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
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