1/23/12 Email

Happy New Year everyone!

 

No, I haven't gone crazy (at least not yet). Today is the Lunar New Year/ Vietnamese New Year/ Chinese New Year, whatever you want to call it. It is a super huge holiday in the culture. It is a giant celebration that lasts for days, and today is the first. It is the year 2012, the year of the dragon. We were walking through a Vietnamese complex yesterday around 7:00 and there were already tons of people outside having parties and barbeque's and playing games and sorts of stuff. Obviously, we couldn't stay for the real festivities at midnight, but I can only imagine that it was pretty epic.

 

There wasn't a whole lot that happened last week. Just another week where we are trying to find people to teach. A lot of the things that we were planning on doing or hoping would happen didn't, and a lot of things that we weren't planning on or expecting did happen. All in all, it turned out to be an ok week.

 

Saturday was one day that was really fun. On Saturday we had our normal English Class, though only one student came. Due to mission rules, we couldn't teach her there alone, but after some quick calls, we had some people there to help us out. The English Class part went well, but what was even better was afterwards when we asked if we could share a message about our Church. She said of course, and we went to work teaching her about the Restoration. It was a spectacular lesson and it was very cool to see English Class work the way it is supposed to, as a finding opportunity.

 

Later on Saturday was the New Years party on the other side of Houston at the Vietnamese Branch. We had permission to go and it was a lot of fun. The main event was having the Dragon Dancers. That was pretty incredible, though, of course, I forgot my camera. Other people had them though, so I'll see what I can do to get some pictures/movies sent to you guys. The party was great and the experience will be helpful for us as we try and put together the final touches on the party that we are having at our ward.

 

Well, I don't think I have much else to write about for the week. Maybe this week will be more eventful? On that note, it sounds like this last week was super eventful for all of you guys back at home. All sorts of stuff going on. Thats great and it sounds like everything is going very well.

 

Until next week

Love

Elder Phong Manhart

1/16/12 Email

Well, this week has been interesting.

 

So, Wednesday was transfer meeting. Transfer meetings are pretty great. It starts off with the introduction of the new missionaries coming into the mission. That was fun and also pretty strange as it meant that there are now missionaries around that are younger missionaries than me. Whoa. How'd that happen? I'm starting to get old (well not really, but its a start). President chooses some people to share their testimonies, which is of course always good to hear. Then the fun starts of finding out who is going where and with whom. Its all pretty exciting. As a Viet missionary, there wsn't a whole lot of surprise or suspense because I knew who my new companion would be as soon as I walked in the doors of the chapel. There weren't a whole lot of options to begin with anyways. So my new companion is Elder Hoopes, or Anh Ca Phuc (sorry no Viet markings, the library pcs are pretty locked). He is from Wyoming and has been here in Houston for a bit more than a year. Its only been half a week, but it seems like things will be pretty good.

 

The work in the area is still moving pretty slow. We have essentially nobody to teach that is interested enough to progress. We are trying to fix that, but it has been a slow process and we aren't really sure what else we can do to find new investigators. One thing that should be pretty good though is a ward activity that we are helping put together. It is for the Vietnamese New Year. It should be great, with a lot of Asian food and decoratinos and such. The Lunar New Year is a huge holiday in the culture so we are hoping that it will be good. We are trying to make it a good activity, but not just a party, a missionary finding tool. We are planning on doing a church tour at the end to help people feel the Spirit which is especially strong at the church.

 

Other than that, we are just trying to get things going here. We are hoping that this activity will help jump start the area, but we can't just rely on that. We'll see what we come up with to get the work moving.

 

Thats about all I've got for this week. Hope all is going well out there in the cold world (yeah it was almost 80 degrees yesterday).

 

Love

Elder Phong Manhardt

1/9/12 Email

Well, it has already been one transfer period (6 weeks), and Elder Wilkinson is getting transferred. So, on Wednesday we will go to the transfer meeting and I will find out who my new companion will be. Really, there's only 2 possibilities, but we'll have to wait until then to find out.   Ok, so this last week was really good, but not as good as we were hoping, or at least not good for the same reasons that we though it would.   First, let me finish my story from last week. While we were in that complex, we stumbled across 3 people by cool coincidence. We were taking the time to help out a guy understand some legal papers that he had. As we were doing so, two girls walk by and we give a friendly "hello, how are you." They just completely ignored us. Oh well. We finish up with the guy several minutes later and start on our way back to our car. The same two girls were standing outside a nearby apartment. We said hello again in passing and again they ignored us. We kept walking but then one called out to ask for help. They were apparently new and were locked out of their apartment. Their friend/roommate was inside but couldn't hear them knocking. They wanted to borrow our phone to try and call him. Eventually we got through and the door was opened. We talked with the 3 of them and found out that they had only just got to America from Vietnam 4 days previous. Whoa, very new. They agreed to having us come by the next night. It all made for a very cool day.   So, now things are kinda interesting. The one referral has issues because her mother isnt too pleased with her visiting with us. The 3 new people are not particularly interested in the Church, they mostly just want some friends. But this week was still good. We have a few other people that we are going to begin teaching and things are looking pretty good. Of course, Elder Wilkinson is leaving, so who knows how that will change anything, if at all.   Other than transfers and our trying to find people to teach, there isn't a whole lot that I can think of to write. I did get that package, thanks so much! With Elder Wilkinson getting transferred, it couldn't have come at a better time. I should have a lot more to write about next week.   Glad to hear that things are going well out there and to hear about Ben's baptism. That's great! Keep doing awesome!   Love, Elder Phong Manhardt

