The Monday of all Monday's

This past Monday was a experience of my life. It all started out great and ended with a bamm!! After teaching all of us girls decided to go and buy bikes finally, after saying that we would ever since the day we got here. When we found a bike shop we all picked a bike and decided to name them, i could not think of one so i waited. While I was testing out the bikes I broke off 1 peddle on the bike I felt like a idiot. Half of us decided to go to another school to see if he has mail on our way there I brok both of my peddles off, talk about a crappy bike. This was all just the start of my little adventure. It was my friend Lindsey's birthday so we all decided to take her out to dinner to this italian place, called Little Italy. Mandy and I decided to go and get Her a cake from the bakery and bring it to the resturant. After we bought the cake we strapped it down on my bike and met the girls there. The food was amazing, after all of our food the cook made a free pizza which was to die for and brought us out what looked like little glasses of lemonade. Of course Keegan, Mandy and I were the first to drink them. My throat started to burn and Mandy spat hers out. Come to find out they brought us all Shots of alcohol. That was my first drink of alcohol in my life. I wanted to die, it was so funny they just assumed that we drank, and we were like there only customers so they wanted us to come back. Afterwards we were way to full to eat the cake so we decided to put it back on my bike and go home. On our way home i hit the curb totally wrong and crashed on the sidewalk. It was so funny the girls came over and was like... "THE CAKE THE CAKE... " they totally forgot about me the one on the ground dying! jk we got home and the cake was not that messed up and we ate it.. it was so good and the best part was there were no beans in it!! After that everything i touched broke or fell... so we all decided it was best that I just do not touch anything!!! It was so funny that all of this happened in one day! It was really funny and crazy to look back to... the kids are doing great and they just keep getting cuter and cuter! Today i taught them... OBAMA STINKY.... they always say they want to go to America and see the OBAMA! it is so funny!

Picture of Fashion Show

Womens Appreciation Day!

Well so it has been a really long time since I have written anything, and I apologize. Lately we have been in such a routine of the same thing almost everyday. We teach, teach, teach, then go home and do our own thing for a few hours. All of the girls take naps every day, and it makes me way jealous cause i can not sleep at night, and then i can not nap. Oh well it gives me more time in my Day! Yesterday March 6th was China's Women Appreciation Day. My girls Raychel, Mandy, and Keegan performed in a fashion dedicated to the women of Xiolan. It was so fun we all got dressed up for one of the first times in China. Then the rest of us girls hopped on a bus and went to a place right around the corner from us. (it was just ironic that we rode a bus) When we got there we were each greeted with roses and water bottles. We sat down and the show begun. It was way cool to see all of the chinese women in there clothes, there fashion screams Jadie all over it. Nothing really matches and it is just way fun. The girls got to wear Chinese Dresses like old fashion ones, they looked so pretty and white :) I can not express how excited i was to see these three beautiful girls that are my friend up there representing us so well. These girls had to have some major courage to stand up and do something like this. My favorite part was when they were on stage we were screaming so loud and cat calling them, if you do not know this chinese people don't really yell or even clap. So while we were taking pictures of them and yelling people were turning and taking pictures of us. We always think that after a while the chinese people would get use to seeing us, NOT TRUE! It was a great experience and i think America should adopted Womens Day so we can do these in America.

MY KIDS!

Ok so I have to show everyone pictures of my kids here in China.. The one picture with me in it is of my home class. Jack is the one closes to the camera, Leo is to the left of him, Jason is next Leo, then it goes Kevin, Ella, then Mary and of course me. In this picture we are turning in our tokens so they can recieve there toys. My kids are so cute and smart. Every time they come back into my class it is like such a relief. No matter how crazy they are they just make me feel so happy to see my kids.
Today was one of the funnest days teaching, we played basketball for the second day. The kids love it so much and they where so good because they knew if they were not they would not get to play basketball. They would always repeat "Yau Ming" who is a huge basketball player her that they love.
The other picture is of my favorite kid Jackie, he is wearing the sunglasses. He is the cutest kid in the world and i just want to squeeze him all the time. Even when i have to get mad at him i just smile at him I can not get mad. One time all of the kids where mumbling English and I could not understand them ( you have to understand Jackie only really speaks when you tell him to and tell him what to say.) Anyways I just could not understand them and then Jackie raises his hand and says..."Candy teacher" he said it like hello teacher are you stupid. It was so cute they were all trying to say Yummy treats teacher, but i just could not understand them.
The next picture is of Raychel, Anson, and Jenny. Jenny has the best language and is really helpful, but at times really loud. Anson is so cute, but he can be one of the biggest "Hellians" in all of the classes. His cute face in this case can not make up for his being naughtyness.
The other picture with Mandy is of her and her class. If you notice Jackie is in her class and he is just adorable (the one on the left of her). Of all the classes Mandy definately has the cutest kids, but sometimes also one of the hardest classes to get involoved in activites. Oh and if you look on the right of Mandy you will see our Harry ( or as Bastian would say Dumbo) He is so cute and at first he was one of my favorite kids, until he came out of his closet. He is so cute, but does not understand alot of english so he is hard to handle. I still love him oh so much, don't get me wrong.
I really love my little runts, no matter how hard they are sometimes you just always want to in the end give them big hugs. Even though they always point o all the teachers stomachs and say, "baby teacher" or make comments about how weird you look. It is all out of complete innocence. Thanks for all the comments..

