We Got a Baptismal Date Commitment this Week!! (Week 34)

Monday May 28, 2018

Hello everyone,

I hope everything is going well for you, wherever you may be. Things are certainly going well here in District 6 of Ho Chi Minh City. In particular, we are really excited this week because one of our investigators now has a baptismal date! That is actually a pretty funny story which I will share below.

So we currently have an investigator named Anh Quang who started investigating the church a little over six months ago. He had been doing well before I came, having already learned about the restoration, the Plan of Salvation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ (being the lesson about faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end). We have met him a few times this last month, and he has told us how he knows Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are real, and how he wants to follow the commandments, even though he is not entirely sure about if the Book of Mormon is true or not. Well, we met him this week along with some members to do language study, where they help us with Vietnamese and we help them with English. At the end of the study session, Anh Quang told us he had something to tell us. I don't know how many of you have seen this movie, but there is a movie called "The Best Two Years" that is about missionaries, and there is a scene in it where an investigator informs the missionaries he wants to be baptized, but the way the scene is set up, it really seems like he is going to tell them he wants to stop learning with the missionaries. Well, we had a scenario just like that! Elder Thong asked him about the baptism he had just attended last Saturday, and how he felt about it. He told us he had something to tell us. He then proceeded to say he had been learning for a long time, and didn't know a lot. At this point, things did not sound good, and we were wondering what he was possibly going to say to us. He then said that despite not knowing much, he also doesn't know a little. He knows Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are real, and he also knows he wants to follow the commandments to improve his life. He then told us he wants to be baptized.

Something kind of funny with that is that he already had a lot of the logistics figured out. He told us he wanted Elder Duy to baptize him, to have all the missionaries participate in his confirmation, and that he wanted his baptism announced that week. For the announcement part, we told him we would do that after he had his baptismal interview, and that we would prepare for that first. He also told us he wanted President Nelson informed of him being baptized. We told him that we don't usually directly contact President Nelson about baptisms, but that some people would be informed, and maybe it would eventually reach him. Overall though, it was really a miracle seeing how ready and committed he was to being baptized. We still have a lot more commandments to go through with him, but he knows how much the gospel has helped him already, and he really does want to follow God and Jesus Christ. We are really excited to continue to work with him.

Our other investigators have also been doing well. Several were out of town, so we couldn't meet with them, but we did have one who was in town. Currently he is mostly just curious about what we have shared, but we are trying to help him see how the gospel can bless his life and help him have more happiness. He also came to the barbecue our branch had on Friday and had a good time with the other members.

Speaking of the barbecue, our branch put together a barbecue this last Saturday for all the members and for us to invite nonmembers to as well. It turned out really well. The food of course was great. Those attending also brought different items.

For the missionaries, the four elders made mashed potatoes, as well as bringing some soda. We had several investigators there, as well as several of our English class students. Everyone had a really good time.

Well, I think that covers most of the major events of the week. Of course, the most exciting part though was Anh Quang getting his baptismal date! He wants to be baptized next month, and we are going to do all we can to prepare him for that!

Thank you to everyone out there for supporting me, especially my family!

Elder Watson/ Nghiêm

P.S. On a last second note, my companion and I had a funny contact this week. We were contacting this week at the Aeon mall, and we ended up talking to a lady who was with her daughter at an end of the school year party. This lady was the only mother of any of the students present, with the students being around thirteen years old. My companion commented to me on how embarrassed he would be if his mother did something like that when he was in middle school, but I just kind of laughed, saying my mother is the kind of mother who would attend an event like that and take a million photos. A lot of people would find that odd or embarrassing, but I think it is cool that my mom is really active in things like that. If there were an event to which parents were allowed to come, she would definitely be willing to do that. Anyways, I just found it kind of funny how this person we ran into in the mall reminded me of what my mother would do. For example, check out this photo from May 2017 at the Arizona State Chess Championships with my Mom coaching the club!

P.S.S. The barbeque food was definitely better than what I make myself on a daily basis!