~Lovin' Livin'~

2009-01-29T07:19:00.000-08:00

Well...life back in the US has been pretty amazing. Of course I miss China with all of my guts but luckily I have been able to stay in contact with my dearest Chinese friends. I am currently staying in Salt Lake and going to LDS Business College. The above picture is of my amazing roommates. Ya...they are the best roomies anyone could ever have for college. We are all so different but have so much fun at the same time. One of my roomies is missing from this picture. Her name is Eliane and she shares a room with me. She is from Brazil and is so fun! It has been such a blessing having so many things fall into place when I came home from China. All I can say is...the Church is true!

My last days!!

2008-12-11T02:04:00.001-08:00

Well, time has surely caught up with me. These photos are some of the awesome times I've had being here in China. The first picture is of me with my awesome Chinese friends at a Karoke bar. We definitely sang the night away. I love all of them and felt so welcome as we all danced and sang together. I sang to them "I Saw the Sign" and "The Christmas Song". I loved listening to their Chinese songs too. The next two pictures are of me and my morning reading class. We have had so much fun learning songs and actions. They all love to swarm me with hugs when class is over. The last picture is of me and all my girls here in China. As you can see we never have a dull moment. We have become so close. I love them all! They all have a special place in my heart. China girls rule! Being here in China has been the most amazing experience. There are no words to how much I've loved it here.

Playing With My Kids

2008-11-28T02:48:00.000-08:00

These are pictures of all of the fun I have with my children. The first picture is of us playing Duck Duck Goose right before dinner. We had some extra time so we all took advantage of it. hehe. The next pictures are of some of the lessons that I've done with my kids. One of them was "Once There Was a Snowman." I had the kids dress up in a top hat, scarf, carrot nose, and gloves. They then sang the song. They loved it so much. I also dressed my kids up and acted out "5 little Elves". Cade is the one with the beard. haha, he makes me laugh so hard!

Hanging with the families

2008-11-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

We have had a few opportunities to spend days with certain student's families from our school. The first two pictures are from when I went with Cade, a child from my homeroom class. He is so incredibly cute! The whole time he was holding my hand and pointing to colors and objects, telling me their english name. He was really excited and happy. His family was very nice and sweet. They were so willing to buy anything for us. (Nicole went with me.) We are holding little clay figurines (in the first picture) that the mother bought us. The next picture is Cade with his beautiful mother. The 3rd picture is a huge buddha inside a temple that is located in Changzhou. The temple also had 14 floors of different buddhas and artifacts that were so fun to look at. At the very top of the temple there was a humungous bell. The last picture is of a huge bouquet that a different family gave me. Carly and I went together on this visit. We went to the family's clothing store and they gave us each a beauitful black necklace. We then went to a restaurant with delicious food. Our favorite was dumplings with egg around them and yummy veggies inside. It was pretty fun telling the family in Chinese what we liked to eat. I, of course, told them wo xi huan shu tsai (I don't know if I spelled it right...). This means I like vegetables. We felt so spoiled during this trip. We also told them about our families and they were so surprised we have so many siblings.

Qingying Halloween was full of surprises!

2008-11-03T02:01:00.000-08:00

Halloween was such a blast, here in China. We each decided to dress up for the holiday and surprise all the people at Qingying. We did just that. As you can see my makeup and hair was quite a scare. I got some really funny looks while walking around the school. Some guys called me beautiful and sexy (jokingly...). It was so funny! In the morning we were asked to play Halloween games with the grade 3 kids. We did fun crafts (making paper pumpkins and spiders), a cake walk, and played games such as red rover, missionary tag, and heads up seven up. I was in charge of heads up seven up (the picture of all of the kids with their heads down is them playing this game) and had so much fun. I played with the kids and was picked every time. haha. For our regular lessons we played carnival games with our kids, which was a hay day for them. My lesson was fishing for candy and the other girls did fishing in noodles, a cake walk, decorating cookies, and making a mask. We then watched Winnie the Pooh's Halloween. The picture with me cuddling with some of my kids is during the movie. Man, what a fun day! We all had a blast. Lissa, one of the Chinese teachers, begged us to take pictures with her students and like 5 other classes. We were the celebrities of the day, a day we will never forget.

