Just a Coincidence? I Think Not! (Week 103)

Monday September 23, 2019

Just a Coincidence? I Think Not! (Week 103)

Hello everyone!

I will be really short today, but just wanted to get something out there. This was a more challenging week, with quite a few cancelled or stood up appointments... but there were good parts too! We are still working with Chi Phuong, who is President Long's wife. We had a great lesson the other day on the Plan of Salvation. She seemed to just get everything! It was super cool. And President Long was able to share a lot, as did Chi Ngoc who helped in the lesson. We now have a consistent schedule set up with her, so that is a plus! And she just seems to like what we have shared. It would also be awesome if she would come to Sacrament meeting, and then we would have another family at church! Also, Em Bac is doing well. His new job is still busy, but he is still doing good. We are not sure what is happening with Anh Dap, he has been canceling a lot lately. And he has not been to church in almost a month now... We may just stop by and visit one day... And we are trying to find new people, but this last week was a bit rough in it. But we are still pressing forward!
 

For some good things, we got to visit Chi Phuong and Chi Uyen's house for dinner yesterday along with Em Huy. It was good, and we talked quite a bit with them. Also, I picked out some ties to buy and take home later, because Chi Phuong makes cool ties. Also, we have district conference coming up on Sunday! We should have a few new Melchizedek priesthood holders in our branch! And it will be my last Sunday here... But it will be cool that we get to have district conference!

 

 

So, I will say this has been a tough week as a whole. And I was starting to feel down a bit, and wonder why things were going as they were, if it was even making a difference. But then I saw a miracle. Two actually. So, while this week has been tough, last night, I got a text from an investigator I had been teaching in Thủ Đức, Em Huy. He told me he was getting baptized this Sunday and thanked me for helping teach him. That was really awesome to hear! So that helped me feel better. And then today, I got a text from Em Vy in Bình Dương, and she is also getting baptized this Sunday! Her parents finally approved! I feel these two pieces of news were not coincidentally done right now. I felt that was God comforting me in the face of affliction. Hearing that helped me see that my efforts have meant something. Everything is done on God's time table, but it is done. And his timing is much better than what we could have planned. I was grateful for this tender mercy, and the renewed strength I now have. I know God is real and knows what we need. He directs all things.

And that leaves me with one more full week! I will make it count! And the few days more after that.

Well, thank you for reading this today, one more letter to go next week!
Oh, by the way, my dad loves to capture a screenshot of his phone counting down my return!

Elder Watson/ Nghiem

P.S. When the world feels upside down, God will put it right side up!

 

Count Your Blessings! (Week 102)

Mon, Sep 16, 2019

Count Your Blessings! (Week 102)

Hello everyone!

This email is going to be super short! Sorry! The time for P Day is ticking down... but this has been a great week! It was also Elder Chinh Tam's last. It was a little said to say goodbye as he got in the car to drive to the mission home, but it was good to serve with him this past month. He has worked hard, and is now moving to the next point of life.

And scarily enough, I am not far behind him! Just a few more weeks... Well, like I said we had a great week! We found several new people to teach this week! That should be covered in my email to President Chiles that I will include part of below. And the best part of the week, we got to visit the former branch president's family and help them decide to come back to church. Actually, it didn't take much on our part, we just came and shared a brief message. I guess God has really been preparing them. Off hand, they said they would come back to church with no prompting from us. And Chi Hien shared a really strong testimony of the gospel and said she felt us coming was God telling her it was time to come back. They had no real concerns but were super happy to see us! That was by far the best part of the week. They are a wonderful family, and the gospel will bless them so much, and they will bless so many others as they follow Christ's path. And Em Dung (or Bin) was awesome in helping with this! He loves the church and was the one who initially invited us back over when we dropped by one day. We are super excited for them! God is so good! More on that in a bit...

But real fast to save time, here are some bits of my email to President Chiles.

