Back in July Dan and I went to California for the weekend to visit families he served from his 2 year mission for our church. He served with the Hmong people (an Asian group of people) and spoke their language while there.
He has always wanted to go back and visit but has not been able to since. Upon moving back to Utah this summer we decided to take advantage of our time off before we got jobs and life got hectic again.
We stayed part of the weekend with the Vang family. They have 7 children that Dan had lots of fun playing with. We even went to the State Capitol one morning and took lots of pictures with them (i.e. all the ones that won't load...). I really enjoyed getting to meet the family and am grateful for all the MANY meals they fed us. They were so good to us!
We arrived on a Thursday night, ate an early dinner with the Vangs and then went to the Bee family's house to visit and eat again with them. They were such a sweet family and fed us very well. Their little girl became attached to my hip as you can see:) After visiting with them we went back to the Vang's house to find them preparing ANOTHER midnight meal for us! I learned quickly that every Hmong person feeds you whenever you see them. So since we saw the Vang family twice, we ate twice! Needless to say...I was quite full after all that food!
The next day we visited 3 families in the early afternoon into the evening. We first visited Joey and his parents. I instantly fell in love with his mom. After she fed us she spent the rest of our visit teaching me how to cook lots of different Hmong foods. She instantly took me in as family and I loved getting to know her. She even gave us a wedding gift and told us how bad she felt for not being able to attend our wedding 3 years earlier. She was really sweet!
After we went and visited the Lor family who fed us again:) This family has 4 generations living under one roof (which is very common in the Hmong culture). The grandparents were in their 90's and didn't speak any English. The parents knew a little but I spend most of the time just listening to a language I didn't understand. It was a neat experience.After that we went and had dinner with the Moua family. They took pictures for us which we still need to get from them so I can add it.
Saturday morning I woke up with a horrible stomach ache. I soon found out I had food poisoning. I will save all the details...but will say this, I sat all day on the bed with a bucket in my lap. I felt really bad because the Vang family had planned a few fun activities with us as well as we were going to see Dan's sister and family who also live in Sacramento. In the end, we left the Vang's house, checked me into a hotel, and Dan went on his way to see everyone else.
He will have to blog about the other families he visited sometime:) I wish I could have seen Summer and her family as well as everyone else but I guess there is always next time! I learned the hard way that my stomach just doesn't have much tolerance for food from different cultures:) But all in all, I am still very grateful for all the people I got to meet!
