The Ammon Project

Hey all!! We have had a very exciting, physically taxing week! I'll start at the very beginning... which actually was a few weeks ago. We were at a district meeting when one of the companionships in our district said that their cousin had been having trouble finding investigators, so they started what they called "The Ammon Project". Like the title says, this project is all about acting like the Book of Mormon hero, Ammon. When Ammon went to go teach the Lamanites, he was captured and made to watch a flock of sheep for the lamanite king. When a group of baddies tried to scatter the sheep, Ammon defended them. When the king called on Ammon to ask why he fought for him, the same king who made him his slave, Ammon was nowhere to be found. The other slaves told him that Ammon was preparing his chariots like he had been asked to earlier. What we take from this story is that Ammon had an immense amount of charity. He wasn't necessarily looking for an opportunity to teach the king, but that was simply a result of his devotion and dedication to doing what he could for another child of God. "The Ammon Project" is all about this. We asked EVERYONE if there was any amount of service that we could do for them. Just in the past week and a half, we were able to preform 8 individual acts of service. I was shocked to find out how much we could help people, just by asking if we could. We have established ourselves as missionaries that are willing and ready to serve. The blessings from this service, while again, not what we were searching for, have been innumerable. We feel that we have given a real boost to this ward, and in return, we have found that they are much more willing to trust us with their friends, giving us more referrals than ever. We are so glad to be here in Appleton, and we are so blessed to have so many opportunities to serve.... While my back aches from moving families, cleaning houses, ripping out carpet, among other things, I can't think of a better reason to have an achy back... LOVE YOU ALL, BE GOOOOOOD!!!

Baptism!.... Doesn't count...

A family in our ward has an 8 year old daughter who was baptized this past week. She was able to share her testimony, and it was a really really neat experience... As good as it ended up... There were a few funny little hiccups along the way. First of all, it was never made clear to anybody whose responsibility it was to fill up the font. My companion and I decided to go about an hour and 15 minutes before the baptism to help set up chairs, pass out hymnbooks etc... Nobody was there, and the font was empty!! The font usually takes about 3 hours to fill to a regular height so we turned it on full blast and waited... THEN as this girls father, who was to baptize her, tried on his baptismal pants, they didn't fit, so we scrambled around to find him a new pair. Once that was settled, we found out that the primary president who was supposed to be there to welcome her to primary was out of town, so again we scrambled and found her teacher who, luckilly, could be there. And finally (this was more just a sting to me personally) I was giving the opening prayer, and on the program it was spelled Lawson... HUH?! Okay, okay, the last one didn't matter that much... but c'mon. Anyway, she was able to be baptized, even though she had to be dipped lower than was normal. I, as well as everyone else theree, felt the spirit very strongly, and I can't wait to have a baptism of my own investigator! Another cool experience happened to us just yesterday. One of our investigators, Mathinoe (pronounced Mateenoh) has been having missionaries over for years and years and years. Elder Vaj and I challenged him and his wife (a member) to read the book of mormon and pray together every day. He got up yesterday during our fast and testimony meeting and with tears in his eyes and a frog in his throat declared that he knew the Book of Mormon was true, and is the word of God. He thanked elder Vaj and I for challenging him to read it and pray about it. He continued by talking about an experience he had with the holy ghost while praying. He said he stopped in the middle of his prayer and just listened. He said he started to cry because he felt God's love. All is well in Appleton, and I hope that everyone has a fantastic week. Until next time... Elder Meej Mom. p.s... Ask me anything you want to know, and I'll answer in an e-mail!!

SORRY SORRY SORRY

FROM JULY 1st:
I feel so bad, but I forgot to write the whole family today!! I was too distracted watching 2 new mormon messages... But I will give you a quick referral to them because they are probably my favorite little messages that our church has put out there... Watch and share this with family and friends please!!

https://www.lds.org/youth/video/origin?cid=HPL2P10W02012&lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/mormon-messages/mormon-messages-2013?lang=eng#2013-06-010-enduring-love

I promise... it is really worth it! Everything else is going fine, except I miss you all, and sometimes have dreams about you... seriously... LOVE Y'ALL

P-Day once again!

