Yang Rou Hao Chi!

This week I will introduce to you how to wish someone a happy new year in Chinese: Xin nian kuai le! Yang yang ru yi! The second phrase is in reference to the fact that it is the year of the sheep (yang). They have these little sayings for every zodiac year, and I learned to say "yang yang ru yi" (I would tell you what it means but I really have no idea) but messed up a couple times and now we say "yang rou hao chi", which means Mutton is delicious. Fun fact Gangshan is famous for mutton (despite a distinct lack of sheep in the area) and yet I think I've only eaten mutton once this week, even though it is the year of the sheep and seems like the perfect opportunity to eat as much sheep as you want. I don't think anybody actually likes the mutton soup though.

Basically this entire week could be summed up in eating. We have had members feed for us for lunch and dinner every day since Tuesday night, and every meal has been a feast. Not just the kind of feast where there is a lot of food on the table, but the kind where they make you eat all the food on the table and then you go to the living room where they bring out candy and then bowls of sweet soup and a banana and a piece of cake and have you ever tried this sesame cracker thing? Then they make you take home the leftovers. Our numbers for key indicators this week were pretty sad. 

But life is still good! It's been a happy week, if nothing else, and we really have wonderful ward members who love love love the missionaries. We are ready to get back into gear and work extra hard this week, because now that New Year is over people have no excuse that they are too busy because of Guonian. Probably they will say they are busy now because they have to get back to work after Guonian. But! We will keep trying. And we will bring souls to Christ and have lots of fun.

We do a lot of spiritual shares while we are at members' houses. Today we are going to share about humility and the one-up syndrome, that it is really easy to want to be better than other people but it makes you a lot happier if you are nice to people. Then we're going to do a roleplay where people have think of a situation where they could have been more humble. When someone tells you they are going on a cool trip, be happy for them instead of tell them about all the cool things you've done. So that's my challenge for you today: resist being a one-upper. 

Love you all, hope you have a good week and find ways to be a missionary at home!

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