Tet - The Vietnamese New Year Celebration

February 15, 2018

The most import holiday celebrated in Vietnam is “Tet” or Lunar New Year. Tet means “joint of a bamboo stem” or beginning period of the year. The Vietnamese New Year occurs somewhere in the last ten days of January through the first twenty days of February, nearly halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox.

For the Vietnamese people, Tet is a festival of purity and renewal and very intrinsic to the culture of this wonderful people. It is far more than just another holiday celebration; imagine a combination of New Year’s Day, Christmas, Memorial Day and Thanksgiving. Everywhere, EVERYTHING is transformed and completely decorated, and the streets are FILLED with flowers. During Tet, the biggest holiday of the year for Vietnam, the city is practically deserted because everyone has gone home to be with family. Previous to this beloved holiday, it is  incredibly busy and crowded with people at the stores and markets; a bit like the weeks leading up to Christmas, for us in America. Everyone is out and busy getting extra food and new items for their homes to celebrate the new year. It has been a fun holiday for us to see and experience.

Homes are often cleaned and decorated before their New Year’s Eve.  The kitchen needs to be cleaned before the 23^rdnight of the last month. “Ong Tao”, the kitchen god is making an inspection to report to the Jade Emperor in Heaven’s Palace. It is a common belief that cleaning the house will get rid of bad fortunes associated with the old year.

The Vietnamese people believe that there are 12 sacred animals, or chiefs, from the Zodiac, taking turn monitoring and controlling the affairs of the earth. New Year’s Eve is the time for one chief to end his ruling term and pass his power to the new chief. The past year has been the year of the chicken (2017), so Chicken will go with the kitchen god, Ong Tao, to give his report to the Jade Emperor about the affairs of the family and how well the kitchen has been kept. With this report, Chicken will give up his rule to Dog (2018) at midnight. Dog, as the new ruler, then makes his report of the family’s affairs throughout the 2018 year. 

Our translator, Thu, gave us a branch of a peach tree, Hoa Dao, for our apartment. It is a symbol of new beginning and takes the place of the Christmas tree we didn’t have. It has blossomed out very nicely and helps get us in the spirit of this festive time of the year. Everyone needs a Hoa Dao for their homes, so the streets are full of peach trees and branches for sale. In this picture, our neighbor, Phuong, is showing off her new Ao Dia next to our peach branch.

One of the most traditional special foods for Tet is Banh Chung (square sticky rice cake). The people make this cake by soaking sticky rice and green beans for a day, which makes the rice and beans extra sticky. Also, there is pork belly meat soaked for several hours with pepper and onions.

To make the cakes, very large “Dong” leaves (about the size of banana leaves) are gathered, washed and soaked. Two leaves are laid out crisscross on the preparing table. A scoop of sticky rice dough is put in the middle of the leaves and made into a square shape. Next, a scoop of the sticky bean paste is put on the rice, laid out and squared, followed by some pork meat on top of that, and layered with more bean paste and another layer of sticky rice dough. The cake is constantly being squared as the layers pile up. The first leaf is then wrapped around the cake, in one direction, and then the second leaf is wrapped in another, making sure that the cake is square. Finally, the cake is tied with bamboo strings and put under a weight so that all the layers will compress together. 

This process is repeated many times until there are enough cakes to fill a big kettle of water to be put on an open fire to cook for 12 hours. This takes a lot of tending to the fire so that the pot keeps boiling. It has become a tradition with many families to gather around the cooking pot and tell family stories. The cakes are then eaten by family members and given as gifts during Tet..

We watched fireworks on New Years Eve by going up to the top of our tall apartment building and watching, alongside several other residents from our building, the various displays of fireworks in the city. It was a convenient way to observe the  fireworks, as we were able to see three different displays.

We were invited to lunch on New Years Day at the home of one of our LDSC partners, Nhi.  She has a foster mother in her life, that helped her when she was a teenager. She wanted us to meet her. Before meeting Nhi's stepmother, I felt impressed that I needed to take a present and found the perfect potted plant to give her. While we were there, Nhi introduced us to her brother.  He speaks English well and made our visit more enjoyable because he could understand us. This made it so we were able to visit with and get to know  the other guests more. Our dear friend, Dong, came with us, too and we were glad that he did.

