It's the Final Count Down!

Oh gracious, I only have a week left in Hualien. I can't believe it. I leave in a week from tomorrow (but seeing as the day is mostly over and how I'm leaving Hualien early in the morning on Monday, it's safe to call it an even week). Time has honestly gone by so fast. Beth and Natalie have both asked me what my plans are for this up and coming week. I really don't have any. I know I have to pack and get some glasses, but those are all of my "plans." I still never made it down the east cost highway, and I'd really like to do that, but June is my only friend with a car and she's in China. I was also thinking that maybe I could spend the day biking down the coast and then take the train back up. That's a viable option for Thursday (when I don't have class or tutoring) but I don't know if my bike is reliable enough to get me all the way down the coast. And I don't know if bikes are allowed on the highway. Maybe I'll talked to Yuling tomorrow and see what she thinks about it (although I'm sure she'll think it's a stupid idea and wonder why I even thought of it).

Today I had to go to church by myself. I walked outside to see if Beth was ready. I called out for her, but there was no answer. I knocked on her window, but there was no answer. Her curtain was open just enough that I could see that she was still in bed. So I left.

I saw Teacher Steffanie in Relief Society and she told me that she forgot to take my table cloth to the church building on Saturday, so it's still not done. But, she did give me the earrings she made me out of the white stones I found at the beach. She made me two pairs and I really like them. Kaylene came to church a little late, and so Steffanie was already sitting by me so Kaylene went to the row behind me. Sister Woods was next to her, and so she was behind me too, but I couldn't hear the translation that clearly, so I was a little lost during Relief Society. It was okay, because if I lost what they were talking about, I just read the manual. Sunday school was interesting. The number of white people out numbered the number of Asians for the second week in a row. We had 4 missionaries, Luke, Kaylene, Me, and Brother Carlyle is a white member of the Ji-An Branch. Then there were only like 3 investigators/ new members, and the Branch President who was our teacher for the day. Class was pretty fun, we were all laughing kind of a lot. That might have just been due to errors/misunderstandings in translation though. Even through the laughter, we had a good lesson on charity.

In sacrament, Elder Pendleton had a rough time translating. His quote was, "I feel retarded right now. Honestly, I feel handicapped." During the first talk he was struggling, but then she started reading a talk from the conference edition of the Liahona. Elder Pendelton whipped out his English copy and just read the talk to us too. For some reason, writing in Chinese is always longer then in English, so he finished before her. Then he leaned forward and said, "You think that me reading it to you is boring? Just know that everyone else is just as bored as you are, because she's just reading it to them too." The second talk was easier for him to translate, but he made a ton of grammatical errors and a few times he did some direct translations that made Kaylene and I laugh (quietly). I don't know what it is, but lately the missionaries are really struggling to get through church with all the translations. I REALLY appreciate how hard they work to make sure we at least know the gist of what's going on.

I saw Yuling's baby at church today. There were other people who wanted to hold him, so I just got to glance at him. He is so adorable. And it's funny, because this is my first time seeing him, I was expecting him to be a tiny tiny new born. Then I remembered that he's been locked up for a month, and so he's still new, but not a week old new, he's already a month, and babies can get a good deal bigger in one month (although I guess he was a pretty good size new born).

After church I spent my time loading pictures and blogging. It really did suck up all of my afternoon. Next I started cooking dinner. Luke and Kaylene didn't come, and I found that a little strange, but dinner wasn't spectacular, so it's okay that they skipped out. We waited longer then normal to start eating, but Natalie and Amy still hadn't come an hour after church ended and so Beth and I decided to eat. As soon as we had finished (an hour and a half after church ended) they come walking up the stairs. I guess that Amy had a meeting with the missionaries. I wish I would have known. I wouldn't have minded waiting if I knew when they were coming, but I figured they were coming right after church.

After dinner I did some more blogging and then went in the kitchen to talk to Amy and Natalie (and Beth came in too). Amy had to run off to tutoring before too long though, so I didn't have a chance to socialize with her too much. Beth and I decided to play a few card games while Natalie borrowed my computer to type up her evaluations. Her computer broke a couple weeks after getting here, and so she's been using the computer we have in the kitchen, but I guess that some time last week that broke too. That seriously sucks. I just got the computer back and am doing the third and final post for the day. I think I'll go and work on getting pictures of Hong Kong up on facebook so that I can set up a link here.