Normal Food!!

Hey guys!
Again I forgot to send an email on Sunday. I remembered while I was in sacrament that I needed to do that but by the time we got back from church I had forgotten. Maybe next week haha

Anyway this week has been pretty good! Again we still haven't taught a full class yet. We have had a few 20 minute classes to practice but that is it. There are about 40 kids in each class so it gets crazy! On top of all the noise those  kids make the whole school is inside and the classrooms have windows open so you can hear all of the other kids and how loud they are.it gets hard to hear sometimes. But its fun! The kids are so stinking cute! And they are all very smart. The tricky part is keeping all of them entertained.

We also found a really yummy restaurant which is so exciting for me. We have limited places to eat so the fact that we found one that we like so much is good! By the way...a lot of the food here smells and tastes like dirt a lot of times.  When Jamie and I smell it or taste it we just say it tastes like China and we know exactly what it is.
At church on Sunday we had a potluck and the members made a lot of American food. I can't tell you how happy I was to be eating a home made meal again. I have missed that.
Ok it sounds like I'm not liking the food so much. I actually really do but my tongue misses dinner at home.
Anyway! I don't know if I have explained how church works out here. The nationals can't be in the same ward as us so we go to a tiny branch in a neighboring city with other foreigners. Most of the branch is Americans who ate here for work. So it was fun for us to see white people again.
So to really celebrate our anniversary we went to the zoo inshanghai on Monday. That place is huge! We got there about 10 in the morning and e didn't leave until 4:45. The only animal we went and saw twice was the panda. It took us the entire day to see all of the animals there. We were so exhausted when we got home. But it was totally worth it!
Anyway that is about it for this week. Hope you guys have a good one!

Skeeter

Gibberish

Hey guys!
I woke up this morning and realized that I never sent an email on Sunday. Oops!
     Life here has been pretty good! I don't think anything too exciting has happened. We thought we were going to start teaching on the first, but it turns out that the school we are working with wantes us to do some training and a promotional thing first. So Thursday and Friday we practiced a lesson that we had to do on Saturday for the promo class. We went to a different city on Saturday and we each taught a class with about 20 kids in it. The nerve racking part was that the parents were sitting there watching the whole thing. And based off of what we did they would decide if they wanted to join this school or not. Why they decided to have the newbies do that I have no idea.
     At first we did not like that idea. Mostly because we still had no clue what was going on. But the teaching was so fun! The kids are so cute! They get so excited to see a white person but then get so shy when you acknowledge them.
  Side note:    When we are walking down the street we will see kids gasping and pointing at us so we make a point to wave and say hi. Some of the kids love it! Others end up hiding behind their moms legs. Its fun to see their different reactions.

Anyway, yesterday we were finally taken to the school we would actually be teaching at. We were brought around to about 10 different kindergarten classes and told to introduce ourselves. The kids thought we were hilarious. Imagine being 3,4, and 5 years old and seeing a chinese person for the first time. Then they start to speak to you in chinese. It would sound like gibberish. That is how it was for them and the gibberish had them cracking up. They would laugh the most when they heard my name. Some of them had a hard time not falling off their chairs they were laughing so hard! We loved it. I wish I would have gotten it on camera.

Well thats about the gist of it this week! Have a great week!

