New Days

One of the things I like is when it seems like there is always something new, not just the same-old same-old. But maybe some of that is just perception, too. But this week seemed to be different from other weeks.
For starters, I went on a home teaching visit to a newly assigned family on Sunday night. They are a nice family and it's kind of fun to visit them since they know Russian and and lived there before, like me.
On Monday night, I started teaching a lesson from the Gospel Principles manual for Family Night, and I think we'll likely follow the lessons from there for a while.

At work, our Area Studies Class was in a new location in the new building. In another new thing, I fixed my Grandma's recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies on Tuesday night for the first time since I moved. Those cookies are so good. I made them so I could bring some to work the next day and share them with people I work with since it was my birthday. Everyone who asked was surprised I made them myself from scratch. After morning classes I met up with my family and we all went over to get more rounds of immunizations. I don't think I'll ever get used to them. I only had one. It hurt when she did it and I imagined that either she hit a nerve in my shoulder or the needle hit the bone or something. Maybe it was none of this, but it felt like it. I enjoyed being able to spend some time with my family on my birthday. We went to a movie, ate good food, and had German Chocolate Cake. I also got a really funny present from my brother. When I was young, we were sitting around the table eating tacos when someone made a joke just as I had taken a big mouthful. I couldn't help the laugh, (I love laughing), but since my mouth was full and I was trying to hold it in, some of the taco went up into my nose. Oh, how taco seasoning stings in the nose! I think a filled several tissues with taco when I blew my nose. So maybe that was a little more than anyone needs to know, but my brother sent me a card in a frame that shows two cats sitting at a table eating. One of them has a mouse hanging out of its nose and says, "Eww, I hate it when I laugh and food comes out my nose!" They won't let me live it down. But that's family, right? I'm not sure I would want them to ever stop teasing me about something.
Another highlight of the week includes a mid-day walk with a co-worker to pick up some Asian food for lunch. The walk takes about an hour round-trip, so I also got exercise along with the good company and food.
On the weekend, I spent most of my day with my younger children as the older ones went with my wife to some classes. We went for a little hike in a park and played on a play ground and lounged around the house. On Saturday night I got to go on a short date with my wife, which was long overdue. I love going out with her. It's great when we can spend some time together and talk. Tonight, our children played piano pieces in a musical fireside at the church. It was fun to listen to them. They all did very well.
I am very blessed with my family and my job (and many other things). Almost every day seemed like a totally new day. It was a great week. As I am learning more, I can see that the Lord is blessing me to be able to do it.
I fasted recently about my training and travel plans that we would be able to work things out that would be best for our family and still work for my training and job. And, as always happens with fasting, things are working out very well in that area and even benefiting other people I had no idea would be helped by some changes in my plans. I feel very strongly about the power of fasting for something righteous and the power of God to make things work for our benefit when we ask and if it is according to His will. I have seen it happen so many times in my life and others.

Normal?

This week seemed pretty normal: language, area studies, working hard trying to put a new language into my brain.
It was normal, except for a couple of things: shots, White House, and training change.
I had to get shots in both arms! I try not to look on these sorts of things since I don't really like needles poking into me, but I'm pretty sure one of the vaccines was purple and another was red. But maybe it's my imagination. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I've been having dreams and daydreams about purple fluid floating throughout my body and it makes me cringe a little. Now that I think about it, I guess it's okay, since I like the color purple. Yes, my arms have now recovered and no, I didn't faint or anything.

