Cambodian Reunion Photos, plus a bonus picture!

Our Cambodian Reunion/Activity. We had no idea if we'd get 10 people or 200.  We had 70!  We were very happy with the turnout!

Janessa singing at the Cambodian reunion.

 From Sister Weaver's blog:  Janessa and her comps at the Cambodian reunion

 Cambodian Reunion

Janessa singing at the Cambodian reunion (Thanks Sister Weaver)

All of the missionaries in Mountain View spelling M.V. with their bodies!

Photos--In which I'm a stoplight, Jessie, and a chef, amongst other things.

We're a Stoplight!

 Our Zone

Me and Cassell on Halloween.  I'm dressed up like Jessie from Toy Story.

At a park close to our appointment. Sister McQuivey and Sister Cassell.

I fixed Sister Cassell her favorite lunch--steak and potatoes.

A mission wide conference in which I meet Elder Neil L. Andersen and shake his hand...

11/26/2013

This past Saturday, we attended our mission-wide conference in which a member of the Quorum of the 12 and a member of the 70 came to speak to us. For security issues, they couldn't tell us who was coming until they were already here. So it remained a surprise to us until only a few minutes before the meeting started that Elder Neil L. Anderson and Elder Craig C. Christiansen were assigned to come speak to our mission. Elder Anderson wanted to shake all of our hands individually, and as we lined up and it got to my turn, I said quickly, "You were my mom's mission president in France, Sister Megan Kelly" to which he said, "Oh of course you're Megan's daughter! How is your family doing?" He talked to me for a bit, remembered that we were in Boston and said, "I've met your dad now, I think" and said he was told I was Hmong speaking in Washington, which is pretty close anyway. Then he said, "Thank you so much for stopping me and telling me! It's good to see you." which alone I thought was pretty cool. But after he'd shook all the missionaries hands and went up to the podium to speak, he said, "I just want to show you how we're all connected. Sister McQuivey, stand up so everyone can see who you are" and then talked about how he was my Mom's mission president years ago and how weird it is to think that his missionaries now have kids who are serving missions and that one day, we'll have kids that will be serving missions and if he's not too old he could one day meet them at a mission conference too. He also said, "and she looks exactly like Megan, with her red hair and everything" which is awkward considering I'm a bottle redhead and have only had red hair for a few weeks. So that was way cool!

It was an incredible meeting. He was great humored and very calm and comfortable which made us relax a little more. He talked about how key the principle of repentance is, and how no one should ever be baptized without having first repented and having a full understanding of what repentance is. He also made a significant remark about being sure to only bear testimony of principles we have a definite testimony of. He said if there's something we're teaching that we're unsure of or are questioning, it's better to let our companion bear testimony of it than to try to say the words anyway if we don't fully believe it. Without conviction, the spirit can't be present, and so it's better to bear testimony of things that we have a testimony of rather than try to force it. He said it's okay to say, "I'm still learning this in my own life, but from my experience this is what I understand.." I thought this was pretty important because it makes you step back and think, "do I have a testimony of this principle?" before jumping in and declaring something. And it helps you recognize if the answer is no, which principles you need to study out and 'experiment' upon in order to gain a stronger testimony of them.

Another thing that stood out to me was when Elder Anderson spoke about the atonement, he broke it down to the mercy, merits, and grace of Christ that we can learn from. Especially regarding the mercy of Christ he said, "We should be teaching this everyday, shouldn't we? What else is there?". I think as a missionary I've kind of been hesitant to teach mercy because I find the Cambodian people think it gives them permission to have an "eat, drink, and be merry" attitude because they think if they can be forgiven through the mercy of Christ later, there's no need to repent now. But that's something I need to learn to teach more clearly, with emphasis on the balance between justice and mercy and the focus being to invite the spirit so they'll feel a desire to repent. The atonement isn't something that you can gain an appreciation for without applying it first in your own life.

So to bring both points together, if you don't have a strong testimony of the atonement, apply it in your own life until you do. There's a quote I love from George Q. Morris in 1956 that says, "the principle question is not whether we comprehend the atonement, but do we accept it". In light of that quote, my challenge is that we work to accept the atonement in our own lives through daily repentance, including forgiving ourselves and moving beyond our past mistakes.

Something I need to repent for is not being a good enough missionary before my mission. I had no idea all that I could be doing to be more involved, and I didn't realize how many opportunities I missed to share the gospel with those around me. Now that I know, I'll be a much better member missionary when I get home a year from now.

