A Thousand Years of Culture

 We've done our best in the past year and a half to explore a thousand (or more) years of Vietnamese culture and take pictures of as much of it as we can. And we've wanted to expose these young missionaries to the culture, as well. Allen remembers being in Japan as a young missionary, and wanting to spend as much time as possible learning about the culture and seeing the sights, as a way to learn to love the Japanese people. We feel the same about Vietnam and its people, and we're trying to indoctrinate these missionaries with that same feeling. Hence, another trip to Thanh Chuong's Viet Palace which, to me, is an amazing collection of Vietnamese cultural artifacts all in one beautiful, compact location. 

If you feel like you've seen some of these pictures before, you very well may have! I stopped wondering if I had taken a picture of something already and, if I liked it, just took another picture.

                                   This ALMOST looks like a lemon from our tree at home, but it's a tiny bit too big.

Every Monday night, the mission has a training meeting they call PMG, where the missionaries take turns doing a training from Preach My Gospel. This is a zoom meeting that last half an hour, and it signals the end of p-day for the missionaries.

Tonight, a sweet elderly Vietnamese couple from America who were visiting in our branch invited all the missionaries plus some members out to dinner, along with their brother and his wife, who are not members. In an amazing turn of events, Allen discovered that the brother is a structural engineer whose company has used RAM (Allen's program) for years. This man was surprised and delighted to find out that Allen is the "A" in RAM, and they had fun chatting. Wow. You come halfway around the world to find out you're famous! haha 

We had our regular District Council Meeting on Tuesday, and Game Night Tuesday night, and then our next adventure came on Wednesday.

Wednesday, bright and early, we took a Grab for the Hanoi train station and bought tickets for the Hanoi Heritage Train, which is basically a tour itself.

Allen researched it and found that the Cau Giay car would have a fun atmosphere, so that's where we went. Good Choice!

One of the first fun things we discovered is that we got to ride through Train Street, this time looking from the inside, out!

It being morning, there weren't many people in Train Street yet, but that would change on the ride back.

We rode over Long Bien Bridge, which we have walked across before, and which is the bridge the U.S. bombed during the war. 

We even had singers who came on the train to entertain us with authentic Vietnamese music. One thing we have noticed is that Vietnamese singers like the reverb on their microphones, and they like their speakers turned up loud. But it was really fun.

The train was taking us to Bac Ninh Province, where we visited Den Do, or Do Temple, a monumental temple complex and burial site of 8 Ly emperors, built from the 11th-13th centuries. 

Once here, we were able to hear Quan Ho singing, a tradition carried out in villages as a means of young people meeting each other and falling in love. The young people would get in boats, go out on the lake, and sing to each other across the lake. Apparently, it worked. Here, it's a show for tourists.

 

This is the "Mother Temple".

We had this young man create one of his calligraphy drawings for us that I love--Families Are Eternal. Come over; we'll show it to you!

On the way back to Hanoi, we had different singers.

And Train Street had a lot more people looking in as we were looking out. It was fun to be on the other side!

The entire trip was around 3 hours long and we traveled only about 23 km--14 miles. But it was worth it! 

That night was another astonishing example of how scooters rule the world in Vietnam.

An interesting thing I saw Thursday morning as I walked around our apartment building was the large burners for offerings for ancestors. There were fires going and women burning what looked like letters, or maybe money (fake, I'm sure), or documents...  I didn't look closely and I didn't ask, but that's what we've been told these are for.

Sadly, this is what adds to the Hanoi air being among the worst in the world on some days.

Friday night was YSA and we played a game to get to know each other: usually we play 2 truths and 1 lie but we didn't have time so it was 1 truth and 1 lie. Allen tricked them all with his truth of having a cow for a pet when he was younger (no one could believe a person would have a pet cow) and I tricked them when I said I had flown a private plane before, which couldn't be true but was, and I said I like pho, which obviously was true to them, but isn't. We're pretty good at this game! haha

Saturday, my favorite thing was how busy piano class was.

And the only sad thing to contemplate is what's going to happen to all my students when I leave in a few weeks. I need to figure out how to keep them learning...

Today was a good Sabbath. Allen taught the Elders' Quorum class and used some of our family experiences for examples of how to live the gospel.

And in Relief Society, we had the largest group we've had in a long time!

This week will be another adventure, as the Senior Missionaries journey to Nha Trang for a Senior Missionary Seminar--our last one, and Allen's last contribution toward planning them.

You'll hear all about it next week!

Be Safe!

Have a blessed week!