Skeeter

Beijing

Hey everyone!
This week has been an exciting one! It started off with the summer palace which was beautiful! It starts with a ton of typical, but beautiful, Chinese looking buildings and you have to climb a lot of stairs to get to them. The picture I posted on Instagram with Jamie and I doing our Asian poses is at the opening of the summer palace. Anyway, behind all of that are massive grounds that go on forever. Then behind that is a giant lake that you can walk around and go on a boat ride across. I am going to try to send pictures with this email. Who knows if it will actually work...
The day after the summer palace we went to tienanman square which is where students started a protest and one guy had a tank drive right up to him and he didn't flinch.  One of their most famous chairmen (kind of like our president) is also enbalmed there and on display but we didn't see him. We also went to the forbidden city that day which is where the ancient emperors would live. So it was forbidden to the commoners. That place was again massive. We spent 3 hours there and didn't even see it all. But we saw some of the emperor's thrones and sleeping quarters and some other really random things from his wife and concubines. One of the weirdest things we saw there was a big clay type sculpture with Buddha in it. It was made by the son of the empress and it was used to hold a piece of his mom's hair after she died. That's it. He spent tons of money on something that would hold nasty old hair.
After that adventure was done we went to a park next to the forbidden city that looked over the entire thing. It was a really cool sight!
The day after all of that we went to the great wall. That place is so green! Lucky for us that day wasn't half as humid as the other days. Jamie and I decided to take the ski lift up to where the great wall is which gave us 15 extra minutes on the wall because we didn't have to hike up. Score! We tried taking some pictures to imitate the beginning scene of Mulan when the huns show up on the great wall and the soldier tells the leader that all of China knew he was there. Do you know which scene in talking about? Anyway it didn't work out very well. Thebes we took tobogans down the mountain when we were done  (they were just like the Alpine slide).
  Oh! We also went to a crazy actobatics show! It was so fun! They put 7 people on motorcycles and then put them in a spherical cage one by one and they drove around in there. It was so intense!
       Ok one last big thing we did. We went to this place called the exotic food district. Can you all guess where I am going with this? This place was so gross and fun at the same time. When you walk in it its a little alley so tons of people are trying to get into this Itty bitty space. The first thing you see when you get there is a shop with buckets of scorpions on sticks. They have some that are alive but most are fried and dead. Jamie started off strong and ate a fried scorpion. He says it wasn't too terrible but not his favorite. Then we both tried balute. Do you know what that is? Its a chick that is mostly grown but still in the egg. So nasty!! It has feathers and everything. I did not like it. Then we tried choudoufu (pronounced cho doe foo). Or in other words stinky tofu. Guys that stuff is rancid! You know that smell when you step in fresh dog poop? That's what choudoufu smells AND tastes like. It was so disgusting! We continued to walk down this crowded and tiny alley where we saw all kinds of things like snake, french fries, tarantula, and all kinds of scary stuff. Then I saw a girl walking around with cotton candy. If you know me at all you know that is one of my favorites. So we found the stand that they were selling them at and there was a guy there smoking right over the machine! Needless to say, I didn't get any cotton candy. It finally started getting late so we decided to head back but Jamie wanted to try one more thing before we left. Can you guys guess what it was?

That's right. The LIVE scorpion. So he went to that first stand bought a stick (comes with three scorpion on it) and ate not just one but TWO live scorpion! He's crazy and so cool for that! I have video proof as well for anyone who wants to see that when we get home.
So there you go. Sorry it is so long! We are heading to our cities, where we are teaching, tomorrow morning which is really exciting. I can't wait to start!
Hope you are all having fun now that everyone is back in school.
It's been an adventure so far and the real food that we eat is actually pretty good! So this are going well so far.
Miss you all! 

Skeeter

The In-Laws (FAML)

   This week for our reading we talked about financial things and the in-laws. Lets be honest here, many of us know what we are supposed to be doing when it comes to money (the trick is applying what we know) so I will focus more on the in-laws.
     Did you know that it is proper for the girl to ask her soon-to-be in-laws permission to marry their son? I had no clue, and I probably wouldn't have been brave enough to actually do that when it came down to it. Its moments like this when I am so grateful I am a girl.
   The most part of what I remember from the reading was about cleaving to our spouses and not to our parents. There is a verse in the bible that says "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife." A lot of times there are problems in marriages because the wife and her mother have too close of a relationship. Its ok to be close to our parents but we wives need to make sure that we are not giving our moms every detail of our married lives. It seems small and harmless, but Its actually really interesting what kind of damage that can do to a marriage.
    A friend once told me, and I think I have told you this before, "keep your marriage in your marriage." She said, there will be times when he bugs you. You get over it because you love him. When you tell your mom or dad the things that are wrong with him and how it bugs you, they won't forget it. The sad thing is that I can definitely see this being true. My friends have come to me and told me things about their boyfriend or husband and I have a lot harder of a time trying to let it go and see this guy the same way. We want our parents to see our spouse in a good light always.
     The other important thing to remember is that when we do talk to our parents or ask for advice, they are not the first people we should turn to. We are supposed to talk things out with our spouse and try to figure things out that way. If together that still doesn't work, then if you both feel ok about it you can talk to the parents and get their input.
    I think the main purpose of this reading was to teach us to love our parents still but to make sure that we are turning to our spouse first in all things.

Receiving Answers (FDREL)

What Holy Ghost Does:                                                 What Disciples need to do to have Holy Ghost:
1) Comforts                                                                        1) Bear Witness of the Truth
2) teaches                                                                           2) Keep His commandments
3) Helps you remember                                                     3) Be worthy
4) Gives Heavenly Peace                                                  4) Love the Lord
5) Testifies
6) Reprove the world of sin
7) Guide in all truth
8) Gives testimony of the Savior
9) Purifies us



How did the Holy Ghost Help the Apostles after Christ's death and Resurrection?
      The Holy Ghost was the one who taught the apostles after the Savior left the earth. He helped them remember the teachers of Jesus and helped them to convey His gospel with power and authority. The Holy Ghost touched other's hearts so they could know that what the apostles were saying was true. He was the reason the apostles could be in different places and still teaching and testifying of the same things.

