Elder's Nguyen's Favorite Scripture

"And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

"The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?

"Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever."

- D&C 122:7-9

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Email - Dated Monday, November 19, 2012

Hi everyone,

I don't have pictures this week because I forgot my camera.

It's hot here, though it's not as hot as California.  However it's always very humid, which makes it feel a lot hotter here than in California.

I haven't gotten sick yet, but everyone says that it's only a matter of time, and that every missionary gets sick within the first month of arriving.  I don't know, but it's probably true.

The days here aren't very exciting.  We aren't allowed to street contact in Vietnam, so we often have unfilled time.  My companion and I don't have many investigators, so mostly we teach recent converts.  We have a lot of recent converts to teach, as my companion and I teach most of those lessons, including some for new members taught by the other missionaries in the city.  We teach most of the lessons at church because it's easier for us, but when we go to visit less active members we usually bike there.  It usually takes about an hour, and the traffic is insane.  As I think I said in my last e-mail, there really aren't many traffic rules here (that people follow.)

The food we cook varies from day to day.  Elder Tai and I normally cook more American, but the other companionship cooks more Vietnamese food.  I sometimes cook Vietnamese because it's cheaper, but I usually can find some American stuff (like pasta or bread) on sale or very cheap because we have to go to many places in order to get everything we need.  Occasionally we order pizza if we really don't feel like cooking, there's a couple Dominoes in the city.

I don't miss the MTC for the food (it's much better to cook for myself) but I do miss not having to bike several kilometers a day in traffic that would get a couple million people arrested in America (including the missionaries, we sometimes have to follow traffic in order to actually go through some 4-way "gos", there aren't 4-way stops here unless there are traffic signals.)

One of our investigators (OK, really our only investigator) was baptized yesterday.  Her name is Chi Diem (That's not the correct spelling, but I don't know how to use the Vietnamese settings on this keyboard.)  I do have pictures, but again, I forgot my camera, so I'll send them next week probably.

I still can't really say much in Vietnamese, it's coming very slowly especially because it's hard to understand people.  Sometimesitseemsliketheytalklikethiswithabsolutelynospacesbetweenwordsorsyllables. 

All in all, I'm doing fine here.  Elder Tai is in Hanoi for a leadership assignment or something (he's the zone leader) so I am working with Elder Huyen this week.

Elder Nguyen

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