Senior of the Seniors

 For the second time on our mission, we got to go on a Senior Retreat, or Senior Seminar, as we have changed the name to sound more professional. Last August, we traveled to Da Nang with all the other senior missionaries and this past week we traveled to Nha Trang, where we celebrated being the "Senior Senior Missionary Couple", residing in Vietnam the longest and (almost) soonest to go home. The Vietnam Hanoi Mission is slowly getting more junior missionaries, but the senior missionary couples come along at an even slower pace. Allen and I will be leaving here in 5 weeks, 2 more couples will leave in June, and the Humanitarian Aid Missionary Couple, who comes on these trips with us, but who don't get to participate in anything relating to missionary work, will go home the day before we do. So of the 6 couples who went on this trip (not counting the Mission President and his Wife), only 2 will be here after July. There will be a new Humanitarian Aid couple at the beginning of May, and an office couple at the end of May, but my replacement doesn't come until the end of September. No other senior couples are in the process of coming to Vietnam, which is a very sad thing for the Howells, as they can use all the adult help they can get. 

Back to Nha Trang! It was beautiful weather and a beautiful setting. Here is the view from our hotel room.

The first order of the day--after checking in and getting lunch, of course--was to ride the cable car over to the VinPearl Island where that company has a Disney-esque resort built up to appeal to anyone's imagination. We got the "after 4 pm" special price, and came to find out that it's because everything begins to shut down after that time, even the restaurants.

parade with jellyfish...

We finally found the aquarium, one of the few things that wasn't closed. It was a pretty sweet aquarium!

I love the Fruit Loop Fish. Or fruit cocktail fish??

I'm always attracted to electrifying personalities...

see?                                                                                                                                                 

This dude has a name... it's in one of Margot's storybooks... I can't remember. Or Brinley's...Oh! The Pout Pout Fish.

We made it back to the mainland in search of some dinner and saw some interesting things along the beach.

Here you can see Vinpearl amusement park on the island across the water from Nha Trang.

Nighttime view from the hotel room.

Tuesday morning we held the meeting that we went all that way to Nha Trang for--our Senior Missionary Seminar. It was called the Pacbell Meeting because our email address is Pacbell, and in all of Allen's correspondence with the Sheraton Hotel, that is what they picked up on for a name. haha

We actually remembered to take pictures this time! There's not a single picture from last year, so I made up for it this year...

The view from the conference room hallway!                                                                                              

President Howell

We had 6 senior missionary couples, plus the Howells made 14 people.

After the meeting, which lasted until noon, we adjourned to a tour of the city.

Once we've gone home, President will miss me standing on chairs to take pictures. He teases me about being on the "Safety Zone" safety videos that the missionaries have to watch in the MTC.

Lunch was included on this tour. Here we have fried spring rolls on top with fish sauce for dipping; below is banh xeo, a crunchy pancake-like dish made with a fried egg, shrimp, squid, and the greens, with more fish sauce. You roll it all up (sort of) and dip it; usually there is rice paper for rolling, but not this time. The greens remind me of the "bitter herbs" of the Bible.

Our next stop was a place called Hon Chong Rocks, with a story of how a man held up the rocks to save his family. Some of the rocks looked like a hand with 5 fingers had held them.

These 2 pictures are of instruments the performers were using to entertain the tourists. The music was very pretty, but the songs were modern.

Allen made it; I did not.

There is the 5-finger rock...

Rats, a sign of prosperity and so, a sign of good fortune.

The next stop was the Ponagar Tower. According to Wikipedia: "Po Nagar is a Cham temple tower founded sometime before 781 and located in the medieval principality of Kauthara, near modern Nha Trang in Vietnam."

The ruins were extensive, and very interesting. These are original; there are others in the country (and we've seen some of them) that are reproductions.

These were ceremonial clothes worn in the temple.

There was going to be some drumming, but we missed it.

The next place on the tour was the White Buddha.

I believe this is made with beer bottles, at least partially.

These are the 4 sacred animals all on a column in the temple, carved out of wax--very beautiful.

Inside this bell, people taped prayers, believing that when the bell would ring, their prayers would be taken to heaven more quickly.

Here is the reclining Buddha...

This is the white Buddha. It is on the top of the mountain...

Around it's base you can see a memorial to Buddhist monks who self-immolated in 1963 to protest the treatment of Buddhists.  

You can go inside to see the shrine.

