I have been in charge of arts and crafts and for arts and crafts we have been working on caterpillars, putting them into a paper cocoon and painting coffee filters for the wings. When the wings are dry I’m going to transform their caterpillars into butterflies. This video clip is my home class, their English is aMaZiNg and they are the cutest class I think, other than Mandy’s. In the video clip they are making the cocoon to put their caterpillars in. Listen to the way they say cocoon, it is the cutest thing! Ray is the one in pink, he is very smart and he is the “leader” of my group, all of the kids follow him and do what he says. Wendy is in the white shirt next to Ray, she use to be a little trouble maker, I don’t know what happened to her but now she participates and she enjoys learning. Lake is the big boy, he is a teacher’s pet and he has a very wild imagination. Peter is the small one, if there was a crowd of our students; Peter is the first one I look for. Peter has my heart ever since day one and I love him! He is cute, he makes me laugh and I want to take him home! Lucy is the one next to me, she has a very spunky attitude and she is very fun. Rebecca was missing today, Rebecca is half Spanish/half Chinese-she is beautiful, very funny and she loves the teacher’s attention. These kids are so cute! I love them more and more everyday! They are so smart, I couldn't ask for anything better. Enjoy!

Pictures!

Cousins! Here we are at pagoda park! We look like tourists, we bought those shirts at the supermarket for cheap cheap cheap!!!

This is the pagoda on the hill-so beautiful!

We went under that bridge in the background coming out of my head-we are talented on paddle boats even though the Asians were telling us what to do:)

At the hospital getting blood drawn. I think that was a clean needle they used...

This picture is funny-Something is out of place here. This tells people who is next in line to pick up their prescriptions.

Pagoda Park

Today was a fun day! It might be Jadie's last weekend in China so we did fun things today. We went to pagoda park which is just down the road from us and as we were walking there there was a lady selling jewelery on the side of the road. We stopped and bought a couple things from her, I love to buy things here because they are so cheap and everything is beautiful here! The pagoda park is a beautiful park with a pagoda that sits up on a hill and there is a lake, we (Mandy, Jadie and Emily) rented a paddle boat and spent the afternoon on the lake. As we were paddling on the lake there were Asians following us on their paddle boats or there were Asians on land taking pictures of the Americans in the paddle boat. Occasionally we would have Asians yell at us and tell us how to paddle-they are very helpful Asians even though we already knew how to paddle. I swear they think we don't know how to do a lot of things. After the paddle boats we went to Little Italy. Little Italy is the place we went for Lindsey's birthday-it was so good so we went back and I got the same thing I got last time. Tendon, bone and fatless chicken with potatoes-very delicious! Then to top it off we went to the bakery! I love the bakery and I haven't had it in a while so it was especially delicious tonight! I love China and I am glad I'm here, it is cool to see different cultures and how they do things!

Crazy day!

Yesterday was a crazy day! I went to the hospital because I have been sick for 8 days now, come to find out I have enteritis, inflammation of the small intestines, and they gave me a lot of different pills to take and some powder to put in my water. I hope the medicine works because I am sick of being sick! Last night Susie and Jimmy's parents took us out to dinner. We figured they would be pretty rich because they have 2 kids in this top notch kindergarten. Sure enough we get to the restaurant and it was nicer than the restaurant the mayor took us to! They put us into a single room, there were about 7 Chinese teachers, Ryan (we went to his birthday party-his mom is a teacher) was there and Susie and Jimmy's parents were there. They asked us what we like to eat, we told them we liked fried rice, pot stickers and veggies. Sure enough they brought out fried rice, yummy non-fat meat, pot stickers, veggies and shrimp with the head and legs still on! Fish food freaks me out! One of the last things they brought were sweet rolls, there rolls here are sketchy because you never know what's inside of them. They usually have meat in them and it just ruins the yummy sweet roll! Come to find out there was brown sugar inside of the sweet rolls! They were my favorite! Good thing I won't get those ever again, that could be dangerous. When we go out to dinner it is usually a 2 hour event, they love to socialize! I loved getting to know Jimmy and Susie's parents, they are a cute family and they are very nice, down to earth people.

