Creative Transfers

11/20/16

Transfers! I am already in my new area, 天母 Tian Mu! Get this, it is right next to my first area in Taiwan, 北投 Bei Tou! I am super excited!! My new companion is Elder Heaton, straight out of Provo, Utah. He is in 'breaking', which means the transfer right after training. He was in the MTC with my last companion, Elder Dickson. He is such a boss! All the missionaries just love him because he is really funny and super hard working. He really loves the people and works super hard to serve the Lord. His Chinese is out of this world too! He already can read a lot of characters and say a lot of words that I was only learning a transfer or two ago. I am super excited to work alongside him and see a lot of success in my new area! 

    We met the new ward mission leader last week, who is such a fireball. About every other sentence or so it sounds like he says the word 'A', but in a long sweeping trill from the lowest end of his vocal spectrum to the highest--polished with the sparkle of a look of absolute astonishment at what he just heard either someone else or even himself say. I just about die every time I hear it. He has such a deep testimony and fire for missionary work that I honestly have never seen before. It is amazing what a testimony and a little bit of enthusiasm can accomplish, and he has the whole ward working hard on missionary work.

     Lastly, I would just like to share a quote I came across from our prophet Thomas S. Monson:

  "God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity in the cloud, the oil in the earth. He left rivers unbridged and the forests unfelled and the cities unbuilt. God gives to man the challenge of raw materials, not the ease of unfinished things. He leaves the pictures unpainted and the music unsung and the problems unsolved, that man might know the joys and glories of creation." 

What inspired words. There are many times in missionary work or even other aspects of life that I am just frustrated because there isn't this nice, fool-proof plan laid out for me that I just have to carry out. God leaves it to me and to us to come up with some solutions for ourselves, and to be creative about it, because He wants us to learn. What fun it is though once you find something that works! I hope you all have a great week!

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Daily Scoop

 - Monday - last preparation day in Hualien. Went down to GuangFu for the last time! I am going to miss the Fenglin area so bad. I saw so many miracles in my time there. Good news though! If the Elders there get this one family baptized there (which is super likely) they can open up the branch next year!!!!!!!!!!! How cool is that????

 - Tuesday - today was what I thought was my last district meeting as district leader, but I actually ended up still being the district leader in my new area, so I've got another transfer or two offering slave labor. Just kidding, but I was super excited to be a 東西 missionary without any responsibilities and it didn't happen. We had district meeting and it actually went super well. We talked about receiving personal revelation, and then we all took time to think about our personal mission goals while I went around to everyone and prayed with them with the intent to show them that there were many people praying for them every day. The rest of the day was basically saying goodbye to all the people I have worked with for the last half of a year. Unfortunately we couldn't find a lot of them, but that is ok.

 - Wednesday - got a call from President Jergensen telling us that our area was getting closed down, and then got the Ibon code in the morning telling us where we were headed for transfers! Our ward had three missionary companionships which was a ton especially for a small ward, and so he had to close our area. Elder Dickson is headed off to Miao Li, which is literally on the opposite side of the island. The very farthest he could have moved to. Miao Li is also pretty rural, so he got lucky without the culture shock of moving right into Taipei like I did. The rest of the day was packing, and we stayed up past midnight getting our area ready to pass off to the zone leaders. Also, learned how to say porcupine in Chinese: 豪豬. Ya!

 - Thursday - woke up at 5 to make the 6 o'clock train back up to Taipei. Had to go on my own from the mission office to my new area, and just about puked from the stress of not having someone breathing over my shoulder. I was seriously so nervous and antsy. My buddy Elder Reintjes (the one that visa waited with me) got called to be the new AP!!! Got to talk to him for 15 minutes, which was awesome. Got in my new area, and did a tour of it while we did some finding. Also had an incredible Missionary Correlation Meeting!

 - Friday - met with a super cool member that fed us lunch and gave us these incredible Chinese paintings that I will have to send you a picture of next week. Absolutely incredible. Then had a crazy weekly planning where I talked for about an hour with the other district leaders and zone leaders on a conference call about the zone baptismal goal for the next transfer. In the night we met our best investigators: Liang Family. Has a mom, dad, daughter, and son, all super cool! They have a ton of potential to get baptized, and even though the peike talked so much that the lesson went two hours and we didn't get to say anything, it was super fun to meet them!

