I can Video Call My Family Every P Day?! (Weeks 71 and 72)

Sunday February 17th

Hello everyone!

Wow, I was not expecting to be able to say this, but I got to video call my family today! If you haven't heard the announcement, the first presidency just announced that missionaries are now allowed to video call their families on P Days to help their families become more involved in what their missionaries are doing out in the world! I certainly saw that today, as I was able to share a lot about my daily missionary routine, and the miracles of the past week! It will be a great blessing to missionaries and their families worldwide who have the opportunity to do this! Here is a link in case you have not had the opportunity to check it out: https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/missionaries-family-communication  

Pretty cool. Well, I had another great week this week. Lots of things going on. Anh Hung and Chi Chi are still doing awesome! Their date is for the third of March and they are pretty well on track! But we may need to push it back a week or two if we want both of them baptized together, as Chi Chi has not had too many opportunities to attend church and might not be able to be baptized on that date, but besides that minor concern, they are doing great developing faith and trying to follow the Savior! We had a lesson on Thursday where we planned to teach the Restoration, which we did, but what we had not planned on was bringing up the law of tithing... And they were okay with it when it came up! They are really well prepared, and we have the Lord to thank for it! We are super excited for them! And Chi Truc is doing good! Small miracle, we did a follow up call with her once on praying, and she said she kept forgetting, so I thought to advised she set an alarm at night to remember to pray, and she has been praying daily since with it! Precisely at 9 pm! She still forgets her reading assignments sometimes though, so we are trying to help her with that. But she is doing great, and came to church for the first time! She is progressing very well! And Em Dat is doing well too! Elder Huy was here on exchanges and told us when he previously was trying to get baptized, he mentioned not feeling like he fully understood repentance. So Elder Quoc and Elder Gau taught him about that on exchanges and it went really good apparently! He was really paying attention, and then came to church on Sunday and stayed the whole time! And his sister, Chi Hoa, is doing great since her baptism, she just looks different and seems happier! She has definitely been influenced by the light of Christ! It is amazing to see the miracles the gospel of Jesus Christ causes in people. And we got two new investigators! One is the sister of one of our investigators, Em Vy, who participated in the lesson this time! And the other one is Anh Quan, who is friends with our recent convert Anh Hoan. They work at the same company. He is really open to learning about religion, and stayed at the church for several hours and enjoyed what he learned! Also, fun not, Elder Quoc made a great first impression when he saw a mouse in the church and ran over and stomped on it. It was quite impressive, and the second time I have seen him do it! And interesting first impression indeed. We also thought it was super cool that Anh Hoan invited one of his friends to come meet the missionaries! Yay for referrals! And then one of our other investigators, Chu Duong, had a good lesson this week, but has some concerns with cultural and family traditions. So we are praying for him to understand more of how he can keep his cultural values and follow Jesus Christ, and about the great blessings he will be able to provide his family within the gospel as well! Did someone say temple work for the dead? And everyone else is doing pretty good. Our last few investigators still out for Tet are coming back this week (or so they say... Just kidding, they will be coming back.) so we will be meeting with them too!

Quick spiritual thought I had as I read the chapters for Come Follow Me this week. I would like to focus on when Jesus talks to Nicodemus. I always have found this scripture very interesting, especially knowing the context on who Nicodemus is. Being a pharisee, he is initially afraid to associate with Jesus, showing fear for man. Yet he knows what Jesus teaches to be true and wants to follow Him. As his story goes on, he ends up defending Jesus in front of the other pharisees and helps to bury Jesus' body. I have learned a lot of things from his experience. One is about how we follow the Savior. Each of us who has been baptized has promised to take the name of Christ upon us. To me that means living as an example of the Savior, for all to see, and when the opportunity arises to share more about Him. But there certainly are times where all of us fear to stand for what we believe. But in the end, it is God who we should fear (respect), not man. And especially as missionaries, we need to be out there trying to represent the Lord in every way we can. Sometimes we fear, and come out in the night so to say... We pull out our English contact too easily. We tell people we are merely volunteers... Sometimes we mention we work for a church, but at the first sight of alarm stop testifying of the simple truths we know. But our job here is to represent He who descended below all. We need to be willing to lose our lives for the Savior. Now, hopefully that circumstance does not arise, but we need to do all we can to represent him. With that, I really love John 3 verses 20-21, where the Savior talks about how the wicked come not to the light, but the righteous that their deeds may be manifest in their Father in Heaven. We actually got to share the Bible video of this scene in our English activity, and it was really powerful to those watching I could tell. And after that, I love the question of what the Savior did that converted Nicodemus to the point of which he became more vocal in his support of the Savior. Conversion comes with time, but I believe Nicodemus realized that he needed to set his priorities straight. Jesus made that very clear in their conversation. We need to be born of God and testify of Him. We need to put his ways above our own. And when we do so, our blessings will be innumerable. I am trying to become more like the Savior, to testify more boldly of Him, and to not fear man. I know as I do so, I will be a greater instrument in His hands, and will see many come unto Him.

And a quick interesting note, I got to have an exchange with Elder Chinh Tam in Thu Dau Mot City here in Binh Duong. He showed me some ways to contact better. I really like how he centers most of his contacts on the Book of Mormon and the truths we can find in it. He likes to contact with one in his hand as he talks to people about it. We can't give them out in public, nor do we have the resources to as in some other missions (our number of copies of the Book of Mormon per companionship is certainly within single digits), but just testifying of the power in it, and asking people to learn more about it is so powerful! I am excited to try to use my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration more as I contact. Also, in Thu Dau Mot city, they have been having parades and music blaring for the past month apparently for some festival for a pagoda there. Lots of dragon dances and stuff. My companion and I are going to try to get out there today and see it, so hopefully we will have some good photos next week!

Well, I think that is it for this week! Keep pressing forward in your faith!

Elder Watson/ Nghiêm

P.S. We also got to teach the missionary class in second hour this week, and it was really good! We taught about the five steps in the gospel of Jesus Christ, with faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We demonstrated the necessity of steps by having people try to jump an impossible distance before we added steps, and then we also demonstrated the cleaning power of baptism using a bell pepper... Maybe I will specify more on it next week.