Conference Season

In Vietnam the dry season has a particular meaning for rest, rejuvenation and preparation. In some areas the more lax work schedule meant also that certain vices like drunkenness and abuse might creep in. Once the rains begin however, the workload shifts into higher gear though, and signals it is time to put away idle mischief and wrong-doing. 

Growing up as a boy in Utah with a good number of relatives on various sides of the family, I became used to the “reunion season” that came in conjunction with summertime each year, and on occasional other days of note. I had a lot of cousins, most of whom seemed so much older than I and whose names I could never recall, given that we only saw each other one time each year in many instances. But it was evident to me that the older aunts and uncles really thrived on being together and seeing the changes in the rising generation of nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren. Getting together with those same cousins now continues to be joyful, and one aspect of life we have missed while serving far from any of them. Yet in another sense, we have become more united with them as we have read and shared in their missions to far flung corners of the world that we are unlikely to ever visit. (See http://belgiancaldwells.blogspot.com/ and TrinidadThackerays.blogspot.com/, for example.)

The gathering of Latter-Day Saints for conferences is a habit instituted from the earliest beginnings of the church, but I believe has even more ancient origins in Old Testament festivals and holy days, the Passover in spring, the days of atonement and new year in the fall, with lesser festivals in between. For modern Latter-Day Saints, these are similar times of reunion, a true gathering of brothers and sisters in a wonderful extended gospel family. There is the same joyful renewal of acquaintance I witnessed among my older cousins, aunts and uncles as a boy. And there is also the same marveling at the growth of the younger ones among us, new additions to the family, new skills and experiences gained, and new responsibilities taken on.

Mission presidents have the opportunity to preside over the conferences of nascent church units each year and that has been our privilege with the first conferences of the recently formed districts in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. In Hanoi the shared sense of becoming something significant was evident as the District had to rent a hotel ballroom in order to accommodate all those who wished to attend, and the number attending this signal event exceeded by 10% the average attendance at Sacrament meetings of the three (now four) branches included in the District. And of course, any reunion has not truly happened unless it is recorded in countless photo groups of family members!

The experience for the southern saints was no less singular. Instead of using a hotel however, they crowded into all the rooms of the villa in Thu Duc now serving the new branch by the same name. The chapel space and large classrooms were each filled to capacity with saints, some of whom were seeing the new space for the first time. Video and audio feeds from the chapel were broadcast in the entire building so all could feel and see the spirit of the Lord. And then after the conference sessions were over they spilled onto the covered portico and grassy grounds to celebrate with a shared meal while the concluding business of ordinations and settings apart needed to complete the goal of more fully “establishing the church” were carried out.

The road map was laid out for the next six months of District growth and development, along with a view of the longer term organizational and personal development needed, which include matching the District Leadership to the branch training and support needs, as well as continuing to sustain a similar path of organizational development as the smaller branches migrate from being very basic units to more “adolescent” branches, and ultimately mature branches yearning to be wards. From the early 2017 division that created the Quan Sau branch for example, the growth in missionary work and strengthening and finding members has seen them grow from a very small unit to one that can now support and sustain a three-hour meeting schedule, and are ready to organize a small primary for the rambunctious boys who come with parents and relatives each week. Like time-lapse photography, the conferences allow us to see dramatic changes in the church from a few hours of meeting together twice a year.

For our missionaries, particularly our senior missionaries who serve quite far apart and can often feel isolated or disconnected from each other and the greater good they are part of, we have found it useful to organize semi-annual reunions or conferences as well. The most recent one, nestled tightly in between the two District Conferences, was held in the highlands of Vietnam, about 40 km from Buon Ma Thuot on Lak Lake. The setting was quiet and restful, and the landscape and views across the lake and valley were beautiful, particularly in the still of the early mornings. We learned a lot from being together, and the conversations over meals and on outings were as important in building comraderie and esprit de corps as the updates on our efforts and fine-tuning our mission culture.