Afterwards, we made a stop at a city market...

Then had a delightful Italian dinner.

 

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and found another night market. These markets are fun to look through, especially if you need memorabilia to take home.

Day 3 of the Senior Seminar--Wednesday.

We signed up for a boat cruise to take us around some islands, to see a floating fish farm, and then to hang out on a beach and snorkel or swim.

We hoped we would end up on a cool boat like this...

But the one we ended up on was not bad at all.

The crew took very good care of us: the cook on the left, the one in charge in the middle, and the captain on the right.

The speedboat took us to the floating fishing farm...

...where we saw how they keep different types of seafood in baskets...  

These are the snails--large ones!

This is a finger snail; it looked like an alien, reaching out an arm to grab whatever it could.

And sea urchins, of course.

Then came the fun! The little round boats!

Here is proof that we got into the water on our mission. 

And here is proof that Allen, at least, went swimming on his mission! This is the infinity pool at our hotel, but it was a windy day, so I didn't feel like swimming. I DID swim in the ocean! Just no proof!

In the evening before dinner, we went for a long walk along the beach...

Thursday was the final day of the retreat/seminar, and the Howells had to go home that day; the Smarts had returned to their humanitarian work the day before. The Hanley/Harris and Brimhalls had decided to hang out at the beach and pool, so the Websters, Anthons and Adams' all headed to Monkey Island! It was a good choice. This is a beautiful little island where, in 1975, Soviet scientists brought over monkeys and bred them for scientific purposes. Since then, they have reproduced until now there are over 1200 monkeys living in herds. They are publicized as being friendly and fun, but you have to be careful if you are carrying food for them, and be sure that you don't hold it within their reach! If they want it, they'll try to get it! Sister Webster tried to be friendly to a monkey and was growled at and chased. Then I had some peanuts I was dropping down to a monkey; he decided he wanted the bag, bared his teeth, and leaped at me, landing on my stomach before bounding off. And lastly, Sister Anthon had a monkey jump on her and hang from her purse. In the case of the first 2 monkeys, island workers soon came down on these less-than-friendly monkeys and chased them away with long sticks, but their reputations were tarnished, I'm afraid. Nevertheless, it was a very fun path to walk down amongst the monkeys. We also watched a little circus with trained monkeys who rode bikes, threw basketballs, and some other cute things that totally took advantage of poor, helpless creatures who couldn't escape and couldn't fight back. Terrible repression, but really cute. 

This is not a green lawn, it is a pond covered in green scum, and the monkeys were taking great delight in climbing the trees and doing belly-flops into the pond. It was hilarious.

Seriously, so beautiful...

We went back to the mainland and found another small adventure. As we had driven to the ferry for Monkey Island, Allen and I both saw a pagoda just off the road; when we arrived back on the mainland, the Websters walked down the road with us to find that pagoda. It was pretty ornate, at least part of it, and worth the side trip!

At the top of the stairs were 3 Buddhas...

Quite large.

                                                                                                                  The view...

This Buddha is reminiscent of Santa Claus...

These cases are full of books to borrow, I'm thinking, and read in the beautiful scenic gazebo. It turned out that this was a monastery.

And THIS is what it looks like when you fit 4 adults across the middle seat of a Grab 6 when you have 6 people and all their luggage, heading to the airport, and the driver is insistent that you can do it! haha

Home again, home again. It's always good to be home.

Friday night was YSA and a ping-pong tournament. The winners shared their treats. And my friend Heron expressed again how my piano playing brings peace to his heart. 

My Saturday piano class continues to get more and more busy. I think I've figured out that everyone is going to need to be on their own once I leave, and just follow the Church's piano course and teach themselves from where they are when they leave off with me. It's never a sure thing that the missionaries will have someone who knows piano or music, and so it's not a sure thing that the piano class will continue. Each person will need to be in charge of their own learning. At least, that is my current thinking on the matter.

English activity on Saturdays seems to always be small in number these days, which is too bad.

Sunday evening there was a special YSA fireside hosted by the Cau Giay branch that Allen and I were invited to speak at. It ended up being a bit of a tribute to us, although I don't think it was meant to be so. We spoke about the importance of being converted, not just having a testimony, and how to really build your foundation on Jesus Christ. I think it went well. We showed some pictures of us in our younger days, and pictures of our kids and grandkids, which is always fun--the best part, actually.

They're the reason we're coming home in 5 weeks!

Have a wonderful week!