Apologies...

Just wanted to say I'm sorry that I haven't been keeping up with posting over the holidays!  I think I have things together a little better now, so hopefully I'll be able to keep on track!  Hope that you enjoy the new posts! -Laura

1/3/12 Email

Wow, I really cannot believe that it is 2012 already. That realization kinda hit me at about 10:25 on New Years Eve night. It's a new year, and as Elder Wilkinson pointed out, the only full year that I will spend on my mission. Crazy.

 

So, last week was an interesting one. Like I mentioned last time, I went on a 48-hour exchange over into the Vietnamese branch area. It was a good experience and I was a little more immersed in the language. It is very interesting there and very different from where I am at. It was great there, but I really like my area and the opportunities that we have here.

 

Last week was a tough one as far as the missionary work goes. We had essentially nobody to teach and weren't having much luck finding anybody. We spent a lot of time going around and knocking doors using tracting records that we have and have made to help us know where Vietnamese people live. Basically, it tells it what doors we should knock on. The proces of making the records is pretty cool, but I'm not gonna waste yours and mine time to explain it. The records help us focus on our call to teach Vietnamese people, but by using them, we end up being a little less diligent in talking to everyone that we see. So we spent a lot of the last week desperately trying to find people to teach, with essentially no results. Last week we taught barely any lessons and it was just a struggle. But this week has been pretty awesome already and we are pretty excited.

 

So for Sunday, the time that our ward meets was changed. Now we meet at 9:00 in the morning. Its a big change, but I think, as missionaries, it will give us more time and allow our Sundays to be more productive. Sunday went well. Church was good and after church we went and tried some of the potential investigators that we had found through knocking. Nobody opened the door. We knocked on some new ones again with no results. A little deflating, but we were working, so we were happy. Then we had an awesome meal and lesson at a member home. Sunday turned out to be a good day, though not particularly helpful in getting us new people to teach.

 

Yesterday, however was a completely different story. Funnily enough, our biggest progress came on p-day. The p-day part of the day was great. We had a district activity which was going to whats called the Putt-Putt House. We played a lot of mini-golf and some laser tag and just had a fun time. We made it back home and then had dinner. Then it was time to get out to work. We decided that we were going to try a referral that we got from Sisters in the East mission. (The East mission actually overlaps our area for the Spanish wards) This referral is in a huge Viet complex and we had a potential investigator there as well. So we were going to try them. We made it to the referral and got inside. We taught a girl who is 17 years old and the only non-Buddist in her family of 7. How about that for "coincidence." We taught a fabulous first lesson and she seems to be completely ready for the gospel. She seems to be about as golden as investigators come. Hooray! We have someone to teach. Then we go to try the potential. We know on the door and the person who answers is one of our English class students. Apparently the student rents our rooms in her apartment for other people. We didnt get to talk with the potential but still, really cool. One of the coolest parts happened afterwards, but I dont really have time to write it now. Next week. And maybe it will be an even better story by then!

 

Love

Elder Manhardt

12/27/11 Email with pictures!

Well, I dont have a ton to write about this week as we just talked on the phone two days ago. It was really good to hear from you guys.

 

I dont remember everything that I talked about, but I guess I'll describe in a little more detail what Christmas day was like here. We woke up at the normal time and all that good stuff. Our district met together in the morning at Elder and Sister Fuit's home. Sister Fuit had made breakfast for us and it was fabulous. The Fuits are really awesome and our work here would be a lot harder without them. At the Fuit's we talked and opened our Christmas presents. The gifts were great. I probably have enough envelopes and stamps now to last me for the rest of my mission! It was a great time with our district. It came for us to leave and tried our best to get out quickly; we had a baptism to prepare for. We got there later than we wanted to so we got to the building and immediately started to fill the font. The font in our building fills very slowly. We actually needed to help it along by bringing buckets of water from other faucets to the font. First stressful part. Second part was that the building didnt have any child size baptismal clothing. Ughh. Eventually we were able to get some from a nearby ward with the help of some other Elders. Then there were scheduling problems with the family and it was looking like they might not even make it. It was pretty crazy and was a miracle that it even happened. But it did and it was great.