 - Saturday - whole day of finding. Looks like this is a pattern here in TianMu, which might be a little rough. It was still pretty fun, but we only have two solid investigators so the rest of our time is just spent on the street finding.

 - Sunday - had a great talk by a white guy that spoke english, fasted for our investigators, and met a bunch of cool people finding during the night. Met one super cool guy. We had been finding for a long time, and we had just finished talking to this family that we had walked with for quite a distance but didn't have any interest. So we were out away from the big streets and the normal contacting areas without a bike, but then we started talking to this man in his 30s who told us after only a few pleasantries that he really needed help. He felt like his life recently has been really hard, and he has felt like he doesn't have anywhere he belongs. He used to be in the military where he made a lot of friends, but when he left he just really started struggling. We had a great conversation, and he set up for another time.

Spirit and Finishing Training

10/13/16 

   Honestly not too much funny stuff or super crazy things happened this last week, so I will just share some awesome stuff!

    I was biking back to my area from the church, and I felt like I should talk to someone I had just passed. I debated it in my mind for like three or four blocks before I just gave in and turned around. I thought it was crazy because we weren't even in our area,but I went and did it. Luckily he hadn't turned down a side street, and we started talking to him. As it turned out, he both lived in our area and was super interested in coming to check out our church. The unfortunate part was that he didn't have a cell phone or a stable address due to his current work situation, but he said that he would definitely come to church next week. Super cool miracle! Anyone struggling to determining to act on what you aren't sure is a spiritual prompting or not can follow the advice a previous companion gave to me: "If you think about it for too long, just go and do it."

    This week is the end of the transfer! Super crazy! It seems like training has gone so fast. I'm excited to most likely be moving to a new area with new responsibilities, a new companion, and new people to work with, but I will also be pretty sad to leave Hualien. I started getting chocked up saying goodbye to people on Sunday. Leaving an area really hurts. On one hand you feel like you have left your mark, made your difference, and it is time to move on. On the other you feel like there is still more you want to do, you don't want to leave these amazing people, you don't ever want to leave this incredible place where you have been biking, contacting, teaching, learning, loving, and praying for half a year. I suppose that is that way it is with any sort of change. Half of you is excited, and the other half is reluctant. I guess the trick is to... Well... Love it. It makes you grow.

    Being a trainer for twelve weeks has been such a blessing. While there has been many rough patches and difficult struggles, both Elder Dickson and I have come out of these two transfers with a new wealth of knowledge and experience that I know is going to bless us for the rest of our missions and ultimately for the rest of our lives. I don't think I would be to excited about training again next transfer, but Elder Dickson has taught me way more than I taught him and I am very grateful for the opportunity to be his companion. I will let you know everything that happened at transfers next week! Love you all!

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 - Monday - biked all the way up to Li Yu Tan (a mountain lake) with the whole zone. Ate live shrimp. They were literally still jumping around in the soy sauce. A little bit barbaric maybe, but tasted good. In the nighttime had a bunch of lessons, which has been more rare than common lately. Met with a cool semi-active and just barely turned 15 young man named Ma Sheng Kai who showed us a bunch of magic card tricks. He was really good, but when he turned the cards over to me to try to do a trick he had just taught me, I purposefully did it wrong to which he and my companion quickly pointed out that I had messed up the trick. The looks on their faces was absolutely priceless as I pulled out the right card. Set three baptismal dates in a different lesson, which was a totally a blessing. They actually aren't very good investigators, but hey, we haven't had a date in forever and so we loved it.

 - Tuesday - Did a baptismal interview with this cute 10 year old girl who is the Sisters' investigator. She passed, and it was so much fun. Our schedule for the night was absolutely crazy, and at the last moment everyone cancelled and other people set up. I was pretty stressed, and I said a quick prayer in my heart that it would all work out. From that point on, the night was incredibly smooth. People would call and say they could meet earlier and stuff like that that just made it all work out so well. My prayer at night was really cool as well, and I felt like I received a lot of personal revelation during it.

 - Wednesday - had some set ups cancel, so turned into a day of not very interesting finding without too much good results. English class was pretty fun. Met with Peter Pan after and set another baptismal date. He is really working towards baptism now and I am super excited!

