Happy Thanksgiving! (Week 59)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Samuel Watson

Sun, Nov 18, 2018

Hello everyone!

Well, while Thanksgiving is not a big thing in Vietnam, back in America, it is the holiday season! So of course all of the missionaries are listening to Christmas music back in the apartment! It is crazy to think this is my second Thanksgiving as a missionary! But I still have another good ten months to serve. All of our investigators here are doing well. Still progressing good. Chi Dinh and Anh Dung are doing great with commitments and everything! Chi Sang is having some hard times, so prayers for her are appreciated! We are still trying to work with her and know she truly can find peace in Christ. We also have two investigators that got switched to our area. They were found by other missionaries but live in our boundaries. We have Anh Phat, who is doing great! We have had one lesson with him, but he has been to church several times and loves it! He also is quite knowledgeable, and is really connecting with prayer and the Book of Mormon! He is awesome. And then we have Anh Chuong. He is also very cool. About ten years ago he decided to self-study Christianity, and really loves the Lord. He has a lot of good principles he applies in his life and is excited to learn more things he can do!

This week, we didn't have the most time to go looking for more investigators. On Wednesday, I had to go to the doctors to get my fingers checked, and it was a long bike ride to get there. They gave me a cream that should help my fingers. Also, my companion got to go to the doctor's too, and got his ingrown toenails checked. He will get them cut out this week on Thursday! Happy Thanksgiving! Not fun... But there is a Subway right by the doctor's office, and since we are there anyways, might as well pick up a Turkey sub sandwich in the spirit of Thanksgiving...

We had two other different things this week. Friday, we had our interviews with President Chiles and that went really well. I can definitely say he was chosen of God to help lead the mission here in Vietnam! He is always really insightful and motivating! I heard the same from the other companionships when I followed up with them. And then, on Saturday and Sunday we had district conference! That was really good. There was also a 70 from Thailand who came. On Saturday they focused on ministering. Two funny parts there. President Chiles went up to talk and a translator went with him, thinking he would translate English to Vietnamese the whole time. Well, President Chiles has been working on his Vietnamese, and kept switching languages. The translator got confused, and had to keep switching which language he was translating! It was a lot of fun, and his talk was great. And then, the 70 came up and to teach about ministering, he kept calling up volunteers and made them act out creating a ministering program. "Now can we have a branch president come up? Alright, do you approve the ministering list the auxiliaries and quorums made. Cool. You can sit back down. Now you go get two people in the audience to be the ministers..." The acting did not add anything to what was being shared in meaning, but it definitely made the room a lot more focused and awake, and it just showed how simple it was. And the session on Sunday was great too. It almost doubled in attendance from the one earlier this year! We had 370 people at the Kim Do Hotel! Overall, a great experience for all in attendance.

And that about does it for the week. Once again happy Thanksgiving to all out there! Oh, and this week we will have zone conference with a general authority in attendance. They have had us preparing thoughts on our missionary purpose for the last two weeks. I am ready to learn a lot!

Elder Watson/ Nghiêm

P.S. Guess who made tacos for the first time last night! I did indeed! Thank you, family, for sending me taco seasoning in a package! Also, I sent my first package home on Thursday, with lots of cool things for my family! They may also pass out a few things to some other people...