Weight of Words

Andrea and I attended the Sacrament meeting of an English ward today while we were in Taipei. When the first song was announced I went to pick up the hymnal, I was so surprised at how much it weighed. I had not realized until now how many songs are not available in Chinese, but yet at the same time how many have been made available and that there is the demand for them. I will miss carrying around my hymnal in pinyin and singing in the Choir with the beloved Ji-An Branch.

Copy Cat

Yesterday I was playing copy cat with Daniel, it took him a bit to realize what I was doing but then he loved it and would do many silly things to see if I would copy him.

Today at church Andrea and I sat in front of Yuling so that she could translate for us. At one point during the meeting Daniel went to the pew in front of us and was "talking" to Andrea and I, I started to copy him again. He played along and then he got a very mischievous look in his eyes-- he pulled his shirt up! Sometimes that little two year old is too smart for his own good (and he thought that he was hilarious when Yuling and I said something at the same time :D)

Talents for Mothers

For those of you that missed it, last Sunday was Mother's Day, a day that we should take extra time to honor our mothers, our own and any mother figure in our lives.

The Hualien and Ji-An Branches didn't forget, they had a wonderful activity on Saturday in honor of Mother's Day. It was a talent show/food/dancing/massage activity. They began with the talents, the choir sang, primary children sang, a family danced together, children played the piano, Stephanie and Eliza played the recorder.

After followed dancing, a lady from the other branch taught everyone, it was fun to just watch. Last they had all of the "mothers" sit in a row and the primary children all had lotion put in their hands, they came around gave everyone neck and arm massages (some were even sweet enough to give their mothers feet massages). Allie and Eliza made sure that Andrea and I were well massaged and moisturized, they came back to us a couple of times.

It was very fun and sweet to watch the children be gentle with their moms as they massaged them and lots of fun.

Oh and then to top it all off they gave us flowers on Sunday during Sacrament meeting (it was rather funny because they handed them out in the middle of sacrament, they played music to keep it "more reverent," I don't think that it ever got fully quiet again)