My first motorcyle Ride... EVER!!

I first have to start out and tell everyone that my kids are the most adorable chinese kids EVER! today was one of the best day's teaching, yes they are a hand ful but in the end there are so many fun moments you just have to smile. So today after i spent like a hour talking on webcam with Bastian (which was amazing!) We all had to go on a 30 min walk to get some toys for the school. Once we got there and got everything we decided we did not want to walk back. SO our international coordinator (Annie who i love) helped us get motorcyle rides back to our apartment. This was my first time ever on a motorcyle, but not only that but it was with some chinese man. I was so excited because out of all of the eight motorcyle drivers mine was this old man who was just so adorable. Honestly i thought the others where kind of creepy! It was such a rush and they drive so crazy you always think you are going to die... I am so glad i experienced it and from now on i am going to learn how to tell them where i want to go and have them drive me. Who needs to walk when you can ride with a crazy Chinese man???

Our First Chinese Birthday Party

Last night we had one of our new students Ryan have a birthday. His mom invited us all to come to his party last night. It was so fun and interesting to watch. I learned how to sing Happy Birthday in Chinese and we sat around and talked for most of the time. The cake was like angel food cake with whipping cream and fruit and tomatoes on top. On the inside it has smashed up red beans. What is it with people and there random surprises inside of bread? All the adults there had us introduce our selves to them, we had to tell them what we like to do and our names. When I told them i liked to dance they all started chanting and telling me to dance. I had no idea what to do so i did the splits they were all impressed. Then my friend Lindsay told them she liked to sing and they wanted her to perform while i danced, so she stood up and I got on my knees and she sang Mary had a little lamb and i walked around like i was her lamb. It was so funny and they were laughing so hard. It was so cool to experience something like the in China just to watch others interact with each other is amazing to me for some reason. Just as a side note ever since yesterday it has been so humid here. there has not been a time since yesterday morning where i have not been all sweaty and sticky. I MISS THE SNOW (that is something i never thought i would say) well I love and miss you all... HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

The First Week of Teaching

This past week was my first week of teaching the little runts. I have to say it is alot different than i ever thought it would be. We have a few little brats in our classes, and they remind me of two people in my life when they were little, i am not naming any names but (Krista, and what i have heard of Bastian). I have a home class where the six kids our like my own kids for the year. I LOVE THEM!!! I have Kevin, Mary, Ella, Jason, Jack, and Leo, luckily they are (well from what i have heard from the other teachers) Is very quiet and behaved. The funny thing is in my class they are so out of control, but in a fun way. I am having a hard time with some of the other kids in the other classes but these are just things that will get better with time. I have learned that i never want to teach Elementry kids EVER. It is one thing to have kids of your own, but it is another to teach 30 kids that are not yours. We have this one kid peter who is the biggest of all the trouble makers, he interrupts all of your lessons and never obeys. Then there is Joe, for some reason none of the other teachers seem to have a problem with Joe like I do. There are also a few girls Susie, and crystal who are so in La La land every time you look at them you just want to laugh. Crystal always has her hands down here pants ALWAYS, and susie just stands and looks in the sky. I think the hardest part with the kids is some of them understand fully, and some of the kids have no knowledge whatsoever of what we are saying. There are six different categories that we switch off teaching and I am in charge of gym. I was so excited for mine until I actually had to do it. The hard part about my category is that everything is very activtive and not in a sitting down area like the rest of them. My room is quiet small so i do most everything outside. When we are outside there is no way to control these kids while they are standing next to all of there toys. Again I know after time and practice this will all get better, but right now it is my challenge. I really do love the kids so very much and I am so excited to love them even more. We are driving a few hours tomorrow to go to our first Church session. I am so very excited to take the sacrament and be in that setting again! I love you all

