Monday, December 04, 2006

Thanksgiving

Hey! I haven't written here for such a long time, that this post will probably be long...bear with me. I went home, on the 7th of November to visit and go to my cousin's wedding. The wedding was gorgeous, and visiting family was fun. I had a great time just "chill'n" with my cousin Chelsea too....that was a highlight. (And also making cream-filled cupcakes with my Grandma!) When I got back to NY, I only had to Nanny one day, and got the other day off.....SWEET! Then, Thanksgiving came, and I had some relatives visiting NY over the weekend. They were staying at a really fancy hotel...it was a lot of fun visiting with them. They know the city really well, so it was fun to hear their perspective on the city. Also, it was just nice to have relatives/friends to visit with. It gives me a nice break to go out. Oh! And Emily's parents and sister came out for Thanksgiving, so it was fun to see them too. On Thanksgiving, all the church staff went to Adam & Becca's apartment for an early dinner. We all brought something to share. There was about 15 of us, so it was a nice sized dinner....then we played mafia! If you've never played the game, you should...15 people is a good number....or 10....for a nice length of a game. On Friday after Thanksgiving, we had another dinner, with leftovers and had about 40 people at the church. Adam had lined the tables with paper, so that we could color and write what we were thankful for right on the table...it was a lot of fun. We played mafia that night too......but there were so many people that it took FOREVER! It was still entertaining though! ...Okay, so I guess this post wasn't that long, but I will write another post soon about the Christmas tree lighting that I went to....well, I'll write about BOTH Christmas tree lightings. So long for now!

Monday, November 06, 2006

Halloween

Ah!!! Trick-or-Treat! On the morning of Halloween, I visited the bakery on our street. The owner asked if his two boys could come over later, and I said sure...around 4 o'clock. When I showed up at the bakery at 4, the dad was like....one minute! He ran in the back, got a Spider-man jacket for his 2-year-old son, and sent me off to go trick-or-treating with him! This picture is Kenny and me getting candy. He doesn't speak English, and was shy while we went to all the shops up and down 8th Ave., so I had to say "Trick-or-treat" at every place. We were out for an hour, and got him a lot of sugar!!! That night, I learned how to make Tandoorie Chicken (a really spicy and bright orange Indian dish). It was a lot of fun. After that, I came back to two of the neighborhood boys outside asking me to take THEM trick-or-treating. (So I did) for 15 min. 'cause all the shops were closing. I really feel more part of the community when I do things like that.
This weekend we did the Saturday school for the first time. We only had 3 kids show up, and one of them didn't speak English! We will be handing out fliers this week so we can get more kids. Overall, it was a trying week, but rewarding too. Tonight a few of us are baking cream-filled cupcakes with gnosh. You can keep praying that I will make solid relationships here, and for the relationship between my "partner in crime" Emily and I. On another note, I'm visiting home soon, so I'm excited about that! Yay....maybe I'll see some of you!

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Sunday School

Today was the first day that Emily and I led Sunday School! I think that it went pretty well...despite us having to ask the kids a few times what usually went next in the program! Whoops. We talked about God is faithful in fulfilling His promises, and we used Abraham as an example. The verse today was Psalm 145:13 "The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made." Yesterday we had the October Pancake breakfast too...
Yum...and I introduced two ladies from the church to peanut butter on pancakes, and they loved it! From now on, I think it will be mandatory to have a bowl of PB on the serving table. Hahaha. Please pray that I continue to learn things here, and that I will connect with more people here who are my age. I am struggling to make good friends here. Also, pray that I will be able to find a flexible part-time job closer to the church, where I can meet and get to know more people from the community.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Go Check the Cookies



Today was so much fun! Monday's are my days off, so I spent it hanging out with Jr. Highers all day. After noon, Kandy came over with her friend Stephanie...I made lunch, and they helped do the last few things...so we ate and talked a lot about issues in the Bible...very cool. Then Stephanie left and Kandy & I made crayon cookies...(Basically way super awesome frosted sugar cookies). After that, we called up some other people...Ian and Gabe, and found James...we all went to the park, and met up with Vincent, Jackie and Willy. After that, we went back to our apartment and played pictionary and X-box. It was so great!(LOL.....this title is an inside joke with my family....I just remembered it.)

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Apples & Pumpkins

AHHHH! This day was so much fun. The young adult group from church went to an Apple Orchard, Pumpkin Patch and Dairy Queen in NJ. After so many wrong turns, we made it to our destination, and it was a blast! I had fun hanging out with everyone, some who I hadn't hung out with much, but now we know eachother better. I can't stress how important it is here to make quality relationships with the people all around here. We even had a hay ride! It felt so much like home it was nutz. BTW.....Dairy Queen's Pumpkin Pie Blizzard is AWESOME!