I don't ever really know what to write about, so maybe send me questions of things you want to know and I'll respond to those.

I've been in the WA-TAC 26 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey

Thanksgiving Gathering For Tacoma Missionaries at the Mission Home

Janessa and fellow missionaries in Tacoma play PIT

Janessa and her two trainees on Thanksgiving night at the Mission home.

Vigorous Round of singing!

All of the missionaries gathered get to play Catch Phrase

Can you find Janessa?  She is on the right, in front of the Christmas tree, just behind her companion in the yellow sweater.

Goal setting is an act of faith; We follow up simply to count the miracles

November 19, 2013

The only picture I can procure at the moment from Halloween. I was Jessie from Toy Story 2, Cassell was Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. We're not allowed to tract on halloween, on account of this is Tacoma and so pretty much we're gonna get shot. So we were required to listen to the gunshots from the safety of the church building with all the missionaries in the Tacoma East zone from 3-9pm. 6 hours is a long time to entertain a bunch of 18 year old Elders, so my comp and I planned out a plethora of activities (one of which was carving oranges, see picture) and made about a bajillion snacks. We over estimated the hunger level of the Elders though so we had 2 pans of cupcakes, 1 pan of cookies, and a pan of rolls left over. We walked around the next day and gave them to the homeless. Having been in the same area for 4 transfers, I'm pretty much on first name basis with all the homeless people in the greater Tacoma area. Also all the Cambodians. I love love love talking to everyone but that means I'm talking to about 200 people a day everyday for 6 months so I'm running out of people I haven't already invited to learn more. I am legitimately making round 2 on all these people who are like, yeah you've already prayed with me and given me a book of mormon back in June, don't you remember? What I really need to start doing is asking the cambodian ones if my grammar and pronunciation has improved at all since the last time I contacted them. But then there's the awkward times where it's like, yeah you've already tried to teach me in Cambodian and I'm still Marshallese/Korean-black/Laos/PuertoRican-Chinese so I still don't understand you. This happens more than I would like to admit.

The latter picture is the most unattractive thing I've ever seen and therefore I plan to print out copies and distribute them among the investigators and fellow missionaries. If this doesn't shake their testimony, I think it's safe to say that nothing will. In the black is Cassell, my former comp who still is in my area and teaching the people we used to teach but with a new comp, sister Packard (in the blue). It is so weird for me. They're talking about investigators that used to be mine too and it's hard for me to hear about it later and not be a part of it. Also I feel like I'm being broken up with because I call like the day after transfers and the voicemail message is changed and the text signature doesn't have my name on it and I can't help but feel like HOW COULD YOU MOVE ON SO FAST. Except obviously this is how it works in missionary work, you get transferred and it's fine.. minus the unusual situation of I still see my old comp and old investigators everyday and they just have someone new now. Sniff. But I have plenty to do to stay busy so occupying my mind is the best way to move on! In the white and yellow is one of my posterity, Sister Walker. I think Sister Dunster is directly behind Cassell so that's unfortunate that you don't get to see her too but when I find my camera cord I'll send pictures that I took instead of ones other people sent me because they thought I looked funny. These two are from our Zone Leader Fish, who was in a car driving away and zoomed in super close to try to get a candid of our group but I spotted his sneaky behavior, hence the pointing and the face which translates to, "I see you, you fiend". Also besides that I just look like this on a fairly regular basis.

Well those were meant to be brief picture captions and as it turns out, each could be their own chapter book series for young adults.. so look for those published in a kindle bookstore near you.

In other news, our reunion was a great success. We had 70 people there, it was such an interesting mix because we had people come who had told us they wouldn't go, and people who drove 1.5 hours just for the event, when there were people who lived 5 mins away and said they'd come and make 100 egg rolls for it and then didn't show. Don't worry though, we went and visited those people and they gave us some of the egg rolls. I creepily took pictures of people the whole time on my storm trooper pentax, so we could know who was there and who came in what groups and was friends with whom. Last night we sat down with an elderly couple who used to work in the branch and went through the pictures with them so we could connect names to faces and find out the background stories of the people who were there, including how active they were initially, where they were living now and who they still keep in touch with from the branch. That was equal parts helpful and hilarious, because they sat and bickered over every person that was brought up (ie they disagreed on what their name was, how many kids they had, what callings they held, why they stopped coming to church etc). Considering the amount of eye-rolling that occurred between them in just those few minutes, it's a marvel that after 50 years of marriage, their eyes haven't rolled out of their skulls.

