Peter wrote the following to Sam in an email on Friday, January 8, 2016:

The Church announced today that Viet Nam will become its own mission.  Wow! you probably already knew.  I would guess that is good for Cambodia as now your mission president can focus on the kingdom of Cambodia and not be stretched too thin.  It sounds like there is already a couple who will step right into the VietNam presidency.  How exciting is this for the VietNamese.  They are coming of age. And for those missionaries serving in Cambodia who are in VietNam, switching to their real mission would be exciting.  

Then Sam sent us the following email on Saturday, January 9, 2016:

Subject:  Vietnam

Date:  Saturday, January 9, 2016 at 1:29 AM  

To: Mom, Dad

Hey!

Sounds like you guys heard the good news! It is good news. We only just learned yesterday, too. It'll be good for both our mission and Vietnam. Right now there's only 8 missionaries total serving in Vietnam, so I guess that's enough and they're going to get a lot stronger over time.

Operation: Laboratory basically means that we're back out proselyting FULL-TIME. An answered prayer. The idea is that we get our area really good, then when we do exchanges we bring people into our area to help train them rather than just going to their area and tagging along. Therefore, we must make our area a "laboratory" (that word used by those in the missionary council or something under Elder Oaks), which is sick and we're stoked for. They said in these videos we watched that some presidents won't even let their assistants have chairs in the office because they're not supposed to be there. We'll be taking the same approach and taking over Chatomuk. Probably starting in full next Thursday, so P-day will be back to Mondays. We're back, baby!

We had a MLC meeting on Tuesday and that was good. Not a ton of cool stuff to relay out for you guys.

I got to go on an exchange back into Teuk Thla yesterday. It was the first time I've been back in that northern area (my birth area) since mid-November 2014. I'm not famous there, but it was good to be back. There was a lot of less active homes and things that I was able to show them to. Going back there and riding around it didn't feel like I skipped a beat. Still felt like I knew where everything was. And you still get a flood of memories come back when you smell some stuff or just feelings you get. So it was a good, productive day. Especially the night  where we (miraculously) were able to track down a moved less active--the guy I sent a picture of last year and said he plays guitar. Yeah, that really was a miracle, but a story for another day when I don't have to type it because typing isn't that fun. 

Peace and love nas