December 18, 2011
My last weekend in China was rather uneventful; I am broke, so I couldn’t go out and explore the city or anything, so I stayed at the school. I packed for home, cleaned my room and the supply room, hung out with Kelli, Kaylee and Krisan, wrote in my journal, etc.
Church on Sunday was the longest it’s been in China: I sat through Sacrament meeting, Relief Society, and a Visiting Teaching message. All of the meetings were great, meaningful, and inspiring.
One woman gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting about finding “Christ in Christmas” and related a story about one of her favorite Christmas memories. When she was of Seminary age, her class decided to do a Secret Santa gift for a single mother: the students were to bring some sort of food or toy to seminary every day for a month which they would donate to the cause.
In the beginning, this sister was resentful at first and gave only the food or toys she herself didn’t want to eat, but near the end of the month she began to realize the significance of their gifts to a woman and her kids who had nothing, and so this sister donated more precious items. On Christmas Eve, her seminary class “doorbell ditched” the family’s house after leaving the food and toys on the doorstep. The class hid in the bushes in order to watch the reaction of the single mother and her children.
When the mother came to the door and discovered the countless cans, bags, and bottles of food and all the toys, she began to cry and audibly thank the Lord for this miracle, for she could not afford Christmas on her own this year.
The young sister who told the story confessed that night taught her the true meaning of Christmas, how it is more important to give than to get; she learned that God sometimes, if not most times, uses us to answer the prayers of His other children.
I found this story especially inspiring.
That night, after dinner, my group had our Christmas party. A few weeks ago, we chose names for a “Secret Santa,” and Sunday night we distributed our gifts. Krisan, Kylee, and Ivy had prepared a snack bar with oranges, cookies, cream puffs with chocolate drizzle, meat and crackers, and green apple/grape soda punch. My Secret Santa was Brittany, who gave me a cute hand-made ballerina ornament and totally China socks; my secret person was my head teacher, Marie, to whom I gave colorful nail polish and a typical Chinese face mask.
It was a fun party and a nice last “huzzah!” for our group.
Afterward, Kelli and I made homemade fries with potatoes, oil, and garlic salt. They were super tasty and actually turned out pretty well. Cooking in China is always an adventure.
I comprised a Christmas List and sent it to my family.
Pumpkin Pie
Lasagna
Home-made pizza
Strawberry, almond, poppy seed spinach salad
Mom’s noodle salad
Special K
Life Cereal
Molly’s granola
Homemade burritos
Shakes
Grandma’s Upside Down Sundae
Graham crackers in milk
My own tub of fudge frosting
Chocolate orange
Big, green, yummy salad
Lemon turkey salad
Indian cuisine
Red Lindt Truffles
Chocolate milk
Thick hot cocoa
Homemade chocolate chip cookies, right out of the oven, with milk
Fitty
Lemon yogurt with Oreos
Peach yogurt
French Onion Sun Chips
Molly’s homemade bread
Homemade strawberry jam
Lots of chocolate
They found the extensiveness of this list quite amusing.
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