In some areas there is always harvesting to do

The day's work quickly threshed

I enjoyed seeing more into a sub-culture of Vietnam in the area, which is populated by many M’Nong and Ede people, among others. Their characteristic “long houses” are extended family homes which do not feature the traditional “ban tho” or ancestral shrine seen in most traditional Vietnamese homes. It was also remarkable to see the prevalence of Christianity among these groups. Christian churches by my rough observations easily outnumbered Buddhist shrines along the routes we traveled.

Men and Women enter separately traditionally

Feed corn put out to dry- the wandering cow liked it until the slingshot-wielding boy on the porch got to him!

Christian Burying ground- note the number of small infant plots

Zone Conferences are also wonderful reunions as well for us. The three zones all held day-long conferences following their respective District Conference. While coming far more frequently than most other conferences, they also serve to establish the church more firmly, not through sustaining new leaders, but by giving young leaders the chance to practice training others, by providing spiritual uplift and renewal of friendships and ties with other missionaries. We discovered in one for example, that we had almost an entire MTC group of nine missionaries serving together in different capacities in one Zone. They loved being together again, and some were entreating me to make them companions again!

Although we plan and prepare these in counsel with the zone leaders and sister training leaders, I am always pleased when new things come out of them. Sometimes in order to really learn, we need to be standing and speaking. Then revelation comes. The “aha!” light comes on in our minds and important answers are given. That has been the most important lesson we have learned, and tried to impress on our fellow-servants. Christ leads his church and instructs his saints, and he does so particularly when they gather together in one accord, in conferences.

For example, we talked a lot about the ritual of baptism, and why we need to experience a ritual rather than just signing our name on a form to enter the church. The connection to our covenant in being baptized to “always remember him” then became apparent. I can’t recall how many times I have signed my name to something- reports, checks (back in the paper check days), receipts, invoices, deeds and who knows what else. But I can clearly remember the experience of being baptized by my father at age 8. It is indelibly etched into my memory, and helps me to always remember Him.

Passing by, my new friend invited me in!

We also talked and thought a lot about Christ’s atonement, by which I mean his willingness to personally assume the pain and suffering for sins (our own or those of others, such as Adam) that would separate us from God, our Heavenly Father, thus allowing us again to enter His presence, in complete purity and wholeness. It’s a concept that can be difficult to grasp. But as my assistants demonstrated teaching this, they likened it to an everyday experience here, a rice cooker. The hard grains are ultimately made delicious by the addition of water and controlled heat, and so our lives are changed and made delicious when we allow the Savior’s love (“living water”) to surround us and enlarge our souls. Don’t see it that way? Well, it made sense at the time.

I thought of how much of my life I have dealt with cancer- diagnosis and treatment. Then I saw that Christ offers us both the correct means of diagnosis, as he lovingly guides us through the spirit to recognize our sins and weaknesses, and then to the complete and total healing that can come as we bring those burdens to him who carries “healing in his wings.” It is the quintessence of “personalized medicine” for the soul. We don’t have to look very far in our lives to find “types” of Christ, things that teach us what he is like, what his sacrifice means, and how we can begin to bring it into our lives, whether to soften us up and make us more “delicious” or to heal the gaping wounds in our spirit, both those that are self-inflicted through our own folly, or those that are imposed because we were a bystander, or even an intended victim.

I’ve become a fan of conferences, these marvelous times of renewal of relationships, of strengthening one another, of being edified and bolstered, of receiving revelation and insight. Thankfully there are still a few more such experiences ahead in my life.

Approaching the handoff zone

When the snow had been shoveled off the track at our kids’ high school in Maine, track practices could begin. Most years that was possible by April. Among the conditioning workouts and the individual event training soon came the rehearsal of skills for the various relay events that my children occasionally were part of. For each of these events, whether a sprint relay like the 4x100, or a mixed distance event like the medley or the  4x800 meter distance, or some other combination, unquestionably the most critical few seconds are those when the baton is passed from one runner, nearly spent and exhausted, to the next, standing fresh and eager to run. Well executed, the transition could mean the difference in a place on the podium and a team record, or frustration with time lost or even a disqualification for passing the baton outside the specified area. Watching them learn and practice their timing, communication and coordination skills made me appreciate their results all the more. But execution when they were engaged in the excitement and exhaustion of the race was often more challenging than they had anticipated.