 - Thursday - a Taiwanese missionary held a chapel tour training today on how to give chapel tours. We didn't know it, but the first tour she took us on was an example of a bad tour. I thought it was real, but afterwards she told us that that was an example of a bad tour. Then we were all like, "Wow, that is how I do tours." Then she held a super good training of how to give a good tour like using analogies and teaching the first lesson while moving around the chapel. It was super awesome!

 - Friday - exchanged with Elder Hamilton, who is a blast to go on exchanges with. My tire exploded at one point, and a bunch of other crazy stuff happened. Had another baptismal interview that was absolutely exhausting. I was so stinking tired afterwards, but he passed.

 - Saturday - Long day of finding. Super amazing lesson with three Filipinos in the night. They were so humble and willing to listen. Asked amazing questions and we were able to just share everything so smoothly. They are practically slaves, and I feel so bad for how much they have to work.

 - Sunday - had Stake Conference, which was awesome. President Jergensen and his wife even came down. They gave great talks and I learned a lot. Turns out they were at the Boston marathon and had a prompting to go to the airport four hours early. When they got there they saw the television screens and found out that a bomb had gone off right across from where they were sitting and outside of a store they were going to go shop at when they got the prompting. Really cool story.

Taiwanese street at night from above

Food provided by a loving RC

Blub Blub and Carwash

11/6/16

A few nights ago Elder Hamilton (one of the zone leaders that is in the same apartment as us) decided to make a water-balloon. Apparently in one of his previous areas they had had those huge balloons (the ones with rubber bands that you can punch back and forth) and they filled it up with around 40 lbs of water. Once he figured out that I had gotten some in a birthday package last month, he just couldn't resist. So him and his companion went to the sink and began filling, and filling, and filling. It had no idea those balloons could get so big. It took both of them to get it out of the sink, and by the time they got it to the bathroom we were all sore from laughing. We named it blub blub, and it spent the night in the bathroom looking like an egg yolk that lost its white. The next morning I got the privilege of smashing blub blub into the floor and then standing in the 3 inches of water that completely filled the whole bathroom.

     Our whole mission has been talking about new ways to find new investigators, so we decided to try one this last week. We keep running into people that ask if we were the church that did the free carwash, and we didn't know that that actually was us until we asked a member and they said that about ten years ago missionaries did a free carwash. We figured if people still remembered it after ten years, it was probably worth it. The first day we did it, we geared up, held huge posters, and danced outside of the church to no avail. We only got one motorscooter... The next time though, we ended up washing three cars and four motorscooters! The Taiwanese are just too bashful to take advantage of our service and feel guilty about not giving us anything, so even though the success was low we got a ton of smiles and thumbs-up!

    This last week I went on exchanges with Elder Clegg. Usually at the end of an exchange, we do a little exchange review and help set goals moving forward to better accomplish our purpose as missionaries. Because he was working on inspired questions, we decided to ask each other an inspired question. I asked him what in his mind would be his biggest failure, and he responded with, "missing an opportunity". I loved that. It really made me think about how we should best use the time we have been given here on this earth, and to take all those opportunities that the Lord gives us. I know that as we move forward and take advantage of the blessings we have that we really can be successful and just have fun. I love you guys and hope you have a great week!

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 - Monday - had three awesome miracles today. First, met a person on the street who loved us a lot better than previous missionaries because he said that we weren't nearly as pushy as they were and not nearly as annoying. Then it turned out that he knew a recent convert in our ward and it was super cool. Second was when we followed an invite from the zone leaders to invite someone to baptism on the street and we had no idea how we were going to do it but then a person we went and talked to brought up baptism on his own and then when we invited him he said yes! super cool. The two setups we had for tonight cancelled.

 - Tuesday - zone meeting this morning all about sheep and shepherds. Even though the metaphor was taken a little bit to an extreme at some points, it was a really good comparison and it really made me think about my investigators and my sheep. Then I went on exchanges with Elder Clegg. We mostly just found on the street and had a not that great lesson with one of his investigators. I barely survived the weird electronic massage chair that night.

 - Wednesday - had the awesome exchange review I talked about with Elder Clegg. He asked me what the three happiest times where on my mission. I said when someone left with more hope than I found them, when someone took time to actually ask me how I was doing, and when a gospel principle just unraveled in my mind and I could understand it very clearly.

 - Thursday - carwash during the morning, lessons that night fell through so it was mostly finding on the street. Didn't find anyone super cool. Ward correlation meeting went pretty cool, our ward mission leader Jiang Ba is a little bit grumpy and opinionated, but tonight he was actually kind of excited about Fenglin.

