Best Friends and Prepping for Chinese New Year!

Hi everyone...this is the Missionary MOM!  The Missionary himself has been less than wordy in his recent emails!!!  I have received some photos and messages from Justin's companion, Elder Taylor, and one of his friends over there who is preparing to go on his own mission next summer!

For starters, this is really cool...Elder Taylor's dad is in the NAVY!  And, he was previously in the Utah Army National Guard!  What a small world.  His mom is Vietnamese and so Elder Taylor has a lot of family members in Saigon, too!  Our two families have so much in common and we have had fun communicating back and forth.  Okay, enough with the verbiage...photos tell a thousand words!



Justin is translating a a conference here!  How cool is that?!!!



This is Justin's friend who is getting ready to go on his own mission.  These guys all love hanging out!

Preparing for Chinese New Year.  Elder Taylor's grandmother lives in Saigon.  She got these outfits for them, and she feeds them VERY well!!!!

Watch out for old curry!

Hi everyone...A little bit of news about things in the Mission Field: My companion (E;der Taylor) and I will be moving to a new house! We currently live in a District called Phú Nhuận, and we will be moving to a District called Gò Vấp. So that will be exciting! In our area, we currently have 6 Investigators, and are currently working with 1 recent convert. We are busy, and there are more people to work with! It's truly a blessing! Something interesting is that my companion told me that I've been talking in my sleep and speaking some Vietnamese! Also, we will be getting a traditional Vietnamese clothing called Áo Dào from Elder Chính Tâm's grandparents. They are matching, and they are red with dragons, some gold, etc. I'll have to send you a picture once we get them! Also, my companion and I ate some spoiled curry this week, and it gave us both the runs!

We went ice skating for P-Day last week, too!!!  

Happy New Year 2018 from the Mekong Delta!

Sooo...as a mother, I was stressing out because I know the time frame that my boy usually emails.  That time came and went, and I was like, are you kidding me?  Alas!  He emailed, just 10 hours late!  Better late than never.  Here is a piece of it:

Hi mom!

Mom, I'm so sorry that I wasn't able to email with you earlier today. Today was our Zone P-Day, and we had the rare opportunity of visiting somewhere outside the city. We went to the Mekong Delta, which is the biggest river in Vietnam, and it was amazing! I even got the chance to buy a rice planter hat! I will definitely attach pictures! I also got to visit family on Sunday which was really awesome!

Mom, I am sorry that this email will be short, but I'm in a huge hurry today. The work has also been super busy lately, as we currently have 7 Investigators. But, busy is great!

I love you so much! Little spiritual thought: When we lack wisdom, we must ask God through prayer. When we combine prayer with fasting, that opens the door for the Spirit of Revelation. Let us always remember to be humble and accept that revelation, because our Heavenly Father has given us everything!

Love,

your son, Elder Ly

Back to Saigon I go!

Hi everyone!  Justin is back in Saigon now and very excited to be there.  His emails have been VERY short to his mother, which I guess means that he is busy serving the people, so I will let it slide! He told me that last week, he and his companion were out on the streets and one of his relatives came up and said "Hi!  What's up?"  It really took him by surprise to just run into a family member, and he also thought it was really cool!

We were able to Skype with Justin on Christmas Eve (which was Christmas Day for him...he is 14 hours ahead of us).  He looks and sounds FANTASTIC and his Vietnamese is fluent! His buddy Elder Craghead poked his head into the Skype call to say hi as well.  The cool thing about Craghead is he lives here in Salt Lake City, too, in my sister's neighborhood!  The two of them went out on their missions at the same time and will be coming home at the same time, too. It will be nice for them to have each other when they come home.

Well...Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!  Hopefully Justin will find just a smidgen of time to send an email that is more than just "Hi Mom, everything is good!"

Photos!



