The Southern Accent is So Confusing...
We had a wonderful week and were excited to travel to Ho Chi Minh City, which I may refer to as Saigon only because it's quicker to type, and both are acceptable in Vietnam. Allen and I were invited to participate in Zone Conference this month by presenting information to the missionaries: Allen's information was about Reimbursements (he makes sure the missionaries get reimbursed for certain expenses, and he needs them to fill out the paperwork properly to make his job easier) and Bike Safety; my information was about Health (from why they can't just call the doctor themselves to how I make sure the doctors get paid, etc.) and Conducting Music. The last one was way too fun for me! I may have gone over my time limit...
We stayed in a hotel in a location that was near some iconic Saigon sights, which was fun.
This was the Notre Dame Cathedral, which apparently has been under renovation for years. When we first drove into the area, it looked very much like the Salt Lake Temple surrounded by scaffolding.
This was one side of the cathedral.
This is Book Street--filled with book shops and coffee shops and shade trees. It's very welcoming and fun to walk down. The next 3 pictures are on Book Street.
We're with President and Sister Howell again.
This is the Ho Chi Minh City Post Office.
And another view of the Post Office.
Here is the inside of the Post Office, which is now a very large, fancy market for tourists...
...that looks like a large train station.
There were lots of Christmas decorations up all over.
A Nighttime view...
Tuesday was Zone Conference. We haven't seen these missionaries for months, and some of them maybe for a year. It was really fun to visit with them again and see how they're doing.
This is the view out of our hotel window as we got ready to go that morning.
Since we never know if we'll get to do training again, I thought I'd include the schedule here, just for fun. This includes zone conference for the south and the north, as well.
Lunch!!
This is our departing sister missionary, giving her final testimony as a missionary.
This is a picture of 3 former missionaries we worked with who came to help with zone conference.
Sister Tuyet, above, and Elder Hoang, below, worked in Hai Ba Trung with us.
Wednesday was our full free day and we chose to take a speedboat ride up the Mekong Delta and see what that experience would be like! First, it was a fun ride on the boat, and kept us a little cooler than we would otherwise have been. It wasn't too hot that day, but it certainly wasn't as cool as the weather we're having in Hanoi! Saigon was in the 90s; Hanoi is in the 70s.
Nope; not to worry, not our boat, but an old classic one that is used to make a living on the river.
The river wound around through the city, and we could see the stilt houses of the economically challenged people. They make their living on the river, and it's a hard living to make.
The eyes on the boats are to frighten the sea monsters into leaving these boats alone.
We could imagine troops having to wade through these muddy waters, afraid of what they'd find any minute...
We stopped at a local farmer's home to take a tour of his fruit farm. He grew a wide assortment, and it was interesting to see the different kinds he grew. 
He gave us star fruit, watermelon, bananas, guava, coconut, and more. And he grew apples, longan fruit, custard apple, jack fruit and bananas. I'm lucky I can remember that many!
Banananas
This is longan.
Jack fruit...
Custard Apple, sometimes called the hand grenade apple because of the way it looks. :)
Back on the river, we would see more of the cool old boats...
And then we got onto dry ground again in a little village to explore the market.
We walked through the fish market; I've never seen so many types of fish and other creatures, all destined for someone's dinner table. I don't have room to put pictures of them all.
Octopuses... And the item that is a favorite with many people--chicken feet.
And then there are the frogs--large ones--ready to buy and cook.
All kinds of vegetables, many of which I still don't know.
And lots of fun fruits.
Further into town, we came to the Cao Dai Temple, a religion that is a sort of conglomerate of many different religions, Christian and non-Christian alike. The temple was ornate and colorful; this one was rather small, I'm told.
Back to the river, we traded our speedboat for an old narrow wooden one, and we were paddled downriver about 1/2 a mile or so. It was very quiet and peaceful.
From here, we went back downriver toward home, but stopped for lunch along the riverbank. When we go on tours, they do a great job of fixing local food with great presentation and flair, and there is always way too much to eat!
Our last day in HCMC was Thursday, Thanksgiving Day!! If no one had told me, I never would have known it was a holiday. I think it would have been better if no one had told me.
We ended with a speedy ride back to HCMC, past the same stilt houses, contrasting in a big way with the high rises behind them.
This is a bridge on the Saigon River.
Here we are with our tour guide, Tony, a very nice guy with a very interesting Vietnamese name, which you can ask us about sometime.
We went back to our hotel and cleaned up, then walked to the river, and eventually walked to a real, American restaurant! If it's not real, it at least tastes like it; it was really nice to eat at Eddie's.
Christmas is coming!!
