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