In the medical field we have learned that a similar high risk situation is the transition in care, from one baton-carrying provider to another, whether that be doctors, nurses or others. And since these kind of transitions happen many times each day, even small risks multiplied by countless patients mean that someone somewhere is going to suffer when a key detail of their care is missed and the baton falls on the track, or remains in the hand of the prior runner.

Mission presidents in some respects are relay runners too, and care providers, who have to hand off to the next runner an important baton. Well actually it is a host of batons. We don’t get spring practice to rehearse the process with the next phase runner. But we do benefit from some institutional experience and a standard checklist to follow covering a few of the critical hand-overs that must occur seamlessly. But since each mission president functions in a very different setting, even though the title may appear similar, the task ahead for us is uncharted in many respects.

One of the rather unique, contrary to prevailing wisdom kinds of things about church leadership is the very short hand-over allotted to many offices. For Mission Presidents the overlap between arrival of new and departure of the old is rarely longer than 24 hours and may be an hour or less in some circumstances. Couple that with the sleep deprivation of jet lag and it would seem almost certain that the baton will fall to the ground somewhere.  But there is wisdom in this approach, foolish as it seems to conventional wisdom. The mission president must approach his task with enough of a feeling of inadequacy, and enough of ignorance, to always seek the guidance he needs from above, not from the former occupant of his new chair.

While this is especially important for the missionaries to whom he will minister, it also has value with regard to dealing with members and other church leaders. The young missionaries, whom of course we love and think are the best, get to start afresh with the impressions they will make as they meet with their new president, free from any detailed briefing and hence bias from me.

So what is on the checklist? Aside from the details of how to find the washing machine, and the wifi password in the mission home, we will provide to the new mission president a sample suggested schedule for his first month. I sat down to look at that the other day and mapped something out that included visits to interview missionaries in their apartments or districts, some zone conferences, meetings with the district presidencies, speaking in various branches, a couple of days for a whirlwind trip to visit saints in the mission branch and meetings with his counselors in that branch, undoubtedly some last minute temple recommend interviews as people in hords head to the temple in July, and all culminating with a rather significant departure of the very best of his missionaries- 10 of them, almost 20% of his forces. He might take a peek at that and decide to never unpack!

With that schedule in mind, I see my next few weeks filled with 1) efforts to try to resolve problems that have lingered so that he doesn’t need to even know about them, and 2) endeavors to fortify the members and missionaries such that there is a sort of “autopilot” effect for the first few weeks. We have met with two dozen people this week on varying matters of progress- missionary applications, priesthood ordinations, temple recommends and support applications- as we have worked in Ho Chi Minh City, An Giang, Tien Giang, Tra Vinh, Can Tho and parts in-between.

These visits have impressed upon me how much progress has been taking place while we have been here, and often while we were not looking. The gospel grows along family trees, and seeing now more and more families eagerly preparing to make eternal promises with each other and with God as part of his plan to bring to pass our eternal life and happiness emphasizes that powerfully. So where two years ago was just one hard working young man who was a member of the church, there is now a three generation family of engaged and growing members of the church. Where once was a small group of three members and a few other friends meeting to pray and sing in a tiny upstairs room, is now a group of often thirty members of all generations and ages in several extended families engaged in the work of loving and serving one another- even when they have differences of understanding, and bearing with one another’s weaknesses. I will resist the temptation to go on into boasting, but not the opportunity to “glory in the Lord” as did Ammon. It is a wonderful work and a wonder that has come to pass, and is still coming to pass.

