Harmony is Being Different--Together

Dear Family

I got your package! Thank you so much... especially for more makeup than I'll ever use in my lifetime, much less my mission... and the deceptive (thanks to IAN) FALSE packing label that said it had "contacts, candy (well, it did have a PICTURE of candy...) and some "scribble, scribble, scribble, thing" in it. HAAA! You people are the best package senders ever. I'll have to return the favor soon! And by soon I mean Christmas! :)

Seriously, though, thanks for the photos!!! Pictures are the BEST. I will carry a few more around with me (I still want some of disneyland! And mom, I don't have ANY of Mom!) and I just wrote the vocab I'll need on the backs so I can talk about my family.

Speaking of Chinese vocab, who's ready for their Cantonese lesson of the week? This week focuses on FIRE (fo! sounds like fah)...

Fo che= fire car = TRAIN

Fo luhng gwo= fire dragon fruit= DRAGONFRUIT

fo teui= fire leg = HAM (I don't get that one, either)

fo gai= fire chicken= (this is my favorite one) TURKEY

I love this literal language.

Anyway! This week has been ... wow. Sunday I lost the keys to the Tai Wai/ Sha Tin chapel. It was a pretty horrible night trying to find them, find someone to get the chapel locked, get home on time etc etc., + the guilt of being a burden to the bishops + all the disappointment and confusion of praying to remember, praying to find and coming up empty over and over. That night I fell asleep praying--just sick at heart. A few hours later, I woke up--seemed like SUDDENLY--and got off my knees (owwww) (at least it was in bed).

I had the parable of the woman searching her house for the lost coin in my head and realized how wrong my focus was. I was so worried about a little thing like keys, but I am called--as we all are, by the voice of the Master himself--to search for his lost children. How sad that I worry so much more about KEYS than these precious people!!!

I woke up the next morning re-energized and READY to be a light to Hong Kong. We still haven't found the keys, but every singe day this week that dream/idea/experience has been a motivation to me and helped me to see the good, hope for more, have faith, smile, be patient, etc etc etc. It's been an amazing blessing.

I also learned much more about patience/leadership/worth of souls this week in my companion relations, but not with Sister C. This week, Tues,. to Th, we had TWO summer missionaries--which is AWESOME because it means we can basically do twice as much missionary work AND don't have to worry about double scheduling people OR locations (because one full miss+summer miss can go to Ma On Shan all day and the other full miss + summer miss can stay in Sha Tin/Tai Wai all day!).

One of our summer missionaries was... in need of a lot of help. In Sister C's words, "Ayiyaaa, hou faaahn!" = I'm gonna kill her. She just... couldn't do the hard things. She would (literally) whine. Out loud. When she didn't want to do something. I mean, OK, I don't really know how to explain well. Prob the best way is just that she is 18, but she IS a great person, has a great testimony, and by the end of the week had worked hard---probably much harder than she's ever worked in her life. What a Challenge this was for her.

Anyway, I learned a lot about myself when I was on splits with her, especially since that made me the senior companion. I have learned for myself that D&C 121 whatever verse (37) is absolutely true--it is the nature of man (and women!) to, as soon as they get a little authority, start to exert unrighteous dominion over others.

37 That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.

.

Yes, my inner thought process was unfortunately often something like "AYIYA! Sister Jang! We're missionaries! The Lord's army! The Lord's warriors don't WHINE about HEAT! NOW Drop to your knees and give me twenty!"

Bad, Bad, bad, Sister Darcey. So on Tuesday we were on a fast zone find (we only had about 20 minutes to find because we had to get to another appt later), and she was basically having a panic attack. She couldn't do it. Couldn't even say hello to people. She was following me around like a lost puppy. And I was, really, honestly, being absolutely heartless.

After a couple days of being on splits with just her, I was really just fed up and frustrated and impatient and etc. FINALLY I stopped and realized how cruel I was being--and we went to the side of a building and I asked her to pray for us. She prayed, I was repenting for my behavior the whole time, and then she started crying, and Wow.

Then. We really found. The Lord blessed us and we found.