My little room mate, Mildred

2008-10-21T03:59:00.000-07:00

We were told when we first came to Changzhou that we would each have our own rooms. I was so excited to have this wonderful freedom. Well I got my hopes up too high because about a week after I moved in a rat showed up. I named it Mildred. It had gotten into my garbage but not a big deal, right? I didn't worry to much about it. Eventually each night things got a little worse. Mildred ended up taking a bite out of all my granola bars and ate some other things. This isn't the worse part, though. Me and the girls stayed the night in Nanjing to go to church and Mildred decided to surprise me when I got home. I opened up my sock drawer and he had made a little home, including his own bathroom! We were all screaming! I didn't sleep in my room for the next few nights. I had a serious talk with one of the faculty at the school, named Jo. He got me a trap and some poison. I put the trap out that night and miraculously, and after much prayer, the next morning he was caught. Muah haha. I was so happy! The Lord does answer our prayers, even the most simple ones.

My School!

2008-10-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

These are some pictures at the school that I teach at. The school's name is Qingying (ching ying). It is a very wealthy school pretty nice inside. We each have our own class rooms, which is so nice. We really are spoiled here. At first there was only 3 huge rooms to work with and we told the faculty that we need 5 rooms. Well low and behold the next time we went to our rooms they had built walls inbetween the huge rooms, making six rooms for us. It was perfect. We have some free time every now and again and so some of us have taken up cross stitching. I am pretty much a pro now. You should see my work. In the school there are posters all over the walls with funny inspirational sayings. Some of the sayings are really funny like "take a deep breath with the world." My favorite is in one of these pictures. Carly is posing underneath the words "love every day!" We are fed pretty well each day. Some of the food here is quite authentic. We see a lot of what looks like piranha, chicken stomach, and hardened pigs blood. Most of the food is pretty good though. They have plenty of vegetables and yummy eggs plus plenty of rice. I will not go hungry here. hehe.

2008-10-15T19:52:00.000-07:00

These are pictures from my first Hong Kong trip. This city is so beautiful. My favorite part was going and doing baptisms for the dead at the Hong Kong Temple. It was the most amazing experience I have ever had in a temple. After struggling with traveling and the beginning of our Chinese experience it was so nice to get away and visit a temple of the Lord. Wow, China kicked off to a great start in Hong Kong. Hong Kong at night was very beautiful too. There was a light show on all of the buildings. Man, I wish that Salt Lake City had a light show! My favorite picture of this bunch is with me and Abby next to the biggest firehydrant in the world! It was so huge.

These pictures are of infront of the temple. I loved these chinese people that were at the temple. They were so excited to see us and so kind. They totally radiated. I loved them. The next picture is with the mission president of the Hong Kong Temple. He was such a nice man! The last picture is with real LDS missionaries in Hong Kong. We were so happy to see them! They were so nice and totally stoked to complete the Lord's work. They were such a ray of sunlight in Hong Kong.

The Kids I Teach

2008-10-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

These are my adorable children.

I love them all so much and am planning on shipping them home with me. They learn so incredibly fast. There are plenty of days where each one of them have serious ADHD but this is when the lesson of patience comes in. My favorite thing is to say good night to my kids. I stop by their rooms to see them and they run to me yelling "Teacha Kat!!" and then give me huge hugs. I'm sure that a hug from a child can cure any type of illness.

I also taught my kids a "secret" handshake, which they love. I am so grateful for this awesome experience. These kids are seriously changing my life.

Our Visit to Beijing

2008-10-10T05:03:00.000-07:00

Beijing was absolutely incredible. As you can see we did not have a dull moment. From the Great Wall of China to dressing up as hot Chinese ladies, one could never be bored in Beijing.

The Forbidden City was amazing and beautiful.We had an awesome tour guide that explained the history of it. The Olympic sites were so awesome. It was so hard to believe we actually stood where the Olympians raced (at the Birds Nest pictured below).