It is often small details that seem to point out the Lord’s hand in this ministry. One such was evident today, as we traveled with Judy Battchi, a long term friend, who has been visiting, and just happens to speak Mandarin fluently. We visited my counselor, deep in the Mekong delta in the small village outside of Bac Lieu where he lives with one daughter. But today, of all days to visit, his other daughter from Cambodia, and who is also a member, though perhaps less frequently attending church there, was visiting. And with her she brought her Chinese husband, who speaks Vietnamese hardly at all, but who could easily speak with Judy and ask all sorts of questions that have been unanswered in their years of marriage.

The miracles, small and large, will continue, even as we stumble into the baton exchange zone, tired and panting, and therefore willing to hand the task to younger and fresher legs, and with complete confidence that the grace of a loving God will compensate for our inability or lack of practice in handing off each and every unfinished detail. Our checklist of checklists continues to grow!

Quantum leaps and Linear Thinking

We spent some time of late waiting on the road leading up to the ferry to cross the Mekong into Long Xuyen. We’ve been this way before, and on normal days the traffic backs up a bit, but the three or four ferries running simultaneously manage to keep the back up to a 30-45 minute wait. But add in the ending of the Tet holiday, when half of the populace is enjoying the last few days of their time off work, and another portion is trying to get back to their daily lives so they can resume work, and the shippers are trying to catch up with the shelves-emptying buying that preceded the holiday, and it should not surprise one that the waiting time doubles or triples.

Prior to the building of bridges such waits were just a part of the travel and one factored in the wait and the vagaries of such travel into one’s expectations. Then they started to build the grand suspension bridges across the Mekong that we have today, and suddenly the paradigm changes. And while traffic across the bridges can still slow down on holidays (as it did over the Ben Tre bridge the last time we visited there on a three-day weekend) the thinking has changed.

So it is with infrastructure. The bridge spans the chasm and suddenly every subsequent traveler ceases to dread the journey or ponder their life while they wait on the descent and ascent of the chasm.

That’s very much what we have been doing with this mission. We have been building the bridges across chasms of disbelief. We have been building the freeways (or at least the straight roads) that subsequent generations of God’s Army will follow to further the establishment of the cities of Zion. Things like robust visa processes still stymy us at times. Getting materials for use in the growing number of branches, or for use of our branch builders still occasionally get stalled in crossing. But more and more the basic matters become routine, proceduralized and sometimes simpler.

We have noticed that at times the work seems to perk along at a rather linear pace, proportionate to the number of workers. And we have been blessed to be a mission whose ranks have increased wonderfully over the past two years as others have commented. But sometimes, irrespective of the gross numbers, there seems to be a jump in the curves, a shift in the slope, an underlying change in the assumptions of what is possible.

We will discuss a question in the coming Mission Presidents Seminar that we posed with our leadership counsel a few months back. A question that asks what is possible, what it would take, to bring every area, every companionship, into the productive phase of the work.

We see fields that lie fallow during certain seasons of the year, but then are brought into production with re-plowing, planting and the maturing of the tropical sun and rains. Similarly, we have been learning how to prepare the paddy, how to engineer the watering and drainage in our young branches, how to nurture the paddy rice so that it can be transplanted into appropriately spacing and then flourish until it is ready for the harvest.

We have spent a little time again in the Mekong, which though it is the breadbasket of this country, is not yet ready to be brought into regular cultivation in the harvest of the Lord. But the land is sometimes so fertile that the harvest can hardly be restrained. This is the one place where we have seen the conversion of entire extended families to the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a humility, and a hunger, that when exposed to the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ, seem to allow a rapid harvest. And in that we rejoice both in the harvest, and the Lord of the Harvest.

We sometimes are still caught doing linear thinking when the Lord is seeing a quantum leap. And we understand more fully his assertion that he will “hasten his work in his time” in conjunction with the prophetic words of Elder Holland, “You are witnessing the birth of the church in a day.” We are grateful that this is our day.

