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Putting The "Bad" in Badminton

 Xin chào mọi người! 大家好! Hello everyone!

Hoping you had a wonderful week! I hope you are planning some fun Spring Break activities and getting through midterms and projects. Let me know what you have been up to and how life has been!

This week was pretty fun. The interactions I have with people sometimes are just bizzare and so small, I forget to write it down. I absolutely love it though. Here is some of the highlight activities and stories from this week: 

Independence Palace P-Day and Sushi:

Last preparation day was pretty fun! We met with the district at a nice sushi place and then went to Independence Palace! This is basically the old whitehouse of southern Vietnam, when Ho Chi Minh was Saigon. It was full of very big conference rooms and cool paintings. The grounds were beautiful, I really enjoyed it. We also ran into a group of Italian tourists, so I got to speak some Italian which was fun. They were pretty surprised, to say the least. 

Draco Malfoy:

You know Malfoy, the character from Harry Potter? People keep saying I look like him. It has happened on 3 different occasions now. That's all. 

Exchange with Elder Nienhuis:

This week I got to go on another exchange with Elder Nienhuis and it was fun! He showed me some good places to eat and we had a good lesson helping someone prepare for the Thailand Temple. Super excited for them! 

Badminton:

Badminton is a pretty popular sport/activity here. Elder Tolley and I decided to get some rackets and shuttles so we could join. After doing a warm up game with the other Elders, and then a badminton activity, I can certainly say I need to practice more. (In my defense, the wind was super strong at the badminton activity we had. So, maybe I'm not terrible, but I am certainly not great). On our way back... we ran into another Italian! I think I scared him when, to my surprise I shouted, "I speak some Italian" in Italian to him. Italian count for the week: 4! 

Meeting Moroni?

While walking back to our apartment from a park, a Vietnamese man walking in our opposite direction waved us down and yelled to us, in English, "Brothers! Come here". The interaction goes as follows: 

Us: "Hi! It seems like you know us?"

Bald Vietnamese Man: "Yes I am a Mormon Member. I was baptized in the Tân Sơn Nhất Branch. (That is the branch I serve in. We have never seen him before.) I was baptized two years ago.

Us: "Wow! That is amazing. I don't think we have met. What is your name?"

Bald Vietnamese Man: "My name is Moroni". Points to his two friends walking with him. "Now, invite them to church". 

Us: Invites them to church and shares the address. They came to church! 

Moral of the story: If you are recognized in public and someone says they are named after an angel or prophet of God... I guess listen to them? I don't know. It was just really bizarre. 

_________________________________________

Other than that, things have been pretty standard here. We are working hard and biking lots. I have gotten pretty used to the weather, so I'm "less" of a sweaty disgusting mess when I bike around now. I took pictures this week (and stole some from Chị Mai haha) so go check them out on Google Photos!

Song Stuck In My Head This Week: You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog. Listen to it for me! 

Love you all,

Anh Cả Reynolds 


It was light traffic (for real) so we snapped a picture!













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