WEEK 5: Oct 16th - Oct 23rd

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 inspiration for me this week.

Today we got to go to the temple which was uplifting. I learned a lot about the power of joy and how we can focus on it in times of trial. Although life is difficult, joy was created for us.

In other news, one of our sisters sliced her hand open with a knife. She is doing good now and will be recovering for the next couple weeks - I am just happy she still has high spirits.

I will be creating a Google Photos soon where I will share all my photos for people to view when they would like. I will put the link on every week.

Love you all,

Elder Reynolds

Comments

Hours in Hồ Chí Minh

Alo, This week was an adventure - filled with good stories and blessings. I'm a little tired, but I'd rather be a tired missionary than a bored missionary. Monday - Trains, Planes, and Automobiles Monday afternoon while enjoying Preparation Day in the Old Quarter District, we got a call from the Elders who help our Mission President, the Assistants. The Assistants were flying down later in the evening to Hồ Chí Minh City to do a mission presentation -- but unfortunately one of them became very ill and would be unable to fly. They asked if I would be willing to pack and head down to help. Certainly wasn't what we expected, but we were ready to help. Elder McBride and I traveled back to Hà Đông, packed, and headed over. Elder McBride stayed with the ill missionary, while the other Assistant and I went down South. We left at 7:15pm and landed in Hồ Chí Minh at 9:30pm. We got a taxi and stayed the night in Thảo Điền- the very first area I served in Vietnam, one year ...

Welcome to Vietnam - Don't Take the Honking Personally

Xin chào mọi người! They're sending me to Vietnam... it's a whole lot of scooters... Things have been great here in Vietnam. I'm currently sitting in a park after doing my second dance practice with some people we met last week. We're waiting for a friend to meet us to play some pickleball. If I wrote down everything that has happened within the past week this email would be too large to send, so here is a brief bullet point list of the highlights: -Landed in Hanoi and did orientation. Was told I would be serving in the Ho Chi Minh area. Woo hoo! My Mission Presidency is awesome. -Met my companion Elder Luân. His English is good but communicating is sometimes still difficult. 😅 I am constantly speaking Vietnamese, which has helped me learn a lot. -Had first English Activity night and taught about Idaho, haha. The slideshow was already made by someone from Vietnam, and went over all the highlights of things like: Potatoes, sagebrush, dairy cows, and irrigation....

Hanoian Hamburgers

Alo- Hope you are doing well and enjoying the Spring Weather. We are hoping to start getting some warmer weather this next week (meaning the grey overcast that has been here for the past 3.5 months leaves). This week I don't really have much to report on. Always Adjusting: This week was mainly just adjustment to the new area and assignment. This transfer I'll be helping as an Assistant, which is mainly a lot of behind the scenes work. It reminds me a lot of when I was doing Social Media work a little over a year ago - rather than managing the social media, you help with different aspects of the mission. There isn't anything extremely stressful or overwhelming -- it is just lots of small tasks you have to learn to do. My current companion has great experience in this role and has been teaching me lots. He leaves at the end of this transfer, so I am trying to absorb as much as I can to get it ready for the next transfer. The Mission Branch: One aspect I have been enjoying ...

Elder Reynolds in Hanoi

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