Humble works! What a lesson I learned this week. People are so much more important to God than anything else.

Love,

Love

Sister Darcey!

P.S. Last week I got MUGGED!! It was while we were contacting around 8 pm in

Tai Wai on Lion's Bridge (by the Sha Tin Marriage Registry, on the river, see if you can find it on Google Map). A big group of mainlanders came up and surrounded me and I couldn't see my companion and it was terrifying---but don't worry, all they took was...

my picture!! (8000 times...) HA! OK, I thought it was funny..

Cousins Here, Cousins There, Cousins Everywhere

In other news, we don't have P-days anymore! It's actually kinda fun--to be so busy doing the work. This morning at 9 we dropped off our summer missionary (we had a testimony meeting to close), did personal study until 11 when we had another meeting to pick UP our latest summer missionary, then raced to Sha Tin to eat noodles (Taahm Jai, best food on earth) with a sorta-investigator (mandarin) whom I adore named Emma.

After all that, we should have taken a break, but then we had to SPLIT and I came here to the Sha Tin library with one summer missionary, Sister S., who reminds me of Cousin Kaelea, who wants to teach preschool and is AWESOME and 20 years old and a recent convert and hilarious, fun, smart and REALLY outgoing. My companion, Sister C went to MOS with the other summer missionary, Sis. J., who's just 16 and has been studying in England and grew up in the church, to teach a lesson.

We then teach EEFY from 3:30 to 5:30, then there's barely time for companion study before we go to the temple for correlation from 7 to 9! I don't know when we're going to buy groceries for next week... or do any laundry. But it's really fun this way! I'd much rather be busy than not!
HEY six months on my mission this last Tuesday! Did anyone notice? Is anyone counting out there? Cami (too busy with tea parties and decorating cupcakes and being awesome) ...Derick? (no, trying to get his flirt muscle or at least eyebrows back into shape...) Ok, ...Squeaky?

In our apartment, whenever something is broken and I fix it in a mcgiever (how-youspellthat) sort of way, we call it "Cami-rigged" and I'm not kidding. I recently Cami-rigged our bunk beds with a wire hanger and our fan with an elastic band and a lot of tape. Our toilet just got fixed, yay!

Without that experience I would have never known that a broken washer is actually WORSE than a broken toilet, because you can just dump water in a toilet to make it flush. Not so with a broken washer. Yes, so we've been flushing our toilet with a bucket for the past 3 weeks... why am I telling you this...). Don't ask how we've been doing our laundry--not using a bucket or a toilet.

Love to all my cousins, each and every one of you who writes and supports me on this grand adventure for the Lord, Hugs, Sister Dia

As a dessert... Chinese soup? When I'm expecting sweet dessert soup... Why???

In Chinese Soup, you have one big carrot, one big potato, and one creepy meat + broth. You fish everything out with chopsticks first, then drink the broth. It's good, but it's not Dessert!

This week a poh poh (Grandma) held my hand for about half an hour during the lesson. Just because I'm white--or because I really needed it? ...well, yes. It was HILARIOUS (and actually kinda nice. I miss physical contact with other people! especially holding hands!)

Great, Sister Darcey, that was a really awkward way to begin a missionary letter home...) (pretend that didn't happen, ok, everyone?)

Anyway. (I opened rogue, might as well keep going, right?)--it was during a ...what's the english word.. .gau wuhn.... switch? Anyway, during a companionship gau wuhn... oh yeah the English word is EXCHANGE!

(That's good isn't it that I'm having trouble thinking of the word in English?)

So I was in Tai Po with Sister Y(a sister missionary whose English is perfect, who lives with us in our apartment, who is GORGEOUS and whose father introduced us to Angel) and her summer missionaries (Sister L and Sister Yp from Tai Wai) and the four

of us were sitting in an investigator's tiny, cluttered...

(cluttered takes on a new meaning in the tiny spaces of HK...like, cluttered-to-death!)

SQUIRREL!!! (What movie?)

