Sister Jenna Connell

Xin chao moi nguoi So officially I have been out on the mission for 6 months! that is insane! I can't even believe it! I have learned and grown more in this past 6 months than probably any other time in my life. While I still don't know the language perfectly or how to teach perfectly I am so grateful I can be in Vietnam and help others. I'm so grateful for all I have become and the opportunity to learn about my Savior and follow His example. This week has been another crazy week. We had a lesson with an investigator with really hard deep questions about the Plan of Salvation and they were questions that I'm sure everyone at some point has. It was hard though cuz they are just the kind of questions where you just have to trust God's plan even if you don't know the answers and he didn't really like that. But afterward we taught Chi Hoa again and she is just awesome! she just listens and enjoys what we say and her son is literally the cutest kid ever. We a...

bonjour amis et famille! ^^ that's not Vietnamese that's French. Why? I'll tell you in a sec. So this week has been crazy. Monday we had interviews with President and turns out I was going to be transferred to Ho Chi Minh! So hello from the South. It's so different here. Hanoi is basically a mix of New York and DC (so lots of business people and students) and the South is like California. A lot more chill and laid back and so many families and children! and holy cow it's so hot and humid! I am so grateful for Air Conditioning! Also the food, fruit, smoothies and juices are cheaper so that rocks! Anyway, I also have a new companion who is from France and knows about as much English as i know of Vietnamese. So I might come back knowing French and Vietnamese so that rocks. Anyway before I moved out we had mission conference on Wednesday and Elder Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I saw him in the MTC too so it was super cool to hear from him again!...

Holy Cow what a week! If I have learned anything this week it is that the Lord truly prepares people to hear the Gospel. This week we got to meet with our miracle investigator Chi Phuong again! Since last week she has basically found out everything she could about Christianity and even got a notebook just to write down her findings! She looked up who Christ was and watched a video about Him and just alot of research. When we said we were going to be teaching about prophets she was all "wait! I know all about them! then she told us all the things that she learned!" After that we gave her the Church website so she could find things from a more accurate site than wikipedia! But seriously she is so ready to learn the Gospel. We also made alot of people cry this week. We happened to sit down and talk with this sweet wonderful lady while contacting one day and she told us her whole life story and how her huband and daughter died 5 years ago and we were able to teach the Plan of...

Xin chao buoi sang Gia Dinh va ban Let's just say life is never boring in the mission field. This week was hard in a lot of ways and definitely tried my faith a little but it ended awesome. The week started out and all we did besides studying and meetings is contacting and trying to find ways to serve people and get referrals with members. We contacted like a million people and really did not have much success. We got a lot of people's numbers and a lot of them interested in English class but not very many wanted to hear about Jesus. So anyway I was getting pretty discouraged cuz we have no one to teach. We only have one investigator Em Chi, whose parents wont give her permission to learn the gospel bc she is only 15. But she is so awesome. She knows the Book of Mormon like the back of her hand and always is reciting scriptures and asking questions. But anyway Sunday rolls around and we don't have any lessons so basically we fill in our day with 5 hours of contacting....

Holy cow what a week! So guess what my training is over! thats crazy! its gone so fast! Anyway that means transfers where this week and they have been the craziest transfers! We got 6 new sisters which basically doubled our sister missionary force. Also means most people are training. It was fun this week though because the day the new ones arrived I got to take some of the new sisters around contacting all by myself! I was able to talk to the taxi driver and have a very nice conversation with him and not get lost. Also the newbies are killer contacters. We even got invited into someones house to teach them (that never happens here eve.) So that was way cool but I had no idea what to do because I had never really been in that situation. So I was all like "What do we do now?" and the new missionaries were all like "you should probably introduce the gospel then teach God is our loving Heavenly Father" haha let's just say I'm glad the Holy Ghost is the teache...

Chuc Mung Nam Moi! (Happy New Year) So this week has been suuuper chill. This weekend was Tet so literally nobody is in the city of Hanoi. Everybody is out in there hometowns and its so weird cuz the streets are empty and you can actually hear the birds! We mostly have just done alot of studying and cleaning and service. Only one person showed up to English class as well so even that was chill. But this week end we got invited to a bunch of members houses to come over and eat and share the gospel with there families. Traditionally Tet is celebrated over 3 days and they do different things each day to either honor family or teachers or invite good luck and fortune. Then they do a lot of eating and talking. But the first person to step into your home brings you good luck so usually you want someone important to be that person. Well one of the recent converts Chi Phuong Anh invited one of the American Families and us over and i have never eaten so much food in my life. I will be stu...

Holy cow I cant even believe it but I'm almost done with training! that is crazy! But anyway Happy Valentines day everyone! hope it is awesome and you find someone to love this week! Anyway this week has started to slow down a bit because of Tet. Literally everyone is leaving the city this week but we were still able to meet Anh Hung and Chi Linh and a bunch of recent converts! We also made Kim Chi this week with one of the Korean ladies in our branch and it is sooo good but so spicy! Adventures with Bac Bon part 3: So Bac Bon (the member who sells beer and hooka things in an ally and who we go massage her hands sometimes) calls us this week and want to meet us. She sounds really excited and so naturally we are too! so we plan a really good lesson about temples because we want all the members to go to the temple in the Phillipines this summer. Anyway we go over and she takes us to her house and we go in and up like 11 flights of winding stairs to the roof balcony thing. The...