A Pagoda for Every Neighborhood

 I think I've mentioned this before, but we can't walk down a street, almost, without finding a pagoda to explore. We don't need to look for them, they just sort of jump out at us. Well, we actually do look for them, but as we're looking for the ones that are map-worthy, we find one or two more on the way. This week was no different.

Our week began, as usual, with food. Three of our missionaries needed new glasses, and as Typhoon Wipha was beginning to rain on Hanoi, they started their p-day "fun" getting examined for new glasses while Allen and I worked on things around the apartment. Allen's job is reimbursements--going over all the claims the missionaries make each week, okaying them or asking for more information about them, and printing them out for President Howell to sign. My job is keeping the records up to date on which missionaries see doctors, what they're told, what they do about it, how they're feeling, etc. (Sometimes sharing a computer can be tricky.) When we were done, we walked over to the mall before the rains began in earnest, bought some groceries, took them home, and then walked back to meet the missionaries for lunch--Korean BBQ.

The missionaries choose the level of buffet they want and order the meat, which is brought to the table, and keeps coming and coming until they stop ordering! Crazy! The meat is cooked on the grill at the center of the table. I can tell you that I stopped long before the Elders--and even the Sisters!--stopped.

The threat of the typhoon played havoc with Hanoi on Tuesday, and then it didn't have as much to show for it as we thought it would. In an abundance of caution, the mission leaders had all missionaries stay inside their apartments Tuesday, which meant we canceled District Council as well as game night. 

One very nice thing on this Tuesday was a mission-wide devotional, broadcast to Hanoi from Ho Chi Minh City, where 2 visiting general Authorities were meeting with the missionaries down there. They were in town as a part of For the Strength of Youth - Vietnam, a youth program in the Church which was held down south and which was a wonderful success. The devotional was really good, and we heard from Elder Lund and Elder Tai and their wives.

We were expecting 4 inches of rain for the day, and 14 inches over the next 5 days. I'm not sure how much we got, but it wasn't nearly as much as we were told; at least, not in our part of Hanoi. There was some flooding in other parts of north Vietnam, and tragically a boat capsized in Ha Long Bay, but nothing came near us.

Wednesday was filled with the postponed District Council meeting, and today I don't even remember what else we did that day. Sheesh... I know that a Relief Society activity was canceled that evening because of the fear of the storm, and it could have been held after all.

Thursday I spent some time catching up on missionary health, and Allen caught up on studying and reading, and that evening we made it over to the church for English activity at 7 pm. We had a good turnout and talked about family, with vocabulary and conversations.

Friday we were anxious to be out and about, so when a bike needed to be checked about 8 miles away (40 minutes by car), we didn't pass up the chance to go inspect it in person. I say "we" but it is actually Allen's other responsibility to take care of all bikes in the mission. This one in Cau Giay (Coe Zay) had a pedal that kept falling off, and rather than order a new bike, he decided to take a look. Fourth time is the charm for a repair, we hope. And then we were on our way.

These missionaries live in a nice part of town, and as soon as we'd seen the bike, we began our walk toward a pagoda that Allen found on the map that looked promising. This part of Hanoi actually looked like the Hanoi of 8 million people that we've heard about!

The building behind Allen is the Landmark 72, the tallest building in Hanoi.

And then we got back into the regular streets of Hanoi that we love to wander...

And here is the first pagoda we found--NOT the one from the maps. This was a neighborhood pagoda, a very nice one, I must say.

A fire-breathing dragon...

We left that pagoda in search of the one on the map. We wanted to find the one we were looking for before the rain came. We heard a couple of claps of thunder that really made me jump and look for the nearest building! But no rain accompanied them.

It was really fun to go walking in a totally different area than we have been in before; the next thing we discovered was a cemetery. We have seen these from a distance, usually out in a rice field or in small villages, but we have never been able to visit one in Hanoi. It was a beautiful place, and obvious that the Vietnamese people love and  honor their families.

Just on the other side of the cemetery was the pagoda we had been searching for! 

Saturday became a little busier than usual because we each found out that we got to teach on Sunday:  R.S. (for me) and priesthood (for Allen). We had to fit in that preparation while still having our meetings and English activity, etc. Allen had his Branch Presidency meeting at 2 while I got ready for music class, which basically goes from 2-4, with free comings and goings of whomever wants to practice and receive some direction in their practicing. This day, I had 4 adults and my 7-year old student, whose mother wants her to learn to play simple hymns and who would rather play around than play simple hymns. We did our best. And at 3 pm, the Sister missionaries went home because one had stomach pain, which meant Allen and I were in charge of the advanced English group at 4 pm. That actually ended up being kind of fun, because we were once again talking about family. I drew a simple outline of our immediate family on the board, and we got a lot of fun reactions when we drew all those lines representing 7 children. Very few families in Vietnam have more than 3 children, and most have only 1 or 2. And then when we talked about grandchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews, the gasps and amazement grew and grew, and that was just with our own immediate family! It was even more fun when we added Allen's siblings and mine, and all those cousins and nieces and nephews. 

Saturday evening almost always includes a missionary correlation meeting for an hour or so, and that means Allen and I usually get home around 8:00 pm, if nothing else comes up. This night, we had some heavy rain in the evening, so we got a Grab car for the Elders (who left their bikes at the church) and us, and had it drop us at the mall to pick up a few groceries, and we got home at 8:30 pm, ready for dinner and church lesson preparation. We did actually get to bed that night...

Early Sunday morning: Getting ready to teach. 

That's always a challenge to teach in another language... I mean, to teach people who understand another language more than they understand your language--when otherwise you can teach pretty well in your own language.  We teach with an interpreter by our side and have that person tell the class what we say, and then have them tell us what the class says back to us. We love to bear testimony of the gospel, but it's a difficult way to do it.

Allen had double-duty today because he also teaches the self-reliance class on Sunday afternoons. He gets to experience the language challenge of teaching every Sunday, but he is a dedicated teacher and wants his class members to be able to benefit from finishing the course, which leads to a better future for them.

One of the trees in the courtyard of the church is a jack fruit tree, and it bore a ripe jack fruit this past week, which was sliced and diced and quickly eaten after church.

This is what a jack fruit tree can look like...

And this is what it looks like inside...  It's pretty tasty.

They even boil the seeds of the jack fruit and eat them. Don't ask me why...  Actually, it's because of the mindset of the Vietnamese that nothing must go to waste; eat every part of everything because you may need to eat it in the future. I did taste these; I don't need to eat them again. It was kind of like dry, chalky potato.

We ended the evening on a fun note. Way back at the end of the last transfer, we took a trip to a noodle-making village and got a free package of noodles. Since I don't know how to cook said noodles, I offered them to our Vietnamese missionary sisters, who then offered to cook them for our district, and we all ate noodles in our apartment tonight! They made a soup to go on the noodles and we had a great time.

Have a wonderful week! Tomorrow is a hot and muggy day, so we may have a "home" adventure!

We love you!