When we got back to the hotel after dinner, we were surprised to see crowds of young people sitting on mats all over the sidewalks. We finally found someone who spoke English well, and we asked him what was going on. He just smiled and said it was the Coffee Culture, where all the young people want to get together after a day of work and just relax together with a drink. Wow!
And here's a last look at our hotel... Can you say "spacious"?
We went to the hotel breakfast buffet with President and Sister Howell and enjoyed visiting with them, but they had to leave to get to interviews with the last of the Elders in the south, and so we walked down to Independence Palace, the place where the president of South Vietnam lived during the Vietnam War. It was interesting to hear the history of what happened at that time (we rented headsets for the tour), and to see where history took place. 
Saturday was a very busy day again. Allen was asked to meet with a family to help them with something, and I spent the morning making clam chowder for a branch activity that night. Then we had a last-minute errand for the Sisters, which put us a few minutes behind schedule for Allen's branch presidency meeting and my music class, but all was well: each of those went just fine. My music class only had 4 people attend, which was fairly calm for a change. After music came English activity, with very few people; that was too bad. Right after English we had to quickly get ready for our branch activity and dinner. Allen and I had been asked to present a 15-minute Family Home Evening lesson on how we can have a happy family. We used part of the power point that Allen made when we first moved to Vietnam when we did an FHE on Eternal Families. I think our presentation went well, and it was fun to hear the oohs and aahs over our family pictures.
The palace was much like the White House is, with many beautiful rooms for entertaining and for meetings. And then there were the rooms for planning and decision-making.
Where you sat meant something in the negotiations in this room. The more important person sat on the left end in the higher chair, with dragon heads on the arm rests.
Apparently, this is where the scenes of chaos took place as people tried to escape as Saigon fell. It was strange to be there, and made us want to see footage of that event again.
Here we are in the bunker of the palace, safe from bombs.
And then it was time to fly home.
Here we are with our Thanksgiving feast of peanut butter toast for me, yogurt and an apple for Allen.
Friday was Zone Conference in the north, so it was another early rising day. But ZC is always fun, so I never mind getting up early. Allen and I were ready for our presentations, knowing that we had already given them once, so we knew what to say the second time around. Once again, it was a lot of fun.
Friday was also Young Single Adults activity, and our activity this week was a good one--Decorate the Christmas Tree! It's always fun to pull out the tree and set it up, and this year was no exception. A good time was had by all.
After our presentation, the 6 missionaries did a fun skit which involved a doctor's office, 3 very contagious patients, and a pregnant woman.
After the skit, there was a competition of putting together a small puzzle that had to do with the family. Vietnamese people love puzzles.
And after the puzzle game came the main event: 3 teams were to create an outfit for a model to wear out of colorful plastic bags. I quickly volunteered to be our model, and my team proceeded to dress me up. This activity was awesome; everyone got very involved and there was a lot of laughter. I believe we had about 35 people in attendance, and there were close to 1/3 of those people who were not members, but were friends who like coming to activities. It was great.
The fashion show after the competition was very fun. I am in my element when I get to ham it up, I'm afraid.
As soon as we got home that night, I spent time catching up on notes about missionary health, and finally could begin to write a talk for church the next day. I had been asked on Wednesday while we were in Saigon to give a talk on obedience, and with a topic like that, how could I say no?? There hadn't been any spare time before Saturday night to write it, at least, not in my brain, so I stayed up way too late to get it done. But get it done I did.
Sunday dawned early and both of us wished we had a few more hours before church. Our branch president's grandmother passed away Saturday, which meant he wouldn't be at church Sunday, and Allen was suddenly in charge of the 5th Sunday lesson that he wasn't in charge of before. We also had a member of the Area Presidency and the District President attend to sustain and set apart another counselor for the branch president (Allen is the other counselor) and a counselor for the Elder's Quorum president, who hasn't had a counselor until now. So Sunday became another rather hectic day of my talk, his lesson, those new callings, and visits with a branch member and her friends and then a visit with the branch president's family. And now you know why you had to wait an extra day or two to read this blog!!
But it was worth the wait, I hope. This blog at least provides a record for us, imperfect as it is, of what life is like from day to day. Some weeks are easier than others; some weeks are more interesting than others. But we try to make each week meaningful and helpful to the people in our branch and to the missionaries we work with. It's important to us that our family knows that we wouldn't leave them for 20 months just so we can be tourists in Vietnam, but we do it so we can help people learn about Jesus Christ, and since we can't do much teaching in Vietnamese, we do our best to help the young missionaries stay healthy and happy and focused on teaching. And our other main focus is to show our branch members that we love the Lord and we can have a happy life by living the gospel.
Tam biet!!
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