Baptism

I tweaked my ankle a while ago doing I don't know what. It's felt funny for a while, but I didn't notice until a couple days ago that it's pretty swollen. I wonder if giving it a rest for a couple days will help it at all, so I didn't do any workout this morning and I tried to sleep in, but it just doesn't work for me. I tried so hard to sleep until 8am, but I couldn't do it, my body wouldn't let me stay in bed.

This morning I went to the Relief Society activity to actually dye my table cloth. It started at 9:30am, so I was there at 9:30am. They first went over how to tie-dye shirts. I wasn't doing a shirt, so I wasn't interested. I had to wait an hour until Steffanie showed up so that she could help me know what to do with the table cloth, but then she had a bunch of shirts to do so I waited another half hour before she came over to help me. Ugh. When she finally came to help me, she told me that the one lady who is pro at this didn't think that one string was strong enough and that I should have sewed it with a double string. Um... it's a little late to be telling me this. It also turns out that I tied the knots wrong or something. We had to be careful because the string was so weak, but we ended up getting all of the strings pulled in, and in the end, my table cloth looked like the head of a little girl with pig tails. Everyone who had made a shirt was already out of the room and outside getting their stuff dyed. For some reason, I needed a different, darker dye or else I risked having the picture not show up. I thought that they were going to do it after the shirts were done, but I guess they decided that making up a new batch just for one cloth wasn't worth it. For those people that did the table cloth, they are going to meet next Saturday to give them time to re-stitch their patterns, so I have to wait until next week to get mine dyed. Oh gracious, this is turning into such an ordeal.

After the activity they had food upstairs. I was going to go out to lunch with the sister missionaries, Natalie, and Amy, but because food was provided, we decided to save some money and eat what they had in the kitchen. It was really good. I think that the soup had homemade noodles- the best kind. After lunch the five of us (the sisters, Natalie, Amy, and I) went to a place to get some shaved ice. We got shaved ice with mango and milk (which turns out that the milk is sweet and condensed milk). It was really good, but the bowls were so big that we had to share. And, after hearing that the milk was sweet and condensed milk, I'm really glad that I didn't eat a whole big one by myself, that is NOT healthy.

The missionaries had to run off to an appointment and Amy, Natalie, and I headed back to the apartment to change for the baptism. Amy was baptised today, and it was a really neat experience to be a part of it. She borrowed a skirt from Natalie and then we headed back to the church where we helped her get baptismal clothes, do her hair, and then we sat with her during the baptism. She is scared of water, and so she had a difficult time with the actual dunking part. Her feet kept on coming up. They had to do it 4 times. On the last one, the elder stepped on her feet so that they wouldn't come up. It's terrible, but everyone started to laugh by the third time. Besides that part though, it was a really great experience and she has such a strong spirit. I'm so glad that she took this step, and so is she.

After the baptism we stuck around and socialized. Mostly I talked with Luke, Kaylene, and the elders. But, when Luke and Kaylene left I switched to talking to Sister Hill, Natalie, and some guy in the Hualien Branch who wants to go to BYU. I had to leave before Amy left because I needed to go pick up the supplies for dinner tomorrow before the farmers' market closed. I had fun shopping at the farmers market. I needed to buy taro and yams and Luke taught me how to say them in Chinese, just in case I couldn't recognize them. I used my new vocabulary words and the people at the vegetable stand showed me exactly what I needed them to.

After shopping I came home and made dinner, and haven't been doing much since.