The One With The Sister Son's Getting Back Together!

Monday April 18, 2016






SO ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING THINGS THAT COULD'VE HAPPENED WITH TRANSFERS HAS HAPPENED!!! THE SISTER SON'S ARE BACK TOGETHER!!! (A.k.a I'm gonna be companions with sister Peterson!!!)

 

Oh my gosh I am flipping out over here! So Sister Xiong is getting transferred to North St. Paul and is opening up a Hmong Sisters area and will be companions with Sister Brett. (a.k.a the sister Sister Teuscher trained after me). I am staying here and taking over La Crosse and Sister Peterson is my new companion. I've been really stressing out about taking over the area but now I'm just more excited :) God is good all the time, and all the time god is good!

So anyways! This Week,

So last Monday was AWESOME and basically a day full of Hmongness :) Sister Xiong and I went to a Hmong egg roll store because we have been craving them since forever (another food I have discovered I like on my mission)! It was so Yummy. Then we went to a cute Wisconsin souvenir shop in downtown La Crosse and I found a Wisconsin mug for my collection and a La Crosse shirt! That was fun. There was a bunch of high school students in downtown due to a school business function, so they were all dressed in business attire. It was weird. For once we didn't stand out. I felt more uncomfortable with everyone wearing skirts and dresses than just us wearing them. You can tell I've been out a while hahaha. Also on Monday I got a Hmong name! I'm Official!! I was named by a man named Cha Xiong. So now I have a really cute Hmong grandfather :) He named me Maiv Kawm Xyooj. For those of you who don't know how to read Hmong it's pronounced Mai-Ka Xiong. What it means is to study, learn and to gain knowledge continuously throughout your life. He said he gave me that name because he saw it was part of my nature to seek knowledge and to help me continue that through my name. I was so happy to finally get a name! Also I finally found the perfect fathers day present so I am all set :) Sorry Ashley, even on my mission and without the internet I still find gifts way in advance hahaha. Also keeping with the Hmong update of my life I've learned how to sing all three verses of I am a child of god in Hmong :)

On Wednesday we got to go to Young Women's and be apart of a Missionary Panel. The Young Women asked us a bunch of questions about what a mission is like and what are the hardest/ funnest things about missions, what do you do during free time, how do you deal with rejection everyday, etc... I was so impressed with these Young Women and their questions. They sincerely wanted to know about what missions are like. It was really fun, we all laughed a lot, and got to know them better. It was right up my alley, I love young women (they are the best) and i love giving advice based off of experience so i had a blast. Then my tender mercy for that day, Sister Endrizzi texted us that night. The Endrizzi's moved here I think 6 months ago and she has two girls in young women's. She texted us and said... "This is the first time in a really long time that Ashley has come home from Young Women's and said, That was fun! She loves you guys!" That made me feel so happy I can't really put it into words but it meant a lot to me. 

We had district meeting this week and were asked to give a training on one of the past general conference talks. It was frustrating that morning as we were planning for it because we COULD NOT focus our thoughts. Finally we decided how to present the training. We used the talk 'Tomorrow He Will Do Wonders Among You' by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and focused on the 5 things elder holland asks us to keep doing. Which are Keep Loving, Trying, Trusting, Believing, Growing, and why those things are important for us to keep doing and why it's important for our investigators to do as well. It went so good! Probably the best training I've ever given. Then afterwards Elder and Sister Beck took us out to Olive Garden for lunch which was DELICIOUS! 

Friday we had all the contacting miracles. It was cool to see Heavenly Father maneuver us to where we needed to be. It has been downright GOREGOUS the past couple of days and guess what!?! DAD YOU WERE RIGHT! SPRING HAS COME!!!  As we drove to the church we looked at the trees and they have leaves! Everyone was telling me that one day you would  wake up and it would be spring overnight. THAT'S ACTUALLY TRUE! The green makes my heart so happy. Oh how I've missed it. So anyways it was like 81 on Friday so after trying a couple of people who weren't home or who had moved we needed to go get safety pins before our next lesson so we found a pharmacy close by. We were just going to drive there but i was like "It's so gorgeous lets just walk" so we did. That pharmacy was closed but there was a Kwik Trip across the street so we went over to see if they had any. We go to walk in and there was a guy outside that we said hi to and started chatting with. He was really funny and nice. Then we went into the store and almost ran smack into our investigator Brian! We were able to talk with him a little and he said he's planning on coming to church on the 24th so we're really excited. He want's to take us out to lunch haha, he's so awesome. Then we said goodbye to him, and unfortunately Kwik Trip failed us and had no safety pins but then we started talking to the man outside again as we went to leave and we mentioned that we were missionaries. He told us him name was Isaiah and asked us to say a prayer for him and we gave him a mormon.org card with our number on it and invited him to church. Then just as we were getting back to our car there was a man in the yard in front of our car talking to someone on the side walk. Their conversation broke up as we walked up (as does happen a lot) and we thought we would be ignored but the man in the yard started talking to us. Then his wife came out and they were both incredibly friendly and said they had to leave in a few minutes but said we could come back anytime. That was awesome and made my day. Finding people who are willing to talk to us and are kind people who realize we are normal human beings just trying to help others are my favorite.

Funny Moments of the Week:

#1. So we had previously met a really frail old lady while trying to stop by someone missionaries had met in the past. We has asked if we could come by this week and show her a video about Christ. She said yes so we came back this week to do that. She opened this door and Sister Xiong explained that we had come back to show her the video. She looked really confused so I asked her if now was a good time. She said yes and proceeded to step back inside and close both doors. We were so confused it was a really funny situation. We think she's probably not all there hahaha.

#2. I found a giant Chicken in Holmen yesterday and took a picture with it.

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

So I finished the Book of Mormon this week and have started in on the Doctrine and Covenants. I was able to pull connections from both the Book of Mormon and the Bible into what I was reading in the Doctrine and Covenants which was cool. In D&C 5:7 it talks about how Joseph Smith was commanded not to show the gold plates to anyone and the reason being that...  "Behold, if they will not believe my words, they would not believe you,... if it were possible that you should show them all these things which I have committed unto you." Basically seeing isn't believing. People a lot of the times stumble over their desire to see, and think that if they can't see it in front of their face it doesn't exist or is not true. Thomas, one of Christ's disciples, was like this. He told the other disciple when they tried to tell him they had seen the resurrected Christ that "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe" (John 20:25). It's a part of human nature that we have to fight against. That's why, I believe the first principle in the gospel of Jesus Christ is to have faith. In Alma 32:34 it says " And now, behold, is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant; and this because you know..." We can't KNOW everything despite maybe the best intentions because if we do we will have no need for faith which is crucial for us to have and develop. And lastly Christ's promises that we will be blessed if we believe without seeing as he responded to Thomas by saying "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (John 20:29). 

p.s sorry for scriptural overload i just got really excited with all the connections i could make and how everything made sense :D

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

-Sister Richardson