P-Day 94

Hi Mom!

We had a good week this week! We had a lot of stuff to do and stayed busy! You should send me a photo of the flight itinerary. I will let you know more about the housing soon as well as the card. I got My Plan this week. Ugh..lt's happening... 

But we had a good week. We had a lot of branch presidency stuff to do this week. We went on visits with President Lampert and I translated for him of course. Haha we visited this one less active we started working with that I hadn't worked with since I was greener than green and couldn't speak Hmong. He really likes me because I am white and can't speak Hmong. But he speaks decent English. So when we brought president Lampert, I was like, okay they can speak in English together. Nope... President Lampert would talk to him and he would reply back in Hmong and tell me to translate it over. Haha it was funny. 

The YSA Ward had a baptism for their investigator and I interviewed him this week and he did well. He is 6'7" and his friend who baptized him is about 5'6". And the font only went up to his knees, it was an interesting baptism! Haha he almost hit his head on the wall. He was just too big for the font. 

We also went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with the youth. We were the witnesses but there was a ton of youth from ChuFoo and the Hmong branch. I was happy. We also had bishopric training. But it was a good meeting. 

Besides that, not much else went on. We did a lot of tracting and found some new potential investigators. Time to go back and start teaching them! Hopefully we can start finding new people to teach. I am excited!

I love you!

Elder Hayden Frey

P-Day 93

Hi Mom!

Happy belated Easter Day. Christ has risen! I picked up the package on Friday. I love it! Thank you so much. And you could ask the full time missionaries (; I get asked all the time so I stopped caring and stressing. That is what happens when you are an old missionary I guess. (I said I might need to ask someone to teach Gospel Essentials for me next week).

But things are going good. And btdubs, when president Lampert says I am "trunky." He is lying! I am not ready at all. 

It has been a good week. We got to meet this one less active, Xeng, that we have been trying for a long time. We got in and we talked it up. I met with him when I first became a missionary but Ryan always talked with him because I still wasn't strong in the language. But by the time I learned some, we had stopped meeting with him. But we were able to talk and he shared lots of stories. He is another who came over from Laos and fled into Thailand. Anyone above 50 was a refugee who fled into Thailand. But he shared some stories and about Hmong culture and things like that. He was very excited to have us over. But unfortunately, he works on Sundays. 

We saw Dily and Kong on Wednesday. They are always fun visits and fun people to talk to. Dily is about 26 but he is mentally handicapped so he reminds of Alyssa where he is functional but has hit a plateau. But Dily loves to talk. Kong is about my age and he also likes to talk. We have been trying hard to get him to come to church and he keeps saying he needs to come. We got him to come once but since then he has slacked. But he knows he needs to, ugh! Why do we have agency. 

Thursday, we were able to visit the Thao's. They are a family that me and Ryan had baptized the kids but he parents are still investigating. They used to come to church every week but they stopped. They are having a lot of trials in their life and struggling. We are trying to help them physically so they can continue to progress spiritual. 

Friday to Saturday I went on exchanges with Elder Hunter, one of the YSA elders. He is a young missionary but a very good one. Haha it was a fun exchange. We went tracting and he just sat there at every door. And the Hmong people are a very social people, so I would have door step conversations for 10-15 minutes all in Hmong and he would just sit there and smile. Haha in like every trailer there is a window by the door so hey can see out. But they would see two white guys coming to the door and be kind of scared because they don't speak English well. So I would just start talking to them in Hmong through the window and they absolutely loved it. It was a lot of fun. After we just visited all of our YSA Hmong and tried to bring them to the YSA Luau. 

But we locked our church keys in the clerks office during the day. The church keys also have our house key on it. We realized this at 9:20 when we got home. So we had an extra church key and library key. But there was one that said M on it. So we thought it was a master and could get into the bishop's and clerks office. Nope... so we had to stay at the zone leaders for the night until we borrowed President Lampert's key to get our keys back. That was interesting. 

Saturday, the ChuFoo senior couple had a baptism! I am really close with them. They were in Petersburg when I was ZL in Juneau. So we called them all the time then they left and came to ChuFoo but then I came back to Hmong. They are awesome! But I have a talk at the baptism because the boy they baptized knew me from the Ward and I had to interview him. It was a wonderful baptism! Afterwards we taught some former investigators and visited less actives. 

Sunday was a wonderful surprise. Sister Her was there!! I call her my Hmong pog (Grandmother). I translated for her but I also got to talk with her a bit. It may be the last time I see her before I go home. She will be at our dinner tonight so I am excited. We had a very disappointing turnout. We met with the ChuFoo Ward because it was Easter and we had a special program. We had 14 people -_- It was the Lee's and the white people in the branch. But that's alright. Next week! 