 - Friday - had interviews with President this morning. It was super amazing as usual. He invited me to open up more to my companion and just talk to him about my concerns and everything. He said it would really help our companionship. I guess I just find it hard because my companion isn't exactly the most friendly person ever, and it is really hard to just open up to someone you feel like you don't have a normal connection with. That being said, I feel like there has been a lot less conflict lately. It may be the fact that transfers end in a week and a half, but we have been getting along better.

 - Saturday - had about 6 setups fall through. Super disappointing. Did the second carwash which had way more success than the last one and was super duper fun.

 - Sunday - church was great, and we finally had an investigator come. It was Zhang An Fu, the old guy that doesn't really talk, so it wasn't one of our really progressing investigators but it was good to see him there. Next week is Stake Conference, so today was actually probably my last regular church meeting here in JiAn. Crazy!

oh man, I am getting pretty thin on the top.....

 this is what I think is a WWII bunker

preparation day at shui yuan di

the new apartment arrangement done by yours truly (interior design major?)

huo guo with the zone

last thing, shavingisnotthefunnestthingintheworld,sowouldastraightrazorbebettersoicansharpenitmore often?Iamjustsickofhavingadullbladeafterusingarazorforlikeaweek.IfyoureallycansharpenastraightbladeeverynightandkeepitreallysharpallthetimethatwouldalsobereallyniceforChristmas.SorrrythespacebarbrokeonthecomputerthatIamusingrightnow.Loveyouguys!!!!-Jojo

Procrastion & Schedules

10/30/16

Zone meeting is tomorrow, which means some pretty crazy changes as usual! Last week after Mission Leadership Conference, the Zone Leaders called us and informed us that to have more proselyting time during the more effective evening hours, President Jergensen moved the whole missionary schedule back a half hour! Yep, that means we normally get home at 9:30-10:00 if we are in a lesson. We go to bed at 11:00(!) and we get to sleep in until 7:00 now! It doesn't sound like a big change, but these last few days have been so weird. After over a year of going to bed and waking up at the exact same times, it has been a crazy and tiring last few days. Even so, we are all super excited and it is going to be so awesome having an extra half hour during the night instead of the afternoon when not as many people are out and about.

     I may or may not have learned how to say 'narwhal' in Chinese this lats week. 獨角鯨魚. I'm still trying to think of how I can include it in the first lesson or something, but it might just be one of those things I randomly write on notes and give to people (你是一個胖胖的獨角鯨魚!). On the disappointing side, we didn't have any investigators come to church yesterday so none of our current investigators can get baptized before the end of the transfer when I will likely be moving. Bummer! Even so, we still have our hopes up that we can find a part-member family or get a referral that has already been to church several times.

     Yesterday I was studying for a talk on repentance that I gave in a new-member fireside, and I ran into something interesting that I didn't know before. It is in the Book of Jonah, chapter 1. I think most of us are pretty familiar with this story (thank you Veggie-Tales), and in my talk I used the part where the people of Nineveh repent to show how we need to hearken immediately to a call to repentance, confess our sins and humble ourselves to 'sackcloth and ashes', and forsake those sins. The part that intrigued me though was in chapter 1 verse 3 where Jonah does exactly the opposite of those people in Nineveh. Footnote 'a' of that verse takes us to the Topical Guide on procrastination. As portrayed by asparagus and cucumbers, Jonah goes to Tarshish because he doesn't want to go to Nineveh. What I never realized was that Jonah probably actually intended on going to Nineveh... eventually. I think that last word is why Jonah finds himself in the belly of a whale in the next chapter. The Lord has commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh because a whole city has been prepared to hear the call to repentance, and what is Jonah's response? Eventually. There is, of course, a lot more to learn from the subsequent events in the Book of Jonah, but it was a great reminder to me of how we all need to earnestly seek counsel from the Lord, and be prepared to act as soon as possible no matter where the guidance of the Lord leads us--be it Tarshish or Ninevah. I love all you guys and hope you have just a smashing-pumpkin good Halloween!

