Walking the walk? More like sprinting the marathon!

The pace of our life in Hanoi has ebbs and flows, but it has largely been an accelerating one up to this point. We are scrambling to increase our efficiency in preparations for our various teaching and service duties, because the time to prepare continues to shrink as the demands for our presence or effort increases.

We had a bit of a respite this week as our Hospital K schedule was pleasantly disrupted by the visit of several colleagues to participate in a Training Course in Pathology.

                   

                     

                            Drs. To, Hung, Smoller Phung and myself after Day 3 of the course

I introduced Dr. Thuy Phung to my friends here at Hospital K last October and she took the initiative to bring several people along with her this fall for her visit, a well known dermatopathologist, Bruce Smoller, Gary Tse, a breast pathologist from Hong Kong, and she graciously included me in the program they presented, with morning lectures and slide sessions to follow. The gathering attracted a healthy number of participants from the northern part of the country,

         

and so many more pathologists got some exposure to our work here, joined the Facebook group, and learned a bit about me. I had not planned on doing my lecture in Vietnamese, but somehow when the time came, I just went on with it and only got stuck a few times.. Of course Ilearned a host of new words in the process (digital pathology for example is not a routine phrase for missionaries!) and that felt good. Since my signature went on the certificates that each attendee received, along with Dr. To's, they also have something further to remember me by.

     I continued to do some of my other Skype lectures for audiences at a distance in Ho Chi Minh City. But since those are largely a leveraging effort based on the preparation I have been doing for K Hospital. Cho Ray hospital often includes groups of medical students rotating through the department in the lectures, so my audience sometimes may exceed 20 people for these, though usually is much smaller. I haven't done any of these in Vietamese yet, but I am hopeful that at some point down the line I will be able to comfortably and effectively communicate using this language. 

     We also had a highly productive "sharpen the saw"kind of Zone Conference this week with some of our leaders from Cambodia, where the mission leadership is. One of the unique things about this conference is that one of the Zone Leaders who currently serves the VN Zone is Elder Thai from this

                   

Branch! So if you can imagine coming home to your own congregation and building for a short visit during your mission, and then quickly leaving again, he did it. To make matters more interesting, he will return home here in two weeks when he finishes his mission. While we had met Elder Thai when we were in Cambodia a few months ago, this chance was actually very useful to me to assess how he can be quickly integrated back into the branch service organization. Methinks there are no coincidences in this work.

     The Conference brought to mind very specifically the matter that will be the focus of our efforts, in particular as pertains to our own growth and development, the matter of becoming a more committed follower of Christ.

                 

          Sister Hien and Sister Dao respond to the challenge to truly exemplify Christ.

The issue really becomes how do we follow the pattern of Faith, Hope and Charity in our own lives to become greater and greater followers, or disciples, of Christ. Although those are not my words, nor were they the mission presidents, they are the pattern that was being taught, and they are the scriptural phrases taught in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. 

Such was the perfect prelude to listening at length to the sessions of General Conference, which was done with the Vietnamese translation piped through the sound system, and for those who wished to listen in English, that sound track piped through the infrared translation headsets. While we had been in Zone Conference, MB had chosen to download the entire conference onto her computer (?coincidence-- no) which became critical today when the English speakers had to separate to a different room because the number of visitors exceeeded the number of headsets. I chose to listen in Vietnamese while following the text in English, which was an interesting way to test my vocabulary, but also to assess the quality of the experience for the saints here. Just as was our experience in April, we could see souls being lighted by the outpouring of spirit, witness and truth that came. I found again very quickly the answers to my questions, often repeated from multiple viewpoints to emphasize to me that they were indeed for me.

          

In between sessions, we enjoyed talking with the investigators and members who came, as well as catching a few minutes of conversation with my former roommates gathered together in California for our bi-annual reunion. It was nice of them to include us. The pot-luck menu in between sessions was a unique experience. More sparse today, it included sliced bread, peanut butter, sliced tomatos and shredded dried pork. (Interesting combinations those!) There was the ubiquitous fresh fruit, and a few delights from the oven of apartment 405 (always generating requests for the recipes!) We came home fully recharged spiritually, though dinner did not wait.

The contrast to me between the training course, which offered some measure of recharge, and General Conference, was dramatic in degree. The concept is similar, but the impact dramatically different. I shall try to teach more of my pathology using the spirit of the Lord! So for the coming week, that will include preparing three new lectures (though most of one is done) and revamping our introductory family class, and getting the 30 cards and chocolates for "Women's Day" ready for Sunday, and pulling together English class lessons, and doing our usual hospital consulting, visiting with the volunteer from the Agent Orange Victims Association that we're trying to work with on a project, and visiting with and encouraging several members, all before our friend Giggs arrives from Thailand for a short visit! So it is a good thing the batteries are charged.