Christmas Eve in Hualien--a true blessing.

Christmas wasn't the same this year, as you can probably already tell from my previous blogs. I was feeling pretty down in the dumps though on Christmas Eve as we were traveling to another city, and weren't surrounded by family. When we got off the train that night, this is what awaited us:

It was a blessing. I was so touched it was almost impossible for me to keep back the tears. In 1 Nephi 1: 20, Nephi, the prophet of the Lord proclaims:

Behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.

At that time, I really felt like it was a tender mercy of the Lord for me to hear that song, and to feel something of the Christmas spirit.

The rest of the evening was perfect, complete with taro cakes, a Taiwanese Santa with a cotton mask, and a reading of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Christmas Berhan Style!

Last Day of School

December was a whirlwind, and I've finally been able to catch my breath, and reflect on it. December 19th was the last day of class, and our afternoon classes had a day of performances, games, and candy. My BR kids combined with Miss Erin's class to perform a play about Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, written by Erin. It was adorable, and I was so proud of my kids for memorizing their lines.

Their hats were so cute! The boys especially would goof around and have them stand up straight on their heads. Jason didn't want me to take a picture of him, so he hid under his hat. They were all so well behaved during the performance, it was really funny. I felt like, why couldn't you be this good for me?

Some of the other classes did musical numbers, recited poetry, and Lindsey's class did a dance that she choreographed to Hillary Duff's "Santa Clause is Coming to Town." It was pretty awesome. Check out her blog for the video.

The 4:40pm and 6:40 pm classes were all combined that evening, and a humongous extravaganza of competitiveness ensued. The previous night my fourth graders were involved, and lost. As a result I had to join them on the stage as they were humiliated (in a good way) in front of the school.

Caroling

Frances, our boss, had the brilliant idea of having us, the Americans, carol as advertising for the school. When we first heard about it, we had no desire whatsoever to comply. You'd have to know our boss and how she treated her employees to really understand how we felt. It was hour last Saturday, and we had to packed up and out of the school by Monday morning. The last thing we wanted to do on Saturday was to spend the majority of the day advertising for the school.

In the end it was a ton of fun! I felt guilty for previously being against the idea. We met at Berhan at 8:30 on the morning of the 20th. Then us and the secretaries caravanned over to a community where some of our students lived. We were a sea of red. My student Cheryl lived in this development along with Dustin's student Anne. It was a lot of fun to be there and to meet her family.

Then the lot of us headed over to Sogo, the big department store in the center of Feng Yuan, where we were to put on another production. Oh, no. This was not just singing songs door to door like we do in the States. Nor did we sing traditional carols. It really was a production. Dustin was Santa Clause, we had the blow up snowmen as seen in the picture above, and along with our songs were elaborate dances. We were totally cool. I went with the secretaries to get Dustin into his outfit and it was quite a process:

When they were done dressing him he went around the children's department handing out candy. It was funny. Some kids liked him, others were scared of him. My favorite was the kid that was so involved in playing Nintendo that he took one glance at Dustin, and then continued playing.

Caroling at the store was awesome! So many of our students and their families came. It was like saying goodbye to them for the second time. It was a bit hard for me. Luke was so cute. He kept on taking pictures of me with his mom's cell phone. It was really cool to finally put siblings together and see who they belong to. Below are some pictures of me, Dustin, and our amazing kids: