July 12, 2015

It's been a week full of teaching: English classes, Pathology lectures and the commencement of a Strengthening Families class, the latter made possible by a good dose of grace in the form of H. and V. who translated for me and helped us with the AV set up respectively, and some hard studying of vocabulary words on the part of Lewis.

I'm late in posting this blog and Lewis plans to post tomorrow, so I'll leave the Strengthening Families class stuff for him to talk about and then add the photos we have from that.  But I will post a picture of the best news of the week:

Welcome, Finnegan!

A meeting with Pres. Tung gave us an added call to commence the foundation of a tradition of service work and humanitarian projects that local members of our small branch here can participate in.  Up until now church humanitarian work has been under the direction of LDS Charities.  In most countries local members can be involved in LDS Charities projects, but the current laws surrounding the visas granted to LDS Charities prohibit members' involvement in those projects in our city.  So Pres. Tung is looking for other ways for the local church to be of service.  So that is on our minds.  Today we started the early stages of laying out how we will go about becoming acquainted with some of the local charitable organizations here, since we learned in our previous callings the benefits of working with an established, good, organization rather than trying to create something from scratch with a small group.

This week we did some more alley walking as we ran errands.  This one was part of a "commune" nearby, a neighborhood that is primarily residential and organized under the direction of its inhabitants.  The lack of businesses and the narrowness of the way made it a quiet and interesting walk.

My English students are coming in during "office hours" (time when I'm studying during Lewis's lectures) more these days, which is good.  And the more advanced group is getting closer to feeling confident with large group conversations. (Both classes bravely tackle partner conversations with classmates--and those are fun to watch).  I think that as we head into the vocabulary building stage that will be easier.  I am interested in creating some good thoughtful discussion time with them over the course of this class.  But right now our main focus is learning how to make and recognize those odd English sounds that don't exist in Vietnamese in order to make make all the words we know more intelligible. 

On Monday Lewis suggested that we go see Van Miéu, the royal academy/university for scholars established nearly 1000 years ago in Hanoi.  He had seen it with Elizabeth many years ago.  It's no longer used as a school, but is preserved as a historic site and is used for scholarly affairs or international, government-sponsored gatherings.  The architecture was lovely, the courtyards peaceful and the lotuses were in bloom.