Now, for your Chinese language class of the day: In Chinese you can pretty much use dou sei, adjective meaning to the death-- hot to death meaning really hot, hungry to death meaning starving, etc.)

Back to the story:

...so we were sitting in a cluttered apartment with an adorable new investigator, W Poh Poh (we really call her that!),

[Another FYI language interruption: [this one from Mom--the blog editor] Poh Poh means Grandmother. I wrote and asked Dia if it was pronounced poo, poo and Dia responded no, it was pronounced Pah, Pah. I wrote that this was hilariously odd and asked her if her grandkids were going to call her that--their grandmother--Pa, Pa?" And she responded, "No, Mom, Your's are."]

Back to the story:

...we were sitting with this investigator who had been baptized as a Christian in MAINLAND somehow about 8 years ago and is investigating our church to see what's different, when I happen to glance to the left and see, in a closet-sized room, a pretty-much-entirely-naked-just-wearing-his-not-to-be-mentioned's man napping (her husband). Oh, awkward-dou-sei (they think it's totally normal...). HILARIOUS.

OK, now I will get back to the straight and narrow.... after one more thing!

Last Saturday TW had a BOM play activity. Each auxillary was in charge of putting on a skit from a BOM story. IT WAS HYSTERICAL. The best part by far was when Ammon, a member's husband who actually ISN'T a member, got pants'd (or rather, skirt'd) by his 2 year old son Gabriel, who DID NOT LIKE Daddy wearing a Lamanite skirt and ran up on stage in the middle of everything to fix the problem. He didn't... skirt around it...

I feel like there's a pun waiting here somewhere... Brian'll find it) (PS happy birthday to Brian in two days! I sent him a little package... can't even call it a present, it's so dumb... last P-day, so it WOULD've gotten there in time if I had written Airmail on it, oops). Sorry.

NOW back to the straight and narrow. Promise.

Yesterday I was slurping my favorite thing on the surface of the planet--this drink-- Cha chaang teng, red bean/ice/milk thing that I get at a Chinese whatsitcalled, a Chinese... Wendy's (i was about to call it fast food, but China's fast food is WAY FASTER than America's fast food. As in you hand them money and they hand you heaven-in-a-glass and you don't even have to stop WALKING) in Cantonese, called Daaih Ga Leih-- And then I learned WHY it's my favorite thing on the planet.

Again, off topic--minor squirrel, more of a chipmunk:

I was with Sister C and our summer missionary (Alice-- the most amazing girl ever I love her so much!!!! We just returned her and got TWO new summer missionaries! These ones are going to be great, too, I'm so excited! I love summer missionaries!!!!!!!!!! And since we have TWO, we can SPLIT ALL THE TIME AND DO TWICE AS MUCH MISSIONARY WORK YES!)

Anyway... and we were discussing if we could make this drink at home because it was REALLY easy. So I was trying to translate the ingredients so I could buy them. Ice, Ok, red beans-- you have to soak them for an hour, OK, a little bit of sugar, water, and... what kind of milk IS that? Soy milk? No... Coconut milk?

NO, Sister Darcey... OK, what does it look like? Our summer missionary pointed to the can behind the counter of the restaurant. Oh, daisies--I choked on a red bean mid-suck, for I had finally figured out WHY I've been gaining weight--I've been drinking straight up SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK for three months!!!

So I only have 13 minutes left to try to express what I should've been writing about this whole email (instead of this... laahp).

I've been pretty down lately--the past couple weeks or so? I don't know if you could tell from past emails. It kinda reached a head on Tuesday, my 6-mo anniversary on the mission, when I wrote these notes in my journal:

• "Not doing so hot. Sometimes I feel like such a waste--like "being a missionary" and "what I do/who I am right now" just doesn't match up.
• Members bring me something new every week to put on my bug bites and they are concerned about me just because I'm wearing this black name tag and I"m supposed to be a MISSIONARY. Maybe I can blame it on being in China, but I"m just putting together the idea of "the missionaries" that I recall from being a kid and "me" --and it's not matching up.
• Sometimes... I feel like I'm wandering around in the dark, trying to help but hurting a lot, too. My faith really is so pitiful, my actions and beliefs so based on sight and not God. I've lost a lot of "the joy," the vision of "the army of God" and joy in the Motab singing "Called to Serve".
• Missionary work is much less glorious and much more daily grind. So often I feel like I should be leading confidently, walking in the full light of constant Spiritual guidance but I'm wandering blind--like today when I took Sister L out by myself to go finding (tracting) and had no idea what to do.
• Even my scripture study is infiltrated with pride, selfishness, or misguided diligence (spending 1/2 hour today working on similar phraseology between Joseph Smith and Isaiah, of what use was THAT!?!).
• I wake up so tired. I feel like a good summary of my mission so far might be, "Failure: A mission in twelve move calls"

But then I read somewhere in Personal Study about the devil's power to CAPTIVATE--and I feel that I've been ensnared lately. I really pounded on the spiritual door on Wednesday and it was opened and blessings poured out--I read in 1 nephi 20-22 and somehow all of these Isaiah chapters all related to ME and my problem today.

21:4 promises my labor is not in vain and

21:5, though israel be not gathered, my God is my strength. Remember his covenant (vs 8) and his mercy (13)

21: 1-2 I believe, I remember, that I was saved for this time and place and I can be a light to the ends of the EARTH--EVEN IN HK.

(21:6). HE HAS NOT FORGOTTEN ME, how could he? My walls are continually before him.

Sorry, no time left, suffice it to say that slowly I am learning that God is good and is blessing me, despite... me.

LOVE ALWAYS Sister Dia

A "fei jai" is... any male between 13 and 30 who yells, "LEIH HOU LENG LEUIH!" when you walk by... (YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL!!)

I figured out why everyone always asks if I'm married---ring on right OR left ring finger means married. Oops...

Dad! The photo at the end is to prove to you that BYU Cougars ROCK--even in China.

On the MTR we see bikers all the time--in complete decked out Spandex, helmet, cleats and FOLDED UP BIKE! It's so cool--the front wheel folds in somehow and makes the cutest little bike package that they just wheel around the

train station. Everytime I see them I think of you! There is also a HK marathon--not sure how, since honestly , as a whole, Chinese people don't run very well whosaidthat?! and I'm pretty sure for most of them the only running they ever do is from the top of the escalator into the train doors (when they're about to close, there's a beeping sound--I think that for the rest of my life, if I hear that same beep, I'll start running--no matter where I am!).

Aunt Shauna should know that her cutest-get-well-card-of-all-time went to the sweetest man on Earth--his sing (last name) is Yuhn, and he and his wife are both converts of 40 or so years. He used to be the bishop of MOS. His wife is the one who has made the missionaries lunch every Sunday for the past 10 years.

Three Sundays (or so) ago, Brother Yuhn went into the hospital because of a heart... rupture...thing (I REALLY don't sic ting MEDICAL jargon in Chinese) and that day, SHE STILL BROUGHT THE MISSSIONARIES FOOD. Ayiya! They are so wonderful, faithfu

l and just... quiet, consistent, service-centered people. I was so happy to giVe Shauna's adorable band-aid card to him--and now he's out of the hospital, YAY!

Ayiyi! Now we will speak again of Sister D's horrible Chinese, I LOATHE the word "keuih" (in mandarin, ta) which means either he OR she.

Yes. You are anticipating the horribly embarrassingness of this story, no? You will not be disappointed! Actually, you prob will be disappointed because I only have 10 more minutes and I want to talk about SOMETHING that actually matters at some point in my life/email. So, long story short, there was a former investigator at church in MOS and someone introduced me (Sister Missionary) to ....her. After gospel principles class, I invited... her... to Relief Society.

