FINDING FUN!

I just want to say that I love the last 3 months of the year!!! I just love colder weather in general! The weather here isn't much different from Arizona but the only difference is that here, it gets so foggy in the mornings that you can literally only see about 30 ft in front of you! Which is awesome and scarier than heck at the same time! 

This past week we did a lot of finding. We found a ton of Hmong people and asked them if they wanted to learn about God and if they said no then we asked if they had any friends that would like to learn! We ended up getting about 6 referrals total! We visited all 6 in one night and have return appointments for all but 1!! 

We also committed another person to baptism this week. Her name is Emily (she's not Hmong but is a roommate to Pa(a recent convert)). We have asked hr about 4 times to get baptized and she always said "maybe but not yet" until we had this awesome lesson at the church were she ended up crying and said yes!! She'll be getting baptized on January 9th!! That's about all that's happened this week though. I hope everything's going good for everyone back home!! Kuv Hlub Nej!

Elder Tub Ntxawg

18th year of siting on Santa's lap.  Can't break tradition!! :) 

left to right- Pa, Gabrielle-investigator, Mee, and Emily-just committed to baptism.

We pranked another companionship's car that was in the parking lot.

TRANSFERS Dec. 2015 - Receives Trainee

This is the full video.

This is the same video of Daniel only.

MERCED CHRISTMAS PARADE

Nyob zoo, 

This past week was crazy awesome and just overall fantastic!! After emailing last week,  we went out with our favorite recent converts for lunch (they didn't know I wasn't leaving yet) and then went to take pictures at a park! Halfway through lunch (we went to Denny's) I told them I was staying and they were both beyond excited!!! 

On Tuesday we finally decorated our apartment! We found a HUUUGGGGEE box of Christmas supplies and got right to work! We ended up finishing around 2 AM but it was all worth it!! 

On Wednesday we had the amazing opportunity to go to the temple with my companion to get together our thoughts on how we want to train our trainee. Unfortunately since we stayed up till 2 we slept past our alarms and had to cut off a half hour of the hour and a half trip to the temple. it started at 9:30 and we ended up getting to the parking lot at 9:29 (we left at 8:27). We rushed inside the temple just to find out the session had just started. We were super bummed at first, but then we had the opportunity to go be witnesses to sealings for an hour!!! it was amazing!!! I learned so much during hat and we think that that is what the Lord wanted us to do!! Later that night we were visiting some of elder Pace's recent converts from Fresno and this one lady fed us what looked like beef on a stick. Turns out it was bear meat!!1 It was so weird to find that out but strangely...it's pretty good!!!

Thursday Elder Pace and I got our trainee!!!!! his name is Elder Gray and he's tons of fun! he's from West Jordan, Utah and loves everything basketball!! He's super good at Hmong too!!! 

On Saturday we got be in the Merced Christmas parade!! WE went around handing out over 1500 pass along cards!!! It was amazing! I felt like a STAR! I evenn got the crowd going oce cause when we were introduced I screamed, "YEEEAAAHHH WE"RE THE MOOOOOORRRMMMOONNNSSSSS!! WHAT UP EVERYBODY!!!" and people starting whooping and screaming! This one black lady screamed, " AWWW LAAAAWWWWDDD! THESE PEOPLE ARE HERE TO SAVE ME!" I don't know if she was being sarcastic or not but I ran onto the sidewalk and gave her a high five and a pass along card anyways. Aftwer the parade we were starting our mile and a half walk back to our car and I saw this huge group of cheerleaders...so naturally being the nice guy that I am I said "Merry Christmas ladies" to all of them. I kid you not, every single one of them in unison told me Merry Christmas back! It was awesome!! I've also found out this weird thing I have developed, every time I say Merry Christmas I wink at the person I said it too. So I winked at about 150 girls and 50 guys on the way back to our car....

Yesterday we went to an investigators house and went in planning to invite her to be baptized, we got about halfway through our lesson and were told by one of our recent converts that she had just had a couple of "drinks"...so that way depressing! But we're meeting with her again on Tuesday to teach her the Word of Wisdom!!! We can't wait!! I hope you all had a wonderful week!! Love you!!!

Elder Tub Ntxawg

SELFIE

3 Months out!!!!

Hello Everbody!!!!!, 

How has everyone's week been!? Mines been the craziest one of my life so far and here's why....Holy cow this past weekend has been such a roller coaster of emotions!!! The week was awesome! Monday we picked up a new investigator from one of our recent converts and she already agreed to get baptized!! She wants to come to church first before setting a date though so hopefully she can make it this Sunday!! And then we had a total of 6 Thanksgiving dinners!! But yet I was still able to lose 2 lbs!!! And then to top it all off, Saturday was the longest day of my mission thus far!! Nobody was opening doors, everybody was canceling on us, and to top it all off we were both super anxious about transfers! SO when we finally went home for the night we both had massive butterflies about call out. We got it at 10:30 and listened to it and freaked out! I was a Hmong Elder! After about 5 minutes of hooting and hollering and hugs we got a call from the zone leaders saying the Assistants missed saying that I would also be getting transferred...I went from the happiest I've ever been to absolutely crushed. I sat on the floor until it was time for bed with my head in my hands. I was so crushed. I was so confident I would be a Hmong Elder that hearing that I wasn't literally broke my heart. I didn't want to leave. I love the people here sooo much! I had worked so hard for this! We had a lot of investigators that we are preparing to invite to baptism within these next few weeks. We both just were down in the dumps for the night. I prayed and was laying in bed at 11 and then decided I wasn't going to be able to sleep until I really prayed to God. So i got on my knees and poured my heart out to him. I told him how grateful I was to have served in the Hmong Elder. I asked for comfort and immediately I got it. I asked for continued guidance and thanked him so much for the opportunity to go to a new area! I went to bed that night excited for transfers again. I couldn't wait to meet my new companion and go serve in a new area! And then we got a call at 8:34 exactly this morning from President I thought i was getting called to train a new Elder and I got even more excited! But, then he  said I was staying with Elder Pace and that we were training together... we both leaped up, knocking over our chairs and just hugged and bounced around! We are ecstatic and have more fire and desire than ever now! 

So thank you to everyone who prayed for me!! I appreciate it sooooooooo much! I am so honored to continue as an OFFICIAL Hmong Elder for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and cannot wait to see what the future holds in store for me!! 

I love you all!!!! 

Elder Richy!!!

No! Don't Leave!