Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Transfers!




Man so this week was pretty good! But first I am getting Transferred to St Paul so I will leave Wednesday. I will be in the Hmong branch so I will still be learning Hmong and it's a branch with all Hmong people. And I will be in a big city.. but yeah I am pretty excited. I will also be with Elder Lucero again so thats cool! 

So this week went by really fast, but I might have to make this email a little shorter. I went on exchanges with Elder Nielson after district meeting on Tuesday and we tracted this street and found three new investigators and two of them were Hmong. One guy didn't speak much English so I was using all the Hmong I knew and he was using all the English he knew. It all worked out in the end and we got a return appointment. The other Family is super cool and is willing to meet with us, guys named Bee and Teeg. They were pretty cool. Then we had a awesome lesson with Nkauj Iab about who Jesus Christ was. Then we had basketball that night.

The next day  we exchanged back and had Hmong service! I got a call from President Barney that I was going to be going to St Paul so I already knew before transfers, but yeah. It kind of took the fun out of transfers! But that's alright! 

We saw Xe, one of our date sets, and she is doing well. We will have to push her date back though. But she will get baptized soon. We also set another date with a referral we got. She is English speaking so we gave her to the Sisters. 

On Sunday us and the Sisters sang If the Savior Stood Beside Me in sacrament! It was super cool and Brother Hilton played the piano and was the one who set this whole thing up! I am going to miss him a lot, he was really a big example to me and I learned a lot from him. He taught institute here and I love the way he teaches. We also do our laundry at his house so we saw him quite a bit. I would play with his dog, Quincy, every p day. He is such a good dog, haha anyways.

Saturday we went to Menomonie and saw a baptism of Hsaing and Jeff who I taught while I was there. It was super cool and I am glad they made the decision to be baptized. It is cool to see the change they have made! Tabs also gave the talk for it so it was cool to see her too. 


We had a lesson with some Pohnpein people on Saturday and they were eating outside listening to music and we took Maddie and Julia C. and Mary B. to go see them with us, to meet Tina who is 13. It was super cool, we shared a message about the Book of Mormon and then they asked us to eat so then we ate and they turned their music back on and they all started dancing and doing the hula and things like that! It was kind of cool.  Mary, Julia and Elder Vang were all trying to learn how to do it. I was not even going to try so I just watched off to the side with Maddie. Anyways that's about all I have for this week. I will talk to y'all later!

Elder Bullock 

1. The Yangs
2. The Hiltons and Quincy 
3. Playing Life
4. Hsaing and Jeff




















Monday, July 17, 2017

WEEKLY 7-17-17


Well hey! This week has been a little long and we have both been super tired! But we have been working hard so that's alright. 

So yesterday at church it was super crazy! Kuno finally came to church for the first time in 6 years of being taught! We went over Saturday night and told him he really needs to come. Then we went over on Sunday morning and his mom let him us in and she woke him up and we helped him get his kids ready for church. It was super cool to see him and his kids come. I think they enjoyed it pretty well! It is kind of hard to tell with them. Anyways so Kuno is still set for August 12th so hopefully he can make it. We also had Bee and Nancy come as well. We had to drop Bees date because her husband said no again, but we are pretty sure we can get around that. We set dates with Amy and Nancy, who are Bees daughters,  for August 26th.  So we will be going over there a lot. Amy had to work so she wasn't able to come. We also had some Micronesian family come to church. Tina is 13 and her aunt is Arleen. They only stayed for sacrament but they said they would stay all 3 hours next week. 

Taylor Robinson,  who is a recent convert baptized in March, gave a talk today and it was super awesome. She brings the spirit super strong when she testifies. She is 21 and is planning to go on a mission in a year. I know she will be an amazing missionary. Taylor came to see Amy and Nancy with us to help fellowship and she helped us a lot and got their numbers and invited them to church and a YSA family home evening which will be today. On Sunday evening we went out with Brother Bryans, who is in charge of the YSA, and saw a bunch of the YSA to invite them to fhe.