And FOUND OUT THAT SHE WAS ACTUALLY A HE! Yikes! It was ...so... bad... In my defense,

A) CHinese makes it very hard to tell gender (keiuh= no clue),

B) The member (male) introduced the person to ME, (AGAIN the Sister Missionary,) not the elders, so I'm naturally gonna think it's a GIRL,

C) A-Ling was her/his name... ok, I actually admit I've been here long enough to know that it is a pretty manly girl name, but REALLY. A-Ling. Yes, does that engender masculinity to YOU? I DIDN'T THINK SO. and

D)...I REALLY THOUGHT HE WAS FEMALE! He looked like a Chinese version of Audrey Hepburn. I'm not kidding. It was definitely the worse case of gender confusion I've ever seen. I didn't even KNOW I was experiencing gender confusion, THAT'S how bad it was...

Ok, I'm over it. I really did save it well--blamed it on my Chinese ("What's that? Oh. OH! Oh, uh, yeah, I meant Elder's quorum... I just mixed up Relief society and elder's quorum, ha ha ha.... silly sister darcey! ha. ha....")

Anyway. I found out this week that my favorite all-time movies are all dak (dak= ok) -- to watch on my mission!

this picture is actually from when I was Sister Black's companion

Emp new groove, robinsons, kung fu panda, lion king?! We can watch them (in chinese and on p-day, of course!) here?! I love this mission. OK, I haven't actually seen any of them yet, but I find it comforting to know that if I ever get a moment's free breathing room--that I COULD if I wanted to.

I don't know if it's just me, but I think having a native companion makes MORE people notice my distinction. It's ...actually a little ridiculous. It would definitely be annoying if my whole entire purpose for being here wasn't to be noticed and if I weren't TRYING to talk with everyone anyway.

We now live further along the blue line, too (which means closer to mainland) so every morning and night when we're riding the train to/from home there are TONS of mainland China people. This is so exciting!!!! So many are looking for religion!

THUS, Sister C. is teaching me some Mandarin (which previous knowledge has degenerated A TON after learning Cantonese) ! I can now say, "I am a missionary. I don't speak Mandarin. I know that Jesus Christ's gospel will bless your family." REALLY slowly. It's so funny how weird Mandarin feels in my mouth now.

Also! We have a great Mandarin investigator named Emma. She's a history major, speaks pretty good English and came to Vicki (the Elder's investigator) 's baptism last Sunday. She's amazing but doesn't want to see the Mandarin missionaries, so we're trying to help her along. I love her so much! pray for her, please!

We had mission tour yesterday; I feel I'm on the cusp. Moving from one section of missionaryness to another--trying to ARISE to a more faithful state. Habit can be such a tool of Satan--moving us into apathy in a work that is so glorious. I have forgotten the last couple weeks (months...?) that this really is a true, real work of God.

Thank you ALL (ward, friends, family!) for your letters. They help me remember and ...wake up! TO the work that is so amazing!

Love, love, love

Sister Dia Darcey

Yesterday--In A Fit Of Hong Kong Adoration--I Hugged a Light Pole

[Has it officially been six months?]

Dear Everyone,

THREE MONTHS IN HONG KONG and loving it more every day (that's only partly true, sometimes I love it less one day, but then my love increases three-fold the NEXT DAY, so on AVERAGE it's more every day...yeah... anyway).

Odd things here that are still weird:

• Driver's seat on the right side of the car (I keep trying to get in the driver's door when Sister Chan or Angel drive us somewhere, and they just shrug their shoulders and sigh--this dumb sister missionary, when will she jaahp gwaan) (get used to=jaahp gwaan),
• Construction workers wearing way too low of pants,
• Chinese parents smacking their kids in love,
• AND HOW MUCH LIKE DISNEYLAND IT IS HERE!!!
• Ooo, I am also still not used to fashion/ what Hong Kong peoples think is cute.
• Things that are no longer weird that probably should be---I was thinking last night in bed, "what weird food did I eat this week? I know there was SOMETHING... tung seui (dessert soup, served cold, it's sweet and usually has egg white and mochi like balls or tapioca or mango swimming around in it),no that's not weird... octopus, nope, that's my favorite, I eat that all the time... pig's ears? no, that was last week... mango pudding, normal, chicken foot, normal... I know there was something weird... oh YEAH! That HAMBURGER!" Yes, last Thursday we had HAMBURGERS on Hong Kong Island (close to Wan Chai) to celebrate/mourn the passing of Sister Black to International work in Macau. I had mine without the bun and it was pretty good... not as good as octopus rice box, though! (and the octopus is like, a fifth of the price!!). Ooo, today I might try stinky tofu. I'm a little nervous, and can't decide if I should try it before or after my fish balls (normal)--if I try b4, I can get the taste out of my mouth, but then I might get queasy...?