After Lunch, Nhi’s foster mother took Nhi and I up to the top floor of her home, where there is an ancestral altar. She shared with us that this altar was set up to offer respect to her recently deceased husband, who had a heart attack three years ago and passed away. When I found out about the death of her husband, I felt great compassion for this kind woman and put my arms around her. She was overcome by my gesture, and in an instant our hearts were “knitted” together. I felt the Spirit prompt me that she needed someone to mourn with her and feel her heartache. She misses her husband very much. I know that the Lord sent me there that night for the purpose of sharing in her grief and giving her some comfort by letting her know that someone, a stranger even, cared and understands her pain. That experience has made us feel close to one other in a deep and meaningful way, and to have a desire to spend more time together.

..."as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called His people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light: Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places..."      --Mosiah 18:8-9

Tet is all about families and feeling the connection of coming together. Living family members of ancestors are invited to the cemetery to burn incense and honor the dead by cleaning their graves. Most people also put food, fake money, paper clothes and other items that the family member think will bring those who have passed on a little comfort and let them know that they are not forgotten. This is called ancestor worship in Vietnam. From what I have observed it is another way of honoring and remembering family members that have passed away. 

Ho Chi Minh City and The Wheelchair Factory

January 2018

As part of our duties as Latter Day Saints Charities Country Director in Vietnam, we need to train new senior LDSC missionaries. The McDonald’s are leaving the south area and Elder and Sister Ellsmore are taking their place. We were excited to be able to visit Vietnam’s most southern city, as well as say goodbye to old friends and hello to new ones.

While in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), we visited the factory of our wheelchair provider, Kien Tuong. Tuong, in the last two years has had a stroke and since then his son, Quoc, has taken over the family business. While we were visiting, their family invited us to have lunch with them at their home. 

Before lunch, Quoc took us through a tour of the factory behind their home. They have another factory in the city and employ about 120 people in their operation. The family works hard to deliver a quality product and the business is flourishing. We are excited to do business with them because their manufacturing company directly benefits the Vietnamese people on all fronts. 

Tuong started the wheelchair company after the Vietnam War about 35 years ago. During the Vietnam war, he was a helicopter pilot and artillery expert in Southern Vietnam. When the city fell to the north, he was captured and sent to a re-education camp for two years.

After being released from the camp, he used his knowledge and creativity to start a bicycle business using the metal from the storage containers left by the Americans after the war. He took the metal and rolled it to make tubes, then shaped them into a frame for a bicycle. His bicycle business soon thrived.

  

One day, Tuong was at the entrance of a hospital as an injured man was being released to go home. This man had no legs, as they had been amputated after a war injury, and the doctors had given him all the help they could. Tuong watched them as they wheeled him in a wheelchair out to the front of the hospital to have his family take him home. Wheelchairs were scarce in those days, and the man, realizing that he was going to have to leave the wheelchair at the hospital, said that he would not get out of it. He threatened that he had a grenade and that if he couldn’t take the wheelchair with him, he would blow everyone up. Another man talked to the amputee and convinced him that if he took the wheelchair, others with injuries like his could not get the care he had already received, and that it would be a selfish act to take the wheelchair with him. Softening, he then realized what he was demanding and left without the wheelchair. Quoc’s father, witnessing this incident, was moved, and determined that he could make a wheelchair using the metal parts he had developed in his already thriving business for bicycles, to help men such as this one. This was the starting point for his wheelchair company. He realized all the good that he could do, helping many of his comrades that had suffered during the war. 

We loved our visit to the Kien Tuong family home, they were most gracious, and it was a wonderful opportunity to be their guest. Their spacious home sits in a beautiful tropical surrounding of palms and flowering bushes.

The Church has acquired a property next door to the factory, and is now in the process of fixing it up to be used as a chapel. We took a tour through the house and all agreed that the property is a beautiful setting for a chapel and roomier than most chapels in Vietnam.