Sister Moffitt, the mission secretary (who is also assigned with her husband to our branch as missionaries. She was an ASL teacher in Fresno so she knows plenty of Hmong people. Doesn't speak Hmong though but they love the branch) started working on my flight info going home. I requested the Sacramento airport, I hope that sounds good 😜😜😜 haha she said no 😭😭 We are really close with her and Elder Moffitt and she knew I wanted to go there to go see Jamal and Ryan Vang and to go see Hmong people. I was like, "I need a flight to Sacramento and a long layover in Seattle so I can see Grandmother Her." She laughed. 

But besides that, it was a good week and a good Easter. I hope you had a good one too! I love and miss you! Next week I'll send a photo of me and Sister Her! 

Elder Hayden Frey

 Burning my pants (4 months late)!

P-Day 92

Hi mommy!

Sorry the Pday was packed last week but you'll get an email today (: We did so much running around. That was this full week. We literally just ran people around. 

So I am going to NAU for sure now, I would pay the deposit. But I have one more questions about housing. Is it required for freshman? My buddy Johnnie from high school (Idk if I told you but I wrote him and was like, meet with da missionaries and did and got baptized) has an apartment that I would room with and help pay rent to. So it's still up in the air, just curious. 

But our weather has been hot! 45-55 degrees. I have been sweating hard!! I am outside in short sleeved shirts lolol. Arizona is going to suck. The snow is going fast and it is light at 6:30 and dark usually around 10. So it's light almost all day for us. It's pretty sweet. 

So we hosted Elder Davis Monday-Wednesday and then the Nome missionaries Thursday-Saturday. So we were hosting all week. We went hiking on Monday to a frozen waterfall and took pictures on a frozen lake. Pics included today :P

With Elder Davis we were able to do work. We did a service for some nonmember family in Eagle River. We walked into his bedroom to move some stuff and I got high walking in. Whew! It was bad! We also had to use a truck to get his UHaul unstuck. He totally spun tires. It was picture perfect like Bednar talk/Mormon Message: Bearing Our Burdens With Hope. But we got them moved out successfully. 

We had Zone Conference this week too. It was all about the BoM and the power of it. It was cool how President Monson talked with it and it was made our mission plan for the quarter a few weeks ago. 

Saturday was a painful day. We started out the day with a nice breakfast. Then we dropped off the Nome elders at the airport to fly back to Nome. Then we proceeded to get a call from a member to come eat brunch. After we went to interviews with President. Then we proceeded to do some servings who fed us lunch. Then we went to a member's bday party and ate food. To go to our dinner appointment only to go back and eat more food. Hmong people stuffed us full. I am still full from all that food. 

But I am excited for a new week. No more running around and we can finally do missionary work! I hope you have a good week! I love you!

Elder Hayden Frey

P-Day 91

Nyob zoo!

Sorry we have a very very busy P-Day today and we finally have time to

email. Today is the start of a new transfer and we have to move some

people around. We have to host the Arctic Valley elders. Elder Guerber

is going to Kodiak and Elder Davis is getting a new comp. We had to

drop off Elder Guerber this morning to the airport but his flight got

canceled so we had to reschedule it and now we are hosting him until

his flight today, if that flight isn't canceled. But we have been

running around and shopping and getting haircuts and dealing with this

flight stuff. So I will just send a massive email to everyone.

The obvious event of the week was General Conference. It was

absolutely amazing! I will definitely be studying those talks for the

next 6 months. I watched it in Hmong. Elder Lor just streamed it on

his tablet in English and put headphones in. lol I loved the prophets

message! Read the Book of Mormon everyone!

I met a really cool guy named Txawj Vaj this week. He has a crazy

story. He was imprisoned and chained in Vietnam for 7 years because he

believed in God. Then he ran into Laos and then from Laos, he ran into

Thailand to get here in America. His story was amazing! He has a very

strong belief in God but he has the mindset that it doesn't matter

what church, it is about the belief.... maybe we can fix that.

It snowed about 10 inches on Wednesday and we did a lot of shoveling

for people. That was fun and a workout. A couple days it would snow in

the morning and the temperature will rise to about 40-45 during the

day and it will a melt. I cannot wait for all this snow to melt!

Summer is coming.

I think that is it.. it was another good week as always. I am excited

for the warmer temperatures this week! Have a good week everyone!

Elder Hayden Frey

"Posterity Photo" (His two "sons" are in grey, and a "grandson")

 Hanging at the Lampert's