So, speaking of food. It's probably time to go on a diet of some kind, since one of my skirts doesn't fit anymore and I found a scale in our new apartment and I won't quote any numbers but let's just say I've never SEEN that number on a scale. Since I've never gone on a diet before, I thought I'd share some of my ideas...

1. Rule number one, only eat as much rice in one sitting as would feed ONE third world country for a day. I know, it'll be hard.
2. Rule number two, never eat more than you can visibly see when you're sitting down. No worries, peripherals are included.
3. Rule number three, if you lost count of how many you've eaten, stop eating it (good thing I can count to at least 20 (with my shoes off) when I really pay attention).
4. Rule number four, only one dessert a day. Per house. Per member of the family. Per times they force dessert on you.
5. Rule number five, never step on a scale again...?

OKOKOK, I'm not THAT bad :) I just have a nice rice face coming on. My new companion Cheung JM asked me the other day why foreign missionaries' faces always get rounder here, and I told her about rice face. She chahm si'd for a second (...english word..=.. pondered? thought really hard?) then said, "Aahhh, holahn yan waih keuih deih yiu

ngaahn hou loih!" = "Oh, probably because you have to CHEW rice more!" aka, because our JAW muscles become more defined---bwahahahaaaaaa!!! yes, I'm sure that's why.... not that we're gettting feih... (=fat).

Now, about fashion: I'm so grateful now that all the teachings of those wonderful fashion-sense people in my life (Elizabeth, Sister Ramsey, Ashley, Mati...) never really sunk in. If it had, I'm sure I'd be even more startled by "fashion" here in HK. I wish I could take pictures stealthily, but it might look bad as a missionary... especially because I'd QUICKLY move from taking pictures of horrible fashion to taking pictures of ADORABLE CHILDREN, and that could just get messy :)

I will try to describe super fast: HK is alllll about corny. I've never seen so many disney or disney related shirts, bags,

zip-pulls, shoes, backpacks etc on FULLY GROWN ADULTS. I mean, the woman in front of me is 55, easy, but she has a SPARKLY tinker bell backpack. This is normal. We see Winney the Pooh ALL THE TIME in people's houses. Figurines, cups, wall-hangings (especially new year's ones on people's doors---gold, red, chinese characters and tigger. Seriously). That is still... so... um... I'm not used to it yet, that's what we'll say :)

Ahhh, China is also very... me.

My initial thought when I came here was akin to mom's so-often repeated saying, "You can take the girl out of the trailer (mainland?), but you can't take the trailer (mainland?) out of the girl." What would be deemed as ultimate "low class" in the states is totally normal here--hanging your clothes outside to dry (underwear included!), wiping down your kids sweat in public, leaving meat out anywhere for any period of time is no big deal. Hong Kong is so real--with restaurants "washing" their dishes out on the front sidewalk with a hose, it's totally acceptable to toenail clip in public, and spit and I mean SPITTING... ahhh, it's so wonderful. I love Hong Kong so much.

This morning we climbed LION'S ROCK to see the sun rise! So we got up at 3 and took a taxi (my first time ever, I

think! very exciting) to the base of the mountain. We climbed for about two and a half hours in the dark-- it was TERRIFYINGI MEAN AWESOME! The scary part was at the very beginning. I wished I didn't have a flashlight, because I kept seeing glinting eyes when I shined it off the trail--and brown furry bodies.... and there were I-don't-even-know-what kind of animal noises and sounds of things crashing through bushes ... it ws pretty scary, actually, and it didn't help that our zone leaders were whooping and screeching back.... BUT then we came out of that creepy valley thing and the worst after that were cute frogs, not so cute toads and lightning bugs :) At one point we went (accidently) off the main trail onto another and ended up hiking sorta up a little waterfall--it was beautiful! All dark, water running, with tiny points of light on rocks and trees--just like hiking through the peter pan or pirates of the carribean or something. Beautiful.

