Also included should be the Smarties Chocolate. Just send out a way big package. The Mission Office will love it. You could use a big tv box... They (the mission office staff) are awesome and go to our branch (probably to monitor us because of disobedient missionaries years back). Things are great here. Jon is not on e-mail right now so I don't know how to email him. I also didn't know what to write about, so I figured I'd share, "A day in the life of a California Anaheim Vietnamese Speaking missionary".
6:30 AM wake up, roll out of bed, throw some shorts on and exercise.
7:00 AM Rock, paper, scissors. Winner showers first. Warm showers, good water pressure-- can't complain.
7:30 AM get dressed, make breakfast. I usually have eggs, honey bunches of oats, or Cream of Wheat.
8:00 AM Start studying. Usually read in The Book of Mormon, The Bible, and study the lessons in Preach My Gospel.
9:00 AM Start studying with Elder Leonard. We read 3 pages out of the Missionary Handbook, share the things we learned in the earlier study time and then talk about plans for lessons taught later in that day. We also study the "Fundamentals" from Preach My Gospel on how to teach better. This is part of the 12-week training period.
11:00 AM Leave for the church, prepare for Citizenship Class. We teach 75 + Viets how to pass the citizenship interview. My job in this is to interview them one at a time, asking ~20 questions from, "What is your height?" to "Can you read, write, and speak english?", to "Are rescissitation, deportation, or other reports filed currently pending against you?"... As well as, "Who is the father of our country?"; What is the rule of law? etc.
1:30 PM Lunch. Usually make quesadillas, PBJ or make chicken nuggets.
2:30 AM Start language study. I'll read a page of something in Vietnamese and Elder Leonard will correct my pronunciation. I'm struggling with my "T"'s and "Th"'s. They're tricky. I'll then study from a text book some grammar principles. We have vocab that we all try to learn in the week, too.
3:30 Go to the Long Beach mission and visit old english class students. Usually a lot of driving around and no success.
5:00 Dinner. Quesadillas, whatever I can scratch up real quick.
6:00 more Long Beach, maybe a lesson scheduled.
9:00 Go home, plan.
10:30 Bed.
That's a rough outline of the days here. There are a lot of people, but we have language barriers, as well as a strong presence of Buddhism among most Vietnamese people here.
Love you all! Also, to Grandma Edie, YES. I'd love some granola!
Feel free to send letters and packages all the time! :)
Also needed--- framed picture of whole family! Thanks!
Elder Steele. Love you! Anything and everything else would be great. Se if the yw in the ward could make a package for the missionaries and send them out. And then the YM and elders quorum and relief society.
Love ya!
August 27, 2012
Did they send the package yet from home? I haven't seen anything. Or the Smarties? I am excited to get them both in the mail soon!!! Things are great here. We don't get fed a lot. Maybe once a week but only by english class students. There is one family in the branch that feeds us when we do FHE with them on Mondays. Viet food is still something I have to get used to.
Love you all!
Elder Steele
August 20, 2012
Things here are great, about the same as last week. It has been really hot here the last week, and it's really killer to be out in a shirt and dress slacks for as much as we are. When we go contacting, we visit old English Class students in the Long Beach Mission boundaries. If we don't make progress there in the next 3 months, the 70s will close it down to us. It turns out before I came to the MTC they had meetings considering whether I should go to the Long Beach mission and be restricted in those boundaries but in the Viet branch.Our district shrunk today from 5 elders to 4, just as we expected. Elder Tai went to the south Area (still lives about .3 miles from us) with Elder Dung. The Vietnamese program will grow soon from 4 to 6 and then another within the next year to 7. President Bowen has a lot of expectations for us in the Vietnamese program. It will be neat to see the growth. About half of the members in the branch are white. A few are RM's who married Vietnamese girls. There will be a lot of growth in the Viet branch over the next few years, though, hopefully introducing some strong Vietnamese leaders into the program.I can't believe Jon crashed his new car! How did that happen? When is he going out to school?Have you sent out any packages or mail yet? I got a letter from Grandma and Savannah, but I haven't received anything else yet. I get mail every thursday, so when you send things, try to get them there by wednesday (send on fridays or saturdays).Well, things are going great. I'll try to send a better email next week. I have some time later to write some letters so I'll try to get one home. Anyone that has sent me letters or has yet to send letters, feel free to write a lot of letters! :) Thanks a bunch for your love and support!Elder SteeleP.S. could you look up some good, missionary-appropriate p-day activities in the area here? We can't search online. But something free or inexpensive is preferred. And if you could find coupons for good food found at wal-mart, send 'em this way! Always looking to save money.Thanks!
