A Christmas Miracle 7/15/2013

We've been working with the Relief Society presidents and Bishops in every ward to get lists of the members who used to be in the Cambodian branch but are now in regular family wards (at least according to the records, because none of them are active). We drive around checking up on any names they give us- a lot of people have moved, many others have gone back to Buddhism, but out of 25 names or so we'll usually find one or two who will let us come back and visit them. It was about 8:45 one night, and our curfew being 9, we only had time to check on one more name. We prayed about it and I felt like we should go back to a name we'd already tried to visit but found that the address as listed didn't exist anymore. So we plugged the address in to the GPS, went where it took us (which was a parking lot) and parked and started walking down the street. I really don't even know how this happened (well, I do, it's called a miracle) but we found the right house. They weren't interested.

BUT it's not over- because living in the same building as those people was this inactive Cambodian woman in her 50s. She used to be a relief society president back in Cambodia, and went to church once here when she moved to the US 6 years ago. But the meetings were in English and she couldn't understand a lick of it so she hasn't been back since. Enter McQuiv, the Cambodian speaker for the entire WA-TAC mission- and this woman agreed to come to church Sunday! She showed us her room which has pictures of Christ and her Cambodian scriptures (well marked-up). She was also excited to show us her collection of pictures and toys of "prophets" in her room, which I had to explain to her were actually all someone named Santa Claus (much to her confusion). I'm pretty sure she thought they were all bible prophets (Noah, Moses, Abraham) because of the long white beards. 

Anyway, so Relief Society president (hereafter to be referred to as RSP) came to church yesterday and was so happy to have someone who can translate the meetings for her. She held my hand the entire time. She asked me to introduce her to the bishop and to tell her how she can pay tithing here. She hasn't been to church in 6 years and her first Sunday back to wants to make sure she pays tithing! What a testimony. So she's awesome and between the miracle that allowed us to find her and the fact that she's got a whole room of Santa/Moses dolls, I'm declaring it a Christmas Miracle.

A Sister Walker just accepted the call to serve Cambodian speaking in the WA-TAC. She's supposed to be here in November. So granted that I'm able to have enough Cambodian success between now and November to necessitate a Cambodian mission here, she will be coming and I will train her. Which means we will be working full time Cambodian! (as opposed to about half English half Cambo, on account of my companion doesn't speak  Cambodian). That definitely puts the pressure on for the next few months, because if there isn't enough work ready to occupy full-time Cambodian missionaries, they won't send any (she'll get reassigned).

I've been in the WA-TAC 7 weeks, and the church is true here too (both in Cambodian and in English)!

-Sister McQuivey

A Baptism Story July 8, 2013

Evidence that miracles really do happen: 

I make my bed everyday. 

So once upon a time on a park day (1 day every month when we're only allowed to walk even if we have a car), we were on our way to an apartment complex we wanted to knock, but decided on the way to just knock a few houses. In one of the last ones, we met a Cambodian grandmother who as it turns out is an inactive member of the church (as is pretty much every Cambodian we run into here). She told us she wasn't interested in coming back, she was too busy for church, etc. But we left her with a Cambodian Book of Mormon with our names and numbers written on the inside and bore our testimonies about the spirit she'd feel if she'd read it. Then we left. We'd been walking for maybe 20 mins when we got a call from this woman's granddaughter. She had just gotten home from school, seen the Book of Mormon, and immediately called us and asked us to come over. She's 8 years old and can't read Cambodian, so she didn't even know what the book was. But when we walked back to her house, she was hugging the book and wanted to know if she could have one in English. Her grandmother gave us complete permission to teach her and for her to come to church, because she wants her grandchildren to be raised in a church environment. So we started teaching her right away. 

We got her a children's picture Book of Mormon and gave her little reading assignments in between each lesson. We did our best to make sure there was someone from her primary class there with us in every lesson. It was so neat to see these little girls get all dressed up in their Sunday best and bring their scriptures and say an opening prayer in every lesson. They were so excited to be asked to help teach Angelina, and now she has friends she looks forward to seeing every Sunday. When she came to church her first Sunday, she surprised us by announcing, "hey, I've been here before!" She then proceeded to tell us about this friend who used to take her to church and one time she saw someone wearing white clothes get dunked under the water and come up again, and could we tell her what that was all about? We had a picture flip-book and showed her how Jesus was baptized that same way, and read with her about how baptism cleanses our sins and helps us follow the example of Jesus. She asked us, when can I do that? She was baptized yesterday at 4pm after church. Her whole family came to the baptism, and told us afterwards that they would come to church to support her on the Sundays they aren't working. 

Don't you just love it when the gospel absolutely changes peoples lives?

On a side-note, I have been assigned a new companion for next transfer, and she moves in starting tomorrow! She speaks English, of course, but that's totally fine by me. She's been out as long as I have, so we'll be follow-up training each other. I'm super excited to be the senior companion because I've been with my trainer long enough to know what works and what doesn't (what doesn't work: waiting until the day of the baptism to arrange everything for the baptism). I'm determined to kinda be the chain-breaker in all of the less-awesome missionary stereotypes in this area and earn the trust of the ward by showing them our willingness to work hard under their direction. 

I've been in Mountainview ward, Tacoma, Washington for 6 weeks (a full transfer!) and the church is definitely true here too.

-Sister McQuiv

P.S. write me letters I'm lonely

1204 73rd st. #34

Tacoma, WA 98404

Sua sdei--or hey!