Friday morning we drove up to Hudson to have interviews with President Barney.  He is such a nice guy and really loving! We drove up to Hudson with the Sisters so that we could save miles. While we were waiting to have an interview with him we did weekly planning. After that we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, Elders Nelson and Richins. Elder Nelson was my Zone Leader when I was in Buffalo. He is a cool guy. So I went with him for the day. We took their car and the sisters took our car to Cottage Grove to go on exchanges with the Sisters there. We didn't see to many people because interviews took awhile, but we went tracting for a little and right after we knocked on one of the doors this older guy came over that was outside already and told us that the was gay so we didn't have to knock on his door. It was kind of funny. Anyways we saw a few people but only were able to talk for a few minutes on the steps. We were able to see a guy with a date set that they had. He was a cool guy and I could see him getting along well with my dad! We had a fire and roasted some hot dogs. They had some dogs that kept me pretty good company. 

The Sisters have been teaching this guy named Dillon. He is a super awesome guy! He came to institute on Thursday and we talked with him for awhile after. Anyways thats about it for this week! Talk to y'all later!

Elder Bullock 






Cool truck

Dinner with some members

Rosy V








Elder Haney



McDonalds

Elder Richins and Elder Nelson






Milwaukee Burger challenge















Monday, July 10, 2017

WEEKLY


Nyob zoo! Nej nyob li cas? This week has been pretty good! It went by pretty fast since we had one less day! 

So Wednesday we went to the Hmong Senior Center and taught Hmong to the grandmas. It is so funny to watch them speak English. Some of them are pretty good! Then after we played a few games of bingo with them! We had a lesson with Xe at the Vues house. Brother Vue did a good job teaching her. We had to leave early to go to a meeting, but she stayed and brother Vue kept teaching her. Sadly she cant be baptized on August 12th since she won't be in town.... so she said she could be baptized on August 5th! She is super solid!

We went to a Hmong funeral which if you dont know about them they are like 3 days long full of a lot of drinking! It was kind of weird and I was the only white guy there. Some people were pretty impressed with my Hmong. We met these guys drinking outside of their apartment and they offered us some beer, which happens often with Hmong people. It is a  huge part of their culture! Anyways I spoke some Hmong to them and one guy told me that I spoke better than him. Haha I am pretty sure he was better but it was cool.

So there is a sport called Kubb that is pretty big here in Eau Claire.  They had a national tournament here and there were a few teams from other countries, like Germany. We played it for p day today too. It is pretty fun and I will have to play when I get home. You all will have to look it up to see what is like. There were a lot of people that were drinking. We got offered some beer there too. Wisconsin has the highest population that drinks.. like everyone drinks. 

We went and knocked on a door one day and had no answer so then there was a Hmong lady that was walking by so we said hi and she walked us back to her house and it turns out that her dad is a member in Alaska. She said that she was willing to get baptized but we haven't set a date yet.

We went on splits with some of the young men this week. The Porter boys, James and Josh. I went with James. He just graduated recently and he was fun to be with! I also had dinner with my Aunt and Uncle with the Daudts! That was a fun  week to have them here.

So today I went to Menomonie for exchanges with Elder Haney. Elder Haney has a cool story for his mission. He is from California and he served a two transfer mission in another mission in California because he has aspergers. They decided he was okay to serve a mission so while he was in the California mission he opened his call to come here. So then he went home for a week and then went to the mtc. When he first went out he skipped the mtc so when he went to the mtc he knew a lot more than most. Then he came out here and then he broke his arm so he had to go home for a little while. Well he just barely came back out so that's super cool. He would be going home at the end of this month if he never went home. But now he has been out 7 months now. His time in California counted as part of his mission too. I also got to see Tabs too so that was fun. 

Anyways that is my week! It was a good one. I will send all the pictures I have, but Elder Vang has some that I don't have so I will send the ones I have and then send the rest next week. 

Elder Bullock


Dinner with the Daudt's and Aunt, Uncle and Cousin

James and I

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

11 month mark! And Happy July 4th!

 

Man this week was pretty good. A lot of cool things happened. Well today was July 4th and we had a lot of fun we went to a baseball game and went to a members for a party. There was also a breakfast at the church that we went to and helped with.

So one of the cool miracles of this week. So when I got transferred to Menomonie Elder Peterson and I stopped by a Best Buy because I had to replace my GPS that broke. I had a warranty on it so it wasn't too hard to do. Well after I got all of that figured out the lady that helped me asked where I was serving. So I told her that I was going to Menomonie and asked her if she had met missionaries and she said that they used to come over all the time, but not anymore. I asked if she would be okay with them coming by again and she said yeah. So I got her name, number and address. Her name is Monica. Well anyways I referred her to other missionaries where she lived and that was it. Well on Saturday I got a call from Elder Peterson and he told me that she was getting baptized. It feels so amazing that I was able to help with that. 