Dinner with the mayor of Xiaolan

We just got back from dinner with Jane, (the owner of the Bond Institute, she is very rich and she has a house in Canada) she invited our ILP group and another ILP group that lives about 2 minutes away from us, Jessica (the girl from Ireland) was there and other people who teach English for Bond not ILP were there. We knew that we were going to have dinner with someone from the "government" so we knew this would be a really really nice restaurant. We met at the Bond Office which is about a 45 minute walk, so we took a motorcycle which takes about 5 minutes. Then we took a really nice van, it was black with very tinted windows, the seats were soft, it smelled new and it had seat belts! I miss seat belts, all the buses we get on don't have seat belts, it is a comforting thing to have them. I felt like I was on a top secret mission being in that dark van. We get to the restaurant and it is amazingly nice! There were separate rooms where people eat in, we got our own room with 4 very large tables. When everyone got there an Asian translator got up and started welcoming us, he made me laugh because he has a feminine voice! He sounded like a feminine native Asian! He introduced us to the mayor and someone else who is important (he is so important that I don't remember) and told us to enjoy our stay here in China and if we need any "hairp" (which is help) just to talk to him. He was a funny guy, then the mayor got up and talked about how he likes us teaching English and to enjoy our stay as well. He didn't speak any English so the feminine Asian translated, it was so funny. Then we ate, it wasn't too bad, we had steak, fried rice, sweet and sour sauce, veggies and normal rice with chicken tendons on top (don't ask me why-they are weird). The not so good things black chicken, it was chicken but it was black and the inside looked like there was pepper in the meat of the chicken, it was good I just couldn't get over the blackness of it. I heard the fish and shrimp were really good but I didn't try it because I'm not a fishy person, some pork fat (they love fat) and some other things I wasn't too sure about. There was a guy on our table who was from England, he has been here for over a year and he was drinking his beer and wine and he had to go out for a smoke break. He was a funny guy and for some weird reason he knew we were from Salt Lake... They love to do cheers here, they walk around table to table with their wine glasses and say, "cheers, cheers!" I love seeing the different things they do in this culture, it is so fascinating. I love going to dinner with Jane, she knows everyone and everyone knows her, she has connections, she lives a pretty sweet life and I'm glad she likes to show off her American friends:)

Home Visits

Tonight we went on home visits, they told us this afternoon we were going to visit Jim, from Lindsey's class, and Peter from my class. I was pretty excited to see them, Jim is the most Asianist Asian, he looks like a cartoon character, he is so cute. Peter is my favorite kid, if there was a group of kids and I passed them, I would look for Peter, I like him a lot. Yesterday he moved closer to me while we were sitting down and he grabbed my hand and just held it for the longest time. So cute! So we went to Jim's house first and it was at a really nice apartment, big screen TV, a maid, nice furniture, it was just really nice! His mom knew some English and she was really soft spoken and really sweet, come to find out Jim is half Korean, his dad owns a business in Korea and they have a house in Shinzhen (where we go to church). Jim was really quiet and he just watched Ultra Man on TV the whole time, he is a good kid at school, very polite always says please and thank you. So after Jim's house it was Peter's turn, just kidding, the Chinese teachers who were with us told us that Peter's parents were busy tonight so we were going to Vinson's house, Vinson is Emily's kid, not ours! Oh well... We should have known plans would be changed. So we went to Vinson's house, I was expecting it to be nice but it was just average, it is probably nice for Chinese people but it was very messy and cluttery. We looked at pictures of Vinson's Beijing trip, while we were doing that Vinson's mom was cutting a fruit, I kept smelling a gross smell, it smelt like puke! I didn't know what it was, Vinson handed me a piece of fruit and I went to taste it and it tasted and smelt like puke! I couldn't eat it! It was too hard, it made me want to puke! Vinson is a good kid in class, he is quiet but he can be crazy if you put him with his friends. I think home visits are to show off the Americans, which I'm OK with because it is good to see the kids in their own environment. I had a fun time tonight, these kids are so cute!

Alligator!!!

This is the coolest picture! Look! There is an alligator on my back!

Sanya Pictures!

Girls doing what we do best, SHOP!!!

Me drinking coconut milk on the beach!

Me and my beach buddy, we entertain each other so well!

Blegh, the second sleeper bus we were on...

Me under the bunk bed in the sleeper bus, I was so crammed! That's why I moved to the isle bed, more room!