“...we had two appointments earlier today, and that made our day a bit different too. One was totally unplanned, but we got called out of the blue by someone who had canceled meeting today, and he said he had a friend ready to meet us then. So we met Co Tien for a bit and she accepted to meet again with him to learn on Wednesday. That was cool! And we got lunch with Chi Trang and her brother, Bac. It was good to talk with them and getting to know Bac better. He came to church this last week and we were really excited about that. He has learned with the missionaries before, but got busy with work. But now he is back! ...Well, this week proved to be a good one. We got three new investigators. Bac Thong, who came to church on Sunday and loved it. He is already Christian but seems intrigued by the Book of Mormon (Another Testament of Jesus Christ). We have Anh Khang, who was an interesting case. We met him on the street and shared a full message with him. He agreed to meet again, but didn't come to his appointment sadly... we don't have any way to contact him now... but he seemed like he had good potential. Maybe someone will find him again in the future. And finally, we have Em Bac. He is Chi Trang's sister... Anh Dap is still good, and is making progress. We will probably rearrange his baptismal date to October. His brother, Hoa came to church since it was Elder Chinh Tam's last time. He seemed to enjoy it and will hopefully consider coming back. He has said no in the past, but this was his first time to come. I think he had a great experience, so hopefully that will help him want to come back! Em Quoc got a baptismal date... And everyone else is doing about the same. Our church attendance was about the same this last week, but we had a lot more nonmembers come. I don't know what happened to all the members though... also, our district is now focusing on getting our members more active in our own branch! ...and we and the branch have set a goal to get 50 people at Sacrament meeting the first week of October. We are focusing on getting members and nonmembers there! And one other thing, Anh Huy came to church! We told him it was Elder Chinh Tam's last time, so he came! Hopefully he will keep coming! And we got to visit President Hien's family this week too, and that went really well! (See above)... So, it seems like there are a lot of good things going on here!

For truths, I have seen the last few weeks as tough, and there is definitely room to improve, but just reflecting on what we have done here (and Elder Chinh Tam was pointing this out earlier) we have done a good bit in four weeks. We helped bring a less active member back to church, and a less active family to commit to return. And they will be a great strength to the branch! And we have found several awesome investigators. Times feel tough in the moment, but when you look at the good and count your blessings, you see that God really is good and has been blessing you through everything! The other night, we were talking about our past areas and I was reflecting on all my branches. And looking back on it, I could see I met lots of awesome people who I got to help. And I grew so much. Sure there were hard times, but they seemed so small looking back on it! ...really, looking back, I could almost only see good. God blesses us in everything we do! I am so grateful for God's hand guiding this work. Even at times when I feel everything is going wrong, he is working things out for good..."

And I will finish quoting it there. It has been a great last week. And I have really had a great two years. If you ever feel down and like you are in hardships, just look back and try to count all the good things. You will see the Lord is truly trying to work out all for your happiness!

 

Well, I am looking forward to zone conference tomorrow, and figuring out how to work now in our two-person companionship. I know the Lord will help us as we strive to magnify our callings and serve Him. I am so grateful to be here serving the wonderful Vietnamese people at this time.

Well, happy Mid-Autumn Festival! (Last Friday)

 

Elder Watson/ Nghiem
 

Seeing Strengths in Struggles... (Week 101)

Mon, September 9, 2019

Seeing Strengths in Struggles... (Week 101) 

 

Hello everyone!

 
Wow, I am already in the last month of my mission... Time goes by crazy fast. My one sister is already off to college (before me!) and I heard one of my friends is going to graduate in this next semester! So I guess time doesn't stand still. Well, I may have only one month left, but things are still happening and I am still growing. I am going to forward you all a part of my email to President Chiles this week.

 

 

 

