WEEK 33 - 你好 Y Xin Chào
I have some updates for you guys… 我是约翰长老. I have been reassigned to speak Mandarin and Vietnamese in the Houston Texas South Mission. Elder Naeini is teaching me everything he can before he leaves next week and after that I will be in a trio with Elder Scott and Elder Phan. I am now anh cả ảnh. It’s started off great, even going to my first Vietnamese baptism! It happened on August 10th for Cô Hằng and it was super, super special. Yesterday I was in the Sugar Land Chinese branch for church and it was super sick. The branch is so strong and the members are so amazing. I had the opportunity to film a family who had just recently become members of the church and their testimonies were so strong. Speaking of which, I have been filming so much this week. Just yesterday alone I filmed five videos of member testimonies–and in almost every language of the mission. Basically, I’m living the best life ever right now.
We’ve also had a ton of things happen on top of all this. I am currently living in a quad now but I am also assigned to proselyte in a completely different quad of missionaries. What happened was that two new elders were emergency transferred into Elder Sanford and I’s district and President Garn gave Elder Sanford a special assignment to be companions with those two missionaries. He is now living with those trainees, but that leaves me without a companion. So, I am now companions with Elder Phan, Naeini, and Scott–but not for proselyting work. I am still assigned to speak Spanish and to do English work here in the Memorial ward but what is complicated about this entire situation is that everytime after 5 (when proselyting work begins) I have to pick one of the new missionaries up to go out and work but neither of them are technically my companions. Elder Sanford is still technically my companion, but also not. I know, confusing, right? What’s even more difficult is the fact that we now have to split the area we were working together, dividing friends and members up between me, who’s only been here like three weeks, and Elder Sanford who has been here since like March, so that’s fun. We don’t know how long this will last but as of right now I have my own car and my own sim so I am a solo roaming missionary.
Media work has been amazing. I love this work and I love being able to utilize my talents and the desires of my heart to bring forth a great change in the mission as well as in missionary work. I feel as if I’m back at BYU grinding the film program with the amount of late nights I have had and the amount of time I’ve spent shooting or planning to shoot and I don’t doubt that some of my preparation before coming here was to learn how to manage things at BYU. I always thought it was only preparation for my career but, not only that, everything I learned was preparation for this mission and what my role is here. Seal Team 6 forever.
Richard is so ready for baptism it is crazy. We also have another friend from Cameroon named David who is incredibly elect. We invited him to watch and listen to the best hymn ever, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and turned it to the 2023 General Conference performance as we left a lesson with him and he ended up watching and listening to three hours worth of hymns and performances from the Tabernacle Choir. He has also been listening to the Book of Mormon and I found out, through talking to him about what he’s learned, that he had listened up until the Book of Omni which is insane. We invited him to listen to the Book of Mormon only two days prior to my conversation with him. God continues to help us to find the people who are ready for His Gospel. Even though I only have about four hours of proselyting time (on a good day), we are able to find those lost sheep who are yearning to come back into the fold of God.
That’s about it for me this week. I hope you have an amazing day and I miss you all so much. I am always thinking and praying for each of you. Adios, 再见, y tạm biệt.
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM:
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WEEK 33:
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