Beautiful Sanya

We just got back from a 4 day vacation to Sanya. Sanya is the most south city in China, it is an island and it is known as the Russian's Hawaii. We were planning on taking a 12 hour sleeper bus, you can sleep on the little beds on the bus. We left our apartment at 1:45 to catch the sleeper at 3:30, the bus was more crammed then I thought it would be. They were little bunk beds that were probably about a foot and a half wide and about 4 and a half feet long. I slept in the isle in the back of the bus, it was cushioned so I was OK with it, I was feeling like I couldn't breathe under the bed because there is seriously NO room. Plus I could spread my legs out when I was in the isle. Our group of 7 went and another group from ILP came and there were 6 of them, a total of 13 Americans. We rode until about 8 and we had a little pit stop, at the pit stop Mandy paid 1 yuan (Chinese money) to use the bathroom, a couple seconds later she came right out. Mandy said they were squatters and Keegan (who has been here a month longer than us) said that those squatters were the sickest she has ever used. I don't know why Asians like squatters, they are gross and they stink really bad. We got back on the bus and at 6:30 AM on Saturday we got up because we had to get on the ferry. I hated the ferry ride, I probably hated it so bad because I didn't know what was going on so I left my camera, iPod and other things on the bus, I thought it was just another pit stop. The ferry 4 hours long and I couldn't get to my stuff so I could entertain myself!!!! It was cold because the wind was blowing so hard and they had a weird show playing, Asians are very interesting. When we got off of the ferry we got on a different sleeper bus, which was gross because there were white sheets on the beds and you could see food crumbs and Asians dark hair. We got to Sanya at 2:45 PM on Saturday, that was a 25 hour bus ride! I was so pooped when we got to our hostel, but we played on the beach and went to see around the city. On Sunday we played on the beach ALL DAY! Jadie was my swimming partner, which was nice because no one else wanted to swim with us! There were so many Russians and they are fat! All of the women wear bikini's, it is so gross and the men wear speedos and they have the biggest beer guts! They are just nasty. On Monday we played on the beach all day again and we also went shopping! When we would pass some Asians selling things on the side of the road they would say something to us in Russian, it was really weird to see and Asian speak Russian to an American. Most Asians could tell us apart though, I don't know how but they would yell, "hello!" The pearls here in China are so cheap! I can't believe it! We went to the Rainbow Cafe and had real American food! I was so excited because I miss my American normal food, I got a crispy chicken burger and fries, it was good. Tuesday we played on the beach and shopped as well and got a picture taken with an alligator! This guy was walking around the beach with a little alligator so we got our picture with it, it was awesome! We left our hostel at 4:30 to catch the plane at 6:30. Planes are the way to go, they are cheap and they don't waste time. It took us an hour and a half to get to the airport 2 hours away from our apartment, but it was too late when we got in last night that there were no more buses. We had to crash at the other girl's apartment and take the 6:15 bus this morning, we got to our apartments this morning at 8:15 and we had to teach at 8:45. We were very rushed and it was kind of a weird morning but this trip was well needed and I loved being on the beach soaking up the sun! It was worth going!

Lindsey's Birthday Pictures

Birthday Cake!

The special drinks they gave us...

Lindsey's smashed birthday Hello Kitty cake:)

This was at Little Italy, so good and very fun!

Me modeling the bikes we were buying. The red one is mine.

