The Great Shake Up of 2017

"I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Luke 10:18 

They are calling it the great shake up. And no wonder. Eight new missionaries, after a brief stay over in Hanoi, arrived today in Ho Chi Minh City fresh from the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah, USA or the MTC in Manila, Philippines - joining our forces here and ready to take on the world. 

Here are the eight, with their more seasoned companions!

  

He's happy with his new companion - really!  It was just late at night!!!  

  

"And they were all young…, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they … were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted. Yea, they were men (and women) of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him." Alma 53:20-21

"…. yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it." Alma 56: 47-48

They join our hard-working band, bringing fresh faith, energy, and enthusiasm.  They join those only slightly more seasoned than they, every one of them worthy to be called sons and daughters.

This past month Elder Coffey and I have been assigned to prepare for this very day, for their arrival. We spent hundreds of hours finding new apartments in new areas, getting the funding, signing contracts, getting keys, arranging the delivery of beds, desks, bikes, water dispensers, and mattresses - then assembling beds and arranging apartment repairs, all on different days because you'd think it could all be coordinated on one day, but not here..., then stocking the apartments with dishes, pans, fans and mops, getting everything ready, even to the making of their beds with new sheets and pillows!

Everything was ready. And then they came!

Jet-lagged, exhausted, and listening intently to last minute information
before heading out to their apartments.

No wonder the devil turned and ran!

Oh he'll be back, to be sure, but for tonight, for now, he is fled.

So we have new missionaries, new trainer assignments, new teachers, new senior assignments, new leadership roles, new apartments, new areas, assignments to new branches, goodbyes to those going home or to Hanoi, hello to those joining our forces.


Ho Chi Minh City now has 25 young missionaries in all, plus 6 seniors.  What a troop!

Hurrah for Israel!

It's the great shake up of 2017 in HCMC, and we couldn't be more excited.

Thank you to all the parents, family and friends who have sent these young people out the door so full of faith and so well prepared. We recognize the sacrifice involved. Their service will make the earth move. 

"O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!" Alma 29:1

And for the rest of the group - those who were not receiving new missionaries - Glad to have them all here in Ho Chi Minh City with us!

And our well-qualified zone leaders!