So I'm struggling, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, with my new companion, Sister J. She's a super hard worker, but we're both really new (she went into the Phillipines MTC 4 days before I went into the Provo one!) and we have had some trouble communicating (haaaaa= I DON'T SPEAK CHINESE) when we plan lessons. I am trying to remember that in Cantonese, blunt means clear, not rude. She is really a great missionary, though. Please pray for us to help our investigators progress--her style is really different than Sister B's, and I am fearful to lose investigators because of this---but fear is not faith. I trust that God put us together, in this area, at this time, and for these people!

And we will "be safe, save souls!" (as I yell at our roomie sisters every time they leave the house) here in Sha Tin, Tai Wai and Ma On Shan!

Thank Derick for his letters, his generous love and validation is so wonderful = seriously, save my life. OH AND MATT IS IN THE MTC TODAY!!! OR yesterday!!! or something. Ahh, I love him so much! He will be such an awesome missionary! Someone should send me his addresss!!!

LOVE Your Sister DIA Darcey

Cedar Ridge Chinese Chili ? ? ?

Hi Everyone,

Oh, hilarious story--I think it beats one of Brian's mission stories, actually, but I won't tell you which one yet or you'll know the end from the beginning.

It's called Chinese Chili... because I really think that this recipe could win something at the annual Cedar Ridge Chili cookoff? :)

Oh, by the way, please thank Sister Landis and the ward for the amazing Tulsa postcards! I'm so excited to show them to people. No one ever knows where Oklahoma is! It will be so great! I use our family picture a lot in contacting so I think this will be really neat. I have the best ward ever.

So our last week together, Sister B and I were making lunch on Tuesday and we were REALLY hungry. We didn't get to eat until about two o'clock (and we hadn't eaten breakfast because on Monday we had two chang-outs so we were not feeling well on Tuesday morning).

We decided to make water spinach-pork-tofu-lime-chili-garlic soup (cook the pork in water, pull it out, cook the noodles in the pork water, take them out, cook the spinach in the pork nooodle water, then add everything back in with tofu, lime juice, garlic and chili pepper flakes). We were SO EXCITED TO EAT.

Then Sister B said, "Hey, Sister Darcey? I think there's a bug in here." I didn't even really pay attention because there are bugs in MOST of the stuff we eat --purposefully--and if we don't like it, we usually just pull it out and keep eating.

However, as we started poking around, it turned out there were more like HUNDREDS of bugs in our delicious soup. They were red... uh oh. We pulled out the chili pepper flakes (that we'd found in our apartment cupboard and brought with us to the church to make lunch) and dumped them onto a white plate. Oh, sick. The chili pepper flakes were moving. What we'd thought was damp-ish chilli pepper flakes in clumps was actually thousands of tiny beetles swarming, feeding, birthing, all other nastiness, in the chili pepper jar.

The best part of the story? We dumped the first plate's contents into the toilet, we added some water to the soup, and strained off the beetles that floated to the surface and then...

THEN WE STILL ATE IT. We didn't even ask each other if we should eat it, actually... we were just that hungry!!! The best part may have been the reaction of our zone leader, Elder Welling, who just about barfed after hearing the story.

SO far, no ill side effects, either. Chili pepper beetles are probably a delicacy somewhere in the world, right? We decided to call it Creepy Crawly Chinese Chili... I really think it would win something at the annual Cedar Ridge Chili cookoff? :)

Oh, and here is a lame joke for Brian that a member (YM) came up with in English class (he's so funny): Which ice cream makes your mouth like a desert? DRYERS! (Hey, don't make too much fun of it, English is his second language!!)

My love, Sister Dia Darcey

P.S. Another important survival tip in China: Never look at a construction worker below the chest. Learning a LOT about male anatomy here... YUCK.