Heaven is Pho Real: Tuần cuối cùng của tháng 4!!!!

It's the last week of April. How weird is that.

To start off, I want to share a scripture I read in my personal study this week, 3 Nephi 21:10 - "But behold, the life of my servant shall be in my hand; therefore they shall not hurt him, although he shall be marred because of them. Yet I will heal him, for I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil." This scripture was brought to life for me this week. My companion and I have been trying to get to know the members better, and so we have set up more appointments to visit them at their homes. Friday we had planned to visit an older couple out in the Go Vap district, which is about an hour away from our house. And then, we received a referral from Temple Square to contact, and so we set up an appointment with her at her house that same night. Unfortunately, she lives about 30 minutes away from our house in the opposite direction of the elderly couple. We set up our appointments so that we would have enough time to get there on time, but everyone that knows me well knows that something always goes wrong when I'm the one that has to navigate/give directions. I lived in Nampa, Idaho for 18 years of my life, and I only knew how to get to the high school, Walmart, and sometimes the mall (sometimes Nathan (age 11) had to help me out with the mall..). That morning we mapped out the route we were going to take so that the chances of me getting us lost would be minimal.. Just like this scripture says, "the life of my servant shall be in my hand" - we made it out alive, and on time to both appointments. And, just like this scripture says, "although he shall be marred" - our adventure was definitely not free of near-death experiences (like realizing the road you chose to go down was a one-way and now you have to pedal against Saigon traffic, having to stop to ask for help 20 times, and showing up completely soaked in sweat).

The moral of this experience is that Heavenly Father protects us. He watches over us and guides us. That doesn't mean life is always going to be easy (going against traffic was definitely NOT EASY), but He will helps us pull through it.

In other news, we got a new investigator this week! He has taken the discussions before with the elders but stopped for a long time. We were able to meet him on Wednesday and he agreed to continue investigating. Our next appointment with him is on Tuesday, so wish us luck! And speaking of the referral I mentioned earlier, we were able to meet with THEE CUTEST woman who has such a strong desire to learn more and eventually join the church. Right now she is super busy (she's going to Thailand this week and then Pennsylvania and then who knows where else) but she has such a strong desire. After she gets back from Thailand she said she wants to meet wish us, so FINGERS CROSSED! (actually, don't cross your fingers. Apparently that's a really bad hand gesture here in vietnam). When we met her at her home, she was teaching english to her students and 2 of them happened to be nuns in training. When we started talking about the church, the nuns started asking amazing questions that ended up in us being able to informally teach the restoration lesson. Holla.

This week we also got to pretend to be tourists at the Saigon Zoo to help out this group of students trying to learn English. We walked around for about 3 hours while they explained the animals to us and we explained the gospel to them. It was a wonderful time.

The quote for this week would be from the best mission president's wife, Sister Hassell: "Not only did we happily celebrate your birthday, but we have happily celebrated a year of your being covered by the japanese encephilities vaccination you received in the U.S." Unfortunately this means I'm off to the clinic for another shot that will make my arm feel like it's dead. Yay :))

Thanks for all the emails, prayers, thoughts, pictures, videos, EVERYTHING. Life is hard but I'm learning a lot, so what more can you ask for.