I am going to Ho Chi Minh City! (Week 25)

Monday March 26th, 2018

 

Hello everybody,

Wow, it turns out I am going to be transferring to Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday. It came as a real surprise, as transfer calls are not supposed to be until next week, but for some reason this transfer is going to end a week early, and the next one will be extended a week. While I am really excited to be going to the south, and am excited to see the members there, I will really miss all of the members here. They are a really great branch. They are super faithful, and really trust in the Lord. I am a bit sad that I won't get to work with them anymore, but I know the Lord will continue to take care of them, and I know the Lord wants me elsewhere.

Along with me moving down south, that does mean that I won't be around for Chi Thu's baptism, which is a little sad. But hey, I know Elder Dong Quang and his new companion will continue to help her, and I know that the Lord will bless her for her efforts to follow the Savior. She is still doing really well with keeping commitments. We have been teaching her the commandments lately, and she has been doing great with all of them. She had some questions with the Word of Wisdom, but when we asked her if she would be willing to follow it, she immediately said yes. As for Chi Uyen, she is also doing well. We invited her to be baptised this week! She is currently thinking about it, but I know as she prays about it, the Lord will let her know it is the right decision to make, and will bless her as she continues to try to learn about the gospel.

As for trying to find new investigators, we got one potential investigator and a former investigator to church this week! Both agreed to meet with us to discuss the gospel this upcoming week as well, which is great. Hopefully they were able to feel the Holy Ghost while they were at church, and that will work in them to help them become more open to the gospel. I know the Lord prepares people to receive the gospel, and I am really excited for them as they embark on that journey.

 

Our branch here is really great in Ha Dong. Seriously, the members here are so friendly. They really care about their fellow man. Just seeing how they work with people who come to the church for the first time, or seeing how they work with people in lessons and their enthusiasm in doing so, you can really see the light of Christ in them and how much they love serving others. I know they will find true joy in their lives as they continue to serve others, and I know that "when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God" (Mosiah 2:17).

 

Well, as mentioned, I am on my way to a new branch. I am sure there is a lot in store that I am not expecting, but I know the Lord is on my side and with Him I can accomplish anything.

Thank you again to everyone out there supporting me, and to all of you who read this. To those of you reading this on email, my parents recently updated my blog and it has a lot of really good photos, including some funny ones at a 3D art museum. Check those out if you get a chance.

I will write to you all from Ho Chi Minh City, district Q6 next week! Until then!

Elder Watson/ Nghiem

 

Elder Stevenson Conference Special (More Week 24 Pictures)

Hello everyone!

Here is another blog post to share pictures from last week's conference with Elder Stevenson. I know the first thing you all will be thinking after you see the photos is, "Where is Elder Stevenson in the pictures?". Well, I don't actually have any with him in the photo. There was a small power outage in the building during the missionary conference with him, so it was not a good time to take photos. Then during the member conference, there just didn't seem to be a good, appropriate moment to whip out the camera. Anyway, what you will see are a lot of our awesome members in the photos, and a lot of the missionaries in the Hanoi Mission. Even the missionaries that are currently serving in Ho Chi Minh (down south) were able to fly up for this conference. It was great to see and visit with the other missionaries from my MTC district. I was able to actually shake hands with Elder Stevenson, and I really enjoyed his message, which was really about being fully converted to Christ.

Also below you will see pictures from some other recent gatherings with some of my ward members. They are awesome people!

Enjoy!

Elder Watson/ Nghiem



  

Mission Conference and Elder Stevenson! (Week 24)

Monday March 19th

Mission Conference and Elder Stevenson! Oh, and the other half of the 3D Art Museum pictures!