In October, 2017, Tuong's son, Quoc helped us do a wheelchair training in Hanoi, and we found him to be very good and personable as an instructor. We invited Quoc to stay in our spare room in our apartment, during the training, and he asked many questions about the “Mormon” church. I asked him if he would like to read the Book of Mormon (Sac Mac Mon). To which he replied that he would. We obtained a copy of the BOM in Vietnamese for him and he read it. At the recent family luncheon, he told us that his father is now reading the Book of Mormon also. Quoc has expressed that he wants his children to be Mormons, but he doesn’t feel that he is quite ready to be baptized himself and struggles with the Word of Wisdom. The missionaries in HCMC are mindful of his progress and are continually working with him. Sharing the Gospel is a great experience. We are taught that it is our duty to be prepared to share our testimony and ask others to look at what the Gospel has to offer them. I love being a missionary and seeing the miracles that take place in the lives of those that embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

New Years Day With Friends

January, 2018

As a Christmas present for the missionaries President Hassell took us to Ninh Binh on New Year’s Day. Ninh Binh is on the Red River Delta, about an hour’s drive from Hanoi. Tam Coc or Three Caves is an area where the meandering river goes through caves and karst outcrops on its way to the sea.

Boat-women met us at the dock and took us down the river to visit the caves. Some places in the caves, the ceilings are so low that we needed to duck so that the boat-women could propel the boat by pushing on the cave roof with their hands.  

Pres and Sister Hassell Elder Morris and Elder Kit

It was fun going with the sisters and elders as a group and we played and splashed and had a good time with each other. These wonderful young missionaries are awesome and their spirit is so strong. We feel privileged to be a part of them and call them our friends.

Elder and Sister Jenkins

Along the river was a movie stage set for the latest remake of “King Kong”. Life size grass huts were built and Vietnamese people dressed as Amazon natives were part of the cast. The Amazon village is still in place as a tourist attraction and adds a lot of interest to this already amazing place. 

Since Ninh Binh is famous for its goats and many restaurants there serve goat meat, this is what we had for lunch. It’s like eating chewy mutton, but the Vietnamese always make things taste good with their delicious sauces. Throw in some rice and a few greens and you’ve got a really good meal.

After lunch we went to see Bai Dinh Temple. This Buddhist temple complex was recently built by a wealthy Vietnamese man. He wanted people to have a place to come and worship. There are over 500 enlightened, life size Buddha statues that line a hallway going up the mountain. It is quite a site because every Buddha is different.  At the top of the property, there are three giant Buddhist temples, the largest in Vietnam. In the main temple is a 100-ton bronze Buddha plated in gold. The whole complex is incredible! 

Sister and Elder Van

One of our senior missionary couples is going home soon. We feel a little melancholy about them leaving. When we first met them they told us how excited they were that the Lord was picking their new best friends. We feel that same way about them, as well as all the elders and sisters in our mission. With each elder or sister leaving there is emotion attached. I heard in a talk once, by Marlon K. Jensen, that all our interactions in the Church are made more enjoyable and productive by genuine feelings of friendship. When we offer ourselves in friendship, we make a most significant contribution to God’s work and to the happiness and progress of His children. 

We have made many friends with the Vietnamese people as well as those missionaries that we serve with and it makes the work here so enjoyable.  

Christmas in Hanoi

December 2017

The Vietnamese only celebrate the commercial side of Christmas. It is difficult to find any signs of a nativity, here in public, let alone any representation of Jesus Christ and the real meaning of Christmas. We made our own Christ-centered celebration within our branches, and in our home and heart.  

left to right: The Thomasons, Nana and Luke Tateoka, Rachel and Justin Rogers

We went out to dinner with friends. All three of us, women, serve in the women’s organization in the Long Bien Branch. 

The YSA, members as well as investigators, painted a backdrop for a nativity scene and sewed costumes to put on a nativity at our branch, the Saturday before Christmas. We then invited everyone we could think of and put a sign out in front of the chapel to invite in anyone who was interested in our Church to come and join our celebration. We presented the nativity in Vietnamese and had a translated copy of the Elder Uchtdorf’s Christmas address for people to listen to. After the presentation, We served a ham dinner.  To our surprise and delight, more than 60 people came. Sharing the Gospel and remembering Jesus Christ, His life, and his sacrifice for us is what Christmas is all about. Many contacts were made and some very choice people are now receiving missionary discussions.

