Our trip on p-day this week was to a treasure trove that one of the missionaries found! It is called Thanh Chuong's Viet Palace and is described in one place as "Hanoi's epicenter of cultural heritage."
A Vietnamese artist named Thanh Chuong built a 2.5-acre open-air complex that was originally intended as a personal sanctuary. But he was frustrated with Vietnam's preservation policies ("they are doing things the wrong way. They completely destroy hundred-year-old relics and then build something else") and so he opened this complex to the public in 2009. As an artist, he created a museum of priceless cultural relics in a natural environment similar to the life and culture of the people thousands of years ago. Each area "feels like an homage to a different ethnic group or cultural tradition." (quotes and descriptions come from the guidebook: Thanh Chuong's Viet Palace)
He wrote: "The very essence of our culture is simple, rustic, friendly, and pure. And that to me has always been the strongest sentiment--the deepest root of every Vietnamese." (p. 61)
It was amazing, from the time we walked through the front archway until we had to leave for home. Here are some of the pictures that amazed and delighted us:
This is a water-puppet theater: "water-puppetry is one of the oldest Vietnamese art forms."
That was hard! I had to choose from over 400 pictures, counting Mine and Allen's together!!
These don't even come close to giving a real feel for this special place. Wow.
That was on Monday.
Tuesday, we had District Planning Meeting with our 4 missionaries. They come to our apartment to eat lunch at 12, then we have our meeting from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm, and have some training, and plan for English Activity (or English class, only we can't call it a class because that might be competing with a real English class in Vietnam).
The English activity is Thursdays at 7:00 pm at the church. It takes anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour to get there, a distance of about 2 miles. We could walk to the church if there was an entrance in the wall that surrounds our apartment complex! Then it would be about 1/2 mile walk. Bummer.
Fridays at 7:00 pm we have FHE, which is actually Branch Family Night, only people don't quite know what to call it to make sure everyone feels welcome. This night we had 2 little families (a total of 4 adults and 2 children) and a single sister who will be leaving on her mission to England in February, and then the 2 Elders and us. Allen taught the lesson this time--a history of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The members know very little about the Bible; they know somewhat more about the Book of Mormon, but most have been members only 5-10 years. So this lesson was really interesting, especially to the single sister (who wasn't chasing any children around!) :)
Saturday morning we had a branch activity and played Spike Ball! Look it up! A game sort of like volleyball, only the small ball is hit down onto a round net to bounce it up to the other team. They have 3 "volleys" to bounce it back onto the net to the other team. It was a fun game; we only had Allen and myself, the 2 Sister missionaries, and 2 members, but we had a dad and his 2 sons come play who usually come to the English activity, so that was great.
In the evening, we had the first session of our District Conference, which would be Stake Conference, if we had a stake. We rode to the district center about 4 miles away with our 4 missionaries and walked to find our dinner of rice/egg/chicken (com trung ga), which was really good!
And this is how families travel in Vietnam! (There's a little girl in front of the driver-dad.)
This morning our District Conference continued with the Leadership Meeting from 10-12, and Allen and I got to speak about Turning Weaknesses into Strengths.
Our visiting authority was Elder Kwan, our Area Authority. We also had Elder Johnson, counselor to our Asia Area Authority, and Elder Teixeira of the Seventy. They (and others) spoke from 1:30 to 3:30 pm.
And if any of you wonder what the heck I'm talking about with all these "Authorities", Message Me!!
We've had a great week!
We hope you have, too!!
Comments
Post a Comment