Hello everyone!
How are things going for you? Over here in Vietnam, things
are going well. The most exciting things coming up of course are that our
branch is having a baptism this week, as well as Elder Thong and I having
another investigator who is getting ready to be baptized in two weeks! For this
week, Anh Nhan is getting baptized. He is an investigator the other elders are
teaching. He has relatives in America who are members and whom referred him. He
is awesome! Definitely one of the people the Lord had been preparing in
advance. He has been learning the gospel for only about a month, and is already
going to be baptized! So that is really cool! He also loves participating in
all the activities with the members. And for our investigator, his name is Anh
Quang. I think I have mentioned him before. He has been learning for several
months now, and has developed a really strong testimony of Heavenly Father and
Jesus Christ! He actually told us he wanted to be baptized! We have been
helping him study the commandments lately, and he is doing really well. He also
gets along with the members, and we are really excited for him preparing to be
baptized and enter into that covenant with the Lord.
Besides that, our other missionary efforts have been going
well. We continue to try to meet with our other investigators. We had a good
lesson with one of them on Sunday, where we taught about the concept of truth.
We shared a Mormon message where Elder Uchtdorf relates an ancient tale of
seven blind men who go to see an elephant, and how each grabs a different part
of the elephant and makes a different interpretation as to what it is.
We then explained how likewise there are many religions with many good truths, but how while some of what they have may be true, they are missing the bigger picture, which is what the gospel can offer!
This particular investigator does find peace and happiness in the gospel, but has also said that he has felt peace and truth in Buddhism, his current religion, and has brought up a concern to why he can feel it in both circumstances. That is how we related that there are truths in all religions, and how people can definitely find peace in some of those truths. But we then explained how for one to have the fullness of that truth and peace, one needs the entirety of the gospel of Jesus Christ found in his restored church. We did relate though how we believe there have been many good people out there who have used the truths they could find, and who will have a chance later on to accept or reject the true gospel in the next life if they did not have that opportunity here. After that we then talked about how we can learn the truth through the Holy Ghost as promised in Moroni chapter 10, after which we talked about how we can recognize the Holy Ghost.
The main thing I found interesting in this lesson, is that it actually was not entirely what we had planned on teaching. After talking about the concept of truth and showing the video from Elder Uchtdorf, we had planned on going into the life of Jesus Christ, but during the lesson, both my companion and I felt prompted to focus more on the concept of finding truth, and I think it really rang true with our investigator.
We will see later if he is willing to act more on the things he has learned, but from this experience I wanted to relate and testify about how the Holy Ghost really can lead us when we teach. Sometimes we plan for one thing, but God knows we need to relate something else, and if we follow the Spirits guidance, we can relate the lesson he has prepared, which is much better than what we could have prepared with the limited knowledge we have. That is something that was reaffirmed to me this week particularly through this experience. (still, we do need to prepare a lesson, because if we don't put in the effort first, we can't expect God to just give us the answer in the moment of need)
We then explained how likewise there are many religions with many good truths, but how while some of what they have may be true, they are missing the bigger picture, which is what the gospel can offer!
This particular investigator does find peace and happiness in the gospel, but has also said that he has felt peace and truth in Buddhism, his current religion, and has brought up a concern to why he can feel it in both circumstances. That is how we related that there are truths in all religions, and how people can definitely find peace in some of those truths. But we then explained how for one to have the fullness of that truth and peace, one needs the entirety of the gospel of Jesus Christ found in his restored church. We did relate though how we believe there have been many good people out there who have used the truths they could find, and who will have a chance later on to accept or reject the true gospel in the next life if they did not have that opportunity here. After that we then talked about how we can learn the truth through the Holy Ghost as promised in Moroni chapter 10, after which we talked about how we can recognize the Holy Ghost.
The main thing I found interesting in this lesson, is that it actually was not entirely what we had planned on teaching. After talking about the concept of truth and showing the video from Elder Uchtdorf, we had planned on going into the life of Jesus Christ, but during the lesson, both my companion and I felt prompted to focus more on the concept of finding truth, and I think it really rang true with our investigator.
We will see later if he is willing to act more on the things he has learned, but from this experience I wanted to relate and testify about how the Holy Ghost really can lead us when we teach. Sometimes we plan for one thing, but God knows we need to relate something else, and if we follow the Spirits guidance, we can relate the lesson he has prepared, which is much better than what we could have prepared with the limited knowledge we have. That is something that was reaffirmed to me this week particularly through this experience. (still, we do need to prepare a lesson, because if we don't put in the effort first, we can't expect God to just give us the answer in the moment of need)
Well, I should probably tell you why this email got the title it did. So for anyone not from Arizona, a dust devil is a natural occurrence that is essentially a mini tornado. Usually it picks up dirt and other small things and while it is entertaining to watch leaves swirl in the mini tornado, it does get dust in your eyes, which is not fun. This phenomena may occur in other locations, but as far as I am aware it is only called a dust devil in Arizona. Well, little did I know, but they can occur here in Vietnam! On Thursday this week, we were in our apartment about to go out, when a huge dust devil occurred right outside our window! Itself, it was bad enough, going as high as our 21st story window, but then it started ripping off some sheet metal from the building next to ours! It almost hit some people down below! Luckily, no one got hurt. We definitely decided to stay inside though. We checked in with the other missionaries, and the senior couple apparently had a blackout that ended up lasting an hour and a half. Overall, it was a crazy storm! We will see if any more occur.
Our English class is still going well. We taught about celebrities this week, and the students had a lot of fun with that. It was very practical for a topic they would want to discuss. I also learned they watch Forrest Gump in China, as one of our students from China told me that was his favorite movie, and his favorite actor was Tom Hanks! I thought that was pretty funny. And for the Young Single Adults activity tonight, they are playing Telestrations. Imagine a mix of the games Telephone and Pictionary and you have Telestrations. Well, we will see how it goes tonight!
Until next week!
Elder Watson/ Nghiem
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