Call in the Superstrike! (Week 54)

Call in the Superstrike!

Samuel Watson

Monday October 15, 2018

Hello everyone! 

Things here in Vietnam are going good. Actually, they are going more than good, they are going great! So some of you reading this email may be asking yourselves "what exactly is a superstrike?" No, we are not calling on any air reinforcements. This superstrike has to do with our mission's vision here in Vietnam! The main purpose is to get everyone to have faith in the vision of our mission having two stakes by May! At first it sounds crazy soon, but as we all know, with the Lord anything is possible! Currently the Hanoi branch up north is doing super well! As of last month, their average sacrament attendance was around 40, and they only had a few investigators. Now they have tons of investigators and have a sacrament attendance of over 100! More or less, this has been the vision all along, but the Hanoi branch was the controlled test subject to see just how much we can accomplish with the right vision. They also implemented a few test ideas I have mentioned before, such as throwing away all contacting cards and aiming for phone numbers, and trying to focus more on getting people to church. I may give more details on that later (I think I already did a time before) but more or less you just need to get people excited to come to church, and once they come and see the blessings they will want to keep coming!

It has been greatly successful, and they have related each of these ideas in past zone conferences. But the other areas have not picked up too much from it. I think it comes down to two things, most people don't have the vision of where this can go, and when you see something at zone conference you don't always know fully how to implement it. That is where the superstrike comes in! So, the missionaries in the Hanoi branch are now doing tons of exchanges across all the other branches. One missionary in each companionship will go up north to see how well everything is working, and the other will stay in their own area and be given direction on how to apply it there. Elder Trung and I really learned a lot from it! We were trying to implement it, but seeing the way the assistants to the president applied it helped us see how we could better apply the trainings. Hopefully we will see major improvements next week! So that is why we went up to Hanoi for two days... The combined higher vision, and the know-how of applying all the new ideas has been showing all over! This last month alone, the mission is not only performing at the highest level it has ever reached, but more than quadrupled that! Clearly, something is turning for the better! 

 

So one of the things I liked that I picked up from the superstrike was just trying to get people more excited to come to church. Because when you call and say "Hey we want to invite you to church. It will be three hours" most people don't get too excited. But when you call and say "I know you had a question about the Book of Mormon. That is actually the topic of our second hour class!" or you can say "Thai will be speaking on Sunday! He is such a good speaker and will be talking about humility! It will be really good! You have to come hear it!" people are more open to the subject. We are going to apply that this week, and tell people more so what they can get out of it to help them want to come and receive the blessings of Sacrament meeting!

 

I should mention we watched conference this week! In Vietnam we watch it a week late, but it is just as good! I learned a lot from it, and one of the focuses I really liked was focusing on taking the Savior's name upon us. Each of us agrees to do so when we are baptized. And we need to do all we can to show others we follow his way. My mission here is a little different, we are not allowed to wear our name tags... Something about needing a ministers VISA to wear Christ's name on your person... But despite that, I can still wear his name by my word and deed! As I go about doing good, trying to help others, and sharing my testimony of the Savior and his restored church, others will be able to see the light that comes from Christ! And that is what we all need to do, as the scriptures say "...but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." 1 Timothy 4:12

Also, speaking of conference, we got three new people to conference and they all want to know more about the church. First is Anh Long, who heard about conference from an announcement in our English activity and who came! We shared a bit about the priesthood and prophets, and he is curious to know more! Then is Dom, who we met a month ago he has a member friend who is currently studying abroad in Russia. Well, he too really enjoyed conference and wants to learn more about religion. He actually has wanted to meet us for a while but was busy with studies. He is now free though, and we will be meeting him. And finally, we have Chi Tuyen. This one is a cool story. So first off, we me Chi Tuyen over a month ago. She lives in the same apartment complex as us. We got her number and invited her to our activities and she never came. So we hadn't contacted her in some time. Well, we really wanted to get a lot of people to conference, as it is such a special event. We called through pretty much all of our phone list whenever we had time. We did not have time to finish the list but we called a lot, and did not have much success. Literally the last person we called was Chi Tuyen and she came! If we had stopped one call earlier, she would not have been invited! The other cool thing, she wanted to come to learn more about Jesus Christ, as she is Christian, and she was free specifically for the Sunday afternoon session which I felt focused the most on that! It was the perfect session for her to come to! And I don't happen to believe too much in coincidence... Also, we had an awesome member, Em Thanh, sit next to her, and she shared a lot about the church. Chi Tuyen really enjoyed the experience and wants to learn more! So those are our three new investigators for the week. Most everyone else is still doing good. We could not meet a lot of them, as we were in Hanoi for a good portion of the week, but will meet them this week, and plan on inviting several to baptism! Also, one other thing to report on is that a certain investigator of ours that we had lost contact with re-contacted us. We were super excited to hear from her, but it turns out she is not allowed to join the church, her family does not approve, and they actually took away her phone. She wants to join the church, but we can't really do much to help since her communication has been blocked. Prayers for her are appreciated! I know the Lord will help her in this time of need!

One quick funny story, but also a bit sad. We had a member in our branch who brought two friends to conference. That part was good, and they had a good experience. But on the way out, they were taking Grab home, and the one girl started walking towards the Grab bike holding out her phone to signify "I called you, I am the person you are picking up". Suddenly, a motorbike with two guys bolted in-between her and the Grab bike, and a guy snatched her phone! It was really sad for her, but super interesting to watch! Scary that there are people on the look to snatch whatever they can, but it was kind of impressive how smoothly they did it... We don't know how they made it in-between her and the Grab bike with a two-foot gap almost impossible to go through at high speed... The Grab guy tried to chase them, but they bolted away too quickly... So now I will have to be more careful when I hold valuables in my hand... Maybe I could just hold out a Book of Mormon, and if someone steals it, they will decide to repent of their ways... Also, we were told this isn't too common, but happens a bit, especially in the more touristy parts of town. And one other funny story while I am at it, while in Hanoi on exchanges, I got to be in a lesson with one of the investigators of the APs. Her name is Co Vy. Apparently, she really wants to do ancestor work in the temple, and the APs have gotten her excited for baptism as a step towards it. In the lesson, she went off on a ten-minute rant about all the ancestors she wants to do temple work for, when suddenly she takes a pause and said "But first I need to be baptized. And Elder Lam (one of the APS) here won't let me get baptized until October 28th!" It was really funny, but she needs to get all the lessons first and then can be baptized! So that was funny too.

Alright, I think that is enough to cover this week. Hopefully Elder Trung and I will be able to apply the things from the superstrike and report on that more next week! I will write again then!

Elder Watson/ Nghiêm