When You're Old...

May 25, 2025

...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!

Since our missionaries were all tied up on Tuesday, Allen and I went on an adventure that my engineer husband has been wanting to do for a while--we walked across the Long Bien Bridge, which is about 100 years old, and which was targeted many times by the U.S. Air Force during the war, was hit, but which was never taken out. It is a train track that crosses the Red River, with roads for scooters on each side, and flimsy (feeling) concrete for walking on that was very disconcerting and which provided too much of a view down between our feet. We managed to make it across the entire length of the bridge (almost 1 mile) in spite of the drizzly rain and the shaky feel to the concrete, and we were rewarded with some beautiful scenery.

Once we were across, we began to walk toward a mall, and came across a beautiful Pagoda, which we were delighted to explore!

I just wanted to include this slightly incongruous, yet charming, picture..

As we walked further down the street, we came to an opportunity to buy fish under an overpass! We had seen small goldfish in baggies before, but not large fish like these koi.

And a little further down the road, we found another very large pagoda, this one right on the river!

It's amazing to see jackfruit growing on the trees--straight off the trunk!

And then there was even ANOTHER temple right next to the second pagoda...

"Den" is a temple; "chua" is a pagoda.

We really had a full day of exploring, and then we Grabbed home for game night at the church. We packed it in this day!

Wednesday was our first day with our new District missionaries, and our first district planning meeting with a new Elder and a new Sister. We quickly make a new family, and they quickly get to know everyone in the branch, although probably not as quickly as they'd like. Change is always a bit difficult.

Along with the regular activities this week of game night on Tuesday, English activities on Thursday and Saturday, Music on Saturday, and Book of Mormon class on Friday, we have been included in the "birthday" celebration of a baptism that happened 3 months ago, and dinner once or twice with the missionaries, most recently where we tried to stay dry together in the rain last night. We are delighted to be counted as among them!

Often when we arrive for Tuesday game night, or after English activity on Thursday or Saturday, the missionaries are meeting with an investigator who has come to the activity, and they are squeezing in a lesson before or after. Nine times out of ten, we will be asked to join in that lesson and participate, which we are always delighted to do! This is the part we love the best, to testify of the gospel and of the experiences we have had in our lives that have shown us that we have a loving Heavenly Father, and that He wants us to return to Him. There's nothing better than to be in those lessons and be reminded that we're in Vietnam to help people learn about Jesus Christ. Sweet... It can't happen often enough...