Our First Sunday

 September 22, 2024

Today we received our assignments from our Mission President: Allen is now the first counselor in the branch presidency, and I am the second counselor in the Relief Society--daunting when we don't speak the language. We're grateful for the handful of members who speak English well enough that we don't struggle to understand them, but when we do struggle, we have our young missionaries who sit next to us and interpret for us. Yay for missionaries!!

We had a visit from President and Sister Howells, our Mission Leaders, and from Elder Childs, the Area Seventy for Vietnam. He has lived in Taipei, Taiwan, for the past 30 years, where he has his business. The goal for Vietnam is for the Church to grow enough to form a stake in Hanoi and one in Ho Chi Minh City. That will take some doing as there are currently only 4 small branches in Hanoi and 6 in HCMC.

We were warmly welcomed by all the members of the branch, which numbered about 25-30 members attending today. The sisters who had been members the longest were baptized 10 and 7 and 6 years ago, and they were all around my age. The younger members have been members for only 1-5 years, it seems. 

The other day, President Howell told us that there were about 2500 Church members in Vietnam, and after Covid when people started coming back to Church there were about 1000 that didn't contact the Church again, and of the 1500 or so whose location IS known, only about 500 are active.

We just got back this evening from a walk around the area where we live and it's pretty amazing. There are markets, bakeries, pharmacies, salons, and restaurants on all the lower levels of these high-rise apartment complexes--too many to count. Our building has 34 floors and we are on the 31st floor, as I said before. Each building has tennis courts and other sport areas behind them, and there are multiple water features and other community shared spaces, as well. Down a street or two is a very large Mega Mall that is underground. This is where we have found a lot of the things we've needed to stock our apartment with, like towels and sheets. Our area is a very nice one called Time City and we feel very fortunate to live in such a nice place. That said, we love to go out into Hanoi in our Grab cars and see the smaller, crowded streets and watch the driver negotiate all the turns while surrounded by other cars and a myriad of mopeds. It's fascinating and thrilling.

We are also discovering new things about our apartment each day! Our washing machine is supposed to also be a dryer, but we have yet to figure out how to dry anything in it. Truth be told, we're lucky we figured out the washing part of it! Today we used the oven, which is out in the living room on a small table. Thankfully, we only had to toast some bread; one day I'll try cookies in it. Our other achievement today was to figure out how the stove worked; I had to reach out to the missionaries and ask if they knew how to turn it on. Luckily, they did. Every day is an adventure! And every night I am exhausted.

We miss our friends and family, but we're excited to be here, having these experiences and meeting these sweet people. It's a challenge for many of them to be active and serve in the Church, so we hope we'll be able to make a difference as we serve with them.

Have a Great Week!!