Exciting new things happening!

This last week has been another interesting one. First off was transfer meeting on Wednesday.

 

It was a special transfer meeting that the whole mission went to because we were told that we had special speakers. First was the American Sign Language elders from the Houston Mission. They came to give a small training on how to try and communicate with a deaf person and get their information so they can be taught. It was pretty cool. They are much like us Vietnamese in that their area is not just their mission boundaries, but as ASL missionaries, they work strictly off of referrals. So they need our help. They told us that in the last 3 months, they have gotten 5 referrals, all of which were baptised. Thats awesome. It was really good.

 

Then we had a guy speak to us from Missionary Transportation. They were informing us of these black boxes in our cars that were about to be turned on, Tiwi (just ask the elders at home, they know all about it). These wonderful boxes monitor all of our driving. Rates of acceleration, speed, seat belts and all sorts of things. They kindly tell us whenever we are doing something wrong. Each of us signs in before we drive and the Tiwi send a report of our driving to the mission office. Cool, right? Yeah. Cool. But really, they will help us to be safer.

 

Ok, finally came the interesting part of the transfer meeting, the transfers. Dont worry, I'm still in the same old place, and so is my companion. So its me and Elder Hoopes out here running the Broadway Viet area. The other Viets didnt move around either, well, at least not yet. So remember how I said we had some crazy thoughts, but I didnt want to spread rumors? Well, we were right. So, here goes...

 

So we were expecting to get a new Viet elder, but about sometime in the previous week, his picture disappeared from board that displays upcoming missionaries for the mission. Curious. Either he didnt survive the MTC or something else happened that he wasnt coming anymore. Then at the fireside with Elder Christofferson, we heard something crazy from another elder that Elder Pham, my companion from the MTC, was getting transferred. But that didnt make sense yet. Nobody knew who was being transfered yet. That info doesnt come out until the Monday before. We started to put things together though. We came to the conclusion that all of the Vietnamese missionaries, that meaning of Vietnamese descent, were getting reassigned to go to Vietnam. That Vietnam was finally going to allow more missionaries in. It turns out that we were right. The previous expected elder, Elder Nguyen, and Elder Pham are going to Vietnam. Elder Pham is just waiting for passport and visa stuff before he can go.

 

So things are going to be a lot different here than we had anticipated. Instead of having seven Viet missionaries, we will only have 5 and after next transfer, 4. Whoa. We dont really know whats going to happen. Are more people going to be sent here, or not? How long is it going to be before Vietnam is open to all missionaries? We of course have no idea, but it is really exciting. It means that the work is going forward.

 

So the rest of the week has not been as exciting as that, but still good. We are really trying to refocus our efforts and make sure we are doing all that we can to help people accept the gospel through baptism.

 

Things are gonna get good. Until next week,

 

Love,

Elder Phong Manhardt

2/20/12 Email

Well this last week was interesting. Once again it has gone super fast. Its a new transfer already. We have yet to hear if anybody is leaving or staying though. I guess you'll have to wait until next week to find out! But, if things go the way we are thinking, some crazy stuff is going to happen... and we are going to stay here together in this area. But I dont want to spread any rumors, so you'll just have to wait.

 

I dont really have a whole lot to write about this week, but I will fill you in on our meeting with Elder Christofferson. So we were able to have the meeting on Saturday morning. We had a huge storm that morning as well. Because of all of the rain, the parking lot at the church building was partially flooded. It turned out that there wasnt going to be enough room to park everybody, so they had to call a quick audible and send everybody to a different building. So, everybody got their stuff together, hopped into their cars and were off to the next building. Eventually everything got settled and we were able to have the meeting. To begin, Elder Christofferson wanted to shake all of our hands, so row by row everybody got up and went to shake his hand. Then we had the meeting.

There were a lot of things talked about. A little about hope, companionships, repentance and the sacrament. It was opened up for questions which of course led to talking about a bunch of other things as well. It was all very good and were the things that we needed to hear.

