A Week in the Life of an ILP Volunteer

Ni hao! I’m sorry I’ve been so far behind on my blog! This week has been really crazy! Last weekend was a blast! Cierra, Samantha, Kayla, and I rented a paddle boat at the beach.

Just 4 girls paddle boating in the ocean! :)

The Lewis family came to visit us from Beijing on Saturday. It was so fun to have visitors! They organized our group so we will be able to meet on our own for church! We’re excited for that! It’s really cool doing the conference call, but sometimes it’s really hard to pay attention... staring at a white wall the whole time! Except for last week we had a visitor during church...

This was seriously the biggest spider I have ever seen! I’m pretty sure he escaped from the Forbidden Forest and that it’s the offspring of Aragog!!

Like I said, this week has been crazy. On Monday morning Cierra and I rolled out of bed, put “professional clothes” on, and went to the flag ceremony at 7 AM. We hadn’t even done our hair, brushed our teeth... nothing! We were planning on going back up to our apartments after the ceremony and then getting everything ready for the day! Well... our plans were changed! Leslie and Heather woke up really sick that morning, so Lauren came running and begged us to teach. Of course we said yes... but it was crazy! If you know me at all you know I HAVE to eat breakfast. Well... there was no time for that. She found us, gave us Heather’s and Leslie’s lesson plans, and took us straight to our classrooms. Teaching itself went really well... I was just starving and felt pretty gross!

Tuesday was a full day of teaching at our school. It went really well! After all our classes we have a meeting with the English teachers. They pretty much tried to hand over the department to us. We tried explaining that we’re not allowed, much less qualified, to do that. It’s interesting trying to resolve problems in very broken English...

Wednesday was spent doing everything we planned to do on Monday. That night we had FHE and played a lot of fun games. My group is a lot of fun! :) Have you ever played the Mexican horse name game? I learned it at EFY my first year... Someone (the person who is in on the game) assigns everyone a Mexican name. You hit your legs to make galloping sounds and yell “HOOF [insert name here]”. We spent a lot of time that night playing... Kayla went for rounds and rounds as “HOOF Arted” and didn’t catch on. She didn’t understand why the rest of us were laughing so hard. Childish? Maybe. Hilarious? Definitely.

Thursday was another full day of teaching.... after we finally got there! The van was a half hour late picking us up. Once again, it can be very interesting trying to resolve problems when you’re not speaking the same language! Teaching went AWESOME! My classes are great. There are trouble makers and all that of course, but for the most part they are just good students!

In my last class of the day I was calling students up to demonstrate actions for the rest of the class. I called on Tom. Now, the first day of class Tom was being a real handful, so I named him Tom after Tom Riddle. Since then he’s been pretty good. A little crazy sometimes, but who’s not? Tom has worn the same blue and yellow shirt everyday and he has short spiky hair. Well, I called Tom up and noticed he was wearing a different outfit... A princess shirt. And flowered leggings. Turns out Tom is a girl. WOOPS!!! HA! What a terrible blunder on my part! I started laughing so hard and my class had no idea what was going on! So yes. I have a little Chinese girl named Tom after the most evil wizard of all time. Classic.

This is Tom in the yellow shirt. See! Anyone could have made the same mistake! Sometimes girl first graders look like little boys! *cough* Madi *cough*

Our group found out on Thursday night that we had to teach Saturday because we have our vacation next week (Beijing, here I come!!!!). So Friday was spend doing a lot of last minute preparing. I’m currently teaching my kids parts of the body.

I spent a good amount of time putting this body together. It was a big hit. The kids loved it!

Friday night Cierra and I had the best idea ever: No Bake Cookies!!! Seriously. It was the most delicious thing I have eaten here. We didn’t have anywhere to actually make them into cookies, so we just ate the batter. DELICIOUS!!!

The biggest No Bake Cookie ever! :)

Teaching Saturday went pretty well. I have one class that was really restless, but the rest of them were pretty good! I was so tired by the end of it... apparently my body could tell it was a Saturday and it was not used to being at school!

These are some of the kids I teach!

This is my "family". Nate, Brian, Cheryl, Nancy, and Dan!

Tomorrow we’re going to celebrate Kaity’s birthday. We got a cake from the local bakery... I hope it’s ok! Heather says Chinese cake is different, but hey... at least it’s cake! :) I also have the opportunity to speak in church. You know how when people get up to speak they’re always like “I’m so glad I got this topic” blah blah blah and it fits right into their life? Well, that’s never happened to me. Until now. I got the topic of the Restoration. How does that fit into my life right now? Valid question. Well, ever since I came to China I have been thinking and reading a lot about the Restoration. My testimony has been strengthened so much on that particular matter (see the blog post about the Buddhist temple!!). I had just been talking to Sister Lewis about that particular subject and then soon after Stuart asked me to speak on it on Sunday. I’m actually excited! We’ll see how it goes! Two things are for sure... they’ll find me more entertaining than a white wall and less frightening then a giant spider. Well, at least I hope!

Next week we’re heading off to Beijing! I don’t know if I’ll get another post done by then or not, but stay tuned to find out all about our Beijing escapades! :) Wo ai ni (I love you)!!! See you later! :)

P.S.- Ever seen an asian with a mullet? I have!