Sister Jenna Connell

Hello from district 1. I am officially back in the center of the city. It's been awhile. This week started pretty chill cuz my comp was still sick from dengue. So it gave me a chance to go through the area book and call 5 million people on our phone. Other than that though we have done alot alot of contacting. We have this awesome family named Huong and Qui and Linh and Lanh though, who is just so picturesque. We come in we share a message while they are gathered around the table and they all are excited and willing to pray. Em Linh shared an experience with prayer where her dad said if she ran around the park ten times he would get her a toy, but after 2 times she was tired. So she stopped for a second and said a quick prayer and was able to finish and get a toy! I love the faith of little kids! and then after our lesson as we head out the door they give us little chocolate mochies! It's awesome! Also we had a cool experience. We got super lost trying to find a potential i...

First things first though, my comp got dengue so thats exciting. We got caught up on records though so that's good. also called like 400 people, so awesome Also We accidentally ate frog cuz I can't read Vietnamese still I guess, and what I thought said seafood actually said frog. It wasn't too bad just a little weird- Em Vy got baptised!!!!! so excited for her. She is the most faithful little girl I have ever met. She reads the Book of Mormon daily and is now reading it with her dad and even taught him to pray. She was a little nervous but it was so sweet. Also we visited Anh Khai this past week and it was cool cuz he was very very different and not so distracting. He kept talking about prayer and faith which was awesome but not normal. I was excited though! but the next day he texts us and is all "Hey I cant come to church but I'm going to book an uber for my wife!" So awesome!! then it gets better! His wife tells us a story about how Anh Khai prayed eve...

Hellooo! Wow don't have tons of time but I have a pretty cool story for this week! So I have been working a lot on faith and charity and how I can increase both. So i read Moroni 7 and wow it was so good! basically it says to have faith we need meekness and hope in the atonement. To have that hope we need meekness and charity. To have charity we need to pray for it with all the energy of heart and be a true follower of christ. As we become like Him we will be able to recognize Him and others who have the light of Christ in them! so super awesome! Anyway we applied that in exchanges this week! I went into one of the areas for a couple days and what they wanted is a lot of new people to teach. So we prayed with faith and then went to work! it was so fun to see! we had one miracle where we had a lot of new appointments set up and they all said they were on their way and no one was showing up, and we lost the address and phone number of a really awesome lady who loves prayer. So ...

Hello! first off shout out to my padre and little nephew cuz they are one year older and wiser too. This week I have never taken so many taxis in my entire life. We had district conference zone conference and mlc back to back and it was a little crazy. Zone conference was amazing! We had Elder Meurs of the area presidency come and teach us how to teach better! it was so so awesome! Basically it's just following what Preach My Gospel says and teaching simply, sharing a scripture, asking inspired questions, promising blessings and committing them to act. And it takes all of the pressure off because then you let the spirit teach them and you end up saying very little. He compared it to Nephi's experience when he asked to see the vision that his father Lehi saw. When the spirit is teaching Nephi, all he says is "Look" and "what do you see" its awesome! Then we had MLC after that up in Hanoi and discussed a lot of the same things and how each missionary can b...

What is up everybody? This week we had some of the funniest and some of the most spiritual and some of the saddest lessons I have had on my mission. Let's just say missions are a crazy ride So funny lessons: So we have an investigator named CoMaii and she is super duper solid. We have been teaching commandments and they have been really hard for her but this week she comes into the room and is all "I have something to tell you!" And we are like awesome let's start with a prayer. and she is like no the prayer can wait. Then she pulls out all of the commandment pamphlets and lays them on the table and says "I know its hard but I know i will be blessed for living them. I am going to follow all of them because that's what Jesus would want. It was awesome! then we got started with the lesson and we are like k so there is one more commandment and she let out the saddest groan I have ever heard in my life. Anyway we introduced the law of chastity and she was lik...

K so real quick this week was a blur and I wish I remembered it better (or wrote better in my journal...oops) but here's the low down: So Mission Leadership Conference was this week and it was awesome but also stressful. There are good things happening but I have a lot room for growth! Also Sister Chilies took us to an American/ European store to get some things for breakfast and guess what we found!? Kirkland Maple Syrup! let me just tell you maple syrup doesn't exist in Vietnam and neither does Costco. So I wasn't that surprised that it was over $25. Anyway the work is really going right now and it's awesome! We are trying to get ready some people for baptism and we are running into a lot of walls. But it's fun to see the spirit guiding our lessons. We had a really cool lesson on the word of wisdom with Co Mai and she was like this is great and all but I am not giving up tea. But as we talked and listened to the spirit and related everything back to Christ...

Hey, sorry for no email last week I was in Thailand! Also we had transfers last week and I am training! My little trainee is Chi Mai Anh and she is from California. And let me tell you she is the funniest person I have ever met! Also I love missionaries straight out of the MTC just cuz there is so much fire and spirit and they learn how to do it right in the MTC! This week was a little slower just because a lot of our investigators canceled on us. But we had some really really good lessons with Trinh and Duc and Tri. In our lesson Trinh just looked at us and said "how do you apply the scriptures? I know these can help me but can you give me an example?" It was so cute! It was funny though as we were sharing an experience the dad gets up to get something from the kitchen and there must have been quite a surprise for him cuz next thing you know he is yelling the most colorful words I have heard my whole mission. It's funny sometimes the only words peopl...

