diff --git a/tutorial/source/vae.ipynb b/tutorial/source/vae.ipynb
index 4140b144a7..b30684bc10 100644
--- a/tutorial/source/vae.ipynb
+++ b/tutorial/source/vae.ipynb
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@
     "\n",
     "import numpy as np\n",
     "import torch\n",
-    "import torchvision.datasets as dset\n",
+    "from pyro.contrib.examples.util import MNIST\n",
     "import torch.nn as nn\n",
     "import torchvision.transforms as transforms\n",
     "\n",
@@ -133,9 +133,9 @@
     "    root = './data'\n",
     "    download = True\n",
     "    trans = transforms.ToTensor()\n",
-    "    train_set = dset.MNIST(root=root, train=True, transform=trans,\n",
-    "                           download=download)\n",
-    "    test_set = dset.MNIST(root=root, train=False, transform=trans)\n",
+    "    train_set = MNIST(root=root, train=True, transform=trans,\n",
+    "                      download=download)\n",
+    "    test_set = MNIST(root=root, train=False, transform=trans)\n",
     "\n",
     "    kwargs = {'num_workers': 1, 'pin_memory': use_cuda}\n",
     "    train_loader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset=train_set,\n",