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Familiar Faces and Food

 Alo,

Thank you everyone who reached out about my illness last week! I am doing much better now after eating many bananas and other diet foods. I am back to 100% and eating normally which has been a blessing. Many prayers of gratitude have been said this week.

This week was just full of random stories and events - I didn't take any pictures. Sorry :(. I am going to break my regular email format and just leave some of the small stories in a series of bullet points below from the week. Enjoy!

Monday:
  • Our district went to one of the Mega Malls here in Hanoi and played Pool and Bowling. I got a burger and Dairy Queen ice cream to test my stomach capacity. That was a mistake and I repented.
  • Talked to a man in line at the store - he mentioned he was from France. I tried speaking a little and apologized for not speaking French. He said, in the most French way possible, "Unfortunately, for you!" [That I do not speak French]. I asked him where he was from in Paris - he asked how I knew he was from Paris ;). "Lucky guess". 
Tuesday:
  • Walking at a big intersection near the church when a man came up to me and asked me where a pharmacy was. I told him we could walk with him there, because we were going the same way. He was Italian! He spoke so fast - it was sad that I couldn't talk back much but I could understand what he was saying. 
  • Went finding for 6 hours on Wednesday at a popular tourist destination. It was relatively successful and got lots of people to come to English. We built up quite a crowd while we were talking to people - especially once I started talking to the groups of Chinese tourists. One random guy in the crowd came up and was livestreaming me with around 3 million people watching - so I just said "HEY China! I love China!"  in Mandarin and the streamer/chat about lost their mind. He couldn't find my WeChat which was sad :(.
Wednesday: 
  • A majority of our lessons didn't show up so it was a pretty sad day :( it happens. 
Thursday:
  • Did exchanges with Elder Khôi one of our AP's who is awesome. He will be leaving here at the end of the transfer so I am grateful I got to have one more exchange with him. We were just working every minute we had and it was so fun.
Friday:
  • My sister Katie turned 17 so we got to do a birthday call which was fun. Unfortunately, she was camping so she had no cell service ;). Friday we ate lunch with an expat in the ward who works for the BYU Marriott School of Business. After talking a bit we found we knew a lot of the same people. She works closely with my BYU Study Abroad director and many of my professors from BYU. She also does supply chain here in Vietnam, so we talked a lot. She prepared Australian Ribeye, baked potatoes, (with ranch, shredded cheese, sour cream, humus, carrots, celery), homemade swiss brownies and sugar cookies, and Ben and Jerry Homemade ice cream. Also some delicious bread and jam. It. Was. Wonderful. 
Saturday:
  • Was a long day with lots of meetings. I had a meeting with the FSC, had English activity, and a 1.5 hour singing activity. We had 9 people come tour the church, which was fun! It felt busy, but I liked it. 
Sunday:
  • None of our friends came to church which was a real bummer ;( but it happens. We had leftovers for lunch from the expat lunch and had dinner with Chú Đức and Cô Chi which was fun. Met Brother Foutz who was the brother of a friend from Meridian, Idaho! Small world. 
___________________________________________

Spiritual Thought: D&C 128:22-23

It's a bit long so I won't attach it here - but press on and keep going! Rejoice and know Heavenly Father is with you in all your trials. As we put our trust in Him we will be guided and blessed.
___________________________________________

May you have a wonderful week, love and miss you! 

Anh Cả Reynolds


District Dinner at Dr. Joys


Brother Foutz (Wendy McKinney's brother) and I at church on Sunday


Fun Street Decorations

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