P-Day 82

Hi mom!

Enjoy your "cold." It got up to 45 and I wore like a short sleeve shirt haha. Arizona summer is going to be terrible horrible no good very bad for real. Haha they won't find anything to tease me about!!!*

As far as missionaries going home over it**, I haven't been around many that went home early at all. But I can see it as being a problem. I have met many missionaries who just don't have any social skills at all. I take them OYMing and they freak out talking to people. Or like, if I go out of the way to talk to someone or something, they just can't handle it. They can teach just fine but anything outside of that is just plain awkward for them. Those who do the best on missions are definitely those that played sports. Those who struggle the most, those who mostly played computer games or such.

It was a pretty disappointing week. Vue Yang, decided to get baptized into another church. He was so strong and then just fell off. I came back and he had fallen away and I tried so hard. He even said "I hope the father forgives me for joining this church." He pushed his baptism back so he could still think about it. But I think you just have to let a child put his hand on the stove to learn. 

We did get a miracle though. We visited a less active who just had a baby. He wants the baby to get blessed and he talked about coming to church. But he wants his wife to get baptized so we are going to start teaching her tonight! Hopefully they can start progressing for real.

Besides that it was a pretty basic week, we went on exchanges. It was a weird exchange on the hmong part because we had a members trailer burn down so we helped there, I had to extend some callings, and Elder Poppleton had to go to the doctors for his toe. So it was a weird exchange. But love you!

Elder Hayden Frey

*My siblings, regarding him not being "red-dotted" anymore
** I shared a quote from Elder Ballard when he was here in AZ last week for a devotional talking about how some missionaries are coming home early due to "anxiety" that they had not previously had an issue with.  Elder Ballard said he feels it is because youth spend so much time on phones, computer, and social media that they don't know how to talk to people.  His best advice to prepare for a mission was to "put down your phone and go have a real conversation with people".

P-Day 81

Hi Mom!!!

I want you to send a text to everyone right now!!! I GOT MY DRIVING PRIVILEGES BACK!!! I started from the top, went to the bottom, and now I am here. But hehehe, I get my driving back and made designated driver, the day it snows a foot lololol. But I did very well. 

Elder Lor and I are doing good. He is a fellow league player, like everyone of my Hmong companions but Ryan. So that is good. But things are going very well. And I am excited.

So we had a crazy week where it got down to -23 and snowed like a foot and a half. It was crazy!!! We went tracting in the cold weather and found some potential investigators. We didn't get to see a whole lot of less actives, which has been our main focus. But we still got to 20 lessons, which is our goal. We taught some door step lessons and active member lessons. As long as Elder Lor gets used to teaching then things will be good!

Besides all the snow and crazy cold, there hasn't been a lot. Look into the NAU stuff and let me know asap so I can make my decision! Can you also do something for me? Can you look up if ASU has a linguistics program, and what languages they offer? I know NAU has linguistics but I lost the list that Johnnie sent to me of languages, so can you look that up too? 

Also, could you see what schools offer Hmong courses. I know BYU does but ewwwwww BYU..... Just curious on that, I am probably advanced past most college courses but maybe could learn a thing or two. But that is just for curiosity sake. 

Love you!

Elder Lor

This picture was posted on facebook by the mission home page. They had all the newly arrived missionaries pose with their trainers, pointing to their assigned areas with a fishing pole.  They are "Fisher's of Men" after all!

P-Day 80

Hi Mom,

I am doing well. I got my new companion already, that was last wednesday. The Hmong branch is really good. It was supposed to be really cold but that got moved to this week. But it has been snowing quite a bit lately. Whenever it snows it warms up a lot so I'll take the snow right now lol!

We had a good week this week. The last 3 weeks have been weird- 3 weeks and 3 companions so I am happy to finally settle down with a companion. I guess as settled down as you can get as a missionary haha

Monday was just a normal P-day. It was a lot of preparing so that Elder Stoddard would be set going home. 

Tuesday was a normal pros day. We just finished setting up the area so that I can train. We just searched around for places to tract and stuff like that. Then at like 8ish we had to pick up some missionaries. They are the missionaries in Fairbanks who are training and had to come down to get their trainers. One of which was Elder Furnell if you remember him.

Wednesday, Elder Stoddard left and we picked up the greenies. We also got to go through the temple after the trainings! I didn't get to when I trained Elder Gentry because I had strep throat if you remembered haha. But I wasn't sick this time!

Thursday, we got to go back to the temple and help with baptisms for the dead. The ChuFoo ward and the Hmong branch did Youth Baptisms. So we went and helped out. We also visited Vue Yang and Elder Lor had his first lesson.

Friday and Saturday were pretty much normal days besides Saturday we had interviews with President Robinson. Those went good. He is trying to get Salt Lake to reinstate my driving privileges so pray for me! 

Sunday was a good Sunday. We had about 40 people come so not bad at all. We will keep working to get it higher and higher! 

It was just a week of visiting and meeting people and introducing Elder Lor to everybody. But things will pick up this week. He actually went to the MTC to learn Hmong. They don't do that for missionaries that come up here, whether they know Hmong or not. So that was cool. He didn't speak it before the mission but now he comes out with good grammar and pronunciation, so now I just have to teach him words! I am excited it will be a good next couple transfers. 

I love and miss you!