Hey guyzz!! It's just after 9 here on a beautiful (to be read: extremely hot and humid) monday morning, and I'm excited to give an update on this past week and some thoughts about whatever comes to mind as I type. First thing, this week is transfer week, which means as of Wednesday, I will not be the youngest missionary (in time in the mission) here! As far as I know though, we won't be getting any new Hmong speaking Elders, but we will be getting a new zone and district leader. This first transfer has flown by so extremely quick, and I can't believe I'm already 4 (ish) months into my mission... I know that everyone says not to count the days and things like that, but I can't help it when time goes by so quickly!! By the way... anybody want to try and figure out how many transfers I have in my mission?... I couldn't keep any of the numbers straight when I tried to do it in my head... Anyway, fun facts! Only 1 more birthday, 3 more general conferences, 24 ish byu football games, and 3 calls home left on my mission!!! As you can see, I obviously try not to look ahead........ I got my birthday package this past monday, 1 week after my birthday. The mission president suggests that families send packages through the mission home where they will forward it to us. This is just to make sure the package isn't stolen or anything like that, but our apartment and neighborhood is plenty safe, and I completely trust packages to be sent right to our door. Other than all of this... It was a rather slow week. We had a few lessons set up and ready to go only to be cancelled on the day of! (unfortunately 2 of them were lessons with food promised....) That kind of dampened our spirits, but we were able to find what we think is another new investigator through these cancellations, so we are still happy and I guess it happened for a reason. Then, yesterday, we had the world wide training broadcast that was all about missionary work, but not just for missionaries, for everyone!! A few times during the conference we heard the familiar phrase "every member a missionary". It was a really good conference and the "big" announcement for those who don't know, was that missionaries during less productive times during the day will be able to do internet proselyting through e-mail, blog, facebook, and other sites like that! We don't know when our mission will be allowed to do this, but we know that it will be somewhere in the next year. It really sounds like it'll be a blast!! That's all the time I have for now, so I'll love you and leave you. If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask!! With much love, Elder Meej Mom

Meej Mom MADNESS

So sorry about the subject title... But I couldn't think of anything else to write.

SO! This week has been pretty eventful (in a good way) and I guess it all started off with a fantastic birthday!! We went to the mall here in Appleton where I got myself two new pairs of sunglasses on the cheap!! After kind of browsing around for a little longer, we went to the foodcourt and I chose Panda for myself... It was pretty d'rn tasty after so many weeks of Cheerios for breakfast lunch and dinner! Then we went to the church where we get to play all our sports. We usually start with either basketball or volleyball and after we get tired of that, we play what's called chair soccer. BASICALLY everyone has a little primary chair and you run around trying to kick the soccer ball into other people's chairs while still protecting your own. You would not BELIEVE how sweaty and hot that game makes you... It's great!! Then we went grocery shopping where I treated myslef to a bottle of Pepsi! I felt like a king! But seriously though, I wanted to thank everyone who thought about me and for the cards and e-mails that I got. I can't tell you how much it lifts a missionary's spirit when they get something like that!

But other than that, this week has been work!! While on exchanges, I found a family who wants to become active again, and have their kids baptized, so I really believe that my prayers were answered. The work is hastening!! Even as slow as it seems now! We have an appointment set up with them this coming tuesday I believe, and we can't wait to share a spiritual message with them.

We had an all mission conference last Saturday that was absolutely AMAZING!! There were 4 70's and an apostle, Elder Oaks who came to talk to us... Added bonus, one of the 70's was Gifford Nielson and he talked a little about his experience playing football for BYU. He told us that recently Lavelle Edwards had heart surgery, and as he was being wheeled into the operating room, he lifted his head and said to his wife "Call the bishop and tell him we won't be making it to tithing settlement today... But tell him that I'm a full tithe payer!!" That got a hardy laugh from the audience (about 200 missionaries). Another funny story, Elder Oaks was talking to us about our call as missionaries. He said that there are very few times in your life when you are 100% dedicated to the Lord. He said one of the only other times is if you are called as an apostle. He told us that Elder Packer was addressing the rest of the quorom of the 12 and he said "Our call is to grow old and die on the stage!" That got another good round of laughter!! Overall though it was a fantastic experience, and to be able to sit at the feet of these wonderful men and have them speak to us is something that I will have chronicled in my mind for the rest of my life. Elder Oaks said that we are a "prophetic priority" which means that in every temple prayer that the prophet or his apostles have, they pray specifically for us. What a wonderful blessing that is!! I consider myself lucky to be a representative of the Lord in these last days to proclaim this glad message!

