Vietnam Week 3

Guess what we got to do last Monday for pday? Get facials. It was HILARIOUS. They don’t have any special tools or anything, they just use their hands and these cool lotions and stuff. The lady’s hands felt like a MACHINE it was the weirdest thing of my life. She was playing with my cheeks and all that, so funny. 

I’m skipping from topic to topic because I’m pretty bad at recapping my week. 

SO, last Thursday or something like that there was a TROPICAL STORM. It was crazy. We got tons of texts from members and investigators about the storm all throughout the week, and then it finally hit Thursday morning! No one wanted to meet with us because of it. We had to go outside 3 times, once to get money, once to go grocery shopping, and once to go get a new SIM card for our phone (for every phone here, including smart phones, you have to buy SIM cards that have a certain amount of calling and texting minutes and once your minutes run out you have to go buy another one!). All day we just stayed inside and studied, too crazy and too windy and too wet to go out! The elders, Toan and Nguyen, came over and tried to set up a fire alarm in our apartment. No success because there are random bricks everywhere that make it impossible to put anything in the wall. BUT while they were there, elder nguyen cooked lunch for us. It was hilarious how it happened. YOu aren’t allowed to be in the same apartment with the elders unless there is an odd amount of people, so man nghi and i had to sit outside OUR OWN apartment and yell cooking instructions to elder nguyen through the doorway. He cooked us some pasta and it actually tasted pretty good.

Speaking of food, I got to eat like 4 things this week that tasted american.

1. Toan and Nguyen cooked us spaghetti last night. SUPER GOOD.

2. WE FOUND HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS AT THE GROCERY STORE. Costed like seven bucks (US money) but it was so worth it

3. We had dinner at a potential investigator’s house. She made us this really yummy pasta with peppers and bacon.

4. There was a linger longer after church this last Sunday! Two older senior couples made CHEESECAKE and COOKIES. It was like heaven mixed in with some sticky rice and pumpkin che.

Just yesterday, man nghi and I biked an hour to go to her dentist appointment. The dentist offices here are TOTALLY PIMPED OUT and have all these cool high tech gadgets and stuff. Funniest part was that the workers made us wear these special crocs so that we wouldn’t get the floor dirty. They were black and bright green, and about 2 sizes too big. SO FUNNY LOOKING. Will attach a picture of them.

TODAY’S ADVENTURES. We took a taxi to the museum where the body of President Ho Chi Minh lies! I don’t know if it’s the actual body or just a replica, but it’s creepy looking. It was SO HOT OUTSIDE TODAY. I felt like I was back taking a tour of Versailles. We then went and ate lunch - PHO. It was delicious, but I think mom and ba ngoai make it better. Here they cook these little “bread sticks” which you can dip into your pho. Those were pretty good, too. We then went and got some ice cream (kem) and these cute little shop, bought some souvenirs and stuff at this market, and then went to a different museum. This second museum was like the history of Vietnam, so we got to see the Gold Plates that the royalty wrote on and then all the cool statues and stuff! I am EXHAUSTED because today is just so stinking hot (it’s officially august). Tonight we have English class for the little kids and then that will be our day. SO MUCH TO DO HERE IT’S INSANE.

Life here is so hard, and I think I’m feeling homesick a little bit. BUt I’m trying not to think about myself as much, LOL. A lot harder to do than I thought it was going to be! With one of the less actives we visit, we extended her the commitment of the 40 day fast - choosing one thing to do every day for 40 days. We decided to do it too, and so I decided to write down tender mercies every night. I think this will really help me feel less homesick, because I really am SO LUCKY to be able to be serving a mission right now, especially here in Vietnam. I think it’s really easy for all of us to forget about our tender mercies/blessings when we are going through a hard time or feel sad. But I think that when we have trials, those are the best times to count our blessings. Because it really is the little things that make all the difference.