August 13, 2012
Man is it hot down here! The weather has been crazy this past week. It's been great, though. I have been drinking a lot of water to fix the headaches I keep getting, but it is good. The last 6 days have been a blast! I love it here. Here's my last week on a day-to-day basis.
Tuesday: Woke up at 3:45 Provo time. Got ready, left the MTC at about 5:20. We got to the airport and walked around for a while looking for payphones. My flight left at 8:45, but we left a little early. I flew priority. So, basically first class. It was really nice and I had a chance to sleep while on the plane. The people who sat up there were really busy and didn't spare time to talk. Boring. So I slept. We got to the airport way early, but that was okay, because President Bowen and my companions arrived an hour early. We went to the mission home, set up for a sister's luncheon, met the mission president and sent a small email (which you got, right?). Lunch was great. We went to the apartment for the first time and unpacked. The apartment is small, but nice. It doesn't have good a/c, so it gets really really hot all the time. After unpacking I decided that we should go find/ meet some people. Most of our efforts so far have been in the Long Beach mission. Not so say we're the exception, because we're not and we "can't be", but the five (soon to be four) Vietnamese elders can go into the Long Beach mission to teach. We're not allowed to knock doors there, though, which is a major drawback. We went to dinner with our district at a Vietnamese place called Hoa Binh. The food was great, I had Pho Thit, which is just a delicious beef, noodle soup. We saw some members there when we arrived, and, to our surprise, they paid for our meal. They're very nice, giving people. Later on, I had to run to walmart to get some food and shampoo. We went and got more than a typical shopping trip's worth of supplies, because you always need more things on your first trip to get you started. When we were in line, a sweet lady in front of us identified that she was a Latter-Day Saint and that while she couldn't feed us, she would insistently pay for our groceries. That was a great first day experience for me. It showed me how caring the people are and how willing they are to help the missionaries. We don't get fed a lot here, rarely, so I would suggest you feed the missionaries more back home. :)
Wednesday: Wednesday morning was good. We jumped right into studying. And while we were at our desks reading, I asked Anh Ca Tai why he was pushing my chair. I looked over and he was a good 10 feet away from me. The doors were swaying back and forth, and the apartment shook a little more. It was the first earthquake any of us had felt, but it was pretty cool. It was a 4.5, I think, but really the number is meaningless to me. I had to meet a little in the mission office on Wednesday to have an overview about driving and texting a few protocols they have here, nothing big. Next Wednesday Anh Ca Tai will be transferred to go to the South Area of the mission (apartment is about .3 mile away) which means I will be the driver in my companionship. I am trying to pay attention to the area and learn where everything is. Anh Ca Long, my other companion, lets me sit in the front seat. He's great. Anyway, wednesday night, we went to a part member family home and helped a 16 year old prepare a talk for sunday which he didn't want to do. His cousin lives with their family so we had an opportunity to teach him. He is awesome.
I'll skip to saturday to some more exciting things.
On saturday night this same part member family had us over to try some food and share a lesson. They gave us fertilized duck egg (wikipedia search "Balut"), and durian (perhaps the most disgusting fruit ever), as well as salted sour dried plums. Later that day I also had fresh jackfruit, which was pretty good. Oh, and for lunch I had a pork and noodle dish which the Vietnamese usually put fish sauce on. I also put fish sauce on it, knowing I was taking a big risk. It was not my favorite. Not even close. Fish sauce is made by leaving dead fish out in the sun and pressing them so the juices squeeze out into a dish. It's then put on food with hot peppers. Ick.
Yesterday we had church. It didn't start until 1 PM, but we had to get there early for meetings and to prepare for a baptism. The branch is very small. There are not a lot of people, and a handful of them are english speaking, so almost everything is translated. It's growing, though. The leaders do their best to make sure that everything functions well.
There should be a picture of our investigator who got baptized yesterday. And the elders in the picture are: Elder Dung (not "dung", pronounced 'yoom'), Thinh (pronounced 'tin'), Tai ('tie'), and Long ('lom'). Tai and Long are my companions. They're awesome. The real names of the elders are Elder Jones, Elder Woolsey, Elder Wadsworth, and Elder Leonard. Elder Jones (Thinh) has been here for almost 2 years. He is spending his last transfer speaking English. Dung (Woolsey) is from Washington. Tai (Wadsworth) is from Orem Utah. His family has a beverage company called Tahitian Noni. And Long (Leonard) is from England/ Alabama. They're all good, obedient elders. I'll try to send some pictures of the food, the MTC, California, etc. Thanks for the love and support.
I love you all. I'm glad to be here and I'm having a blast. Send mail and packages SOONer than later! :)
Elder Steele
