Elder Reynolds in Hanoi

Xin Chào! I hope you have had a peaceful and happy week.  This week has been - you guessed it! Yet another pretty predictable and standard week. I have been practicing finding joy and entertainment in the small things. Fortunately, being with a great/funny group of people always makes things easier. If there is one lesson I have learned for certain so far, it is the importance of who you surround yourself with. ______________________________________ Spiritual Thought: This last week in class, when we were practicing how to teach, we had a task to "Testify and Promise Blessings". I was nervous to practice this, because I had never really thought about having to "promise" a blessing in someone's life. It seemed daunting and was something I got to ponder about a lot this week.  To put it shortly, I realized I don't need to put this stress on myself. When we are "promising" blessings to others, we should be drawing upon how we have seen blessings in ou

Hello everyone!  I hope you are all having an amazing week and getting ready for the fall season. The mountains here in Utah are beautiful this time of year, full of orange and red colors from the trees. It makes me miss studying at the library at BYU on a cold day.  This week was busy with plenty of language study and fun stories. This week, I ran into some sisters who are here at the MTC from Northern Italy. They didn't speak any English, and my Italian was certainly not great - but it was fun just to be able to introduce ourselves and say "Ciao!".  To be honest, this was probably my hardest week at the MTC. It seemed like one thing after another would start to build upon each other, trial after trial.  Many of you know, this week my wonderful grandmother passed away. She has always been an inspiration to me, especially as a missionary. She always gave her 100%. I remember she told me to "Do good" the last time I talked to her. That phrase has been an inspirat

Good morning campers! It's groundhog day...  Hi everyone! It has been yet another week here at the Provo MTC. The statement, "Days are long, but weeks are short" has become more true with every week that passes by. Part of me are excited for getting into the field, while the other part of me can't believe I will have sufficient Vietnamese/general training for the field.  The schedule has gotten a bit repetitive, which has been a challenge. It is nice to have a routine and predictability with your day, especially in a new environment. However - since we have been here for a month, it isn't really a new environment. However, we have had lots of adventures with volleyball, and an amazing view of the eclipse!  Meeting new people really helps. I especially love meeting the international missionaries. I have befriended many of the missionaries who are from Taiwan/China, come to the MTC to learn English, and are then sent somewhere stateside Mandarin speaking or back to

Hello all -  Ethan wrote this email Sunday night, but wanted me to add that they got to meet the Chairman of the Government Committee on Religious Affairs (for Vietnam), Mr. Vu Hoai Bac. He came the Monday after general conference, so the missionaries' P-day was a little fuller than usual, but Ethan said it was a lot of fun. Mr. Bac observed the missionaries (or volunteers, as they call themselves for political purposes) in class. Ethan said the meeting went as well as it could have, short of him passing out Visas to everyone on the spot :). Here is everything else he has been up to: ________________________________________________________ Hello everyone, hope you have had a great week! This week marks the first full week of Vietnamese language immersion - I can tell you it is certainly different than Mandarin/Chinese. It has been strange learning a language where you actually have to read/pronounce letters, instead of just memorizing the symbols/characters. With time and lots of p

Hi everyone!  Hope you have been having a great week. Things have been pretty normal here at the MTC. Lots of studying and district/group activities. It has been fun to be district leader, I really love the group I have. We have a fun dynamic and have great unity. To help with our sanity, I got a deck of Uno cards. Unfortunately, card games are not allowed at the MTC. Therefore, I designated Uno as a "group language learning activity" for us to practice colors and numbers. The only rule is we have to say the number and color of the card that is played. Other than that, it is regular Uno. The Elders in the room below have come up with a new type of game in their room. I don't know all the rules, but it involves kicking a hacky sack above some soda cans, without knocking them over, but then landing it in a Pringles Can. If you knock the cans over you lose points. I will attach a photo of it below, maybe I'll try to get a video of it sometime. It gets pretty intense. Peo