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Món ăn ở MTC là "tốt nhất"

Chào Anh Chị Em Chú Cô Ông Bà!
(Oof that's a mouthful) 

Week four at the Mtc is now behind me! That means on Wednesday, I will officially be halfway through my stay here. I doubt I'll ever feel ready to go to Việt Nam but hopefully by then I'll feel more ready. 

Things have been excellent and approximately good since my last email. Some dear Elders and Sisters have left on their way, which is sad, but also exciting. And  to be honest, things aren't always cool and good here, but overall I would still say that the experience has been a good one. Yeah, there are hard times, but weighed against all the good things I've learned and the ways I've been improving , I'd still say that it's a good time. 

Last Tuesday we got to see Elder Uchtdorf. He came and gave us a nice talk. It was a good reminder that we just can't control everything but we can control our thoughts  our feelings, and our actions. Living a good life is not necessarily about your circumstances, but how you decide to control those things. 

We also got to see the new Christmas Vdieo for this year. Not gonna spoil it for you or anything, but its really good. And it's entirely in Arabic. Something to look forward to I guess. 

A fun thing that happened this week was that when I was walking back from class to go to our residence for the night, I found out that some of the missionaries in my district are Studio Ghibli fans. I was saying something about  Hayao Miyazaki when this big Polynesian elder is like "HEY!" 

Now when I say big, I mean as tall as me but something like a hundred pounds heavier. So he is really intimidating. He walks over to me with this hard look on his face and puts his hand on my shoulder. 

"You like princess Mononoke?"

"Um. Uh huh." (Me, visibly sweating) 

"Ah. Good man."

Then he Pats me on the shoulder and walks away.

So there's that. 

My favourite Vietnamese word this week is Cá ông or whale. Literally, it means " grandfather fish". I just like it a lot because ông has a lot of respectful connotations and implies wisdom and majesty. Those definitely apply to a whale i think, but I also just really like how in the Việt culture, age isn't considered a bad thing like here in Mỹ, but is considered good and commands a lot of respect. I also love how everyone considers themselves part of one big family in Việt Nam wwhich I personally think is evidence that they are ready for the gospel. They already know the truth that we are all brothers and sisters in spirit. I cant wait to share with mọi người that they are right. And that we really are all siblings. I feel like if more people really knew and understood that, the world would have peace. But I guess that is one of our main goals as missionaries, to bring peace to the world through Christ. 

Anyway, thanks for all the support and emails and everything! I can definitely feel all your prayers, so thank you. 

Chào Anh Chị Em Chú Cô Ông Bà!
Elder Wilkinson

Elder Gerrits and Van Damme before they left


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