VENTING

ok, well I know this is just a random post but I am going to tell everybody anyways! So like i discovered something today, Chinese people eat SO MUCH!! I really think that they eat more than most Americans. I always thought that they only ate a little bit and that is why they are so skinny...... LIES they are all LIES. It is crazy to watch our international helper/teacher eat. She is probably 4'11" and maybe 115 pounds and she EATS SO MUCH! like probably 3 times as much as I do.
I also thought that Chinese people did not know what bread was, that they only ate rice.... AGAIN LIES.... They have the most amazing bread here! America needs to take some lessons on Chinese Bread and Ice Cream. There Bakery's are the most sinful things in the world. A whole store of different weird amazing bread! Not only that but these huge breads only cost like maybe 15 -45 american cents which is way crazy. One thing that they need to learn from America is they but meat random peices of meat on the insides of some of there bread! GROSS can you say GAG ME?!?!?!? You have to be really careful about what you buy cause some times there is a little gross present inside.

Diapers? What are those?

One of the new things I have learned in China is well baby’s do not use diapers very often. I was sitting on the Subway and looked in front of me and this adorable baby boy maybe like 5 months. I looked down and he had pants that were split at the crouch and no diaper. Come to find out they all use those pants, when the baby has to go potty they hold them over the trash can. My question is how they know when they have to go at such a young age where there is not that much communication. I guess diapers are way expensive, if you look all over the sidewalks there is poo everywhere! Little kids run outside of stores and go potty on the side walk next to you WEIRD. That is one of the many things that I am so grateful for in Good Ol’ America. I have learned to look at these things in China and just laugh it off, and be really appreciative of what I have.

Paradise Valley

I just got back from our little 2 day adventure to Guanzhou and I have to say it was one of the crazy adventures so far. The first thing we did when we got there was go to Changlong Paradise, it was the most amazing Theme park ever. We went on this rollercoaster that was suppose to be the largest in the world 7 times! All of the rides where so fun and there were no line for any of them. All of the shows were done by people all over the world, including most of them from America. Ever time any one of them would see us in the audience they would double take us. Afterwards they came over and talked to us, they said there were not alot of white people through out the inner cities. After wards we went to the circus, it was so crazy they had so many animals. I even got to see my mini pigs that I want to have. It was so much fun for one day it drained us all. The next day we went and saw three different Buddist temples and famous sites. I have to tell you about the picture above where we where all making our kung foo moves. After we were done taking this picture everyone came over and started praying to it. We had NO IDEA that is was a "god" in there view. We felt so bad that we had defiled something that was precious to them. Afterwards we went shopping downtown, it was a saturday afternoon so it was way busy and everyone kept bugging us to buy everything because we where white. My favorite line that they said was "hey little missy you come buy." It was cute that they tried but they would follow us around. Tonight we went and meet 12 new teachers that got moved to our school. Three of them are guys, return missionaries to be exact, it was so nice we are excited now we are able to partake of the sacrament down here. WHAT A BLESSING!!! I am so excited for this week we start teaching on Wednesday, I will let you all know how it goes. Thanks for reading :)

Park Adventure

The Far Away Park

tonight we decided we wanted to go to a nice park and sit down read a book, and go in paddle boats. Well it was suppose to be a 10 min walk, that turned into a 2 hour walk. We had to go up to the ghetto area of Xiolan, which made me realize how blessed we are to live where we do. We live in a gated building in the school so it makes it ten times more safe. We thought the area where we lived was way busy and to loud, until we went on this walk. There was a point in time where we were walking and none of us could stop couging, I am guessing it was the pollution in the air. When we got to the park it was so beautiful, it did not fit in with the area around it. These pictures above are of the park and all the fun we once we got there. Just so everyone knows We are all going out of town tomorrow so i will update when i get back about our fun Journey. Hey and if any of you know how to put pictures on here so i can put more than 1 per row that would be amazing!!!

