Anh Cả Nghiêm (Week 8)

Hello everyone!

I am now down to my last week in the MTC! I will officially be flying out on Sunday, and will make stops in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and then Hanoi Vietnam. It will be a long day of flying, but I am so excited that I will finally be in the mission field! By the way, I finally got my Vietnamese name! I am Anh Cả Nghiêm, or Elder Respect. I really like my name. And I better, after all it will be what I am called for the next two years. In Vietnam, they have us go by Vietnamese names to make it easier for the Vietnamese people to pronounce, and also in Vietnam, they call each other by first name with a title before it, such as in my name the Anh Cả means Elder, although I probably won't be called that a lot. I have been told I may be called that by members, but most people won't use it, it means something along the lines of older brother if it is directly translated. Most everyone else will refer to me by what they would anyone else. Actually, something really cool about the Vietnamese culture is how familial they refer to each other. People around your age are referred to as siblings. In general out of politeness if you are unsure if they are older or younger than you you refer to them as being older. Age is really important in the culture. So I would call them Anh, or older brother, or Chị, or older sister. If you know they are younger than you but are close to your age, you call them Em for either gender. If someone is significantly younger than you to the point you could be their parent, you call them con or child. There is also one for if you could be their grandparent, but I don't remember that one or most of the others. There are also options for if someone is your parents age, being aunt or uncle. Then there is one for people older than your parents, but not old enough to be your grandparents, and that one is used for both genders. And finally, there is one for people old enough to be your grandparents, being grandma and grandpa, although my teachers have said you don't use that one unless they are REALLY old. Anyways, I think it is pretty cool that all the names they use are based in family, so it isn't weird in Vietnam to call someone Brother or Sister so and so, unlike in the US where some people find that strange.

Well, that is probably enough about names and titles in Vietnam. Coming to the end of my MTC stay, I am really trying to focus and learn as much as possible so I can be more ready for Vietnam. We finished our grammar book this last week, and I think I have that down pretty well. For the most part now, I just need to get a wider vocabulary and more practice listening and speaking. While I don't feel entirely ready in this regard to go to Vietnam, I know that I will learn so much faster when I am literally surrounded by the language. We'll see how it goes!

I am pretty excited since Thanksgiving is coming up. Of course I am sad that I can't spend it with my family, but it will still be really cool. I know for sure that we are getting to hear from a speaker that morning (which I cannot say for certain, but I feel a high likelihood that it will be an apostle) and then we get to do service in the afternoon. And then to top it off at night, they are going to turn on the Christmas lights in the MTC! I think everyone here is really excited for that, and I am glad that I will get to see that before I leave.

As for my scripture study, I am now in 3 Nephi, and am getting closer to the part where Christ comes. Actually, something that I thought was pretty cool was that on Sunday I got to watch "The Testaments" movie about what was going on in the America's right before Christ came, and I was able to recognize a lot of it. In fact, I had not seen the movie in quite a few years, but I feel that I got more out of it watching it now, such as seeing the reference to the Gadianton robbers and their secret oaths. And of course, it was also just a good movie about Christ and having faith in him as well. I am trying to finish the Book of Mormon before I leave the MTC, but at the very least I should be able to finish up the last little bit I may have left on the plane ride to Vietnam.

Alright, now for some funny stories from this week. The first one is better than the second, just to let you know. Anyways, one elder in my district has been receiving billions of cookies every week from his mother. Last week, he was emailing his mother about it, and told her that the cookies were so good that he wasn't sharing a single one of them. In fact, he ate about twelve a day. Well, let's just say his mother wasn't happy. In response to his email, she ended up sending his companion an apology note saying she thought she had taught her son to share, but that apparently she was wrong. She also sent him a giant package full of cookies and said she would send him one the next week as well. I thought it was pretty funny how the elder thought he was complimenting his mom by saying he wasn't sharing the cookies, but how she ended up getting mad at him for it. As for the second story, it isn't so much funny as it was something I didn't mention earlier in this email. Do you remember how last week I mentioned that the name tags still hadn't come in, and that they should be in this week? Well, my teachers still hadn't heard back about the name tags, so one of my teachers finally decided to send an email to them asking how long it could possibly take them to print twenty name tags. He then got a response more or less saying oops, we thought we already emailed you that they have been here for a while. Well, I guess I could have emailed about my name last week, but at least I got to email about it today.

Well, that is probably enough information for one week. I just wanted to get off a lot this week since it is my last week before being in Vietnam, and I will not have as much time to email once I get there. I do, however, believe I can make a blog in Vietnam, so I will try to give information that way. Thank you all again for supporting me in my decision to serve a mission!

Elder Nghiêm Watson (the Vietnamese name is a first name)

P.S. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but we really do live in a small world! I have met two people in the last two weeks that I knew that I wasn't expecting to run into! One of them is an old friend of mine who used to live in Tucson before he moved a few years ago. His name is Chad Roberts. I haven't really had contact with him since, and I had no idea he would start serving around the time I would since he is a year and a half older than I am. What are the odds he and I would be in the same MTC in the same week? Apparently he is going to South America Spanish speaking. As for the other person I met that I knew, I was in the lunch room on Sunday when one of my MTC teachers came over. He was apparently there to translate for some people there who spoke Vietnamese. Anyways, he brought over someone with him to introduce to us. Her name is Nhi, and I actually know her from back in Tucson! I assume she was also there for translation. Anyways, when he introduced her, she said she thought she recognized me, and asked if I was from Tucson. I told her that I was and that in fact I was in her seminary class a few years ago, and that I knew the family she lived with in Tucson. She then remembered that as well. I think it is so cool when you run into people you know somewhere you don't expect to! Well, now I will sign off with a few photos. The first one is of my district. The second one is my zone currently (although it is missing the Cambodian district since we couldn't find them in the moment). The third one is me with both of my name tags. The fourth one is a picture of my name tag with me in the background. And the fifth one is a photo of me with my new haircut today. I will send additional photos the next P Day I get, which may not be for two weeks since Monday I will be on a plane and will miss P Day. Well, see you all then!