Christmas Day was spent having the Long Bien missionaries over to our apartment to make their missionary calls to their family. We had a Christmas dinner for them and they presented a program.

Lam, a terrific 19 year old young man, decided to have his baptism the week after Christmas. He struggles, like most young converts, with his parents accepting his choice. He is strong and dedicated to the Savior. We love having his happy attitude in our branch.

I love the dedication of the missionaries and working with the Spirit. This is one Christmas we will remember for a very long time. We start the new year with eagerness and enthusiasm.

YSA Conference with Elder and Sister Meurs

November 2017

On the 4^thof November the Long Bien Branch hosted a Hanoi area Young Single Adult conference. We were very fortunate to have Elder Meurs, from the Southeast Asia Area Presidency and Quorum of the Seventy, and his sweet wife, Sister Meurs, join us and interact with our youth. (pic 9040)

Many of the youth that were interested in coming were investigators. We encouraged and directed our member youth and new converts to put an all-day conference together. It was a great learning experience for all.  We had about 40 youth come and join us for the day. We presented workshops, ate together, enjoyed a fireside and had a dance. President and Sister Meurs participated in a powerful face to face session at one of the workshops that answered questions that the youth might have about life and what the Gospel has to offer them. It was excellent.

Another workshop was about family history. In the Vietnamese culture the family books or histories are kept in the home of the first-born son. There is a wealth of information about the family in these books, names, dates and stories. The youth were encouraged to find out more about their own family history by asking relatives about the information in their own family books. It is especially important right now because the government is changing the way they count and record information about the people and are starting to issue individual ID cards. The family records will not be kept in such detail as they once were. The youth were encouraged to write down ancestor stories as well as their own personal stories.

A couple of weeks before the conference Elder Thomason and I decided to have the YSA do a service project at the conference. With winter coming on, we came up with the idea of making fleece blankets to give to the wheelchair patients at Bach Mai Hospital.  Finding and getting the fleece from the wholesale market on the other side of Hanoi was a challenge.  Having a hundred pounds of fleece delivered on a motor scooter was another challenge and quite a sight.  Measuring, cutting and prepping the fabric kept me busy for a week. The youth had so much fun completing the 69 blankets at the conference. These wonderful young adults gave the blankets to the rehabilitation patients at the hospital. 

For the fireside, Elder Meurs brought the group together by playing “Waltzing Matilda”.  A song that is near and dear to his heart because of his Australia homeland. The Meurs gave a wonderful, spiritual fireside sharing stories about them and their family. They bore testimony of the importance of family, not only here on earth but in the eternities. After ending the fireside, we completed the evening with a dance.

The conference was enjoyed by all and a great leadership learning experience for our new convert youth.  To be in the presence of a General Authority for the duration of the conference was a highlight for the YSA and for us. 

Tuyen Quang Homestay

December 2017

In December we took a long drive to a commune in the Northern mountains of Vietnam for the purpose of distributing wheelchairs. Our partner organization, The Women’s Union, had us stay in a “home stay”, a sort of bed and breakfast, with the Tay Muong Ethnic people. The home stay was in a lodge that was on stilts in the mountain jungle.

The rooms were closed off by curtains – about 10 sections. The windows were open shuttered and allowed the cool, damp air to circulate. The section that we occupied, during our stay, was in the corner. We ate our dinner on the floor on a mat of leaves - pork belly, rice, chicken feet soup, spring rolls (nem), cooked Morning Glory greens with fruit (guava, pomelo, and watermelon) for dessert… It was delicious!!!!

After the dinner, the Tay people put on a delightful program of singing and dancing. 