1. Saying goodbye at the airport to my companion, Elder Thoai.

2.  Picture from the airplane of beautiful Vietnam...me en route to Saigon!

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3-6.  New companionn: Elder Taylor (Anh Cả Chính Tâm)

7.  My Siagon Zone!!!!

8. Talking to my family (Skype) on Christmas!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Thanksgiving 2017: I'm headed to HONG KONG!

Hello Friends and Family!

I don't have much time today to say much. I will be going to Hong Kong to get my Visa renewed. I hope you all have a great week though, and Thanksgiving is coming up soon so that will be exciting!

Please enjoy some pictures!

1. Our English Class!

2. There was a baptism in the church branch yesterday!

3. Fruit cake.

4. A throwback: the beach in Vietnam.

5. My new tie that I earned from memorizing Scriptures in Vietnamese! It is 100% silk!

November Already???

Hello everyone! Sorry that it's been a while since I sent out a group email, but today I will just mainly send pictures and descriptions, and hopefully something longer next week! 

 

1. We just had some wonderful leaders come to Vietnam to give us training on how we could improve the work for the church. They are Elder and Sister Meurs from Australia!

2. A flashback to the baptism that my old missionary companion Elder Bảo and I had together (with the help of many other missionaries along the way.)

3. This is our district of missionaries for the area that I am working in right now.

October 2017 in HaNoi

Hello Everyone! I hope that you all had a wonderful week! Halloween is coming up soon! I hope that you are all doing well, and that the Holiday Season will be a blessed one for you.

As of now, I will be hitting my year mark on my mission in approximately 3 more days! (I entered the MTC on October 26, 2016). So that is exciting, but it's always good to remember, "Don't count the time, make the time count."

This week I feel inspired to share about how we receive answers to our prayers. I was emailing with my mom about this, and I really like the principle that I learned. I have had increasing struggles with really feeling like I receive answers to my prayers. Receiving answers to our prayers has to do a lot with faith, because if we want to receive an answer or a confirmation, we must act in faith first. Once we show the Lord our faith by action, we can then pray to Him for confirmation as to if what we have done is the right path to go. The answers that we receive to our prayers are not always these big moments. Sometimes, they are quiet feelings of peace that we receive that what we are doing is right. Sometimes, we might feel like the things that we must do in order to act in faith seem too hard to accomplish, or that would require an enormous amount of courage in order to do so. However, we need not fear, because the Lord is with us every step of the way. When we act in faith and when we trust Him, we are "walking beside Him." I want to bear my testimony that prayer has the power to give us direction, guidance, and inspiration when we need it most, and that our Heavenly Father really does answer our prayers. But first, we must act in faith.

I have also been thinking about faith, and I think about the scripture in Alma 32:27: 

27But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words. 

It can be hard to have faith sometimes, but I really love the message of this scripture: When it says "experiment," that makes me think a lot about action. If we really want to have true faith, there must be action. In other words, we must "experiment" by acting. We must also have a desire to believe, and that desire can drive and motivate us to help our faith grow stronger and stronger. I want to bear my Testimony that Prayer and Faith have the power to pull us out of darkness, and provide us with hope. Prayer and faith are the essence of the Iron Rod that leads us to Eternal Life (I Nephi 8). If we truly apply prayer and faith into our lives, Heavenly father and Jesus Christ will help us overcome our challenges. I would like to invite all of you to think about something that you are currently searching for an answer to, and then to act in faith. After you have acted in faith, ask Heavenly Father for that confirmation.

In Mission news, we have our Branch Halloween party coming up this Saturday, so I will definitely have to send some pictures of that next week! Me and my companion (Elder Thoại) currently have three Investigators that we are working with. In our Branch yesterday, we had 42 people attend Sacrament Meeting, which was awesome! A cool fact about Hanoi, Vietnam is that it has a mural that is about a mile long I believe. It's got a Guiness World Record on it for something.

I hope that you will all make it a great week, and may God bless you in all that you do!

Sincerely,

Elder Ly (Anh Cả Dũng)

Pictures:

1-3. Me with my companion Elder Thoại.

HaNoi HALLOWEEN!