Lindsey's Birthday

Today is Lindsey's birthday! She turned 19! It was an eventful day, after teaching we went and bought bikes. We bought our bikes for $150 Chinese money, which is pretty good, that is about $20 in America. We love our bikes, they will get a good use for the next 3 and a half months. We rode our bikes to Little Italy for dinner, we were the only ones in there, they are never really busy. It is a real Italian place, they had pizza, pasta, steak, chicken, salads and dessert, and they have a real Italian Chef! He had a greasy ponytail and he was a bigger man working with a bunch of skinny Asians. Me, Mandy, Jadie and Lindsey got the chicken but Jadie and Lindsey shared. Emily got Lasagna and I'm not too sure what Keegan got, something with noodles and red sauce. Amy, our head teacher, wasn't there because she is out of town until Thursday. My meal was so good! The chicken was tender, it didn't have bones or tendons in it, it was normal good American/Italian chicken. It also came with potatoes, those tasted so good, we haven't had potatoes in a long time. All of the sudden the waitress brought out a cheese pizza! The chef cooked us a pizza! We didn't even have to pay for it! It was so delicious, cheesy and it had very little red sauce, which I like. We bought Lindsey a Chinese birthday cake, the last birthday cake we got was at Ryan's birthday party and it had beans in the center! We were praying that the cake we got Lindsey didn't have beans in the middle. We were going to eat it at the restaurant, so the waitresses put it in the fridge for us. We decided that we were too full to eat Lindsey's cake there, while we were talking and laughing they bring us out a little drink. It was green and it smelt very limey. Jadie took a little sip and we could tell by her face it was bad, then Keegan said it burned. Sure enough, we came to the conclusion it was some kind of alcoholic beverage! That was very nice of them to share their very strong drink with us but we left with our glasses full. Don't worry, we know better. Plus who would want to drink that crap? It smelt so strong and Keegan said it burned! Sickos. As we left, Jadie hooked the cake on to the back of her bike and we drove away. Jadie was having a bad day anyway, and as we left the restaurant, she hit the curb wrong on her bike and she fell, with the cake. We all ran over, the cake was smashed but it was still OK, oh and Jadie is ok as well. We got back to the apartment and ate the cake, it was so good and it had fruit in the middle! Not beans! We were so relieved. Annie, our Asian who helps us with things, called after we ate our cake and told us that Mandy, Emily and I had packages at the gate of the kindergarten we live at!!!! She is also coming over around 10 tonight to wish Lindsey a happy birthday and to give her a cake:) Me, Mandy and Emily ran down the stairs, I knew what I was getting because I have been waiting for over a month, but my parents only sent it 3 weeks ago, it was my CAMERA!!!! We got our packages and ran up the stairs and opened them, I have my camera that my family took a cute picture and a video, THANK YOU!!! It also had a shirt which is new and very cute, THANK YOU!!! And Altoids, THANK YOU!!! This package was highly needed, I'm glad I finally got it, now I can stop bugging the other girls to take pictures for me. Thank you again! You guys are the best! Anyway, I'm pretty sure there will be a lot more stories to tell on my blog now that we have bikes, they are pretty entertaining! Thank you for your love and support!

Fashion Show pictures!

Ending pose, we did kissy faces, I was a little late as you can see.

We were walking to the back after this pose, I love my shoes!!!

We were so happy!

The 3 of us getting ready to go strut our stuff on stage.

Chinese Fashion Shows

Tonight was the big night! We were so nervous about getting up in front of everyone and having them make fun of our American bodies, very different from Asian bodies. Last night we had rehearsal at the place where the fashion show was being held. That was so confusing, they added more to our routine and they were speaking Chinese 90 miles an hour. The lady teaching us knows some English, she just wasn't using it so we were confused, angry and frustrated. We just had to follow everyone around us and hope that we were doing it right. They didn't have the music on and they were counting, in Chinese, when we didn't go, they would yell at us! How were we suppose to know!? We don't speak Chinese! They kept saying, "hello teachers!" It was very annoying. We didn't know how tonight would go over. We had to meet them in the dance room here at the school at 6 tonight so they could do our hair and make up. They weren't going to do my hair because they just wanted it down natural, blond and curly. They love curly hair. So I go down in my dress with my hair done and no makeup on, thinking that they were going to do it like they said they would. Nope, we had to do our make up, Asians are very funny like that, they always change times and what they are doing, all of the time! It is so annoying! So we went back up all of our stairs, in our dresses, to get back to our apartment. We did our own make up, which was weird because I haven't worn make up for a very long time. Then we went back down stairs so they could do Mandy's hair. They pulled it back and I could tell Mandy was a little afraid, it turned out so cute though! They even put chopsticks in her hair! It was awesome! At 7 we practiced and by 7:30 we were off to the show. We made it just in time, we were 3rd in the line up. We did well! When we got on stage everyone in the audience started cheering and whistling, that's not like Asians, they are usually very quiet and emotionless. We strutted our American stuff and it was awesome!!! I thought we did really well. After we did our thing we went and sat in the audience. Asians think that posing in athletic gear with tennis rackets, basketballs and soccer balls is really cool, everyone did it! And they played the same song over and over and over. They also like dressing up as flight attendants, I know they probably don't mean to, I think they just want to look professional, but it looks very flight attendanty. It started at about 8 and we stayed until about 10, by the time we left they still had 15 numbers to go! We weren't going to stay for people posing in athletic gear that we already saw about 10 times! So we left. It was an awesome experience! It was very fun and they loved us! They really like our American bodies:)