My job, technically, is to only work with Cambodians. But because I'm the first Cambodian missionary in this area in a long time, no one came before me to keep records of where the Cambodians live and if they speak English or have ever heard of the church or anything. We meet up with Elders in each area, look through their area book for Cambodian-looking names, and ask them where would be the best places for us to tract (go knocking door to door) based on what they know of that area. We check up on old names, people who were baptized in the 80s and haven't been to church since the Cambodian branch was dissolved 10 years ago. And then the rest of the time, we're praying to know where to go, and knocking on doors.

I've come up with a formula for identifying Cambodian houses, at least in the state of Washington. Here it is, for your use:

1. Look for shoes -Cambodians all leave shoes outside the front door

2. Look for a quadrillion cars in the driveway - Cambodians all live like 4 generations in a house. Most people who come to the door are Grandparents or children, because the parents are at work. But the parents siblings and their spouses will live with them too

3. Look for Cambodian flags - everyone here is proud of their heritage, and so many cars have tiny flags in them that say American Samoa, Cambodia, Thailand, etc. The Cambodian ones are triangles with a temple in the center and yellow fringe around the outside. They're very distinct and easy to spot from a distance

4. Look for crazy gardens - Cambodians have the most absurd gardens. Everyone in Tacoma is wild on roses, but Cambodians will grow their own lemongrass, sesame seed, bamboo, Aloe Vera. Even in apartments where they don't have a lawn to plant in, they'll have 30 potted plants on the porch and in the house. They also have fake plants next to real ones, like a random fake flower planted in the dirt next to an herb. I don't understand it, but I love it.

5. Look for Buddhist shrines - even members of the church have them, because usually someone in the house is a practicing Buddhist. For a lot of the Cambodians here, it's just a way to hold on to their cultural roots, but they don't really care about the religious aspect of it so much.

6. Look for carpets- I don't know why, but they'll have like layers and layers of rugs. Like the floor will already be carpeted, and they'll put a rug on top of it, and then there will be more carpets overlapping each other covering the entire floor. So everywhere you step is triple-carpeted. 

I've been in Tacoma 5 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuiv

Tacoma: My Beloved Ghetto Home (June 24th 2013)

Tacoma is wicked diverse- probably less than half the people we encounter speak English, and for almost everyone, English isn't their first language. There's a little bit of everything here, but the biggest represented populations are the following (in order):

-Spanish

-Cambodian

-Samoan (there's a Samoan branch here)

-Vietnamese

-Russian

-Laos

-Thai

-Ukrainian

-Filipino

-Korean

-Native American

-Marshallese

We've learned door approaches in several languages, but we never know enough to be able to communicate, and even if we can and they say they're interested in learning more, we don't have anyone who can teach them (the exceptions being Spanish, because there's probably 12 missionaries for those, and Cambodian, because there's 1 me). Case in point: we found this deaf woman who is very enthusiastic about learning about Christ. She's in her late 20s/early 30s and has the most beautiful family. I took 1 semester of sign at BYU so I'm able to communicate okay, but it's slow and we end up writing back and forth on a sheet of paper a lot. I wish so bad I knew more or someone out here knew enough to be able to teach her!

Where we spend most of our time is in the ghetto, because that's where the Cambodians live, and we run into a good number of Spanish too. So I'm teaching my companion Spanish, which is hilarious considering I don't speak any Spanish. But I'm pretty fluent in like Dora-level language, meaning if you have a map and a backpack and need directions to a castle, I'm your girl. We were required to take it in elementary school and then we've got all these American TV shows that sneakily teach us things. Plus I'm proficient at the card game Uno, so I've got my numbers down pat. So I can count and name all the colors and ask if they go to iglesia or have heard of Libro de Mormon or want Missionaros to come to their casa.. This amazes my companion and she's always asking me how to say different things, because in Cambodia the language they study in school (if they go to school) is usually Chinese.

My companion is the definition of too-cool-for-school. This last week she showed me her scars and was like, "this one is from a gang fight, this one was in a motorcycle race, this was a knife wound". She sold her motorcycle to come on a mission and she knows everything about cars. She worked with the military for like 2 years before she came out here and lived in the jungles with them. She joined a gang when she was 11 and was somehow was able to leave it even though it's like a 'you're in for life' thing. She walks with the utmost swag and always wears sunglasses. She regularly describes herself as, "yeah, I'm pretty chill".

I had my first baptism this past week on Friday. I've been here teaching him since his very first lesson, so it's cool that my first baptism is someone that I've taught, instead of just someone my companion taught. His name is Aaron and he's 54 years old. My companion and her trainer tracted into his wife back in March, and she was baptized a few weeks later. But he wouldn't have anything to do with the church or the missionaries and wouldn't attend her baptism. After she was baptized, the missionaries were back over helping her with yard work and setting up a TV stand in their house, and Aaron just kind of hovered and asked all kinds of questions about the church and why on earth his wife was so happy all of a sudden and why she'd changed so much and how could he be that happy too? They answered his questions and told him, you know, you can be happy too. Aaron said he didn't think he could be a Mormon because he was a redneck. My companion was like, no problem! We've got tons of those in our ward, you'll fit right in.

 My first week we got a text from the wife, Toni, and she said he wanted to start learning with the missionaries. It took him only 4 weeks to get totally off cigarettes, coffee, and beer, and he was baptized on Friday and confirmed (meaning he received the gift of the holy ghost) on Sunday at church. When I first met him he had a huge beard and shoulder length hair, and over the weeks he shaved and cut his hair and even wore a button down (jean) shirt on Sunday! We didn't ask him to do any of those things, but as he was learning about Jesus Christ and changing on the inside, he started to want to change on the outside too. 

I've been in Tacoma 4 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey