Hidden Beauty

 This week, we happened upon some beautiful things that are perhaps less well known than some others. Allen is a good researcher and discovered another of Hanoi's treasures--Phung Hung Mural Street. We had the support of the junior missionaries and so we took off on another Hanoi adventure!

"Phung Hung Mural Street was established with the hope of creating a space that connects heritage, artistic, and community values. The astounding work of art, with 17 modern paintings on ancient bridge arches, was created in three months by Vietnamese and Korean artists." 

 "Mural paintings on Phung Hung Street range from traditional to modern, but all feature images of Hanoi, such as general department stores, women carrying street goods, jingling trams, and so on. Those images are reminiscent of the beautiful memories of Hanoi."

[These quotes were from a website I looked at (VinWonders) to find out more about this area.]

We also got really brave with the young missionaries and ate at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and lived to tell the tale.

Mural Street was very close to Christmas Street, so we took the young missionaries over there to experience it. I love that street!

On Wednesday of this week, we took a Grab to the Mission Office to meet and welcome another senior couple who are now assigned to Ho Chi Minh City. Two days later, we were told that Elder Hanley, the new Elder, is to be the Patriarch for Vietnam, and his wife, Sister Harris, will be his scribe. This is a tremendous miracle and blessing for Vietnam! In the past, whenever anyone in this country wanted to receive their Patriarchal Blessing, they had to wait until they went on a temple trip to Bangkok or to the Philippines and hope that the Patriarch there was available. Vietnamese people will now have the opportunity to receive a blessing in their own country. It's wonderful! This couple will be serving for 23 months, and I'm sure they will be very, very busy!

After meeting and greeting our new friends, Allen and I went off in search of some more Christmas gifts for our upcoming branch Christmas party (our assignment). We wandered in the drizzle for quite a while, and then found this amazing organization and shop, which is government-supported. 

This particular shop had 4 workers who were disabled; the 2 women we saw working there were deaf and dumb. The man who spoke with us said that there was another workshop in the country that had 500 workers. 

These women were weaving with silk, and the shop was filled with the most beautiful weavings!  

Something very interesting was that they were using silk from 2 sources: 1. Silkworms

And 2. Lotus stalks.

The samples of silk below are from each of these--lotus silk on the left (the white cloth) and silkworms on the right. The lotus silk isn't as soft, but it is more expensive because it's so much harder to get. The man told us that the lotus silk took 9000 stalks of lotus flowers, and the flowers only grow for 3 months of the year. 

It was very interesting. And beautiful.

Our Thursday was busy getting ready for the English activity at 7 pm. We help the young missionaries as they provide an opportunity for any community members to have practice with their basic English skills. There are often around 30 people who attend, including up to 8 young kids. These kids have learned English in school and like nothing better than to show off and shout out answers to questions, or to be first to read things on the board. Therefore, Allen and I have taken on the task of keeping these kids occupied in one part of the room while their parents have a better chance for learning in the other part of the room. We are never alone with the kids, so that's not a problem, and we do our best to play little games, or engage them in activities that they'll have fun with.

 We had our Family Home Evening activity Friday evening at 7 pm; this time the sister in charge had planned on filling out Christmas cards for branch members, and our part in the evening was to provide a game. The game that I like is MEMORY, like concentration, with 24 numbered cards on the board, and two teams trying to find the matches among the cards. I had fun but quickly became aware that few Vietnamese people know Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer, and even fewer know Frosty the Snowman. Haha! But the Vietnamese people we know LOVE to play games! And the evening was a great success: out of around 26 people, there were probably 10 "friends" there, who often attend English activity and come to other activities for the fellowship and fun.

Saturday is a busy day with Allen having a branch presidency meeting at 2 pm, then I teach a music/conducting class at 3 pm, and we have another English activity class at 4 pm. 

 

Here I am in my glory teaching about time signatures and triplets and fermatas, etc., and how to lead music. I have 3-4 serious adults who are learning, and we end up having a good time.

English on Saturday is basically a repeat of Thursday; this day we only had one boy, and he cleared my MEMORY board in about 10 minutes. Yikes!

Saturday evening was interesting as I made clam chowder to share at a branch potluck on Sunday after church. I tried to find canned clams in Vietnam but kept being directed to the fresh seafood area. I don't think the Vietnamese would be caught dead using canned clams; I bought 2 bags of clams and chopped them up myself and my chowder was delicious. That was a first for me!

At church Sunday we had 20 attendees at 9:00 am and about 30 attendees at 10:00 am. Once day we hope to have double that!

And now it's Sunday evening and I get to relax for a few minutes before it's time for bed. Grilled cheese sandwiches today, after a delicious potluck at noon. Thankfully, there are homemade cookies in the freezer!

Thanks for reading!