So another cool miracle. We went up to Chippewa Falls to see a few people that the Chippewa Elders wanted us to see. I forgot if I told you or not but the Chippewa Elders both got et'ed down to Winona to open that area up. So they are gone. It was pretty sad to see them go. Anyways we stop by this one less active ladies and she seemed not too interested. Anyways then we went and knocked on this other door. When we knocked we realized we knocked on the wrong door. We tried to knock on a white persons house and we ended up finding some Hmong people. Allen is 18 and is semi interested, but we taught him the restoration then left. Well while we were outside we were talking to some kids and his mom pulls up. So we go over and talk to her and help her carry in groceries. Her name is Xe and we taught her the restoration as well and she loved it and we invited her to church and set a date. Then they actually came to church. 

So President and Sister Forbes went home! It feels really weird to have a new mission president, but we went to St. Paul on Saturday to meet him. President and Sister Barney are pretty funny! I like them a lot! After that we went to the Hmong J4 festival. They have a bunch of boothes and food and then they also had some sports playing! We had our own booth so we would hand out free Book of Mormons. I was able to use a lot of Hmong. I figured it out pretty good. I would say Nyob zoo, which is Hello, then I would tell them I am English and that I was learning Hmong and I asked if I could practice with them. I would ask them like their name and where they live and all that and then I would ask if they belive in God and if they had heard of the Book of Mormon. I thought it was pretty smart. 

We went to a cool Hibachi place for lunch with some members. It was pretty cool to watch them do all the tricks and stuff. I took a video of it but I probably cant send videos.

We met this guy who used to be a member and he served his mission here in this mission and he even spoke Hmong. He served here in Eau Claire and then after his mission he married a Hmong girl and moved to Eau Claire and they were active for a while. Then he got into some anti and got his name removed. Kind of sad, but he is okay with us coming over, but said he won't ever join again. He still speaks Hmong pretty good. 

Anyways thats about all I have for the week I will talk to y'all next week! 

Elder Bullock 





 Random selfie ft. Sisters Musser and Myers and Elder Wilson and I.

All my tags

Giant chicken

Just cause

Baseball

Hmong festival



Pretty lake


(OOPS! I FORGOT TO POST ELDER BULLOCK'S EMAIL LAST WEEK SO THIS WEEK WILL BE A TWO-FOR)


(Email dated 6/27/17)

Hey everyone! 

This was a pretty good week! It went by pretty fast. So I guess the biggest miracle this week is that Bee Thao is still set for July 22 for baptism and she asked her husband again and he said yes! It was kind of funny because Elder Vang and Bee were talking and I couldn't understand any of it and then all of a sudden Elder Vang turns to me and was kindof freaking out. You could tell he was pretty excited. That is pretty exciting and one of Bees daughters, Nancy, came to church. 

Kuno is still set for August 12th and we were able to teach the Word of Wisdom and told him that he is going to have to live it to be baptized and he said it was going to be hard, but he said he will try it. We really emphasized on the blessings we get from it and that it is a commandment from God and that seemed to help. 

We went to see Pangia and Rainie and we taught the girls about baptism and the Holy Ghost. Rainie was still asking a lot questions and we asked the mom what she thought and she told us how she might not get baptized because she doesn't want to disrespect her dad who is Shaman. Hopefully we can help her with that because Rainie really wants to come to church and be baptized. Man she is the cutest though. We told her about the Holy Ghost and Elder Vang explained that when he feels it he gets goosebumps and then after the closing prayer she told us that she got goosebumps. So sadly we will have to drop their date, which was for August 5th. But we won't give up on em haha they love having us over. 

President Forbes is going home this Friday and we will be getting President Barney. It is going to be super weird to switch, but it is going to be a cool experience. 

These past few weeks my testimony of prayer has been strengthened a lot. A few weeks ago we watched Cokeville Miracle and it kind of hit me about the power of prayer and how important it is in our lives. Praying every morning and night will help us stay close to our Heavenly Father.

Not much has happened this week ,also I dont have a lot of time to email so this will be a little shorter, but I will talk to y'all  later!

Elder Bullock


Xee

Board games