I Have a Smartphone? (Week 85)
Hello everyone!
This week was interesting. Initially a tougher week, as we had to drop several investigators who were progressing well. But I feel I have come to terms with it and will explain on that more in a moment. My family is doing well. It is the last week of school in Arizona, so everyone is about to start summer break. In our area, we have some exciting things going on. We are going to be teaching a lot of Chinese people it seems. First off, we have two Chinese people who have been coming for a while. Davis and Tony. Currently the other elders are teaching Tony, but we will try to start teaching Davis this week. He has had an interesting journey in the church. His first time being contacted by Sister Hang, he said he had no interest in figuring out who God was, but since then, he has come to the activities here and seen people at church are truly happy. He seems to feel he has a family here, and comes to the activities regularly! And lately, he has been coming to sacrament meeting and bringing friends! So we have good hopes for him. And Brother Rice from the Tan Son Nhat branch brought a bunch of Chinese friends from Binh Duong to church on Sunday once he learned we have Chinese speakers here (namely Elder Bao), and we will try to meet three of his friends he introduced that day. We have their phone numbers and will try to set up appointments this week! So that will be cool. I will try to review some Chinese with Elder Bao too so I can better participate in those lessons. And something else that is cool is the Stones, a member couple from Taiwan who used to live here, have now moved back, so we should be able to have a member couple help out! And Anh Vuong speaks Chinese too, and he can help as well!
We also got three new people learning this week.
One was referred to us from Co Hue. She introduced us to a family, the father
is named Anh Hoai and the mother is Chi Quyen and they have two children. We
got to meet the parents and share the restoration. They seemed genuinely
interested, so we will keep trying to teach them. And we had a former investigator
who showed up to the church and said he wants to get baptized! His name is
Hanh. He seems like he wants to learn again, so that is really good! And he is
currently reading in Helaman, so that is cool. Anh Hung and Chi Chi are still
reading and praying, but they kind of seem to be at a roadblock. They feel they
are lacking in faith and experience. I really liked an email I got from
President Chiles this week. It talked about the conversion process and had a
quote from Elder Anderson. It talked about how people need to experience the
full conversion of the gospel, namely faith, repentance, and baptism. And maybe
that is what we need to focus on with them. Perhaps we are too focused on the
baptism goal, and need to take a step back to repentance, and they will
naturally want baptism. We are currently trying to focus with them on faith and
recognizing the Holy Ghost, but I think taking it back to repentance and just
helping them have spiritual experiences might be exactly what they need. So we
will work on that and see how it goes. Em Dat and Em Cuong are still doing the
same as before. But Em Cuong is pretty funny! We call him on Saturday and ask
if he will come to church, and he said he didn't have time. And then he came on
Sunday anyways... Pretty funny. He is awesome and really just loves the gospel!
Em Vy was able to come to church this week too, so that was good! We hope she
will be more free and able to meet this next month once school gets out. And
Anh Phuong and Anh Thang had a lesson on Sunday. They seemed to like prayer,
which was good! We might try to meet them separately so we can better focus on
each of their needs though. It should be good.
And that now leads us to the two people we had to drop. First,
we had Chi Dung. She had learned both lesson one and two, and was progressing
well. Following commitments and all. Then this last week she texted us and said
for some personal reasons she would no longer be able to attend the church. She
said she would keep reading the Book of Mormon, and hopes to see us sometime in
the future if destiny allows it (duyen if you know that word in Vietnamese). I
have high hopes she will come back in the future, but for now she said she will
no longer attend any activities. And she is not responding currently, and we
don't want to push her too hard, so I will trust God to prepare her until she
is ready again. And then we have Chi Hang. She is Christian and started
learning with us about a month and a half ago out of curiosity to know about
our church. She was progressing and had been reading in the Book of Mormon a
bit. She even came to conference with her mother and liked everything. But I
think she got a little scared about the idea of changing religions. She texted
us and said she thinks she has learned enough about our church, and that in the
first place she was just curious and has now satisfied her curiosity. I know
she enjoyed our lessons before and had felt the Spirit, but she has decided to
not learn more for now. I have hopes that some missionaries will call her in
the future and she will decide to learn again. We also told her she is still
welcome to come to activities here of course! She said she is busy but if she
gets the chance she will come to English. And that leads to the truth I learned
this week. Something I have always found hard, and that of course is hard, is
dropping investigators. Especially those I feel are progressing, or who I have
