Venturing in Vietnam

Can't believe I am one the blessed missionaries who will get to welcome all of the new missionaries every wednesday for 9 WEEKS. This week for sure felt like 9 weeks in one. We had our first investigator this week. Well, when I say investigator, I mean my Vietnamese teacher just took his glasses off and dressed in regular clothes. His name is Anh Chung. He is very nice. Some would say that he's a golden investigator because he happens to have a friend who is part of the church and wants to know more about the church. Wow. It feels like he's been baptized since the age of eight and he served a mission in Cambodia speaking Vietnamese. hahaha. Thank you to everyone who has sent me love letters and tasty packages! The MTC is PACKED. The field is white and ready to harvest. Well except that they need more room for the amount of people who are coming in. I guess since it's the end of summer, it's super super packed. I usually will spend up to 35 minutes waiting in li...

Xin chào bạn và gia đình! (Hello to my friends and family! ***Pronounce it like this [shin cha-ow bah-n vah zh-eyah deen) hopefully that pronunciation guide was helpful haha*** MTC life is ROUGH.  The food is terrible and to those who have served a mission before, it has only improved slightly since you've been to the MTC. I never finish all of my food and I'll have to weigh myself every week to make sure that I'm not gaining a ton of weight from my intake of gummy snacks and chips during my study sessions. Our schedule generally goes like this. We wake up at 6:30, after breakfast which is usually around 7:15, we study Tiếng Việt until lunchtime. Unless it's Monday, then we clean the bathrooms (ew.) We have afternoon classes and evening classes so I'm pretty much "free" (in other words, study) until lunch. Tuesday is my P-Day and the fun can begin. My companions are great! I have two of them, Sister Marks and Sister Vu. We all are of Vietnamese d...

Hey guys, It's ya girl Rachel. I just got to the MTC and this is a quick email just letting you know I'm okay. Chaune and Matt came with me to get food at BYU Creamery and then I said goodbye to them there. After that, my friends came with me to the MTC and dropped me off. The person who helped me pick up all of my things was really nice. Her name was Sister Sorensen. She's going to Poland. It was really funny how things turned out. I came out of the basement where they pick me up and I was hauling all of my suitcases with me. I ran into this mass group of Elders (there was probably like 20-30 of them) but basically, they all shouted at me "CAMBODIA?? LAOS??? THAILAND??? VIETNAM???" and once I told them I was going to Vietnam, they all started cheering because they're in my district or something like that. They all started screaming words at me in Viet. Haha. Okay. This is all the time I have. Love you all! Sister McKinley