The Adams' Mission Adventure - Phở real

 September 29, 2024 I forgot to write about our first dinner appointment/invitation with a member family! Phuong and Tuan kindly invited us to their home on Tuesday, and we almost managed to get lost despite the Grab driver getting us to the right place (albeit the back of the building). Luckily everyone uses FB Messenger to send texts or to call and we were able to have the husband Tuan come down and find us. Phuong had fixed a wonderful traditional Vietnamese meal called Banh Xeo: a crispy stuffed rice pancake. That doesn't even describe it well, but it's delicious!  Phuong is the Primary President and Tuan is the branch clerk, and they are wonderful, as are all the Vietnamese people. On Friday, Allen and I were in charge of Family Home Evening for the branch. Our presentation was Families Can Be Together Forever and we had fun showing a Power Point with pictures of our own family and then each of our parents and grandparents. It went well, and afterwards the branch members ...

 September 26, 2024 Each day is an adventure for us here, and if we're not too tired then we usually enjoy it! This week we've been working on a Family Home Evening lesson for tomorrow all about eternal families. We've got a sweet power point to show, along with a few other things. It should be fun! Our adventure yesterday was to figure out how to call a Family Medical Clinic and make an appointment for our Japanese Encephalitis vaccinations. (Yes, simply making a phone call in Vietnam is an adventure for us.)  This was the furthest Grab ride we've gone on: distance about 7 miles; time to destination about 40 minutes. And when the driver let us out and pointed to where we should go, there was no way through a fence there and he had gone. We weren't sure of the address and couldn't see the clinic, so we asked a guard who was close by (don't ask me what he was guarding; there were a few guards stationed about 300 feet apart along the street). This person puzzl...

 September 22, 2024 Today we received our assignments from our Mission President: Allen is now the first counselor in the branch presidency, and I am the second counselor in the Relief Society--daunting when we don't speak the language. We're grateful for the handful of members who speak English well enough that we don't struggle to understand them, but when we do struggle, we have our young missionaries who sit next to us and interpret for us. Yay for missionaries!! We had a visit from President and Sister Howells, our Mission Leaders, and from Elder Childs, the Area Seventy for Vietnam. He has lived in Taipei, Taiwan, for the past 30 years, where he has his business. The goal for Vietnam is for the Church to grow enough to form a stake in Hanoi and one in Ho Chi Minh City. That will take some doing as there are currently only 4 small branches in Hanoi and 6 in HCMC. We were warmly welcomed by all the members of the branch, which numbered about 25-30 members attending toda...

 September 21, 2024 Oh. My. Goodness. What a week!! Our flight on MondayTuesdayWednesday was a marathon of airports and layovers and sitting and waiting and trying--and failing--to sleep. It was 34 hours from the very beginning until we reached our destination. We were very interested to look out of the plane window as we approached Hanoi and we saw water, water, everywhere; we just weren't sure if all the water we saw was supposed to be there or if it was left over from the typhoon. We found out later that a lot of it was from the typhoon, and the water levels had dropped a lot already, but were still higher than normal.  We landed at the airport and were found by our personal helper who was able to whisk us through the visa process and got us to the baggage claim in record time. Then she disappeared and no one else reappeared. (Interesting note: our picture was taken at the baggage carrousel by a government employee who was making sure others knew we were there and could kee...

September 15,  2024  We had a busy week up in Salt Lake City! This week was my training to be the Mission Health Advisor, and Allen hung around to learn most of the information with me. There was great training on using the website the Church uses for the missionaries’ health, and a lot of medical reviews of body systems. I enjoyed the systems reviews while Allen ducked out on that part, but we both enjoyed learning how to support the young missionaries when they feel stressed or overwhelmed or anxious. Can’t imagine any missionary feeling stressed!!?!?  Oh, wait… now that we’re leaving in the morning I can sort of imagine that! 😆 We enjoyed getting to know the other missionary couples who were there for training; at the end of the week it was sad to see everyone scatter to the four winds for their own missions, from North Dakota to Texas to Guatemala and Japan and Mexico. And now there’s nothing standing between us and a 34 hour trek to Vietnam!! We have planned for thi...