Whatup

Whatup Whatup happy Monday y'all. Things were crazy this last week AND we saw a ton of miracles. Mong and his wife Nag are still doing awesome and arre planning on being baptized on the 21st still so all is good. 

    Taught a man named Vang with our branch president on Saturday and it was one of the most spirtual lessons on my mission. We have taught him for about 5 weeks now and he has been struggling with the word of wisdom but has been coming to church and keeping his other committments. He is currently homeless but is a super cool guy. We taught him and flames were flying and the Spirit was dropping bombs left and right and finally our branch president gave Vang a blessing. At the end of the blessing Vang just sat there quitely and then started to cry so I asked him,"What did God just tell you?" Then he said, "I'm not sure, but I know God's love is real." Super awesome moment in this man's life and hopefully it gives him the motivation he needs to quit smoking. 

      Also we were knocking doors this week and we found a family of 7 that is looking for a church and is pretty much the coolest family in the whole world. They keep all their committments and do everything we say so that really helps. We are planning to set a date for them this Tuesday so pray hard for that one. But gotta go. Toodles

Shoutout to the Amachers for getting a mission call!!!! Good luck Tanner and Misa

I Saw A Ton Of Miracles

Fist of all, Happy Birthday to the classiest mom this world has to offer. In light of the last 19 years of you being my mother, I wrote you this poem

                                              Dear Mom

                                     You truly are the bomb

                      You wiped my boogers and picked up my socks

                      Even dragged me out of bed well past 12 o'clock.

                    Words can't describe your cooking it's tremendous

                             By golly mom I think your stupendous

                         Ya done taught me well and told me the way

                       To be a good little lad and my respects I must pay

                          Your the best in the world oh mother dear.

                   Best luck to your goals and dreams in this your 35th year

       

    This week was awesome and Elder Morrow and I saw a ton of miracles. He is doing awesome and picking up all the stuff he needs to do way fast which is nice. Me and him really get along and he actually went to the same school as Bray back in Heber which is cool.

     We have been teaching this guy named Mong for the past two weeks and his wife Nag (That's literally how you spell it in Hmong. Hilarious I know) and they finally made a huge breakthrough. Mong was raised going to church and has struggled to find out if Joseph Smith is a prophet or not. We took him on a church tour and took one of the priests from the branch teaching with us. Before we took him into the chapel the priest challenged Mong to read the first vision to himself and then to pray and ask God about it. We all sat in silence for about three minutes and then he turns to us and says, "So when I read the words, I felt really good. When I prayed about if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if this was the only church that is true on the earth I felt really good again. Then I started to think about all the reasons that I couldn't join the church and that feeling went away."

     We had him read Moroni 10:5 and then invited him to be baptized. He said yes and then added that he wanted to have his wife baptized as well. The best part though was when he said that he didn't know if he would be baptized that night, the next day, or in a month, or even next year. We were sitting there in silence and then I started nudging Elder Morrow's knee (guess I forgot to tell him about setting dates, whoops) and then Elder Morrow comitted him to the 21st of Feb. Super excited for him and his fam.

     But love ya all and happy marriage to Tanner and Misa and Happy B-Day mom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!      

Pic: Selfie for mom     

          

Happy New Year

  We had transfers this past week and I know have my first son. Elder Morrow. He is an absolute stud. He is from Utah and used to go to Wasatch high school. He loves basketball, football, and pretty much every other sport. I am super excited to have him. He works hard and he wants to be here so it will be awesome to get to train him. It's a lot different than what I'm used having a brand new companion but it is really fun too. He has a ton of faith which has been really good for our investigators and for myself too. 

