Skip to main content

A Request

 Dear Friends,

Do you know how blessed you are to live so close to temples?  So blessed!  To help me stay connected to the temple, I would be very thankful if you would send me words or phrases that stand out to you from your temple visits.  It keeps me connected and thinking about the ceremonies so they stay fresh in my mind.  You can send me the words via email, Whatsapp or text (regular texting works--I just can't get emojis, pictures or lengthy messages with regular texting).  If you don't have my contact information, leave me a comment and I will send it to you.  I will be forever thankful for every word/phrase I receive.  

Love from China to each of you!

Darcee

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas Wishes

Christmas is hard to find in China.  Most external things that signal to us that Christmastime coming is missing here.  We have to look hard to find Christmas trees and decorations.  The typical holiday events and gatherings are missing.  Snow or anticipation of snow is absent.  The music is almost non-existent.  Giving to others is not accepted (it causes extreme embarrassment because they feel like they owe you). This has caused me to look harder and be thankful for the Merry Christmas wishes I do find. I've also had to use my own initiative to fulfil my other Christmas wishes.  Here are some of my Christmas wishes for 2024 found and created: Generally, the government discourages the people from celebrating the 'Western' holiday.  But a few places do find a way to wish me a Merry Christmas! This year we had very vibrant Christmas colors in our complex.  They were stunning, Christmasy and very cheerful!  (pictures taken mid December) Th...

Final Service Project--you can help!

Our time in China is quickly coming to an end.  We will be moving back to the US at the end of June.  I have had several impressions to conclude our time here with a service project.  I have learned that the local children's hospital is building a library and is in need of books.  My original plan was to involve many Chinese people in this project so they could feel the joy of service.  However as I have experienced over and over again, service is a very difficult concept for the Chinese people.  Their culture requires them to keep tabs of who they owe and who owes them.  They will not give if they don't see a direct benefit for themselves.  In addition to this, they lack trust because scams are rampant.  Thus, my requests for them to help with my project haven't gone anywhere. I don't blame them and I feel deeply for them. So my goals for the project have changed.  While Tom and I can provide many books to the library because books are ...

Dinner Guests

Before we moved to China, my dream life was to stay home and make dinner for my neighbors.  If asked of a place I'd like to travel, I would usually comment that I would rather have a kitchen remodel than seeing far away places.  That is because I have come to really enjoy having people over for dinner and a kitchen remodel would make that much easier on me--which I cared more about than seeing the world. (It also illustrates my extremely low need for adventure to be happy.) Thankfully I have been able to continue that hobby in China. It is a bit more of a challenge here because of an even smaller kitchen capacity, lack of ingredients and my concern about feeding Chinese people food they might actually like.  For my personal records here are dinners I have photos of. Tina and James (our liaison for our landlady) Sherry, Talia & Stella (Tom's co workers; and Stella tutors me in Chinese) Penny (one of my Chinese teachers) Melissa's cousin (someone from CCID branch asked ...