We had a Baptism this Week!! (Week 38)

Monday June 25, 2018

Hello everyone!

This week my companion and I have a goal to email for a shorter time, so I am going to try to write this a little faster than usual. This week was very good, the coolest part being that Anh Quan got baptized on Sunday! It was a very nice baptism, with many members attending. Anh Quan was really ready for baptism, he has a really strong testimony of the gospel and is excited to be a member of the church! The next step is to help him prepare for getting the priesthood, which we will discuss with him this upcoming week.

We have also visited several members this week. We had a nice visit with Chu Dinh last night. He used to be a branch president in Cambodia before he came here. He appreciated our visit. He can't always make it out to church, but we now have several members who might try to help him get there more if he can get work off on Sunday. We did share a nice message about Christ though based on Elder Uchtdorf's talk "Behold the Man". It was very good. We also got to visit Anh Phuong again in the hospital along with his mother Co Ngoc Thanh, who is also a member. He should be able to go back home in the next few weeks which is good. We had a nice visit, and heard some members have stopped by which is great! The church does provide a really good community of friends with similar values and beliefs. And besides that, all the members seem to be doing great here!

So for English class this week, we decided to teach about drama! Elder Thong doesn't have much experience, so I got to lead in that. We only had four students this week, but it was a ton of fun! I first related a personal experience from my high school drama career when I acted in the play "Twelve Angry Men" and what I learned from that experience. I actually got to play the lead role in that one... They really enjoyed the story. Then we had some vocab and some drama games. To help with the vocab, we played a game we called "Director Says" (based on Simon Says), and had actions associated with each vocabulary word. They had a lot of fun with the game, and said it really helped them remember the vocab associating it with actions. We may try it again in the future. Then we played a drama game called "Freeze" where you act out a scene, but when someone calls freeze, they take someone's exact pose and change the scene. Most of the class was decent at it, but we had some people with natural talent! Seriously I think some of them had to have taken drama before... It was really fun though, and I was glad to share something I had enjoyed in my high school career.

 

 

One more thing to bring up then is that the Hassells will be going home this week, as the Chiles come in. The Hassells really have done a great job here as the mission president and mission president's wife. They have worked very diligently to serve the people here, and all the missionaries greatly respect them. They have also taught me a lot personally, whether from the weekly emails they send out, zone conferences, interviews, or any other interaction with them. I will greatly miss them here and wish them the best in the future. But I know the Lord has also called President and Sister Chiles, and they will do a great job as well! Looking forward to seeing what the Lord has in store!

 

Until next week!

Elder Watson/ Nghiêm

P.S. Transfer calls! I will be remaining in District 6 with Elder Thong for another transfer. That is all.

Dam Sen Park! (Week 37)

Monday June 18, 2018

Hello everybody!

How are all of you doing? Things are going well here in District 6 of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We just had a baptism in our branch yesterday, which was really exciting! His name was Anh Nhan, and he was referred to the other elders because he has family in America who are members, and he was so ready to receive the gospel, he got baptized within a month, so that was really cool!

Referrals are really important in missionary work, as when people suggest family members and friends, that is how most converts join the church. And, as I have been mentioning for a while now, we have an investigator who will be baptized on next Sunday! He just had his baptismal interview this week and passed! We are really excited to see him make this important step in his life, as he comes closer to God and the savior. We have also been working with others too and have been trying to go out and visit more members who cannot come to church. In particular, one of our members, Anh Phuong is currently in the hospital with some kidney problems. We were able to get out to visit him this week, which was really nice, and I am happy to report the elders quorum is also on top of it, with several of them going there to help take care of him. The members here really do look out for each other. And we have been working with one other investigator of sorts, he is not an investigator yet, but we have met him a few times, and he has enjoyed what we have shared. His name is Em Du, and the reason that he met us is mainly because his mother would like for him to have better influences in his life. She is actually Catholic, but is friends with President Khanh, a member in our ward, and she knows we are good people who can help her son. She also is a firm believer of the fact that we are all children of the same Heavenly Father, and thereby she is perfectly fine with her son learning about our religion as well, since we will also help him come closer to God. It is really cool seeing how open she is to that! So we have met him and given him a tour of the church, and will continue to try to help him out, though we may actually have some other elders start meeting him from a different branch since he lives much closer to them and that church, and that would probably be a better scenario for him. Still, we wish him the best, and know that the gospel can help keep him around good influences who will help him find success and happiness in this life!

 

We had a good English class this week, though it was abnormal in that we combined our intermediate and advanced classes. It went well enough, but we will probably try to keep the classes separated from now on. We also decided on our next big event's topic! The event will not occur until August, but we have determined it will have the theme of time travel! We are going to have different eras to help them learn different English terms from each era, which should be a lot of fun. And we haven't decided for sure, but I had an idea that for the spiritual thought, they could time travel to say Jerusalem in around 33 AD, where they could meet Jesus Christ or something like that... I think it would be pretty fun, but we will see what we do. We also have a cool idea to incorporate family history as well, since we will learn about the past, and we will discuss the important role of learning about your ancestors, and why family is not only important here, but also in the next life as in God's plan we can be sealed with our families forever.

For my weather report this week, we have had a lot of rain. It is really interesting, it goes from zero to a hundred without warning! On Sunday evening, we headed out not wearing our rain coats as it was not raining. About a minute into the bike ride, the rain came down in a downpour, and we got absolutely soaked through! I sent some photos to my family, but it is hard to tell we were wet in it... I was completely wet though, I can assure you!

 

And then with the title of this email, we actually got back from our district P Day today, which was a lot of fun! We went to Dam Sen Park, which is a really cool amusement park here in Ho Chi Minh! And it actually has more than your ordinary amusement park! We found they had a whole zoo section on top of all the events to do, and in the western themed part of the park they had a cactus garden funnily enough! I felt like I was back at home! Though they did not have any saguaro cactus...

We additionally went into a ghost house, which was pretty cool, and it even had one of those spinning tunnel things that I really like!

And then we went into a really cool ice house place, where there were carved ice building made to look like famous buildings! It was really cool! Literally! I felt like I was going to freeze! We didn't get on any of the rides, but there is plenty more to do there, it would definitely be worth going back to someday! And it only cost 200000 dong to get in, which is around 10 dollars, so pretty good...

Well, I think that sums up most of what we did this week. Next week we are going to try to visit several less active members, and that should be good. Oh, and before I forget, we did also have zone conference this week, as I had mentioned last week, and learned some good things, with particular emphasis on finding investigators, and the importance of teaching the Atonement. They have hit on that one twice now, so it is definitely significant. Well, I look forward to writing again next week!

Elder Watson/ Nghiem 

P.S. Happy Father’s Day to all fathers out there! Especially to my own father, who really has done so much for my family. He is really selfless, always giving up his time to provide for us, and when he comes home, he is always helping us in all of our activities and studies. He doesn't have much time for himself, but always show his love for us. I hope to someday be just like him with that! Thank you Dad!