spent a lot of time with. But I realized something while on exchanges with
Elder Nguyen. First off, I realized I need to rely more on God's timing. Just
because I really want to help an investigator get to baptism now, does not mean
it is so on God's timetable. Perhaps they need more time. But I know I can rely
that God has a plan for everyone. And that is the other thing too. This is
God's work. I know I hear that a lot, and say it too, but sometimes I feel like
I can make an investigator get to baptism. Maybe if I just call them more it
can happen. If I can make them come to church one more time. If I can get them
in one more lesson, I can change their mind. And I feel like I may have inadvertently
scared a few investigators with that. I think I learned I need to respect
others agency and God's timing more than my own desire and plan. If this is
someone who can receive the gospel, God will prepare them. I need to do what I
can in my power with the guidance of the Holy Ghost, but it is the Holy Ghost
that converts them, not me. If they get baptized because I pushed them to it,
and are not truly converted, then I have failed my purpose. So I am trying to
learn now how to better follow God's plan in that sense. To let him control
what happens. To try what I can, but when someone decides to stop, or is not
progressing, to let God do his work, and to not take it so personally. And I trust that
someone might call them back in the future, and maybe they will be more ready
then. I really hope and am praying for Anh Hung and Chi Chi to get to the next
step, because they are still willing to meet. But rather than try to force them
to accept baptism I am going to take a step back and let them experience
repentance and the other blessings of the gospel. I will let God do his work,
and work in my part as he directs me. I think this is something I have needed
to learn for a while, and thought I understood it, but I now see it with
another dimension. This is truly God's work. We have an important role, but we
need to let Him do it His way. I think as I let God do more of His work and as
I keep focusing on doing what I can do, I will see more miracles and success. I
feel this was a personal revelation I really needed, as I realized this when I
was feeling bad right after both Chi Dung and Chi Hang said they would stop
learning. This thought comforted me a lot. Also, Elder Nguyen shared a thought
with me about this as well. He said a lot of missionaries think baptisms makes
a successful missionary and that is not true. I have heard this before, but
always thought "yes, but successful missionaries end up getting
baptisms..." And Elder Nguyen shared a story with me where he met a
returned missionary who had 24 baptisms in his mission, or one a month. But he
did not feel successful, the reason being only two of them were truly converted
and "endured to the end" as is also a part of our purpose. Baptism is
an important step, but is not an end. It is a means to an end, being enduring
to the end. Of course, I will not stop focusing on getting people
prepared for baptism, but I will try to follow God's timing more and help
people reach true conversion on all three pillars of faith, repentance, and
baptism. I will make sure they convert in the right way. This is something very
important I learned this week.
Quick note on my companion, we are getting to know each other better and getting along even better this
week. We saw some good progress, and got some good feedback from our district
leader and his companion. And we are excited to use Chinese as aforementioned!
Things are going well.
And real fast, I will share a scripture here. Today's will
be simple from Matthew 19:20.
I liked how Come Follow Me highlighted this as a sincere
question that all of us also need to ask. What do we lack? Because guaranteed
we all have things to improve. As good as the things we do are, we are still
unprofitable servants. We need to continuously seek the better things we can
do. To be better at ministering to others. To be more loving and patient. To
trust God more. There should not be a point where we feel good enough. We
should always seek more. And I am trying to do that. I have been here for over
a year and a half, and yet I still lack so much. Like in this week, I even have
new things to learn I didn't know I needed to learn. I hope to continue to seek
for that which I lack so I can better serve God with all my heart, might, mind,
and strength.
And that is all for this week. I am looking forward to zone
conference on Thursday! And a new package from my family waiting in District
One... See you all later!
Elder Watson/ Nghiem
P.S. Like in the title of my email, I now have a smartphone. It felt kind of weird at first, but we are still doing missionary work, and it is an extra tool to use. Also, we are getting a new program to use for our English Practice Clubs, that will use powerpoints on TVs, so that is cool. And one last thing, sorry if this email seemed a little more serious. First off, I am quite literally Elder Serious (Nghiêm), but I just copied and edited my email to President Chiles this week to save time. Hopefully not too dry for all of you... I tried to get some fun stuff in... And last note, a third of our congregation on Sunday was Chinese people, so they had their own separate Sunday school class which was cool! Thank you again Brother Rice for bringing your friends!
P.S.S. Also, we are going to the Cu Chi Tunnels next week,
so I will not have too much time to email probably. That's it. Thanks!
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