I was in the actual White House this weekend! Some friends had tickets for a while and since the others who were going to go with them couldn't, we got to go with them. It was cool to walk inside and see it. It is like a museum but they actually still use it and live there, which makes it even better. They can't tell you whether or not anyone, (like the President), is actually there when you are there, but just about 1/2 hour or so after we left cars were stopped as the presidential motorcade whizzed by on the street right next to us. After the White House, since we were already downtown we decided to take a look at a few other things, some of which we've seen before. We visited the White House Visitor's Center, saw the Bill of Rights, Constitution, Declaration of Independence at the Archives, and went to a few other places. It was pretty fun. We also went later to the Marine Wars Memorial (Iwo Jima) and out near the airport to see the planes take off and the boats on the Potomac. I am grateful of the opportunity to see such amazing things right now. We have a great country.
Things worked out this week on a training schedule change for me so we can leave a couple of weeks sooner so our kids won't miss so much school and a few other good reasons. I'm grateful it's working out. We have been blessed on this change as well as so many other things.
Onward and upward!

Roller Coasters

At the beginning of the week I was informed that my fellow classmates and I were going to take our second progress test in Indonesian at the end of the week. They moved it up a little bit from what it would normally be to accommodate the others who are all taking the final test within the next month. It was a little bit of a surprise.
I have to say that for me, I was still more worried about the work I had to do in class every day and how to not come off looking really stupid every day than something clear at the end of the week. On one day, I was assigned to give a short speech on a subject to a fictional group of Indonesian students after which they (or really my co-workers pretending to be students) would ask me more questions. I realized this was going to be even more difficult than I had first supposed when I thought about how little I really knew about the subject in any language. I have been busting my brains trying to get the language. The test at the end of the week went fine, not a particularly shining moment for me but much better than the last time I took one a couple of months ago! It's important to hold on to any progress you can in the up and down of emotions while learning something hard.
I've also been going back and forth with a few different people on an idea to change my training schedule a bit so that I can arrive with my family at post a couple of weeks earlier than originally scheduled. I'm not 100% it will happen, but my wife and I have been going over all kinds of scenarios for what we would do differently with the change and our summer plans.
Also, on Saturday, I got to have fun on some real roller coasters at Hershey Park as a chaperon for the local middle school band as they played at a competition and then spent the rest of the day at the park. It was fun spending time there with my son and some of his classmates. We had fun on the many roller coasters there. I still love the thrill of it. My ideal thing at an amusement park would be to have dozens of intense roller coasters and I would run from one to the other and ride without any line all day long. I can still feel it now.
Happy Mother's Day to my mom and my wife! I hope you had a good day today. They are both the best. It was fun to see the kids cards and presents to my wife today and to try to make her day special. I hope it was. It was also fun to talk to my mom for a few minutes today. Thanks to both of you for all you do and have done for me.

May Day!

I was happy to complete my presentation and present it on Tuesday afternoon to my colleagues. I think it went well. I had a lot of good information on volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, mudslides, and so on in the region we are going to live in for the next couple of years. It has plenty of all that. Since the first presentations went long, as soon as mine was done everyone clapped and then split within about 30 seconds without even asking any questions. It's good to have it done so I can again concentrate some more time to language and my family.

I can not believe that April is over! The weeks are flying by. Yesterday was May 1st. The day also known as May Day, but best know in my family as my wedding anniversary. My wife and I have been married for 12 awesome years.

To celebrate this year, we did something out of the ordinary and participated in a race together. We had a lot of fun racing on the same team, "12", in a scavenger-hunt-like race throughout downtown Washington D.C. with over 500 other teams of 2 to 20 or more people each. They gave us 12 clues, then we had to figure out what they were talking about, make our way to each of the clues in whatever order we wanted, take a picture of our whole team at each place, and do it as fast as we could. We walked or ran for miles throughout the city in search of locations we had never heard of in most cases. We didn't win the $750 first prize, but we were close to the top third of teams finishing!

Most importantly for this day, we had a lot of fun on the DC Challenge, got to spend a good part of the day together, and went out to eat afterwards together. We even had a little time at the end to take our kids out with us for some ice cream. A big thanks to our nice friends for being with our kids most of the day!

My wife is a big part of the reason that I can pursue my dreams. She is so supportive of letting me pursue my dreams and what I'm good at. I try every day to think of the ways I can do the same for her. Looking forward to continuing the good times with her. I love my May Day Anniversary.