 

We had a couple of exchanges this week, both of which were very good for their own reasons. One of them was a surprise exchange. The zone leaders, who are in our district, felt impressed to go on an exchange with us. They told us that morning at a meeting and so that night, we switched. The day we were on that exchange was not what you would call a normal exchange at all. There were some events that we usually try to avoid having on exchanges so as to make the exchange as productive and rewarding as possible. For example meetings with the ward mission leader and planned service like our Enlgish class. But even with these things, that inspired decision to exchange with us was the right choice. We all learned something that I'm sure we needed and some things happened that wouldnt have happened if we were in our normal areas. So I guess the lesson for the week is that the leaders in the Church are inspired. They receive guidance for us. Even when they dont understand the reasons for their counsel, God does. We need to always follow their instructions.

 

Well, thats about all I've got. Have a good week!

 

Love,

Elder Manhardt

2/13/12 Email

Well it is the middle of February now and it is yet to be winter. Yesterday was the only "cold" day that we have had. It was probably in the 40s. But today, the cold has mostly disappeared. But it is raining....  REALLY REALLY HARD. I like the rain, and I definitely like the rain a lot more than snow. But as I am sitting in the library, I can hear the rain pounding on the roof and I really don't want to go out in that. Hopefully it stops while I am still here.

 

 It is hard to believe that it has been another week. The time is going so fast! Where does it all go?!? This last week was pretty good. While things didn't go the way we thought they would, we still hit some of our goals and came really close on some others. We're getting there. The area still has a lot of potential, we just need to figure out what it is that we need to do to flip that switch from building up potential to dishing out results.

 

Thursday was a pretty cool experience that shows how the Lord makes things happen. Wednesday night, we made our plans for the next day. It was looking like Thursday could be a spectacular day. We planned to go see a less-active/recent convert and to bring him with us to go visit some other people. His parents aren't members (he is like 23 years old) and are a big part of the reason why this guy had stopped coming to church. When we got there and we were ready to go, his parents wouldn't allow him to go. This threw a wrench in our plans as we needed him to go with us in order to visit the other people. But as we went about trying to find another solution, we found one. We were able to teach all of the lessons we were planning on. In addition, the parents that refused to let their son go, for some reason decided that they wanted to learn more about us and the Church. Things worked as a we wanted, and better. The Lord takes care of us when we give our best efforts first.

 

This Saturday we will have a special opportunity to hear from Elder Christofferson, who will be in town for a stake conference. Of course I will write more about that next time.

 

Have a great week!

 

Love

Elder Phong Manhardt

Email 1/30/12

Well, it has been another week and time is going by insanely fast. As of yesterday, I have  been in Houston for a full 2 months. This is the start week 4 of my second transfer which means that this is half way through the transfer. That means that I'm nearly done as a "trainee." When this transfer ends, I'll be a normal missionary, well assuming there is a such thing as a normal missionary and that a Vietnamese missionary can fit that description. Oh well. It will be cool. Really what it means to be done with training is that I no longer have 4 hours of study in the morning, only 3. That will be spectacular!

 

This last week was another rough one as far as numbers go, but I think that it was actually a pretty good week. There were a lot of things that came up that limited our time out proselytizing, but that was ok. A lot of great things came from those.

 

Two of those things were on Friday. We had a special zone conference with President and Sister Saylin and also had our ward New Years party. We didn't get out to proselytise at all! But it was a spectacular day. The zone conference was absolutely awesome! President Saylin is incredible and that conference was definitely inspired. It was exactly the things that I needed to hear at that exact time that I needed to hear them. It was great. After that conference, we went to the church building for our ward activity. It was a lot of fun. Everybody seemed to enjoy it. It didn't have quite the effect we were hoping for our missionary efforts with the Vietnamese people, but it was still very good. It was a good activity for the ward and should lead to being able to have even better ones in the next years.

 

There is a lot of potential for this week to be a really good one. We just need to work hard and put our trust in the Lord. There are several people that we are starting to work with and it is pretty exciting.

 

Something else that is really exciting is progress with the language. I am now able to see improvement in my ability to understand people. Woohoo! I still don't understand much, but just seeing that I'm at least getting a little bit better is great. I really enjoy language study and as I have been changing my approach and the things that I do, I have been able to see more improvement. Its fun, but I am still impatient. I want to be able to understand now. I dont want to have to wait for time to help me out. I guess I just have to suck it up and keep working.

 

Soon, I promise, I'll have more to write about. I hope.

 

Love,

Elder Phong Manhardt