First week of China

My First week in China

First I want to apologize I have not had really good access to the internet until now.
Well what an adventure my life has been so far and it is only Monday! I have not even been gone for a week and it feels like i have been here for a month!
Well I should first start of by tell you that I left last Wednesday at 9:00 pm at night. I have to first thank my dad and sister showing up before i left it really meant the world to me. We arrived in California around 10:50 Utah time, and I have to say that i am never EVER going to bring so much luggage with me any where EVER! I had 2 50 pound bags a carry on bag that was 43 pounds and a laptop case packed full, by the end of the trip i have never felt so much pain in my neck EVER. When we got to the Plane that took us to Taipei Taiwan they informed us that our carry on bag could only be 15 pounds! We were all so mad, i luckily all my weight was in books so i shoved them in my laptop case and then carried them. Once we got passed security i was able to put them back in the bag. BUT WHAT A PAIN IT WAS! Something i will never do again is take as many books as i did :) Anyways our flight to Taipei was only 13 hours long which did not seem to bad. No one in the group got to sit together we were surrounded by a whole bunch of people who did not know English or know what deodorant was :) It was midnight when we got on so we were all so tired and i crashed before the plane even took off. They woke us up and made us eat dinner at like 1:30 am which when looking back was the worst food ever but we were so tired and hungry we did not care. I crashed right after dinner woke up for breakfast, then we arrived about a hour after so it was not way bad, but it still was hard. After that we went right to the next flight to Hong Kong which was like a 2 hour flight which was not bad, because we were able to sit by each other and i got to color :)
HONG KONG what a adventure this city was for us blonde Americans. The day we arrived at our amazing top of the line hotel. The three girls that were coming with me to my city Mandy (Kreigh’s sister), Emily, Raychele, and I went to Disney Land Hong Kong! The happiest place on earth no matter how tired you are. It was so fun everyone thought we were so stupid for going, but they all were just jealous. This was our first experience with any subway in any of our lives. You know when you see people and you laugh at them because you know they are stupid tourists? Well we were 10 times worse, we had to exchange money, get tickets and find our way. For some reason i have a fit sense of direction so I got us there way easy. We were so excited and crazy the first hour there. We ran every where and it was like nothing was going to stop us, then it happened…. JET LAG oh my goodness we dropped so far in energy. We first were became super tired, then way grumpy, then the fun part we were so delusional we were insane and tired and it was hilarious. I do not care what any one says but Disney Land will never get old Never!
The next day we left and did a tour of all of Hong Kong. It was so small and so busy with over 36 billion people on this little island thing it was crazy! Oh and if anyone has driven with me they know i am not the best driver, Well in China i would be AMAZING. Everyone honks, drives on the wrong side, speeds, it is crazy every time I am in a car i think I am going to die. Oh and no one stands in line and it bugs the crap out of me. No one cares they just do whatever they want whenever. It is weird how they do not think it is rude they were just grown up that way. ANY WAYS after the tour a bunch of us went to the Hong Kong Temple which was so pretty and amazing. It made me miss home so much, but helped comfort me as well. After the temple we went and ate at T.G.I. Fridays which was so American and i loved it:) Then we went over to a road called the Avenue of Stars and watched all of the down town buildings do a laser show to music. It was awesome China just over does America in so many ways with technology. On our way home we hopped on the wrong subway and we were so tired that we couldn’t get mad, but we had to take 5 other subways to get back to where we needed to be, WELCOME TO CHINA!
Well Yesterday We arrived to our school in Xiolon Zhongshan. It was a huge change going from Hong Kong to Mainland China. Everything is dirty and well different i guess. Our rooms are suppose to be top of the line and well lets just say they scared me at first. Our Shower is right on top of our toilet, but we do have a flushing toilet which is way nice. After getting things put away it really didn’t look bad it is just different. We also met the other 2 girls and our head teacher and they live next door to us four. They are all so cute, it is nice that we are all LDS it helps to know that we all have something in common. Oh and church wise i guess we get to go to church 1 a month it is a 2 hour trip and cost lots of mula so the bishop told us to come as much as we can. Us girls decided we are going to hold our own meetings every Sunday. It is going to be so weird not being able to take the Sacrament every week. But i know Heavenly Father will take care of us and help us with everything!
Last night the owner of our school took us out to eat. Way different, I have never had to use chopsticks with everything! It was Tai food Everything was so spicy and i LOVED it! I ate Turtle, Fish head, and pigs ears. The funny thing is no one knew until later what we had eaten. I ate mainly green beans and cabbage and the soup, but all of the flavors were so different and i am glad i tasted everything!
Our first official day we took a tour of our city to see what is around and get Cleaning Supplies HECK YES! i have never been so excited to clean Afterwards we went out to eat at our first restaurant called “the crossing bridge” it was basically noodles and soup. After that our tour girl who helps us around came and made us four Chinese dishes for dinner. She over salted everything, but she is the nicest girl in the world so everyone just pretended to enjoy it. The next day we all went and got head massages the last 30 mins it was so amazing we are going to go back every month to get one. After they massaged our hair a whole bunch of guys came and got and and styled our hair. The guy doing my hair kept getting mad at me because he wanted to cut my hair. He kept saying it was uneven. Which if anyone has seen my hair it is A symmetrical so it is not even on purpose. Plus i am trying to grow it out for my wedding. He was not very happy with me, oh well. Last night I went to bed not feeling so great and I woke up with a cold, LAME HUH! That will not stop me from my day, but it is not fun being here and being sick.

