[celebrities&shamrocks]

boy oh boy. we've had quite the fun last few days.
on thursday we had chinese class and after ellen had invited us to KTV. once again, i struggled through chinese class and left when we were dismissed to cry in the bathroom. ahhh. this class is really challenging me. anyway, our teacher ended up coming into the bathroom when i was in there. and God grace was shown through her sweet words of encouragement. afterward, we headed to meet up with ellen. we had no idea what KTV meant but of course we were up for an adventure... a karaoke adventure

jammin

dance

 and richie. that kid has some real talent. and evidently we make a nice pair singing :)

richie & i

and our chinese hosts!

it was SO much fun. it was an incredible time filled with laughter, singing, and dancing. and just what i needed to unwind after a rough class. 

friday we again had chinese class. i actually learned a lot that day, especially about culture. first, we count on our hands differently, naturally we learned the chinese way. next, some words in chinese sound oddly inappropriate in english. for example "mai haur". depending on the tone it means buy or sell flower. and we couldn't help but giggle- which lead for an interesting explanation. also, we had story time and learned ancient popular chinese stories about the moon and the sun. the moon story is about a lady who ate to much during the early autumn festival and ended up flying to the moon where she lives with a rabbit. it's just one of those silly little kid stories. i really enjoyed chinese class this day, probably because we spent time learning little extra things and i finally did okay on our little pop quiz :)

saturday, aka st. patricks day, we went to lingyin temple. this is one of the 10 biggest Buddhist temples in all of china and the world. it also has the biggest buddha statue of all of china. although i felt a little uncomfortable at certain points, it was a beautiful area. i forgot to wear green, but we got to eat some green tea hard boiled eggs that were so tasty! i'm totally trying that! here's a few pictures. it was hard to really capture the beauty of this place, so most of them are of our group. 

the group

this is a bed for a monk

three sweet girls :)

all the girls

j and me :)

at the entrance

buddha's hand brings good luck. i did not touch his hand...

a pagoda is actually a burial place

buddha's in the wall

the hillside

us in the rocks

and then as we were approaching the end, jordan and i had quite the encounter. it's normal for people to stare at us, talk about us, follow us, etc., but we had a group of girls that followed us and then asked to take pictures with us. lots of pictures. evidently we are some kind of celebrities. we are constantly told we are incredibly beautiful and we say thank you and laugh about how strange it is- since we think we are pretty "average" looking. anyway the same type of thing happened again today. we were just walking grabbing some lunch and we had some girls ask to talk to us and take pictures with us. anyway, richie took some shots of the first encounter:

i am clearly in shock looking to jordan for an explanation 

just your everyday celebrities 

so i will now be signing autographs :)

the last few days we have done some devotionals that have really challenged us to examine how we can deepen our love for others and how to take advantage of every opportunity to love. its been very humbling. we have some new wall art to remind us as we leave the apartment

classy, we know. but a reminder never-the- less

prayer requests (and send me yours too!)

-i'm starting my rotation in day surgery tomorrow, so just for an overwhelming ability to humbly love and serve this department

-gratitude for the joyful last few days

-the future: jobs. that i would worry less and that i would understand the God is always sovereign and faithful, even if its not how i imagine it. and maybe for a miracle dream job too?!? :)

love,

罗达茜

darcy