     The Holy Ghost has been an amazing help since I have been baptized. For those of you who are not members of the LDS we believe that when we are baptized we are blessed with the gift of the Holy Ghost, which means we can always have Him to help us and have Him by our side as we are worthy. Before baptism we believe that He can still touch us and help us but he cannot be with us constantly until after we are baptized.
     It has been 14 years almost to the day since I have been baptized. So there are 14 years of experiences that have really shaped who I am, because I have the gift of the Holy Ghost. One experience that stands out to me is when I was nannying and I was asking what to do next with my life. It was a strange question for me to ask because I knew I needed to go back to school and continue my education. But for some reason I asked what was next. I went to the Salt Lake City LDS temple to worship and receive answers. I didn't feel like I was getting any answers while I was there.
     Afterward I came home and sat down on my couch. It was quite in the room and I had time to sit and think. After just a few moments I had a very strong feeling that I needed to serve a mission for my church. So I called my church leaders and sent in my application. After just three months, I was in California serving the people of Ventura. I loved it all and I know that I needed those experiences. It was because of the Holy Ghost that I went. I would have never thought to go on my own. But my life has been changed because of it.

Gimme Gimme Gimme! (FAML)

      All growing up my friends had many more toys and expensive things than I did, like the ipod nano or a “razor” cell phone. I always wanted what they had. Even then though, I always noticed a difference in how those friends treated their friends and family. They were not respectful and always had to have things their way. Those were the friends who I never wanted to hang out with outside of school because they were not fun to play with. They were selfish and rude more often than not.

    “As Dr. John Rosemond counseled: “Give your children regular, daily doses of Vitamin N. This vital nutrient consists simply of the most character-building two-letter word in the English language––‘'No’ . . . Unfortunately, many, if not most, of today’s children suffer from Vitamin N deficiency”

  This quote sums those kids up perfectly. They were very deficient in “vitamin N”.  Even in Elementary school I could see the difference in how they acted. That doesn’t mean I stopped asking for things or didn’t complain a little when I didn’t get something I wanted. It did however help me to see the reasoning behind everything my parents did. I saw that it wasn’t just because they wanted to be mean to me. They wanted me to be the kind of person that others would enjoy being around.

    I love how Dr. Richard B. Miller says in a healthy family “there is a clear heirarchy between parents and children.” Our kids can be our friends, but they are first our children and our responsibility. We are supposed to raise them and teach them what is right and wrong. We can’t do that if we are just a friend who gives them whatever they want when they want it.

    I am grateful for my parents not giving me everything I want. It has really helped shape who I am. I can go without now. I know the difference between what I want and what I need. It saves me money, time, and energy. I think that is something everyone should learn before they are out and living in the world without their parents around. It makes a big difference.

"Happy Wife, Happy Life" (FAML)

 This week in class we are focusing on intimacy in our marriages. This quote is what stood out to me. 

       "When it comes to sexuality, some wives become very concerned about their “rights,” often speaking of their “right” to say no and yes. But marriage is also a relationship of responsibility and opportunity. In marriage, both partners have the opportunity to give. I believe few wives realize the power they have to help keep their husbands near them physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. On the other hand, I also believe few wives sense the degree of frustration and alienation husbands feel when a wife ignores his needs and interests. I believe a wise and loving Heavenly Father has given a wife the ability to achieve oneness with her husband"

                         Brent A. Barlow

     The most interesting part is where Barlow talks about the impact we women have in keeping our men close to us. I was reminded of when Gottman did a study on married couples and how most of the time the wife is the one who is likely to show contempt and to criticize. Can you see the connection?     

   When the women set time aside to welcome their husband home from work, to talk to them about their crazy day and its stresses the husband is going to feel loved and wanted because his wife is giving him positive attention. She is showing him that every part of him is important to her. When Husband comes home and the wife starts nagging him about not doing enough or being gone too much he isn't going to feel like she missed him very much or like she wants him around. This is going to push him away. He could even potentially start looking for positive attention in other ways. 

    In marriage, intimacy grows when we are able to feel loved by our spouse. We grow together when we are able to enjoy each other's company or when we can joke together. It helps us to be confident in that love that we share. 

      I was talking to my mom last night about family she said the wife is who sets the tone for the family. She is the one who is home with the children and doing most of the housework while husband is at work. If the wife is cranky all of the time or does end up criticizing or showing contempt to her husband (or even vise versa) how can the couple trust each other to be intimate? I know it would be hard for me if I was not totally confident that my husband loved and adored me.