Yesterday we decorated our apartment in construction paper cut outs i will have to post pictures soon of it. it makes our home so much more American!! YES :)
Tomorrow we are going Gunanzhau and going to go on the largest roller coaster in the world. I KNOW YOu shoul all be jealous!!!
Well i love and miss you all so very much! i hope you enjoy reading my adventures! LOVES

I AM SO SORRY

So i have been in China for a week now and i have not posted anything. HERE is the deal, we havge paid for wireless internet and they keep promising us "tomorrow" we will get it. Chinese people are not really good with promises, or being on time. So That is why i have not writted, I have so many adventures i have been on already and i want you to hear all about them. One problem i get about 20 mins day online right now and it is a 2-3 mile walk so after i get done with all my e-mails i do not have time. SO the day i get wireless internet i will have a huge post up of everything so far. I love you all and miss everyone so much... Wa eye Knee ( I LOVE YOU)

The Bastian Adventure!

 

As of Right now I do have a count down for Everything in my life.

*Five more days till Bastian gets back from Army training in Washington

*Ten more days till i hop on the Plane to China

*194 Days till I get married!

This has been one of the happiest times in my life, not only being able to meet my future husband but to gain so many friends and family that support me in my life decisions.

If nobody knows Bastian Cowsert’s and my story well here it is. I was living at home with my family basically waiting to go to China. I went to Education Week with my mom’s side of the family for a few days and there my Aunt Cherie offered me to stay in her house as no one was living there. It was very random as she asked me on a Saturday and i moved to her house that Monday.

I moved up to American Fork and decided to do another semester of college and work. When I went to my new singles ward I was scared as it was a family neighborhood and i was so use to Provo Singles Ward I did not know what to expect. My first time in this 36th was one of the best experiences ever! Everyone welcomed me and there was a spirit there that I could never explain.

There was a funny part of this story that not a lot of people know. My friend Stacy who i use to work with and randomly ended up in my ward made a bet with me. She said that i would be asked out on a date after two weeks of moving into the ward.

During these two weeks there were a lot of parties and hang outs that i went to and met so many fun and new people. The second to last day of this bet was Stake Conference, Stacy and I went to the adult session and decided we wanted to do a game night afterward. Our ward ended up going to the Purple Turtle (burger joint) and getting shakes for everyone. When i heard them call out my shake that I choose some cute guy came up and was reaching for MY SHAKE. How dare he, we had received the same Shake. Do do doooo :) I grabbed my shake and went and sat at a table outside by myself. This cute boy that clamed I had his shake came outside and sat next to me. Although he was cute i did not think anything of it, he was way to cute for me. I decided to invite him over to Stacy’s house to play games with all of us.

At this game night I sat on the couch right next to him while we played a male verses female game. The whole time I we were playing i could not get over how funny this guy was. I left and went to the restroom and left my cell phone on the couch. When i got back i saw that this cute guy named Bastian had snuck his number into my phone.

That night i texted him telling him how sly he was putting his number into my phone. I went to Stake Conference the next day and he was suppose to save me a seat next to him, but of course he didn’t. I went through all of stake conference sitting behind and we didn’t really talk to each other.

I got home from church and had a text message asking me if i wanted to go on a drive up the canyon. That was the start of Bastian and Jadie. We have been dating since September 7th and we are to be Married on July 31st in the Manti Temple. I know that we are all placed in certain places when we are ready for things to happen to us. I know that people in our lives are there for a reason, and i know that my Heavenly Father knows me better than anyone and has me go through experiences to help me  become stronger for what is to come in my life.This has been one of the most fun, and scariest days of my life. I am so excited to spend the rest of my life with this man. I LOVE YOU BASTIAN COWSERT!