Hello everyone,

Things went pretty well this week here in Vietnam. The most exciting thing of which was that Elder Stevenson came to Hanoi for a mission conference! It was really cool getting to hear from an apostle of the Lord, and I learned a lot from what he shared. First, we had a conference with just the missionaries, and we all got to shake his hand! It was really neat! Funnily enough, the building had lost power, so that conference was in the dark, but it was still really good. He shared some really interesting things. First off, he reaffirmed that we all have divine calls here in Vietnam, appointed by apostles of the Lord, and that He wants us here. He then gave us a message about the importance of giving commitments in your lessons. It was really edifying. Then in the general mission conference, it was really cool to hear Elder Stevenson talk about how those here in Vietnam now are the pioneers for this country, and how he said they are a special people of the Lord. Of course there was a lot of other good things shared, but unfortunately I don't have time to share them all today. If you would like, I am sure there is some way to access more information about it on lds.org.

Besides that, things are going well with everyone here. Chi Thu is progressing very well for her baptismal date! And we are still working with Chi Uyen, and she is doing well too studying more about the gospel. Currently we are having difficulty finding new investigators, but I know the Lord has prepared people out there for us to meet, we jsut have to find them!

 

 

 

 

We also have zone conference coming up, and that should be good, especially as we will be following up on all we learned from Elder Stevenson. I will report more on that next week!

Things otherwise are going well though. It is getting a lot hotter here, especially with the humidity. Arizona is hotter of course, but the humidity is something else! Also, self reliance has been going really well. We now have around twenty students each class, so we are going to try out splitting the class next week. We will see how that goes.

 

  

Well, I need to get going for this week. Hopefully I will get to do something cool today. I will let you know. Oh, and my parents now have the photos of me at the 3D art museum, so hopefully they will post some of those soon. Thank you all so much for your support!

Elder Watson/ Nghiem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Apostle, Elder Stevenson is Coming to Hanoi (Week 23)

Sam's email from Monday, March 12 2018; Fun Photos worth looking at! Sam went to a 3D Art Museum, we are posting half of those photos today, and the other half with his next post and his letter from March 19th. Enjoy!

 

 

Elder Stevenson is Coming to Hanoi

Hello everybody!

How is it going with all of you? For me, things are going well here in Vietnam. As the title of this email implies, there is some excitement going on here with the members. Elder Stevenson will be making a stop here in Hanoi and will be talking with all the members in Vietnam. For that, all the missionaries get to attend in person! We are all preparing to receive whatever message he gives, and I will share more on that next week!

So, as for what I have been up to, this week has been a little crazy! Elder Dong Quang and I lost our phone in a taxi, and were unable to retrieve it, so that kind of stinks. On the other hand, it just motivates us all the more to find new people to talk to about the gospel of Jesus Christ! Currently, we have one investigator with a baptismal date! We are trying to help her prepare for baptism in April. We usually meet her a few times a week, and it is quite interesting as we do it through Skype. Otherwise, we are trying to meet with a few other investigators, all of whom are doing well. We are still trying to find new people though, and in particular have been trying to focus on families!

 

Another piece of good news is that Anh Thanh got the priesthood last week! He got to bless the sacrament for the first time, and that was awesome! Self-reliance is also going to start seeing some changes. We think this will be our last week in one class. Next week we will be splitting it up into two, as our class size has been around twenty the last few weeks, and we barely fit in one room! So that is good progress. Going along with that, we had nine nonmembers attend sacrament for the first time last week! The Lord really can perform miracles! We don't know how many of them will become investigators yet, but it is still really exciting that they came. And one thing on top of that is that a lot of members here are preparing to attend the temple in July, which is of course awesome! Sorry if all that information seemed a bit rushed together, but I am trying to write this email rather quickly as I do not have a lot of time.

 

One other thing to mention that is more fun than anything is that I got to visit a 3D art museum here in Hanoi today! Unfortunately, I could not upload the photos today, but I will try to get to that next week, and you can all see those then. It was a lot of fun making funny photos with the other missionaries here, and in total it only cost around ten dollars, so it was pretty good!

 

 

 

 

Well, I think that covers most of the things of this week, and hopefully I will be able to provide a more in-depth email next week. Thank you to everyone out there supporting me in my decision in serving a mission, especially my family. I know I am doing the Lord's work here, and I know that this really is an exciting time in the world!

See you all next week!

Elder Watson/ Nghiem