Tết, Traditions, and Truths

The celebrations of life are vital marks of each new stage of our lives. The Lunar New Year (Tết) in Vietnam is surrounded by numerous traditional activities that provide comfort and continuity, reassurance, connection to the past and the future, and also meaningful instruction. Sometimes the latter purposes may seem flawed or out of date with today’s needs. But they may also be ways of teaching important eternal truths that need to be remembered in the New Year. Whatever their original origins, one may find nuggets of truth amid the traditional thoughts, rituals, and activities of Lunar New Year. Here are some musings on how these common traditions may connect in a deeper sense to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pay your debts, be reconciled with your neighbor. The new year celebration is intended to be a time of clean thoughts, good fortune and hopes for prosperity. That is best done by resolving all concerns with others. So the time prior to Tết is well spent reviewing any relationships that need to be amended, debts that need to be retired, and mis-deeds that need correction. Of course it can also lead to many social connection demands to ensure that everyone is happy and set for future good dealings, which at times leads to a very tight schedule.

Jesus said to the Nephites, “If ye shall come unto me, or shall desire to come unto me, and rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee—Go thy way unto thy brother, and first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I will receive you. In preparing to enter the new year, the ancient Israelites, symbolically took a “scapegoat” and put on him all the unintended wrongs that might have been accrued during the year and before the new year came, drove the goat away into the wilderness, symbolically absolving even those unintended wrongs that might have occurred in the community. This and other “Day of Atonement” celebrations just prior to the beginning of the new year also typify the desire to be reconciled to God with the advent of a new time period. This is a righteous desire.

Clear out the dirt and dust from the home. Similar to the notion of resolving debts is the sense of wanting things to be clean as we enter a new period. New paint, newly washed windows, and freshened fixtures are a part of this desire to put aside the grime of the past so that we can enter the new year with cleanliness. We know now that the window washing on our building will occur in this pre-Tết period each year and that the burnt-offering urns outside an apartment are likely to get new paint at this  time. 

Somewhere in the clouds are the window washers!

This tradition also has correlates in the Jewish new year (Yom Kippur) celebrations, and in western traditions of “spring cleaning.” Spiritually as well, we may begin a new month with fasting, a new week with the sacramental cleansing and reccommitment spiritually, and a new year with new resolves to do better. ”Put aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better” we are admonished.

Put in store enough food and supplies for visitors and family. We make bánh chưng, and other special dishes that can be brought out to share the new year’s wishes and provide enough for our guests. This is more than just a 72-hour kit, though it might be a good time to evaluate whether one had those supplies, but fits more with the admonitions to have enough and to spare, to lay aside enough for a period of scarcity, even if that is just the closure of the markets for a holiday.

Not unlike the need for people to build into their lives a time to check the batteries in the smoke alarms (daylight savings time, right?) or to check whether the phone has minutes enough for the weekend, or the tank is full of gas before a trip, the reminder to pause and assess our readiness to serve others is a noble one. I admire the missionaries who have their backpacks filled with emergency supplies as well as religious materials, just in case they chance upon a scene requiring their service. The Scout motto to "Be Prepared" is the affirmative action admonished by Amulek in the Book of Mormon to "not procrastinate the day of your repentance!"

Place a new saying on your doorposts. While this habit is more common in China than Vietnam, we still see it in various situations, often just as a good wish for the new year. Some of these are well-worn wise sayings, while sometimes they are the sincere creation of a new heart. "An Khang Thịnh Vượng" (contentment and prosperity) "Mọi Sự Như Ý" (all things according to your wishes) "Luôn Luôn Trẻ Đẹp" (forever youthful and beautiful) "Tăng Phúc Tăng Thọ" (Added blessings and Added longevity) and similar good wishes become the spoken and written hopes we express for one another, and the coming time. 

In the scriptures, the Lord admonished the ancient Israelites to ponder on his words frequently, when they came in and when they went out, to write them upon the lintels and doorposts of their homes, a habit that is still practiced in some more strict Jewish homes today. Compare this passage in Deuteronomy 11:18-20 “Therefore shall you lay up these words in your heart and your soul…and ye shall teach them to your children…and thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon they gates.”

The bank would like you to "breakthrough" your limitations in the new year.

Bring new blossoms into your home, Peach in the north, and Hoa Mai in the south. This tradition seems to remind us that the new year is a time nearing to spring. The blossoms on a fruit tree foretell the plentiful harvest ahead, and the new blossoms remind us that from the seemingly lifeless winter past will spring forth new life. 