Elder Hayden Frey

P-Day 79

Hi Mom,

I am doing very well, how are you? My cough is pretty much gone. It is getting really cold again here. We were sitting in the 20s now it is hovering above 0. Thursday on is supposed to be really really cold. Fairbanks is supposed to get to like -42+ !!! Here in Anchorage it is only supposed to get to like -25 or so. But that is in South Anchorage. Up here in North Anchorage, there is usually a 10-15 degree difference. So it could be -35 or so up here... 

Haha and those are my greenie's first few days here in AK. Haha I am not excited for the cold. I am super excited to train a new missionary though! I really loved it when I trained Elder Gentry. It will be slightly different here because I am in a language ward.

The one who I am training is Elder Lor. He is Hmong and from Fresno, CA. He is my trainer's cousin I  believe. Haha small world. But I hear his language skills aren't the greatest, so I will have to fix that. He probably understands it very well because his parent's most likely speak little english and would have spoken Hmong to him. That is like every young person now. 

Yep, so this week was a lot of doctor's appointments and sending Elder Vue away. My temporary comp is Elder Stoddard. He has been out 6 months and from Texas. Turns out he has to go home and get surgery. So he will be home for a bit. Recovery time is only about a month, then he can come back out. 

He has been great, he was told he would only be here a week but it was cool to see him try and pick up the language. He pronounces everything well and can read, write, get to know someone, and bear testimony. He is doing so well! It is unfortunate that he can't stay here. President Robinson told him not to focus on the language because we already had me, Elder Vue and now Elder Lor. But I'll miss him and I miss Elder Vue. But this is the life of a mission.

Things are really good here. I am glad things are good back there. I will send some pictures in a bit. We also had a crazy schedule change.  There was a world wide missionary schedule change! In order to reduce stress, we are now "agents unto ourselves" in setting our schedule. So now, we choose what we want to do, when we want to do it essentially. So we still wake up at 6:30 and go in at 9, but there is no set schedule beyond that. We are just given components and fit them in at the best times for us.

It is crazy because for almost 19 months I had a strict, law of Moses schedule. Now we live the higher law. I feel like a heathen because I had the strict law for most of the time. haha it's been a weird adjustment but cool at the same time. 

I love and miss you!

Elder Frey

P-day 78

Nyob zoo xyoo tshiab! 

I am doing good! Slight cough but 98.99 percent! We got a call Saturday night and we are getting emergency transferred. Elder Vue will be going to Valdez and I will be getting Elder Stoddard. It is a medical ET. Elder Stoddard was in Valdez and hurt his foot pretty bad. Since there isn't any decent hospitals in Valdez, they are sending him here to get his foot checked out. 

President Robinson came to our sacrament meeting and talked with us about it. Elder Vue was going to go to Valdez anyway, this incident just hastened it. And Elder Stoddard is only my companion temporarily while he gets checked out. President told me I will be training the new Hmong guy, Elder Lo, next transfer. A weird chain of events but the lord's work pushes forward. 

But yeah, this week was a good week. The 30th-1st was Hmong New Years. We went Friday and Saturday. It was a lot of fun! There were a lot of cultural shows, singing, sports, and of course people to talk to! We had a good time, and talked with a ton of people. 

Another cool miracle, we got to go to the temple. There I met someone from my past ward, Memory Lake. So I got talking to him and I asked him how Hope was doing. She was one of my baptisms in Wasilla. She has several callings in the relief society and her daughter got baptized a few weeks after I left! That was awesome to hear. I taught the daughter a lot but she would never commit. So that was a miracle. 

One more miracle, Sengduan came to church on Sunday. He is one guy I have worked with before I left and when I came back. He is Lao and good friend with President Lee. He is hard to get a hold of, he will work for up to 6 months out of town. So he came to church and we had a good chat. President Robinson got to speak to him too. He is very enthusiastic and loved what he has seen from the church. 

A lot of miracles this week. I love you! 

Elder Frey

 President Lee let me try on some Hmong clothes

At Hmong New Year

Christmas Call

P-Day 77

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! I did. It is a wonderful season
to think about Christ and all that he did for us. But just remember,
think about him always (:

Anyway, I got sick this week... again... It was the usual stuff but I
also lost my voice completely for a long period of time... it is hard
to do missionary work without a voice. But cool miracle. We visited
Vue Yang and I didn't have a voice. I was on exchanges with Elder
Poppleton before I got really sick. But he had plans to teach the
lesson. When we walked into his house, I got my voice back and I was
able to teach! It was amazing. It was a longgggggg lesson. 3 hours...
but for 3 hours I got to talk. As soon as we left his house, I went
mute again for 3 days. Miracles are real!

But yeah I had a good time calling my family yesterday. My voice came
back on Sunday too! Which was good because I had a part in the Sunday
program and I talked to my family. It went completely mute to being
able to talk. They are all still gorps (They are in this group email
so they'll see this :P) but it was fun to talk to them.

Christmas was good. President and Sister Lee and Tsemeng are out of
town. So after calling, we hung out with Tsakong and just talked. He
didn't have to be alone on Christmas now!

But yeah it was a good week. I have to give a talk next week, and the
other speaker won't know if she will be back or not until the day
before. So I have to write a longggggg talk just in case. It'll be
fun! Love you all and have a good week!
Elder Hayden Frey