     On one of the first nights that he got here we had a really fun experience. We went to stop at a gas station because Elder Gardiner had to go and while Elder Morrow and I were waiting this Hmong guy walked in and he was shivering because it was so cold and he had a coat that was super thin. We started talking to him and found out that he is from Laos and has only been here for 3 months. He has two young babies and a young wife. Right now he doesn't have work and he is just living with Hmong people that he meets while walking around and then they kick him out after a little while and then he goes and find somebody else to live with. As I was talking with him I just felt the Spirit so strong and was filled for so much love for the man. I told him that I wasn't letting him leave the gas station unless he traded me coats first. He said no at first and then I told him that we had like 5 extras back at our appartment. So he traded me coats and then my companion gave him his hat. He put them on and had a smile from ear to ear. He just kept saying thank you over and over. He was so grateful for what we had done that honestly I almost started cying because I realized how lucky I have it and how hard some others do. While all this was going on a couple of guys were yelling at the cashier because he couldn't understand what they were saying (for some reason they thaught that would help,) because he was behind a glass window. Looking back on it I realized how different my life was from those guys who were around my age. Even though we were in the same gas station only a few feet apart and nearly the same age, I was standing there feeling as happy as I ever could feeling the Spirit while they were getting frustrated at a cashier because he couldn't understand what flavor of Swisher Sweets they wanted to smoke. It is amazing the difference that the Gospel of Jesus Christ will make in our life. So get out there and start living it this next year, there is nothing greater or more fun, then living life as a disciple of Christ. Love y'all and have a happy New Year.

God Gave Me A Good Life

      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.

Pumped for Christmas!

     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!

My First Week in Minneapolis Went Awesome

     This last week was pretty awesome because I got a combination of Thanksgiving and Hmong New Years. Hmong people throw some awesome parties and the New Years Party is the granddaddy of them all. They have this huge celebration that lasts for 3 days in downtown St. Paul and we set up a booth at the party. We found some awesome investigators through and look forward to seeing what happens with their progress. At the new years party they have a talent show, breakdancing competition, a huge market place, tons of crazy old hmong games, and other random stuff. So that's how we celebrated thanksgiving. It was great because their was 8 of us their and everyone wanted to talk to us because we were white guys wearing Hmong clothes that could speak Hmong. We even got pictures with a bunch of their famous actors and got pictures on the red carpet. I was laughing so hard when they were taking pictures. So yeah it was good times. Also we had the annual branch turkey bowl. When the football game started it was -1. It was cold but also super fun.

     My first week in Minneapolis went awesome. Elder Gardiner is my new companion and he is a stud. He is super obedient and really wants to be here and I couldn't ask for anything else so I am excited. He is from Cali and has been out on his mission for 6 months now.

     This week we got a referral from the mission office for a lady named M. We went to visit her and found out that she was learning from the missionaries in Wisconsin and has already been taught all the lessons. She moved up here because she was having struggles with her family down there and was looking for a fresh start. Our very first lesson with her was really powerful and we comitted her to baptism on Dec. 27th. She is working on overcoming smoking but she has such a great desire to change which should really help. It would be pretty awesome to have a Christmas miracle go through and also she has a cousin in the branch that is rooting for her as well so things are looking great.

     Hope you all have a wonderful week. 

-Elder Henrie

Big News This Week

Big news this week, finally getting transferred to Minneapolis. It is a super weird feeling to be leaving Frogtown since I have been here for 9 months strait but I am really looking forward to serving in Minne. Elder Hardy and I had one of the best weeks of my whole mission this last week so it is hard to leave but I am glad that I can say I left the area better then I found it. I guess that is the goal right. Here is a list of the miracles we saw last week.

-Set a date for december 13th for P's kids

-Found and taught a sweet lesson to a family of 17!!!!!!!!!!

-Taught the guy fixing our fax machine in our appartment and he totally is Hmong and super prepared.

-Being able to look back at the last 9 months in an area and feel the Lord was proud.

     I defintely couldn't be more happy with the time that I spent here and came to feel that it was truly my home. The people I served with in this area have become friends and family that I will never forget for the rest of my life. I will be really sad to leave Elder Hardy. Him and I became best friends together and we learned so much from each other. We are already planning to build a buisness based of off pigeon racing but that's another story.

     The thing I learned this past week is that the Lord truly does answer your prayers. I have seen so many times when I pray for something with real intent that the Lord answers in His own way and in His own time. Thanks so much for all your support. Happy Thanksgiving yall.

 

-Elder Henrie