From the land of heat rashes and 100% home teaching plans

something canine:

i live on a street with lots of dogs. not strays or scroungy, questionably diseased dogs. these are all puppies. the street where i live has approx. 10 different dog shops and stores where everyone goes to buy puppies for their girlfriend, which they will soon regret. at least that is what i always see- girls walking around carrying a puppy and saying "oh it's so cute!" and the boyfriend paying for it. the one thing i don't get is that people here barely have enough space for themselves in their tiny little apartments, how in the world do they have room for a puppy? much less a grown up puppy! they are pretty cute, but i'm content to watch and enjoy them though the window...

something skin related:

so, it's been getting kind of hot here lately. so hot that i don't think i've ever completely stopped sweating for more that 5 minutes...even at night. which means that it does weird things to your skin. i now have lots of weird heat rashes that are impossible to get rid of unless i stop sweating, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. ha! as long as you don't itch them, they go away, so i'm trying to exercise lots of self control. they are mostly on my neck and arms. very attractive too. i can't wait for cooler weather!!!!!!

something lingual:

so as hard as cantonese is and as frustrating as it has been to learn, wishing that i knew more and could actually read and write things, there have been many rewarding moments on the mission that help me to know that the gift of tongues is real. the chinese are always so impressed that we actually try to learn their language because they know it's hard. not even all of them can read and write because the characters are so complicated. so if anything, they love us just for trying to speak, even if it sounds awful...:) lately, i've had a lot of moments where i was able to say something i wanted to say just the way i wanted to say it or i've recognized and been able to read just enough characters to figure out a problem or get someone where they needed to go. those moments are the best because you actually realize that what you know is useful and can help people! it only motivates me to learn more and push myself more, as there is a never ending amount of things to learn with cantonese and chinese writing. i will probably never get to the bottom of it all, but i will at least know that i did as much as i could with the time that i had. i love chinese!

something along the lines of home teaching:

so with our new mission president, we are starting a new program here in Hong Kong that will last for the next 7 months....so the rest of my mission pretty much. i'm so excited about it! it wil change how we are doing missionary work here in honk Kong and we're hoping it will help the members, less actives and part member families more. i don't have time to go into details, so i will explain more next week as it is kind of complicated. ahh! sorry, no time! more next week!