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Elder Hawkes's Semi-Annual Statistical Report

- Monday - super boring Preparation Day. Went home after emails because we got left by the rest of the zone, and did a little bit of cleaning, organization, and such. In the evening had a few really cool lessons though. One was with Mr. He 何先生 and his sister from Taipei. He had to bring his wife dinner, so we ended up just sitting down with his sister outside his home and having a super cool conversation with her about Christ and the Gospel. Their mother just died a few months ago and was a devout Catholic, but they aren't nearly as devout and mostly just sad that she passed away. They are really receptive, and hopefully the sister will meet with missionaries up in Taipei!

 - Tuesday - district meeting was ok today, and then I went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Griffin, and we went to this one lady and her family's house for about an hour and a half, which was too long but it was a great lesson. The zone leaders call them coconut family because the dad sells coconuts and that is how they met them. Coconut grandma and coconut daughter came to English class, and Elder Dickson and I just happened to be substituting, so we taught them and they loved it. Ever since then, coconut daughter begs coconut wife and coconut grandma to take her to English class and to church! Super awesome!

 - Wednesday - went to a government building in the morning to ask for service opportunities and ran into a less active that we hadn't seen in a very long time. We were super happy to see him, and even though it wasn't necessarily mutual, it was totally a miracle. Then had English boarding (passing out tons of flyers) and English Class.

 - Thursday - decided that we are going to start doing a free car wash to find new investigators. Missionaries did it at our church 10 years ago, and even though nobody came we still run into people that ask us if our church is the one that used to do the free car wash. The rest of the day was visiting a bunch of different less actives and potential investigators. For dinner we ate hot pot with a guy named Jack from California that moved here to retire and enjoy the clear air. Not too much gospel interest, but hey, we got a free meal.

 - Friday - we have started looking up when members' birthdays are and giving them a call or stopping by with a gift. Today we stopped by the Dai Family and dropped a small gift in their mailbox and sang happy birthday to their daughter because they were in RuiSui. Also stopped by and said hi to Jeffery, who has been sick lately. He said he was getting better, and though he has been super busy lately, he said he arranged it so that every Friday night he doesn't have anything so we can come over and have lessons with him. He also said that these last two weeks have been a lot better because he has been praying and he says it helps him overcome all the little day-to-day problems he runs into. Super awesome!

 - Saturday - finding during the daytime without much success, halloween party in the evening. Waaaaaaay too long. 2 1/2 hours long, and we were forced to stay for the whole thing because I had to play the piano for a little activity. The single adults put a lot of work into it and made it really awesome, but it was a bummer because we couldn't get any investigators there.

 - Sunday - biked clear over to YongXing to pick up an investigator named Fan Zhi Ming 范志明 for church, but he is involved in a program where college students tutor underprivileged youth and it just happened to be on Sunday at like 2:00. So we biked back to the church, and no other investigators came that had committed (like Jeffery). In the evening we had the new-member fireside where I got to give a talk. I was pretty nervous, especially about having to use Chinese, but after stuttering through the first few jokes to start out the talk I relaxed and it flowed a lot better than I was expecting. Still curious about whether anyone actually got anything out of it, but it was pretty cool to feel the gift of tongues working to make the words flow out smoothly.

us at the halloween party thing doing a relay race

we ate pancakes for breakfast yesterday

Cop, Learning, Priest

10/23/16

There was an awesome miracle last week when we were biking along a street and I had a prompting to stop in and ask at the police station if there were any service opportunities available. A few weeks prior, we had ran into a potential investigator named Xiao Wei 小薇 who for some reason wouldn't tell us her job because she was embarrassed. We had a good contact with her and she seemed interested in the gospel, but didn't answer her phone afterwards. Well, we walk into the police station and who comes up to the front desk but our friend Xiao Wei! She helped us find a whole list of projects in the community, and said she would set up! Super cool miracle!

    On the language side, I have been struggling to memorize a few characters so I end up writing crazy sentences in Chinese. I will give some examples: 你可以捕捉一個流星嗎？(Can you catch an asteroid?) 海嘯來了，恐龍應該要快跑。(Here comes the tsunami, dinosaurs better run fast...) Well, I remember them now.

    We do absolutely nothing on Halloween! Although it just so happens that Halloween is on Preparation Day this year, so we will go do something exciting next week! I am still in what I guess you could call the countryside. It is absolutely beautiful here, and it will be hard to leave if I do (most likely will) in 4 weeks.

