Elder Reynolds in Hanoi

  Alo - This week the work was a little bit slower, but we had some adventures to keep things moving.  Monday: We had an early start to our P-Day. We biked to the church to call our families since the internet in our apartment died. Fortunately, it works now. It just meant we went out early for burgers and golf, which was great. I still haven't broken 200 yards which is disappointing, but I have got 198 yards. My form is terrible, so send me any tips you have. For P-Day today we are meeting up as a Zone at the golf simulator and playing together, so it should be fun! Tuesday:  Tuesday we had an exchange, but when we came home at night we discovered our apartment was sprayed with "water proofing" chemicals in the bathroom, so our apartment smelled awful. After about 30min all of our heads were hurting. Fortunately, the mission home is not far from our apartment, so we stayed the night there. The following morning President Howell joined us for basketball, which was enjoyab...

 Alo- Hope you are doing well and staying successful!  This week was relatively eventful. We had our Zone Conference here in Hanoi. Then, Elder Esplin and I flew down South to Saigon for 2 days to do our training. We ordered a bunch of cheap kid golf equipment and related it to weekly planning. Right when the golf balls would get close to going in the hole, we would have our mission president and his wife kick/block the golf balls to represent adversity and unexpected challenges we face. It was fun and people seemed to enjoy it. The airplane even had a golf simulator game on it, so we had some fun preparing and training.  I did exchanges with the Elders currently serving in the Phú Mỹ Hưng area. We got smoothies and other classic southern food. It was delicious! While the phở and Bún Chả is good here in the North, the South has about everything else beat. We flew back Saturday night and then had our normal busy Sunday doing church and calling our friends in the mission br...

 Alo - This week was a pretty standard and busy. We have mainly been preparing for our Zone Conference and getting everything planned out. The first half of this week I will be here in Hanoi, and then I will travel down south to Saigon for the other Zone Conference training. It will be like last time. I look forward to seeing all the missionaries in the south, along with the good food and the smoothies.  Main highlights of this week were small things but they made me happy. Sunday and Saturday we taught our friend Em Quý from the mission branch. She is a ball of energy and has a hard time focusing -- but this week we found a solution. She loves her stuffed animals, so we improvised and used our Doremon and shark plushies in the apartment to help us teach. It was a funny lesson and really effective. Sunday we met at a members house for a celebration of the Relief Society. Pretty much the entire branch showed up so it was packed. We had some duck and lots of dessert and socializ...

  Alo, Hope you are doing well. This week was a pretty busy week, however nothing extremely eventful or out of ordinary happened. Lots of little things happen throughout the week, and upon reviewing my journal it looks like I have forgotten to write them down. Regardless, this week was really fun. It was a good week.  For P-Day last week Elder Esplin and I got some burgers and then went golfing at a golf simulator. It was really nice - we had a whole private room, so no one other than us would suffer through my terrible golfing. My record was 143 yards - equal to that of a 16 year old female pro golfer - so watch out.  I guess I am just trying to get ready for the future business meetings.  The golf simulator is in a large megamall, and we took the elevator to the top floor to find it was an observation deck over Hanoi.  Great view, if it wasn't raining and over 250+ air quality index, but we still got to see a little.  Upon a little more exploration we fou...

  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 ...