"This has been a good week overall. Definitely not an easy one, and it had some dissapointments, but we learned a lot and feel like things are going in the right direction... for our area, we have been getting better on contacting (thanks to our exchange with Elder Chinh), and are working to see more results from that this coming week. Some of the struggles we have been seeing is getting people to church and progressing. They are probably interconnected. We only have one person progressing, and he is border line not progressing (he is meeting, but has not come to church the last two weeks. He keeps other commitments though.). We only had one person come to church despite quite a few confirming. We tried to do our CHURCH list better this week, but did not see much outward results from it. The other companionships here felt the same way. So I guess we will council more on what it would take to get people to sacrament. It was a bit disappointing, but we will try harder and rely on the Lord to see the miracles this next week. If we try to do all that is in our power, then the Lord can help direct the rest. We did get one new investigator this week, Co Huong. Her lesson was really interesting. It didn't seem to be going anywhere, but Elder Chinh Tam decided to give her a Book of Mormon, and she got really excited and said she would read the whole thing, and would read for an hour or two every day! She said she is looking for a belief that suits her. So that was cool. And her sister, Chi Hien, is investigating with the west sisters. Anh Dap is our one who is progressing. He is great in lessons, but we are not sure why he has not come to church the last two weeks. He did give reasons afterwards, but before with each call confirmed he was coming. Hopefully he was just legitimately busy the last two weeks. We will teach the importance of the Sabbath this week though to help him see how coming to church will bless his life. And we will now meet Chi Vien and Em Quoc this week, so that is cool. We had not seen them since the transfer started, but they both have come back and seem really cool. And that is about it for our investigators. This area needs some new energy, I think we will need to find more, as there is not much to flow with. We will help those we have, but should definitely have time to find. Also, something I will focus on with the district is setting a vision, not only for the transfer, but also long term. Elder Chinh talked to Elder Chinh Tam and I about this. We don't have a lot of time left, and yes we want to do all we can now, but we also want to help set things up so they can go even higher once we are gone. This district could use a vision, and if they have a plan to reach it, then this area will keep growing even after Elder Chinh Tam and I go. So, we will be coming up with plans to help our investigators come to church, and will also focus on strengthening the members.

For truths, I have seen God help us grow in all circumstances. I have learned things in this area that I had not learned before. I am still not perfect at talking to 10 people a day, but now that we have the need to find, I am working harder at it and my faith in the results is growing. And I am seeing it is not as hard as I have always thought it to be. So that is one hidden blessing in that our area does not yet have a lot of investigators. I am also seeing how to truly help the branch members. And so much more. This is definitely not a cool down period, but a period of continued growth. We have hit setbacks, but I have faith that as we keep working through them, we will see the Lord's promised blessings.

For scriptures, I have reflected a bit on humility and how the Lord helps us. This is partially inspired by Anh Vuong's (member of the mission presidency) training in branch council. He quoted Ether 12:27. It is so interesting. We all question why we have weaknesses. Some of us try to deny them. Others wonder why God would allow us to have them, and see it as hopeless to try to change. But God's promise is if we come unto him, he will help us work through our weaknesses and make them strengths. He wants us to be humble and have faith. It is only when we humble ourselves to become like the Savior that we can truly be successful. As we teach in His way, we will see it is the best way, and the way he can truly help us grow."

 

 

 

 
Well, hopefully that gives you a glimpse into how this week has gone. We have all been a little discouraged at having difficulty getting people to church, and we are not sure why, but we have faith that as we do what we know, testify of blessings, and seek revelation to help those in our area, that revelation will come. The Lord will direct us in how to best help these people. As he knows them far better than we do. We also are trying to improve our finding efforts and saw some good success this last week and hope to meet some of those people again this week to help them come closer to God and Christ.

 

These last few weeks have been tough and tiring, but I know the gospel is true and has been restored in these latter days through a prophet of God. I know that my struggles and challenges are so small compared to what Jesus Christ did for me. And I know that because of what He did for me, I have the responsibility and privilege to share it with those I meet here in Vietnam. Keep following Him and He will make more of you than you could possibly imagine.

 

Have a good week! Until the next one!

Elder Watson/ Nghiem

 

P.S. Elder Quoc requested I send a photo of me with my companions. Here it is! Here we are visiting with another member named Huy. It is the first photo I found with my whole companionship in it...

 

No it can't be! (Week 100)

September 2, 2019 (Week 100)

No it can't be!! I'm at Week 100?!?
Also, I can't believe my sister Kate is at college before me! She starts up this week right after Labor Day!

 

My parents are driving home from dropping off Kate at BYU, so communication today and for this blog posting is going to be light, but here are some pictures from my side of the world...

Our branch had an activity where we assisted at the Hanoi Nursing Center for Elderly and Disabled Children. What a great opportunity to serve with some very caring people to help others in need! Afterward we also had a great time with some outdoor games! I will post those under Week 99...