Vacation, Freedom!

I'm headed here for some fun in the sun. Hurray! I love vacations.


Source


Source

Taroko National Park
Eastern side of Taiwan
Website

Lost in Transit?

I know many people are "on pins and needles" about my mission call.

Here's the status: we don't know where it is.

Steve (the stake president) contacted Hong Kong this week and they have not yet received an e-mail from Salt Lake. When they receive the e-mail it means Salt Lake has, or soon will, send out the papers.

So it seems they have not even been mailed. Weird, huh?

I'm doing much better - learning patience and learning to accept the Lord's timing.


"Further bulletins as events warrant." as I read in a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip yesterday. I love that comic strip! Hilarious!

Funny!

Click here to read the story from USA Today.

It sure made me laugh.

Sleeping In

I get one day every week to sleep in. Lucky me! Right? Well, it doesn’t usually work out so well.

I go to bed later on Friday night since I know I can sleep in on Saturday morning. Then the alarm clock goes off and I feel awake. I look at the clock and read 6:40 a.m. What?! Oh, my INTERNAL alarm clock went off. Not the external one. Come on, body. Don’t you know I do not have to be at school in 40 minutes? Today is a special day, remember? Nope, it doesn’t. Not today and not every other Saturday.

So I roll over and go back to sleep. Today is the day I can sleep in, after all. I’m not going to get up at the same time as every other day (if I can help it).

Next thing I know, I hear loud noises coming from somewhere in the apartment complex. People talking and laughing – a whole group being noisy. A glance at the clock shows me it is still only 7:30 a.m. *sigh* I don’t mind people having fun but do they have to do it so loudly and at a time when most people want to be sleeping still?

I also notice that the sun is coming in my windows and my room is quite light. Another obstacle to my goal of sleeping in. I sit up and dig out my eye covers (discovered during college and so helpful when my roommate wanted to study while I wanted to sleep). I put the lovely guys on and roll over again. It takes a couple of minutes, but I fall back asleep.

Finally, the alarm clock beeps.* It’s almost a relief to see that it is now 8:20 a.m. and I can get up knowing that I have succeeded in sleeping in on my free day.


* Which I actually hate; it’s a terrible way to wake up. Especially if you don’t want to wake up. How can anyone be happy when the first sound they hear is a beeping that grows louder and more insistent? It’s beyond my comprehension. I need to find one that makes a different sound.

False Alarm

As I was leaving Tai Chi class this evening, Bishop said "I received a letter from Utah."

Me: "You have my letter? At your house?"

Bish: "I received a letter from Utah, and I got all excited. But it was something else."

Me: "Oh."

Bish: "So we're still waiting."

Yes, yes we are.

Sidesaddle, Star Trek, and A Wedding

On Saturday, I got to ride a scooter sidesaddle for the first time. It is not comfortable! But at least I can say I did it :) It took a few minutes to get used to. Good thing Emily is a driver I can trust.

We went to her brother's wedding dinner Saturday evening. We were both dressed up (thus the reason for riding sidesaddle). We had a nice long dinner - three hours - and got to play with Emily's nephews. She will have a niece soon too. Her sister-in-law is five months pregnant.

The food was good and Emily forced me to eat too much, like normal.

The highlight of the night was watching the new Star Trek movie. Awesome-ness! It was really good. After it ended, I wanted to go watch Star Trek re-runs for hours :) I think Emily liked it too. It was funny when I laughed in some parts, but everyone else in the theater was silent. Hm. As Sidra said, "maybe that didn't translate very well."


Me - the bride - Emily's brother - Emily
(the bride totally cheated and stood on her tiptoes to be closer to my height :)

Another one. It looked like my head was cut off in the first one. Emily and I laughed at that. (funny how they don't really smile)

Competition! Emily and I had a little time to waste before the movie started. So we played a game of air hockey. Last time we played, I kicked butt. Yeah! (thank you family for being tough competitors and forcing my skills to be good)

This time, the machine sided with Emily and she won. I really don't think she scored as many points as it gave her. Whatever. There is always next time.

Melting

It's not possible to forget incredibly hot, humid weather when you live with it for 3 or 4 months. Or is it?

It is getting hot again, and I seem to be re-discovering it. The winter worked too well in making me forget. I'm not sure I like that. This adjustment is hard.

At least last summer I came from hot Utah weather to hot, humid Taiwan weather.

Now I'm going from cold (ish) winter weather to hot, humid weather. Not an easy transition!

Oh, and I feel like I'm melting. But part of me wishes I would just melt and get it over with. . . then I wouldn't have to endure the heat anymore :D

Eating Nachos = Happiness

MEXICAN FOOD! I've missed that a lot more than expected these past 10 months. And now I finally got some. It was Emily's first time so we got nachos, an enchilada, and a taco. It was too much food, but I was so excited for her to try it. She liked it :)

Answers

In answer to comments on the previous post,

Yes, I'm going to open it when I receive it. Who are you kidding, Brenda? I couldn't wait another month to know where I'll be!! Technology is awesome so my family will be 'here' via webcamera.

My call should (hopefully) be here in the next 2 weeks. The average timeframe for receiving that life-changing envelope in Taiwan is 4 weeks after the application is mailed off.

The tentative plan is for me to open it on Sat. May 23 morning (my time) so Fri. May 22 evening for my family.

In the Air

What is in the air?

My future!

And it is starting to bother me :) Yes, I know I will be a missionary. Yes, I have some idea of what that entails. No, I don’t know where I’ll be serving. No, I don’t know what language I’ll be speaking.

I just want to receive that white envelope so my uncertainty can be swept away.

You're young, you go first.

I went on a hike this Saturday. With Emily, her sister and an older man who works in Emily’s office. He wanted to lead me to this place. And I was impressed with his ability. While we were climbing, Emily told me he is 65 years old. Wow. It was a little rough in some places.

We had an awesome challenge at one point in the trail – we climbed up a steep cliff face covered with tree vines. There were ropes and footholds, but it was still awesome! I got really excited while the others stopped and stared for a minute. Emily said “You’re young. You go first.” And so I did!! I didn’t think to take a picture of it until I was partway up. Oops…

The old man didn’t remember the path very well. Example: we climbed down for 5 minutes and then were lost in a little valley. So we found a path and climbed back up to where we were before (or close). Then we saw the sign by this trail and climbed back down the same path since that is where we wanted to be. Ha ha!

It was a bit frustrating at the end when it was getting hot and close to lunch time – I was worried we wouldn’t be able to find the car. We all survived and with smiles on our faces. Emily’s sister and I got mosquito bites. Mine are centered on my elbows. I don’t get it.

We went to a hot-pot place for lunch. It was good, but I couldn’t eat all of it. They wouldn’t let me waste it so I cooked the extra food and took it home in a bag for dinner. This hot-pot place was cool because we had individual pots where we cooked our food. (I have gone to places where there is just one pot and I tend to forget what food is mine :)


Groupies, er, hikies.

View from the top

They're still climbing up while I'm relaxing at the top.

Victorious

Eating fruit

[Emily may kill me when she finds out I posted this one.]

I was messing around with her hat and just happened to capture her talking and looking tired in the background. I love it.

Pretty Pond
{funny -- Emily couldn't remember the word "frog" and spelled

'fork' for me in her attempt to remember. Har-har}

Emily resting at Pretty Pond

[I'm pretty sure she told me not to take a picture....]