The local Communist Party was there and joined in our fun evening. They asked us to dance with them. They have a special bamboo stick dance, similar to stick dances in other countries, which consists of long poles that are clapped in rhythm on the floor -- your dance step must match the rhythm so that you dance through the sticks, while keeping the rhythm, without tripping. It was fun. I don’t think they have many foreigners visit there so they made sure that we knew we were welcome. We certainly enjoyed our evening and the experience made us appreciate this sweet, humble people even more.

Going to sleep was a little difficult… every time we started to go asleep, there was a dog barking, a pig squealing, or strange sounds from the mountain jungle. However, the unique experience was well worth the poor night’s sleep. We woke up early enough in the morning to see them butcher a chicken for breakfast soup.

The rice noodle chicken soup (Pho Ga) was cooked on an open fire and served with lots of greens from their garden. After breakfast the people gave us a tour of their garden, animal pens and all that goes with their way of life, which was fascinating. We made some new best friends. They wanted us to stay longer and we wish we could have. 

We had the opportunity to bring wheelchairs to people that really need them. One man, 83 years old, had a stroke several months ago and now he can’t walk. The wheelchair gives him hope. He has had to stay in bed a lot and the wheelchair has helped him get up and around again. When we were at his humble home, his great granddaughter was having her first birthday and they were all surprised and delighted when we sang our traditional American birthday song to her.

We had a ceremony at the Communist Party Commune Office and gave out five more wheelchairs to people that really needed them. One of them was for a 5-year-old boy who had some brain injuries at birth and has not developed physically and mentally; his mother carries him around all the time. She is so happy to be able to have a wheelchair that will help her  better care for her young son.

We make sure that the people, we give our resources and assistance to, know that the money for the projects is all donated by families from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We tell them that our Church members care about the people of Vietnam and that they want them to have a better life. It is a humbling experience for us to manage the precious donated humanitarian funds of the Church. We feel very privileged to be on this mission in Northern Vietnam. We learn so much about the people and the culture and have had many unique experiences.

“… in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”         --Matthew 25:40 

The Savior wants us to be aware of those around us that are suffering. I challenge you to do something that will help lighten the load of someone else. It can be as simple as donating to the humanartian fund on a tithing slip at the bishop’s office or donating online: 

LDS Humanitarian Aid Fund

I promise you that your acts of kindness will not go unnoticed and will be very appreciated. We love the Savior and are grateful for this mission to be able to serve him in this capacity.

Warmly, 

Elder and Sister Thomason

                      

Wheelchair Training -- Bach Mia Hospital

October 30 - November 2, 2017

At times there needs to be a training for assessors to fit and determine the need for wheelchairs recipients. We have two organizations in Hanoi that assess and supply individuals with wheelchairs: The Women’s Union and Bach Mia Hospital. 

We planned with Bach Mai Hospital to host a four day training and invited specialists, Kris and Kathy Van Dusen from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who do training for wheelchairs all over Southeast Asia, to come and conduct it.

We also had Quoc from Kien Tuong Wheelchair Manufacturer in Saigon, come and help us.  Quoc and his father supply wheelchairs for Latter Day Saints Charities in both North and South Vietnam. Quoc, not only helps his father run the company, but is a master trainer of wheelchairs and helps train our people in Hanoi to also become master trainers.

There were two women from the Hanoi Women’s Union, 3 people from Phu Tho Women’s Union, 2 people from HAVSHO, 4 people from Bach Mai Hospital and our translator, Thu. The training went well and two women from the Hanoi Women’s Union were able to attain Master Trainer status because of their previous experience and training: Ms. Huong and Ms. Bich.

The people being trained went through an intensive workshop learning about the dynamics of fitting a wheelchair properly, as well as how to spot situations that might be a problem for a wheelchair recipient. Some people are not eligible to receive a wheelchair because they are not physically able to handle it. Twelve people from Bach Mai Hospital were fitted and received a wheelchair to culminate the training session. 

In conjunction with our wheelchair training, the Hanoi Young Single Adults had a service project and made 69 blankets to distribute to the recipients who received wheelchairs at the hospital from LDSC. 

We were very grateful for the Van Dusen’s visit and the successful training. This program facilitates the training for many more needed helpers in LDSC’s wheel chair efforts to help improve the quality of the people's lives here in Vietnam.