Words of Mormon 1:7

Before I begin, please refer to this post for a little history / introduction.  

Today was an  awesome, special, and humbling day. Our good friend and Nu Skin colleague Van was baptized! He is amazing and I'm honestly having a hard time finding the words to describe how incredible this past month has been in watching his process of conversion. 

It really all started with a quick sarcastic remark between Van and Troy (side note Viets really do not use sarcasm so Van and Troy hit it off from the start). Van needed to meet with Troy in regards to some business issues and Sunday happened to be the only day available. Knowing that Troy does not work on Sundays and attends church, Van jokingly offered to come to church with Troy and then meet with him after about the needed business. Troy jumped on that and told him to meet at our apt. at 8:45am. 

It was later revealed that Van was totally kidding when he mentioned coming to church with us, but that he knew Troy was serious and would probably be expecting him.....he thought he better show up. So Sunday Sept. 2nd Van met at our apartment ready to go to church, 4 Sundays later he was baptized. 

One of the many missionary discussions at the Branch. On Van's second Sunday of church he asked Troy: "So is there a book I can read or how do I sign up?" Why yes Van...yes there is....

Where's the flood Troy? We almost had to cancel the baptism due to a lack of baptismal clothing in the right size.  You don't want to see the backside :)

The baptizer and baptizee 

Van's wife Hang came to support. She is Buddist and does not believe in changing religions, yet. ;)  She is so kind and was Enzo's best friend for the day.

Drew Romney and Van's sister Thi also made the 8:00am baptism.

Troy, Van, and Elders

After church we did the traditional mormon thing and had a luncheon in honor of our newest branch member.

Menu: chicken coconut curry soup, mango, watermelon, fried rice, bread, salad, cookies, brownies.

We rented a room in our building for a little extra space and to avoid the cramped apt. 

Feelin' the love and support for Van

6:30am wake up call + 4 hrs of church + no naps + crawling on dirty floors for an hour = one ugly meltdown

My favorite comment made by Van: "I feel like I've been prepared to be Mormon. I remember the lessons so easily it's like the information is already in my head."

 

Good Morning Vietnam! (insert Robin Williams voice)

First thought: Am I dreaming?
Next thought: High School band practice at 6:00 AM?....
                   

This was my 6:00 AM wake up call! Scared me to death! Oh wait.....just kidding....bad joke....

One Year Ago Today.....

Enzo Troy Holzer was born! It has been a crazy year and Enzo has been a champ. He is the light in our family with his blonde hair and blue eyes. We love this little guy.

Letting us know....he's #1 today.

It started out as a little cake in the shape of a bear, but I had to jam the candle into the chocolate shell icing and quickly realized it was full of whipping cream...oh well...just quickened the process for Enzo.

We went from this....

....to this in about 3 minutes :)

Drey needed candles on his cake also. 

Opening his gift. He's pretty easy to please....only requested one gift this year....what a good boy :)

Troy likes to remind us all that this will be the only kind of dog our family will have.

Later that night we met up with Drew, Van, and his wife Hang at a Chinese restaurant.  We went out in celebration of the Chinese Autumn Moon festival.

China town in Vietnam. This was a packed ally way full of thousands of paper and plastic lanterns, and little trinkets.  

Van, Hang, and Drey

Drey picked out a little bubble blower that played music. He knows how to get the ladies attention!

We ended the night with soft serve ice cream cones which are not very common here. These were delicious! It was actually coconut flavored ice cream swirled with the chocolate and then chocolate sauce drizzled on top.....mmmmm.

                                                   Happy Birthday Enzo!

Now you're speakin' my language....

Nothing translates to English better than chocolate chip cookies! The Elders in our Branch teach English classes every Saturday night. They asked me earlier in the week if I had a recipe for something American that they could bake (Vietnamese people usually do not bake because they don't have ovens). They thought that a baking class would help teach the members verbs and make the class more fun. So I offered to help with the class by demonstrating how to make chocolate chip cookies. I'm always up for a good reason to bake some CCC....

Introducing myself.  I was told by the Elders to speak very slowly.
 I'm not sure if dats b cuz my Engrish not so good or dares?

You would never think that explaining a recipe would be hard, but I forgot that each measurement had to be converted from cups to grams and fahrenheit to celsius. It really does take a lot longer to cook here because of all the calculations from U.S.  measurements to the metric measurements.

Our borrowed toaster oven from the Senior missionaries.

The class. This is open to members, investigators, and anyone else who wants to learn English.

Seriously...I could barely get the cookies out of the oven before they were snatched up and eaten....hot, gooey, and falling apart....it didn't matter. 

I don't think he liked them very much.....

