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We are making friends! Yes, we have hung out with our neighbors and I still love them dearly but being as she had just had her baby, she is resting a lot and we do not see her often. But we like to catch glimpses in the house when we can so we can wave and show them we still care.

So who are our new friends you ask? We have started hanging out with our landlady’s daughter. She has two daughters and both speak English! We would love to hang out with both of them but the oldest has just had a baby as well and stays in a lot. Hopefully, on occasion, we can hang out with her as well but Carolyn and I have now had the opportunity to hang out with the youngest two days in a row. Last night she came over with a friend to collect rent and we ended up going out with them to a coffee shop. Getting coffee is different than in the states. The place we went was a club where you drink coffee and listen to booming music! We found that we could not converse at all and decided to go upstairs where it was more quite. Despite confusion between drinks, where Carolyn and I actually got the coffee instead of coco, the night was fun and we had a lot of good conversation. Trinh’s friend Nyguyen had been in America for five years and spoke English really well. He even told a few American jokes! When we got home around 10:30ish, I was worried I was not going to able to fall asleep from the caffeine but maybe I am becoming more Vietnamese than I thought, I went to sleep by midnight. I say that I am becoming Vietnamese because they drink coffee all throughout the day, even at night and it never affects them! Oh how will I wean myself when I get back to the states?

I felt I would keep the funny stories coming. The other day our landlady showed us another apartment in their building…same complex though. She told us it was much better than the one we are in and so we should think about moving there. Well I guess we never really had a choice. She sent movers here today to get our couch and TV. We will be moving the rest of our stuff in three days…yup right when my parents get in! Guys, I guess you will get the opportunity to help me move in Vietnam as well. But anyway, this day led once again to us being able to hang out with Trinh. We went out and got some lunch at “our rice place”. I am so glad we are making new friends! I ask that you lift this up. Lift up our conversation and our actions when we are around her and her friends. To add in…Nyugyen actually asked us about our religion last night. What will conversations lead to if this is what he asked the first night of knowing us? We have great opportunities here!

I will leave you with one more thing….Carolyn and I love so many people here but we never know if we communicate that. We also never get the opportunity to know how they view us….well we got an answer today. When we first started going to our rice place, there was a woman and her daughter that worked there. For the longest time we thought the daughter hated us. She would always give us looks that we interpreted as, “why are you here?” Well one day we found out she was deaf and when we started to communicate with her through signs, she really warmed up. We would wave to her every time we passed and she would smile. Well one day when we passed we realized she was gone and every day from then on we never saw them again. We were really sad that it was so sudden but we have begun to accept the fact that we wont see her again. Today however, we got more closure. We asked Trinh if she could ask the people there where she went. They said they had moved to open a beef stand far away (so sad) but she also mentioned that the girl had liked us very much. When Trinh told us I responded with a “desperately hopeful” face and said, “She said that?” I really cannot describe to you what I felt and I apparently looked classic because Carolyn laughed at my response. But either way, I feel affirmation that the feelings we have towards the people are reciprocated. I am also hopeful that He will do amazing things through us. If we can form a relationship in a month, how much will He work in relationships of 7, 8 or 9 months!


Sorry there have been no pics in a while!