This is likewise an Easter symbol, like the lilies that are used in western symbolism. And while the Jewish new year was in the fall, the Passover festival was in the spring and very clearly a time for preparing for planting, as is often the case with areas in Vietnam where planting begins after Tet.

A related custom is to bring a new, richly laden Kumquat tree into your home, or especially into your business. The fruits are bright orange and sufficiently sour to not be eaten, perhaps reminding one to keep in store one's prosperity for the long haul ahead.

Prepare to give or receive “Lucky Money.” This delightful tradition is a means for parents to bless their children, for grandparents to express their feelings and wishes for their posterity, and for older people in general to make tangible their wishes for the new year. Most often it comes in a red envelope, further reinforcing the color red as bringing good fortune in this society. It is given unconditionally, a manifestation of what should be a love without requisites. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that “we love him, because he first loved us” or in other words, God’s love for us, manifest most tangibly in the redeeming blood of a Savior Jesus Christ, was given without any sense of our having earned it. “For God so loved the world (us) that he gave his only Begotten son.”

Return home and gather with family, reconnect and renew relations. This is a theme throughout this holiday, and crosses generations, and the boundaries of death as we seek to remember and attend to those who have been before us on earth. This is one of the most pervasive, and strongest, traditions of the holiday, despite the desire of tour and travel companies to exploit the "vacation" time for more commercial purposes. Graves are often cleaned and attended to prior to the holiday so that gatherings there on the new year, traditionally day 2, can be propitious. 

The gathering of God’s family from the four corners of the earth is a repeated theme in prophetic writings and in the narrative of world history, as well as the growth of his Church, which itself is seen as a gathering into his fold. Many members experience their entry into the church as a sense of coming home. When we gather we enjoy “communion” with each other, and learn more of our role in the family, whether that is the divine family of God, or our own nuclear group family. Likewise gathering our family history, remembering and honoring those who have gone before by attending to their need for saving gospel ordinances, among other things, "else why are they baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all?" as Paul asked, is a truth that spans cultures and centuries, wisely shared in recognition of the ultimate gathering of all the family of God into the covenants of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Light some firecrackers to disperse any evil spirits looking to influence your luck in the new year. While many cultures have the concept of evil spirits who can make life difficult, the ways of warding them off may vary. Spells, mirrors, particular plants, potions, sacrificial appeasements and firecrackers could all be included in that list, with probably several others. 

But the New Testament parable told by Jesus Christ probably speaks in a more meaningful way, tying this tradition with that of cleaning house prior to the new year, and providing instruction implicitly, on how to best keep evil from re-entering one’s life. In Matthew 12, we read, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept and garnished. Then he goeth and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first…” One might say that having abandoned bad habits, addictions, or sins then, if we do not fill up our house with good things, the evils of the past and worse may overwhelm us, firecrackers or not.

Release a fish on behalf of the Kitchen God to carry a good report to the Jade King. We have commented on this practice before, often seen in the week prior to Tet, of releasing into the wild a small fish, most often a goldfish, to symbolize the desire for a good report to be made to the great Judge, the Jade Emperor and thus ensure favorable blessings on the household as a whole.

This again is highly suggestive of the notion that we are accountable before a great and Divine Judge, which in our scriptures, can only be Jesus Christ, "who employeth no servant" at the gates of judgement. He is a grand Mediator between man and the Eternal King of Heaven and Earth. Our offerings to him, instructed to be today not of flesh or other animal, but a "broken heart and a contrite spirit" willing to do His will, are influential in procuring the blessings of his kingdom on our house and household.

Symbols and rituals teach us in important ways that words or simple exhortation often do not. If we have eyes to see and hearts to understand, we can see the lessons of the atonement, the promise of eternal life, the reality of the resurrection, judgement, and the eternal importance of the family and living in harmony in the symbols and rituals, the traditions and the customs of Tet Nguyen Dan.