Lastly I gave you the wrong address. This is so uncomfortable.

7227 13th Ave Ct E apt #21

Tacoma, WA 98404

All the numbers are the same but the difference between Ave Ct. E and Ave is randomly significant because in Tacoma those addresses are completely across town from each other. I do not understand how this is possible. Also, there's a 13th St E, a 13th St Ct E, a E 13th St, and then on the other side of Tacoma there's a 13th Ave S, 13th Ave Ct S, a 13th St S, a 13th St Ct S, and a S 13th St. If anyone knows who created the Washington street system, please alert me immediately so that I can send them a strongly worded letter, along with an invitation to learn more about the gospel. Which, chances are, I've already extended to them at some point over the last 6 months anyway.

(Anyone notice how I just brought it back full circle?)

I've been in the WA-TAC 25 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey

I'm Full time Cambodian and I love it!

November 12, 2013

The Twins are doing well! I've been working them hard so I'm lucky if one of them stays awake during planning at night. It doesn't help that they're battling a 2 hour time difference (1 for utah, 1 for daylight savings time) and that all 3 of us have some sort of variation of the same flu/cold. But we're missionaries and we don't have time to be sick so we're pushing through!

We've got a huge reunion planned this Saturday for the old Cambodian Branch which lasted 26 years and has been dissolved for 8 years. The most updated ward list is from 2004, so most of the phone numbers and addresses are totally incorrect. But we're working through the list and hoping for attendance of 100 of the original 600 members. We've called every phone number on there and are driving around to the addresses to deliver fliers which we made inviting everyone to the reunion. One side is in English, the other side is in Cambodian, because in most of the households there's a mix of some people (the parents) who can only read Cambodian, some who can only read English (the kids) and some who can't read either (the grandparents).

 My previous comp Cassell and I worked super hard on those fliers, including meeting with this monk Chao 4 different times to check our grammar and translation. He pretty much laughed and said, "who translate this for you? This make no sense! This funny!" to which I held my head in shame and admitted most of it was Google translate. According to him, our finished product "makes much more sense for Cambodian people" so at least we have that. We're hoping to meet with the monk weekly for language study help.

At this point with the reunion, we've gotten so many 'maybe's that we could end up with 10 people there or 200. We're hoping it's closer to the latter but there's no way to no for sure until it comes. All I know about Cambodians is that they don't ever keep appointments or schedule anything, but maybe if enough people give them enough reminders, they'll come to a party.

We're in a brand-new apartment so our bishop, Relief Society President, and Elders Quorum President have been trying to acquire us furniture. We each have a bed and a dresser, and dishes in our kitchen, so that's pretty much all we could ever need! Minus a microwave. I'm now learning how much I rely on a microwave every day now that we don't have one. But our bishop assures us one is coming  around the corner, so I guess this is the perfect time to exercise some faith.

Tell Tutu I got the package with the socks, the Target gift card, the Halloween package, and the one with the 6 foot tall pumpkin man. Thank you so much!

My new address is 7227 13th ave E apt # 21 Tacoma Wa, 98404

Love you all!

-Sister McQuivey

P.S.  As it turns out, they sell hair dye at the dollar store so obviously I had to try that out. I died my hair red for Halloween! I was missionary Jessie from Toy Story 2. I'll send pictures next week. Also it's permanent so that's interesting. I'm officially a Weasley!

Photos of Janessa's Twins!

Janessa's two new greenie companions. They are both (or rather all three of them are) Cambodian speaking!

Thanks to Janessa's Mission President's wife who posts all of these great photos for us to pilfer!

And They're Off!

Getting picked up at the airport!

A little later on...6 weeks or so...Transfer Day!

It's TWINS!

November 5, 2013

My two baby greenies fresh from the mtc arrived today! I've been a madman for the past few days packing and unpacking in my new place and trying to get things in order to train baby missionaries. It's going to be a blast but for now I'm exhausted and am just trying to get through to the end of the day. Twins are twice the fun and twice the work! I'm proud at last to be a mission mom and to introduce them to the rest of the mission family (their grandmother is the missionary who trained me, etc.)

They are named Sister Dunster and Sister Walker and are so adorable! We are going to study hard and work harder and hopefully get some work done.

Love you all! I've got to go tend to the twins but I'll send out a longer email next week.

-Sister McQuivey