Hello everybody! Okay so real quick cuz I don't have lots of time! This week was hard but also awesome! So we had exchanges with the sisters in Phu My Hung and honestly, I always learn so much more from them than they learn from me haha! but we went contacting and was talking to this girl at a coffee shop and another guy comes over and sits next to us and he joins in the conversation and turns out they want to have a tour of the church. So we get up to go show them and another guy sitting near us who was eavesdropping stands up and asks if he can come too! so we were like yeah of course! but anyway we give them all pamphlets and invite them to church and the evesdropper (His name is Tu) actually comes to church! and he was like "Hey I read this whole pamphlet do you mind if I show it to a friend?" yeah go for it! and we are meeting him today so I am super excited! Also, we met a wonderful family last week and get to meet with them a couple times and they are just so cu...

Saying of the week: muốn biết phải hỏi muốn giỏi phải học Basically means if you want to know you have to ask, if you want to be competent you have to study. I LOVE GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!! man, I can't tell you how much I love it. I can honestly say this was the most distracted, crazy stressful conference but I just love listening to these inspired men of God answer so many questions that I have and questions of those I am teaching! I loved how there was such a great focus on becoming like Christ as we love God and others! I invite all of you to continue to read those messages and strive to apply them! This week was pretty good! I had exchanges with Sister Anderson so that was fun to do some missionary work with someone I know! We had a really cute experience with one of our investigators with prayer. She called us on the phone in tears the other and asked if we could meet and so we did. she had just had a hard day and told us the sweetest experience of how she felt so alone ...

K so I'm outta creative ways to start my emails But this week we were in Hanoi for half the week cuz of MLC and a special sisters conference to get the sisters excited and ready to go with the work! It was super cool though cuz I got to go on exchanges with the sisters in Ha Dong (one of my old areas) and we went and visited Chi Phuong (a former investigator who was actually my first every investigator that we contacted and started teaching!). She was so excited to see us and seriously it was so good to see her and actually understand her this time haha! She has been going through alot alot of hard trials but is ready to start learning again and I am so so happy I had that opportunity to go and visit her! MLC was awesome and it got me so excited to go out and do the work! The women's conference was so fun to get together with sisters with good food and the spirit and help them get ready to go out and work hard! This week we met a million people cuz we were out of our area ...

K here is the saying of the week: Gieo gió gặt bão. It literally means sow the wind reap the storm or in other words you reap what you sow. So basically this is a challenge for general conference this week-- you're gunna get out of it what you put in. So I invite all of you to write down 3 questions you have in your life, pray about them and then watch general conference. I know if you do this you will receive answers! I am so grateful for modern day revelation! So its' been a crazy week and we have just been meeting so many people! Its been sooo fun! Here's what happened: So we had an awesome lesson with Co Ngoc to find out some of her needs and just help her understand that learning comes line upon line and that not even people who have been in the church for 20 years know everything. That's why life is so long cuz there is so much to learn. But anyway we smoothed things over and she wants to keep learning and we even moved up her baptismal date to the end of th...

So accidentally broke the word of wisdom this week. If you want to know why then please keep reading This week was crazy. I know I have said that before but I don't think I knew what crazy was before. We met with so many people and its awesome! Just a little crazy This week we found a bunch of knew investigators and they are all catholic. I didn't know there were so many catholics in Vietnam but its fun to teach people who already know who God is. None of them want to join but they are all super interested in our message which is awesome! So a couple funny stories with them. 1) we were sitting doing some calls outside our apartment and this lady comes up to us and is all hey "so I hear you do charity work for your church and also have an english club right? Yeah well i am also christian so thats cool." We were a little shocked but turns out one of the old ladies that is always sitting outside our apartment told her all about us. Plus about being friends with al...

What a whirlwind of a week! I say that because it was a crazy week and we have a typhoon headed our way. But not to worry! Saigon is not going to get hit with anything more that a little rain cuz we are pretty far from the actual storm. This week we met with a guy we found on the street who is super religious but doesn't follow a religion. He was super pumped about the book of mormon and we invited him to meet with us. He had a lot to say that was so inline with what we believe and a couple of things not. We were planning on teaching the restoration but he kept bringing up happiness and trials so we taught the plan of salvation and showed him a picture of it and he just got real quiet and said "This is true." The spirit was so strong. But then he didn't want to meet cuz he will just ask his religious friends if he has any questions. I was so sad. We also met with Co Ngoc and seriously the change in her has been so big! Ever since we gave her a baptismal date she h...

Xin Chao everybody! Between Mission Leadership Conference (MLC) and Zone conference this week you better believe I'm just as excited and ready as can be! For MLC we went up to the new mission home in Hanoi and it is sooo beautiful! It reminded me of a good old normal house in Kaysville! So that was cool! The coolest part of MLC though was I came with 3 questions from the sisters in my zone and without me bringing up any of them all of my questions where answered during our discussion! Just another testimony that the Spirit really guides our discussions and this work! Then Zone Conference was awesome! For the zone training we basically picked apart part of the movie "how to train your dragon" and how the relationship between hiccup and toothless is exactly the same as our relationships as companions! That movie was seriously made for missionary companions. I have never thought so deeply or spiritually about a Dreamworks film before. Also this week Anh Phong became a...