Panda Express is Still My Favorite - Week 35

Dear family,

Ugh what a week. Can't say I've been a very happy camper. I have been
feeling very frustrated and inadequate and annoyed this whole week.
But regardless of my problems we did have a lot of good things happen
this week.

First off, I have now taught the restoration in Chinese about five
times so that's a start. Right now I'm learning the vocabulary for the
second lesson and I'll just go through and eventually learn the vocab
and for all the lessons.

We taught a new investigator and three potentials. The new
investigator is LiYing Zhang. She is from a part of China that speaks
a different dialect so she can understand us but we can't understand
her. She has been looking for a church and ran into the LDS church
four times during her search so now she believes God wants her to come
here. And she's right. We taught her the first lesson, she came to
church yesterday, and we are teaching her again tomorrow. We taught
another girl who's a college student living in DC. The lesson went
alright and we saw her while walking down the street by an Asian
market a couple days later. I think she thinks having people come over
to teach her is weird. I think it's weird too but it's salvation so oh
well. We also taught a guy who has been investigating for five months
now but that the branch mission leader wants us to start teaching now.
We went over to a ward members house to practice teaching a lesson on
Wednesday and her nonmember Chinese caretaker was there so we taught
her the first lesson. Apparently she had a lot to say about polygamy
but polygamy isn't in my vocabulary yet so I had no clue that that's
what we were talking about until after we left and Sister Liu then
decided to translate for me. We are going to try to teach her again
this week. We also saw her by the Asian market when we saw the other
girl. Asian markets are magical.

The food has been fun. Basically a Chinese meal is rice with five
different things to put on it. On Friday night one of the options was
squid so I have now eaten squid. Yum. I've also eaten tofu and
seaweed. I took a couple bites of one of the tofu things and then hid
it under my shrimp in hopes that no one would notice. So gross. It
depends on how it is cooked though because some of the tofu was
alright. Also I ate boiled pork bone. You just boil it for three hours
until it's soft and mushy. The texture was like really soft potatoes
in a stew. I liked it. Asians really like beans in dessert foods. One
member gave us bread to take home that had mushed up, sweet beans in
the center. I couldn't do it. Even though it tasted fine I was just
for some reason grossed out. Panda Express is still my favorite. Also
fun fact, KFC is super popular in China. I am now a pro with chop
sticks. Every person we have eaten with has gone and grabbed me a fork
but I refused to be American and I figured it out.

Apparently I'm really pretty by Asian standards. I can count four
Asians who this past week when we first met told me right away that I
was very pretty. In China, someone is beautiful if they are skinny,
have pale skin, a clear face, and big eyes. Maybe I should go find a
husband in China if I'm that attractive to them haha. Sister Liu told
me that in China some people get stuff put in their skin to make them
paler and others get surgery to make their eyes bigger (essentially
cutting the skin around the eyes). So interesting. She asked me what
Americans think is beautiful. I said anorexic and tan with long hair
but there are so many different opinions. I personally think pale skin
and short hair looks better as long as they know how to pull it off
(so Hannah and Mom are babes) but I'm crazy.

The General Women's Broadcast was so good! Cheesy as usual but good.
President Uchtdorf's talk was really great, you should all watch it.
It's a good reminder of why we keep the commandments even when we
don't understand or want to. "I think God knows something we don't."
That's for sure haha.

Mosiah 7:33 (: Make sure you all watch General Conference this week.
We all know what happens to the people who don't listen to or reject
the prophets from the scriptures. Loves to all!

贝姐妹

P.s. I have now blocked yet another guy on Facebook from messaging me.
I don't get why they think this is flattering. He was also sending me
pictures of married couples and crying people when I wouldn't respond.
I'm so irresistible.