Email #3!

Xin chào giah đinh của tôi,

Well, its hard to believe that we've been here for 3 weeks already. There is still so much to learn, but looking back, we have already learned so much!

We have had a lot of good devotionals and many great experiences in the classroom. Theres no way that I can remember everything, but I'll get straight to the good stuff.

General Conference was amazing! First, it was great to get a break from the rigor of the study here at the MTC. We had a whole weekend to relax. We didnt have to thing about Vietnamese or our current situations with our investigators. We didnt have to sit through hours upon hours of class. And best of all, we ocassionally had time to take a nap! I guess thats not really the best of all though. Really, the best part was getting to hear the words and counsel of the prophets of the Lord. Their words and teachings seem so much more vivid as a missionary. This is true of the scriptures as well. The stories and lessons seem to be personally directed at me, almost as if I was actually living the stories myself. It is awesome! The announcements of the new temples was an incredible thing as well. To see the work progressing through results, like building temples, is truly inspiring. Especially the news about Provo Temple #2. That is absolutely crazy! I cant wait for when I'm back from my mission and can go throught that temple myself (assuming its finished by then). All of the sessions of Conference were extrememly inspiring. On Sunday, we still had our normal Sunday Night Fireside. That was also awesome. It was given by Brother Chad Lewis, former BYU and Philadelphia Eagle player. His stories were inspiring and provided great insight to the things that we, as missionaries, can do during and after our missions to continue the service of the Lord. After the fireside, we also had the opportunity to watch the movie, The Testaments. They have films available to watch every Sunday night, but we have never been able to go because we have had had so much to do to prepare for class and teaching our investigators. But, we stayed and watched this time. We all knew that The Testaments is a powerful witness and wanted to watch it. I love that movie! Basically, it all added up to one spectacular weekend.

Yesterday, was a sort of milestone for me in our teaching and learning. We taught one of our investigators, Chú Cường, yesterday morning. We enjoy teaching, but Chú Cường has not been keeping commitments and has not prayed with us when we have asked him. The reason this lesson was so awesome to me was for two reasons. First, I noticed that Vietnamese doesnt sound that strange to me anymore. Its kinda hard to explain. When I first cam here, and Cô Hương was speaking in Vietnamese, is sounded so alien. Not just because I didnt know what she was saying but that the language itself just sounded strange. But as I was teaching Chú, I realized that I was speaking it, and it just felt right. The second reason it was so awesome is that for the first time teaching in Vietnamese, I felt guided by the Spirit to say certain things. Ever since we started doing role play in class in English, I really had a strong desire to be able to teach the same way in Vietnamese. I knew that it would take a while, but to have it happen, even just a little was awesome.

We found out from our other teacher Thay Tuân that there are currently some Vietnamese delegates in the area. They are here for some sort of meeting at BYU or something like that. He was working to help translate for them. The cool part is that they might be stopping by the MTC sometime. The reason thats even cooler is that they are like Protestant Reps for Vietnam, or something of that nature. Its through them that Vietnam will open to missionaries in the future. Apparently, we are getting pretty close to that time. So it they come here, we could influence that decision.

Our district is growing closer and closer together as we continue to learn with and about each other. We have a ton of good times. Just last night though, Cô Hương challenged us to be more focused, study harder, and maybe change the way we study if need be, so that we can do better to fulfill our purpose. It was great to see our district rise to that challenge instantly. When we got back to our rooms that night, instead of our normal fooling around, many were studying.

The work goes well here. Its great to hear from everybody and I hope that continues to happen.

Xin chào,

Anh cả Manhardt