.....these guys definitely like them.  They ate at least 10 each! :)

So after class the guy in the orange shirt started to explain to me how much he loves the show Man vs. Food (a favorite of mine as well) and he actually had it downloaded on his phone. He told me all about how he wants the host of this show to come to his families restaurant in Vietnam. These guys were huddled on the stairs watching the show. They are showing their Man vs. Food signs in the picture....I think Drey is just letting us know how old he is :) 

Yo-Yo beautiful....

The hours of 3:00pm - 5:00pm are a killer for me. The boys have just woken from their naps and I have dinner to prepare. Often I just turn on some cartoons and let the kids veg out....yuck! Today I could take it no longer and had to get Drey out of our apartment. Thank goodness Drey is always up for a trip to the little park down our ally. We walked over right about the same time that school was getting out for kids so the timing was perfect....

This is a video of the school kids playing with yo-yo's. Vietnamese children are amazing at yo-yo, it's awesome to watch. These boys loved that I was recording them. The children here also love to practice their English with me.

Group of Boys: Hello
Me: Hello
Group of Boys: Good Afternoon, What's your name?
Me: Carisa
Group of Boys: Nice to meet you, see you later, have a nice day....

My conversations with the local children mostly consist of greetings and good-bye's. I was actually surprised that one boy asked my name.

Drey was also very enchanted with these boys. He followed them everywhere and would ask "where are my friends?" It was really sweet.

El Gato Negro Burrito

So I've done a few posts of us eating at different restaurants around the city, and for the most part all of the food has been decent. But last Monday I had my first El Gato Negro Burrito and I can now say that I have had outstanding food in Vietnam, worthy of a post solely dedicated to the food. Words can't describe how good this burrito shop is....let's just say it beats anything I have tasted in Salt Lake City. It was so good on Monday, again leftover on Tuesday, that we went back for more on Friday. Everything is so tasty, chicken quesadilla, fish tacos, and of course burritos...WOW! Have I convinced any of you to  fly to Vietnam for this deliciousness yet? I promise it is worth the $1,200 air fare.

Grilled Chicken Quesadilla 

El Saigon Burrito - BBQ lemongrass chicken, fried rice, refried black beans, pineapple salsa ...yum!

San Diego Fish Tacos - fried basa, cabbage, salsa, cilantro, FRESH fried corn tortillas! 

 The owner is American and has two other restaurants, Black Cat (which Troy says has great hamburgers and shakes) and Wally Woos Chicken and Waffles. We'll be trying that next :)

Happy Independence Day Vietnam!

67 years ago on Sept 2nd 1945 Vietnam won their independence. September 2nd is to Vietnam what July 4th is to America. Around the city, on business buildings, and even on each taxi car the Vietnam flags were raised.  As with many holidays that land on a Sunday what do you do? ....you celebrate on Monday....this meant no work for Troy today! In celebration of my first Vietnamese holiday we accepted an invitation to the local water park Dam Sen.  Just to preface the experience, we were told it would not be crowded.... 

Dam Sen Water Park 

Troy, Drew and the boys 

This place was nuts! I'm not sure what we were thinking going on a holiday to a water park but WOW ! I actually wouldn't let Drew put Drey down for fear that I would loose him in .2 seconds.

The lazy river

Imagine Disneyland in the Summertime on a holiday and you have our water park experience, long lines and crowds.

I was very naive in thinking there would be a grassy area to sprawl out and enjoy a good book while Enzo napped and the others went on rides....um ha! not so much. It is all tables and chairs. Everything was pretty much taken when we arrived around 11:00am so we found ourselves on the backside of the park near the restrooms and changing area...a memory in itself :)

The children's pool area was awesome! This is Drey going down a slide in a huge elephant.

Great slides and water features. I learned pretty quick that anything goes for swimwear in Vietnam. Most of the girls wore jean shorts with a tank top or t-shirt, but really we saw it ALL.... pajamas,  leotards, long pants with hoodies, outfits that should only be worn in nightclubs.....you name it, someone was wearing it today in the water!

Enzo getting his feel of the water.

I like these boys.

Drey going down first. The lifeguard was trying to stop Troy thinking that he was going to send Enzo down by himself. Notice that Troy is wearing his flip flops. He is a germaphobe and this water park did not help his condition.

Proof that I was there today.

So in Vietnam it is common knowledge to not leave your stuff unattended. This put a little kink in our fun today since someone always had to be at the table watching our stuff. Since Enzo was not able to participate in many of the rides, I stayed back and became the table guard. Here are just a few of the many people that asked to take a picture with him while we were hanging out. 

Drew, Drey and Troy coming out from a ride. Drey loved going down the slides ...apparently so did Drew :)

Ending the day with a little ice cream. This lady was really nice and helpful, she loved holding Enzo. 

Looks like we need some ice cream eating lessons in our family, I'll gladly teach that one!

It was a fun day and one to check off the list....visiting a water park in Asia....Done!