 

The baptism went smoothly and Sacrament meeting as well. After church, we went to Bishop's house, where we had our phone call and we also had dinner. From there, we went and watched Joy to the World with a family in Vietnamese. The family is not quite ready for the gospel yet, but hopefully soon.

 

Yesterday was mostly uneventful. Monday is weekly planning (or at least this week it is. Next week our schedule gets changed) and that takes up a lot of time in the day. One thing that we did was create what we call a miracle list. Basically, we pick out about 10 or 15 names of people who we haven't ever gone teaching with (usually inactive members). We do a lot of praying and try to make inspired decisions on who we need to try. We narrow the list down to about 3 or 4. So yesterday was our first shot at contacting them. Not one of them even answered the door. Kind of a bummer, right? All that preparation and inspiration and nothing happened. But one of them lived next to a member family. I didn't really know them before, but we knocked on their door and we were able to talk with them and share a short lesson about how they can do missionary work. Not in our plans, but it worked out great as we found a referral. Apparently one brother in our ward has a nonmember wife, whos actually Vietnamese! Apparently she's had some experience with missionaries and none of them went well, but none of them were Vietnamese missionaries. It could turn out to be very interesting. So our "miracle list" didn't work the way it was intended, but it still was effective. And ouf course we will keep trying to reach the people on the list.

 

Right now, I'm actually on a 48-hour exchange. So I'm in one of the other Viet areas for two days. We havent done much yet, but it should be really good.

 

I thinks thats about all I've got right now. Keep having a good holiday break and enjoy your time with family! There's some pictures attached as well. I'll send back my memory card soon, but I fugured I could send some of these now. First is our zone from the MTC. Then the Viet elders here in Houston. My district in Broadway (needs to be cropped , but whatever). Then the baptism.

 

Love,

Elder Phong Manhardt

12/20/11 Email

Well, I dont even know where to start. This last week had its ups and downs, but overall I think it will turn out to have been a very important week in my mission.

We are struggling with having people to teach and knowing where to go and what to do to find new investigators. Though, this week, we have talked a lot about what we can do and I'm excited to see what happens. That along with all the other things that are happening this week should make it an interesting one.

There were a lot of special events that happened this last and they were all cool or helpful in some way. The first was when Elder Wilkinson got to go do a baptismal interview for the Vietnamese branch. The sister that he interview was very excited and very ready for baptism. That opportunity allowed me to see that which was good, but I also got to see some of the other Viet Elders like Elder Pham and even Brother Inglima, who was my teacher in the MTC. She did get baptized by the way, on Saturday, though we couldn't attend because its not our ward.

Another event that was particularly good for me was the chance we had to go to the Vietnamese branch Christmas party. It was good to meet some of the members there and to see the rest of the Viet Elders. It was good to see them and talk to them to see how the work is going for them. The night was good and helped me to see some areas where I need and want to improve. First, just improving general communication skills and being more outgoing. Second, it gave me a much greater motivation and determination to learn the language. Even in the few days since Saturday, I have seen myself change a lot.

So, I had written about Andrew and Tiffany last week. As each day goes by, it looks more and more like they will be baptized this Sunday. Yeah, on Christmas. Cool, right? We learned that Tiffany actually turned 8 a couple of weeks ago. Anyways, we have been able to see them frequently over the last week and they seem like they really want to do it. Events like the Christmas party have been really helpful for them to have that desire. So, I dont know this story will end, but it is looking like it will be a happy one.

Like I said, this week should be interesting. The possibilty of the baptisms on Sunday is, of course, exciting. Really, the whole weekend should be exciting. On Saturday, we have a mission conference thing. It is practically all day long, and I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen there. I'm pretty curious. No matter, it should be really fun and I'm sure enjoyable. On Christmas morning, we will be going to the Fuits home. The Fuits are couple missionaries in our ward and district (who actually may have or might contact you? I dont know but they asked for your email addresses, mom and dad. Who knows for what purpose). After our time there, hopefully we'll be having Andrew and Tiffany's baptisms before Sacrament Meeting. After Sacrament Meeting, we have been invited to go to Bishop's house. We'll be there for dinner and that is where the phone calls will be made. After that, I dont really know what we are going to do, but I guess we'll figure that out.

It's crazy to think that it is Christmas time already. It seems like it came way too fast.

Well have a great week and enjoy the Holidays!

Love,

Elder Phong Manhardt