Ice Skating in Vietnam!

Hello family and friends! Happy Tet (that is Lunar New year here in Vietnam)!

Wow! Where do I begin?! Vietnam is an amazing country! The people here are so nice, and many are willing to help us with our Vietnamese when we are walking along the streets. The roads here are crazy, and basically people just go when they want and cross the road when they want. It is definitely an interesting adventure to be riding a bike amidst so many motorcycles! It is really fun though, now that I know how to navigate the roads a little bit better. It was really funny/scary at first though, because I haven't had to ride a bike in forever. So, combine my lack of biking skills with the heavy traffic, and that was quite a sight to see! My Vietnamese is going okay. It's starting to improve. It's an easier language to read, because it uses latin characters. Vietnamese basically looks like English alphabet, but with accents. However, it is an extremely difficult language to speak, because there are six tones. You also have to be so precise with how you pronounce things. For example with a "t" you must pronounce it by forcing your tongue against your teeth. With a "th" you must pronounce it by saying it with the back of your throat a little more. If you confuse the two, you could be saying a swear word. The food here is amazing! It is very cheap, and the very common dish is rice and meat. The meat has taken some getting used to (from just barely coming off being vegetarian), but the one thing that I love about Vietnamese food is how much flavor it has! So some of the main dishes I've had here include Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwich), Pho (Vietnamese Soup), and Bum Cha (fish sauce broth with sausages and white ride noodles, originating from North Vietnam). I love it here!

We currently have one investigator with a baptismal date, another progressing investigator, and a couple of potential investigators. There are four church branches here in Vietnam, and more to come soon according to President Hassel (Mission President). There is one in Hanoi, and three here in Ho Chi Minh City.

So, one really cool experience that I had this week was ice skating with a family from our branch (Thao Dien Branch), on Saturday. I will send lots of pictures in this group email for you guys to see yourselves, but let me just tell you that this ice rink was amazing! Many people had said that it might just be wax, because of it being Vietnam with a lack of resources. But, it was real ice! They even had a Zamboni! They also had a couple of figure skating coaches! One of them was from Ukraine. She did a quick performance for us while we were there, before we stepped back on the ice after the Zamboni, and she came out skating with stilts on her skates! So, basically her ice skate boot was attached to a metal stilt, and then the blade was on the bottom. I have literally never seen this before! Apparently after talking to her, she's from Ukraine first of all, and she holds the Guinness World Record for skating on those stilts! I got a 3 second video on it, and then my camera died unfortunately. I got to skate with some of the kids from our church branch, and they were blown away by me. But more importantly, I got to have lots of fun with them. I pushed them around and spun them really fast on these big toy seals that you could slide across the ice. It was so wonderful to do something for these kids that brought a smile to their face.

Testimony Time: (carrying on the tradition!)

This week I have seen a major truth manifested unto me, and it is this: When we do the very best we can and put our efforts in, then the Lord will take care. In the Vietnam Hanoi Mission, we do a lot of contacting on the streets of Vietnam. This skill of contacting happens to be very difficult for me, because we basically go up to people and start speaking in Vietnamese right away. i'm usually very shy about talking to people in Vietnamese, because it's such a new language for me, and people sometimes have a hard time understanding me. But, we went contacting yesterday (Sunday), and I really wanted to improve on opening up and being more social with the people. So, I put forth my effort by saying hi to many people as we passed them, and then the Lord stepped in by putting people in my path that wanted to talk and have a conversation! I can promise each of you that you can overcome your weaknesses and your trials. But, you must first do your part by putting in effort. Then, let the Lord take care of the rest. How lucky we are that we are constantly being saved by the Lord's grace and mercy!

I love you all! Happy Tet! Please enjoy the abundance of pictures!

Love, 

Elder Ly (Anh Ca Dung)