Tết Trung Thu | Mid-Autumn Festival

Alo,

Hope you are doing well and wishing you a nice beginning to your fall and some cooler temperatures. I'll miss all the leaves turning colors! Fall always reminds me of going to school and doing work at the library. I think I literally wrote this same thought in an email last year while I was in the MTC...

One Year:

I'm a little late to write fully on this, but yes - I have now been a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for one year now. People ask, "Has it gone by fast? Slow?", and to that I would answer- it's been a year, haha. It's had challenges and successes. Good and bad. Overall, it's been pretty fun. I'm grateful for all that has happened, what I have learned, and look forward to next year.

This Week:

This week was pretty standard but had some small adventures, so I'll just do a quick list:

Elder Kotter and Elder Nelson had MLC, so I went to the Hà Đông area. I was with Elder Tolley and Elder Luân, two of my old companions! Elder Luân was my trainer when I first arrived in Vietnam - he was surprised I could form comprehensible sentences now. Not good sentences, just comprehensible. Don't worry, he reminded me.

Our mission received two new Senior Missionaries, Elder and Sister Adams. They will be serving here as Missionary Medical for when Elders go eat at the sketchy food stand places and get sick. Like I have any right to give people a hard time. They will also help strengthen the branch here in Hai Bà Trưng. We look forward to having them! They are awesome.

Sunday we were visited by one of the former Mission Presidents, Elder Chiles, who is now an Area 70 over Vietnam. He currently lives in Taiwan and works in manufacturing. Sounds like a nice life. Anyways - he came and we had a branch coordination meeting to help organize some things in the branch. We discussed the pillars of what makes a strong branch and how love needs to be a central part of it. He gave good feedback and insights on how this can be done in leadership. It was interesting.

Mid-Autumn Festival was this week. We ate lots of Mooncakes.

___________________________________________

That's really all for what happened this week! I am going to work on taking more photos and videos. Sorry Mom!

Love,

Anh Cả Reynolds

Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/KXNEyuJ6epdKQtAq6

Comments

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....

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 ...

We Didn't Start The Fire

(Note from Sally: This week is an extra long letter, so good thing you have the holiday break to read it. :) Ethan just found out this morning that he was on the Vietnamese National News - his part starts at the 19:00min mark. Also, he was asked to write his testimony and thoughts about this Christmas to share with our home ward here in Idaho, so I attached those in a Word Doc as well. ) Merry Christmas! Alo mọi người, Yes - the title of the email is a reference to Billy Joel "We Didn't Start The Fire" and it is relevant to the story. This week was one for the books. That's why this email is going to be a bit longer than the previous ones I have been sending. We've had about everything, from the police in our apartment to a wild Branch Christmas Party. Make sure to check out the Google Photo Album this week. Last Monday - The Vietnamese UFO: Last Preparation Day, as I mentioned in the previous email we were visiting a Non-Profit Government Organizati...

Elder Reynolds in Hanoi

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