So it's been over a month since I've written on here. Which is somewhat pathetic. So my reasoning behind this is that the first half of this time away literally nothing happened. I went to work, I ran in my tiny shoes, and I watched TV online, and frantically cleaned my apartment in preperation of my mom's arrival. THEN My momma came!!! I was so excited to have her here, though I did run out of shiny things to entertain her with but she still said she had a good time. During her first week here (which was the last week of October) We took a night bus to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warrior
Which was a really fun experience. 
The first week she was here Kelly came over with her boyfriend and they cooked us authentic Chinese dinner, and the next day the sisters took us out to lunch at the noodle shop where the nice lady made us a special dinner from her hometown which the sisters and I thought was delicious but mom probably would have prefered a cheeseburger. (Just be honest) ;-)
Mom and I also spent the first week of her visit seeing the booming city of Changzhi, it was cold but the weather was still really pretty.
After seeing pretty CZ sites mom had to go "teach" at the medical college where it turns out she was giving a big lecture to over 500 students. SURPRISE!
The second week of her stay I had a halloween party for the sisters and Jenny. Which was really fun. I laid out a bunch of stuff for them to dress up in and I cooked spaghetti and we watched I am Legend together, which was the closest thing to a scary movie that I had.
The final weekend of her stay we went to Beijing together where we did super fun shopping and I may or may not have yelled at a lady for grabbing my arm and pulling me. She wouldn't let me go otherwise! It was a justified response. We traveled around the city and saw the Great Wall, where it snowed!! First snow of the year and I saw it on the Great Wall with my mom. Good memory.
Mom left and that was difficult. But her visit was wonderful and I am glad we had that time together. I hope she enjoyed herself too. I think she did.
These past two weeks I've been kind of lazy. I ran a little I read a lot and have taken on an extra class on the weekend. Also I started my Chinese lessons finally. So I have two classes a week. It's a long road.
John will be here in two weeks! Next week I'm going to try to cook thanksgiving dinner for the sisters. I made a little list of foods I think I can learn to cook by then so we'll see how that goes...
I can't believe I've already been here for almost 5 months. It's gone by really quickly. What will happen when it's all gone? What will I do? Who will I be? I've found myself asking many questions about who I am in this changing image. I see my purpose here and I see God's hands at work all around. What a blessing to have these questions.
