Elder Reynolds in Hanoi

Hi Everyone! Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday for those of you celebrating. Good luck to all of you who are preparing for fall finals! You've got this. This week was great! Elder Mayne and I did a lot of contacting (stopping by and saying hi to people) and some lessons too. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with some members, then visited an assisted living home for those who may need an uplifting message.  I've decided "tracting" in an assisted living home is the best because: 1). It's warm.  2). People are friendly and happy to talk.  3). Everyone has their name on their door.  4). All the doors are already open. No knocking required. On Friday we attended the Bemidji Christmas parade and lighting of the city. For being out in the middle of nowhere - they know how to celebrate! They have over 750,000k Christmas lights this year, hoping to hit 1 million in a couple years. Although the celebration was fun, I have never been so cold in my life. ...

  Hello all!  Hope you have been having a fantastic week, and are preparing for Thanksgiving/the holiday season.  TLDR: Left MTC Thursday and flew to Bismarck. Assigned in the Bemidji Minnesota area, a 6 hour drive from Bismarck. My companion is great - the Native American reservations are a little sketchy but fun.  Thursday morning I left the MTC to my reassignment to the Bismark, North Dakota mission. It was hard to say goodbyes, but I know we will see each other again soon! We left on a private bus which dropped us off in SLC, where we then flew to Minneapolis, then to Bismark. I stayed the night at the mission home and met President and Sister Camp. They are wonderful! The next morning, following our training/orientation I was told I was assigned to the  Bemidji Minnesota  area - around a 6 hour drive away from Bismarck. This mission area is massive and includes Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and NW Minnesota. We do lots of driving.  Wi...

  Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a great week! I got to chat to lots of people this week - it's so fun to hear updates from everyone. I hope school, mission, work, or whatever adventure you may be on is going well! As said in the title, this is my final week at the Provo MTC! This Thursday I will be flying to the flatlands of Bismarck, North Dakota where I will meet my trainer and new district. I have to say I'm pretty sad to be leaving my district. They feel like my kids, hahaha. We have bonded and become very close throughout these past 8 weeks. I feel very grateful to feel this sad about leaving. I have really enjoyed serving as a District Leader as well. It was so fun to get to know everyone and serve them - each person helped strengthen my testimony in different ways. Overall, this experience taught me about trusting in God.  Once again, Heavenly Father has proven to me how I need to trust him and his process more. Truly, when I have decided to put my trust in h...

Hi Everyone - This past week was pretty busy and eventful! Friday I was notified my visa for Vietnam had not arrived. Apparently, my "in-country visa" along with all the other missionaries going to Vietnam are waiting in country. However, we need a piece of paper with a stamp on it that proves my name is on a list. So, now it is just waiting on the Church to get things moving.  I received my reassignment to Bismark, North Dakota. Yup - in the middle of November, when I have no winter clothes. It doesn't snow much in Vietnam, so I didn't pack any. If my visa arrives by this Friday, I will be able to travel to Vietnam. If not, I'll be up with President Camp in North Dakota!  Tuesday, I had the opportunity to speak with Elder Homer. It was a super fun experience and went extremely well. Both the MTC Presidency and Elder Homer said it was perfect, that we did a great job. It was a nice compliment to hear - positive feedback is hard to find at the MTC :). I will attach...

Xin Chào! I hope you have had a peaceful and happy week.  This week has been - you guessed it! Yet another pretty predictable and standard week. I have been practicing finding joy and entertainment in the small things. Fortunately, being with a great/funny group of people always makes things easier. If there is one lesson I have learned for certain so far, it is the importance of who you surround yourself with. ______________________________________ Spiritual Thought: This last week in class, when we were practicing how to teach, we had a task to "Testify and Promise Blessings". I was nervous to practice this, because I had never really thought about having to "promise" a blessing in someone's life. It seemed daunting and was something I got to ponder about a lot this week.  To put it shortly, I realized I don't need to put this stress on myself. When we are "promising" blessings to others, we should be drawing upon how we have seen blessings in ou...

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 inspirat...

Good morning campers! It's groundhog day...  Hi everyone! It has been yet another week here at the Provo MTC. The statement, "Days are long, but weeks are short" has become more true with every week that passes by. Part of me are excited for getting into the field, while the other part of me can't believe I will have sufficient Vietnamese/general training for the field.  The schedule has gotten a bit repetitive, which has been a challenge. It is nice to have a routine and predictability with your day, especially in a new environment. However - since we have been here for a month, it isn't really a new environment. However, we have had lots of adventures with volleyball, and an amazing view of the eclipse!  Meeting new people really helps. I especially love meeting the international missionaries. I have befriended many of the missionaries who are from Taiwan/China, come to the MTC to learn English, and are then sent somewhere stateside Mandarin speaking or back to ...