Elder Spencer Wilkinson

Ok I gotta keep this short.  Love  việt nam lots, but gotta go. So after 2 weeks of isolation I will be reassigned somewhere in the us until việt nam reopens flights.  To clarify, this is not a safety concern that I'm coming home, as vn is one of the safest countries in the world right now. This is many a legal problem with the difficulty of renewing visas in this time.  Anyway, this week has been crazy getting ready to go! Been trying to strengthen the branch lots and set up channels for online sacrament and taking care of all our investigators.  We will continue to teach some of them in isolation , so thats awesome.  Anyway, love you all!

P-Day at the zoo. Hellllo everybody!  Wow, what a week! Everything here has been super good, this week has just had a lot.of stuff going on!  I had an exchange with the legendary ac nhân (elder green) this week, which was great. We had a great time teaching and contacting, and we ate some ((EXTREMELY)) spicy noodles together, which was great.  This week we had zone conference,  which was awesome as always. We talked about contacting and teaching in normal and natural ways,  using your talents and skills, being yourself, having effective communication and companion studies,  and in general it was just a blessing. I love some conferences, because they always answer questions that I've been keeping inside, it  shows me that God really is in charge.  We met with a lot of people this week through video calls! It was awesome to still be able to continue the work. We actually got the chance to meet with some people whom we h...

We made paper flowers for all the women in our branch for womens day!  Hello everybody!  This week has been very interesting. We received some awesome instructions from the first presidency about how we can contact better and more naturally, which we've been trying to apply. It has actually been really good! We haven't been meeting with a million people like last week, but we have met some amazing people who ate actually interested in our message, which has been amazing! I think it really shows the power of perseverance.  And one of the people we are teaching,  chị My, said that she wants to get baptised as soon as possible! So that is just super awesome!  Some info: We are not under quarantine,  we are only preparing to do so just in case. I was sick earlier this week, but it wasn't serious, and now I'm doing better. (Though if it was Corona that would be so cool! My faith is stronger than Corona  )  Anyway, this week has b...

Hello everybody!  Welcome again to this weeks installment of "Living with Corona: the Continuing series" this week: "Finding people to Teach"! Yo actually though this week was different from any other week I've been here, it was kind of crazy. Since we dont have english and most of our investigators have moved out of Saigon until further notice, we decided to just go down our list of numbers from the english activity and call everyone. After that we set up an appointment and hope for the best. It's been kind of crazy because a lot of people have actually been able to meet. So. We have had. A lot of meetings this week. And not many people interested,  but ours is not to split the mountain but to gradually chip away at it. (Wow that actually sounded pretty cool!) At the very least it helps us to practice our conversation and teaching skills, so it's all good.  Oh yeah, and last week after an unexpected transfer, we got AC Nhân (elder boston green)...

My favorite outfit February 24, 2020 Hello everyone! This week was good and cool, lets talk about it So monday we went and ate hotpot for Elder Bakers birthday (70 years old!) Which was delicious. After that we taught the wife of one of our elders quorum presidency, chị my. She is doing super great and we have a baptism date for her! So that's awesome. It started raining during her lesson (like hard) so we had to bike home in the rain which was nice and amazing. Another highlight of the week for me was that one of our investigators house got broken into which was not good at all. But we went and bought him some fruits and snacks and brought it to his house as a gift, and got to meet his mom and brother! And luckily, as it turns out, nothing was even stolen, so it was just an inconvenience to have to report it to the police.  We had some lessons this week, but this Saturday the President came to the chapel for interviews and to sit in on district coun...

Hey all!  Dont have much this week, sorry. Monday we played soccer again with a lot of the south zones and some members, which was great. Tuesday was normal but wednesday we had a special fast for our mission to help out everyone's investigators since we have a lot of baptisms this month.  That day was super special for me, and we had the chance to meet with the wife of one of our branch presidency and she agreed to start learning with us! We have been focusing a lot on their family this week since them, which has been awesome. I can really testify of the power of unified families, and how much joy and compassion they can bring and how much strength they give to the other members. Family is super important in the Vietnamese culture, and so when families are split between religions, it brings a lot of discord sometimes. But I have seen that families who have decided to be unified in the gospel have received so many blessings and really thrived in all aspects of life, not just ...

Phép báp têm ( Baptism) Caption by Spencer's companion's mom. The long awaited baptism of Chú Cường, a very nice Vietnamese man and piano teacher who, as a little boy, attended church and was taught by the missionaries until the war when the missionaries and many members left. And now after 45 years he found the missionaries and has been taught again and now baptized! A very special day! ♥️ Hello everybody!  I want to start off by saying: I am fine. Some people have expressed concern but Corona isn't even that bad, and there are only a handful of cases in Vietnam anyway. It has mostly been an impediment to meeting with people, but other than that we are completely safe and healthy! (The scare is worse than the virus itself, really) Anyway, the government shut down all schools this week and continuing into next week, so everybody in the city has been super bored and they all have a lot of free time. And yet, at the same time, the streets are empty and ...

Tết Zone Conferences - Saigon East Zone Jan 29, 2020 February 3, 2020 Xin chào mỗi người!  How are you all doing? This week has been really great actually. Things have been slowly picking up after Tết, but the big scare from the virus has kept people from returning from their hometowns and returning to the city, so things have still been pretty empty. And we've had to implement a lot of policies for virus prevention and to help make people feel safer because theres been a couple cases here in saigon, so everybody's pretty scared.  Anyway, last monday after playing bang at the church in district one for pday, all the trainer s and new missionaries had the chance to meet with the mission president and talk about our feelings from being new missionaries and to recommit to some things we were getting lazy on. It was so good! We learned lots, and it made me feel revigorized to keep on going.  Tuesday the Thủ Đức missionaries filmed a special video ...

January 27, 2020 Hello everybody!  This week has been really weird. This week was the Big Tết week, and EVERYBODY was gone. Like, literally, the streets were empty, and all the stores, restaurants gas stations, grocerie stores and everything else was just closed. It was super spooky. So we've been living off our stockpile of instant noodles for the last 3 days haha. But despite the emptiness, we were blessed with some surprises this week! We met with this woman out of nowhere and decided to get lunch and she ended up being super interested in our message, which is awesome. Also this man called us out of nowhere and said he wanted to meet and so we were like k, he wants to learn english. But no! He was interested in our message as well! So that's been super awesome! Participating in the new years celebrations have been super fun also! Lots of yummy food and lots of lucky money  Anyway, this week we've been meeting with a lot of families. Something t...