The Adams' Mission Adventure - Phở real

...Repetition is the Spice of Life! It makes life interesting...again and again! That's my story and I'm sticking with it! Allen and I have visited the Tran Quoc Pagoda in the past and think it's beautiful, so we take every opportunity to indoctrinate the young missionaries into thinking that same thing, no matter how many times we visit it ourselves. It's just a beautiful and well-kept place. And we see new things every time we go. This was out final p-day with this group of missionaries, as transfers were to take place the next day, so we made sure to share this beautiful spot with them.  We shared one of our favorite places with them, so they also shared one of their favorite places with us: SunKats Burgers. Yes, Vietnamese food can be very good, but yes, Vietnamese food can be very much repetitive to an American, and these young missionaries have scoped out their favorite burger joints! We don't argue when they choose their favorite spot on their going-away-day!...

 This week, it had been a while since we visited the Temple of Literature--Vietnam's first national university, founded in 1070 and operational until 1779--so it was time to go again. Our District missionaries needed to check it out, and this time we had our Elder Hoang, who learned about this place in his history classes. It was fun that he could fill us in on some details we had not heard before. These stele, on the backs of turtles (representing longevity) list the names of the graduates over the years. It was relatively small number, considering the hundreds of years that had passed! This picture supposedly shows how fish become dragons, which I didn't know was a thing! When we finished at the Temple of Literature, we walked to Hoa Lo Prison, or the Hanoi Hilton. What was interesting about this was the fact that this prison was built by the French in 1896 to house Vietnamese political prisoners. There is a long history of the French using this prison against the Vietnamese ...