    Yesterday I ran into a not very fun fellow. We were out knocking doors when we ran into a retired minister of another faith. As we started talking, it somehow came out that he was getting paid around $16,000 NT a month from his church, and he said he "just couldn't use it all". He then proceeded to lecture us on how in reality all churches were the same(?). He talked about how he prayed to Jesus so he could be healthy, and how even though he was 80 years old he didn't look it. He said the most important thing in life was to be healthy, and then to have money.... oh ya and then to be happy. Without money you can't be happy. Of course, at this point I pull out the example of the poor in places like South Sudan that are still quite happy, to which he responds: "They are all so lazy. Why don't they just go find work? Black people are so lazy. In the Bible it talks about black people..." I just walked away. I would invite everyone who has money listed anywhere near family, happiness, service, knowledge, or love on their priority list to just take a moment and reevaluate. Moreover, anyone still stuck on racism should move to Sudan or another war-torn third-world country for a month and then I give them permission to speak at will. I guess it just shocked me that a man who taught from the life of Christ for that long would completely miss the mark. Christ taught us to love, and to sacrifice everything in the service of God and our fellow man. I hope that I can better learn to sacrifice for others, as well as have patience with those whose priorities are different than mine ;) Hope you all have a wonderful week!

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JiAn Daily News!

-  Monday - biked clear out to an isolated community to try contacting some people that had never seen missionaries. Got completely soaked in the downpour, but had a good contact with the wife of a minister that had passed away a few years ago. Totally convinced she will get baptized in heaven, but in the end wouldn't take a Book of Mormon. Bummer.

  -  Tuesday - District Meeting was on setting S.M.A.R.T. goals and stuff like that. Unfortunately I packed too much content in too short of a time. Still ended up pretty good though, and the district members liked it. Biked super far today as well to visit some members. One member stood up the missionaries over 10 times before his baptism. Told us to give up on investigators like that unless we feel prompted to pursue like those missionaries had. They fasted 3 separate times on whether or not to drop him, but felt each time they should keep on going. Another non-member in a part-member family gave us drinks on the way home, totally in an answer to a prayer. Also met with an old less active that talked our ears off about really weird stuff. Probably let the senior missionaries in Hualien meet with him...

  -  Wednesday - not too much today. English class was pretty average. I'm trying to get on top of a system of business cards labeled with things like Study, Serve, Task, Remind, and Goal that are then prioritized so that I can stay on top of everything. I'm struggling to get the project underway and working at it's best, but I'm pretty proud of it. A smart phone would make it a whole lot easier...

  -  Thursday - got absolutely soaked today and didn't wear any rain gear because it was way too hot. Met a crazy guy from America that retired here in Hualien because the air quality is really good (he was smoking when we talked to him). Might meet with him later.

  -  Friday - did weekly planning and set some awesome goals with Elder Dickson and then headed to a lesson with Peter Pan. He is one of our best investigators but really struggles with coming to church. We have considered dropping him with lots of others because of church (what I talked about last week) but he said he was willing to keep working towards baptism and pray for a way to come to church so we will probably keep meeting. At dinner exchanged with the Elders in Meilun. I went with a new trainee that has been on the island for only two weeks. Went really well. He was concerned because he didn't feel the Spirit 100% of the time, and I told him that usually the reason for that is because what we are doing is right and we don't need to be corrected. When we should really pay attention is when we are either prompted to do something or when we feel the Spirit leave.

  -  Saturday - went to a very far location to look for a large group of less actives with Elder Balmforth. We got there and the addresses were horrible. There was no method to the madness and we ended up getting lost for a very long time and only finding two of the eight houses, both of which weren't hope. Night, watched Meet the Mormons at an activity. Mixed emotions. Cried during the Candy Bomber and during the Missionary Mom.

  -  Sunday - Primary program. Fell asleep periodically due to the muffled and intelligible Chinese muttered into the microphone by the Primary. If the language wasn't hard enough.... Ward council was pretty ok, and not the 2 hours long that it was last time (we left half way through last time). 

us messing around on some wave breakers!

 Elder Dixon and I eating Cua Bing after weekly planning

made cookies for members this last week. 

Had a big activity teaching them how to make cookies, they loved it!!! 

awesome banana spider! 

can you see what I'm doing in this picture? Look closer! Yes, I am pretending to tight-rope walk.

P-day bike ride to the beach! 

scale model for that mountain house thing

Cua Bing!

Peter Pan!

The lantern we found during the typhoon!