Tate-MTC Week 4

 Nyob Zoo kuv tsev neeg.

I hope you guys are all doing OP-ly. This week was pretty fun. We learned a lot of hmong per usual, but this week we have definitely worked harder at Hmong specifically. I could maybe have a convo with someone if they were nice and slowed down for me.

I've gotta couple stories.

1. The elevator 

2. Never washing my hand part 2

3. July 4th

4. Tones suck

So me my companion Elder Loughmiller and Elder Bulpitt, who is gone:(  we were going to schedule a haircut for Elder Loughmiller, and we took the elevator. Going up was fine we pressed the floor and arrived at the the barbershop. Coming back we were going to the elevator again and I was like "what if someone actually needs to use the elevator and were taking it from them?” We laughed and then pressed the down button. Right after we pressed the down button a very old couple who had a cane and were hunched over asked us if it was going up. Then we were like oh no it's going down but you can come. And then they were nah we'll use the stairs. So three 19 year-olds are using elevators and two 90 year-olds are taking the stairs. Oops.

Next was the 4th of july which was fun because we got to watch freworks from the top floor of our building. Not much of a story but still fun.

We had a devotional on Tuesday and Elder Bulpit had to say the prayer which meant he had to sit up with whoever was speaking and it was a quorum of the seventy dude. And he needed a companion so I sat with him. The only thing was I stuck out like a soar thumb because I forgot to wear my suit. So every guy was wearing a suit except me with a short sleeve button shirt. After the devotional, the quorum of the seventy dude shook my hand and asked where I was going on my mission. I said Wisconsin, then he quickly replied, "Where’s  your suit?" I told him I spilled milk on it which idk why but that was the first that came to my head. Then he smiled and said we'll just pretend your going on a foreign mission. 

In Hmong we learned a sentence that is the same word but different tone. It's Pog pom Pov pov pob. It means, “The grandma sees Pov throw the ball.”  Pov is a common name. The last letter of every word is a tone. So it's G tone, M tone, V tone, then B tone.

I'm excited to go to Milwaukee, but I don’t know enough Hmong yet so that makes me nervous. I miss being able to listen to music, although it's being to play the piano here all the time since theres a lot of them. I have played a moderate amount of ping pong this week but not as much as I would like. 

Quote of da week: At the devotional Elder Robbins was talking about how we need to balance all of our virtues. If we are patient we need to balance it with it's complementary virtue, dilligence. Here's some more that balance each other. Justice and Mercy, Science and religion, Uniformity and flexability, submissiveness and braveness, dependence and independence, faith and works, asking and working it out in our minds. He specifically was saying that Justice is not the opposite of mercy it's complementary. He also said all these traits act as checks ands balances for each other. It reminds of traditional Chinese medicine I learned about in my medicinal plant class. The way they treat people was if someone had a stomach ache they would give something to balance it. It's all about balance in T.C.M. Just like Yin and Yang.

I have learned a lot being here and I know I have a lot more to go and I’m excited. I wanna hear from you guys so please lemme know how your doing.

Tub Txib Porter