all we need, with faith to act on our answer we receive. And if we have the two of those things this life not only becomes easier, but exciting and intriguing. How much better could it be then to tell someone, " Yeah, this morning I talked with the Creator of the entire universe about what I should do to find peace, and he told me this..." It really is so awesome.

     But I'm glad things are going well and congrats to J Dub and Jess on the baby. Please name him Nraug Zaj. (Which in English translates to Handsome Dragon.) Seriously if you name him that I will never ask for anything from the two of you again.

                                                          Love,

                                                             Your Favorite 4th Son

Stay Strong

     This week was one of the hardest and most rewarding weeks of my entire mission. When President called and let me know about Jason, I was defintely discouraged. To be honest there was a moment that I felt it was unfair. When we got back to the house the other 2 companions got out of the car and Elder Hardy asked me to wait for a minute. He really just helped me out by letting me know how grateful he was for me and how much happiness he has had being my companion so that was a huge blessing to hear that. I was sitting in the car thinking about what I was going to do for the whole next week, either falter or finish, and the words of one of my favorite hymns came into my mind. "And although all hell shall endeavor to shake, I'll never no never, no never forsake." I looked at Elder Hardy and told him that this week we were going to work harder than we had ever done before, and that's just what we did.

     The Lord did not waste our efforts. We now have a family of 7 that we tracted into that is progressing in a big way and is coming to church this week. P still doesn't have permission from husband but she told us that no matter what he says, she will never leave this church. We found a super old grandma that we teach everyday now that is being baptized on the 22nd and one of our gators Y has comitted for baptism and we're setting a date for him tomorrow afternoon. Probably one of the weeks when I have seen the Lord's hand in my life more than any other.

       Elder Carlson from the quorum of the 70 came for our Mission Conference and he is a 4 star general so you can imagine the spiritual smackdown he gave to us all. It was awesome. He asked us all to prepare talks before we came on being a consecrated missionary before we came and he would call on two people at random to speak to everyone. When he called my name I was honestly pretty excited because my talk had two main points. The first one was from Kung Fu Panda on how Po was consecrated because he realized his own potential and the second point was stolen from Uncle Kent, "The main thing, is to keep the main thing, the main thing" I talked about how we just need to keep Christ's work as the main thing and don't waste our time doing anything else so it was pretty fun. I thought I'd be nervous but I think after giving all the talks I have I've sort of use to it so it was nice not to be scared out of your mind for once. But yeah things are going well and don't worry about me. All Elder Hardy and I do is work work work. Yes I am exhausted and yes I absolutely love it. If there is one thing I have learned on my mission, it is that it is always easier to do the hard thing while on the Lord's errand, than to do the easy thing while your not. Toodles.

 

                     Muaj Zoo Vwj

P.S. Shoutout to my big bro J Dub for his birthday. Sorry I don't have any special presents for you but I will ask one of the Hmong Shamans if they can send you one of their Spirit Swords... Yes they really do have those.

P.P.S. My prayers go out to the Goff family. Stay strong.