This has been our most useful week here ever. Thanks for all those who have prayed for us. Let me just outline our week so far... I think I posted my last post on Monday or something like that!

Monday
- we went to move some small rocks and dig up soil so that the plant people could plant flowers! =) YAY! so useful...
- then we took a 3 hour nap and woke up again in time to water plants!

Tuesday
- i spent the whole morning and afternoon in the office typing up English, moving Powerpoint files into Word files, e-mailing the new files to some Businessman, and then translating a full 2 page Chinese file into English!
VIVIEN SPEAKING: i worked in the kitchen. SO fun! they have huge woks (cooking for over 100 ppl). i got to cut, chop, wash, clean for 3 hours. fun.
MEL: i cut apples! i cut apples! i cut apples!
-we cooked a lot because some Christian pastors were supposedly coming for lunch. VIVIEN: welps, they didn't show up until AFTER lunch. they just ate mel's stupid apples. muahaha
- then the usual: taking care of the kindergarten kids and teaching English at night
VIVIEN: OH. on the first day here we saw a very "tit-ty" dog (mel said it!!!). we were wondering why it was so..."tit-ty". WELL, on tuesday we found out it was because it had puppies! baby labs! SOOOOO cute. we played with 2. and took pictures with them as well. there was a golden one and a black one. adorable. however. we find out on wednesday that 2 of the puppies have been MAULED to death. MAULED. AFTER we played with them. WHAT the hecks?!!??!?!!? it kinda disgusts me how un-"animaltarian" ppl are here. they pick up dogs by the neck, whip around geckos and kick them and pick up random bugs and torture them!!!!!!

Wednesday
- i don't think we did anything special this day... I felt sick today so then I took a nap while Vivien cleaned the toilets
VIVIEN: toilet cleaning was kinda fun too. haha. oh. then after i went to play piano.
- then I translated one of the children's testimonies into English... well, she's not really a child, she's 18. it is one of the people that are in the choir that is going on tour this summer and they want her to learn her testimony in English, but I think that her Chinese testimony is much more natural and that if she speaks in English, she'll sound like a robot
- oh, in the afternoon, we also helped dig some more soil.
- then the usual stuff

Thursday
- Viv and I washed our clothes again (we have dubbed every Thursday as laundry day!). It took me 1.5 hours to wash my clothes by hand. It's sooooo hard and tiring and the detergent makes my hands sooo dry. =( But yesh, it is a good learning experience, even though we know that the kindergarten kids have a washing machine in the building that they live in... I don't know if we should ask to use it, or if we should just keep washing our clothes by hand to train ourselves.
- oh, I was looking for a stool in the house that we are living in so that I can sit on it while I wash clothes... and then I opened one of the doors and there was a old man sitting at a desk. I was SPOOKED out and went to tell Vivien... then I spooked her out.
VIVIEN: she FREAKED me out. she saw a MAN? in the house? we LOCK this house! how did he GET IN?!?!?! so i asked her if i would have been able to beat the man up. in CASE!!!
- my parents called me today... I was happy
- I asked a man in the office who the old man was... turns out he is an artist who comes to draw pictures in that room... he is also the teacher of this girl who was raised in the orphanage. The girl is very special, actually, she is married now. She is armless, with NO arms, and only one fully functional leg... but she is an artist. She draws beautiful pictures with that one foot and I think she is quite famous in Taiwan because of that. So yeah, we also found out (from my dad when I told him how I found a man in the room) that he speaks Cantonese. Vivien and I were then very happy because we can finally speak to someone else (other than each other) in Cantonese.
- They killed a rat today. The rat was in a cage because a worker had caught it last week. But, Viv and I were in the office when I heard one of the workers say, "Where'd the rat go?" I ventured downstairs to take a look... and I found out that it had escaped to the room downstairs. I told Viv not to come downstairs (because she was upstairs in the office), then the boys closed the door, and all we could hear was smacking sounds. The next thing I know, they are rolling the dead rat out of the doorway (which is their bedroom). The rat was HUGE. It was probably the size of my foot. Not including the tail! EWW...
VIVIEN: oh my goodness. i watched them from the stairs as they chased and smacked around the rat. even AFTER it was dead, they just smacking it!
- Today, I retranslated the thing that I did two days ago. Well, not re-translated the whole document. Basically, they re-wrote the whole document so that it's only one page and then I retranslated it. Guess where that document is going to? To the Presidential Inauguration for all those foreign people who can't read Chinese. (And Viv!) Hahhaa... just kidding. Isn't that great? I have no idea what I wrote.
- A famous actor came today. He is a host of five Taiwanese shows and he came to do a show on the orphanage or of Liu Kuei, the city that we live in.... I'm not sure which one. But he came and the kids did a tribal dance thing for him. Oh, his name is Jacky Wu (Wu Jung Shien) if any of you know anything about Taiwanese actors. =)
- Oh, teaching English to the Grade 7s tonight was horrible. There was 5 boys and 1 girl. The girl's eyes are a bit crooked and so the boys kept making fun of her, so then she cried. Yah, we were a bit frustrated with them and mad at them. Most of them have no interest to learn English but are forced to by their "mothers/fathers" here. Like, their English is sooo poor. In Grade 7, their English is probably similar to the English in Grade 2 or 3 maybe? Yah, it's just really NOT good.
- When we came out of teaching English to the Grade 7s, we bumped into Dai Sow (which is the oldest son's wife). She asked if we wanted to go get something to drink. We didn't really want to but she ushered us into her van and off we went to some place. We drank Mango Slush and Vanilla Slush. It was quite good. =)
- We slept way past our bedtime last night. We usually sleep at 11pm and wake up at 7:20am, in time for staff devos at 7:30am. But last night, I slept at nearly 11:50pm because we didn't even get back until 10:50pm AND we still have to take showers.

Friday
- it's now Friday... we taught English to the staff
- then we went back to our house to eat breakfast. The old man was in the room and we were waiting for him to come out of the room so we could speak Cantonese to him. He came out, asked if we were living there in Mandarin, and then we replied in Cantonese. He was shocked. So happy though, finally, a Cantonese speaking person.
VIVIEN: i got to talk to my family. i miss them. ok.
MEL: she cried!! again!! every time she talks to them.. but it's a good thing. not heartless like me... =(
VIVIEN: i get weepy. i miss home!!!!!!!!