And finally, to wrap up my week, we had a Hmong Family Home Evening. Any Hmong Family who can attend comes to one person's house were a lesson is shared, 4 or 5 songs are sung, food is served, and great conversations are had. I truly felt the spirit and a love for these people last night. I was also blessed with the ability to share my lesson and my testimony in their language with such little trouble, that thinking back now, I know the only way that I could have said all of the things that I said is through the power of the holy ghost and through the spiritual gift of tongues. And the music only intensified my feelings! There is a selection of hymns that have been translated into Hmong, and we had a great time singing some of them! Afterwards, we had pho... MMM!!! It was really deliscious and for those of you who haven't tried it, I'm sorry, I can't describe the taste. Mostly because you get to add the flavors that YOU want... For example, my companion likes his sweet and with mint, but I like mine salty and spicy!! We also played catch with a football in our white shirts and ties... A great time was had by all!!

Duty calls, but I hope you all know that I miss you, and that I'm saving up hugs for each and every one of you!!

 

Elder Meej Mom!!

19 going on 19 1/365

That's right... It's me! This'll be another shorter one since my companion and I have some birthday activities (or birth-tivities as I like to call them... wait no...) This week has really flown by... We had 2 days of training, so I didn't have a whole lot of time to be out teaching the good word of God, but we were still able to sneak in a few lessons. We were walking the 2 miles from our appartment to the house of one of the new members in our ward. While on our way we were stopped... That doesn't do it justice... A man with a long white beard chased us down yelling "STOP, STOP!!!" When he finally flagged us down he told us his name was Tinker.... yes Tinker... And invited us over for dinner. We are told to try avoiding having dinner with English families so we referred him to the English elders... DANG!! I really want to know how that one turns out though... I'll give y'all the update.... I read my e-mail from my family this week and something really stuck out to me... Age is all relative. That is so true, but I think that I have found that here on my mission, I can apply that to a lot of the (so called) difficulties that I have... I had to walk 5 miles my first day out... That is only relatively far when compared to our ancestors who walked hundreds and hundreds of miles. We are having a hard time finding people to teach. But that is only a relative difficulty when I compare it to those who served their missions in England when the church was first being established. I have a small amount of money each month, but only a relatively small amount when I compare it to the saints who sold their homes for small percentages of what they were really worth just so they could pull up stakes and move west. This week I have found myself thanking my heavenly father more fervently for the trials that I have, in stead of asking him to remove them from me. This mission may be relatively hard, but I thank my heavenly father every day that he has called me to do his work here, now, and in the Hmong language. LOVE you all, and hope you know how much I think about'cha!! PLEASE be good!! Love Elder Meej Mom

Hello Again!!!

This week has been really hard for us Hmong elders... We are having such a hard time finding people to teach! We have a folder with names of people that could be Hmong (Lis, Vaj, Yaj etc) and we try to visit all of them, but we can never seem to find anybody that is interested, or that are even home when we knock!! We have tried so hard, and we are still looking forward to this week, but we won't be having very many lessons... We did however get referred to a family of 5 and we found somebody who might be interested, so we will see what we can do with these two... This week I had to translate testimonies in our ward testimony meeting. This was relatively easy because I know the structure of testimony and a lot of the words... BUT, right as I got up to give my testimony, a Hmong brother got up as well... I sat down to wait for him to speak (he speaks english) but he asked me if I would translate Hmong-English which is only like a million times harder!! I was able to translate his first sentence, "I am happy to share this testimony with you" but the rest I had no IDEA what was coming from him... Luckilly, my Ward mission leader came up behind me and translated the testimony and whispered what I should say into my ear... Probably the most embarrassing thing that has happened so far, but it was a very good experience!!

I'm so happy to be out serving the Lord. I want to let everyone know that everything here is going good. My dad shared with me a quote this week saying that my job may not be to harvest all of the low hanging fruit, but that I may be the one planting the seeds. I know that this is the hardest thing I could be doing right now. But I know that the people that the Lord hasn't prepared for me to teach, those are the people that I am preparing for other people. I now recognize why numbers arent the most important things, but that it is all about what good may come months, a year, or many years after any initial contact. I am extremely blessed to have family and friends as truely wonderful as all of you, and just know that just as you pray for me, I pray for you as well... LOVE YOU!!!