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