Fashion Show

The schools in Xiaolan (our city we are in) have a fashion show together. The teachers at our school wanted 3 of us to be in it. Keegan, Emily, Mandy or Me. Today we went to a dress store, our school will rent our dresses we try on and like the best. So we went the the dress store today, they had beautiful Asian silk dresses. The first one Keegan tried on fit her perfectly and we liked it a lot, she got that over with fast. Emily tried on a couple and decided that the dresses fit her weird and she didn't want to do it. They kept giving Mandy and I long dresses with slits on the sides up to our butts! We kept telling them no and they would give us sleeveless dresses to try on. We tried on about 7 dresses each, they have weird body shapes, I'm surprised any of us fit in anything! I felt so big being there, they had to get bigger sizes for us Americans and I'm so glad I couldn't speak Chinese because I know I would be offended by what they were saying about us being so large. The dresses would be big around our chest and waist area but tight around our butts, like I said, they have weird body shapes. Nothing fit right. After we tried on a lot, they liked a peach shorter (to my knees) dress. I don't look good in peach but it actually fit normally and it was modest so I didn't care what color it was. They wanted Mandy to wear a long dress with slits up to her butt, she told them no so they gave her a dress that was really pretty but it was sleeveless. They gave her a shrug (a scarf thing) to put over it and we called it good. After being there for about an hour and a half, Mandy and I needed shoes to go with our dresses so we went shoe shopping and we found perfect heels, I have white ones and Mandy bought black. We then had a fashion show practice at 6:30, we had to practice our walk! There are 3 or 4 other Asians learning a slow walk to a very Asian sounding song we were standing next to them in our heels and we are a whole head taller than them! They are so small! I am excited for Friday, we will take a lot of pictures to show you guys our beautiful Asian dresses.

Some guy inbetween Lindsey and I, he is getting cozy with Lindsey, if I were her I would freak out. He was stinky-see my head? It is turned away from the stink.

Walking to the metro to go home after a long day. The girl to the very left is Jessica, she is from Ireland, she has a sweet accent. She isn't LDS but she is looking into it.

Us ILP girls with Elder Wan and Elder Perkins of the 70

District Conference

Today was awesome! We got up at 6 am to go to District Conference, it happens annually and we happened to be here in China to go! I don't think that was a coincidence. We traveled by walking, bus, metro and taxi to the Ramada Hotel in Guangzhou. It is about 2 hours away from where we live. It started at 10 and we were on time! In fact we were early-that is not like us, we usually are late because of unexpected travel issues. It went until 12, there were about 8 speakers consisting of 2 youth speakers, the President of Beijing China international district, a young women's president, some other people from different branches and 2 men from the 70 were there! Elder Stanley Wan from the 70 and Elder Anthony D. Perkins from the 70. We didn't know what they looked like, but when we saw them we knew they were from the 70, they have a different light to them. Elder Wan talked about if the Savior were to enter the room, would we recognize him and we should keep the commandments. Elder Perkins spoke about how Satan is trying to hold back the gospel to non-members but the gospel is still moving forward. There were about 200 people in the conference, a black person, white people, children and Asians, it was so awesome to look back on the congregation and see the different people. It was an amazing experience, afterwards we walked across the street and had lunch, which was spaggettii and hot ham and cheese sandwiches! The ham and cheese sandwiches were so amazing! I kept eating them! When we were done eating, we stayed in our seats and Steven L. Toronto, President Beijing China international district, Scott L. Bayles, 2nd counselor district presidency, Elder Anthony D. Perkins and Elder Stanley Wan spoke to us single adults, there were about 40 of us. We had a question and answer with them. We got to ask any questions we wanted and they would answer it. For example: How could we meet in a Ramada Hotel when the gospel is prohibited in China by the government? The answer is that the church works closely with the government and they permit us to meet but we need to be careful so we don't teach the Chinese people. The government, in a way, trusts us. Or What do Chinese people think about before and after life? They believe that if you go throughout your life being good you will be a king or a queen, if you did poorly through life you will be a dog or a cat. It was very interesting and I learned a lot about church in China, I loved this experience!